date: 1097251579
mood: pensive
listening to:swish – better believe (its a 40 minute file i have, with all the good songs)
wow, entry.
alright. so it is 6:26am, and you’re about to feel very miserable for me. i’m awake cause i have the flu (i believe), and the cough has been waking me up, so i made some of the strong canadian lemon medicinal tea.
i haven’t written a proper entry in days, so while i’m gulping the tea, i grabbed my laptop to attempt to form osmething coherent. considering the state i’m in, forgive me if its not as coherent as my other entries. :)
alright, so fun stuffs! last week has been awesome, if only for the fact that nothing changed. life is still amazing and crazy. i feel like the floor has grown even closer, and even more like a family we are finding out eachothers likes, dislikes, annoyances and such.
we now have a sign in the kitchen that says”isn’t it NICE to cook in a CLEAN kitchen”. mirjam spent her time to clean off the kitchen stove from all the junk/stains that formed on it over the previous week(s). judging by the results right now, the sign is working – even though people dont REALLY care (based on what i am overhearing).
in the similar vein of things, we now answer the phone with “fifth floor, hello”, cause we’re getting SO many calls. really popular place, seriously.
a few days ago it was full moon and we were in the dining room, watching tv, eating, you know, the usual things that people do around here at 12 (i.e. not being asleep). as simon pointed out it is full moon, the tower clock starts chiming 12, and chris just went “awoooo” and started very well mimicking being a werewolf. i mean, my description doesn’t do it justice – really, it should have been filmed! – but he was jumping around the balcony clawing at hte window and then ran into the living room and with the very image of werewolfness lifted up a chair and went “arrrrrgh”. we were dying from laughter!
when i went shopping a few days ago, i went in the car (well with thomas, HE went with the car, i came along), and when we got to the shopping centre he took a cart, so i ended up buying a LOAD of supplies – about twice more than usual, causae usually i carry everything by hand. but the best part of that shopping trip was going into a house and home type of place, and getting a BASKET, which is not nearly as cool as the ones i have at home, but is saving my butt with storing all my wires, harddrives, cd drives, usb boxes, and such. i also got candles (4 in a box, and one big black one), an umbrella (funny, i didn’t get one until now, but i have NO umbrella!), and a BOWL. it is light blue, made of glass, and makes me happy. the previous one got cracked cause it was made out of plastic and its highly tasteful acid green color made sure everyone used it. the screwy thing is that i have this awesome cereal i bought in the same trip (quauker apple musli – it was on sale! i now look at this stuff! do you?), and i have milk BUT my throat hurts so i’m not should be eating cereal with milk. arrgh.
another weird dutch thing: i can’t find my favourite antipersperant here – secret. in toronto we have like a cubic metre of the stuff on the shelves. here? not a SINGLE one! it kinda sucks, i mean, i’m not that brand loyal, but i’ve been using it for 9 years with maybe two interruptions by force and not choice! weird.
generally, i’m getting used to shopping here. while pretty much everything is different, i am figuring out what goes (pretty much everything, as i’m not spending more than 1 euro/trip on things like cookies, and i never had more than 1 trip in 5 days), and what goes better. unfortunately, the cheaper and easier food, PASTA, is also unhealthy, and i’m feeling like i’m not really living a very healthy life style. i would prefer buying more meat and vegetables, but its kinda expensive. not that that stops me, but you know, its still a limiter!
paste from a saved file:
“okay, this is so shocking.
i’m typing my philosophy paper on my laptop, thomas sees me typing, and we exchange a few words about how fast we type. i say that why doesn’t he type just as fast.
so… yeah.
apparently in his faculty ALL papers are handed in written by HAND.
this is due to the fact that the education is free in france, and therefore it is not possible to assume that everyone will have a computer.
he said he doesn’t have a computer just for him at home. *shakes head* that’s i guess can be considered normal, not EVERYONE has that, but seriously.
he had NEVER handed in a paper that is typed.
i cannot get over that. like, at all. i guess it is the difference between continents and cultures… at least their higher education is free! ”
okay, i hope the quoted paragraph shocked you as much as it did me. they hand in PAPERS BY HAND. at least here its normal – my philosophy paper was to be handed in digitally:
“so… i’m in thomas’ car, we drove up to my school so that i can quickly check my email and HAND IN MY FIRST PAPER. first as in my first philosophy paper, and first as in my first paper here and first as in first assignment handed in here.”
except i never finished typing that entry either: after coming home, we packed and went to paris!
alas, i finished my tea and feel drowsy (as promised by the warning). it is 6:55 (AM, argh), and i will go back to sleep. needless to say, no classes yseterday or today – no chinese, no philosophy, no french. to my utter amazement, that doesn’t make me happy (the way it would in toronto – or maybe its hindsight which is blind and i’m like that in toronto).
