Internship: Research on the Arab Uprisings

Apologies for the prolonged radio silence, I am not dead - this blog post should at least provide enough proof to make it relatively plausible that this the case - while I was typing it, in any case. Unless there's been a zombie apocalypse, in which case I might be a zombie (but I'm not sure if that counts as dead, probably, I'd not be dead, but undead instead) - in any case, and in absence of a zombie apocalypse, I'm doing an internship. Although really, it feels more like a a crazy hobby sometimes.

The internship entails research on Gender, New Media and the Arab Spring, although all of those words are problematic, so really, it does not entail that at all. However, I do not wish to bore you to death with all the technicalities (yet), so let's just keep it at Gender, New Media and the Arab Spring, also known as "the thing I tell my parents and friends because otherwise I could never have a short conversation about my internship ever again."

Attentive readers might notice the mentioning of a crazy hobby in the first paragraph (well done you!) and it is to this aspect of my internship I wish to turn today. One of my weird hobbies, among many others, is the reading of scientific studies. The topic does not matter much, because if you can think about it, someone has probably done research on it. An example of this is research about the perception of a computer's gender, or the research of a friend of mine who recorded the growing of plants with a very impressive computer and made nice graphs of that data, so she could predict things about plants that might grow in the future. 

The most awesome aspect of my internship at the moment, is all the weird papers I get to read in the name of 'research' - for example, the one I'm reading now is attempting to map out who 'the revolutionaries' in the Arab Spring were, by charting out variables such as 'are male, are single, are more xenophobic, feel secure, have higher perceived control' and so forth. Personally, I'm waiting for 'Always eat chicken on tuesdays,' because I think that there is a correlation between being or becoming a revolutionary and consuming chicken on a specific day of the week.

There's also a mathematical formula that charts the dynamics of a revolution and helps predict the chance of an outbreak of revolutions based on things they observed in the Arab Spring. I'm now imagining some scientists that go "well, the BBC reported on Egypt today, also, it is raining AND there's a female who crossed the street earlier today near the Tahir Square. On the other hand, she did wear a headscarf so I'd say... 40% chance of revolution happening in the Arab World...? Maybe a bit more or less depending on things Morsi does today." ... "What's that you say? Oh, wet snow... Fine, 45% chance of revolution, then." 

And that's why I love my internship. And also because of the view. Because look at it, it is amazing:

"That's not wet snow! You can't even tell different kinds of snow apart? Why did I hire you? It's not important you say?! ARE YOU MAD!? We'd better start preparing for World War three, statistics say it's imminent!"

Fiction Friday: Parliament.

He’d done everything he could to execute his job to the best of his capabilities. After all, he was more than just a man now, he represented the people. Okay, he might not represent them the way he wanted to, but he still thought he took the loss quite admirably and adapted to this unexpected change of his future with great enthusiasm.

The restraining order was completely unexpected.

He’d only had a few days after the results of the election came in. He’d not know beforehand which position he’d get and it wasn’t easy to prepare on such short notice. The most difficult thing was definitely getting rid of his beard. It was probably worth it, he mused, because in the grand scheme of things, beards were trivial matters. Still, his had been a good one. It’d taken him years to grow and he’d almost gotten to the point that he could finally braid it. Because really, it’s only stubble until you can properly braid it. It’d been so weird to have a cleanly shaven face again after all these years.

Why were they keeping him from doing his job?

He’d taken great pains and gone to great lengths to fulfill the role assigned to him by the people. Well, really, it was decided within the party who’d get what spot, so it wasn’t directly the people. But, you know, people voted. The people. So it was really unfair they were making it so difficult for him to do his job. He’d found out which suit to buy, two shades darker than the original, of course. He’d shaven a bald spot in to his hair and dyed his hair two shades darker. He’d bought the coat, looked up the address. For crying out loud, he’d even managed to find the exact same bicycle and painted it two shades darker. Okay, so that might have been a rush job and it could have been executed better, but they couldn’t seriously be holding that against him? It was nothing short of a miracle for him to find the exact same bicycle on that short a notice anyway.

