Warning: Very long post today.
Hey. I guess Sunday (or Monday, some weeks) are post days now. I missed last Sunday, but I've been busy this week. By 'busy' I mean I haven't really been doing anything at all. I've spent the week relaxing, which is not what I intended, but after a lot of thought I think it was the right thing to do. I think I really needed that.
I want to start off by saying how actually really lucky I am. I have two parents, who I've always got along well with and who I know support me no matter what I decide to do. It's strange to hear someone say that they hate one parent or another (or both) because they've just never gotten along. I've never experienced that. My parents are awesome. I have four grandparents, which in-and-of-itself is saying a lot, because so many people my age have never even gotten the chance to meet half of their grandparents. My grandparents are all also really great, and support me so much. I also have really amazing friends, which is not something I've been lucky enough to say in the past.
Also in the last two years, I've improved my hygiene and lost about 50 pounds. Now you may not really care to hear this, but I admit that I used to be very bad at taking care of myself, and it's so nice now to just look forward to taking a shower every day. I feel like that 50 pounds should be more—it's still a work in progress—but honestly I think it's amazing as-is. Why? Because I lost those 50 pounds without really trying, and it was really all within the first year that I lost it. Imagine what I could do if I put more effort into it.
I've been having a really bad school-year. I thought that I could get my first year exams out of the way while also passing my second year exams, and then be on track by the end of the year. It's not working. I passed two of my first year exams without a problem, and the next two are coming up soon, but I've failed probably half of my second year exams so far. That shouldn't have happened. Obviously, that wasn't the plan. But things rarely go as planned. The stress from the first-year exams carried over to the second year exams and my little snowfall turned into an avalanche and now I feel completely overwhelmed. That was what I was going to do with my spring break. I was going to get caught up on assignments and things to try to be more on track. Instead, like I said, I've been relaxing. But I think it's okay. I've been so stressed that I really needed a little bit of time to breathe and not worry.
Why else has the year been bad? Well, I'm broke. I know, college life is supposed to be about being broke. It's part of the experience. I'm not complaining about that. And the obvious solution is to get a job, but remember how I said I'm really stressed over school? I don't need to add to that right now. I'll be honest with you, I do kind of want to be broke anyway. Just because I have access to more money (thank you AC) doesn't mean I should go out and spend it all. It's a privilege, not a right. The thing is, last month my bicycle started breaking down. I had to pay to have it fixed, but that wasn't too bad of an expense. It works so well now, and I really do need it. Last week though, my phone fell from my loft bed and the screen shattered. It was still mostly usable (other than the random glass shard that would fall out every once in a while). Unfortunately, it turns out that the touchscreen was also broken, and I tried to have it repaired, it only broke further. My phone was then unusable.
I know that having a phone on you at all times is kind of a new thing, but I really don't feel safe not having a phone when I leave my house. I didn't feel like I had a choice but to go out and buy a new phone, and since my phone contract is not due for renewal for another 6 months (and I don't want to pay for a plan that involves payments for a phone, I'll explain further down) I had to pay more for it than I ever want to pay for any phone ever again. I put a lot of thought into it though. I bought a phone that is unlocked—you can put a SIM from any carrier in it—and I bought insurance so that if my phone ever breaks again, I have to pay only €25 to replace it, and that's only
if they can't repair it in-store. I plan for this phone to last me a very long time, and since it's unlocked I will be able to use it regardless of which country I end up living in or what phone company I end up using. Also, not getting a new phone when I renew my contract means that my phone bill won't include phone payments. I currently pay €43 a month for phone service, because I got my phone with my contract. When I renew, I can get a SIM-only plan that will only be around €25 a month. If I had included a phone in that, it would have ended up being over €55 a month (I want only a one-year contract, I don't know how much longer I'll be here. I wish it could be forever, but I don't want to work in the Netherlands, and I miss my family).
So I realize that purchasing a new phone is counterproductive to the whole broke situation, but I'm prepared to account for that. I don't typically spend outrageously—I'm pretty good at telling myself no to unnecessary things—but it means that buying lunch at school once a week is not very practical, and going out for a quick coffee or snack with my friends isn't terribly necessary. I still have my movie card, and we go to movies very often. In reality, there's no reason I can't go out for coffee and just not order any. The whole purpose of going out for coffee is to sit and chat, right? One thing it definitely means is that I don't need the pretty new ceramic pan I was looking at this week. I have pans! I just bought some new clothes recently, for which I'm very thankful. Really, the only things I need to spend money on in the coming months are food, rent, phone and movie card. As long as I can actually adhere to that (and avoid buying candy every time I'm in the store) I don't see it being much different. I came to this realization Friday evening and really I'm kind of excited about it. I haven't been very good at trying to make my money last the month, but now I'm going to
have to, so I look forward to the challenge.
As far as school goes, thanks to my week of stress-free relaxation, I feel really motivated to get my work done and get on track. I spent the weekend also doing nothing really, but Tuesday and Wednesday, my free days, I'm going to start writing a report for my American Business class (I have chosen to do it on Delta Airlines, because we're supposed to do a Fortune 500 company and I really like Delta). I just got the textbook in the mail last week, finally, and the teacher is so vague on things that I found it hard to get started without my text book. I'm also going to start reading the books I have to write a report on. We have to do it in partners and my classmate Julija (who is a really good worker, so that's a good thing) and I chose to use the books Ragtime, by E. L. Doctorow, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. This is for my American Culture class. Since they're both short books, we had to choose two. None of the longer books on the list seemed very interesting to me, and we felt like two shorter books would be easier anyway because if we really don't like one, at least it's only 250 pages.
