Time is flying when you're having fun

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It has been about four months since I said goodbye (with the neccessary tears) at Schiphol and got on my flight to JFK. It seems like only four weeks ago I moved in though. But so much has happened in the mean time. This blog has not been as updated as it should have been and I hoped it would be, but it's going to be a new year, so it will be one of my resolutions.



From the first week in Larchmont to now, it has been an incredible experience. That first week I was so nervous and excited to finally start my NYU journey, something I had been waiting for since December 16, 2010. That week was actually pretty relaxing as everything went pretty smooth. Until Irene came and screwed everything up. Move-in day was postponed and I almost had a nervous breakdown, but it wasn't nearly as bad as when that day actually came and the car didn't show up. As my dad can confirm, I paced around like a chicken without a head and slowly went crazy. But then I finally arrived at the place I now call home: Third Avenue North. It was the day I met my awesome roommate Charlotte and my suitmates Whitney and Chantelle, the day I officially was an NYU student, the day I was officially alone too and the day Welcome Week started.

Welcome Week. That was a hell of an introduction. I tried to do as much as possible so I could make many, many new friends in this country and I actually succeeded for the most part. It was there that I actually met/got to know my friend Cyrah, as she saved me from loneliness in line for the Presidential Welcome when I'd lost all my roommates. Ever since we have been friends and it actually turned out that we have all the same classes! It was also the week of awkwardness between the roommates. You are suddenly living with people you had never seen before and you certainly don't want to step on anybody's toes. But we got all of that over with and then actual college started: first week of class.

That first week was just trying to find your way around campus, where the hell is my class, who do I want to sit next to, what time do I need to leave to neither be obnoxiously early nor late. But all worked out really well and I found my way around. The classes were interesting for the most part (I mean math will always be math) and the professors were really not as scary as it sounded (perhaps for my first impression of Dr. Rach who is now my favorite teacher).

It was a semester of firsts. First time of sharing a room, first Halloween, first suit, first Thanksgiving, first time being laughed at for my accent, first hotel tour etc etc. But it was definitely an amazing semester. I am completely sure I made the right choice coming here. I love my major and I also like the courses that are a little broader (this semester Business Development and Tourism Impacts and Issues) and then there are the MAP courses. This semester I had math (I will not elaborate on that) and Writing, which was actually interesting.

Besides classes, I also did some fun NYU things. I'm part of HBS (Hospitality Business Society) which is the club for my major. We have montly meetings and they organize events focused on hotel/hospitality management. The E-Board is really nice and the meetings are very casual.

Then there is CAB, Class Activities Board of which I am Event Chair. This only because the week before I had lost the election for president and there was no one else running for Event Chair. But I really like what I'm doing now, I'm the person who is in charge of the event, making sure it's running smoothly and everything is in place and all.

The other club I'm involved in is Icing on the Cake. This is a very, very popular club. They have monthly workshops with 30 spots available and more than 600 people on their listserve so if you don't respons within five minutes, you don't stand a chance. I actually went to the Halloween themed workshop as one spot opened up an hour before and I immediately rsvp'ed. It was a lot of fun and we basically just iced and decorated cupcakes and cake pops.

And last there is the SCPS Student Council as I went to one meeting (but it's on my resume now as that's how it works here) but I signed up to be part of the Event Committee and the Communications Committee so we'll see how that works out in spring semester.

Now, let's talk a little bit more about those roommates of mine. As I mentioned before, I live in a 4 persons suite, which means there are two doubles, one bathroom one tiny kitchen and one common area. Surprisingly we are one of the few suites who don't have any roommate issues. Every now and then we do really need to do dishes but that is as far as it goes. We get along really well, but as we all have different majors (Chantelle is Applied Psych, Charlotte is Music Business and Whitney is undecided) we all have different friends besides that. We do some fun things together though and we've become really close. But this suite is part of a floor, 14 South, and there are three other suites. The first one is the Residence Hall Director aka person partly in charge of Third North (might seem crappy, but they are actually super nice and they've never said a word about anything!). Then there is the other girls' room with five girls: Clancey, Lidnesy, Katie, PW and Antoinette. Nobody ever sees Clancey and Lindsey but whatever. Katie, PW and Antoinette are super nice and I hang out in their suite pretty often. Antoinette is in the same major as me so we have a couple of classes together. PW is always in her bed and can't eat dairy, Katie had the plague (yeah the actual one) and Antoinette is from Taiwan AND Hawaii. Then there is the guys room (we actually refer to those suites like that) with five guys: Ishan, Elliot, Tye, Dan and Matt. Tye moved in later and we don't really see him around much and Elliot is a nice guy but often just hangs out in his room. With Matt, Dan and Ishan I get along pretty well and as a floor we do fun things, such as Secret Santa about a week ago.

