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Wow – a year since my last entry, really? I suppose it makes sense since nothing exciting happened last year – at least nothing I necessarily have to share with other people. And especially since hardly anyone ever reads this anyway.

But I guess it’s time again to write something, if only to update those friends in Europe who want to be updated on what’s going on here. Remember, though, what I’m saying here is just a few thoughts, and by no means any final decisions. By now, it’s my fourth semester (so after this, only one more to go until I have my BA) and I’m spending it abroad – USA. Nebraska. Kearney. To be even more specific: Theatre Department since, seeing how much time I spend there, I seem to live there more than in my room, but that’s fine because it’s brilliant, it really is. I actually take four Theatre courses here (Intro to Stagetech, Survey of Dramatic Literature, Lighting Design, and Play Direction), and I only ever have to leave the Fine Arts Building for my two English courses: Beginning Poetry and Literature of Horror. While Horror Lit is a really amazing course (lots of vampire lore and generally a very cool class), I’m not going to talk about anything English-related because the most important thing is – you get the idea – Theatre, and since I haven’t talked to a lot of people from back home, I’m going to give you much more details about this… And I mean much more! (I even found a role-playing group here, which is pretty amazing considering that I was sad not to play while I’m here. So we’re starting our Deadlands campaign next week and it promises to be lots of fun!)

Now, I was very positively surprised when I got into the Theatre Department here because the atmosphere is simply great. The god-honest truth is that the whole Theatre department just seems to be like a huge family: everybody knows each other, everybody knows what’s going on, everybody cares, and everybody probably spends a lot more time there than other students in their departments. (To quote Kyle: “These few steps outside to smoke a cigarette is as far as my chains let me go.“) Unlike the Theatre courses (if I can even call them that) back at RA, everything here is incredibly practical, so we need to do stuff. A lot of stuff. Like hanging and focusing lights (because of my Lighting Design class, but also because I’m Assistant to the Head Electrician), building things, and so on. Naturally, there’s a lot of work to be done in theatre productions and everybody’s involved in it here in some way or another. On a different note, I’m directing two one-acts this semester for my Play Direction class (and, truthfully, I wouldn’t even be in there if we hadn’t managed to pressure a freshman into dropping the course because it was full – and I did that with everything I had, gave him the whole dramatic sad-faced puppy-eyes guilt-trip of “I’m only here this semester and I will never get the chance of taking this course again!”) and of course, for that, we need to have rehearsals, and a lot of them. Generally speaking you need one hour for each minute on stage, and since the first show, a cutting from a full-length play, is supposed to be 30 minutes, that means 30 hours of rehearsals within, roughly, a month. So with all the things I’m doing here, my schedule is constantly full. I could honestly not tell you much about the rest of Nebraska – or the rest of Kearney even, for that matter, because I never seem to leave the Theatre department, but I’m enjoying it and that’s why I’m here anyway.

Directing – by the way, it’s a cutting from An Inspector Calls – is tons of fun and very satisfying. That’s partly because I got my absolute dream cast – basically all the people I wanted to have – and all five of my actors do a brilliant job and catch up on things quickly. (More quickly than I’m used to. Oh my, everything’s so professional here!) They practically do whatever I want them to do, mostly without even having to tell them to do so, bring in their own ideas and some interesting character interpretations that I hadn’t even considered before. And seeing that it’s me who’s directing it, there’s some slapping (real slapping of course, no fake stage-slaps), yelling, threatening, and so on. We still have three weeks to go until the actual performance, which means 15 more rehearsals, but I’m already very positive about the outcome. As far as I’m concerned, they do a very good job. I mean, if they even manage to scare me during every single rehearsal – and, hell, I’m the director, I know what’s going on and shouldn’t be shocked anymore! – then that probably means that they are really good. (Or maybe just that I am that pathetic. I’d go for the first answer because it makes me happier.) So we’re starting to use our props soon, and then I need to think about the costumes, but I already have. A little. I’ll probably start to freak out about everything approximately two weeks before the rehearsal, so that means I still have a week of just being happy about it. It’s a lot of work, but I wouldn’t want to miss that experience for anything in the world.

That goes for every single experience I get here. UNK – or UNK’s Theatre Department – is the best thing that could have happened to me right now. Now, what do I do back at RA? Sure, Theatre and Media Studies. And what does that mean? A bunch of theatre and film theory, and the only practical experience I get there is the TheatRA committee. However, in theatre business it’s much more useful, much more important to have practical skills. Sure, theory is nice and can be a good complement, but it’s not the main focus – or that’s how I see it, especially since I got here. And everything is so incredibly exciting here – only a few days ago, one of my actors accidentally shot a 2”-staple into his thumb when he helped me with a project, and that was quite a scary sight and resulted in someone taking him to the ER.You don’t get anything like that at nothing-but-theoretical RA, eh?