He’d been fired.

He'd become the exact replica of the Secretary of State for Defence, only two shades darker. He could see his failure now, of course. He'd missed the eyecolour and the car, and his wife looked nothing like the Defence Secretary's wife. He'd failed to obtain two children on such short notice, but really, where would you get those anyway? No, those would have been long term issues, no one would notice their absence for the first few weeks. He'd been a great member of the shadow cabinet, or so he thought, but the party thought differently. So where did it go wrong? It must have been the fact that he'd only gone two shades darker, he should have gone for at least four shades, but he was worried they wouldn't be able to distinguish between his clothes then, because everything would look black. It might also have been the fact that he hadn't been exactly on time, outside the Defence Secretary's door, to shadow him on his way to Parliament. He'd never forget those humiliating five minutes on the corner of that street. When the Defence Secretary finally showed, he'd issued a little wave. A wave. A WAVE. What an idiot he was. He should stop with the self-pitying, because he clearly lacked in all the necessary qualifications required of politicians. He'd had his chance but he blew it. He wasn't committed enough and they were right to question his sanity. He wasn't cut out to be in politics. 

He considered his forced admission to the mental hospital to be a bit excessive.

Die, You Piece of Shit Technology, Die.

I like books. In fact, I love books. I love to read and my bookcase is my pride and joy. The one possession in my room I would be sad to lose in a fire – and not even the case, but all the books. It’s what I spend my spare cash on and it’s what I spend my free time doing: books, reading. However, you’d think the tree-murdering consequences of this love for books would weigh down on my conscience and consequently I would be hailing e-books as the lord and saviour, the divine miracle of humanity, the best thing since sliced bread, etc. I hate them. In fact, I hate them so much that in dealing with them, I almost end up destroying the second best thing in my life, my computer. (Nerd, remember.)

So why this hatred for e-books? Well, firstly, let me say that although I don’t own an e-reader, (I still heave a book around in my bag just in case I get bored or have a few minutes to spare) I can understand that an e-reader might be awesome. I’m poor, I don’t have money to buy one, I buy my books second hand and I like my bookcase. Now, if I were to go on a holiday for half a year, I might invest in one because given the amount of reading I do, it’d be impossible to actually carry that amount of books with me in any other form. In any case, I’m fine with this version of the e-book, e-reader and all these tree-saving, weight-saving fancy inventions. What I’m not okay with, is the e-books I have to deal with at university right now.

At this exact moment, I’m sitting in the library and I should be working on an essay. Instead, I’m writing this angry tirade on e-books because the anger is too much for me to carry on writing the essay. You might also call this procrastination, but usually, I’m not this angry when attempting to avoid my essay-duties. So why am I angry? I’ll tell you why I’m angry, it’s because of e-books. Here I am, researching terrorism in the Chechnyan wars and I need a short introduction to everything that has happened, before I can really delve into the subject. So, I think to myself, I’ll just look through the library catalogue, I’m sure someone a lot smarter than me has written something useful on this. And I am right: seven entries that are all pretty  much exactly what I need. And, they’re e-books.

What happens next is the reason I’m so frustrated. Firstly, I can only look at them for five minutes before the website kicks me out. No worries I think, I’ll just save the pages and read them afterwards. DENIED! You can only save the pages through excessive use of the print-screen button and paint. Well fuck that, I’ll just copy paste that shit then. DENIED! It’s not actually any text you can copy paste, it’s an image but you can’t right-click save it either. So I’m left to frantically browse for five minutes, find exactly what I need through speed reading, grabbing my pen to write it down, look up at the page to see what it is exactly that I’m writing down on a dead tree that I wasn’t supposed to kill because of the magic that is e-books and… DENIED! Five minutes are over.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

