By Sara Bartl Ever heard of Austria? It’s that chicken drumstick shaped country in the heart of Europe. No, it is not part of Germany, and yes, there is more to it than skiing and hiking. So let us get past some of those beautiful stereotypes and explore the musical landscape of the post-Mozart and…
City Travel Guides: The Dublin Edition!
By Aoife Holohan We’re back again with another city guide for the travel bug infected among you. This week we’re taking you on just a short trip across the water to the city of Dublin. When to go: If you don’t mind the cold, try and make it over for the Christmas season. The frosty…
Struggles of a Sixteen-Year-Old at University
By Emma de Koning So can you imagine? Starting uni at sixteen? My guess is, you’re quite amazed at this moment. Most people are. But, believe me, it’s really not as cool as it sounds. You could even say it sucks. Honestly, people saying: “You must be so smart!” and the accompanying surprise on their…
AFD – Whiff from the Brown Past or Fresh Wind in a Stale Closet?
In her article “Did We Get Used to Nazis (Again)?”, Rebecca Fobbe lambasts the success of the Alternative für Deutschland party (Alternative for Germany, AFD) in the recent German federal elections, which gained almost 13% of votes and thus became the third-largest party nationally. Following Rebeccas article, it would be easy to assume that the…
How The Manic Pixie Dream Girl Destroyed Our Expectations
By Joëlle Koorneef If you have ever watched any movie starring Zooey Deschanel, you might be familiar with the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. She is the ukulele strumming beauty who rollerskates into the life of a poor sad boy to charm him with her pastel hair and deep dark history. She is typically the love…
Visit Brussels like a Local
By: Nora Westgeest “Where should I eat in Brussels? What about places to get coffee? And what is the best club to go out?”. Having been brought up near Brussels, I often get asked these questions. Lucky for you, I spent my high school years lounging around all the local hotspots. With the help of…
Fall Break Plans and Prospects
By Sara Bartl Fall break is here! A week without classes in which we will all have some time to take a breather, visit some friends and family, or take a nice trip to refresh yourself. Tabula RASA asked a few students about their plans, it’s nice to see how everyone plans (or does not…
Did We Get Used to Nazis (Again)?
By Rebecca Fobbe On Sunday the 24th of September, the last of a series of breath-holding European elections was carried out. After the Dutch and French votes for their new respective heads of states, both events closely monitored due to the great appearance of national right-wing parties (Front Nationale in France and PVV in the…
The World of Kazuo Ishiguro: 2017 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
By Gloria Borroni The literary world is divided into two groups, fans who gather together in trepidation to discover whether their favorite writer won the prestigious Nobel Prize for literature, and people who disregard the award completely. Kazuo Ishiguro received the award for 2017. The Swedish Academy decided to give the prize to Ishiguro, because,…
A Nice Quiet Drink
By Sebastiaan Frankes So, once upon a time you may have thought to yourself: “let’s not go to Elliott tonight”, seeing as someone might have puked all over the stairs again, or simply because you just want a quiet and relaxed night out. Luckily, there are places all over Middelburg for this, if you know…
From Middy to Mokum
Jade Suzarte The decision to leave University College Roosevelt for another university was not easy. After one year living in the ever-lovely Middelburg, all other universities seemed slightly unwelcoming. However, I knew I had to move, since my track was no longer available at UCR. As a humanities student, I found what I was looking…
Is This Article Ironic?
By Abel Vroegop Let’s talk about memes. What are memes? What is not a meme? Are memes important? When is a meme cool and good? As a meme connoisseur and regular meme maker, I will attempt to shed some light on these issues. Before we can talk about the impact of memes, we need a…
Powergames, History, and Identity – a Ukrainian Perspective on Crimea
By Eric Zhang and Maryna Parfenchuk Ukraine has always been a nation torn apart by different superpowers and identities. For centuries, Austro-Hungarian Empire and Poland had governed its west, whereas its east had been under the control of Russia. That Ukraine falls within Russia’s influence is of major strategic importance for Russia, since Ukraine provides…
Runs, Puns, & Rewinds
by Krista Zwart We run this town. Running out of time. Running in circles. In the long run. Make a run for it. There are as many idioms and expressions that contain the verb to run as I have emotions for literally doing it. People often ask me why I do it, and each time I’ll…
The UCR Strategic Plan Discussion Evening – a Summary
By Anna Den Hollander, Noga Amiri and Gerjanne Hoek. Monday evening, 22 students met in C20 to discuss the strategic plan with Managing Director Jorrit Sneijder, and our Dean Bert van den Brink. As we students were only let in on the final product, and cannot claim much insight into the internal deliberations that preceded…
A Critical Perspective on the Strategic Plan 2017-2021
By Faye Bovelander Last week, our Dean, Bert van den Brink, and Managing Director, Jorrit Snijder, released the Strategic Plan UCR, 2017-2021 to the UCR community. This document contains the strategic agenda for the upcoming four years, specifying policy lines UCR management plans on pursuing. It comes following a year in which we saw our…
Where Them Girls At – The Future of Rap is Female
by Gloria Borroni When talking about rap to your average music listener, the first artists they will think of are, generally speaking, male. This is because the mainstream rap industry is still very male dominated. This became especially true after the late 90’s early 2000’s, following Lil Kim, Remy Ma, Foxy Brown, Trina, Queen Latifah,…
Let’s Talk About Work
By Aoife Holohan The semester is well under way, and it may have dawned on you that if you don’t want to eat pesto pasta and reconstituted meat products for the next nine months, you might want to think about getting out there and finding yourself a job. Middelburg has plenty to offer if menial…
Let’s Talk About Fashion
By Gloria Borroni As I spend my days watching videos of New York’s fashion week, dreaming of owning one of those dresses, or, better yet, sitting in between the big names of the fashion industry, gazing at the models walking down the runway with my overcritical glasses on and my eyebrow raised, I wonder why…
Being An American At UCR
By: Justine Watkins Ever since I made “the big move” I always get the questions why here, why the Netherlands, and more specifically, why Middelburg? Being from New York City people tend to think I have it all, who would want to leave the concrete streets, busy subways, horrible traffic, constant noise, and expensive upscale…