Truthfully, I dread going back, I’m not even trying to deny that, and why should I? What I do here is exactly what I want to do, so I completely lost my heart (and soul) to the UNK Theatre. What am I supposed to do back at RA anyway? Sitting there reading about all kinds of stuff – and for the most part not even theatre, but film stuff, which is interesting but not my main focus? Writing about it instead of doing it? Theorising about theatre without experiencing it, when I know that there is some other place where I can do what I really want to do, what, so to speak, calls to me? And doing that for what, another year? Now, RA might be nice, and the RA environment might be nice, but it’s not what I want, or need – not without actually doing things. The way I see it, going back to RA for another year until I got my degree would be a complete waste of time for me. I’m not saying it’s been a waste of time until now; quite the opposite because without RA, I would have never found out what I actually want to do. Originally, it was Philosophy and Anthropology, and then, completely due to my tutor’s intuition, it’s Theatre and Media Studies – and now I’m here, also thanks to RA, and discovered my passion for the theatre even more. But going back would be a waste of time. And as nice as RA might be, I’ve never felt so utterly accepted and belonging somewhere as I do here, and it makes me sad that I have to leave this behind again.

So am I considering staying here? Why, yes, of course; I’ve talked to quite some people about it in the past week – mainly, of course, my Theatre people because I don’t seem to have much contact to other people anyway – because I don’t even have time for that sometimes. The thing is, I’m having the time of my life here and I wouldn’t want to leave that so soon. In addition, it’s much more favourable for me and my future than going back. But of course there are things in the way; first and foremost, visa issues, and then, probably, financial issues. However, if there is any way I could possibly make it work, I will. Nothing’s been decided yet, and I don’t even have information about all that visa/financial stuff, but I am seriously considering staying in the States, at least for my Bachelor degree. I’m not planning to stay here forever; no, my long-term plans are still a Master programme in Great Britain, but for the time being, it would be the best thing that could happen to me. If I do have to come back – and right now that’s more probable than staying, I suppose – the only university thing I would really look forward to would be – surprise, surprise – the TheatRA committee, and in that case I’ll definitely run for the Directing position because that would mean that I can at least do exciting things over there.

I love it here. I really, really do, and I make the best of every experience I get here, even if it means counting my bruises because I (repeatedly) ran into a ladder, or hit myself with a lighting instrument – because that’s just what I do.

On a different note, though, because of all the theatre work and my courses, I am way behind on every single course I have. Which is unusual because I’m normally the one to catch up on things quickly, but I don’t seem to find time for that. (I’m afraid my Poetry class, more than any other class, has to suffer from that because that catching-up list is constantly growing. Rapidly.) That’s very obvious, too, when you consider that I’ve never been able to take naps, and yet Kyle seems to wake me up quite often because I fell asleep in the Theatre department. (To my defence, those comfy chairs are just too comfy, and there’s probably a reason why they don’t have arms.)

But I’m not complaining, on the contrary; I love every moment of it, and the Theatre people, just like me, are all somewhat crazy, in some way or another.

I suppose you can’t be a Theatre kid and not be weird…

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Way too much

…that is, there’s way too much happening in my life to keep this updated regularly. But as long as I manage to give a life sign once in a while, that should be alright.

This semester is much more demanding than the last. That’s a good thing, of course – I like to be challenged. Statistics didn’t turn out as great as I thought it would be. I really like it, it’s very interesting and entertaining because my professor has exactly the kind of humour that I like – the morbid, sarcastic one, so I’m regularly having fun in that class. But even though I really like the course, I just don’t seem to be able to do it. My first exam was a shame, and that was especially frustrating because I actually understood the things we did, and had explained them to other people just before the exam. Sigh. I got over it, though, and accepted that I can’t expect a decent grade for that course, but as long as I don’t fail it, I’m okay with that. The first half of the semester was incredibly busy statistics-wise, there was so much to read, so much to do, and that sometimes kept me busy until late at night. The other half of the semester, though, just started and is much more relaxed: this is only going to be about the Statistics project, so instead of class I have short meetings, and there’s nothing to read anymore. It’s amazing how much time I seem to have for my other courses now.

The other courses are good, too. Life & Travel Writing is probably not my favourite genre of literature, but it’s a fun class and I really enjoy it. I had my doubts about finishing the Literature track, though, and for a while I thought about dropping it completely and going over to something else. Then I realised that it’s still fun, and that it fits in my study programme much better than Linguistics, so I decided to keep it. And it’s quite rewarding, too. Unlike my Dutch class, in which I am just bored beyond words. That’s not my professor’s fault of course; she’s very nice. But as a German, it’s really, really easy to learn Dutch. Haven’t studied at all for the exam, and still got an A+. Now, that just doesn’t seem to be right. I’ll try to skip the 100-level course and get into the 200-level right away, because I can’t stand another semester like that. I like to be challenged, I like to work for my grades, and in this course, I just don’t have to. Of course it’s a nice easy course compared to Statistics, but still…

