February 2018 by The Boomerang

The A

Boomerang February 2018

EXTENSIONS, REDUCTIONS, LEAVES OF ABSENCE: Are students becoming less resilient? by Jamie March

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s we draw closer to the test weeks we are faced with a recurring scene. The atmosphere becomes a tinge thicker, people scurry by just a bit faster, and if you look closely at the faces of the students, they just seem a little more dead inside. While the stretch leading up to the exams seems unconquerable, ultimately we all pull through. For some of course, this process is harder than for others, and for them, the community presents a set of tools. If for whatever reason the social, personal, or academic pressure becomes too much to handle, it is possible to ask for extensions, as well as course load reductions. And, if necessary, a leave of absence. However, requests for these can often be seen as nuclear options, or a sign of the student having ‘given up’. An observation made by the tutor team is that these requests seem to have increased over the years, which begs the question, is this a sign of weakness? Are students becoming less resilient? Mark Baldwin on student resilience To keep it simple we’ll define resilience as the ability to recover from setbacks. Does each setback take a great emotional toll on you? Or do you easily manage to dust yourself off? I spoke with our Student Life Officer

Does each setback take a great emotional toll on you? Or do you easily manage to dust yourself off?

Mark Baldwin, who suggested that observers were mistaking the process of building resilience as a lack of resilience. To face and overcome adversity is a natural part of learning how to equip yourself to deal with issues that you may encounter. Since university is such a new environment, and adulthood is presenting many unforeseen challenges, it is understandable that at this point many students falter, and only then get the opportunity to build resilience. Perhaps students are building up their resilience a bit later compared to previous generations, according to Baldwin. This should not be seen as a problem though, and wherever appropriate people should be guided through this process if necessary, toward a more independent and mature approach. “There is very good evidence at UCU that students are eager and capable in developing resilience.” However, he does acknowledge the possibility of the ‘pathologization of human experience’ in some students. Baldwin proposed that in pathologizing regular human experiences, the subject sometimes removes themselves from a position of meaningful agency. “Rather than recognizing certain events, circumstances or feelings as part of life’s fabric – albeit uncomfortable – and ones which can be accepted or overcome with personal fortitude, there is instead an urge to see those same circumstances though a

Cover Illustrations © Barbi Ain Benza, Lotte Schuengel

article continues on next page

in this edition… • Andy 2 • Making Eating Garbage Cool

• Wearing Pyjamas to Class?! 4 • Why I Don’t Own a Beret

The Boomerang | February 2018

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‘diagnostic’ lens,” says Baldwin. “Part of this tendency also leads individuals to argue a medical case for their life experiences, and for solutions/treatments to be found for them by others, which seems to cultivate a dependency on formal support structures.”

their resilience is tested, the moment things don’t go as planned. Head Tutor Patricia Post-Nievelstein had an interesting take on this phenomenon, that a student’s ‘best work’ is not necessarily what you can do if they got the extension and unlimited time, but what they can produce under the time Medical terms like ‘depression’ and ‘panic sensitive circumstances. These are chalattacks’ are quickly brought into our vocabu- lenges that help build a students resilience. lary and these words are then borrowed and While she does not say UCU students have misconstrued. less resilience, she did say that if it were the Baldwin says that “some young adults case, she speculates that it would probably fall into this tendency quite by accident. In be because of the added digital dimension any community, perhaps especially where of our generation, the second and third languages are used, there necessity of always is a possibility for a discourse to arise where having to be online, terminology is adopted into a shared vocab- and seeing everyone ulary without a common understanding of else’s highlights. what they might fundamentally mean, even Baldwin hopes each for native speakers.” student can nurture

Consumerism and the digital dimen- a ‘growth mindset’, Post-Nievelsion? Dean and Head Tutor comment which stein calls the methAnother part of UCU’s administration does odology of training not seem to be especially concerned about resilience. While a decline in resilience in students. Dean some experiences are James Kennedy explained that most of what inexplicable and do he hears about students is that they feel nothing for personal that they are under more pressure, and that growth, for most they take a consumerist approach to their things we can better education. You could argue that consum- ourselves by asking erist students who believe they deserve to “what can I learn do well and those who buckle under pres- from this?” We need sure both easily end up in a situation where to understand that criticism of our work, or bad experiences, are not judgements of our character. And of course, if you need help, you can always ask, and campus seems to be quite aware of the need to provide people with places they can go to. Just recently the peer-support initiative was launched, providing a confidential space students can talk to their peers about any issues they may have. My conclusions It is of course a possibility that the faculty secretly thinks that the

he old Sodexo guy, the dude with the thick eyebrows, that man that keeps on blinding you with his scanner. Andy was known for a lot of things, but not for being particularly fast at working the Dining Hall register. During the times that Andy ‘captained the ship on his own’ as it were, there would probably be a long queue of students semi-patiently waiting while our white-haired friend was ferociously punching in cups of butter on the touch screen register. Bless his soul.

student population lacks resilience, we’re all a bunch of babies, and that this generation is worse than the last. In that case, I’d like to commend them on their ability to hide their utter contempt for us, because from what I saw there was a general understanding that students are having issues all across the world, and that it isn’t necessarily a UCU experience. Everyone I spoke with explicitly mentioned that they were positive about the student body as a whole. Furthermore, while there have been specific cases of students having problems, no one dares to generalize

without the data. So are students becoming less resilient? Maybe, probably not, and if they are we can only guess at the cause. It does not seem to be something that the college is very worried about. Is that in itself an issue? Perhaps. There are a lot of avenues for students to turn to if they feel like they are facing difficulties: peer support, tutors, friends, family, Mark Baldwin, doctors, psychologists, and off campus institutions. It’s important to try and learn from these difficulties, and use them to build resilience. Of course, some experiences are not learning experiences, they are simply tragedies, and in regards to people who experience those, Baldwin says that “often, it is the individuals faced with the most challenging situations who can identify and draw upon the deepest reserves of personal resilience. They are the ones who can be the most inspiring for others.”