Over the course of the entire semester I did some other, not school related, fun stuff too! I went to a concert of The Script which was really, really cool!! And then I heard (yes, I didn't see much) Coldplay play for the Today Show. I went to Penn Station, Times Square and Central Park in the middle of the night and watched sunrise from a rock in Central Park. I went iceskating at Wolfman Rink (in Central Park) with many, many other NYU students which was followed by a trip to Serendipty and I took a cupcake class at Butterlane. Then I volunteered at the International Hotel, Motel and Restaurant Show and the Global Green Awards where I saw Adrian Grenier (the boyfriend in The Devils wears Prada and he's in Entourage). One school related, but voluntarily, activity this semester was visiting the Dream Downtown Hotel and meeting the developer and architect which was awesome. The hotel is amazing (Heidi Klum's Halloween party and the Victoria's Secret afterparty were just two things that took place there) and their rooftop bar PhD is one of the most exclusive ones in NYC right now and we just got to walk around. I did some typical tourist stuff too: vistited Wall Street, Little Italty, Chinatown, Guggenheim, Times Square, Empire State building, Ground Zero memorial and the Brooklyn Bridge. Just top of my head right now haha. But that seems like I only did cool stuff the entire semester, which is not true. New York might be a city that never sleeps, but I do. And even here Sundays are perfect for hanging on the couch in my sweatpants and not leaving the appartment at all. And living on my own means cleaning, doing dishes and laundry every once in a while. But overall it was a pretty good start of my four years at NYU.

Now the fact that I'm Dutch often creates the reply "Oh my god, that is so cool". But they actually don't know anything about Holland. They know it's somewhere in Europe, they know about Amsterdam and they know weed and drinking is legal. But that is mostly as far as it goes. Some people have visited but then just Amsterdam but mostly they really enjoyed themselves. The second question they ask me is "What made you decide to come to NYU". Well that's a good one. I always talk about how I wanted to improve my English and wanted to have an international career and all. But honestly I first picked NYU for its location. And then came the fact that it's a highly regarded school, being in such a city is a huge advantage for my major, the fact that they are internationally orientated. When I visited NYU in May 2010, I immediately felt at home and was amazed by everything. That was the moment I really decided to apply and make it happen. And it happened!

As my title already says, time is flying when you're having fun and it seemed like I went from first week of class to finals. Yeah, those finals came pretty quick and were intimidating. It all comes down to that moment as you finish the class now. And it came down to some pretty intense study sessions with my Hotel-buddies Joyce, Daniel, Antoinette and Cyrah. Besides that, Americans have a different way of grading and assesing the grades. The mentality of just passing and that's fine, doesn't work here. Whenever you want to apply for a job, scholarship or just something within the university, they ask you for your GPA (Grade Point Average). You get letter grades (A,B,C and hopefully not a D or even F) and those equal a certain grade point. Mostly you want at least a minimum of 3.0 which equals about a B (83-86%) so that was definitely something new for me. The mentality is just way more competitive than in Holland, but I got used to it pretty quickly.



Then there is ofcourse Michelle language. People are surprised that I sometimes speak the way they learn a second language, like Spanish. But that's only because it actually IS my second language. I describe things, like a tool to operate cheese, but eventually they know what I mean. Besides that, I invent words such as smallification (the English word for verkleining). And then there is ofcourse my accent which makes me say words in a weird way apparently, they say I say book weird. But the biggest part of Michelle language is the fact that I have a weird mind and that I just talk weird; with half sentences, blurted words and then there is ofcourse the depicting and my weird hand signs. But by now, Charlotte already speaks some of it! And I sometimes talk just Dutch, like the other day when I was trying to explain something to Cyrah about math and I said in Dutch we have a saying for that: Delen door nul is flauwekul. But as she doesn't speak it, this saying didn't make any sense or helped her at all. But most of the time, people understand what I'm trying to say.

Now this is my last week in New York before I leave to go home for winter break. Since I was finished with finals on Monday morning, it is going to be a very relaxing week. I'm planning on relaxing and just doing fun stuff. There is so much to do in the city and during the semester I often couldn't find the time to it so now is perfect. Today for example I'll visiting the Rockefeller Center and watch the famous Christmas tree and ice skating rink. It is great to have some time to actually do what I want to do and not worry about a thing. Some of it is sleep, but it is mostly having fun with the amazing new friends I made here and I'm blessed to have. I'm excited to go home, but also sad I'll have to leave this home behind for such a long time. Ofcourse I'll also be packing to prepare for my almost a month stay in Holland. I'm definitely excited to go back to the country of cheese (especially that), bikes, windmills and ofcourse my lovely family and friends.

So this will be my last blog in 2011, a year filled with amazing things. I hope everybody will have an amazing break and happy holidays ofcourse! I hope our new years will be joyfull and happy, and (at least for me) as great as last year was!

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