Okay, calm down. They wouldn’t be in the data-base if they weren’t somehow accessible to students, right? Right. I can request to loan the books. I CAN REQUEST TO LOAN E-BOOKS. There goes the advantage of instant availability... grrrreat. Fill in five million forms, wait for a hundred hours until the librarian has time to approve your request and pay the website so that I can access the file for a day, exactly twenty four hours, and then… I’m still fucked. Because I still can’t copy-paste shit, so I have to alt-tab to type out every single thing that I find useful, within this stupid twenty four hour deadline, so that I have to somehow fit all my other activities around the reading of a stupid book. Sure, there are no dead trees, but I’ll gladly take an axe and brutally  murder a tree right now, if that means I can have this book, printed in front of me, so I won’t be stuck in the fucking library for a day and end up murdering my laptop. Type two words, alt-tab back to see what you were typing, two words, alt-tab back, shit, wrong tab, find the proper tab, accidentally close word-document that you were typing in, click no on save, start over, alt-tab to the wrong page again, only 18 hours remaining and you still have to go to dinner with your dad so really it’s only 12 hours remaining, better read faster, alt-tab, two words… DIE, YOU FUCKING SHIT PIECE OF USELESS TECHNOLOGY.

Somehow, somewhere, someone managed to take the concept of e-book and eradicate all the advantages of that concept. Yeah, e-books, a great idea. Let’s just limit the access, and take away instant availability. Let's make sure that people can’t copy paste so it won’t save them any time, in fact, let’s make sure they have to alt-tab between documents constantly so it’ll actually take them even more time. They’ll be so frustrated that they’ll end up taking pen and paper and writing what they read on that paper, then typing it into word later on. Make sure there’s no option for bookmarking either, so they’ll have to get a separate piece of paper (that’ll get lost in the middle of things, so that they’ll have to re-fucking-do their entire bibliography and footnotes at the end of the essay in any case, and request access to a limited time-document yet again because of page numbers) –to write down the fucking page numbers of the fucking information. This is a great idea. Let’s see how long it takes until the peaceful and quiet library becomes an arena of frustrated students that end up slaughtering everyone around them because of these fucking e-books. And film it. It’ll be great.

WELL FUCK YOU.

The French, University and Counter-Enlightenment

Oh dear, the French. A terrible subject, especially so since it seems to me that everyone, ever, anywhere, pretty much dislikes them. Oh sure, it's the language of romance and there's that tower in paris that everyone at some point takes takes a picture of, but the actual people? No thank you! Then again, I am quite biased at the moment. I'm doing a course on Counter Enlightenment and they pretty much hate the French for reasons. I mean, the anti-Christ was not a person, but rather a "nation composed of individuals, who should profess and act up to the impious principles of the atheistic scoffers" - consequently in a "pandemonium of licentious anarchists and determined atheists" the anti-Christ would be found and "we can scarecely hesistate to pronounce him to be revolutionary France." Well take that, France, you're the anti-Christ! And other bad stuff too, with your revolutions and your evil ways!