And then: Theatre & Media Studies. Now, originally my tutor just put me in that course because I got kicked out of some other course, timetable clash, blah blah blah. But I then realized that it’s just an amazing course. In fact, in Theatre & Media Studies I found something that is just perfect for me, something that I really feel I could do for the rest of my life. I’ve never been so drawn to a subject, immediately, so that was a very strange experience – especially because I would have never been in that course if it hadn’t been for my tutor. So Theatre and Media Studies it is. I am totally enthusiastic about the subject. So next semester I’m trying to get into the 300-level of Theatre and Media Studies, as well as into the 300-level of Literature (thus completing my Literature track, so I won’t have to worry about that anymore), and also the 200-level Philosophy course, Ethics. True: without taking the 100-level first, but I hope that’s going to be fine anyway. I really need this course, otherwise I won’t be able to study exactly what I want to study here. And then, of course, I’ll also take Rhetorics and Argumentation. I just hope I’ll get into all of the courses I want to have… Even though in that case it’s gonna be a pretty tough semester, with two 300-courses and one 200-course, and Rhetorics, which is also very time-consuming.

For something completely different, and the reason why I’ve been hyper the past few days: I applied for a semester abroad, and I got accepted. Meaning that in my fourth semester (spring 2011), I’m going to Nebraska. I’m really excited about it and practically can’t stop being hyper! This is going to be a great opportunity, and it’s my chance to actually do a Philosophy track. Apart from very cool Philosophy courses, they also have awesome Theatre courses, so I hope I’ll get some of those as well. I’m so damn excited about it! This is going to be a great experience. 🙂

Okay, that’s it with my quick update now, I’m going to sleep now. Yes, indeed, sleep, a rare activity around here! Right now, there’s nothing I have to do for class anymore, so I might as well just go to bed and try to get a good night’s rest. That is, of course there are still lots of things to be done – a lot of reading, a research paper, some assignments, studying for my Theatre and Media Studies exam on Wednesday, learning my lines for the theatre play we’re performing this semester… but, so to say, nothing that has to be done until tomorrow anymore. Which feels really great. I still have to read a book for Literature, though, and then another book for Literature, both as soon as possible, but right now, sleep seems to be much more attractive than reading.

New beginning, old work

So naturally, my winter break finally came to an end: the last few days of my free time were spent mainly on watching DVDs and playing God of War. It’s a good thing that I have a PS2 here in the Netherlands. The next thing I’ll need to get in that respect would be an Xbox, and then I would be able to train myself in discipline, meaning NOT playing, but studying. But so far, I managed well – put off God of War again, naturally, because the new semester started on Monday.

Only a few days, but seriously, when I look at the workload it feels like it’s already been weeks! That was to be expected, though, and I’m kind of glad that uni finally started again because it’s good to use my brains after such a long time of doing absolutely nothing. That  doesn’t mean, however, that I am very much in favour of all the things I have to do, but it’s okay, it’s kinda fun, so I’ll manage. 😉

Since I came back, quite a lot has happened. For instance, we had to give up the cat. Yeah, we knew we weren’t supposed to have her, and I was caught carrying her inside, so I made huuuuge puppy eyes, begged and smiled and convinced the guy that I could keep her for another two weeks until we could arrange something for her. So yesterday, I said goodbye to the cat – a very emotional goodbye -, then she was taken to Rotterdam, and today she’s  moving on to Germany, to my brother. Why my brother and not her real Dutch owner? Because she’d be more happy at our place in Germany. This cat is totally crazy about my brother, she absolutely loves him, so it’s probably better if she goes there. I’m going to miss having something warm and furry cuddle up to me at night, though.

So, uni started again on Monday, as I already pointed out. And actually I’m not supposed to write this because I specifically got up earlier than I had to just so that I could finish some homework, but I just felt like writing something, a short overview so that whoever wants to read this is updated. My classes are fun, actually. First of all, I have Stats – the horror subject for basically every student. I kinda like it so far. We have a really motivated instructor, which is a good thing, so right now I’m looking forward to it. It’s probably going to change, though, when it comes to the group project, but we’ll see. Up to now, it’s lots of fun. Then there’s Life & Travel Writing – fortunately, it’s way more demanding than the 100-level in Literature, so that’s cool, too, and really sounds very interesting. Looking forward to that! My Beginner Dutch class seems okay, too. I’ve only had one session so far (today is my second) and at the moment it still seems to be a bit slow-paced – at least to all the Germans in my class, it must appear to be very slow because we understand lots of things already. Including the alphabet, which we had to learn in the first session. But I also understand that for people who have never heard anything similar to Dutch, it must be really confusing and hard, so I’ll just have to live with that. But it’s a language, and I love languages, so I’m looking forward to it. And Wednesdays – oh, my lovely Wednesdays, I miss them!  My free ones from last semester, that is, because this semester I actually have class on Wednesday. Theatre & Media Studies. FOUR fucking hours! But it sounds really interesting and fun, I just have to get used to listening to someone for such a long time.

