After being a student at the Roosevelt Academy for almost two weeks now, I think I’ve experienced a lot of the student life already. The main reason for that, I think, is because I live in a student house at Bagijnhof. And even though I myself don’t experience the student life that much, I can tell you a lot about it just by looking at my housemates.

For example – the studying during the middle of the night. Honestly, I just don’t get that. I mean, sure, at the end of the semester, I might get so busy that I go to bed at one or something. But seriously, just not sleeping the entire night because of your homework in the first week? And the strange thing to me is that it’s so normal! It looks as if everybody is doing their homework during the night.. I am busy as well, really, there’s a lot of stuff you have to do and I find it really complicated and hard. But then again, you also have so much time! There’s just not that much classes and the rest of the day you can spend doing your homework. At least, that’s what I think. Yet apparently, I’m the only person at this entire school who goes to bed before eleven.. Maybe this will change, because that is what everyone has been telling me, but I hope not, since I still believe that sleep (your health!) is more important than schoolwork. If I have a lot of work, I just go to bed in time and wake up a little earlier to finish it..

And then there’s the dishes. Seriously, how hard is it to just do your dishes when you are done eating? My house is really nice and here, most of the time, everybody actually does their dishes but I’ve seen some houses.. my goodness! I’m glad to be living in this house, where, most of the time, stuff is just clean. I mean, I’m no cleaning monster myself and my room can get a little messy at times, but I think that it is just common decency to do your dishes and keep the bacteria out.. right?

All of this makes me feel that I’m sort of an outsider in the student world. I don’t do my homework at night, I do my dishes, I don’t party and get drunk, I am happy in the mornings and I’m always in time. However, I have also experienced the student life last week. My housemates cooked a lovely dinner and it was really good, but after that I got a strange ache in my stomach. I tried to do some homework but it just got worse and I figured I’d just go to bed, and try to get some sleep.. wrong! The pain got worse and worse and well, I think you can guess what happened: I threw up six times that night and didn’t get a minute of sleep. I emailed my tutor and teachers that I wouldn’t make it to school that day, and after the pain and the puking had finally ended I fell asleep.

I still don’t know what the exact cause was. It might have been the dinner, but I’m the only one in the house who got sick so that would be really strange. But anyway, after this experience I honestly felt like a real student. So even though I do sleep, don’t drink and I’m always happy in the morning, I’m still living a student life.