[The Comcast situation seems to have resolved itself – you guys can all see that title banner up there, right?]
I’ve actually had a fairly productive day, even though it doesn’t feel like it. I got up at 7.15 and went to school, but first I had to sneak into Scott’s room – thus waking him up – in order to print my assignment. He got mad about that but there was nothing I could do – he was already in bed last night when I finished the thing, around two A.M., so rather than wake him then, I thought that if I waited until morning he’d be a little more appreciative – maybe even already awake. But he snapped at me that I should do that sort of thing the night before. Excuse me - I think translating an 1850’s short story to Dutch would keep you occupied for a while too. I’d estimate about three weeks for you, actually. So cut me a break – I had to do it in two days.
Anyway, so I went to school – on my bike, I might add – see, Lotte, I am working out… attacking those hills on the bike in the morning cold/dark/fog! …Anyway, Birgit wasn’t there (she somehow never is on Wednesdays) and so I sat alone. But it was a pretty good day – we all traded translations to analyze each other’s and although mine had errors (I warned the poor girl ahead of time, LOL), there weren’t as many as I expected, and I had some good solutions too. (That’s the bad part about translating – it’s much harder than people realize. Like the teacher said today, you can have twenty brilliant solutions and no one will notice, but one mistake, and everybody picks it up. And we may think it’s pretty good to have only three or four errors in some excerpt we’ve translated, but multiply that by the number of pages that the real thing would be…) So that’s all rather discouraging. But the girl I traded with really had to laugh about my paper because the copy of the story I had used was missing the top line on the second page. So in the middle of a sentence, I typed ---[deze regel werd niet gekopieerd]--- (this line wasn’t copied) and then just picked it up again. There was nothing else I could do, but she was reading straight through and not expecting that disjointed bit, and so it caught her by surprise and for some reason at that moment it was extremely funny and we had a good laugh about it.
Then I went to Kruidvat and Albert Heijn (Americans: Body Shop and Publix) and then home. Usually, the productive part of my day stops when I get back, because I immediately sit down at the computer. Which is what I did today too, but Scott had the Internet, so there was no point to it. So I watched Love Actually, which I had just downloaded via Kazaa Lite. It’s pretty cute, if you guys have seen it – especially that little kid. His story line is the one that ‘makes’ the movie, I found.
Then I filled out that huge survey for SSH (Short Stay Housing). I wasn’t very positive in my answers to their questions (I really complained about the Internet, in several places), but I wrote some comments which I considered to be ‘helpful’ (haha!). For example, they asked ‘which of the following accommodations we would prefer, taking income into account’ and there were a number of choices. I chose the E350/month option of having your own 14-square-meter bedroom and sharing all other facilities with 7 others, and I added a comment that that was what I thought most students would go for – the cheapest option wherein they still had a private bedroom. Because with all the cheaper options they gave, you had to share a bedroom too. And they gave only two blanks to fill in things that we thought should be changed about the accommodation we were living in – so I wrote above and below the lines, too. Internet (obvious reasons), full bathtub, option to have a double bed (extra fee if necessary) and (in capitals) an OVEN. I added a comment about how this country has many more meal options suited for a REAL oven than a microwave oven. And something that I remembered while I was writing and then forgot to mention – darn – the darkness. This place is not well lit, not at all. The hallways are especially dark, but the rooms as well. Except for the kitchen. I mean, during the daytime it’s fine because the windows are so huge, but at night it’s really not adequate.
So then I turned on music and cleaned my room. I mean really cleaned my room – so nicely that I took pictures to remember the occasion. Throwing things away, putting certain things I don’t need anymore into my huge suitcase in the closet, etc. And that big American flag which was intended for Peter never made it to Peter, so now it’s hanging over the window on my door. (Tristan – you’ll approve, haha!) Next time you guys are on the A2 and you pass by my complex, you’ll know right away which room is mine.
Anyway, then I decided to continue my ‘good girl’ streak and start on my assignment for tomorrow, for Dutch Present-Day Society. But it’s book work, and that makes it totally unappealing. Anyway, I lay down on my bed to read the chapter (40 pages), but any horizontal position was a mistake after going to bed at 2.30 and waking up at 7.30 – I fell asleep before I knew it. Slept for around three hours – just long enough to miss both ER and GTST, darn it – and had a weird dream about Scott and I being roommates in a big house with wooden floors and trampolines. And now I’m awake again and typing this. It’s 21.30 and I still don’t have the Internet, and I’ve decided I’m not going to ask for it back until my assignment gets done. Otherwise it won’t get done. And I have a feeling me printing assignments is going to be a sore point between me and Scott for a while. Oh well, I warned him that I was going to need a lot of printer access this block… Anyway, so I don’t know what the ‘posted’ time will be, but this is actually being written at what is still a decent hour of the evening. :)
It’s fiiiiiiinally almost Thursday! This is a really exciting weekend… Shania concert tomorrow (fifth-row seats!) with Martin, Staatsexamen Friday and Saturday (there was also talk of David maybe coming by on Saturday, but it’s Annika’s birthday so probably not. Gefeliciteerd, trouwens!!!), and then on Sunday I’m going to Linde’s – she has vacation this week – to eat dinner with her family and catch up on things. I haven’t seen her since New Year’s, so it’s about time!
Anyway, so, needless to say, I’m really looking forward to all of that.
[Martin – what in the world am I going to feed you tomorrow? LOL! Neither one of us can cook, and I just realized that my dinner tonight consists of a chunk of cheese and a chunk of ontbijtkoek – haha! We might have to go out, like it or not…]
Going to return to my assignment now. Anybody got any insight into government intervention in Dutch business life?