All in all, I do have a lot to do, once again. Lots to read, lots of work. But of course I’m not only working, that would be a pretty lousy life. Tonight, for instance, I’m having a “Friends” night with a friend of mine – really looking forward to that, the last one (last weekend) was amazing! And on Sunday, I have another DVD evening with another friend. In the meantime, though – that is, the rest of the weekend – will be totally dedicated to (mainly) Stats – and the other things I have to do as well, of course. I’m so happy that I now have this amazing coffee machine in my room, don’t know how I would survive without it!

Okay,  enough for now. Now it’s back to learning my vocabulary for Dutch, and then I can wander off to class. I have uni until 4 today, and after that, I’ll enjoy an awesome Friends night, so that’s something to look forward to! 😀

Winter break. There are three things I mainly did during my break so far, and I did them very frequently: pen&paper roleplaying, reading, and occupying my brother’s X-Box 360 because he bought a new game – Dragon Age: Origins.

And that is fucking good stuff!

So the roleplaying and reading part strongly declined over the past few days and my Dragon Age consumption rapidly increased. Besides, the following may contain spoilers, so don’t read it if you don’t want to be spoiled 😉

It is a Bioware game, just like Mass Effect which I already posted a blog entry about last year. And you definitely see similarities in the way it was created, in the way the storyline is built up, etc. In my opinion, though, it’s way better than Mass Effect (even though I loved that one, too). That’s probably just a matter of taste because I’m not into sci-fi let’s-shoot-everything scenarios, I’m much more into fantasy let’s-slay-everything scenarios, and that’s exactly what I got with Dragon Age. A very good storyline, amazing non-player characters, and many opportunities to shape things the way you want (even though there are probably more opportunities in Mass Effect, but then again, there aren’t that many interesting characters there).

My first character was a rogue, a human nobleman who is purely… evil. Well, he’s very mean, at least, and he very much likes to piss off Alistair, my first choice when it comes to laughing at characters. He actually managed to get on Alistair’s bad side in such a way that at some point, this usually so nice and calm guy yelled at him. Well, that’s life, so fuck off? I didn’t finish the game with this character, though. I’m planning to and I’m sure I will, but not right now – probably over my summer break or something, who knows. I didn’t finish it with my first character because I created a second character, a dwarf. Which I didn’t like. I played him for one or two hours, then I was so fed up with him that I created another one – an elf woman from the city. Again, rogue. And, yes indeed, a female character. I never thought I was going to play a female character, but there we go and I somehow loved her. She was different from my first character in her choices, her choices were overall good or, at least, okay and not absolutely evil. Somehow I kept playing with her and finished the game last night. I can still remember the ending very… vividly. That was fucking awesome! Seriously, I was impressed. I absolutely loved this story and the way my character influences all those things. And the dialogues were unbelievable, sometimes I just wouldn’t be able to stop laughing.

And speaking of the other characters you get in your group – I love them! They are so awesome. My standard group with my elf consisted of Zevran, Alistair and Morrigan – the other characters are nice, too, but those were by far my favourite.

Alistair is a nice guy, I realized. While I absolutely couldn’t stand him when I played my first character, I kind of liked him when I played my elf woman. And very interesting. Witty, funny, and the dialogues he inspires are just… incredibly good. Especially that one dialogue when I had to convince him to sleep with the person he totally despises. The way he freaked out and his overall reaction was just too good. But it was necessary, so, hey… All in all, a nice guy. Even though he tends to be a bit too romantic for my taste.

Morrigan, on the other hand, is the complete opposite. And of course she hates Alistair. Somehow, everyone in this game seems to hate Alistair, except for a very small handful of people. Wherever you listen to conversations, people always seem to mock Alistair. “So, you and the Gray Warden?” – “I hope you don’t speak of Alistair.” – “Alistair? Is he even interested in women?” She’s very sarcastic and evil and very down-to-earth instead of being guided by some extraordinary principles.

And then there is Zevran.

OMFG. Zevran!

I saw him for the first time and immediately clung to the screen. Now, that one was interesting! And he still is. Assassin, elf, and just amazing. With the most interesting sense of humour I’ve ever seen in a game – actually, he has a sense of humour that is very much like my own. And he’s very sarcastic. And has very interesting opinions on many things. And he is a very interesting character in general – well-developed, understandable, a real in-depth character with an amazing background story. Every time he appeared somewhere, I immediately clung to the screen and that’s how he became a permanent member of my group. Rawr. Mine. My favourite character, and surely a good reason why I spent so much time in front of the X-Box. I seem to have a tendency to like assassins in books or games. My main pen&paper character is an assassin, after all, and his personality is very much like Zevran’s, that’s why I was so stunned when I saw him.

All in all, I can just say – a very good game. Lots of blood, lots of… a very good story. And lots of Zevran. Even though I have to admit that my tactics aren’t always brilliant – for instance, my characters so far are rogues, meaning that I should be a damage dealer and have as much dps as possible, which I do. At the same time, however, I tend to just pull all the aggro towards my character, which should be the part of the tank. Now, what is there to do about it? Nothing, actually. Of course it’s not brilliant, but I managed to play the whole game and I dare say I even grew to be better at it than my brother – slaying that one dragon when my brother wasn’t even there to help me. And he wouldn’t have been of much help since he, apparently, totally failed when slaying the dragon and therefore decided not to – even though he played the game several times already and should be familiar with everything.

