Inge Thinks...

[ disclaimer: I have decided to quit writing for the blog at the Roosevelt Academy website, so this is my last blogpost for that site. I will, of course, continue to write on this blog, however, this blog post contains some awesome stories that I didn't want to keep from you, so that's why : ) ]

Hello there, dear readers. I know that it has been forever since you have seen a blog post from me, and I’m sorry for that. However, as you can see from the title, this will be my final blog for the RA blog. Although I have enjoyed writing, RA really eats your time, and I have decided that I find my grades more important than writing for this blog. Also, my life isn’t as interesting anymore as it was at the beginning. I already moved, I sort of know my way around Middelburg and I’m feeling very much at home in my house. Of course I will not leave you with this as a goodbye. Here are just some stories about my first half of the semester at RA.

Seriously, did you know that Bagijnhof is being terrorized by ladybugs? Not the sweet, little, lovely ladybugs that make you smile, but evil, mean and wicked ladybugs. I am afraid to open my window, because if I do they assemble their army and they invade my room with thousands at a time. And honestly, I cannot fall asleep if I know that there is a huge, scary ladybug flying (yes, flying!) around in my room.

Also, Bagijnhof has his own soap. The one of the dudes who sweep away the leaves. First, every Wednesday, there is one dude with a gigantic blower who blows all the pretty leaves to the side. When he leaves, the sweep-car comes by, who, with a tremendous amount of noise, eats all the leaves. Of course, this happens on Wednesday, the day that we all have to concentrate and work really hard. But to my surprise, not so long ago, the sweep dude had multiplied himself and now there was a force of two noise making leaf-blowing guys, taking away my concentration. And not just on Wednesday anymore, but also on Monday. And honestly, these leaves keep on falling anyway, so isn’t it just pretty useless?

And then there’s the killing of the stove. As you all know, I like a clean house. So when I got back here on Monday, after a party and a weekend, it was a terrible mess over here. So, as a true cleaning lady, I spent four hours cleaning everything. I even cleaned the toilet! But also, I cleaned the stove. It was really disgusting and after I finished, one of my housemates remarked: ‘It’s all *bling bling*, Inge!’. And that was true, and I was proud. However, my happiness didn’t last long, because when I wanted to start cooking the light flickered and then went off. The stove didn’t get warm, it didn’t work.. I killed it! And now I’m sitting here, hoping that the caretaker can perform magic and resurrect the clean stove..

The academics? Love! It’s fall break now and I’ve been here for half a semester and honestly, I never want to leave. Although it is busy, I’ve still managed to keep up my sleeping routine and I’m getting good grades. I love all the courses, the people are so enthusiastic and so dedicated and I’m really enjoying it! Right now, it is time to pick the courses for next semester and I’m just loving it – I want to take every course!

If you are still worried about the workload or something – please don’t be! I have to work really hard to get good grades, but I manage to go to bed every night before 12. Yes, it is a lot of work, but you also have a lot of time. There’s not that much class and the rest of the time is just yours – you can divide it yourself. Which is awesome, because you can work in the way that suits you best. Although it may seem like all the students at RA only work at night – I am the proof that it is possible to just get enough sleep and survive here, so don’t worry : )

But the biggest revelation of this blog post is the fact that I went to Barrel. Yes, you’ve seen it correctly, I went to Barrel! After the never-ending begging of more than 10 of my friends, thinking it was the end of the first half of the semester anyways, I decided to come. And I had a lot of fun! Although my hate for the music will probably never end (kaboom, kaboom, kaboom?), my feet hurt from the dancing when I got home. I had fun! : )

So, when I think back about my first half of the semester things have changed, but things have also stayed the same. But most of all, I enjoyed it. I’ve made some truly amazing friends, I have laughed so hard, I got some awesome grades, I’ve learned so much and I’m feeling very much at home here, in Middelburg.

Thank you for reading my blogs and I hope you enjoyed them : )

Lots of love and happiness,

Inge

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.

