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.