And I just killed that bastard dragon, no problem. It was hard, but not impossible.

With only two characters because Zevran and Alistair were dead much more quickly than I could say “dragon”. Nevertheless, I took the dragon down and my brother was… confused when he came back. And I even took the dragon down at my first try, now, beat that! XD

Of course, there are quite some cliché fantasy things in that game, too, but they are not really annoying…

I’m too much into the game to just stop now, though, and anyway, I still have a week to stay in Germany. So, the plans?

Right now, waiting for my brother to wake up and then creating a new character. And this time, someone I can rightfully call “tank”. I guess I’m much better as a damage dealer, though, but I figured I should at least try to see what it’s like to be just a tank, not a damage dealer-tank, or whatever I did there.

I know, I’m obsessed. It’s all my brother’s fault, I dare say. But hey, it’s my break, I’m not supposed to do anything reasonable. The next semester is going to be lots of stress, anyway, so I might as well slay many things with lots of blood and gore (and even a good plot) now because the next time I can do that will be during the summer.

Time Flies

It is a bit scary, how fast time flies. Only one more week, and my first semester is over – already. That basically means that I’ve lived in a foreign country for a whole semester now, and I still love it, and love it more every day.

Thinking about it, my first semester – like all the other semesters to come, probably – was incredibly busy and full of new things and people. I learned a lot, had lots of stress, developed an incredible lack of sleep, but I am generally happy. I’m sure that coming to study at Roosevelt Academy was the best decision I could have made. I’m happy that I have the chance to study here, develop as an individual, and get to know so many different and interesting people and things. I feel really comfortable here, in my house, in this town, at this university, and I feel even more comfortable because of this international environment. Speaking English all the time, I tend to forget to many things in German. Whenever I am asked about a German word, I have a hard time coming up with it. I don’t think that this is a bad thing, though. In fact, contrary to what most people experience here, the more time I spend here, the more certain I am that I never want to permanently live in Germany again. Never ever. I’ve never liked Germany anyway, and I don’t miss anything about my home country.

Now, my first semester really was interesting and I’m sure that the next semesters will be, too. I love being here. Unlike with normal universities, an incredible sense of belonging and community is created here. We do not only study here, we live here, and that makes the difference: you actually identify with RA, you really belong here, and that’s an amazing thing. It’s like RA is a small state inside a town, and it’s an incredible opportunity to be here. Of course it is lots of stress, more stress than at normal universities. During the mid-term weeks, and the final weeks, everyone seems to turn into a coffee/energy drink junkie to catch up with everything (next to your social life, of course). The strongest example of this was, in my case, last Thursday, when I had to made coffee at midnight because I had a speech, a presentation and two paper deadlines scheduled for the next day. Everyone is deprived of sleep in those final weeks, everyone’s exhausted and sometimes not too motivated, but we manage nevertheless, and that’s a pretty cool feeling. And nearly everyone becomes a Facebook addict, too, because you know so many people that it’s nice to catch up on what’s happening around here. Plus, Facebook is a very good procrastination method… And not only on the academic, but also on the personal level, the first semester has been full of experiences for me. Establishing a kind of social life I’ve never had in Germany; falling in and out of love; getting into and out of a relationship; improving my acting skills… Yes, acting skills! We’re having our TheatRA performance Thursday night, I love the psycho character  I’m playing there, and I’m really looking forward to it.

I’m curious what the next semester brings. My schedule for next semester is not the way it’s supposed to be; I had to drop the Philosophy course I wanted to take next semester, and I got kicked out of the 200-level Anthropology course, so I have Theatre & Media Studies and Life&Travel Writing instead. And, of course, my requirements – Stats and Dutch. I’m really looking forward to it. This university is exactly what I need to find out what I want to do.

And now, after this short update, I’m going back  to studying. I still have two exams (Anthropology tomorrow, and Linguistics next Monday), I’m quite scared of Anthropology… And next week, Wednesday, I’m going back to Germany for some weeks. Even though it’ll be nice to spend some time with my friends and family there again, I suppose I’ll miss Middelburg and the people here. I really feel at home here. Of course, you notice that Dutch people generally strongly dislike Germans, but since my friends here are Dutch, I don’t really have such problems.

So only one week to go. Keep focused! I can do this. Only one more week of sleep deprivation, and then I can sleep for six weeks straight. =D

Wind of change?

The bad thing about writing this is that I am deliberately procrastinating my homework, simply by writing this. But, ah, well, it’s going to be a long night anyway, I already realized that much, so those few extra minutes won’t kill me any more than that.

