Then, because apparently I needed more psycho stories, I watched Sucker Punch. I really had no idea what it was about, I had just seen some bits of some barbie-like girl kicking ass. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be Inception all over again, with sad childhood stories and ploys by stepfathers. I did get a bit bored by all the action, after a while, though. I definitely liked the first two layers of the story better than girls fighting over and over again (I suspect this film was mainly produced as fanservice to guys with fetishes).

On a happier note, I also watched Pride and Prejudice, the one made in 2005 with Keira Knightley. As I’m a total sucker for historical stuff with a happy ending and lots of drama, I ended up like this:

Soon after this I decided to read the book (which I hadn’t done yet – shame on me), and this whole scene pretty much repeated itself.

But then - The Green Mile. Killing your happy thoughts since 1999. Seriously, it’s just so sad. I don’t have much other things to say about it, really. Yeah, except that it really is a good movie, so if you feel like crying your eyes out you should watch it.

Luckily, this wasn’t the last film I saw. I went to the cinema to see Sherlock Holmes – A Game of Shadows. It wasn’t as good as the first one, but still really funny and clever. I like clever. n_n And though I’m hooked on the BBC’s series Sherlock at the moment, I think Robert Downey Jr. is a really good Sherlock as well.

You thought I finished this list? Not yet. I went to the cinema a second time this holidays, to see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It really isn’t the type of film I usually watch or like, but something about it made me want to see it after I’d read some reviews and seen the flyer. Maybe it’s the whole old-fashioned thing it’s got going on (OMG they don’t have mobile phones or internet HOW DO THEY COMMUNICATE). I still can’t say I’m a huge fan of the genre, but I did like the film in general; I get why people who are huge fans may really love it.

Last but not least, I’ve watched about seven hours of The Lord of the Rings: the extended editions of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. During most all of this I was in bed with blankets pulled up to my chin. Yes I spent the entire day in bed. 

A lot of it was waiting to hear ‘One does not simply walk into mordor’ and ‘They’re taking the hobits to Isengard’, granted, but the other 6 hours and 59 minutes were pretty ok as well.
A strange thing about LOTR is how hobbits mess up my sense of now-it’s-appropriate-to-cry. Boromir dies? Nothing. Aragorn having sad memories? Nothing. Sam has never been farther away from home? *SOBS*

So, that’s the end of the list. For now, I don’t watch a lot of films, as I just started watching Doctor Who. I guess I’ll wait until the next holidays. Or a weekend.

My wallet, my laptop, everything I would need to go back to my parents’ for the weekend was in my room. Which, as I mentioned, was also left wide open. It was just the front door that I closed (and there is no backdoor to the house). After scolding at me a little , my mother and I tried to ring the doorbell a thousand times, but of course nobody had returned to Maastricht yet , as the holiday wasn’t over yet. I tried calling my landlord, but he wasn’t even in the country. The guy with the spare key didn’t pick up his phone. Oh, and did I mention it was raining?
We decided to pick my sister up first, and try to call the spare-key-guy again later. In the end I did get him on the phone, only to find out that he was in Amsterdam at the moment, more than 200 km from Maastricht. He was willing to get to me as soon as possible, but it would take quite long and I didn’t really want to be responsible for his having to come all that way just because I had been an idiot.

So then we (me, my mother and my sister) decided to break in. It took some time, a few odd tools and a little effort, but in the end we actually managed it. I’m not exactly going to say how (because, you know, don’t want any more people breaking in) but I do feel strangely accomplished in being able to say that I actually broke into a house succesfully, albeit my own. Mission impossible and Ocean’s Twelve ain’t got nothing on me. Well, that is, ignoring the fact that I locked myself out in the first place.

