My Life as Lisa: Follow me!

No, this is not an advert for twitter. Actually, this is not meant as an advert at all, it is purely an expression of the highest excitement possible. And I am a person that can get reaaaaally excited, so beware!

I am planning a movie. Of course, I have always been a huge fan of whatever CameRA does, but now finally inspiration struck me to complete my own masterpiece (hopefully). I will film our very own Doctor Who Episode! It seemed a bit of a silly idea at first, a whim of the moment, not a real plan. However, the idea haunted me so much (case of inception?) that I could not get rid off it anymore. And after I figured out how to solve some technical problems that would be inevitably linked with this project I thought: Why not? and could not be stopped by any human creature alive.

Anyhow, it was also clear to me that no matter how fantastic I find this idea, a movie is an enormous project. Such a project with RA students that never have time to even help out their closest friends for 10 minutes? How would that ever be possible? Furthermore, it is a Doctor Who Episode, we need a complete soundtrack re-recorded or composed not to violate any copyrights. Yeeeeah, sure, Lisa, dream on. Is what I thought.

I also thought asking never hurt anybody, so I did, expecting to get a. an awful lot of rejections b. no email at all.

Dear reader, you have to understand: As amazing as RA students are, they just do not reply to their emails. Don’t ask me why it is too hard to send a short one-sentence-notice about something very important, but apparently it is for 80% of our oh-so-busy-students (yes, I know we are busy, but so am I, don’t use this as an argument!). So, I wrote this enthusiastic email about how much I want to film this Dr. Who episode and who was willing to help with basically anything. Before I clicked on “send” I asked a friend: Do you think I will get any replies to this? He said: Don’t count on it, please don’t be so sad if not.

1 minute later my mailbox informed me with a little bleep that there was an email. And another one. And another one. And another one! I felt a bit like Harry Potter jumping around all these letters from Hogwarts. So many emails! Replies to me asking a huge favour from people, to give me a lot of their time, a lot of their energy…and they were all willing! Those who would not help out even replied as well, congratulating me to the idea and wishing me good luck with the project.

If you see someone singing and dancing through Eleanor, it will be me. I am so happy. All this support that I had never expected but secretly hoped for so much! All this enthusiasm, I am so, so, so glad!

Also, I hereby want to utter a warning:
Be careful. Aliens will invade Middelburg soon. You have three months time to evacuate, or prepare to meet a Timelord and his companion. Watch out for a blue telephone box.

Lisa Theresa is a theatre&media studies student, minoring in Statistics merely for the sake of insanity. She is a second year at Roosevelt Academy and apart from work in other committees head of the Campus News Project  (www.ra-campusnews.webs.com).

My Life as Lisa: Campus News

I cannot end this semester without saying anything about Campus News.
Ever since the committee CameRA, of which I am a proud member, mentioned that this project needs an adoptive parent, I have been working on plans, schedules, scripts and interview questions for it. Campus News, I was convinced, should happen, be, and develop into a really cool little video show that people look forward to every two weeks. I even made my parents buy me a camera to do the required filming – it was certainly not the happiest day of their life when they passed the cashier, but I hope the result makes them a bit proud and happy of their investment.

As the semester ends, so does the first season of Campus News…I call it the first season because there will be another two seasons, for sure. I will not give up on this project as long as I am still a student at RA! I truly hope that when I graduate, I have found an amazing team and someone capable and enthusiastic to take over the project and hopefully the tradition that we have built up until then. Campus News started with an episode about intRAweek, celebrated Valentine’s Day, explored the horrors of Midtermweek, rejoiced life in spring, followed the elections and tried to catch some bunnies. Moreover, there is an awfully long episode about the movie ‘The Successor’, but I particularly like it. I don’t know how I feel about all these viewers being so happy about the introduction of this certain episode (go and check it out if you haven’t seen it yet), but I scripted it, so I try not to take it personally and take it as a compliment.

At the moment I am collecting comments and suggestions for the episodes to come in the next semesters in the Campus News Box in Eleanor. I hope you all have somewhat enjoyed it and in the next semester it will be even more awesome! The first season was a jump into the cold water (quite successfully though, luckily), the second season can only mean even more fun and entertainment to come.

