And the days go by, la la la

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To start this blog off, I want to thank those that requested me to write more. As this is my first blog, I am new to the experiences that having a blog bring - I find some of the times, I'd rather just talk outloud and the blog will write itself, while other times I want to sit for hours and write a novel about one experience.

Since I came here I've never had so many thoughts going around in my head at one time. I thought my brain was busy back in Seattle, but now it's working 24/7 even when I sleep. Last night I had a vivid dream where I went bungee jumping from a bridge over a raging river...and something to do with cats, but I forget. I find myself reading my book at night but at the same time having two or more thoughts going on at the same time while I'm keeping up with the book's story. I think all the time as I ride my bike, but not normal thoughts like "hm..my ears feel like they froze and fell off my head a couple meters back," but thoughts where I think them as if I were writing a novel like "As each pedal came full circle, her legs started to warm up. The fenders rattled as the bike passed over uneven pavement and continued on its steady pace. I should have worn a hat, she thought to herself as the deep-freeze wind whipped down the bike path and swirled around her head."

I found myself thinking like that tonight as I made my way to the campus around 6:15pm to meet my classmate, have dinner, and talk about the paper we have to write together. Winter is definitely here and the nights are a cold I am not yet used to. I got a really good vibe the first time I met Andra in my multicultural class (the one being lectured in Dutch). She was the one that first volunteered to help me out and answer any of my questions. Tonight, she cooked a noodle and vegetable stir fry along with a baked fish dish. It was really good and afterwards, we went into her room and intended to start some paper discussions. Being girls, our natural ability to chit chat was exercised this night - we talked nothing about our paper for about 3 hours! In the end, we discussed the paper for about 30 minutes and continued on our other conversation about life, etc etc.

She was born in Romania, but moved to northern Nederlands when she was 4 years old. So she considers herself Dutch, but shares both cultures as well. She has many of my interests and also worries about a future career. Maybe I'll save that one for another time. Needless to say, we got to know eachother after 5 hours of socializing. What can I say, I'm a natural gabber.

In Other News...

• I took my exam in English on Monday. I was given 3 hours and I finished it in a little over 2. Overall, I expect my grade to be high and I thought some parts were challenging but overall, I'm pretty confident with my knowledge about the subject and my ability to answer all the essay questions. There were a few multiple choice that I ended up guessing on after narrowing them down to two. So we'll see and if I get a good grade, I'll let you know - otherwise, you probably won't ever hear me mention this exam again. =)
  
  
• This Saturday I'm going to Utrecht (a larger city than Enschede closer to Amsterdam) with a group of International Students. This is organized by the International Office and we're spending the whole day there touring around. I think I'll see some pretty neat things and hopefully some of the international students from my Dutch course will be there. I've met so many people since I've arrived that it's hard to keep in touch with every single person.
  
  
• Before I know it, next Thursday (nov 16th) will roll around and I'll be a backpacker for a week in Italy. As the time comes nearer, I'm getting a little nervous and thinking that I'm a bit crazy, but I'm also extremely excited and know that as long as I think 3 times before I do anything, I'll be okay. I also haven't heard from Cindy about coming to Venice, but she just arrived today in Florence so I'm sure she will respond in a few days.
  
  
• I registered for winter quarter classes in Seattle today. Normally, registration opens at 6am, but that's Seattle time so I was able to register at 3pm this afternoon. How lovely to be able to sleep in AND get all my classes! So, for winter quarter I'm taking: Intro to Logic (required, blah), Geography and Health (actually looking forward to, pray for a cool prof), and Visual Interpretation and Design (one of my department classes I hear is good). I'll also sign up for my Internship credits. I already did my internship at King5 this summer, but now I need to write a paper about it. So total, I'll be taking 19 credits, but 4 of them are for my internship class that doesn't have any lecture.
  
  
• My Dutch is still improving every day. Today's new word that I learned: big (pronouced "Bich" with the 'ch' a sound like you're clearing your throat, or the Hebrew chet). This word means pig. I guess it's my first swear word, but I actually learned it watching 'Sesamstraat', or Sesame Street in Dutch. The Sesamstraat has some of the same puppets as the English version except that Big Bird is called Pino and he's a bit shorter with bright blue feathers. It's probably the best way to learn Dutch because they repeat the same word over and over again. Big big big big! With little piggies jumping all over the screen. Hm...'big' must mean pig.
  
  
• One last amusing story - the night of my birthday party, Jasper was pouring some coca-cola into his cup. We were talking about recycling and he asked whether the soda bottles back in the US were hard like the ones here. Hard? I felt the one liter bottle of coke and the plastic was extremely thick - so thick I couldn't squeeze it in. I said the ones in the US are much flimsier and they press in very easily if you try to pour with one hand. The conversation continued blah blah blah and then I found out that nobody in the entire house knew what Root Beer was!! I'm off to the supermarket this week to see if they really don't have rootbeer here. Jasper asked me how it tasted, and I had no description. "Kind of sweet with a kick? Um...sweet but maybe bitter?" I never thought about it before, but it's hard to describe a flavor when it's artificially created and used in many different products like candy and such. You try describing 'blue raspberry' flavor to someone. =)
  

Till next time, love to all

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Photos

Sesamstraat
Pino the bird, Tommie the dog, Purk the pig, and Ieniemenie the mouse. These are my vrienden (friends) hehe