I'll get back to that in a minute, but first it might help to elaborate a little bit on how Counter Enlightenment fits in the "grand scheme of things I do at university." I'm expecting that, since you are reading this, you probably know who I am, because well, chances are you're either my mom or a really bored friend from university that should be writing an essay (GET BACK TO YOUR ESSAY) - still, I suspect sometimes that even my mom doesn't know what it is exactly that I'm doing, beyond "something with history and genderstudies, I think. In Utrecht! As far as I know anyway..." As a student of Taal- en Cultuurstudies (TCS, translated as Language and Cultural Studies, I suppose) it's a bit difficult to explain what you're up to at any given time anyway, since it differs so much from person to person. I am majoring in Political History and International Relations, with a minor in Gender Studies. However, that still doesn't solve the problem of what I actually do, and how I ended up following a course on Counter Enlightenment. That's the beauty of TCS though. I can pick whatever I like. It's how I ended up taking three courses in English, a course on Art History, an introductory course to Bible History, a course on Cold War History, something with Gender and Globalisation, a historeography of feminist ideas, a course on Dutch Identities, etc. etc. So, Counter Enlightenment, why not? In the grand scheme of things that is my course selection, the only real logical thing is how I pick my courses. "Oh, this seems interesting, why not?" Of course, they warn you beforehand that in the end, your bachelor degree should reflect a variety of courses that form a whole and I haven't yet figured out how to bluff my way through that, but I'll get there. If not, I'll be doing a master in gender studies anyway, and I'm hoping that piece of paper will be more important in future job interviews anyway. In any case, my defense of my choice in subjects might go something like this: "Well, I needed four subjects in the gender department for my minor, which I picked because I thought it was interesting. Then the courses in the history are all on modern history, because I think that's interesting as well. So it's a sort of historical... critical... mix of things... that's quite erhm. Yeah. Look. A bird!" So it needs some work.

In any case, Counter Enlightenment is a brilliant course that I would reccommend to everyone who still needs a level 3 Modern(ish) History course, because of the French. Well, not really the French, because the course is awesome because of the professor, the discussions, the subject material and so forth, but the French aren't the most well-liked group of people throughout the course content. And that's what I started this post with, the French, that is, so I needed to get back to them for this post to make sense. Anyway, I started writing this post to procrastinate on writing an essay (which is pretty much the biggest motivational force that drives me to do anything in my life at all, I think) - I'll conclude this post by things the French are, and some other random amusing bits from the course on Counter Enlightenment.

The French: They produced Napoleon, who, through a lot of creative interpretation of the bible, was seen as the anti-Christ. How awesome is that? People in the nineteenth century went all: "Well that Napoleon could hardly be called an upgrade from all that revolutionary stuff they did earlier, so how do we explain that? He's the anti-Christ. Yeah. Definitely. Cos if you spell his name creatively, and do some fancy math, it totally adds up to 666 which is the number of the beast. THE END OF THE WORLD IS NEIGHT, NAPOLEON IS THE ANTI-CHRIST!"

 Similarly, the French Revolution should be interpreted as the result of a godless and lawless horrible people. First, there was Enlightenment and the philosophes, then, a lot of historians went "but there was no one Enlightenment" and the subject got complicated. But the nineteenth century people didn't really know that yet, so they went all, look at the French, they are evil, EEEEVILLLLLL. Fucking philosophes, with their rational thinking and critical stuff. Just listen to your king. And then Napoleon, well that's no king either. So the end of the world has come, the apocalypse is near. The French Revolution is the end of times. Etc.

Now, that's Counter-Enlightenment. What's brilliant about Counter Enlightenment though (and insert some historians rambling about a construct, complications, and so forth, here - but I'm not aiming for historical accuracy now -) In any case, there's Romanticism and all the feeeeeeelings, there's Conservatism and their weird approach to god and history. There's Mysticism, which, according to yesterday's lecture, is basically like sex. How to get in tune with the universe? The joining of two people and an orgasm of course. Not bad. In any case, it's brilliant, because this course allows me to read articles on Napoleon as the anti-Christ, various ways in which the French people are the most aweful on the world (no really, chivalry is dead because of the French), articles on animal magnetism and feminism, articles with titles such as "Academic Hutchinsonians and their Quest for Relevance" (ouch!) and so forth. This course is awesome and University is the best thing ever. And with that nerdy ending, it's time to start writing that essay.

(The quote about the French being the anti-Christ comes from an article by Michael Pesenson: "Napoleon Bonaparte and Apocalyptic Discourse in Early Nineteenth-Century Russia)

Divine Inspiration; 99% Procrastination

Since I'm currently writing this blog in order to avoid working on reading some romantic texts, there's a logical connection that dictates me to make this post about crappy poetry I once wrote.