Lastly I want to say that Campus News is more than happy about any new members (just contact me!) and your input! The box will still be up for the last week, so this is your chance! If you miss it, I am sure you will figure out how to find me anyways.

Lisa Theresa is a theatre&media studies student, minoring in Statistics merely for the sake of insanity. She is a second year at Roosevelt Academy and apart from work in other committees head of the Campus News Project  (www.ra-campusnews.webs.com).

Micha goes WWOOFing

So this blog it is finally time to explain what I am going to do this summer. It is completely not university related, however it is always great to see what you can do if you have so much time on your hands.

This summer I am going two months to Sweden to go WWOOFing. No this is not barking like a dog, but than written in capital letters ( however you do pronounce WWOOF like that). WWOOF stands for: World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms: WWOOF. http://www.wwoof.org/

WWOOFing basically means that you go to an organic farm, and you work there. Even though it is unpaid, you get a roof above your head and food. So it is volunteer work. The equation is very simple: you donate us your work, and we will give you food, roof, and knowledge about organic farming. If you are not interested in learning some organic farming skills, than don't do this. But if you do, please do so ;-)! So what am I going to do? I am going to take the train to Copenhagen, and than take the train to Malmo, where my journey through Sweden will start. I will first stay somewhere near Uddevalla, which is on the west side of Sweden. Here I will stay two weeks, after helping here I will travel all the way to the middle of Sweden, where I will stay in Mora. After staying there for a almost six weeks, I will travel through the rest of Sweden. Go to Stockholm for example, and some other places I still have to think about.

The picture on the map is absolutely not definitely, but this is the plan as I am thinking of it right now... oh how do I love 3 month long holidays!

My name is Micha, I am a first year student focussing on anthropology and sociology.

Ilse and the End-of-Semester-Blues

As much as I dislike midterms do I like end of terms. Especially the final two weeks in which you buckle down to finish those last bits – polish that last essay before you hand it in, sit down to your last exam, finally finish that course book... two weeks, immense madness and you are constantly reminded of there being 'only two weeks left!'. You are aware of the upcoming deadline and the endless three-month stretch of 'freedom' that lies beyond. You know you will never have to take the courses you don't like but really do need for your major ever again – in my case, anything abstract with numbers – and you will end that awesome course – for which you have suffered through three other courses in the previous semesters just to fulfill the requirements – while thinking 'Week 15? Really?!'. The end-of-semester parties are coming up, all kinds of events, three months of endless sunshine – and it's actually a bit sad. You also realize that you again spent 15 weeks of your life having a marvelous time and it's again over. You think to yourself 'only n semesters left! Oh my, does time fly!'. You know that the three months of freedom also mean three months without RA, three months that are torturously long. It's interesting that we interpret these months as free, since I haven't encountered any student yet that plans on doing nothing. All are going to do some awesome internship, summer course or will work and/or travel et cetera. It's a very double feeling. Pleasant, but saddening. Not really a blues, actually. More like... a big band song in minor key. But that doesn't sound as good.

Ilse is a second year social science student with an interest in law and law enforcement with an interest in many different sorts of media.

My Life as Lisa: Extra Work

If you pass my door you might hear uncontrolled, hysterical laughter. Excuse me if I am loosing my mind, but I have to do extra work. Yes, my dear readers, you have read correctly: Extra work.

Until now Roosevelt Academy was quite alright, survivable, only for one reason…because we knew at least that the teachers understood us. That they worked themselves to near-death-experiences just as much as we do. I do not want to say they stopped working, because they most certainly have not, but at the moment I have to do such a lot that I am loosing my faith in “seeing a light at the end of the tunnel”. Actually my agenda says for the 20^th, the last day of the semester: YAY YOU HAVE SURVIVED!....well, have you?

The thing is, I am taking a few courses at the moment, for which all the end-of-term-evaluations should have the result “it is a good course, but one assignment/essay/presentation/exam less at the end of the semester would do”.

A teacher even assured my course that one of the various tasks will be scrapped because it is actually not doable…next semester.

So I do still have to survive these admittedly almost impossible courses….and do extra work! The last semesters I knew that if I worked myself crazy, it would be rewarded. This semester I have to do extra work to earn the grade I deserve.