ANDY by Hugo Floris Schiffers

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Without Andy, what do we have now?

There are no long queues in Dining Hall anymore. They have disappeared some time ago, and so has Andy. The latter is a consequence of the prior. The exodus of familiar faces that used to work in DH is perhaps the latest addition to the category ‘wonderful things we have lost through the abolishment of the DH credit system.’

For some time, I was hoping that they had just moved Andy to another location, for several other Sodexo employees have been relocated to places at the Uithof. But unfortunately I was told that Andy had been ‘laid off’. Usually at moments like these, when being confronted with harsh economic measures, I try to find some comfort in the teachings of my favourite high school economics professor. A fairly oversized, staunch republican from Texas, who said things like “The only thing trade unions

A University College Student Association Magazine

BUBBLE are good for, is causing inefficiencies in the economic system.” However, his words seem a bit distasteful in this context. Talk about economic inefficiencies all you like, I keep on thinking about the moment that Andy found out that he lives close to my family home. From then on, he didn’t stop asking me to meet up sometime. Not only do I miss nodding my head and telling him that we really should, I am also sad to know that this thing that was never really going to happen, will now actually never happen.

Without Andy what do we have now? A point system in which 48 bought sandwiches can buy you a cup of machine coffee. It has cost us a phenomenon. Everybody knew Andy and if you were lucky he would sometimes remember you too. He had the rare ability to connect the students on campus: we all listened to that same joke and we all waited for him to find that same button. I dare even say that Andy was part of the fabric of campus, as much as the bar and probably more than that nice looking

building at the head of the quad. If you start cutting in that fabric, by getting rid of Andy or the idea behind DH altogether, the whole thing will eventually fall apart, and so we lose that unique UCU experience. It is exactly within that nice building that this experience ought to be always kept at the back of one’s mind. Decisions that are simply made, can have profound consequences for the student body, especially now Andy is not there anymore to smile away all those empty chairs at empty tables.

Illustration © Idalina Lehtonen

Dear Readers, The board is more than thrilled that you have made it this far into the first Boomerang of 2018. We hope that this paper has by now become a happy and familiar monthly constant in everyone’s stressful lives. We are all trying to keep up with exams, assignments, presentations and whatever else our creative teachers love to throw at us. Really, it’s like fighting a hydra. Focus on one head alone, eight others will maul you from the side. Successfully tear a head from its body, two more will grow in its stead. Our university lives shouldn’t have to feel like a fight. Most people find ways to cope with the stress and enjoy their lives, whether it’s partying, sports, friends, drugs, or other wholesome or destructive pastimes. Meditation, yoga, and other mindfulness techniques have also become increasingly popular for giving our lives a positive twist. But why not try something new, something counterintuitive? Take whatever gives you small, temporary pleasure in your life, and rescind from it for a while, be it meat, your smartphone, alcohol, or drugs. This is called fasting, and is a key feature in most major religions. Christians are supposed to fast throughout the 40 days between carnival and Easter. In Islam you have the Ramadan, in Judaism Yom Kippur is a day of fasting. Regardless of faith, fasting can be an eye-opening experience. By actively removing elements from our lives that we usually take for granted, we learn about ourselves and see things differently. How do your relationships with people function without that cheeky beer? Will your friends desert you if you don’t use Facebook? Do you really need meat in your life, and how will you fill your waking hours without Netflix? Fasting forces us to reflect on habits we never thought we had, and throws light on our relationships with the people around us. It’s easier with a clear goal in mind, so here’s my proposition. Remove one specific thing from your life for exactly 30 days, note down what you think it will feel like. Once the time has passed, read it back, and compare to how you feel. Maybe you’ll be surprised. Back to the office: in this new semester, I am excited to finally welcome Lotte Schuengel into the loving arms of the Boomerang board. Having persistently orbited the board for longer than I can remember, I am convinced that she will do a wonderful job. Another change needs to be mentioned. Flip through the edition and you’ll find the beautiful faces of Sven Bosma and Saskia Vrensen. They will be this semester’s columnists, providing you with the spiciest content imaginable. Every issue. Anna Tchitcherine, as resident cartoonist, will also enchant you with her fantastic comic strips. Telepathically transmitting the feeling of holding a warm cup of tea in your hands after a walk through cold winds,

Clemens Schally, Editor-in-Chief

The Boomerang | February 2018

BUBBLE WEARING PYJAMAS TO CLASS IN DEFENSE OF SWEATPANTS

R. E. S. P. E. C. T.

by Etta Harkness-Bartholdi

by Kyle Gardiner

cannot comprehend how the highly educated have the audacity to believe that the existence of baseline sartorial standards should be a topic of debate.

