Current Music: Acda en de Munnik – “Slaap zacht, Elisabeth”

Excitement of the day: I have registered and I AM NOW AN OFFICIAL UTRECHT RESIDENT!!! WOOHOO!!!

We had to wait in line for literally over three hours, but at least we got it done. And I met a bunch of people in line, including two really nice girls from America who were standing next to me (one from Wyoming whom I like a lot, and then one from Virginia). We all exchanged numbers and we’re planning to go out sometime, to Tivoli (club) or something. And then there were these African guys behind us, and then the Belgians from my building and oh, just everyone. So the wait wasn’t as boring as it could have been. And once we got to the table, I finally met B, the coordinator I’d been corresponding with before I got here. We always wrote in Dutch because she was impressed that I could speak it, and I wanted to practice, so then today when I handed her my passport to take my name down, she did exactly what Hannie did - immediately looked up and said, “Oh, jij bent Jess!” and was really happy to see me.

Sigh. We’ve been given our first Engelse Taalkunde assignment – actually, we had it on the first day – and it’s a 3-4 page paper analyzing the pronunciation of a young child 2-3 years old… the son of this famous linguist. Well, I had already started to work on it, but then our professor (the Dutch one) asked us in class Tuesday, “About the Amahl assignment… everybody look at the way he says ‘parsley’. Where does the ‘r’ go?” Everyone started yelling out answers like “It’s assimilated into the ‘a’ sound,” and stuff, but then he held up his hand for quiet and said, “The answer is – it was never there.” Know why? Because this linguist guy is British! So now I have to rethink everything I’ve already written and make sure it works for British English as well as American. Sigh. It’s not that much of a problem, but it struck me as funny. I was so happy to have something in English to do, and now it turns out that even my English isn’t perfect for what we’re doing. LOL!

J, the Swedish girl from upstairs, told me yesterday about this really nice swimming pool that’s apparently just over the bridge – meaning, like, less than 5 minutes by bike. I just ate a broodje Mario and ice cream with E, the American from Wyoming, but after that’s ‘settled’ then I plan to head over there. Poor S, stuck in class… I have nothing nothing nothing on Thursdays. (Maar vrijdag wel… en dan is S vrij… dat wou ik liever, denk ik… a three-day weekend.)

E-mail and Net still broken, and Yvon has no idea when they’ll be fixed. I am absolutely disgusted. Do I really need to say anything else about that? It’s now been almost 2 weeks… I think it might be time to kick up a stink about lowered rent. Well, we’ll see.