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.

Ilse and the Hogwarts of Zeeland

The other day, a friend and I had a very short conversation on  how RA is like Hogwarts. Well, actually, we said something about how some instructors here are like Hogwarts professors or were – this was our most probable conclusion – informers for the Ministry of Magic.

It's not a new comparison, either, RA and Hogwarts. Our gorgeous old main building is very old, though still much younger than Hogwarts (1500 vs. 1000 AD – making the castle pictured in the movies actually a bit anachronical, more in line with the time our building was built), with some halls that do in fact resemble some of Hogwarts' halls (sigh... if only we could have our meals in the Burgerzaal!). That's not all. Our four campus locations are fairly easy to compare to Hogwarts Houses, with Bagijnhof being like Hufflepuff, the place where all the sociable people are, Driewegenhof being Slytherin (we have our reasons) and the unresolved issue of whether Koestraat or Roggeveenhof is Gryffindor or Ravenclaw. This works especially well since we, like the teens of the Wizarding World, live on location. Also, Hogwarts has about 600 students according to J.K. Rowling – as many as we do. Our Dean even once referred to Jan Peter Balkenende's Convocation Speech as 'the homecoming of Harry Potter'.
Of course, there are many differences. For one, we don't learn any magic here (Yeah, I too was shocked to learn that. Also, if Time-turners really exist, I call dibs.). We're a University, not a Secondary school. We have no evil wizards and witches roaming the grounds (though I do suspect the science students of being evil geniuses) – we don't even have grounds or a proper forest or lake. We utterly lack inter-house/-campus location competitions. We don't have poltergeists or any normal ghosts (but I have heard rumours of hauntings...).
However, all these differences are for the better (except for the lack of magic bit. And the houses. And the ghosts.) since it means we are left with a student body of 600 students, devoted to their studies (thankfully we aren't all little Hermione Grangers, that would be scary... imagine all the hair!) and their friends, pretty awesome teachers (and, I am pleased to inform you, none resemble Dolores Umbridge) and a whole bunch of other stuff. I'm sure any real witch or wizard would feel right at home and the Ministry of Magic would be pleased. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and find me a mad scientist. They're in terribly short supply nowadays.

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.

Micha and the Last Week

My last blog post was dedicated to making money through doing nothing. Or as they call it: “making money when you sleep”, well if you take that sentence very literal, I wouldn't have earned as much money as I would have liked to. Which can be translated to: I want to sleep...

The last week of the semester is beginning, something I hardly noticed until yesterday when I ordered my train tickets for my holiday. Another time I will tell you about my holiday, however, the last weeks of semester are for a lot of people here synonymous with not so much sleep, and a lot of work.

Compared to last semester I am actually doing great now. Last semester I somehow managed to stay up till 2 at night working, most of the days. This semester that habit has changed drastically. Through a bit more efficient planning, I stayed up only once until 2. Which can also be explained through the fact that it was pre-election night, which lasted quite long. However this pattern of super-early sleeping (compared to last semester) is starting to fall apart. Past Monday I stayed up until 3 am working on a paper due on Tuesday. Not something I prefer doing, most of the times I like to have finished them way before so I have all the time to think about how great it is to be done with it ;-). However this time it was inevitable. Next week it might be similar, for next week I've got a huge amount of homework. The last  week will be a continuous period of time dedicated to homework! Which definitely makes me look forward to my summer holiday.

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

Maud and Week 13...

09.59 am Ewan McGregor is in your kitchen. He is wearing an awful mint green apron and making an omelet.

10.00 am Your iPhone bursts into song and you swipe everything off your nightstand in surprise. You automatically press 'snooze', but the rational part of your brain chastises you—"No snoozing! You have so much to do! Why didn't you set your alarm for eight o'clock?"—so you get up. Thankfully, this part of the day does not require much cognitive involvement: you're so used to your morning routine that suddenly it's

10.20 am and you're showered and dressed and sitting at your desk with your toast. (Almost-burnt, the way you like it. Or has it become the way you like it because it always burns anyway?) It is around this time that you start wondering why you were dreaming about Ewan McGregor; you don't even particularly like the guy.

You start up your laptop and check Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, RoAc-mail, ohnotheydidnt, and PostSecret even though it's not a Sunday.

You check them all a second time.

11.00 am Reluctantly, you continue studying for the exam you have the next day. You've already covered 100 pages! Shame you have 150 more to go.

14.00 pm Whoops, late for class. You make up for it by acing your presentation. You try to sneak in some studying while other people are presenting, but it makes you feel like a bad person so you don't get a lot of work done.

17.30 pm Okay, fine—one drink at the Sev. Just one. A diet coke. For your mental sanity. And because you aced your presentation.

18.00 pm You skip hallway dinner so that you can continue studying. You plow through even though you seriously doubt that knowledge about Iranian cinema in the 1960s will ever contribute to your life in any way.

21.30 pm Seeing as the mental sanity argument worked before (see 17.30 pm), you use it again, this time to go for a run and take a nice, long shower afterwards.

22.30 pm Unfortunately, the bright red EXAM! on tomorrow's page in your diary has not sprouted legs and ran off. You make a mental note to ask your diary to teach this trick to the contents of your fridge, and continue studying.

01.00 am Fifty pages and several Facebook chat conversations later, you start to feel a little tired. You have a coffee and take a nap.

01.20 am The internet was right about the great effect of drinking coffee right before a twenty-minute nap. You feel amazing. You feel amazing! You're on top of the world! You're going to nail this exam!

03.30 am You kind of want to die a little.

04.10 am DONE DONE ******* DONE YOU ****** TOLD YOU I'D GET THIS DONE I AM GOING TO ACE THIS EXAM.

04.15 am zzz

Important Health Hazard Warning: Please Read

The stunts and activities performed in this blog were done by professionals and under the supervision of professionals. For your safety and the protection of those around you, do not attempt any stunts you read in this blog. In case you really do value your mental sanity, make sure to keep up with all the reading for all your courses. Preferably, summarize everything as you read it to ensure you'll have enough time to revise properly. While you're at it, write all your papers in or before the midterm break for some extra leeway. Alternatively, you could just plan well, but where's the fun and spontaneity in that?

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.

Kelly and the Power of Blogs

Last year, I took a course on Life and Travel Writing. I analyzed Jim Beaver’s memoir Life’s That Way for my final paper. It consists of the emails that he sent around to family and friends while his wife fought against cancer. She lost the fight, but Beaver kept sending updates around to inform people about how he and his daughter coped with their loss. It’s a bittersweet book, and I’ve had to put it aside several times because I couldn’t see the pages anymore through my tears.

I ‘liked’ Beaver on facebook, so I can follow his work and the updates on his personal life. Occasionally, he shares really interesting links. Such as the one I read during lunch break today:

http://penmachine-bu.appspot.com/www.penmachine.com/2011/05/the-last-post

I hope my eyes won’t be all red and puffy anymore by the time I get to class.

Kelly Meulenberg (class of 2012) studies Arts & Humanities, focusing on Literary Studies and Theater & Media Studies. She is also a writer and filmmaker. Other passions include music, food and traveling.