I spent the weekend in Germany, again, and for the fun part, I met quite a few people on Saturday – Sonja, first of all; I was really happy that she happened to be in our hometown that weekend, too, since she moved to Aachen (together with Plewis and Bertina). Even though we just saw each other for two hours, it was really great to see her again. I’ve missed her so much. Of course I’ve also missed the others, and I’m really dying to see Plewis and Bertina again. Having no Plewis around on a daily basis means there’s nobody to get on my nerve’s that special way, and nobody who could deal with my mood swings so “easily” – or, at least, who didn’t complain too much when confronted with just another mood swing. Even though people who see us together proabably think we absolutely hate each other, considering the amount of insults we throw at each other (and considering the fun we have doing that!), and, naturally, our perfectly matching sarcasm/cynism, we do not hate each other. (But, of course, we’d never say that. :D) I took that for granted for the past few years, but now I really have to think about skyping him, just in order to have a “Plewis feeling”. There’s nobody around here who can so perfectly make me mad. And there’s nobody around here who I can deal with that way. “Are you here by car?” – “Yes.” – “Great. Thanks for offering to driving me home.” – “…” In my Christmas break, I will most definitely pay a visit to that chaos flat share, just to drive everyone crazy and have a “good old times” feeling. Maybe. We’ll see. And Bertina – well, I definitely miss our writing-together-moments. And our other moments. So much, basically.

Then it was off to my darling, my very best friend, and I had been so damn looking forward to that. ♥ Of course, we were as crazy as usually. No, I’m not going to say what kind of stupid things we did. No, I’m not going to say what kind of weird video clips we watched on youtube. But it felt so good just to be hugged again. 🙂 Too bad that I had to leave just when she had started to read the beginning of a chapter to me, now I’m really eager to know what’s going on there. But I’ll find out. Hex ftw! ^___^

After that, it was a quick visit to my roleplaying group (which was roleplaying at that time, but took a break for me). At least some of my roleplaying people; I’ve seen the others last weekend, so now I’ve had a healthy amount of roleplaying atmosphere to feel good again. Which just made me realize how much I miss roleplaying, and how much I’d love to do it here, too. Roleplaying is just something very special, and, indeed, you could say that I am homesick for Aventurien. 😉 I feel like playing my major character again, Chakijian… or, which would also be cool, Seljida, just because she’s cool. Arijian would, naturally, also be a good way to distract myself. I really feel like playing or writing any of them, but – ah, I can’t, too bad. Already looking forward to Christmas break, when I will (hopefully!) be able to play at least one of them again. I remember quite well that there was to be an “interesting” meeting between Jabez, Seljida, Chakijian and Dianthis – I’ve been looking forward to that ever since it was planned, months ago, so hopefully we’ll be able to get that done in the Christmas break. 😀

And then – Franzi came over, and considering that I haven’t seen her since prom (which was 3 or 4 months ago), and that she hadn’t been able to update me on the happenings back then, she had lots, lots of stuff to tell me; so generally, we had to update each other about the past few months in our lives, which was very interesting. Especially since we suddenly decided that we wanted to have popcorn and actually went out to buy some – just in order to have some popcorn. Never mind that it’s not healthy, we just had to do that. I still have some left and I’m enjoying it right now. 🙂

Apart from that, I noticed that, for some reason, I sleep worse at home (in Germany) than here, in Middelburg – I wouldn’t have thought that. Perhaps it’s because of that cool L-shaped room here: as I tend to be paranoid at times and don’t like to turn my back to doors or sleep with my back to them, that naturally happens quite a lot at home. But here, my bed is out of sight of the door. I’m sure that’s not the only reason, but it might be one of them.

But, still, I’m struggling to get myself up again, to get myself working again. I couldn’t work the past few weekends (because I was in Germany, and don’t have time to study there because I have to meet people!), and since my stepmom died, I couldn’t focus on homework the two following days, and that’s why I have a whole lot to catch up with and don’t know how to manage all of this without getting a crazy lack of sleep again, like sometime last week. I’ll probably find a way – if I don’t let myself get distracted by my laptop again. I tend to have a hard time to focus on stuff right now because my thoughts keep wandering, and it’s extremely strange to just go on as if nothing was wrong. But – I’ll manage even that, I’m quite confident about that. Somehow. Just need to catch a healthier amount of sleep one of these days.

And now it’s back to Literary Studies. Seriously, my fingers are itching for writing something creative right now – something Auden-ish or even Chakijian-ish. I’d like to write something with my Star Trek character, too, but I doubt I’d be very much like a Vulcan right now. I need to be able to think more if I have to write something with him. But I’m collecting ideas, and if there’s something useful at some point, I’ll definitely use it – I so much want to get into my characters again! Creative writing has always helped a lot when I cannot focus on things, so it would be definitely worth it. I’ll see what the next days bring – perhaps a few short stories, perhaps a few poems, or nothing at all? You never know. 😉

And now it’s back to reading stuff…

Entering Week 4

Wohooo, week 4 already? My, how time flies… I mean, seriously.

I’m only writing this because I can’t focus on studying right now. In fact, I don’t even have time for writing this, since there is so much work to do, but just for those who want to be updated (I know that’s not many people), I will take the time.

