(no subject)
So I did that Summer University thing. I've been back for, what, a week and a half now, but I didn't get around to posting before now. :P
First: Pretending to be someone who does this sort of shit went surprisingly well! I still hate talking to strangers, but having no other option was a pretty good incentive. My English is probably slightly better now as well, and at least I know I can communicate in a way other people understand, despite my accent and habit of talking really fast.
The people there were fun, but a little fonder of clubbing than I am. (It's fine for a few hours, but around two I start wanting to go home.) There were something like 22 participants, and eight of them were from Spain. (The Spanish, incidentally, tended to talk among themselves and move in a massive group. I know all their names and everything, but they're still just The Spanish.) I was by far from the furthest up North. There was one guy who studies in Tallinn, but he's only there for a year and originally from Shanghai. (One guy was from Brazil, studying in Spain for a year. He greeted everyone with a kiss on the cheek EVERY SINGLE DAY.) And there was this Czech bloke who does voice-overs. His little brother is the Czech voice of Draco Malfoy!
What we did: mostly drank in public places and waited for everyone to turn up. Apparently getting twenty vaguely drunk students to turn up in one place at a certain time is kind of hard. Who knew. :P Also some cycling, and I went to the Van Gogh museum, which was amazing. We spent a week in Amsterdam, which is a really nice city, two days camping near some little town in the middle of nowhere, and five days in a town called Enschede near the German border.
The football. Oh jesus christ, the football was everywhere. It was fine, because I quite like the football. Everyone was always dressed in orange on match days, and when the Netherlands won against Brazil there were fire engines going around with their alarms on, just celebrating. Also, apparently the Dutch have a habit of throwing their plastic cups of beer into the air when the team scores if they're watching outside.
Things I have learned about myself: when I'm drunk, I get really chatty and high-energy, and also when I have a crush, it's painfully obvious to everyone. In this case, both of those came in sort of handy, because now I kind of have a boyfriend. Not really, because this long-distance thing is hell and It's Complicated, but I could probably tell his dentist a thing or two and we spent pretty much all of the first week together (he took me to meet his friends!), texted our way through the second week and met up again on the day I was leaving. He took me to the airport and everything. (I cried. It was fantastically clichéd.) He also knows more important things about me than any of my friends do.
He's from Amsterdam and was one of the organisers for that part of the trip. He's two years older than me, has a bachelor's in history and just spent a year studying Slavic languages. He's published an article in an academic journal. (I am way too impressed by that.) He's also cute and funny and incredibly smart and eeeee. *flappy hands*
We've talked for at least six hours a day on, like, irc, and it's been pretty great. But now he's left for a three-and-a-half-week trip to Russia, so I won't get to speak with him again until halfway through August. :( At least I have the Socially Awkward Picnic and a hipstery festival in August to help pass the time. And he promised to send me a postcard, so that's something.
Okay, I'm shutting up about that. Sorry.
In other news, now that I'm not spending six hours a day chatting with my almost-boyfriend, I've managed to actually read some books! Logicomix, which was delightfully nerdy, and The Kilburn Social Club, which I enjoyed, even though it was about football. The world cup probably helped. I might write more later, what with all this sudden free time.
First: Pretending to be someone who does this sort of shit went surprisingly well! I still hate talking to strangers, but having no other option was a pretty good incentive. My English is probably slightly better now as well, and at least I know I can communicate in a way other people understand, despite my accent and habit of talking really fast.
The people there were fun, but a little fonder of clubbing than I am. (It's fine for a few hours, but around two I start wanting to go home.) There were something like 22 participants, and eight of them were from Spain. (The Spanish, incidentally, tended to talk among themselves and move in a massive group. I know all their names and everything, but they're still just The Spanish.) I was by far from the furthest up North. There was one guy who studies in Tallinn, but he's only there for a year and originally from Shanghai. (One guy was from Brazil, studying in Spain for a year. He greeted everyone with a kiss on the cheek EVERY SINGLE DAY.) And there was this Czech bloke who does voice-overs. His little brother is the Czech voice of Draco Malfoy!
What we did: mostly drank in public places and waited for everyone to turn up. Apparently getting twenty vaguely drunk students to turn up in one place at a certain time is kind of hard. Who knew. :P Also some cycling, and I went to the Van Gogh museum, which was amazing. We spent a week in Amsterdam, which is a really nice city, two days camping near some little town in the middle of nowhere, and five days in a town called Enschede near the German border.
The football. Oh jesus christ, the football was everywhere. It was fine, because I quite like the football. Everyone was always dressed in orange on match days, and when the Netherlands won against Brazil there were fire engines going around with their alarms on, just celebrating. Also, apparently the Dutch have a habit of throwing their plastic cups of beer into the air when the team scores if they're watching outside.
Things I have learned about myself: when I'm drunk, I get really chatty and high-energy, and also when I have a crush, it's painfully obvious to everyone. In this case, both of those came in sort of handy, because now I kind of have a boyfriend. Not really, because this long-distance thing is hell and It's Complicated, but I could probably tell his dentist a thing or two and we spent pretty much all of the first week together (he took me to meet his friends!), texted our way through the second week and met up again on the day I was leaving. He took me to the airport and everything. (I cried. It was fantastically clichéd.) He also knows more important things about me than any of my friends do.
He's from Amsterdam and was one of the organisers for that part of the trip. He's two years older than me, has a bachelor's in history and just spent a year studying Slavic languages. He's published an article in an academic journal. (I am way too impressed by that.) He's also cute and funny and incredibly smart and eeeee. *flappy hands*
We've talked for at least six hours a day on, like, irc, and it's been pretty great. But now he's left for a three-and-a-half-week trip to Russia, so I won't get to speak with him again until halfway through August. :( At least I have the Socially Awkward Picnic and a hipstery festival in August to help pass the time. And he promised to send me a postcard, so that's something.
Okay, I'm shutting up about that. Sorry.
In other news, now that I'm not spending six hours a day chatting with my almost-boyfriend, I've managed to actually read some books! Logicomix, which was delightfully nerdy, and The Kilburn Social Club, which I enjoyed, even though it was about football. The world cup probably helped. I might write more later, what with all this sudden free time.