green hills and enemies, these things they make us sentimental inside.

Currently at 11,500 feet, which is a long way to have come from home's below sea level and the humidity of the beginnings of a Bombay summer.

I'm in the Himalayas, back in Leh after last year's brief but enchanting visit. It's a little odd to be here again, after another year that felt like decades but also like a passing breeze of thoughts and memories. It's cold, I've already acquired some vintage woolen jumpers and am enjoying the lack of oxygen and surplus of sleep I'm getting.

It's only been a couple of days since graduation, departure and the hectic horribleness of packing two years worth of items into bags, but it feels so far away already. I'll be traveling for a month before coming home, so I'll be trying to get a hold of internet, photos and final cultural experiences (read: food.) before returning to my Dutch home.

Also, there's s much left to say about my 'UWC experience', the ambiguous parameters of which I am still grappling with. I'll try and process them over the course of the summer, so this little monologue-ing forum will be up for a while longer.

Love from Ladakh.

(I'm also feeling rather postcard-loving, currently, so if you'd like one, just send me your addresses!)

hold our insides in

(Celestial Vault, James Turrell, the Hague)

I've never felt more Dutch than in these two years, nor so worried about being cold during a European summer.

don't look back into the sun

(photos of 'I want to paint a face', an art project I did in my very first term here, in collaboration with Zuzana)

Sitting outside on one of my last days here, I've realised that there's a wealth of things left unwritten/documented/forgotten in the rush of a stream of experiences and changes. Considering the limitations of luggage allowance, I have been sifting (and resifting) through notes and items, selecting the most 'valuable/useful' ones and having to decide on whether I'd ever look back at my Hindi notebook at home. I often find myself attributing or attaching memories to objects, and in owning the physical thinking I own the memory as concretely too, so the choices I'm making now are difficult and also an interesting reflection of what I now perceive as important - I am not going to need any chemistry notes in the future, but taking my (chai-stained) notebook along with me is something I would like and perhaps even need to do, especially as I'm leaving so much (metaphorically as well as physically) behind in this place I've given and gotten two years from.

Over coffee and chocolate, both imported in yellow parcels from a mother in Germany, I had a long conversation with my roommate and housemate today. It was along the lines of questions I've thought of and have heard raised in various forums during the two years out here; what do we base our self-worth on, what does a grade say about us and what value do and should we give to it? How do we perceive intelligence, smart people or admire others, and on what basis?
Especially having just finished all my exams early, and under the impression that I may have underperformed, do I regret not working as hard as I may have needed to, can I even assume that I have a capacity that I did not achieve and does it even matter?

Ultimately, the decisions to not attend class, which I made multiple times over the course of the year, my preference to sit in the art centre, talk to people all night, or even choose to attend all the music events and not study for a test, were what I made and perhaps not with the greatest consideration of consequences. The dichotomies of wanting to do so much and the conflicts between what I expected and got, were very much things I struggled with, but also what was incredibly important to pick up on. Who was I working for - me, others, my perception of what others would expect, or just for what I enjoyed?

Particularly in conjunction with chemistry this year, I found myself frequently wondering why I was less than engaging with something that was in certain aspects so relevant and intriguing and learn-able. A week ago, I began to truly study, quite probably for the first time in my two years here, and it wasn't fun to realise how little I had done, but I found it was possible, and preferable, for me to learn/revise in two weeks, and I had managed to do what I had wanted to at moments in the past. Going on exeats, making more art pieces, seeing concerts and being part of more committees and activities than the minimum required did mean consolidation in other areas, and it's taken me a while to consolidate my compromises and accept my own disappointments and decisions that may have been detrimental, but I feel like this was to some extent the crux of what I had to learn here.

And although I may not feel this way all the time, I can only look back and not alter a thing anymore.
So I'm glad for everything that was difficult, utter crap, beautiful and tiresome.
And maybe I'll write a more 'I'm in India!' post soon (:

sure in a cinematic way

(another one of my bones, wax and oil paint on thigh, 2011)

moss.
by William Thomas Moore

what will happen 

now? she asks. 

now, i say, 

now, 

the dishes will pile 

up in the sink 

and there will 

be only one 

pair of shoes 

at the door.

(So I'm done with school and still busy packing/cooking/watching Israeli films/bonfire-ing. More extensive update soon!)

wage this war of one

(Shelter Stone/Stone Shelter, wax on stone)

A little further along with exams now, and the weather's still bright, somewhat stifling and generally rather glorious. Still trying to comprehend the impending closure of 'being in India', or more specifically, 'at MUWCI'. Here's a poem while I attempt to cram in as much as I can, both knowledge and experience-wise.

Art and Facts // Autumn Giles

My dearest museum,
I burnt the last painting today, just like you told me. I wanted a holiday— a day just for me. I whisked the frames around my waist like hula-hoops and then caught them on fire. It didn’t hurt because I thought about you. Now that I am completely unemployable, we can be together. You can keep me; I’ll sit still. Find me in the flames. I would look great in the foyer.

future rust and future dust

(view out of a MUWCI window, a couple of years ago.)

thoughts on a supposedly studious fortnight:

1. where did all those days go?
2. my room is finally decorated and my desk cleaner than ever before
(my teeth and feet too, funnily enough)
3. oh hello, hindi exam.
4. a multitude of subject/group dinners have been held, in which I:
- dressed up as a "ageing china doll" fortune teller
(cue red lipstick and layers of brightly-printed baggy dresses)
- sat around the pool talking primary-school-memories with fellow science students
- didn't even leave the wada one night, and was fed much ice-cream under a space stage-lit
- talked films over frozen pineapple cake for a final 'cinema and the city' session
- danced to a bombay band (think strokes meets southern rock meets coldplay's keyboards)
post-pizza eating, garnering some attention too.
5. teacoffeeteacoffeelaundryteacoffeetalkcoffeetea sleep.
6. dear koninginnedag, you'll have to wait till the 13th. you too, royal wedding.
7. mangoes are in season!