Anyway. Even though my new year’s resolutions didn’t turn out quite the way I expected (I read a grand total of 7 books this year – SHAME ON ME), 2011 was quite an eventful year. The most important reason for this is of course my first year at university, and with that my moving from Veenendaal to Maastricht. I’m still getting used to the new surroundings and the differences between high school and university, although I think I’m nearly familiarised with it all.
2011 Was also the year of 3 vacations, my first boyfriend, red hairdye, and balfolk as a new hobby. Oh, and not unimportant: the year I turned eightteen. I’m officially an adult now. But more than my birthday, all the other stuff that happened this year makes me feel slightly more mature now than I did last year. I have to do more stuff on my own now – such as the laundry, and shopping for groceries.

I really doubt 2012 can top 2011 when  it comes to Important Stuff I Will Remember / Major Events In My Life. However, you never can tell. I have already got a few nice things planned for next year, and who knows what I will add to the list later on?

Oh, P.S.: I haven’t really posted much lately, mainly because I couldn’t really think of stuff to write about. Sometimes I would like to share something, but I feel like writing an entire blogpost about it would be a bit much. That is why I made a tumblr account last week: now I can bother you with random quotes, pictures and videos! ;D  If this is not something you find absolutely horrifying, it’s http://www.thecorinediaries.tumblr.com. I think I will gradually start posting more on tumblr and less on wordpress, because keeping two pages up-to-date is just too much work for the lazy person that I am.

Happy new year!

How I first came to think of this strange topic, however, is because I recently entered the realm of gingers myself. About two weeks ago I decided to finally go to the hairdresser’s and get it over with. While waiting untill the dye had done its work I got my first accusation of soulless-ness – of course I handed this professionally by giving the only valid response to such a charge: GINGERS DO HAVE SOULS!!!
Ever  since, though, I haven’t had any negative comments on my new haircolour (in my face, that is, but let’s just assume that’s all there is to know. ). In fact, after some time of getting used to it, most people seem to be rather positive. This weekend someone even asked me if this was my natural haircolour!
All in all, it’s weird that it really took me more than two years to work up the guts and get it done. Sure, it’s easy talking now, when everything turned out just fine, but still.

Looking back, I realise that there was so much that I had just never done when I was 15! Ans here I am, two and a half years later, a freshman at university, doing loads of things that I couldn’t have thought of back then.
For some of the goals I really made an effort. I took piano lessons, kept trying coffee when I absolutely disliked it and practised a lot of pirouettes. Other goals, on the other hand, just happened by accident. Th goals that I put an effort into never felt like obligations though. I made them goals because I wanted to do these things anyway. That they were on my list was just an extra reminder.
One thing a lot of goals I didn’t accomplish have in common, is that they have a time limit, or a certain amount of times that I ‘had to’ do it. ‘nr. 44: Drink two liters of water every day for a month’, for example. It could very well be that I managed to do this, but I was just to lazy to keep track of it, really.
Another category of goals is ‘goals that didn’t really matter to me anyway’, such as ‘nr. 77: Buy or get 5 DVD’s’. I watch a lot of stuff on the internet, so why would I bother? (yeah, I know, money to the people who made it, piracy, blablabla…)

In any case, now that my list is done, I think I’ll just make another list. Maybe I won’t get to 101 goals, maybe I’ll drastically change my list during the course of the 1001 days. But the 101 in 1001 project is one that can help you to just get those little things done that you always wanted to do but never had or made time for.

