What these twentysomethings wrote to themselves ten years ago is written in their time capsules from that time. They can open now

Martha ThibeaultSculpture Ivo van der Bent

Stuffed animals, Pokémon cards, erasers, jewelry, football tickets, a tuft of hair, a Donald Duck. Ten years ago fourteen hundred filled Coreviewers a box with ‘ordinary things’, utensils from their lives. These time documents were stored in the Sound and Vision depot in Hilversum and now, as the popular educational TV program promised at the time, the boxes are opening. We did that with six time capsule builders who sent notes to their older selves ten years ago. With them we look back and forward in time. What has changed, what is the same, what were their expectations?

Martha Thibeault (21) from Leiden
Third year law student at Leiden University

‘I made my time capsule in group 6. I lived in Hilversum with an older brother, a younger brother, my mother and stepfather. This stuffed animal is a present from my babysitter, I believe. And it says here that I stole this toothpaste from my nemesis, which must be my big brother. We fought a lot then. This is the note to myself, and look, this was mine signature smiley, with a tongue sticking out of his mouth, I drew it everywhere. I wrote to myself: ‘Hello Martha, if you see this you are 21 and at the moment I am 11 and I hope for you that you have graduated gymnasium / vwo. If not then you can slap yourself.’

“Well, my handwriting hasn’t gotten any clearer in ten years. But I did vwo. Yes, that was really important to me. I was already very driven to do well then, and I still am. My mother studied long and hard, I was good at school myself, I somehow always valued how smart I am. I derived my identity from that, actually still do. I partied a lot during my first two years of law school in Leiden, but now I’m on track, and I’m getting A’s again on my exams. The study suits me very much, although as an 11-year-old I thought I would probably have a lot of money by now, but my net worth is minus 25K at the moment; that’s my student debt.

In another ten years I hope to have completed two masters. I want to specialize in private law, and then specialize again, but I don’t know what yet. I hope that by then I have traveled a lot and met other cultures. And I hope that then I can take care of my parents as they took care of me. We sometimes go out to dinner and they joke, “Martha, will you pay?” One day I hope to be able to say ‘yes’.’

Yara Passchier (19) from Utrecht
First year student of Applied Data Science in Artificial Intelligence at The Hague University of Applied Sciences

Yara Passchier Figurine Ivo van der Bent

Yara PasschierSculpture Ivo van der Bent

‘Is this my old glasses? He’s so small! I completely forgot I had this one. I think it was my first pair of glasses, which I got when I was about 5 years old. Oh, here I wrote down what would be in the future: a flying bus that can hold 101 people, a flying bicycle and a walking suitcase that always goes with you. Well, flying cars do exist, right? But I should have said ‘self-driving cars’ better. And this I wrote to myself:

‘Hi future Yara! You must be 19 years old! Do you still like the same things? For example: blue and favorite food: fries and pizza. Do you still write your name the same? Write something back. (Ps. Are you still as nice as you are now??)

‘Now I love the whole rainbow: all colors are nice. And my favorite food is artichoke. This is due to the structure and taste. Picking those leaves is like that too satisfying. And it’s one of the few things I can cook myself. Am I nice? I like to think so, I do try that: if someone drops something, I pick it up, but I don’t dare to say that about myself. I do have more friends than I expected. I’m very introverted, but my friends pull me out of that. I have more than a dozen friends, I’ve known them from high school, and from the college where I’m studying now.

‘I know I wanted to help people since I was a kid, but then I thought I was going to be an inventor, or a dragon tamer. Those were childhood dreams. Ten years ago I was much more naive, I had no worries and I skipped through life. Well, according to my parents I’m still naive, but I’m more worried, about the environment for example. We recycle, I try not to buy too much clothes and I am a flexitarian, I eat as little meat as possible. And with the study that I am doing, I will soon be able to really help people. I would like to continue with it at university, because AI can be used in so many fields, with simulations for pilots, or operations that human hands cannot do. Maybe I’ll do that world-improving invention one day after all.’

Nora Chagri (24) from Beuningen

Is graduating in Sports Science at the Hogeschool in Nijmegen

Nora Chagri Figurine Ivo van der Bent

Nora ChagriSculpture Ivo van der Bent

‘This is the magazine How do I survive, based on the books by Francine Oomen that are also called that. I had a subscription to that. And look, mom also put a card in my time capsule, I didn’t know that at all. “Hope you’ve become as nice a young woman as you were when you were almost 15.” How sweet. Such a surprise is really typical of my mother. I wrote this to myself:

‘Hi Future Me! How are you? And what about there in the future? Definitely different than now. I wonder what I’ll look like then! Am I as beautiful as I am now? haha :)’

‘What should I write back? That I look just as beautiful, of course. I like the future. I am proud of who and what I have become. I’m doing a nice study, I’m almost done with it, I have nice friends around me and I have a nice life. I’m proud of my perseverance, this is the second study I’m doing, I’ve already done Nursing, I’m proud of that. When I was 14 I thought that at 24 I would be really old and grown up, with a job and a house to live in together. But I’m glad I’m still studying, actually. In ten years I hope that I will be living with a partner. I’ll be almost 35 by then. And I hope I’ll have at least two kids by then.’