This is already a very, very long blog post, but I had a lot to get off my chest, and I felt like it was all really important to say. But now, if you want, I will tell you about our trip to Maastricht. Actually, I'm going to tell you now whether you want or not because I don't have time to ask you if you want, but I guess if you don't want, you can stop reading here.
Thursday, Jenn and Tess and I met up at the train station here in The Hague to travel to Maastricht to visit Simona. Normally we would have to take the train from The Hague to Eindhoven, and then switch to a train to Maastricht, but the train to Eindhoven goes through Rotterdam, and they were having track problems somewhere in Rotterdam and those trains weren't running. That trip would have been pretty direct. Instead, though, we had to get on a train from The Hague to Utrecht and then switch to a train to Maastricht from there. It ended up taking about the same amount of time (almost three hours) but it was exhausting either way. We got to Maastricht at about 10 in the evening. From Utrecht to Maastricht we shared seats with a girl from the Maastricht area. The first thing I want to tell you is that the Dutch accent in Limburg (province where Maastricht is located) is very different from the accent in South/North Holland (provinces with The Hague and Amsterdam). Well actually it's very different from any of the accents in the country, but the Hollander accent is the one I'm accustomed to. I found it very comical—I couldn't understand anything that the Limburgers said in Dutch, but it sounded very funny anyway, so I just had to laugh afterwards. Anyway, this girl was quite the character. She informed us of many things of which we weren't previously aware. First of all, Limburgers hate all people from other provinces because I guess the non-Limburgers assume that they should throw beer on Limburgers and ask for sex. That one's quite a complicated generalization, but she seemed very bitter about that. Second, the girl really loved Americans. She was so excited about me being American—she seemed to be directing everything she said at me the entire two hours we rode with her. (Uh. Did I mention she was drunk and very loud?) The most important thing that came from that was that she said her best friend is American—from Louisiana—and he's here because he is air force. She then told us that her Louisianan best friend took her to the military base in Schinnen. That. That right there is the important part. Military base in Schinnen. I didn't know there was one. It's an US army garrison in the south of the Netherlands, not too far from Maastricht. I desperately want to go, and she said that he got her in as a visitor pretty easily, so now I'm really excited to take someone and go some time. I should be able to get into an army garrison, right? I JUST REALLY WANT TO GO TO A COMMISSARY. Uh. The third thing we learned is that this upcoming week is Mardi Gras (Carnaval in Dutch). I guess Limburg is a very Catholic province, and they start their Carnaval celebrations on… yeah. Thursday. The day we arrived. The entire train ride, we could hear drunk people in other sections of the train singing very loudly (yes, this is also the reason the girl we were sitting with was so drunk), and people kept walking through the train in full costume.
Okay. So we finally got to Maastricht, Moon picked us up and took us back to her apartment, and by that time we were all really keyed up so some pretty amusing conversations ensued. We played a few card games and ate a bunch of snacks and then crashed for the night. We had a double air mattress and then Moon's single bed. Three of us squished onto the air mattress, it was rather crowded. The next morning, we all gradually woke up (and talked silently in a phone chat until everyone was awake because we didn't want to wake them up), ate breakfast, and somehow managed to get out of the apartment before noon. We went to the center of Maastricht, surrounded everywhere by red, yellow and green Carnaval flags. There were signs on a lot of the bar doors that said no entry without a costume. In the center of Maastricht, they had a big market, which Moon says they set up every Friday and Saturday. Most of what I saw was textiles—fabrics and such. Some were expensive—€9 a meter for any type of fabric. Some were really cheap—€2 a meter, €4,50 a meter. That market is also where I saw the really nice ceramic pans. I really wanted one. I was saved by the fact that I had no cash on me. We found an Oil & Vinegar shop, I really like those. They have them in the US as well, if you ever come across one you should really check it out. They sell all sorts of oils, vinegars, dips, sauces, spreads. Not only that, but they usually have tons and tons of samples set out for anyone to try. I wanted to buy some balsamic, but balsamic is easy to get in a normal grocery store and I know I don't need any… Simona did buy some mango vinegar that I found for her, though. She loves mangos. I saw it, tasted it (eww, mango), and called her over. She was very happy. They have their oils and vinegars on tap, and they sell it per 100ml. You pick out a bottle, they'll fill it up for you and away you go. Later, we had sandwiches and cappuccinos for lunch, and then we went off in search of the frozen yogurt place because we've all been saying for the last month that we really want frozen yogurt. If you get a medium cup of yogurt, you can choose three toppings, which is what I got—cinnamon flavored yogurt with strawberries, kiwi and white chocolate. The people at that shop were very cheerful. After that, we dropped into a couple more shops just to browse, and then headed back to Moon's apartment. That's when we tried to have my phone repaired. Then around six or seven we packed up all of our stuff at Moon's apartment and headed to the train station—Moon came with us—for a 3-hour train ride back home. On the train we saw about 20 loud, drunk penguins. I don't know where they were going, but there must have been a party somewhere that was missing its penguins. I was a little disappointed that they didn't stop and do a Happy Feet song and dance for everyone in the train. I got home around 10:30 that night. All-in-all, it was a really good trip.
All right, the first half of this blog post made me cry (talking about feelings always gets to me) but the second half reminded me of happiness so I think this roller coaster of a blog post has run its course.
Applesauce, which I made yesterday. I used 3 sweet apples and two sour apples and it didn't end up needing any sugar at all.
