Someone said something strange to Myrthe and me at lunch today. This girl across the table said (in Dutch), "Did you guys know that your bread is painted?" (We had dark bread; she had very light brown bread. The Dutch are big on bread; UCU offers 5-6 varieties.) "Dark bread can't get any darker than this," she pointed to her own sandwich. "Yours is just artificial coloring. People think that the darker bread is, the better it is for you, but that's not true." With a little self-satisfied toss of her head, she continued eating.

Riiiiight. Okay, well, I admit that SOME bread gets molasses or other colored stuff put into it, but I also know that dark bread DOES exist which is made of all-natural stuff. (Example: Whenever you read about the Middle Ages you hear about dark, heavy 'peasant bread' - I'd guess they didn't have Red Dye #4 back then.) I'm not a baker, so I don't know the specifics, but the bread I was eating with my kroket was dark brown, had visible grains in the crust and little pieces of seeds and nuts embedded in it. Don't tell me that's not better for me than your one-step-above-Wonder-Bread crap (with Nutella). Puh-lease.

(If anyone knows something I don't know about this topic, do go ahead and enlighten me - leave a comment. Maybe Bread Girl is right. But I don't think so.)

As long as I'm talking about things that irritate me, can I just add that I HATE that song "The Little Girl"? You know, the one that goes, "Her parents never took the young girl to church / Never spoke of his name, never read her his word. / Two non-believers walking lost in this world. / Took their baby with them; what a sad little girl. / Her daddy drank all day and Mommy did drugs. / Never wanted to play, or give kisses and hugs." Yes, right, because naturally every atheist is an alcoholic or a drug user, preferably both. And any child who isn't exposed to Jesus from the moment of birth will grow up unenlightened, depressed, and probably abused. Yup.

*heavy sigh*

Anyway, I guess I'm in a bit of a skeptical mood today. Sorry. My only excuse is that the old-book fumes have addled my brain. I spent the morning closeted in the library, trying to find anything I could about word order changes in Dutch and how they relate historically to English. I didn't find a whole lot on the actual subject matter - yet - but I did find a good, complete-yet-succinct (~100 page) summary of the development of the Dutch language, which has some stuff I can use. (Does anyone know how to quote in a different language, by the way? Do I use the quote in the original language (Dutch in this case, obviously) and give a summarization in English, or do I translate the quote myself and just include it in English? That seems to be the only feasible option, but then how do I denote that it wasn't originally in English? Or do I even have to? I should have to, because of copyright, shouldn't I? I don't know. It's confusing.)

Anyway, tonight is the openavond basketbal = 'open evening of basketball' - meaning anyone who wants to join one of the Utrecht student teams (5 for each gender) can go play. I don't know that I want to actually join one, but playing tonight sounds like fun. Assuming I get this creative writing assignment done first, that is.

On that note: back to work...