This week in the UCM common room I noticed a pink piece of paper that announced some kind of demonstration. This saturday, meeting at the trainstation at 15.00. Cause of the demonstration: there was something there on the sheet of paper, but I couldn’t really figure it out. Apparently it was serious business though, because the next day there were more pink, blue and yellow announcements.
It was not untill this morning, when I got my daily nrc.next, that I thought of a link between this demonstration (that up to that point had seemed completely random to me) and the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ demonstrations going on in New York. People there protest against corruption, economic inequality and basically anything that has anything to do with this. There is a general feeling of dissatisfaction with the economic status quo, and people therefore started these demonstrations.
But starting today, there won’t only be an ‘Occupy Wall Street’ anymore. Amsterdam and The Hague are preparing to be occupated, and, so it would seem, Maastricht will have some demonstrators to cope with as well.
When reading the announcements this week, I already thought that the purpose of the demonstration wasn’t really clear, so I decided not to go. This morning while reading the paper, however, I got even more confused as to what the big idea is. The ideals of a purer, less corrupt democracy are great of course, but how is this Dutch movement going to do anything to achieve that?
The American movement has a clear goal in mind, namely “that President Obama ordain a Presidential Commission tasked with ending the influence money has over our representatives in Washington”.
The Dutch movement has a manifest (it was published in the newspaper article), but it is all so vague. “We want equality, we want rights, we want democracy for the people, we want ‘the system’ to change, we need an ‘ethical revolution’ “. In front of a crowd, this would probably earn a lot of cheers and applause. In front of a governmental building, however, I think it won’t make the impact it is intended to. This impact is weakened even further by the fact that camping on the spot has been prohibited: every demonstrator will have to go home in the evening: there will be no actual “occupation”, after a day it will all be over.
I wish everyone who is going to join the demonstrations good luck. Wonderful that you have those ideals and are willing to stand up for them. But personally, I think the Dutch Occupy-movement has got a lot to learn from the American one.

‘OMG. Twee HELE paragrafen? Voor VRIJDAG? Maar dat zijn wel 14 pagina’s!’ ‘Meneer, we hebben ook nog andere vakken!’  ’Aaaagh, ik heb echt ZO geen zin om dat huiswerk te gaan maken.’  ’Ik krijg het NOOIT op tijd af.’

Er was een tijd dat dit soort dingen nog uit mijn mond kwamen. Die tijd was ongeveer in december 2010, toen we nog niet begonnen waren met examentrainingen en er dus nog gewoon huiswerk werd opgegeven. Halverwege mijn tweede week op de universiteit kan ik me al niet meer indenken dat ik over 14 pagina’s per week ooit moeilijk kon doen. Het is waar, ik heb nu een stuk minder vakken, maar het leeswerk* neemt toch in exponentiële mate toe sinds het begin van het semester.
Naast deze ontploffing aan werk, heb ik mezelf deze week ook nog eens de taak gegeven om het werk van 7 dagen in 4 dagen af te krijgen. Dat zit zo: ik ga vanaf vrijdag op introductie met studentenvereniging Koko. Dit weekend – dat gelukkig geen ontgroening is – is gewoon een leuke manier om elkaar wat beter te leren kennen en nog een laatste keer een beeld te kunnen vormen van de vereniging voor je bepaald of je lid wordt. Het weekend is verplicht, en kost in combinatie met de activiteiten van de week erop 65 euro – geld dat bij annulering niet wordt terugbetaald.
Terwijl ik me dus in een soort van frenzy op mijn (wiskundige) modellen stortte (zo’n 65 pagina’s voor nu, zo’n 70 pagina’s voor volgende week) en mijn geschiedenisboek (daar moet ik nog een boel van morgen, ik denk alles bij elkaar zo’n 80 pagina’s) , de afgelopen dagen, nam het stresslevel toe. Straks krijg ik het niet af. Dan kan ik niet mee op introductieweekend. AAAAAH. Dan mis ik alle lol EN ben ik 65 euro kwijt.
Dit vond ik wel iets om te voorkomen, dus heb ik twee dagen achter elkaar gewerkt tot 01.00. (Vandaag tot half twaalf)
Wat me echter opviel, was dat ik het vele werk steeds minder erg begin te vinden. Zolang ik niet thuis zit maar in de leeszaal op UCM, kan ik in een avond toch zeker 35 pagina’s lezen. En in de leeszaal leest iedereen. Iedereen studeert, als het moet tot half twaalf (want dan gaat de leeszaal dicht en wordt iedereen er door de beveiliging uitgeschopt). Deze ‘niet-zeiken-maar-werken’ mentaliteit geeft blijkbaar af.
Op de middelbare school was het bij sommige vakken normaler om je huiswerk niet te maken dan om dat wel te doen. En ‘als ZIJ het niet doen, waarom zou ik dan wel de moeite nemen?’ Daarbij kon je er, zelfs in 6 Vwo, soms nog wel mee wegkomen, als je de week voor de toets gewoon even aanpootte.
Nu zou het niet eens in me opkomen om mijn werk niet te doen: niet alleen sta je ongelooflijk voor lul in de nabespreking van de taak (zie in de vorige post mijn uitleg over PBL), maar het werk inhalen, daar is geen beginnen aan.**
Maandag en dinsdag nam de stress toe en toe. Ik was bang het niet af te krijgen, en ik baalde er enorm van dat ik sociale activiteiten moest afzeggen om te blokken, tot tijdstippen waarvan mijn moeder een rolberoerte zou krijgen. Dinsdagavond, toen ik eenmaal een tijdje in de leeszaal zat, dacht ik ineens ‘hee, misschien ga ik dit WEL af krijgen!’ En sindsdien is de stress alleen nog maar afgenomen. Ja, ik zit elke avond in de leeszaal te blokken, maar omdat het zo normaal lijkt – het zijn niet veel mensen die het doen, maar ze zijn er in elk geval – is het al een stuk minder erg***. Gewenning, instelling, acceptatie… Ik weet niet waar het door komt, maar ik zal in elk geval nooit meer zeuren over 14 pagina’s huiswerk.
 