Hi there, dear readers. I’m sorry that it has been ages since my last post but seriously, the intRAweek (which is the introduction week here at the Roosevelt Academy) just doesn’t leave you with a lot of time. But that’s actually a good thing, because now this will be a very long blog post, haha.

Last time I was tired from the jet-lag, but the next morning my sweet mum got me some sleeping medication that actually worked, so that problem was solved. I went to IKEA, bought some really awesome furniture and paid a ton to get it delivered to Middelburg. After a nice day of relaxing with my boyfriend on Wednesday, I went to Middelburg on Thursday to pick up my keys. I had to be there at ten, or something, so I had to get up at six in the morning! After some wandering about Middelburg, trying to find Bagijnhof, I got there and I got my keys. I was really excited to see my room and I was not disappointed: my room is awesome! It’s pretty big and there’s a huuuuge balcony so that’s all really nice. I didn’t have any furniture yet that afternoon so I just walked around Middelburg for a bit with my boyfriend and we actually found our way to the Albert Heijn and back, haha! Then in the evening my parents delivered the first load of stuff, but my first night here was actually pretty lonely. All those boxes weren’t really good company and I felt a little sad lying there in the empty room on my air mattress.

The next morning I had to get up early again because the furniture guys came knocking at the door! I was determined to be a brave women and fix all the IKEA furniture myself. I did it, but it took forever. Two hours for the table, two for the chair and one for the bed. Next time I’ll let my father do it, because seriously, those blisters are NOT cool. That evening I had dinner at a friends house and it was really nice – pasta. I have now learned that every student dinner consists of pasta, or.. pasta and oh yeah, pasta (: I don’t mind though, I actually really like it. Another night in my new room with a little more furniture and then it was Saturday – official moving day! My parents and boyfriend came over and carried all my stuff (looaaads of stuff) up the narrow stairs. After that long day of moving I was really happy! My room looked so much like home and all my red-and-white stuff made everything look really nice. After that I went home for the weekend and spend the Sunday at the boyfriend. I arrived home on Sunday evening at eleven, talked to some people in the house and fell in a deep and very nice sleep.

The next morning was the first day of intRAweek. We got our cool pink T-shirts, we met our family, had lunch and of course there was the first party. I’m not really a party person so I didn’t go to most of them and actually tried to get some sleep. This resulted in me being all bright and shiny in the morning while all my house mates and family members were either hangover or just really tired. What I remember very well was the next day. The next day was called ‘beach-day’, but ‘walking-to-the-beach-day’ would have been a better idea. We walked from eight in the morning to two in the afternoon, arrived at the beach, were there for half an hour and then went home again. Although the walking was really tiring I had a really nice day because of my awesome family. I learned a lot more about everyone and had some cool conversations, painted a flag and took a billion funny pictures. Oh and we also had to name a leaf. We found one, named him Richard and gave him an incredibly long life story which had a lot to do with the First World War and drinking whisky – I will spare you the rest of the story (:

The next day was academic day and I finally felt that I was in the right place. Lots of speeches and talks about how awesome the Roosevelt Academy is and after that we got to meet our tutor and received our schedules. I was so happy, I have all these really awesome art and literature courses and I was really excited to start! In the afternoon there was committee afternoon which was also really nice, after that we had a wonderful family dinner and then I finally got some sleep. Next day it was raining raining raining. We went to the library and I skipped the afternoon sports day because I went to Breda to celebrate my one year anniversary with my boyfriend. I got home at eight and then we went to prepare for the ‘Everything starts with a P-Party’. Our family decided to be presents and after working on them for at least four hours, we all looked really awesome. Sadly enough, it was also really late, so I went to the party, was there for two minutes, and then left.