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If you want to sit at the Big Boy Table and have your Big Boy Ideas addressed, please dress the part.

We have the privilege of being in an environment where we are treated as bright people, whose critical thinking is encouraged and whose research theses are supported. If you want to sit at the Big Boy Table and have your Big Boy Ideas addressed, please dress the part.

ress down UCU. I am sure that one day you will all be doctors, lawyers, fashion models, philosophers; but right now you are 18-20 somethings shitting two feet away from where you attend class. There is no reason to pretend to be a professional yet. Right now what UCU students need is to take themselves less seriously. Be a kid, wear sweatpants, smell bad. We all know how much UCU students study and party, show it in the way you don’t dress up. This call to laziness goes beyond clothing. The general atmosphere of UCU does not allow for acting lazy either. From our scrupulously clean buildings to the prestige of our University, there are no quiet

Taking a few minutes out of your morning to dress yourself presentably before you go to class is about respect. Your appearance is indicative of your own views of yourself. If you dress lazily or immaturely, you are projecting that you see yourself as lazy or immature, and expect to be treated as such. The amount of effort you put into presenting yourself to others also demonstrates whether you believe them to be worthy of your time, energy, and respect. Specific sartorial norms are subjective to one’s environment, but as mentioned above, ours should be considered a professional and academic one. Am I demanding that everyone else wears a tie to their Monday 9AMs? No, but here’s a non-exhaustive list of things to avoid:

Illustration © Amu Endo

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Cotton sweatpants, and other pyjama-wear;

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Flip-flops;

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Exercise clothing (by exception allowed in the case that you did actually exercise right before class. My lazy ass can respect that).

In conclusion, you are an adult, interacting with other adults in an academic environment. It’s not a 24/7 black tie event, but please at least treat the formalities of your participation in this academic institution (your classes) with a modicum of respect.

dirty corners for sleepy college students to curl up and act their age, not their shoe size. Clothing is the perfect example of how this atmosphere influences UCUers. All of this is not to say that creative dressing and self-expression should be shunned. It’s great to develop and create a personal style but not everyone’s self-expression can be the basic section of H&M. Take off your button downs, polos, and khakis. Cast off the chains of Urban Outfitters, Hema, and Monki. Wear what makes you feel comfortable, what is easy to throw on in the morning, and whatever is laying on your floor after a long night.

THE CURSE OF THE LAST SEMESTER by Florine Kist

Thursday night in bed at 10 P.M., I’m shivering, sweating, incapable of sleeping. I’d diagnose myself with a serious case of FOMO, Fear Of Missing Out.

Prescription: don’t worry, and have a cup of tea with a cookie on the side. Sounds lovely, but it won’t work, because the fear is legitimized. Will I really miss something this specific Thursday night? No, not unless I’m

into dancing to the same Spotify playlist. But it’s true that in half a year, all 6th-semester-students will be missing out, once the gown is on and the cap is in the air.

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BUBBLE The thing that seems to set this final semester apart from others is that it is driven by lasts. Or rather, many lasts that will simultaneously be firsts. These months that mark the final bits of my time at UCU and form this awkward pre-nostalgia stage, continuously make me aware of the awfully limited timeframe in which I have to fit not just my routines, but all the things that I’ve never done before. This UCU-bucket list, for me, consists of DJing in a full bar, joining a dance class and being the last-man-standing on a Thursday night. I need to do it now. Even this article is just another effect of the inevitability of that word ‘graduation’, always looming in the background. The bubble will burst, and in anticipation we want and try to live UCU life to the fullest. This reminds me of the I’ll-do-it-allmotivation that me and many of my friends used to have in our first-semester, which

we’ve somehow seem to have lost along the way. Probably, we’ve put many plans on the back burner because we knew we’d still have five more semesters to make it all work. It’s beautiful to see this motivation being reactivated, but it’s a shame that we only come to realize and actualize this now, in our last semester that is already overloaded with thesis stress, level 300 courses and figuring out future plans. Unfortunately, our psychologies don’t work in such a way that we could feel the threat of graduation already in our third or fourth semesters, so that we would actually have time to finish our bucket lists. We, procrastination kings and queens, need to feel a specific type of pressure in order to initiate and realize our plans, the kind that cannot spontaneously be re-created or imitated. Just like we only start working on our essays once we flip our agenda’s to

that week, we only think about signing up for ArtsCo’s annual pottery session knowing that it’s the last one before graduation.

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all 6th-semester-students will be missing out, once the gown is on and the cap is in the air.

Without a doubt, there are some things I wish I’d done before. It’s saddening to be running out of time while the pile of “thingsleft-to-do” only seems to be getting bigger. But it’s not all bad: we’ve regained a motivation that will upgrade our social lives, will actively make us enjoy it, and altogether will make our last semester worth it. Sure, we might not finish our bucket lists, but isn’t the appeal of such a list that there will always be things left to want and dream of?

