Current Music: once again, the typing of everyone in the computerzaal
Hello again from the Boswell computer room. I might possibly, dare I say it, get my computer back sometime within the next week. Possibly. We zullen wel zien. But anyway, today was a good day. I thought it was going to be terrible because I had one of those slap-the-alarm-and-fall-back-asleep mornings and I woke up literally 10 minutes before I had to leave the house, but it turned out to be a really good day because of linguistics. (I'm going to brag for a second now, sorry, only because I'm so relieved!) Remember that linguistics paper that I was stressing out over? Well, I turned it in on the due date, and as I did, I noticed that everybody else had done it a completely different way than I. We had to analyze the pronunciation of 10 words by this kid Amahl, looking at what modifications he made and why, etc. Anyway, so I did it the only way I knew how - the way any IBer would have done it - writing an essay, mentioning trends that I noticed between the pronunciations, which sounds he seemed to change most often, how old he was when he started to improve, etc. I didn't even use all of the data, but I used enough to make my point. I remember thinking, This really isn't my best work, but I was so frustrated with the computer thing that I just printed it out and went to turn it in... but then I looked at the pile and absolutely everyone else had taken a completely different approach. They had labeled the sections of their papers with the words they were analyzing and then written a paragraph or two on each analysis. I freaked out, thinking this was some Dutch thing that I didn't know about, that this was the 'right' way and mine was all wrong, etc. I mean, every single one was that way! But it was way too late to do anything about it, so I just slapped the paper on the pile with a sigh...
Anyway, we got them back today with a mark out of 25, and he said he generally marked them in increments of 5, but that only five or six people had gotten lower than 15. I was squirming, certain I was one of those. And then when he finally (at the end of class... why do they always do that?!) let us go through the piles of papers, it took me forever to find mine, and I had that sinking feeling in my stomach... But once I did find it, my jaw absolutely hit my knees. 25/25, the only perfect score I saw in the whole stack! He loved my analysis and wrote positive comments on every page, and at the end he praised me for doing a "very good paper" with the "difficult variant" of writing about the trends instead of each individual word. Never mind that I never even considered that there was another way to do it... he just made my day! :) Go Jess, go Jess...
Other good things... I couldn't get that Acda en de Munnik song "De kapitein deel II" out of my head, so I bought the CD yesterday. It's a live CD, so the version isn't as good (volgens mij anyway) but I still had it on repeat all the way to class today. :) And, I finally "made contact", zeg maar, with someone in my linguistics class... we just got a new assignment which is rather like a psychological experiment, looks extremely cool... but anyway, we have to do it in groups (any native Dutch speaker reading this who wants to be a test subject, you're welcome to... all you have to do is read some sentences out loud), and so I came across this really nice girl, M, at the back of the room who, as it turns out, lived in America for a while when she was younger and so speaks perfect American English. Anyway, so we're going to work together. Yay, making friends. :) And one of the girls from my Boswell class also invited me out "to do something sometime", one of those open invitations, you know, but still nice... nice to feel like I fit in.
OK, it's 17.00 and I'm starving. Time to go home and eat! And it's the WEEKEND... yay! (P.S. maar maandag heb ik een 'spreekbeurt' waarin ik 5 minuten alleen maar Nederlands moet spreken, voor de hele klas... weet iemand misschien hoe je "CPR" in het Nederlands zegt???)
Tot later!
Hello again from the Boswell computer room. I might possibly, dare I say it, get my computer back sometime within the next week. Possibly. We zullen wel zien. But anyway, today was a good day. I thought it was going to be terrible because I had one of those slap-the-alarm-and-fall-back-asleep mornings and I woke up literally 10 minutes before I had to leave the house, but it turned out to be a really good day because of linguistics. (I'm going to brag for a second now, sorry, only because I'm so relieved!) Remember that linguistics paper that I was stressing out over? Well, I turned it in on the due date, and as I did, I noticed that everybody else had done it a completely different way than I. We had to analyze the pronunciation of 10 words by this kid Amahl, looking at what modifications he made and why, etc. Anyway, so I did it the only way I knew how - the way any IBer would have done it - writing an essay, mentioning trends that I noticed between the pronunciations, which sounds he seemed to change most often, how old he was when he started to improve, etc. I didn't even use all of the data, but I used enough to make my point. I remember thinking, This really isn't my best work, but I was so frustrated with the computer thing that I just printed it out and went to turn it in... but then I looked at the pile and absolutely everyone else had taken a completely different approach. They had labeled the sections of their papers with the words they were analyzing and then written a paragraph or two on each analysis. I freaked out, thinking this was some Dutch thing that I didn't know about, that this was the 'right' way and mine was all wrong, etc. I mean, every single one was that way! But it was way too late to do anything about it, so I just slapped the paper on the pile with a sigh...
Anyway, we got them back today with a mark out of 25, and he said he generally marked them in increments of 5, but that only five or six people had gotten lower than 15. I was squirming, certain I was one of those. And then when he finally (at the end of class... why do they always do that?!) let us go through the piles of papers, it took me forever to find mine, and I had that sinking feeling in my stomach... But once I did find it, my jaw absolutely hit my knees. 25/25, the only perfect score I saw in the whole stack! He loved my analysis and wrote positive comments on every page, and at the end he praised me for doing a "very good paper" with the "difficult variant" of writing about the trends instead of each individual word. Never mind that I never even considered that there was another way to do it... he just made my day! :) Go Jess, go Jess...
Other good things... I couldn't get that Acda en de Munnik song "De kapitein deel II" out of my head, so I bought the CD yesterday. It's a live CD, so the version isn't as good (volgens mij anyway) but I still had it on repeat all the way to class today. :) And, I finally "made contact", zeg maar, with someone in my linguistics class... we just got a new assignment which is rather like a psychological experiment, looks extremely cool... but anyway, we have to do it in groups (any native Dutch speaker reading this who wants to be a test subject, you're welcome to... all you have to do is read some sentences out loud), and so I came across this really nice girl, M, at the back of the room who, as it turns out, lived in America for a while when she was younger and so speaks perfect American English. Anyway, so we're going to work together. Yay, making friends. :) And one of the girls from my Boswell class also invited me out "to do something sometime", one of those open invitations, you know, but still nice... nice to feel like I fit in.
OK, it's 17.00 and I'm starving. Time to go home and eat! And it's the WEEKEND... yay! (P.S. maar maandag heb ik een 'spreekbeurt' waarin ik 5 minuten alleen maar Nederlands moet spreken, voor de hele klas... weet iemand misschien hoe je "CPR" in het Nederlands zegt???)
Tot later!
stormed at 11:02
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