Nowhere Girl
I am not anything
which differs from nothing
A social chameleon
picking all the best bits
Fantastic colours reflecting
all the shades in the world
Substitute identities.

Homo Sapiens
Een samensmeling
alle onvolmaaktheden
van twee individuen
een lelijk eendje
maar nooit een zwaan.

Fiction Friday: Autumn Leaves.

Running, keep running, faster now, go faster. One foot, the next always a step ahead. Go, keep going, around the corner now, faster still, can she go faster? Adrenaline coursing through her veins, still faster, still farther, keep going, keep running. Run away little girl, run away from here. Go where? Go when? Go ahead, go faster! One foot, another step, just one more. Impact. Silence. Touch down.


Where is she? Big eyes looking up from the ground into the eyes of a guy, studying him, silence is the answer. He doesn't seem to be angry, considering she just ran into him at full speed. In fact, he's smiling down on her, his eyes joining in with his mouth, little auburn curls dancing in the wind. The wind messing with his hair. It's mesmerising, she cannot look away yet. Autumn leaves on his jacket as he reaches out her hand to help her up. "I'm sorry" - should she say  more or walk away now? She stares at her feet, moves her sneakers on the pavement. Her feet would know the answer, but they seem intent on pushing leaves across the street. Autumn weather, it's so cold -

"... could happen to anyone, what's your name? Are you ok?" - he asks. Her sneaker on the leaf, pushing left, pushing right, keep moving or answer? She looks up, "Elena," "Tom," - shudders, her feet want to keep moving. Regain momentum, keep pushing forward, go faster, keep running, don't ever stand still. "Coffee?" Again the doubts, keep running or stay? Her voice betrays her feet. They'll have to be content with the way to the coffeehouse. 

The Nineteenth Century or How it All Happened Inside my Head

The French: REVOLUTION, YEAH

The French King: *is dead*

The French: Eugh, revolution's a bitch

Napoleon: HI THAR!

The French: WOOO NAPOLEON!

Meanwhile in Europe:

Europe: AUGH AUGH NAPOLEON

England: We're an Island!

Napoleon: Damn you England! CONTINENTAL SYSTEM! PAYBACK TIME!

Russia: PWNED NAPOLEON! PWNED!

The French: Okay another king? Really?

Europe: Ok bye Napoleon! So what do we do next?

The French: It's July bitches! Let's have a revolution again!

Europe: Eugh not again.... WTH French, can't you just mow your lawn in july, like normal people?

1848: HAVE SOME MORE REVOLUTION

Europe: WTH, Revolutions are for the French only... WHY US?!

European people: We want to vote! And also more rights! GIVE US OUR RIGHTS

Europe: Have some reforms... or wait... NO! I KNOW!

Europe: Let's restore things the way they were.

European people: mm... kay.

The French: Wow, all these revolutions suck.

Napoleon 3: HI GUSY! YOU CALLED?

The French: Hmm, Napoleon 3! LETS DO THIS

Italy & Germany: All you guys are unified nations and we're not and it's not fair!

Italy: AUSTRIA I AM GOING TO ATTACK YOU AND NAPOLEON HAS GOT MY BACK

Italy: Ok that failed (wth Napoleon?!) ... LETS BE UNITED ANYWAY

Germany: I WILL ATTACK DENMARK THEN AUSTRIA THEN THE FRENCH!

Denmark, austria: We are defeated :(

The French: We are defeated... Wth Napoleon? REVOLUTION!

The French: We are now a republic, for the third time! Kings suck. Napoleons do too.

Germany: WE CAME SAW AND CONQUERED YOU ALL. PWNED BITCHES! ALSO WE ARE NOW UNIFIED

Europe: LETS CONQUER SOME LANDS IN AFRICA AND ASIA! YEAHHHHHHHH

Russia, Germany, Austria: We're just chillin' together

Germany: I don't want to be chillin' with you Russia! You're not cool enough

Italy, Germany, Austria: We're just chillin' y'all.

