Fresh Start

I told you before that I wanted to start writing here again but I was/am failing at that. And I'm getting a little tired of this blog. It's been with me through a lot and seen many years of fun, but I need to start over. I don't want to delete all the posts on this one to do that, because they'll be nice to look back on some day. So I made a new blog. And I'll try to write there. Here's the link: http://hereangiewritesthings.blogspot.com

Happy Canada Day!

Upon looking at my degree audit for school earlier, I discovered I have 16 classes remaining before I can graduate. 5 per semester, and hopefully one during winter intercession, and I've got only 3 semesters left. I'm already halfway done with summer classes (and by that I mean one of them is completed and the other isn't).

One of my roommates moved out in May and the other is sort of moving out now. I say sort of because a couple weeks ago she was here packing up all of her things, and she hasn't been here since. But there is still a lot of her stuff laying around. She also left some empty boxes, so I've started just putting her things in a box when I find it. I think tomorrow I'll put it all in her room (which she left unlocked) because the manager of the apartment complex told me that if [manager] didn't hear from [roommate] soon [manager] was going to have the locks changed. I don't know what they'll do with her stuff when they do that but if I put it all in her room at least then they'll know it's hers and they'll deal with it, instead of leaving me to figure out what to do with all of it.

Anyway, I guess I'll have new roommates come August. August 14 is move-in day. I think I'll write a letter to my roommates and put it on the fridge in case I'm working or something when they move in. You know, introduce myself, lay some ground rules, encourage them to do the same, etc.

I've been meaning to write a post for a while and only just now got around to it, but unfortunately it has to be a short one. I have to go get ready for work now. Bye!

I might start this up again...

Surprise! A post. I'm sitting here eating lunch and thinking, "you know, I have things to say and nowhere to say them." Then I remember, yes. I do have somewhere to say them. I've just neglected it.

My inspiration? Lima beans.

There are so many foods that I never ate growing up because Mom or Dad didn't like it, and so I've never bothered to try them. I just default to "I guess I don't like that either." Brussels sprouts? Love them. Sweet potatoes? So good. (A sweet potato made its way into a pot of chili I was making last week and I took pity on it and let it stay there. I think that's the best chili I've made since I came back from the Netherlands.)

A couple weeks ago I was stocking up on frozen vegetables because my bank accounting was quickly emptying and frozen stuff lasts a lot longer than fresh. I grabbed a bag of baby lima beans; I'm not really sure why. I acknowledged that I had never tried lima beans and maybe some day I should.

Today while trying to figure out what to make for lunch, I was digging through the freezer and spotted those beans. I didn't do anything special with them; I boiled them for a minute or two to thaw/cook them a bit, then dumped them in a pan with olive oil and a chipotle garlic grill mix. Gave them a stir, fried them a little. That's it.

They were delicious.

Last Thursday I applied for a job at Walmart. Monday afternoon they called me for an interview, Tuesday (yesterday) evening I went in and did the interview, and today they called my references. All a good sign, right? I put off applying for Walmart for so long because I didn't really want to work at Walmart, but in the end a job is a job, and a little extra money to spend won't ever hurt.

Posted Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Update: Sunday 13 Jul

Hi. I know I haven't posted in a while, but the last month has been extremely stressful for me. I didn't want to write anything until I sorted out what I was doing, and got things figured out.

So that last first year exam that I needed to pass, I didn't pass. This means that a couple days ago, my advisor forwarded me an email contain my Negative Binding Study Advice, which means that I cannot re-enroll for this same study program at this university. The email wasn't a surprise, because I got the exam result about a week earlier, but all in all it's a pretty big let-down.

The thing is, I was having so many doubts about it. I didn't feel any better about the exam the second time than I did the first time. I guess I have good reason to trust my gut, because I got a 4.7 on it the first time and a 4.8 the second time, so I really didn't do much better. Not only that, but I had been so behind on the credits that I needed from my second year, on top of worrying about my first year. Everything was piling up and it was becoming so very stressful for me, and I realize that it was all my fault because I could have stayed on top of things better, but I didn't. By now, there's no going back. There's just starting over, and trying to do better next time.

Even before I got those test results, even before I knew for certain that I wouldn't be allowed to continue, I applied for the University of Idaho and bought a plane ticket back. I don't ever for one second regret making the decision to come here to the Netherlands to try to earn a degree here. The restrictive nature of universities in the Netherlands has changed the way I look at school in the US. It's a bit complicated to explain, but I had a really hard time caring about the classes I was taking at Boise State 3-4 years ago. In the Netherlands, there is no class options. You don't get to choose what classes you take. You are assigned classes, and you have to pass 100% of those classes to graduate. I liked that at first, and I guess it made me take things a little bit more seriously. When I was at Boise State, I didn't put much (if any) effort into my "general requirement" classes because I wasn't taking them seriously. I feel a little more prepared for that this time around, for U of I. I'm actually excited for general requirement classes. Do you know I haven't taken a math or science class in over 4 years? Not that I ever really liked math or science that much, but that's beside the point.

