Author: Yesim Semchenko

A few weeks ago, I wandered into a small bookshop in Amsterdam and I came across this book (see above). I’m working on improving my Dutch, especially in psychological sciences, and this author is a clinical neuropsychologist. It felt like the perfect combination for me, so I decided to give it a try. As expected,…

Recently, I attended a writing workshop (in Dutch!) and the given theme was ‘celebrations’. At first, I thought I had nothing to write about – I had not really taken part in any celebrations for quite some time. But then it struck me: maybe that was exactly what I should write about. I began thinking…

Fair warning – this blog contains many spoilers! Keep going if you have already watched or if you do not intend to watch the following movies: One of the things I love about the Netherlands is that you can get a cinema membership that lets you watch ** as many movies as you want ** …

I recently read a book, titled The Shadow play/ Het schaduwspel, written by Simone van der Vlugt. It is about the marriage between Jan Pieterszoon Coen (1587-1629) and Eva Ment (1606-1652). Jan Coen was a governor at the Dutch East India Company and he established a monopoly for the nutmeg trade through quite violent means….

In an humble attempt to nurture my storytelling skills and meeting like-minded people, I attended my first in-person writers’ meetup. The event began at 20:15, held at an easily accessible venue. My initial reaction was: why so late? That was quickly followed by an anxious thought: would I even stay awake, given that I am…

There is a coffee corner open only at night in Seattle. And it rains every night. One can order a variety of coffee, tea, and more. Chat with the barista. Chat with other customers. Or listen to their conversations.  That is the cozy environment that this game puts you in. The sound of the rain…

There is a ‘Booktok’ table in the library that I most frequently visit. (As a clueless millennial!) I believe that it refers to the books that are popular on Tiktok. There, I saw a book titled Six Crimson Cranes, and I wanted to give it a shot. There is magic, dragons, and traditions in the…

Reading was a way of transporting myself to different worlds as a child. From the outside, you would think that – I was walking from one room to another with a book in my hand. When in fact I was travelling from my house to another land, experiencing another season, and another life.  I could…

After playing the game Eliza, I came across a study from this year. They found strikingly interesting results (particularly the first one), quoting from their abstract: ‘In a large sample (N = 830), we showed that a) participants could rarely tell the difference between responses written by ChatGPT and responses written by a therapist, b)…

Ever thought about what therapy with an AI might actually feel like? In 2025, it’s not that wild an idea, but when the game Eliza dropped back in 2019, it probably was pretty futuristic. Here’s the twist: instead of chatting to a computer screen, you sit across from a real person, a proxy, who reads…