Time for a nap
Got grilled today at 9:00am by a panel of professors to determine if I am capable of doing the more advanced research MA. This whole experience was made much more unpleasant by the fact that I had to wake up at 6:30 to get there on time, and by the fact that one of the professors was only there to ask "nasty questions", as he put it. Like when I said that I enjoyed the research process because of the interesting new questions that always arise, he nodded knowingly and said, "So you have trouble focusing on one topic, then." I responded that I certainly did not, and that all research generates new ideas and questions-- that's the whole point. I think I managed to keep my cool, but I found it irritating that they immediately tried to put me on the defensive. Oh well.
Afterwards, I attempted to go pick up my student card, and was shunted from one department to another to another. I eventually got it, after first royally confusing the poor girl at the Plexus Helpdesk by telling her, "I need to pick up a bewijs dat ik here registered ben as a student." My poor head has just been spinning lately-- I speak mostly Dutch when I am out and about, mostly English with my fellow students, and a bit of Spanish here and there when Isabel, the girl from Spain who is in my group, gets fed up with English. My dumb brain seems to have an extreme amount of difficulty keeping everything straight, and it's driving me crazy. I pick up on new languages very quickly, if I do say so myself, but I have trouble keeping them from "bleeding" into one another. Everyone keeps telling me that it will get better with time-- I certainly hope so!
After getting my student card, I wandered around town for a while with Marie, the other girl in my group. Apart from the fact that we're both from the US, we have a ton of things in common, and wound up blabbing for several hours over pancakes in a pannenkoekenhuis. :) I tried pancakes with bacon and cheese inside, which was a really tasty combo, if not particularly healthy!
And now I'm back home in Schagen, wrapped up in Fuzzyblueblankie against the cold and waiting for it to stop raining so that I can go buy groceries. Damn Dutch weather!
Afterwards, I attempted to go pick up my student card, and was shunted from one department to another to another. I eventually got it, after first royally confusing the poor girl at the Plexus Helpdesk by telling her, "I need to pick up a bewijs dat ik here registered ben as a student." My poor head has just been spinning lately-- I speak mostly Dutch when I am out and about, mostly English with my fellow students, and a bit of Spanish here and there when Isabel, the girl from Spain who is in my group, gets fed up with English. My dumb brain seems to have an extreme amount of difficulty keeping everything straight, and it's driving me crazy. I pick up on new languages very quickly, if I do say so myself, but I have trouble keeping them from "bleeding" into one another. Everyone keeps telling me that it will get better with time-- I certainly hope so!
After getting my student card, I wandered around town for a while with Marie, the other girl in my group. Apart from the fact that we're both from the US, we have a ton of things in common, and wound up blabbing for several hours over pancakes in a pannenkoekenhuis. :) I tried pancakes with bacon and cheese inside, which was a really tasty combo, if not particularly healthy!
And now I'm back home in Schagen, wrapped up in Fuzzyblueblankie against the cold and waiting for it to stop raining so that I can go buy groceries. Damn Dutch weather!