DIVERSITY AT UCU – the other side of the coin by Márton Végh

e all know that talking about diversity at UCU is common. Students create posts and memes on Facebook. Articles discussing the issue appear regularly in The Boomerang. The usual claim is that UCU is not diverse enough, by which, according to my understanding, people mean the diversity of racial/ethnic/national identities. However, I have the impression that we tend to forget about the other side of the coin. Although UCU is a multicultural community, the student body is quite homogenous from a socio-economic perspective. UCU is located in a specific country in a specific continent and thus it is highly unlikely that it will ever become some sort of ‘global village,’ in which the nationalities or races of the Earth are proportionately represented. Compared to other Dutch universities, UCU is international. The college administration puts an effort into making this place more

diverse in this respect. People coming from all around the world to study on this campus bring their distinct culture and customs, which make a valuable contribution to the UCU experience.

Illustration © Jarne van der Poel

However, we should not forget that the majority of students come from a privileged, upper-middle class background and this influences the reputation of the college as well. The realization hit me especially hard, when even non-Dutch exchange students from the UU I met during a Friday night out immediately started making jokes about me being posh and elitist – just because I told them I study at UCU. The conflict between class (redistribution) and identity (recognition) politics is part of the current Zeitgeist. As Nancy Fraser put it already in 2000, “struggles for recognition (…) displace struggles for economic justice”. It was among the main underlying themes of the recent American elections, and in these subtle ways, we can observe it in our campus life as well. Fortunately, we have the opportunity to learn from politics and see how harmful it is to interpret them as opposing issues. On the contrary, I would like to advocate the understanding of how racial and socio-economic backgrounds can overlap. We have to pay attention to both issues if we want to live in a more just society. As the student body of UCU will never represent global populations accurately, we cannot expect that it will not be dominated by an upper-middle class majority, especially if we take the higher tuition fees into account. But in my opinion, emphasizing diversity and forgetting about the issue of class entirely is a sort of hypocrisy, making the whole endeavor of diversification futile. Some might remember that ASC sent out an email last semester, in which they announced that they are going to focus more on socio-economic diversity, for example by reaching out to schools in low-income neighborhoods. I believe that giving more publicity to this issue, promoting UCU for those who are not so well-off or even just by recognizing the importance of the scholarship fund, we might be able to shift social elitism to an institution which is not only welcoming towards people from different continents, but also from different social classes.

The Boomerang | February 2018

BUBBLE monthly dessert: sweet svensations Your a sweet little nugget of Sven’s brain.

STUFF I FOUND OUT BECOMING A STUDENT

here’s a couple of things in life nobody warns you about. Dad doesn’t sit you down and tell you you’re going to experience awkward boners in 7th grade math class, just as the teacher calls you up to the blackboard. Mum doesn’t explain the importance of fully air-drying freshly washed underwear (I promise this column isn’t going to be crotch-themed). Some aspects of life are pure trial and inevitable error, and perpetual failure is where success likes to hide in plain sight. The first time I realised this was while doing groceries that weren’t by order of my mother, but were in fact just for me to survive the week. I got around to thinking about what I’d like for breakfast the next day, and that turned out to be the extent of my planning into the future. It seems to me that unless life has forced you to do groceries in a rational, structured manner (i.e., not drunk in a 24/7 supermarket looking for curly fries), the act of shopping simply requires military-level planning. I couldn’t tell you the dates of my midterms, let alone what I plan on nourishing myself within three days’ time. And that’s not even the worst of it. For years, I’d have cheese tosti’s before heading out to hockey practice, but that’s not as easily done now, after I discovered the extortionate prices of cheese. And Jesus wept, isn’t cheese expensive. I honest to God think there should be a separate student loan system, designed to finance my consumption of melted cheesy goodness.

Next surprise is laundry. I don’t know what my clothes are made of. For simplicity, I assume they’re cotton, despite all of them feeling different in some way. In my world, jeans and linen shirts are all equal. I also just don’t speak washing machine or dryer; The buttons make no sense to me. I suppose I could ask someone, but being a guy, asking for help is uncharted territory, and I fear a negative effect on my already dwindling masculinity. I’m a pretty orderly and tidy person, I just need time to learn. No, I won’t read the manual. Yes, I still make sure to keep my business fresh and clean. And goodness gracious me, isn’t ‘clean’ an easy segue into the next lesson of life here at university. VACUUMS HAVE BAGS. I don’t know what I thought happened before I made this discovery. I simply assumed that anything that went in got sucked into the Ether, never to be seen again. In my mind, Stephen Hawking’s life’s work has been to find the wormhole that accepts all vacuum dust from the human race. So when you’re cleaning your unit (or some half-arsed excuse for cleaning), if you notice the vacuum leaving more dust and poorly cooked rice grains behind it than there were in the first place, that may be due to this ‘bag.’ Plenty more life advice and insight where that came from. For those wondering, coursework is fine, just keeping myself alive is the tough part. And see, as promised, this column wasn’t crotch-themed.

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LOCAL

INSTOCK MAKES EATING GARBAGE COOL

AN INTERVIEW WITH SELMA SEDDIK by Vedika Luthra

s the old proverb goes, “waste is only waste until you waste it.” Sustainability is a hot topic that frequently makes headlines, especially today when the effects of climate change are becoming increasingly conspicuous. Thanks to people like UCU alumna Selma Seddik, there is a way to make sure that not all unsold food goes to waste.