What’s going on here? Apart from studying – not much, and even that isn’t something I can manage properly. The immense workload that I had to experience in the first week only increased (naturally), meaning that apart from presentations and normal homework (i.e. preparation for class), there are essays coming up, tests, exams, you name it. And since I didn’t go to university for two days due to personal problems and had to go back to Germany for the last weekend (and also for the next weekend), I didn’t get to do as much as I would have wanted to – and would have needed to, since weekends are my “study time”. So I have to catch up with a crazy amount of reading and despite working until some time at night, I am still way behind. It’s fun reading for Literary Studies and Anthropology, but it’s also a lot. And I really mean a lot. Of course there are also fun parts, non-study parts of my life here – house dinners, hanging out with my new friends, and the committees, of course, and I’m quite happy that I get this distraction. I would still like to have a 30-hours day, though. Since I hardly ever get to bed before 1am, I am constantly tired and speaking for today and yesterday, I even managed to fall asleep while doing my reading for Anthropology. I mean, seriously, Anthropology, my favourite subject? I could’ve understood it if it had been Linguistics, but falling asleep while reading Anthropology is quite bad. Not to mention that falling asleep while reading is bad anyway. I seem to have quite a huge sleep deficit and I definitely need to get some more sleep, I know that.

Apart from that, everything’s great here. I even go so far as to say that I actually like it, the workload and the challenge and everything, that’s why I’m here, after all. I simply have to get used to it. I totally fell for Anthropology, though, and I’ll definitely take that in the next semesters, too. I love it. Always look forward to it. 🙂

I have to take a test in Linguistics tomorrow, so I’ll just have a look at my notes and then I’m off to bed. Even before midnight, wohooo! Of course I should rather do some reading, but I know that unless I get more sleep, I will hardly be able to focus on that. So let’s say I just sleep for, say, 8 hours, then I still have the whole Wednesday for studying and reading. And that’s not so bad, either. I just have to get a system, determining how to work with everything, and then I’ll do fine. Getting into a rhythm and getting some more balance might definitely take some more weeks, but then I will manage quite fine, I suppose.

But I love it here. Seriously, I do. Middelburg is just amazing, the instructors are great, my tutor is awesome, and of course the other students are extremely nice as well. I feel at home here, and that’s the most important thing, even though I’m constantly stressed out, and constantly tired.

Student Life

Another week has passed, and while the first week I spent here was my introduction week, in other words, some sort of the time between being a highschool student and being a university student (some kind of the liminal phase, to speak in anthropological terms), my second week was my first week as a “real student” from the moment I’ve sat in my very first class, Literary Studies. I have four courses – Literary Studies, English Linguistics, English for Academic Purposes and Anthropology -, and of each of these courses I have two sessions à two hours per week. My schedule is quite nice (apart from Tuesdays) and generally I’m very satisfied with my courses.

However, even though I hate to say that, I think I have underestimated what’s actually going on here.

I don’t want to say that I can’t manage, because I can, but especially in this first week, I was extremely exhausted. Practically all the time. I like the way everything is organised here, with the course manual on workspaces and so on, but I seriously underestimated the workload that was coming up. I merely shook my head at the phrase “For this course, you’ll need to have at least 10 hours of preparation at home!”, but now I know that such statements are actually true. Already in the first week, there was so much reading to do that I could hardly catch up with it. Ironically, the most interesting course – Anthropology – requires an enormous amount of reading, but I do it gladly since I am really interested in it. I don’t mean to say that I am not interested in the other courses, but generally speaking, the first week was very intense, much more intense than I had imagined. I already had to do a homework that will be graded, and I already had to sign up for a presentation. Again, in Anthropology. We will have weekly presentations in Anthropology, always in groups of 2 oder 3 people, and I signed up for the presentation that is due on next Friday since I figured that I’d better get my presentation done now, at the beginning, instead of waiting with it until everything becomes much more complicated and I have even more work to do for the other courses, with exams, essays, presentations and stuff like that. Meaning that I’ll meet with Miroslav, the guy I Bulgarian I have to do the presentation with, on Sunday so that we can prepare it. I would have preferred it if my weekend was off so that I could just relax, but that won’t be possible – after all, I still have loads of stuff to read, most of which I will try to get done tomorrow. At the moment, I’m very stressed out and extremely exhausted, but at the same time I like it. This is exactly what I came here for – work hard and be rewarded for that – and in the end I know that I deserve that reward, unlike the lousy highschool attitude – not doing and not caring much and simply getting everything done as I walk on. This is “real” and I like it. I just have to get used to the challenge I signed up for. I will. And I already know now that this has been the perfect decision for me. I’ll need to get used to doing some time management, though, which seems to be a big issue for practically everyone in here. I already had to do some “night reading” (staying up until 1am to get my reading done), but I certainly can’t do that very often.

My instructors are really nice, though. Amazing people, seriously, and so very skilled! You can’t say that about most of the teachers I had at highschool. Of course some of them were highly skilled as well, but they were rather exceptions than rules. From all I’ve seen here, it’s exactly the other way round at my university and I’m happy about that.