* Ik zeg leeswerk, want ik heb in het weekend van mijn zus een lesje gekregen in universitair jargon. Woorden als huiswerk maken, les en – het allerergst – school, zijn verboden gebied. In plaats daarvan dien je als student de woorden studeren, college en onderwijs / de uni / de faculteit te gebruiken, zoals gedemonstreerd in de volgende zinnen:
- “Ik kan niet mee naar de kroeg, ik moet vanavond nog studeren.”
- “Ik ga eerst even langs Piet, maar daarna heb ik nog onderwijs / college.”
- “Shit, ik ben mijn laptop vergeten op de uni.”

** Mogelijk is deze instelling het equivalent van die van de hardwerkende brugger op de middelbare school en valt hij vanzelf weg, maar zo kijk ik er nu wel tegenaan.

*** Wat ook helpt is het besef dat ik het nu zo druk heb omdat ik dubbel werk doe, en dat ik het in normale weken waarschijnlijk prima af kan.

De vakken die ik in de eerste zeven weken gaan volgen, zijn Modeling Nature, Contemporary World History en Introduction to Academic Skills I. De eerste twee zijn echt ‘vakken’, de laatste is een verplichte training om wat academische vaardigheden op te doen. Terwijl ik dit zit te typen rolt een 20-pagina’s tellende e-reader hiervoor uit de printer.

Maandag had ik om 11 uur mijn eerste werkgroep. De universiteit van Maastricht (‘Maastricht university’) werkt met PGO / PBL: Probleem Gestuurd Onderwijs, of, in het Engels, Problem Based Learning. Dat houdt in dat je elke week voor elk vak twee keer een werkgroep hebt. Tijdens de eerste keer bespreek je de taak die voor je ligt: waar gaat het over, wat weten we daar al van, wat is de bedoeling dat we hiervan opsteken? Als je dit een beetje hebt uitgevogeld maak je ‘learning goals’: een aantal vragen waar je antwoord op gaat proberen te vinden, vergelijkbaar met de vragen die je in paragrafen van een werkstuk stelt.
Hierna volgt het opzuigen van informatie. Je krijgt wat leeswerk en waarschijnlijk ook een lecture, en probeert voor jezelf antwoorden te formuleren op de eerdergenoemde learning goals. Als afsluiter van de taak heb je nog een nabespreking, waarin je praat over de antwoorden die iedereen gevonden heeft. Zo kan je je eigen antwoorden nog een beetje bijschaven. Meteen na deze nabespreking volgt de voorbespreking voor de volgende taak.