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but would otherwise be thrown away. Partnered with a series of suppliers such as Albert Heijn, food is set aside at distribution centers and supermarkets for chefs at instock to use. With this food surplus, exciting dishes are created – including the likes of Chipotle nachos or shakshuka.

instock was born out of a competition for AH employees that involved pitching a busiWe could actually upcycle those ness plan to the board. However, the idea surplus streams into a nice quickly became something that Selma and her business partners wanted to execute. evening out for

people

Along with co-founders Bart Roetert and Freke van Nimwegen, Selma founded instock, originally a pop-up that morphed into three restaurants, including one in Utrecht. It launched its own products, such as beer made from bread or potatoes, and granola made from the leftover grains from beer production, and released its own book.

“When we first opened the doors of the pop-up, it became such a huge success that people all over the Netherlands were writing about it,” Selma explains. “We were booked out for three weeks in advance, and we just felt like, ‘hey – we want to continue this!’”

“We realized that a lot of the food that gets thrown out is actually of very good quality,” said Selma. “That triggered us to do something positive with the products - we wanted to create an environment in which we could actually upcycle those surplus streams into a nice evening out for people.” The concept is simple: instock creates meals from products that are still usable

Like all start-ups, instock started out small. Selma recounts: “In the beginning, there were literally no employees. In the morning, we would pick up the food from our previous supermarket colleagues, and at night we would do the service, acting as the hosts.” Today, approximately 100 employees are part of the company. Although Selma has built a career in sustainability, it wasn’t always something she considered. At UCU, her preferred subjects were politics, history and international relations. Then, during her international manage-

ment master’s at Kings College, Selma developed an interest in business. “I was very interested in the societal aspects of business,” she explains. “Not necessarily only the money making - but how you can create a positive impact.” Although Selma says that a lot is learnt on the job, she does note the importance of education, which “gives you a global understanding of the impact of what you do and why it’s important.” When asked what her advice to UCU students interested in sustainability would be, Selma notes that work experience is particularly important. “You find out very soon what you like and what you don’t like – even though it’s only a part-time job or an internship outside UC, it’s nice to see how things work outside the gate.” As in other fields, sustainability does not have to be limited to one profession. instock is an example of a hands-on, creative approach towards tackling a pressing environmental issue, but naturally, there are other ways. “You can work with sustainability at a high-over level where it’s concerned with regulations and policies, or you can do sustainability in a tangible way- and the instock version of sustainability is super tangible, you see the results of your actions immediately,” Selma asserts. So whether you’re making beer from bread or discovering how to make beer from bread, the important thing is, you’re not wasting the bread. For more information, visit instock.nl Instock will also be doing a beer tasting organized by GastronomyCo and BarCo in March, stay tuned!

Illustration © Idalina Lehtonen

in Utrecht Made in China Starting March 1 @ Museum Oud Amelisweerd, Bunnik. Exposition on Chinese artists during the Qin dynasty.

Tegenlicht/Backlight Meet Up March 5, 19:00 @ Centrale Bibliotheek Award-winning documentary series about trends in Journalism. Reserve for free entry.

“You Are What You Eat” March 1, 17:30 @ Green Office, Utrecht Science Park. Lecture by Prof. Renger Witkamp about the science behind food choice. Free Entry.

“Sustainable Tourism” March 6, 20:00 @ Academiegebouw Lecture about the impact of travel on the environment. Free entry.

Mätthaus Passion March 3, 19:30 @ Geertekerk, Utrecht by Bach Ensemble Amsterdam

Greta Gerwig’s “Lady Bird” March 8, 19:00 @ Louis Hartlooper Complex International Women’s Day Screening. €8.50.

Follow us on Snapchat and keep up with campus happenings, and occassionally when we dare burst the bubble, happenings outside of campus too!

Get paid to write for us! The Boomerang has a budget to cover, partially or in whole, your costs for reviewing events, movies, music, games – anything you feel would be interesting for the campus community. Come by the open writers’ meetings every month to discuss your ideas with us, or email us at boomerang@ ucsa.nl. Other articles are also of course very welcome, as are illustrations. We need (and want) you!

The Boomerang | February 2018

LOCAL

HOW THE DUTCH DEBT INDUSTRY DRIVES A JOURNALIST INSANE by Lotte Schuengel

In the caverns of the welfare state, those with the best intentions are fined, humiliated and imprisoned - because they did not open their mail. At the moment, half a million Dutch citizens live in problematic debt. Correspondent-journalist Jesse Frederik (28) has taken up arms. “They really have a problem, me being around, because I’m pulling them straight into the trenches.”

n November 2016, the documentary Schuldig (meaning both ‘in

debt’ and ‘guilty’ in Dutch), following people who are in debt as well as the debt counsellors and a bailiff, left a deep impression on Frederik. Since then he has been collecting personal stories from or about people who are or have been in debt. “I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started.” The first few weeks were hard. “After three weeks of hearing stories by ten different people I found myself crying on the couch. It makes you think: ‘Jesus, this is so overwhelmingly fucked up.’ How do the people that work in this industry keep up? “If you’re a debt counselor and take these stories home every day - not just for three weeks to write an article about them - you lose the ability to grasp the sheer size of the problem. You cannot treat the people you work with as humans anymore, because it affects your own health.”

Frederik has now received around three to four hundred e-mails. “A fuckton. I haven’t read all of them yet. When the caps lock-intensity is too high, I often leave them be. When I can, I answer politely or try to help. After a while you become some kind of counselor to them. People kept e-mailing and calling me. But in the end I am a journalist. I cannot help everyone.

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“While writing that article I thought to myself: ‘Motherfuckers, you’re not getting away with this.”

