Everything you think during your first TV appearance

Whatever happens: don't black out. Don't black out. Don't black out. Just keep talking anyway, Kiek, it doesn't matter about what. And try not to touch your hair or nose too much. Try to keep those corners of your mouth up. Up, I mean. Hi, hey, cuckoo, a little peek into my brain yesterday afternoon, because that's really how it went.

If you followed me on Instagram, you could hardly miss it: I was sitting on my butt on an improvised bamboo chair at the show 5 Uur Live, to chat about Expeditie Robinson, yes. Now I could pretend that this is my natural habitat (at least, Robinson's), but live TV? I’m a rookie over there. Sure, I've been on Editie NL or Shownieuws once, but live in a studio is a different ball game. This shit is real. Here you get a sweaty nose from the studio lights. Here, thirty people are (correction: running, walking is so 2018 in TV land) running back and forth, messing with light, sound, image, and stray hair strands.

There's hardly time to get nervous, because the impressions are flying at me and everything is fast, but half an hour before ‘we’ go live, I do feel a somewhat nervous flutter in my stomach. Yes, at moments like this, talking to yourself in the bathroom during a nervous pee is the best solution. Kiek. You can do this. Breathe in, breathe out. Actually, all the conversations you have in daily life are also live, and if you slip up once, you don't go into stress mode. Luckily, that's what editors Hester and Rik are for, along with preparation and moral support, and presenter/stylish professional Daphne Bunskoek gives me a few encouraging squeezes on my shoulder. Studio chief and Robinson candidate Hugo Kennis looks my way a few times with his playful eyes, and from that moment on, the nerves slowly slide off me.

I step into the studio, am guided to my chair, and look straight into the girllll-we-got-everything-under-control eyes of my pony friend Daphne. The commercial break is over, the cameras are turning our way, and I hear 3…. 2…. 1…. .

Here I go.

It's pump or drown now.

It's going well.

I'm pumping.

I'm pumping like crazy.

HAHAHA.

Sorry.

Nervous laugh.

Anyway, long story short: here speaks a Raging Robinson Reporter who has jumped out of her comfort zone and it felt great. Strangely enough, it also felt like coming home. If you feel like seeing which Robinsoners take home awards for fashion misses, fights, and quotes of the week on Monday afternoons from now on: RTL 4 it is, at 5:00 PM. Trust me: this is going to be fun.

P.S.: Here on my Insta Stories a detailed report of this adventure.