Dries Chagri (20) from Beuningen

Is training to become a veterinary assistant in Nijmegen

Dries Chagri Figurine Ivo van der Bent

Dries ChagriSculpture Ivo van der Bent

‘Hello future me. I think you did some nice things. Grab your photo now! Then you can see how you used to look.’

‘In this photo of myself as a 10-year-old, I see a very happy little boy, who clearly doesn’t know what’s to come. I think I had a different view of the future then, because I had no idea that I would come out at 15. Although I did realize that I was gay, because I was already in love with boys in group 1. But I thought for a long time that it would go away or blow over. But that didn’t happen and I didn’t dare tell my parents. I have a Moroccan father, which made it difficult. In the end, my sisters told our parents. I supposedly went to sleep and then they said: ‘Dries likes boys, because he finds it difficult, he is not there now.’ My mother had seen it coming, but my father had a hard time with it, he ignored me for a while, but now everything is going well.

‘I have a friend, and he’s very welcome in our house. I think it’s great that dad was able to accept it, because I’m kind of the opposite child. Of course he hadn’t expected that: another son-in-law or a son who doesn’t want to become a doctor but wants something with make-up. Now that is just a hobby, with going out and parties. But in ten years I hope to be a make-up artist. I see myself in a nice big house, with my friend and lots of cats.’

Lisa Tsibidakis (20) from Baarn

Is in the fourth year of Creative Business at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences

Lisa Tsibidakis Sculpture Ivo van der Bent

Lisa TsibidakisSculpture Ivo van der Bent

“I vaguely remember spending an entire afternoon tinkering with this box ten years ago. Look, I’ve plasticized all the celebrities that I wasn’t a fan of at all. And all those robot references, apparently that was my idea of ​​the future. I wrote this to myself:

‘It’s me, Lisa, you, but 10 years old. I hope you can read this letter, otherwise your robot will do it. Surely a lot has changed in your/my life. You may have a boyfriend, may have already moved out.’

‘A boyfriend? No. Out of the house? No. My signature is still the same. And I also write about my diary, I see, I wanted to be a writer then. When I was 18 I self-published a collection of poems at Boekscout with the title Moving to the sunso I think that’s pretty cool about myself, that I just did what I wanted to do.

“I have really changed in those ten years. I am more myself: I wear the clothes I want, I have shorter hair, different make-up. I think people would call me alternative, but I just think it’s my own style. I am now also much more concerned with the world around me, with climate, politics, gender. I want to use my privilege as a white person to talk about these things, even if I don’t experience them myself. I go to climate protests, I don’t want a driver’s license, I want to do everything by public transport. I can’t say I’m a vegetarian, but I do eat very little meat. In another ten years I think I will really be out of the house. I hope I live in a European metropolis: Amsterdam, Berlin or London. I hope then I feel like I’m in a good place, and I want to get up every day and want to live.’

Thomas Binnema (20) from Hilversum

Did two years of vocational education in Architecture and is now at vocational havo to be able to accelerate to higher vocational education afterwards

Thomas Binnema Image Ivo van der Bent

Thomas BinnemaSculpture Ivo van der Bent

‘On my note to myself it says: ‘I hope my epilepsy is cured’, nothing else. That was my great hope, that in ten years my epilepsy would be gone. I first got it when I was 1.5. It may sound scary, but my epilepsy was caused by dead brain tissue in the hippocampus, an important part of your brain. Those attacks are actually a kind of short circuit. To me at those moments it feels like I’m asleep, but you see a weird reaction, that I pass out, or drool or shout or scream. That was tough for my parents. For a while I had it very often, sometimes three times a day, it has also been gone for a year, thanks to medication. It limits your life, you can’t get a driver’s license for example.

“I had surgery eighteen months ago. They removed the dead brain tissue, which was very exciting, the risks are great. But it went very well. I had no more seizures for a year and a half, then the epilepsy came back briefly, but much less badly. In six months they will operate on me again, to remove the last piece of tissue. Since the surgery, my brain has improved so much. Everything is better: my spatial awareness, my language, my knowledge. My IQ was low and is now 134, which is above average. And my behavior has also changed. People used to think I was autistic. According to a friend of mine, I suddenly send him very different types of messages, I understand things better, I understand humor and I can make connections. My whole life has changed, I’m going to get my driver’s license and I have big dreams. In ten years’ time I want a nice big house, a nice girlfriend, nice trips. I hope for a larger network with many new friends. It seems very cool to have my own company. And I hope the cryptos I’m in are doing well.”

Klokhuis broadcast about time capsules, Tuesday 31 January 18.45 NPO 3.

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