Also, I think if I hadn't come to the Netherlands I would never have gotten into things like marketing. Now, I don't know if I'm going to stick with that in the long run, but for now (and looking at the degree requirements on U of I's student portal), I'm so excited for it. My study here in the Netherlands was more like an everything-about-the-EU-study-with-a-hint-of-international-marketing. Before I came to live in Europe, though, my focus was on foreign languages, and to be honest I just really don't know what I would do with only foreign languages. I never wanted to be a high school foreign language teacher, and while interpreting does sound interesting I just don't think it's what I want to do. From high school, though, I never had much interest in anything else.

Not to mention that I've experienced so much while living here, and I've become so much more independent. I'm so grateful that I had the opportunity to be here and learn all the things about myself and about the world that I think would have taken me much longer to learn from where I was before. No, I don't regret the time or money that I've spent here in the Netherlands. I'm a little sad that everything I had planned didn't play out, but I'm excited to make changes and move forward.

Long story short? In 9 days I'll be on a plane back to the US, and I'll get to see my parents and my cats, and legally drive cars, and not worry about converting currencies, and all the other things you can think of that make it nice to be coming back.

Update: Sunday 15 Jun

Sometimes I wish I had the time, money and patience to just go to school forever. The time and patience thing are tied together; I don't want to spend the rest of my life going to school, and I don't have the patience to keep going to school forever without any breaks. The money part, I believe, is pretty self-explanatory. It's not that I want to keep going to school just to avoid having a real life… Actually, I can't wait until I've graduated so that I can get a job and start really living… But I want to learn more. I want to finish my European Studies degree, but I also want a degree in linguistics, and a degree in marketing; I just want to study everything. I'm thinking that maybe I will, but not any time soon.

I don't know if you think that I don't write because I forget to write, or because I forget I have a blog, or maybe because I forget you guys are looking out for updates. It's not any of that. I think about it quite often. I just struggle sometimes to come up with something with which to fill these pages. I would rather write to you guys about something than give you 5 paragraphs of nothing, and I think I've been going the "nothing" route too much these last few months.

I've been thinking about things lately… Making backup plans. I hate to both acknowledge and admit that I'm making backup plans. I don't want a backup plan. I want my current plan to work. I'm not saying that it's not going to work; I'm still doing everything I can to pass all of my classes. It's just that I would hate for it to end up not working, and then I end up with no plan.  See, the IND (Immigration and Naturalisation Service) here in the Netherlands decided that there were going to be new rules this year; initially, in order to continue my program, I only needed to be sure I get my first year diploma within two years, and then make sufficient progress the following years. Now they've put a stricter guideline on it. They say I have to have earned half of my credits each year in order to retain my residence permit. The part that makes this difficult is that even if I pass half of my exams, it doesn't mean I earn half of my credits. Some modules have multiple exams, and I have to pass every exam within the module to earn any credits; even though those exams count as separate courses. It's really complicated to explain, but for example one of my minors this term, American Business and Politics, has three parts. There's an American Business class (5 credits), an American Politics class (4 credits) and an American Culture class (6 credits). In order to earn all 15 credits, I have to pass all three exams. I already passed the Business and Politics classes, but I think the American Culture exam is going to kick my butt. On the exam, they will give us 20 quotes from 20 different literary texts that are "important to American culture" and we have to identify the name of the text and the author. The remarkable thing is that I'm not familiar with a lot of these texts. This course was supposed to give us knowledge that would help us relate to Americans culturally, and I don't even know most of the reading material. They're all historical texts, quite a few dating back to colonial days. You would think that as an American, I should be able to find relevancy in the study material. Of all the things I should have to worry about…

Anyway, this means I have to pass at least 40 credits this year, and I'm sure I have passed the equivalent of that much, but I haven't actually been credited with them because I didn't pass all exams in the module. Heaps of frustration and stress involved in that. The lovely part is that we have to have passed these before July 1 apparently, and they only informed us of this at the end of March. Which, by the way, we had 40 credits worth of exams in January, and another 15 credits of exams in March. We can't resit any of those until August. I am supposed to go talk to someone about it, the dean of my academy, but he's never in office when I go by (even though it's during his listed office hours). If they really expect us to have gotten that done by July 1, they should have told us sooner…

The thing is, I have 11 credits from my first semester (I know, 11 is really lame) and my minors should give me 30 credits this semester, so I should be fine, but if I can't pass that American Culture class, or if I mess up with one of my other courses? Maybe I have no reason to worry, but I worry anyway. Worry, worry, worry.

And backup plans.

Update: Sunday 25 May

Hi! I made a scarf. Now it's too warm to wear such a scarf. But I made it nonetheless. It looks kind of like the one in that picture. Actually, it looks exactly like the one in that picture. Except minus maybe the crochet hook hanging off the end. It's not the best scarf ever, but it's the first thing I've ever completed, so whatever.

