“That’s a very complicated question you are asking… what I do in my time off… it’s been a while since I had time off,” Karin van Leeuwen, assistant professor in the History department, writes to me in an email when I invite her for a chat for the Humans of FASoS. “But I’ll do my best to think about something during the interview,” she closes off her email.
And so we met via Zoom on a Tuesday afternoon. She was “finally alone” in her study. She had just had two other Zoom meetings during which her kids interrupted her to ask questions about their homework. “Not that I mind it, because hey, that’s life – but I think they should be preoccupied for a little bit now,” Karin said.
Now I was intrigued to learn what Karin does in her free time. Because everyone does something – even if it’s just watching Netflix and eating potato chips on the couch. Karin claimed that she does nothing spectacular. Now with the corona pandemic ongoing, there are of course no spectacular outings for anyone, but she had always liked simply being outdoors, strolling through the forest with her kids. With all the hectic of everyday life – her work, her husband’s work, two kids – she’s just happy she gets to go for a relaxing walk on Sunday.
And what if it’s not a Sunday, the kids are with their grandparents and the husband is at a soccer game – what does she like to do then? “When I don’t need to finish anything work-related, I do fitness boot camps. I try to do that once or twice a week and I love the feeling it gives me; after 1 hour I’m completely exhausted.” This sounds pretty intense and I wonder how she started this hobby. “When I was pregnant with my first-born, about 7 years ago, I wanted to do something active. I felt good in my body and did not feel like sitting still. That’s when I joined a pregnancy fitness boot camp.” After she gave birth, she joined a regular fitness boot camp group. “The funny thing is that our entire group consists of mothers. Sometimes a woman who does not have any children joins our group for a little while, but since most conversations are about motherhood, these women usually leave our group after a while.”
Karin’s active way of life does not come as a surprise. Her family is very sports-minded; when Karin was a child they took long walks in the dunes and in the past she climbed mountains with her racing bike. She was also always encouraged to go outside. “When I was younger, my parents stimulated me to get my nose out of my books and to go play outside.” She still enjoys to read and lie on the couch to this day but also says that “it feels so much better to do that when I first had a tough work-out”.
