My dearest Steemers,
First of all I would like to deeply thank you for the amazing community you have built so far, I'm extremely excited to be a part of it and will make sure to contribute true value for you. Through the life experiences I've had I'm positive to provide a unique outlook on many different subjects, even if only because I'm a Dutch girl who always felt she should've been born in a native-English country. 😉
I will be sharing insights about the things I see going on around me in day-to-day life, as well as more in-depth posts on topics of my expertise, which cover a wide range of subjects. Besides that I will use Steem as a platform to share my poetry and hopefully touch the lives of those who come into contact with it.
I have studied at the Royal Conservatory in the Netherlands during my high school, living through a couple of very intense years. It basically came down to studying two entirely different areas at the same time, starting at only 14 years old. I took the highest possible form of high school education here, which meant that I had a total of 23(!) different subjects throughout the years and graduated in eight of them. Add to that approximately 15-20 hours of university-degree music lectures, the mandatory practicing of your main instrument every single day (mine was classical harp) and of course all the mid-teen problems one has at that age, and it can become quite overwhelming.
It was no exception for me to spend every single day of the week at school, including Saturdays and Sundays, from 7.30am until 11pm. Attending lectures, having classes, practising, studying, orchestra rehearsals... oh, and maybe a 15-minute lunch break if I were lucky.
This might seem like hell to some of you, and I can honestly say that it was. However, when it is the only life one knows, one gets used to it fast and starts to look for things to appreciate instead of complain about.
It was the perfect opportunity for me to develop my English to an even higher (native) level, to pick up Italian, some Spanish and the odd word of Finnish through interacting with the many Bachelor, Master and PhD students from all around the world. This ignited my love for languages even more, and since then I can proudly say I am natively fluent in Dutch and English, conversationally fluent in Italian and German, and have a basic knowledge of Spanish and French. Recently I even noticed my personality changing a bit depending on the language I speak in. Now I wonder, what kind of person do I seem to you? :)
Besides my obvious interest in music and language, I'm also a huge fan of personal development/awareness/philosophy - my high school paper was all about the subjective and objective perception of reality -, literature, the Victorian and Edwardian era, simple living, the natural reversal of myopia... You name it, and I've probably read about it and written at least three notebooks on the subject. Or it's on the toilet paper roll that's scribbled full of things I still want to dive into.
Throughout the coming few weeks we will get to know each other better, so I will leave you now with a little line of inspiration:
"And from there on thou shalt rise to unfathomable heights, cross boundaries never before imagined, and stretch thyself into depths unknown to all." - CVL Mooreland
Much love,
Catherine
PS. In case you are interested, I also post content on my website (http://www.catherinemooreland.com). Right now it is still very much in its toddler phase, but I hope you enjoy the content that's available so far!