stupid discovery advertising internet. and a thingie for making dips (www.telsell.com) and milkshakes (gosh, i haven’t had those in a month), and avocado (i want my special sandwich with the shrimp).
okay. i’ll continue writing this .. today, when i wake up. hopefully, long time from now.
yeah, okay. so i’m a liar. i didn’t finish the entry when i woke up… problem is, that i don’t have wacky stories to write anymore. we have this nice, abnormal routine for the past 2 weeks, as i had no classes (with the exception of chinese and french) last week, and this week i missed all my classes up until my philosophy on FRIDAY (just finished), because i felt sick. the worst thing is that after getting to this class i feel sick again.
ah, yeah, so the routine.
wake up around … 12? 2? somewhere there. stumble to living room. see people hangning out. make breakfast (if i didn’t feel sick), eggs/cereal/oatmeal/sandwich, eat it. do one of the following:
- clean room
- watch tv
- play sims (guilty pleasures)
- study one of the courses
- go shopping for food
- talk to people
- try to fix jerome’s computer
- help people with their homework
- whine to people about my own homework
then, leave to class (if monday/tuesday), or eat dinner. hte nice thing lately is that more often than not someone else cooks for me – of course i return the favour, but it is very nice nevertheless.
back in the vein of lack of computer literacy and generally technology.
dutch have this most screwed up system, called chipknip.
first english google result will give you a page from maastricht university (unimaas), which makes sense, cause they use the stupid system everywhere, and as lately it is highly relevant to my life, i must rant to you about it ;) (and you get another insight into the dutch system). basically, since i dont have a dutch bank account, i must buy a card from the university which costs 30 euros, and i get 10 euros back when i return the card, and i get 20 euros on it. using a machine, i must transfer money from that card onto my UCM card.
after transferring money to the machine, i am able to print, get tea/coffee/snacks from the machines here, make phonecalls, basically, have a productive healthy life as a dutch student.
however, the machines which you use to pay for hte products, are all in dutch, despite the university being english based, and they have very sensitive, precise, and picky regarding when you take the card out. so if you take it in the wrong millisecond you lose all the money on the card.
point being i almost lost all my money twice, and today i wasn’t that lucky, so i lost 4 euros. (6 were spent on printing). apparently everyone goes through that, including dutch students (a girl i’ve spoken to said she lost 5 euros twice). so i will transfer very little amts of money onto my ucm card, use that and use the rechargable chipknip to only transfer money to ucm, in order to avoid losing all my money, again.
anyway. that’s my rant. its annoying.
not end of story though.
so, wednesday night, thomas asked me for help with computers. granted, i still felt sick, but basically what he proposed is that he drives me to the library, i help him print out his law case he needs to study, and my benefit is that i get to email everyone letting them know i’m alright, check my email, and not have to walk/bike as he’d drive me.
so, we came to the library. it was really funny seeing how he got mad at the machine (computer), i snatch the mouse, click 3 times (well, not randomly), and then go to pick up the print out. (or something like that… heh, there is of course hte chipknip, which ate my money, but then returned it). i dont know, i feel like a computer genius. but then again, i looked at his law paper, and man, i will never get that. even with his imperfect english his law writing is just amazing.
the differences between all the people on our floor are starting to come through, in an interesting way. most people came out of their shells, and we have formed a joking stereotype about pretty much everyone. the funniest and easiest going is chris. we call him papppaaa (with italian accent), and he generally always jokes with everyone, and is very easy going (pretending to get mad very often of course, but it is still nice because he is equally cool with making fun of other people and people making fun of him).
aphrodita is the most studious one. her and mirjam always go to sleep earliest, and are the ones who are annoyed by jerome, sandra, + co playing soccer/flying dish in the hallways.
me and simon do the dishes most often.
david is the scottish guy with the whiskey and potatoes.
aphrodita has the nice shoes.
sandra has the spanish friends who all come to the floor and cook cool foods (for themselves but still)
jerome makes omelets (which i dont really like cause he burns them on purpose!)
francesca cooks pasta and doesn’t eat wheat but still makes awesome sauces
chris mooches food off other people but is a great cook himself
thomas gotten the reputation of making me dinner (cause for past 2 days he was seen preparing food for both of us while i was correcting his law paper, mwahahahaha, he was made fun of ;) )
in canada when we want to show that someone is a doormat, we make this whip sound. here they make the “good doggy” and pet the head gesture.
anyway.
i think its enough goodness for you. i’ll write abt people more.
now the fun stuff:
photos
amsterdam snapshots
paris art photographs
photos of my changed room and new shoes
group photo, 1
group photo, 2
Le fin. The end.
vs 