Russia: 'sup France? Want to chill?

France: 'k

England: Can I chill with you France? I guess Russia can come too.

Austria: We are falling apart! To solve our internal struggles, let's get some more land!

Bosnia: *is now Austria*

Servia: WTF AUSTRIA?

Russia: They are too powerfull I cannot help!

Franz Ferdinand: *is dead*

Austria: WTF SERVIA THAT WAS LOW

Servia: TAKE THAT BITCHES

Austria: WE ARE NOW AT WAR

Russia: DON'T BULLY SERVIA. WE ARE NOW AT WAR TOO

Germany: WAR? WHERE? OH< RUSSIA, AUSTRIA AND SERVIA?

Germany: WE ARE GOING TO ATTACK THE FRENCH TRHOUGH BELGIUM!

England: THAT IS SO NOT COOL GERMANY. WE ARE NOW AT WAR TOO

And the first world war commences.*

*So yeah, not entirely how it happened....

Science Heroes

I am a little bit nerdy, in the Dutch sense of the word at least. This is demonstrated through the fact that I have science heroes (many of my friends had no idea what I was talking about). Broadly speaking, there are three categories of people that make me insanely happy to be in university. I could call them anything but I like the word heroes, because it signifies the immense amount of inspiration they provide me sometimes.

It's not always easy to stay motivated, especially when university simply becomes too much for me: I may have medication but I would not be in university if it wasn't for a few other adaptations made so I can succeed. It's not that I'm severely disabled, I don't consider myself to be at least, but sometimes having ADHD does have its drawbacks. The first category of people is those who helped me realise that ADHD can be both an impediment but also a strength, something that makes me stand out from the crowd. It can be positive. Although perhaps they aren't necessarily professors (they can be), they're mostly directly related to university. I'm lucky to have met people that recognise my difference and pushed me to turn this into something positive. I had an Austrian housemate for a while, he called me crazy "in the positive sense of the word" - his argument was that brilliant people are always a little bit crazy, and if I managed to walk the line on the relatively sane side of brilliance, I would continue to be awesome. It makes me want to be different and creative.

University is a big part of my life, and my second inspiration comes from professors. People like Eva Midden, Joris van Eijnatten, Laurien Crump stand out to me, because they have challenged me to be creative, to think creatively and to experiment with the subject matter of their courses. Of course, most of my courses in university have been interesting and challenging,  but some just dealt with 'the boring facts' - these people stand out because of the discussions in class and because they treat their students as equals. In university, I think you have to believe that ideas matter, at least as a student of history (or genderstudies). To write an essay then, is not an exercise in pointlessness, but to create something that might matter. Of course, it might not win the Nobel Prize for Peace, but that does not mean it should be treated as meaningless. What set these professors apart for me, is that they encouraged creativity and originality, as well as critical thinking. Their feedback on essays reflected the fact that they took what I (and others) wrote seriously. I think nothing is more motivating to me, than to feel like what I say has value, that it deserves to be read and criticised and discussed, but more importantly, that is a good think to experiment and be creative in what to write and how to say it: Standing out is a positive quality.

Because of all the essay writing (and the great enthusiasm with which I undertake this activity) a third category has formed. These probably are the true science heroes, or at least what inspired me to use this term. There are people out there who write things that break my brain. I get goosebumps from the things they tell me through their books, essays and lectures. One day, I hope to be the next Eric Hobsbawm, because I think his theory on the invention of tradition is amazing. I hope to rival the work of historian Joan Scott, because she showed me how history and critical gender theory could be combined. I can only hope to be as ethical as Peter Singer or as brilliantly creative as Rosi Braidotti. I hope to always think of standpoint theory, of intersectionality, post-modernism, power-relations, constructivism, to always be critical, enquisitive, curious. Constantly, there are people who literally blow my mind, and this is why I love learning, why I love being in university and why I call myself a nerd.