I had planned to spend tonight reading at least one essay I have to read for my English class, but I decided to spend the evening with lovely Anna – doing some grocery shopping, cooking and, finally (thanks to her room mate who had the right cable) watching Sweeney Todd. (Oh my God, Johnny Depp!) That was exactly the thing I needed after such an exhausting, demanding week. Some distraction until I can start again tomorrow, hopefully with enough energy.

Apart from that, I’m happy that my internet finally started working last Monday, so I have continuous access to internet again and don’t have to go to the university buildings in order to check my emails. Which makes everything a lot easier.

And for something completely different: I’m totally into an old character of mine again, a woman (a killer, in fact) called Bastet. I’m so eager to write something about her again! Perhaps I will, once I have enough time and creativity left. Just a small scene, just some thoughts, just something to get that character back again. I hadn’t thought about her for quite a while and now she’s back again, all of a sudden. One of the most balanced characters I’ve ever had, in fact. I think at some point, I might go through some old stories I’ve written together with my best friend, just checking out stuff, just sensing this feeling of creativity again that I can feel every time I read one of those pieces.

But that will have to wait until at least tomorrow, since I will go to bed now. Get some sleep. Sleep in tomorrow, which is the most important thing about this weekend. And then getting some work done.

Last week, I moved to the Netherlands, to Middelburg, one of the most beautiful towns I’ve ever seen, seriously. It went quite smoothly, moving my stuff here – my room (I live in a 10-persons-house) is gorgeous, very spacious; however, I brought too many things, meaning there are still unpacked boxes in the corner, and I don’t have a desk, which sucks. Since I had to spend 250 euros on books for the university, and had to pay my rent, and still have to pay tuition fees, I will not have enough money to buy one, either, so I’ll just have to do without for the first few months and simply work on the bed. That’ll be quite fine, too.

My housemates are quite nice, as far as I’ve noticed, and I really feel at home here. I still have to get used to having people around all the time, though, and it’ll probably take some time until I no longer wake up just because somebody banged a door. My room is right next to the washing machine and the dryer, too, and when they’re on, my bed is shaking. That’s kind of weird, too, but I’ll have to live with that – I don’t want to move my bed because where it is now is practically the perfect place for it.

I’ve already met loads of new people during the introduction week, mostly Dutch people of course, and I’m generally simply enjoying myself. I got my schedule on Wednesday and got to know my tutor then, too; I didn’t get into any Philosophy course this semester, though, which sucks. I have two other courses which I didn’t want to have, but which sound quite cool, too (Literary Studies and English Linguistics), then, of course, I have English for Academic Purposes and Anthropology (which I wanted to have). I’m quite happy with my schedule, too. The only thing that really sucks is that I still do not have internet in my room; I don’t know why, but I alraedy contacted the IT Helpdesk yesterday and hope that they’ll be able to do something about it eventually.

In fact, so much happened last week, but I cannot tell you all of it; it’s just too much. So for the time being, let’s just say that I am having a great time here, and that I am already looking forward to starting my studies tomorrow. 🙂

Countdown

Only two weeks to go. I’m going to move to the Netherlands on August 20th, have to be there at 11:30 to receive my keys, and then I’m out of here. Only a few days to get used to the surroundings and people – then, in the week of August 24th, there will be my introduction week and after that my studies start. I’m pretty excited. The thing that is actually getting on my nerves is the fact that apart from the inventory of my room, I don’t know anything about it – not even the size. I didn’t even get it when I asked for it and that… sucks. So it’s pretty much a hit-or-miss-affair, speaking of the furniture I bought. We’ll see… I have a bed, and the house has a washing machine and a coffee machine – probably the most essential things to survive as a student 😉

However, I started packing today. I guess you never actually realize how much (useless) crap you have until you’re moving. Speak alone of the clothes! I’m glad I won’t have to move out completely – my “first residence” is here in Germany, the apartment belongs to my dad anyway, so I keep my room here. Which is a good thing – I can’t even decide which books I am to leave here and which I am to take with me. I never realized I have so many books. Seriously. So the “most important things” have to come with me, which is practically most of the stuff. And I probably won’t have enough space for it anyway. But I’ll have to see about that.

Things are rushing, as it seems. Time goes by so fast. Friday and Saturday will be the last opportunity for my more-or-less-regular DSA roleplaying group and, hopefully, we’ll be able to at least try one plot of the Star Trek RPG next weekend. (My character is a Vulcanian diplomat and I already like him – a lot!) Then, of course, I’ll have to meet a few friends next week, too, before moving out. The next time I will be here in Germany regularly will be when the fall semester is finished, in December. But first I’ll have to go the Netherlands in the first place – and there are more things to manage than I expected. I guess I won’t have time to update the journal before the 20th, so expect to hear something from me once I’ve settled in 😉

And, by the way, I got my tattoo on Monday. And I’m loving it! =)