What a week. It was only the first week of classes, but it felt like the sixth. And now the weekend is almost over and I have a pile of books to read.

But this is college. We're supposed to procrastinate. (Right?)

Monday I had sociolinguistics and beginner Dutch. Both will be fun, but I am reminded why I hate learning lanugages in school. I like studying languages, once I can speak them some, but starting at the beginning has always been boring when you sit in class and listen to people with varying abilities repeat after the teacher and struggle to answer uninteresting questions such as "In what year were you born?"

Tuesdays I have human geography and psycholinguistics. Human geography will be an interesting subject, but we'll see about the class... I already had to do a presentation in that course on Friday - the second class!

Psycholinguistics may be my favorite class. Also my biggest. (4 in sociolinguistics and 12 in human geo, 18 or 19 in Dutch and 22 or so in psycho.) All of the scientific images with cells and nuclei and such remind me of IB Biology, in an entertaining way. Too bad I didn't learn that subject better.

Yesterday I spend the morning cleaning and arranging my room. I went to buy some storage boxes and notebooks, a dustpan, placemats, etc. But while I was at the bookstore, Anand called and said to come join him and Ashlee and Casper across the Market Square for drinks.

So I joined the three of them, had a Leffe and split a Dame Blanche with Anand, and we sat there until after 6.

Which meant I didn't get to do any of the shopping I wanted to do.

Luckily, today is the first Sunday of the month, which means the shops are open from 1-5. I don't quite understand the hours; who wants to come in and work for just four hours?

Hard to get readjusted to store hours in a small European city when you've been in a large American city for the past 5 weeks.

The week was also nice for seeing all of the old friends. Coming back to Middelburg was strange for me, in a way; in my two previous experiences abroad, I dropped everything when I left. Returning to Middelburg means I pick up where I left off. It's a strange experience. There are my friends, my books (I always have to leave books behind. Hopefully someone is reading them, but I'm sure that in both Nice and the Dominican Republic, they're probably just gathering dust) and my shoes.

Seeing friends hasn't been quite so simple; very few of us have classes together anymore. Nikky and I had three classes together last semester, and now it's down to one. This is especially evident with friends who study in different departments - Sasha and I had statistics and English together last semester, courses which every student must take. But she studies life science and I study linguistics, so it is very unlikely that we will ever have a class together again.

Moreover, everyone is ill. Nikky has a serious tooth problem and has missed several classes; Anne was picked up by her mother on Friday and couldn't make it to the dinner we had planned together, and Laura and Ashlee have been in bed for a couple days out of the last week.

Still, it's very nice to see everyone - and the new students.

Everyone is curious about them, but no one knws who they are, really, except for an unpleasant fellow who likes to get drunk and introduce himself to girls as "Borat the rapist" (hopefully he won't last), and the three new Americans.

This is kind of sad to me. Last semester there were only the three of us, and though we are all friendly and have nice conversations and such, our country of origin is one of the few things that we really have in common. Pamela, Natasha, and I are all from the West, but very different and international. None of our fathers are American, but German, Haitian, and Czech. Natasha lived in Norway for several years, and I have traveled extensively. My main point here is that none of us are exactly your typical American girl.

While the trio from my semester comes from Oregon, Washington, and Colorado, these three come from Arizona, Florida, and Virginia. One seems very cultured, and has studied in different countries, while the others are the kind of people that you can tell are American simply by looking at them.

Until I know them better, however, I will refrain from passing more judgement, as they all seem nice and friendly. (Even if they pronounce "Oregon" incorrectly!)

This semester will definitely be different from the last. I live in a different room, now, in a different house. From all girls to (almost) all guys. All of the international students have moved to the Bagijnhof houses, and most of the Dutch students, including my friends Anne, Marieke, Thomas, Sasha, and Adiel, have moved to the private aparments at Roggeveen. It's not a long walk, but relatively, it's very inconvenient. The 200-level classes will change things too, I fear, and there is going to be a lot more reading and studying on my part.

I'm back.