No, me neither. :)
I’ve actually had a fairly productive day, even though it doesn’t feel like it. I got up at 7.15 and went to school, but first I had to sneak into Scott’s room – thus waking him up – in order to print my assignment. He got mad about that but there was nothing I could do – he was already in bed last night when I finished the thing, around two A.M., so rather than wake him then, I thought that if I waited until morning he’d be a little more appreciative – maybe even already awake. But he snapped at me that I should do that sort of thing the night before. Excuse me - I think translating an 1850’s short story to Dutch would keep you occupied for a while too. I’d estimate about three weeks for you, actually. So cut me a break – I had to do it in two days.
Anyway, so I went to school – on my bike, I might add – see, Lotte, I am working out… attacking those hills on the bike in the morning cold/dark/fog! …Anyway, Birgit wasn’t there (she somehow never is on Wednesdays) and so I sat alone. But it was a pretty good day – we all traded translations to analyze each other’s and although mine had errors (I warned the poor girl ahead of time, LOL), there weren’t as many as I expected, and I had some good solutions too. (That’s the bad part about translating – it’s much harder than people realize. Like the teacher said today, you can have twenty brilliant solutions and no one will notice, but one mistake, and everybody picks it up. And we may think it’s pretty good to have only three or four errors in some excerpt we’ve translated, but multiply that by the number of pages that the real thing would be…) So that’s all rather discouraging. But the girl I traded with really had to laugh about my paper because the copy of the story I had used was missing the top line on the second page. So in the middle of a sentence, I typed ---[deze regel werd niet gekopieerd]--- (this line wasn’t copied) and then just picked it up again. There was nothing else I could do, but she was reading straight through and not expecting that disjointed bit, and so it caught her by surprise and for some reason at that moment it was extremely funny and we had a good laugh about it.
Then I went to Kruidvat and Albert Heijn (Americans: Body Shop and Publix) and then home. Usually, the productive part of my day stops when I get back, because I immediately sit down at the computer. Which is what I did today too, but Scott had the Internet, so there was no point to it. So I watched Love Actually, which I had just downloaded via Kazaa Lite. It’s pretty cute, if you guys have seen it – especially that little kid. His story line is the one that ‘makes’ the movie, I found.
Then I filled out that huge survey for SSH (Short Stay Housing). I wasn’t very positive in my answers to their questions (I really complained about the Internet, in several places), but I wrote some comments which I considered to be ‘helpful’ (haha!). For example, they asked ‘which of the following accommodations we would prefer, taking income into account’ and there were a number of choices. I chose the E350/month option of having your own 14-square-meter bedroom and sharing all other facilities with 7 others, and I added a comment that that was what I thought most students would go for – the cheapest option wherein they still had a private bedroom. Because with all the cheaper options they gave, you had to share a bedroom too. And they gave only two blanks to fill in things that we thought should be changed about the accommodation we were living in – so I wrote above and below the lines, too. Internet (obvious reasons), full bathtub, option to have a double bed (extra fee if necessary) and (in capitals) an OVEN. I added a comment about how this country has many more meal options suited for a REAL oven than a microwave oven. And something that I remembered while I was writing and then forgot to mention – darn – the darkness. This place is not well lit, not at all. The hallways are especially dark, but the rooms as well. Except for the kitchen. I mean, during the daytime it’s fine because the windows are so huge, but at night it’s really not adequate.
So then I turned on music and cleaned my room. I mean really cleaned my room – so nicely that I took pictures to remember the occasion. Throwing things away, putting certain things I don’t need anymore into my huge suitcase in the closet, etc. And that big American flag which was intended for Peter never made it to Peter, so now it’s hanging over the window on my door. (Tristan – you’ll approve, haha!) Next time you guys are on the A2 and you pass by my complex, you’ll know right away which room is mine.
Anyway, then I decided to continue my ‘good girl’ streak and start on my assignment for tomorrow, for Dutch Present-Day Society. But it’s book work, and that makes it totally unappealing. Anyway, I lay down on my bed to read the chapter (40 pages), but any horizontal position was a mistake after going to bed at 2.30 and waking up at 7.30 – I fell asleep before I knew it. Slept for around three hours – just long enough to miss both ER and GTST, darn it – and had a weird dream about Scott and I being roommates in a big house with wooden floors and trampolines. And now I’m awake again and typing this. It’s 21.30 and I still don’t have the Internet, and I’ve decided I’m not going to ask for it back until my assignment gets done. Otherwise it won’t get done. And I have a feeling me printing assignments is going to be a sore point between me and Scott for a while. Oh well, I warned him that I was going to need a lot of printer access this block… Anyway, so I don’t know what the ‘posted’ time will be, but this is actually being written at what is still a decent hour of the evening. :)
It’s fiiiiiiinally almost Thursday! This is a really exciting weekend… Shania concert tomorrow (fifth-row seats!) with Martin, Staatsexamen Friday and Saturday (there was also talk of David maybe coming by on Saturday, but it’s Annika’s birthday so probably not. Gefeliciteerd, trouwens!!!), and then on Sunday I’m going to Linde’s – she has vacation this week – to eat dinner with her family and catch up on things. I haven’t seen her since New Year’s, so it’s about time!
Anyway, so, needless to say, I’m really looking forward to all of that.
[Martin – what in the world am I going to feed you tomorrow? LOL! Neither one of us can cook, and I just realized that my dinner tonight consists of a chunk of cheese and a chunk of ontbijtkoek – haha! We might have to go out, like it or not…]
Going to return to my assignment now. Anybody got any insight into government intervention in Dutch business life?
No, me neither. :)
stormed at 17:55
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