“I feel that I have become desensitized. If a story doesn’t go as far as someone having to leave their house, I don’t care. That’s how far it’s come.” The story that struck Frederik most is about a man who owned thirty cars. “A legal amendment in the Netherlands says you will be fined if your car has no insurance. And if you own an uninsured car wreck, you have to renew its suspension each year, or you will get fined. This guy, father of two girls, owned what were basically wrecks with registration plates. They had been suspended and were

SC A K

in his garage where he played around with them for a hobby. “After his divorce he got into a depression and didn’t open his mail for months. So he didn’t renew the suspensions and received thirty fines, €400 each. Not paying within three months increased all fines to €1,200. Four months later he received another fine of €400. Anyway, counting stopped at sixty-two fines of €1,200 each. No one can afford that. The government, in all its wisdom, imprisons people who do not pay. He had already paid around €10,000, when the police threw him in jail for three months. In jail you don’t receive unemployment benefits. Which left his two daughters to live in a house without their parents, without money. No one paid rent so they had to move out. When their father returned they lived at an illegal address. A chain of misery. I’ve met with him. He suffers from PTSD. His daughter told me that when she hears the letterbox, it reminds her of a bailiff. Right after I talked to them, I visited the CIB (Central Debt Collection Bureau), who impose these fines. I entered a tidy conference room and they showed me a PowerPoint presentation about processes and models they designed to collect debt. Those moments drive me mad. Mad, because I write these articles and I realize that they represent something. In a year, over 10,000 people receive ten fines or more. And they are all in trouble. But the CIB never reaches them, never speaks with them, never calls. Eighteen thousand people have ended up in prison for not paying a fine. That’s insane.While writing that article I thought to myself: ‘motherfuckers, you’re not getting away with this. I’m going to win this. It may take years but it’s not going to end here.’ At least it motivates me, to have an enemy. I could pick ten random people from the street, and no one will say this is reasonable. They really have a problem, me being around, for I’m pulling them straight into the trenches. You can draw a nazi-parallel. CIB is only implementing a policy that the ministry made. They too know this system fails. They’re not truly evil, nor are the policy makers. They all have good intentions, but they don’t see the full picture. I do, and I will show it to them, whatever it takes.” A petition to make the Netherlands debt-free In October this year, Jesse Frederik and the makers of Schuldig launched a campaign to raise awareness about to size and severity of the debt problem in the Netherlands. For this campaign, they wrote the Schuldvrij-manifesto, which almost 28.000 people have signed. They call for a stop on the fining of poverty and propose to give people who are in irreversible debt a chance of a clean slate. For more, see: https://petities.nl/petitions/manifest-schuldvrij.

“What does ASC even do?” We’ve heard this a lot over the past few autumn and winter months. With the beginning of this term, we came to our senses and realised that actually, most of you probably don’t even read the ‘ASC Update’. Which is why we are here. In the Boomerang. We want to talk to you. Let’s have fun together.

ASC? What? Que? The bottom line is this. We lobby for you. But there is no way for us to know what to fight for unless we converse, have an open dialogue, and know what the students need. So tell us! Course evaluations! Today, I’m going to spread some propaganda about course evaluations. I almost lost you with those two simple words. Let me use an analogy. You have a banana tree. This banana tree needs water and sunlight and maybe some pollination in order to grow bananas, right? So the sun provides some of that sweet sweet sunlight, and the water cycle provides that scrumptious rain. These things happen automatically in nature. But UCU is not nature. Things do not happen automatically. In order to provide rain instead of acid and sunlight instead of nuclear radiation, UCU needs some help. UCU needs feedback on how to grow the best bananas, because UCU doesn’t use GMO. If UCU is to grow the best bananas, the current bananas (that’s you) need to help. We need your useful banana experience on what you like and don’t like. Hope you were really weirded out by the analogy, but I hope you’ll remember it. Course evaluations are the highest form of feedback at UCU, so use them wisely, they are checked consistently. The teachers have responded and you can actually see what they responded on the same website which you answered on. Peace out, Jamie Henderson for ASC

A University College Student Association Magazine

WORLD

VOLUNTOURISM: ALTRUISM OR EGOISM? by Maya Homsy King

t is a truth Westernly acknowledged that going to volunteer in the developing world is an enriching and educational experience, one that widens a person’s perspectives. In our little community of highly accomplished young people, listings on CVs like ‘building a school in Kenya’, or ‘teaching English in Vietnam’ are not uncommon, owing to the wealth of opportunities we have been exposed to. An uncomfortable question to ask however, is are we doing this for them or are we doing this for us? Are we doing it for the CV, for our own egos, or out of genuine desire to help people? I myself have taken part in teaching at Ugandan schools, and helping fundraise for their new buildings, so my arguments here may seem somewhat hypocritical, but there are two sides to this kind of volunteer work. Almost everyone I have talked to has only positive feelings about their experiences. Some say it changed their whole perspective on life, and made them realize what they want to do with their own. I too, look back fondly on my weeks singing songs with children, sifting cement for their new buildings,

and playing netball. All the while though, at the back of my mind was the question of why I was doing it. Is it really useful to have a 15-year-old teaching the class when there are qualified teachers working there? Why are the young, inexperienced foreigners given the same authority as the local teachers? A common criticism of voluntourism can be summed up in what Nigerian-American writer Teju Cole calls the “White Savior Complex.” This can be explained as the volunteer making themselves the main character in the scenario. To me, this notion appears disturbingly neo-colonialist; the Western national arrives and stakes their claim on the crisis, painting themselves as the hero who is coming to save the day. In reality, these new arrivals can be more burden than help. They are completely new to the context, to the culture and to the country. The time it takes to train and introduce these well-meaning individuals can take double or triple the time and money that it would take to employ a local inhabitant.

