23 Things

I had a wonderful birthday yesterday and I'm one year closer to my ultimate life goal of being an old lady. To manage to mild terror I feel at my rapid aging, I made some lists.

     3 Things that Annoy Me about Myself at Age 23 
      (maybe the fact that this is a short list should be on the list)

1. I can’t stand silences and will talk to fill them, no matter what. Usually by terms of interrogation.
2. I never wake up when I intend to, but always seem to think I will.
3. When I say something awkward, I can’t just let it stand and move on. Instead I keep trying to make it better by coming back to it, like covering a typo with increasing amounts of bad quality white-out. (But really, your religion isn’t the most ridiculous one.)

     10 Things I’ve Given Up On At Age 23:

1. Have a fashion style beyond “this is what my mom bought me”
2. Being charismatic. 
3. Speaking Chinese. I spent the entire previous summer walking around with listening to Chinese for beginners. What I ended up learning was a series of sounds that only sounded like Chinese to non-Chinese speakers. Sometimes not even that.
4. Reading scientific papers with anything approaching the enthusiasm with which I read Harry Potter
5. Being mysterious. I’d say “obvious” is the word most often used to describe me, usually prefixed with “so”.
6. Reading classical books because I genuinely enjoy them, not just so I can say I’ve read them. Ditto with serious films.
7. Wearing dresses or heels without feeling ridiculous.
8. Talking slowly and clearly. It’s been my New Years Resolution for three years running. It’s…just…not…happening.
9. Having a real hobby besides stalking people on Facebook. (Thanks for the birthday wishes, everyone.)
10. Being capable of eating only a “reasonable” amount of chocolate.

10 Things I’m Grateful for at Age 23:

1. Living in the 21th century in developed country. I’m a fan of a modern medicine, and 23 still being relatively young.
2. Being able to obtain a great education in both America and the Netherlands. Someday I’ll leave the 47%, but it is not this day!
3. Being alive. Being a human being. The odds aren’t great, when you think about, and I, for one, often spend lectures on bacteria thinking about how lucky I am not to be a bacterium.
4. Food, practically the type with sugar.
5. Facebook, email, and skype. It’s harder to miss people when they won’t go away. 
6. The people I know love me, even though they could definitely Skype me more often. You know who you are. 
7. Adorable babies and toddlers who now have Forever Families.
8. All the wonderful people at Bennekom. Plus Lucia.
9. The repeat option on my iTunes.
10. My family, both in the Netherlands and in America. The older I get, the more I realize how much I lucked out.

Sometimes I Do Things That Don't Make Sense

Stop the press.

Sure, my actions don’t always appear logical...	...and they're not.
Pretend I don’t care when I’m trying to get an electronic device to work.	My computer is both telepathic and has a weakness for reverse psychology.
Worry about dying whenever my life is going well.	I used to read a lot. When things go well in the middle of a book (or life), something bad is going to happen soon. I don’t have an evil wizard archenemy, so I make do with suspicious moles.
Think worrying about things will make them less likely to happen.	That’s how worrying solves things.
Practice an in-depth responses in case someone interrogates me on my religious, political, or dietary beliefs.	This has happened a lot, actually. Maybe I need to stop interrogating myself.
Justify my life choices to an imaginary Oprah. Sometimes out loud, sometimes in a mirror.	I don't care that her show was cancelled,  I need to be prepared.
Decide to make lists like this when I should be studying.	I don’t want to study.

This list is incomplete.

Some things that I like about my life right now

The community kitchen: I love having a community kitchen. Sure, sometimes the dishes don’t get washed or put away. Sure, I’m using passive voice to avoid indicting myself. Sure, we almost grew a pet fungus in some old spaghetti. But it’s very gezellig. 

International food corroboration: A group of us take turns cooking in the evening - socialism in real life! It’s a win-win-win situation, even if all the wins go to me. I get to learn how to cook, I get to eat much healthier than I normally would (which considering that we eat desert everyday is saying something), and it’s easier and cheaper to cook once a week. Plus the people in the group are okay, I guess. 

Claude Francois: According to iTunes, I’ve listened to  “Comme d’habitade” 154 times. The reality is much worse, since I also listen to it on my mp3 player on repeat. (It’s the original “My Way”) I can finally combine my inablitity to speak French, my inability to sing, and my inability to act in one song. It’s very exciting. I’d be happy to sing it to anyone who asks, but so far, oddly enough, nobody has.

Biking: Okay, I know I’ve talked about this before, but I can’t help feeling like I’ve found the solution to obesity, foreign oil dependency, and pollution all in one go. It’s a panacea! 

Here’s an informative video on biking in the Netherlands (thanks, Mark)  and an informative article on how I’m wrong about helmets (still wearing one anyway) .

The classes: I might change my mind after I get my grades, but so far I really like all my classes. They’re quite long, I often have class from 8:30 to 5:30, but the lectures are informative, the practicals are well organized, the assignments are educational; so what more can you ask? I’m also very impressed with how involved the professors are with even the freshman classes. They’re very friendly and approachable, and not at all patronizing, even when, based on my questions, they have every right to be.

Dutch: My classroom Dutch is improving, even though it’s a bit humbling to have to look up the definition of a word every other sentence. I wish I could just pick it up from context, but I’m a little slow with that. (For the longest time, I thought incumbent meant idiot because that was always the context it was used it. True story) For example, after hearing things like “Is Joreom aanwezig?” for six weeks, I only recently realized that “aanwezig” meant “present” instead of “paying attention”. In a very egoistic manner, I find myself thinking why they can’t just say “present” like a normal person.