Manon van Kempen
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BOOKS

11/22/2012

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    I love books! Since I was little I love to snuggle on the couch, or in bed with a book that seems endless. I would even soak in bath  for hours, adding more and more warm water until my mom would  knock the door thinking I drowned :)
   I have read books of over 600 pages in a few days, although now I distribute my "free" time between claying, household chores and reading so luckily now that same book can last me up to week. 
   
   Before I would almost exclusively read Stephen King or Dean Koontz or John Grisham but now I read  whatever I can catch, usually second hand English books I buy from the APADAC store or somewhere else. They sell books for € 1 and if that gives me reading material for a few weeks I am really happy. I am not a person to cling on to books once I read them, besides the fact I don´t have a place to store them so I bring to books back to the shop again to be sold to others. 


  For the last years I have been playing with the thought of writing a book myself, but I know this is easier said then done. However I did start a book some years ago, which I lost after about 15 pages when my computer crashed, (yes I know, I should have made a back up). Then, for quite some time I felt so sorry for myself and I allowed myself quite some "sulking" time. After that I started again, with a whole different story though. And then I discovered polymer clay. Needless to say is that now my head is filled with earrings, brooches, flower sculpting, and endless other possibility this medium offers. 
   I have been kidding myself for a long time now, saying that I will pick up the writing again, if only I had a laptop so I could sit out in garden to write. Yeah right... I know myself and I can get myself into 100 different projects at a time, but reality is that you can only do so much next to a 40 hour job. 
   It is such a shame that having good ideas (at least that is my opinion, perhaps an editor would lough in my face, mind you) I have so little time to carry them out. 


   One day I will do it! I will finish my book, before I am 90. promise :))))
 


 
1 Comment

BULLIES

11/9/2012

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  Lately, on the Dutch news I have heard about a 20 year old man having comitted suicide because he was bullied all his life. He left a letter to his parents and they put part of that letter in the newspaper.. Heartbreaking.
  Now, as things have gotten attention in the media the government is looking to change the law to be able to do something against bullies. 


  I think lot´s of people underestimate the effect bullying can have on somebodies life. I have had my fair share as well at college and high school, I was too tall for my age, very skinny and more important, incapable of defending myself. I remember people telling me, just hit them or kick them or whatever, but I just couldn´t, just standing there taking the blows. 
  I know how bad and lonely it makes you feel, up to points where you feel nobody loves you and you would be better off dead. Yes indeed, I had those thoughts as well, other kids can make you feel so low and worthless you feel you do not even deserve to live. 
  Sometimes the psycological torture is even worse then the physical, making you feel less then nothing. 


  In Holland, there is a tv program that confronts bullies with the people they bullied after so many years, and many of them say they didn´t really know what they were doing. Well, sorry guys but that doesn´t work with me, when you have a minimum knowledge of what is right and what is wrong, you know perfectly what you are doing. 
   Sometimes I wonder how those who bullied me are now, but then again, I have to deal with lot´s of adult "bullies" as well, people who feel better if they can put somebody else down, insult them or make them feel uncapable, so I suppose that is what those people turn into. 


  Nowadays, I suppose it is even worse, today even the youngest have a smartphone on them, being able not only to bully others, but also to record these humilations and share them on an endless amount of pages, blogs, facebook, twitter, you name it. I can´t even start to imagine the consequence this has for a kid, for his whole life. 
  
   I hope one day,  there will be a better control over this, and people who can help those who suffer from bullying. 


   After so many years, remembering the time I was bullied this brings tears to my eyes, so even if you have made your life, you have a job, and you may have developed yourself in all kind of ways, you NEVER EVER FORGET. 
   
   Some people are so short sighted they think, so many years have gone by, you surely must have gotten over it by now. 
    Yes, ofcourse, it is not something I think of everyday, I have my work, my hubby and my hobby, however those people robbed me a part of my life that should have been fun. 
    
    I think the first step against bullying would be to make parents conscious about this problem. If parents are shortsighted themselves, and untolerant towards people who are slightly different, showing a lack of respect and disdain towards those persons, how will their children grow up thinking differently?


   Before you bully THINK! 
 
    


  



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    Hi! I am Manon, 32 years old. Although I am Dutch I have been living in Spain for the last 12 years. I love to craft, make jewelry, paint, read and write. 

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