Friday – the last day of our intRAweek. In the morning I went to buy my books at De Drukkery, was totally amazed by their coolness and spent some time reading them. Then I signed up for a few committees and around one the afternoon program started: Dutch games on the Market Square! It was a fun thing to do with your family and surprisingly our Finnish girl was actually really good at all the games, hihi. She and I went to get some ice cream after that and we also went grocery shopping at the Albert Heijn. In the evening there was a barbecue and we got our RASA certificates. We didn’t win the competition, but at least we didn’t lose either.. I left that same evening with two of my house mates and spend a wonderful weekend at home. Sunday evening I got back to Middelburg and soaking wet and shivering because of the terrible wind and rain (seriously, Zeeland!) I arrived at my house. There we had a house meeting and I was really happy to be in my own bed again that night.

Monday morning – first day of classes! I had to start at 8.45 with a literature class and I really enjoyed it. Also my rhetoric class was great with some awesome discussions about Dutch politics and, of course, Geert Wilders. After that I spend some time cleaning my room, doing laundry (I was so proud of this), organising school stuff, cooking and doing a huge amount of dishes. To bed in time and we arrive at this morning. Today I only have one class which starts at four, so that’s really nice. I have loads of time to do my first homework and I’m not stressed – yet. The homework is actually pretty cool since it’s mostly reading and I really like that, haha.

So, after not doing homework for an hour because I had to type this blog, I think it’s time to start again now. I’ll talk to you soon about my new Middelburg and Roosevelt Academy adventures!

It is almost two o’clock in the morning while I’m typing this blog, and that’s not because I am a die-hard party animal, but it’s because of my travels to the Land of the Free, of which I finally returned. After a long 9 hour flight with much delay, an airport connection from London Heathrow to Gatwick, and a short flight to Schiphol, I was happy to be home again. My first night of sleep was fine because I was so terribly tired of the flight and all the impressions that not even a jet lag could hold me back. The second night, however, was a disaster – a nightmare, literally. I woke up at two o’clock and couldn’t get any more sleep until it was five. I was not going to let that happen again so last night I took a sleeping pill. Yet, even medicine couldn’t help me now. All my limbs are tired, my eyes keep on closing and it’s all warm and fuzzy under the blankets but there is no sleep. And that, a jet lag, when you’re in the middle of moving to another town, is terrible.

Seriously – I’m the kind of girl who usually goes to bed at ten and sleep until eight, and that keeps me happy. No late night parties for Inge. I need my sleep, because I need the energy for things I do during the day. And now, I need that energy more than ever. Signing letters for the public transit card, taxes and rent, putting all my stuff in boxes and buying furniture at IKEA is a lot easier if you’re not terribly tired. Even though I loved buying all my red and white stuff at IKEA, I would have liked it a lot more if I wouldn’t have been yawning half of the time. And then there’s another matter of great importance: to paint or not to paint. Half of my Facebook-friends say that I can surely paint in a Bagijnhof house, yet the other half assures me that they’ve called Woongoed and that those guys wouldn’t give them permission. So before I’m buying paint, brushes and all that other stuff, I need to call Woongoed too, as soon as possible.

Yet, through all the sleep deprivation, life has to go on. I’ve packed everything – my room is disturbingly empty and I believe that it seriously echoes here. Tomorrow I’ll the spend the day and night at the boyfriend, and the next day, Thursday, I can finally pick up my keys to my new home! There, I have to find out about if there are any common pots and pans or whether I have to buy them myself. I also have to be able to find my way to the closest grocery store (Albert Heijn!) and do some of my first living-on-my-own-shopping. Then the boyfriend will return home and I will spend my first night at the apartment with nothing more than an air mattress to sleep on, since my real furniture will be delivered the next day by IKEA. Another night of sleepies at the house and then Saturday the family and boyfriend will bring all the boxes and then I will officially be living in Middelburg, and after that the IntRAweek will start.

However, first things first. Number one? Buying some sleeping medicine that actually works..

I got in! I am admitted to The Roosevelt Academy and soon I will receive a letter that invites me to come study down there at Middelburg. I’m so excited!

Thanks, everyone, for your support! (:

Some of you may remember, but today is the day of my interview at The Roosevelt Academy. I will have to talk for half an hour with two people and then I will now, within two weeks, whether or not I am admitted. So it’s pretty exciting and I’m very anxious. I’ll let you know how it went!