Soggy, Soggier, Soggiest
Ok, so apparently, the nice weather yesterday was just a fluke. It's back to raining non-stop now, and (I've been keeping count) my feet have been soaked five tomes today. Because you know, the thing is, the rain is annoying, but not terrible. The problem is that the city is obviously not equipped to handle all this water, so there are pools, no, lakes, and rivers everywhere. And of course, I did not bring any waterproof shoes. Oddly enough, few people are complaining, but I, of course, am upholding the time-honoured Dutch custom and do.
I don't really feel like the chronological thing this time, so I'll just free-associate, kind of. Courses, first.
Let me start by saying that courses here are very different from how the are at UC. The classrooms are bigger (with the exeption of Physics), and all the chairs in the big lecture halls have individual tablets that you can put into place in various complicated ways. This is where the lecture part of courses takes place. There is also a second part in each course, namely the discussion sections, led by the TA's (Teacher Assistants). I've only had one so far, but apparently it's smaller groups in which you can ask questions and actually say things yourselves.
Introduction to Visual Culture is interesting. We'll first have a part about art, then about films for five weeks (yay!) and then about television (we're going to watch the Buffy musical episode, amongst other things). The teacher actually says "alrighty", I thought people only said that as a joke. The lecture was nice, the discussion too, although the first half was, quite strangely, just about summarizing the lecture, as if we weren't really expected to get it.
Human Genetics is difficult. I might have aimed too high, but I'm going to try anyway. The teacher said that it should be doable as long as I'd had some genetics, and I have. It's a lot of work, but at least I know that this course will be (or at least, should be) accepted as a biology 100 at UC. Besides, the topics are very interesting, and that always makes working hard easier.
My third course is Elementary Particle Physics. The teacher is Asian (not a problem per se, after all, two thirds of the students are too), but unfortunately he has quite a bad accent in English, so he is hard to understand. I think I should be able to do the course: it's much more practical and calculation focussed than my physics courses so far, but I've already had most of the theory.
So, that was for courses. What else? Well, let's look at purchases:
- Two more expensive books for courses
- A remote (so many channels and no remote is annoying)
- An alarm clock (which didn't go off at 7 as planned, but I woke up at 7:15 of myself)
- Food
-Conditioner & shampoo (I wanted only shampoo, but bought the wrong thing the first time
Ehm, what other lists can I make? Food? Well, not that much to say about that, except maybe that my bowels are obviously having a little trouble adjusting, as evidenced by cramps. I'm trying to balance the easy and the cheap. Yesterday night was probably the healthiest meal so far: a big salad, with corn, beans, bacon, tomato, cucumber...today's lunch was probably unhealthiest, as it consisted of one glazed donut (hey, I was wet). Of course, one donut isn't really enough, so I made a handful of rice when I got back to the apartment, and that's actually not such a bad lunch, I think. I still think the food here is oversweet.
Concerning food, I think the country is a bit, or no, very schizophrenic. One the one hand every single magazine (with the exception of newsweek, and yes, this is a tested hypothesis) in the newsracks has something about weight loss on its cover, and people seem obsessed with becoming thinner (I have been unable so far to find non non-fat yoghurt). At the same time, there's sweet food everywhere (like the donut shops and the cookie shops around here, and other "bad" foods too (like Burger King), and all packages are huge! Strange people...
Well, that was it for now. I'm going to have one more cup-a-soup, and then do some reading (so much homework already....luckily the weather's so bad I'll probably stay in this weekend). Please, please, if the weather's good wherever you are? Don't tell me.
Hedwig
P.S. Stefan, who most of you know, is also on exchange. You can read about his experiences in San Diego on www.ucsa.nl/sderksen
I don't really feel like the chronological thing this time, so I'll just free-associate, kind of. Courses, first.
Let me start by saying that courses here are very different from how the are at UC. The classrooms are bigger (with the exeption of Physics), and all the chairs in the big lecture halls have individual tablets that you can put into place in various complicated ways. This is where the lecture part of courses takes place. There is also a second part in each course, namely the discussion sections, led by the TA's (Teacher Assistants). I've only had one so far, but apparently it's smaller groups in which you can ask questions and actually say things yourselves.
Introduction to Visual Culture is interesting. We'll first have a part about art, then about films for five weeks (yay!) and then about television (we're going to watch the Buffy musical episode, amongst other things). The teacher actually says "alrighty", I thought people only said that as a joke. The lecture was nice, the discussion too, although the first half was, quite strangely, just about summarizing the lecture, as if we weren't really expected to get it.
Human Genetics is difficult. I might have aimed too high, but I'm going to try anyway. The teacher said that it should be doable as long as I'd had some genetics, and I have. It's a lot of work, but at least I know that this course will be (or at least, should be) accepted as a biology 100 at UC. Besides, the topics are very interesting, and that always makes working hard easier.
My third course is Elementary Particle Physics. The teacher is Asian (not a problem per se, after all, two thirds of the students are too), but unfortunately he has quite a bad accent in English, so he is hard to understand. I think I should be able to do the course: it's much more practical and calculation focussed than my physics courses so far, but I've already had most of the theory.
So, that was for courses. What else? Well, let's look at purchases:
- Two more expensive books for courses
- A remote (so many channels and no remote is annoying)
- An alarm clock (which didn't go off at 7 as planned, but I woke up at 7:15 of myself)
- Food
-Conditioner & shampoo (I wanted only shampoo, but bought the wrong thing the first time
Ehm, what other lists can I make? Food? Well, not that much to say about that, except maybe that my bowels are obviously having a little trouble adjusting, as evidenced by cramps. I'm trying to balance the easy and the cheap. Yesterday night was probably the healthiest meal so far: a big salad, with corn, beans, bacon, tomato, cucumber...today's lunch was probably unhealthiest, as it consisted of one glazed donut (hey, I was wet). Of course, one donut isn't really enough, so I made a handful of rice when I got back to the apartment, and that's actually not such a bad lunch, I think. I still think the food here is oversweet.
Concerning food, I think the country is a bit, or no, very schizophrenic. One the one hand every single magazine (with the exception of newsweek, and yes, this is a tested hypothesis) in the newsracks has something about weight loss on its cover, and people seem obsessed with becoming thinner (I have been unable so far to find non non-fat yoghurt). At the same time, there's sweet food everywhere (like the donut shops and the cookie shops around here, and other "bad" foods too (like Burger King), and all packages are huge! Strange people...
Well, that was it for now. I'm going to have one more cup-a-soup, and then do some reading (so much homework already....luckily the weather's so bad I'll probably stay in this weekend). Please, please, if the weather's good wherever you are? Don't tell me.
Hedwig
P.S. Stefan, who most of you know, is also on exchange. You can read about his experiences in San Diego on www.ucsa.nl/sderksen
posted by Hedwig @ 3:00 PM
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