Food Happy: The Best Cake Ever!

This is the recipe to the best cake ever. One day, I was very very bored and I figured I would bake a cake. Not just any cake though, a challenging cake. So I spent 8 hours on the internet trying to find the original, authentic, amazing, best recipe ever, for a schwärzwalder kirsch torte. I could not find a good recipe, so the recipe below is a merge of about eight different recipe's. This cake took twelve hours of my life in total (research and actual baking). Behold it in all it's glory. Plus, the recipe!

(Okay so I'm not the best food photographer in the world but believe me when I say it was totally worth the soul of my first born child.)

Cookie/bottom layer: 

125 grams of flour

10 grams of cocoa

1 teaspoon baking powder

50 grams of sugar

1 packet vanilla sugar (about 1 tablespoon)

75 grams of butter

1 tablespoon (approximately) Kirsch

Mix the flour, cocoa and baking powder in a bowl, then add sugar and butter and knead this until it's all mixed. Spread thinly in the tin that you are going to use for the other layers as well (or you will get size issues) - easiest is to put a sheet of grease paper underneath - in any case, stab it repeatedly with a fork to create lots of holes and put it in a pre-heated oven for 10 to 15 minutes at 200 degrees celcius. 

Remember to check on it very often because it burns really easily. I think the above amounts gave me enough for two cakes, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing because I'm not very good with remembring to check things regularly :P

'Sponge' cake:

4 eggs

100 grams of fine sugar 

100 grams of flour

25 grams of corn starch

10 grams of cacao

1 teaspoon baking powderr

Mix the eggs until they are really light and fluffy (almost a custard-like consistency, this'll take about 8 minutes so be patient!). When the eggs have reached the right consistency, add the sugar one tablespoon at the time, don't add the next one until the previous one is completely absorbed. Sieve the flour, corn starch, cocoa and baking powder together: according to most recipes you have to sieve it approximately four times. I just took their words on it to be honest, I have no idea why but since the recipe turned out amazing, I'm sure there's some magic in sieving it :P Finally, fold in the dry ingredients into the eggs but try to keep this mixture as fluffy as possible. Carefully pour the mix into the baking thin (that you have relieved of its previous cookie layer :P) and bake it for about 20 to 25 minutes at 180 degrees celcius.

The cherries:

About one big jar of cherries (you'll need about 350 grams of cherries and 250ml of their juices, but if you take a big jar (700 grams), that works out perfect.) Drain the cherries but keep the juice because you'll need to boil that down. Easiest way to do this is to mix about 1.5 to 2 tablespoons of corn starch when it's still cold, then boil it until it's become a kind of think syrup-y consistency. Add the cherries to this syrup. You can add the kirsch to this cherry mixture, but it's quite nice to sprinkle it over the sponge instead as well. Or do both if you really like your cake liquor-y :P You can reserve about 10 cherries to decorate the cake with later, or you can use fresh cherries or skip this entirely.

Whipped Cream:

Whip up about 600 to 800 ml cream with 2 packets of vanilla sugar. Apparantly you can add gelatine as well, the whipped cream would keep better then? I don't know, this amounted to failure with me, so I'm not doing that :P

ASSEMBLY!

You'll need all the above ingredients and a bar of very dark chocolate. The assembly is fairly straight forward:

Cut the sponge cake in half, so you now have two layers of cake (ideally speaking anyway).
Start with the cookie layer, spread the cherry mixture on top of this, add a layer of whipped cream, then add the first layer of sponge, sprinkle kirsch on this if you want, then add whipped cream (and cherries if you have any left, though I didn't), then add the second layer of sponge and cover the entire cake in the remaining whipped cream. Shred the dark chocolate over the top and add cherries if you wish. Eat it and enjoy the best cake ever in the universe of things.