Professors, give us a break! Only because we are young does not mean we can perform supernatural amounts of work. We might be young now, but if this goes on like it is now for the next year, we will age faster and all look like this soon:

I don’t know if anyone cares for my opinion, but I don’t think it is a particularly enjoyable sight. Please, just be so sensitive as to give us time to use Anti-Aging Cremes.

Lisa Theresa is a theatre&media studies student, minoring in Statistics merely for the sake of insanity. She is a second year at Roosevelt Academy and apart from work in other committees head of the Campus News Project  (www.ra-campusnews.webs.com).

Micha and Trying to Find a Job

As you might have noticed, I already mentioned twice that I would reveal what I was going to do this summer. So far I didn't say one single word about it. This time I will not yet completely, I will tell you about how it has been to find a job for during the summer holidays.

The last weeks I have been thinking about what to do during my 3 month summer holiday. Considering the fact that it is such a long period I thought about working, that would earn me some money which I could use to... yeah you can guess it: go on a holiday next winter/summer! In Middelburg there are quite some outsourcing agencies, such as: Tempo-team, Manpower, Creyf's, & Adecco and some more. I decided that it would be best to just visit them all. Most of the replies I got were in the category of: we are sorry we don't have anything. I must admit though that perhaps saying that I don't want to work in the horeca, or as a cleaner eliminated a lot of job possibilities. Why not work in the horeca or as a cleaner you might think. Well, I'll be honest, I've got a phobia for jobs in cafeteria, first of all, I always think that I might drop something, or secondly forget all the orders placed. In the case of cleaning, I guess that my almost traumatic, but very rewarding,  experience with cleaning hospitals led me to reject such a job.

So what did I find? I found some jobs to work in a warehouse, or with truck drivers, as well as collecting books from high schools and repackaging them, as well as some other jobs. I almost went for the job were you help the truck driver, however thanks to some critical thoughts from my family and friends I decided that it would probably be more traumatic than the cleaning due to the overdose of boredom. Instead I dumped all the job agencies, and just ignored them, and considered something else. Which I would love to tell you immediately, however it will take quite some time to explain so I will do it in my next blog ;-).

My name is Micha, I am a first year student focussing on anthropology and sociology.

Maud and the RA Bubble

Here at RA, we live in what we lovingly refer to as 'the RA bubble'. Not only is Middelburg pretty tiny, the Roosevelt Academy – with its 600 students – is an exceptionally small university by Dutch standards. Contrary to popular belief, this has far more advantages than disadvantages. I initially went to a regular Dutch university and got out of there faster than you can say "college drop-out". Although the system admittedly works for a lot of people, the whole mass-studying idea, the idea of not a single soul caring whether you pass an exam or not… it didn't work for me. It demotivated and depressed me.

No, RA is much more the place for me. Small. Personal. Small because it's personal, and personal because it's small. The same goes for Middelburg in general: you can't walk into town without running into someone you know, and quickly get on a first-name basis with the employees at the places you frequent. I'll gladly take that over being a number any day.

But of course, every advantage has its disadvantage, and that's what I discovered last Thursday on the train. The ticket inspector stopped by and scanned my public transport pass that allows me to travel for free during the week (but not on public holidays). I was already holding out my hand to accept it back when he said, "Hey, you should've bought a ticket today."

"Excuse me?" I said.

"You should've bought a ticket," he said. "It's Bevrijdingsdag—Liberation Day."

"Is that even a public holiday?" I spluttered, only to receive disapproving looks from the other people in the compartment. I tried to save face by tacking on, "I'm sorry, I didn't realize. I go to an international university, we're generally unaware of what goes on out here," but for some inconceivable reason this only deepened their frowns.

Once at Rotterdam Central Station, I was confronted with another oddity: there were loads of kids on the train. This is usually not the case. However, it was only when I was at the movie theater later that night—usually quiet during the week, now packed with people—that I realized the majority of Holland is currently on break. Or, well, realized… my brother had to explicitly inform me of the fact that it's 'May vacation'.

Now, I could chalk all of this up to the fact that I've been ridiculously busy this past week. By now you guys might have concluded that I'm just dense and ignorant of what goes on around me in general. I myself am blaming the RA bubble, though. It's charming, but not always convenient when you have to get back to the real world.

My name is Maud and I am a second-year student of Linguistics & Literary Studies. These are a few of my favorite things: books, sneakers, loud music, and coffee.