Waar ik vooral heel erg tegenopzag (en zie, nog steeds) was het leeswerk. In één van mijn course descriptions werd tussen de regels door vermeld dat je waarschijnlijk wel meer dan 100 pagina’s per week zou moeten lezen. Dat zou op zich nog wel te doen zijn in het Nederlands, maar in het Engels heb ik momenteel een leessnelheid van ongeveer 10 pagina’s per uur. Dan valt de hoeveelheid werk toch een beetje tegen.
Gelukkig heb ik tot nu toe nog niet zulke drastische hoeveelheden werk opgekregen. Voor Modeling Nature kwam ik deze week wel in de buurt, maar grote delen van de e-readers waren zo irrelevant dat vrijwel niemand ze gelezen had. (Gelukkig maar, want als je de enige bent die zijn werk niet helemaal goed gedaan heeft is dat ook zo gênant)

Ondertussen leer ik ook steeds beter om te gaan met de omgeving van ‘de uni’ (ik voel me nog steeds een beetje vreemd als ik het gebouw waar ik les heb op die manier aanduid, maar een betere term kan ik eigenlijk niet bedenken).  Ik weet ondertussen hoe de printers werken, hoe ik kan inloggen om e-readers te lezen en ik heb deze week wonderwel al mijn lokalen op tijd gevonden. Ik heb zelfs al enkele malen gebruik gemaakt van de leeszaal.

Kortom: ik voel me al aardig ingeburgerd. Nog even en ik loop door de gangen, voer discussies en schrijf papers alsof ik nooit anders gedaan heb. Of tenminste, dat hoop ik dan maar, want mijn eerste paper moet volgende week vrijdag al ingeleverd worden.

Als laatste wilde ik jullie nog een kleine impressie geven van de lecture hall en hoe zo’n lezing op UCM er nou uitziet.

Deze foto heb ik woensdag gemaakt bij mijn lecture Modeling Nature.

Monday morning started pretty early this week, as I had to be at UCM at nine. (I know, it’s not much to whine about, but after a holiday of getting started much later it’s still pretty tough) Once it started, lectures, Problem Based Learning (PBL) training sessions and tours of the library and the city followed within no time. Some of them were more interesting than others – plusses for the lecture on liberal arts and the curriculum planning, minusses for the articles on intelligence and the examination committee lecture – but in general it was all pretty good.
One of the first things I heard during the introduction that caught my attention, was that out of 500 applicants, only about 175 were allowed to enroll this year. I thought there would be around 230 places for maybe 300 students, but apparently the proportions are a bit different. I felt really lucky to have gotten in.
Then I started talking to some students, and very soon I was outright confused as to why I’ve been accepted. Almost everyone at UCM is either 2 years older than me, has a different nationality or has travelled all over the world. Some people even fit all of these criteria! And there I was, introducing myself:

Hi, I’m Corine…. I’m eightteen…. Um, no, I’m Dutch… No, never travelled for more than three weeks. Never been outside of Europe either… No, my highschool was not bilingual.

This lead to some surprised looks. Most people, however, came to the conclusion that UCM needs ‘normal Dutch people’ like me too, for the sake of diversity.  I think I’ll stick to that explanation, because otherwise this just doesn’t make sense.

Another point of confusion for me was the UCM building. I felt like a firstyear at highschool in stead of one at university, flying through the hallways in order to get to the right classroom on time. This happened mainly because I either didn’t check my schedule right or because I was just lost. I think I can make sense of the building by now, but I still might have some difficulty moving around efficiently.

Then, there’s the problem of social activities leading their own life in my diary. Next week I have two things planned for every day except friday, from volleyball try-out training to drinks with a sorority. I think I’ll just run around as much as I can, trying to do everything while also doing my very first homework for my very first courses.

After all of these problems, I can proudly announce you that I survived both my introductions, and that I’ll be starting my courses next monday. Wish me luck.