UCU where people are well-travelled and driven to ‘make a difference,’ the pressure to be involved in original and impressive projects is huge. The reasons young people undertake these ‘voluntourism’ projects are complex and nuanced; the CV is indeed one, the pressure to make a difference, our own egos…The primary one for me personally, was to assuage the guilt that followed me daily, as I saw how obviously privileged I was compared to the citizens of the country I call home. I think we need to be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that the main reason we do this is for our own personal development. In many cases, people are perfectly capable of building a school without the help of foreign volunteers. Instead of claiming how much I contributed and portraying my host community as the party in need, in reality the experience helped me grow more than I contributed to their community.

Especially in a community like

saskia sticks to politicks

am extremely ashamed to admit that even though I’m half Dutch, I know literally nothing about Dutch politics. The most I could tell you is that Geert Wilders looks like a cartoon and is also insane. Growing up American-Dutch in the UK, I had many cultural ties, yet my Dutch one sadly consisted solely of hagelslag and stroopwafels. I want to use this column to (hopefully) remedy that. I’ve noticed that the general outsider’s perspective of the Netherlands is that it is quite liberal in its politics and social norms. In this context, I would like to clarify ‘liberal’ as meaning socially ‘not conservative,’ or ‘progressive,’ rather than with sole regard to economic policies. People that I know from home assume that Dutch politics are liberal because the culture itself seems so, concerning sex and sexuality, and also all these British people can “pop to ‘Dam and smoke some Js, dude.” But a societal openness about these topics doesn’t necessarily equate liberal politics. The Dutch Parliament, since the 2017 election, is led by a four-way coalition (to gain a majority out of 150 seats), of which three parties are centre right (VVD, CDA and ChristenUnie), one is against abortion and gay marriage (ChristenUnie), and only one is liberal-progressive (D66). Although

Groenlinks, a centre left party with a focus on environmental issues, was supposed to join the coalition in place of ChristenUnie, this fell through and Groenlinks now has little sway with 14 seats. The popular left wing party, PvdA,

lost 29 seats and is left with only 9. To make matters even worse for the left-leaning individual, PVV, or as I like to call it, ‘the racist party,’ holds the second most seats, with 20. Even the Land of Brexit hasn’t given any seats to their resident racist party! Perhaps I’m being melodramatic. It’s not all fire and brimstone here. Realistically, when a party is considered ‘centre right’ in the Netherlands, it is still pretty progressive. Although barely, the Netherlands

avoided populism and can be considered an example for Europe that the bad guy doesn’t always need to win, goddammit! The 2017 Dutch elections provided a bit of hope to a world encompassed in a Facebook newsfeed of the alt right and delusional Fox News reporters. Sometimes I’m a cynic and feel bitter about the state of the world. I should remember to feel lucky to live in a country where most politicians would be left wing on the global spectrum, and where we don’t have to worry about racist bigots with weird hair gaining a platform, support and parliamentary seats… oh, wait. Illustration © Iris ten Have

The Boomerang | February 2018

ARTS&CULTURE

REVIEWED: MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS by Daisy Hall

et’s cut to the chase: the star of this film is Kenneth Branagh’s moustache. It’s a glorious, perfectly symmetrical, immaculately combed and shaped, gravity-defying work of wonder and it was a privilege to watch it bounce around the screen for two hours. For those who don’t know, the basic premise of the film is as follows: a group of strangers get on a train with a detective, and one of them is murdered. Melodrama, mystery, and moustachioed mayhem ensue. This kind of plot is what made Agatha Christie’s books so enjoyable, and Kenneth Branagh does a brilliant job of bringing it to life. Once you’ve acclimatised to him swinging wildly between egg-based slapstick comedy and passionate statements on the nature of human morality (frequently in the same scene), Branagh’s Poirot is absolutely delightful, and only enhanced by an unabashedly outrrrrragious French accent. The ensemble cast is largely brilliant, with a huge array of big names for such a small train. Johnny Depp is uncomfortably creepy to watch, Penelope Cruz, wrapped in many cardigans, is brilliant as the deeply religious ex-nanny with the dark secret, and Josh Gad gives an unexpectedly strong performance as an alcoholic

accountant. Branagh does not shy away from maximum cheesiness, and the climax of the film sees him striding dramatically through the snow, the steam train at his back, to pass judgement on the passengers. They have been seated on one side of a long table, last-supper style, at the mouth of a tunnel. One can only assume they were bored of trains and preferred to be interrogated in an aesthetically pleasing arrangement in the snow. Yet the temptation to roll my eyes was tempered by the fact that it is ridiculously easy to get caught up in this story. Me and, I’m convinced, the woman next to me, sobbed our way through the denouement. Luckily we were distracted by the credits: A Kenneth Branagh production, Directed by Kenneth Branagh, Produced by Kenneth Branagh, Starring Kenneth Branagh, All Stunts performed by Kenneth Branagh, Costumes designed by Kenneth Branagh…. And so on. I strongly suspect that entire swathes of cinema-goers have been covertly hypnotised, and someday Kenneth Branagh will put out the call. On that day we shall all part our hair down the middle, grab our walking sticks and swoopy coats, and rush to fight by the side of He of the Glorious Moustache.

