life as a 'hipster'

Good evening everybody. What's happening? What's going on? Welcome to Ghent!

It's 14 december 2015, final week before the Christmas Holidays and also final week of the semester. This doesn't only mean that my finals are coming up, but also that my first semester as a freshmen college student has ended.

Going to college, it was a huge step in my life. New people, new friends, new city,.. In my whole life, I was used of doing the same things, at the same time, with the same people at the same location. During elementry and secondary school my whole life was programmed for me. Parents, teachers, doctors,.. they all decided what I did. In my whole life I thought I had freedom, but I only discovered my true freedom when I came to college. As I said in one of my earlier blogposts, I decided to grow my beard at the end of high school. In the beginning, people hated it! My dad always made these 'jokes' that I should shave it off or that I wouldn't find any girlfriend (in your face dad!), my friends and classmates always told me that I was becoming a Jihadi, a teacher even asked me if I were a muslim and if I had some radical muslim thoughts.. Like, what the f*ck society? In what kind of world do we live if a person can't do what they want, without being designated as a weirdo or even a Jihadi?

My girlfriend told me a few weeks ago: "you don't belong in the countryside", and I thought about it, and she is 100 % correct. I grew up in the countryside and have lived their for my whole life. When you live in a small village as I do, everyone knows who you're and what you did. People in the countryside love people who live according to the standards and hate people who are a bit 'different'. My friends at secondary school always told me that I am a hipster. And yes, maybe I'm. I'm not the ordinary guy, not anymore. Before, I was this guy who did what society wanted him to do, but that's not who I'm, that's not how I want to live my life! I want to live how I want, I want to wear the clothes that I want, I want to do my hair and beard how I want, I just want to be who I really am.

The past years, I always had fought with the thought of who I really am. But everything changed when I went to Barcelona during the spring break. I love photography, I love taking pictures of everything. When I did this back home, everyone thought that I was being crazy: "what is this weirdo doing with his camera?" "Is he planing to burgle this house?" and so on.. When I did this in Barcelona, everyone acted normal. I saw people wearing these 'risky' clothing, having a beard and making photographs, and nobody acted suprised. I loved it! The same happened this summer when I was in New York, Boston and Philadelphia. People can be who they want to be when they live in a city!

Some pictures that I have taken while I was in NYC, Boston, Philadelphia and Barcelona

So living in Ghent and going to college in Ghent, it had a huge impact on me! I can finally wear what I want te wear, I can finally listen to the music that I want to listen to, I can finally do my passion (photography) without seeing people staring at me or gossiping about me. When you have lived your whole life in a cage as I did, and when you finally can be who you want to be, you can't describe this feeling. College has given me so much: my freedom, my identity, but also this blog.

As you know, this blog is compulsory for our Business English course. But for me it has been much more than only this blog about school, it has been a tool of telling my story to the world, of sharing my life to the world. And I love it! That's why I decided to continue this blog, even when the course has ended. Ofcourse I will have to change the name of this blog, but the subjects will be the same!

So, this was the big news that I had announced last week, I hope you're looking forward to it as much as I do! :)

See you in 2 weeks with a new blogpost, goodbye!

PS: because photography is my big passion, I'll try to post some pictures everytime when I post a blogpost!

Finals are coming to town!

Goodmorning everybody. What's happening? What's going on? Welcome to Ghent!

Yeah, if you're as much of a no-lifer as I am then you probably recognise the intro that I used. Yes it's the intro that Ben Brown (YouTube vlogger) uses in his YouTube clips. I was watching his latest clip when I realised: "hey I should write a new blogpost", so please don't judge! ;)

So 6 December. In Belgium this is kinda a national holiday for kids. Sinterklaas ( Saint Nicholas) comes to every house and brings gifts for every child, just because he can! But, I'm 18 years old, the days that I was so excited to get my presents are far behind and the only thing special about this day is: shoot, I have to study because my finals are coming.. But don't worry, this blogpost will not only be about my finals, because I don't want to make you depressed! I will talk about what is going on with my life, what has happened in the past months and what will happen in the future!

We had the autumn vacation. My parents went on a trip to Germany, but because I had some trial exams I wasn't able to join them :( luckily they were so kind to buy me a Borussia Dortmund jersey, thanks mom & dad! During this vacation I also worked a bit, college life is expensive you know.. I also found the love of my life! We all have this one person in our life that means so much for you that you would do everything for them, well I found her!

After the autumn vacation we had our trial exams. A trial exam of Accounting and Business Economics. I was kinda scared for these exams. I know, you won't get any marks for it, but it still is an exam! But luckily everything went fine! Without doing that much effort, I was able to get good grades, let's hope that I will have as much luck during my finals! After these trial exams, college went on: go to class, make notes, come home, do homework, make summaries and try to do some tasks for in the future. Also we made some test for International Business English, a listening and vocabulary test. Both tests went good, so it was worth it to give up social life for a certain period!

During the last months something else happened. Curatio had his party week! As you already know, I'm in a student society called Curatio. During the week of the 16th of November, Curatio celebrated their third birthday! Every day of the week, they planned an event. I only went to 2 of those, because I'm too broke to go out every day of the week.. On monday we had a quiz, our team (team fantastic, I know lame name) didn't end last, so that's something to be proud of, isn't? On wednesday we had a gala ball. Everyone was dressed up, every schacht (new member of the student society) had to prepare the decoration or snacks and it was just a wonderful evening!

But yeah, finals are coming! Everybody hates them, but it's something that has to happen.. When you go to class, everybody is talking about it. People say that they should have done more already, some people say that they won't go out anymore, people are sharing their summaries (because sharing is caring!), ... I don't know what I should expect. I think I'm well prepared for these finals. I already made most of my summaries, I'm already trying to gain some sleep and I didn't go out for like 3 weeks. For me, the hardest part about our finals is that we have them during the holidays. I love Christmas and Newyears eve, these are like the most important days of the year for me. But hey, I would rather study during the holidays than studying while everybody is going on a vacation in August!

So, for all my fellow college students out there: good luck and stay strong! 1 month of hard work, and then we have 2 weeks of vacation!

See you in two weeks guys with another blogpost and some big news! ;)

PS: as I said in this blogpost, I'm a huge fan of Christmas. So yeah, I decided to change the layout of my blog, hope you like it!