Uhhh. I don't have much to say. I just thought maybe you missed me and wanted a blog post.

I have been playing with my digital camera lately. I guess I forgot that it focuses so much better than my phone's camera. I thought I should take the camera and go for a walk around the city but I'm so lazy. Besides, I never know what to take pictures of. Maybe I should just carry it with me all the time.

This is a picture I took of Lola the bearded dragon, in the kitchen. You can even see a piece of hair stuck on her nose. Oops. She is a very photogenic reptile.

Aphids! On the plant in the kitchen. Not the prettiest sight, I know. I've never seen aphids before… It's Ian's plant, I showed him the aphids and told him they will kill the plant and that made him sad because he thinks the aphids are really cool. I'm not really sure if it would be smart to put ladybugs on a houseplant, so I don't really know what will be done about them…







Last but not least, cat. He just went in on Friday for a… gender-altering operation. He seems unaffected. He's a cat, not sure what else would be expected.


Those are all the pictures I have to share right now. And I have nothing else to say.

Update: Wednesday 30 Apr

Happy I-haven't-updated-in-a-long-time Day!

Uhm, so hi. I haven't posted mostly because I haven't been doing much. I'm not sure if I mentioned that I passed my first year exam? I did. I passed. I was so happy. It took almost three weeks to get my results and I was so anxious. But then I got them, and I passed, and now I have only one more to pass and I know that I will.

Last weekend, the Netherlands had its first ever King's Day. King Willem-Alexander's birthday was Sunday, but they can't celebrate on a Sunday, so King's Day this year was April 26. This means that Friday, April 25 was King's night, and we happened to go to a movie that night without realizing/remembering that it was King's night. It was very crowded when we went to the movie, but that was nothing compared to after the movie. Try riding a bicycle through the city center at 11pm when most of the people are wandering down the main street towards the main bar area and they're too drunk to realize that bike paths are for BIKES. Bikes. Not people. It was kind of cool though, there were so many people out and a huge carnival over by the parliament building, and bands playing in various different places around the city center, so it was loud and crowded but nice to see that kind of patriotism for once. In general, extreme patriotism (outside of football aka soccer) is kind of frowned upon in Europe, following the two world wars… You don't see people hanging their Dutch flags outside their homes year-round. I've heard from a few people that they find that little fact kind of endearing about the USA. They think it's cool how proud people are to be American. I think that's kind of cool too. That's why I like King's Day. For once, people go out and hang Dutch flags, wear orange, celebrate their royal family. They get to show their pride.

What else did I want to write about today? Oh, right. For the past year or so, I've been trying really hard to like more foods. I figure that I might as well try to like as many foods as possible, because there's no harm in broadening my horizons, right? For example, I already mentioned that I tried and liked the Brussels sprouts, which I had never liked before. I have had them in the past; specifically, I remember one night staying at a friend's house, and her parents made Brussels sprouts for dinner. They told me I could eat just one and that was fine, but they made her eat a whole helping of them and we were at the dinner table for quite a while that night. That was a long time ago though, when I was 15, and I just remember how much I really didn't like the one that I ate (I did eat it though, because I have always made it a point to eat what I am given when I'm at someone's house). Anyway, other things. I never used to care for avocados unless it was in guacamole form, but now I buy one every once in a while and just put it on everything and I love it. Avocado sushi is delicious. Uhm. There are quite a few examples, but the main thing I wanted to talk about was pineapple.

I've never liked pineapple. My dad used to put canned pineapple in his sweet and sour stuff when he made it, and while I love his sweet and sour sauce, I could never eat the pineapple pieces. I would pawn those off on my sister. Anyway, for the past month or so I had been eyeing pineapples every time I was in the store. I couldn't rationalize buying a big pineapple for €2.50 though when I thought I didn't like them… But the main reason I resisted was because I had read that a pineapple is ripe when it smells sweet—when it smells like a pineapple even through the shell. It's hard to find a ripe pineapple around here, apparently. I also read that pineapples do not and can not shelf-ripen. Okay. So two weeks ago, I finally found one that was ripe. I bought it. I took it home. I chopped it up and put it in a container to stick in the fridge. It didn't work, though. I thought, a whole pineapple should last at least a few days right? I ate the whole thing that day. It was so good. And then I thought, I don't need to do that again, I just ate €2.50 in one sitting—which maybe doesn't seem too bad, but it's all sugar. Anyway, two days later I was in the store and found another ripe pineapple… I couldn't pass it up. I bought two pineapples in one week. The second one lasted me a few days, at least. Then I wasn't going to buy any more pineapples, but surprise! Last week, one of the grocery stores had pineapples on sale. They didn't have any ripe ones though, but I bought one anyway. I guess I learned my lesson—that one wasn't as delicious as the other ones. But still. In the last two weeks, I bought and consumed 3 whole pineapples. I guess I can't say I don't like pineapple anymore.