WRITING SIMPLY AND BEAUTIFULLY by Sabine Anouk Loth

azuo Ishiguro is a name you may have seen pop up on your newsfeed recently. This British writer made headlines in 2017 for winning the Nobel Prize in Literature for his successful short stories and novels, such as Never Let Me Go, The Remains of the Day, and most recently, The Buried Giant. The writer, being of Japanese descent, moved to Surrey from Nagasaki at the age of five. Ishiguro began writing in 1982, at

the age of 29. He had studied Literature and Philosophy at the University of Kent, followed by a postgraduate course in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. By the age 30, he was already nominated for the “Best of Young British Writers” prize, and later in life went on to win the Winifred Holtby Prize, The Booker Prize for Fiction, and the Cheltenham Prize before being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The Buried Giant, being his most recent work, has been especially popular since its release in 2015. Ishiguro is said to have the ability to “uncover the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world,” and that his written works contain “great emotional force.” These notions are both most definitely visible in his novel The Buried Giant. The novel follows an elderly couple in the Middle Ages on a journey through England. Surrounded by mystery, fantasy, and mythical creatures, this couple’s story tells us of the rediscovery of love and pain when going into one’s forgotten past. Ishiguro’s use of language is beautiful, yet easy to follow. This, together with a gripping storyline, creates a tale which will stay with any reader for years to come. I would consider this book a recommended read for anyone who truly loves to get absorbed into the fantastical world of fiction. Illustration © Nina Gribling

A University College Student Association Magazine

ARTS&CULTURE

WHY I DON’T OWN A BERET:

ON FASHION IN THE NETHERLANDS

by Iris ten Have

lashback to three months ago. This girl in my class: she has the coolest style ever. Every time she sits in front of me is another fashion show. Bright lipstick, edgy coat, the kind of skirt that will make all eyes on campus turn towards her: this girl is definitely something to look up to, fashion-wise. One day she wears a beret to class. I love berets, I lived in France for years and I miss it like a part of my heart was left there. Thus, naturally, seeing someone wearing a beret brings back some nostalgia. A few days later, my Instagram fashion inspo – a French-British model/singer – posts a bomb picture of herself wearing a beret. I make a note to myself: I. Need. A. Beret. Right. Now. I mean, that’s how fashion works isn’t it? People getting inspired by each other and mixing up their personal style with other peoples’. No one has ever come up with a unique style by staying in their room and making decisions about this. It’s just like personality: we take what we like from the environment that surrounds us. A few months later. I still do not own a beret. I passed a store in Paris selling berets at 5 euros each: a beautiful offer. And I am

killing myself for having let that precious opportunity go. Maybe it is not too late. I can still save my style by finding one in Utrecht. But the worst phenomenon has taken place already. EVERY girl in Utrecht (and Amsterdam) bikes around with a beret on her blond hair. What the hell. I feel like my style has been stolen from me and it is too late to join the trend. Buying a stereotypical French hat is no longer synonym to a daring, eccentric style. It has been normalized.

“

The only thing that would make the Netherlands an even more attractive place to live: well-dressed people.

You may think I am a hipster now, but that is not the point I want to make. My point is: why do Dutch girls wear berets? A year ago, I came across an article from the Volkskrant magazine. It depicted Dutch

people as stealing fashion styles, first from France, then from Scandinavian countries. The problem being that neither of these countries’ styles fit the Dutch: they are too tall to fit into French mom jeans and not skinny enough to make the long black coats elegant. Like every country, our population has its pleasing physical characteristics. Our architecture is exemplary and has, arguably, a common theme. Our countryside, although it may not include mountains and waterfalls, is charming in its own way. We’ve got so many things going for us. The only thing that would make the Netherlands an even more attractive place to live: well-dressed people. Trench coats that cheat because they include a button-up at the neck, backpacks instead of handbags and all boys wearing the same awfully boring combination of jeans and raincoats everyday: please, I’ve seen it all. Dutch people think fashion is meant to be comfortable, when that was never its purpose. I am tired of walking in and out of stores being left uninspired by the racks of clothes. Amsterdam already took the first steps, and it is time for the rest of the Netherlands to follow.

The Boomerang | February 2018

QUAD QUERIES

IF YOU COULD SAY SOMETHING TO DINING HALL, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

-Esthe

s e les in, g r a t Ch o ge t e for m ning hoe di

et me I to se ou ce au y Ni h c et ya r m ve el ne ar -K

*uncom fort silenc able e*

- Balth

a -Zoh

Why are you so fucking expensive - Márton

You ch a for th nged e wors e bro asar

le my You sto friends

t no o g ain’t bro u o Y e gam ora -L

the k bac table g n Bri uites Eq per s a -J

- Asja

I see you every day but I never met you

He who doesn’t even go here provided sexual favors in return for being on the back of the Boomerang

- Ivan

I sorta miss you

THE BOOMERANG BOARD

-Yaël

You’re a waste , man - Max

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Thanks for always being so nice