Usually, on days I close at work, I ride home with a colleague who also lives in Middelburg. He's a nice guy and we have fun conversations, sometimes random but usually just talk about our (extremely different) backgrounds and varying interests (he's the outdoorsy type, while I'm the bookish type). Tonight I talked about how Americans embarrass me.
They come into the workplace from time to time, or I run into them somewhere, and while ocassionally it is nice to hear an American accent, most of the time it is unexciting or even annoying.
And it is such a hypocritical sentiment! Their accents sound twangy.... so I guess mine does, too. They talk to so loud. But then, so do I. What is it that makes me sometimes feel so, well... superior?
Maybe it's my decent knowledge of world - not to mention U.S. - geography. I'm happy to break the stereotype that Americans don't know geography, but unfortunately, that stereotype is there for a reason.
Totally different direction here: I'm learning Dutch. Every once in a while, something reminds me; tonight, it was a conversation some of my colleagues had as we were chatting over wine and other drinks after closing. They were talking about the good wine at this pub and the bad service at that one, and towards the end I realized that, yeah, I actually understood the majority of what they were saying.
And another, really different direction: I've been reading the Petite Anglaise blog, the topic of my thesis (as I will refer to it here; it is just so much more universally understood than "IRP"), and it's really very well written. I can actually see why she got a book deal.
Which is quite a relief, since I have to read 3-4 years' worth of daily blog entries, as well as a book that is based on/taken from/inspired by the blog itself. I printed out the first three months and read them on paper, and now I really understand just how interactive blogs are by the amount that I couldn't do when reading one on paper. All of the links - even the link that exposes the comments is disabled on a printout!
I'm excited to get the book and see what carries over from the blog to the book and what is totally missing.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Hup Hup Holland!
ORANJE!If you don't follow football (and by football, I mean soccer), you might not much care about this post. I'm not a big fan of football, and never could get into club play, but I do like international competition, such as the World Cup and the FIFA Euro Cup.
Which is currently happening in Austria and Switzerland.
The Netherlands, which seems to accept the name "Holland" for international football tournaments, is in a pool with France, Italy, and Romania - which left most Dutch people rather pessimistic about their chances. I figured I would root for Holland, but if neither Holland nor the Czech Republic made it I would just as happily root for France or Italy.
And then, lo and behold, Holland comes out and beats World Champion Italy, 3-0. I watched the game in House 4, on a huge screen, with 20 or so other students - Alex Whitcomb from Zimbabwe and myself being the only non-Dutch people in the room. After the victory, we sang Dutch football songs, karaoke style.
Faith was restored, but next, Holland had to play France. For this match, on Friday night, Dilyana and I went to Cafe Brooklyn, where televisions were set up outside, beers were 1,50, and waiters and customers alike were decked out in orange. (I was too!)
And Holland won, 4-1! We were at the back of the crowd and couldn't see very well, but of course you can tell when a team scores by all of the jumping Dutch people shouting "Hoera!" And singing that "de overkant is stil" - the opponents are silent - in the direction of five or so French fans dressed in bleu.
Afterwards, of course, we had to go out and celebrate.
Language Learning
Since starting work, I have felt much more submerged in the Dutch language. All of the quirks of learning a language by submersion and contact - as opposed to classroom study - are beginning to come back to me.You learn so much by just listening. It's strange, because it seems like such a passive way of learning, as opposed to active study: opening books, copying down words, memorizing verb conjugations.
Yet somehow, in my experience it has always worked better to be submerged.
I learned three or four words in as many days of work simply by listening. Zeker is one; my coworkers say it often. After a day or two, I thought it must mean something like "sure", and I was right. Nodig is another example of the same; it means something like "need" and I learned it just from listening.
I've found this submerged approach is especially beneficial with Dutch, due to the ambiguity of the language. (I remember my psycholinguistics teacher, Dr. Sergey Avrutin, saying that something like 90% of words in the Dutch language have ambiguous meaning.) A dictionary definition doesn't help much without the context. By listening, rather than studying, I will soon figure out when to use what words.
I realize now just how much Dutch I have learned - much more than I thought. There are often four or five people working at once, so I take part in and hear a lot of Dutch conversation. The first few days, I was amazed at how much I understood. I get the general gist of most conversations; it's as if the sentences are spoken just a little too quickly and there are just a few too many unknown words for me to understand it entirely.
I recognize this level from my experiences in France and the Dominican Republic and it's incredibly reassuring: it's the level just before understanding. A little more vocabulary and a little more listening, and I'll arrive soon.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Quick Update
Well, now that I have a nice, spanking, brand-new blog, I might as well use it, right?!
It's June, I'm in Middelburg, and things are going pretty well. The weather could be more cooperative, but I have a job that I love, friends in town for a while still, and I've been productive. I read Jane Eyre last week, I've been reading a couple of pages of Harry Potter in Dutch, and I've even been writing fiction - something I always say I like to do but never really... do. I think my problem is mostly that I have tons of story and novel ideas, and sometimes I start them, but soon I get distracted by other ideas.
Another good thing is that since I've started working, I have experienced the very pleasant realization that I actually understand a pretty good amount of Dutch! I'm sort of at that pre-understanding stage, where the sentences are just a little too fast, and my vocabulary is just not quite big enough, to understand. But I can follow conversations much more than I would have expected.
That's good, because right now I'm surrounded by Dutch, English, and a lot of German. I'm trying to remind myself that I speak three languages and that's pretty good, but I feel a little clueless right now since two of those three are pretty useless in my current situation! A little more quality time with Harry Potter en de Steen der Wijzen and I'm sure I'll be checking off another language by the end of summer.
The one thing I haven't been doing is research for my Independent Research Project. This is something that I really need to get started on, because I have to write 10,000 words on "The Blog and the Book" next semester and it's always good to get a head start. Also, I have the possibility of continuing work into fall, and if I can get a lot of research done before the semester begins, I'll have more time to work. And since I love working, it seems like a good idea.
Well, today I'm free - no work or anything, so I guess I'll spend it reading, writing, and just maybe doing some background IRP research. Or, at the very least, order the book I'll be studying, Petite Anglaise. Nothing unusual.
It's June, I'm in Middelburg, and things are going pretty well. The weather could be more cooperative, but I have a job that I love, friends in town for a while still, and I've been productive. I read Jane Eyre last week, I've been reading a couple of pages of Harry Potter in Dutch, and I've even been writing fiction - something I always say I like to do but never really... do. I think my problem is mostly that I have tons of story and novel ideas, and sometimes I start them, but soon I get distracted by other ideas.
Another good thing is that since I've started working, I have experienced the very pleasant realization that I actually understand a pretty good amount of Dutch! I'm sort of at that pre-understanding stage, where the sentences are just a little too fast, and my vocabulary is just not quite big enough, to understand. But I can follow conversations much more than I would have expected.
That's good, because right now I'm surrounded by Dutch, English, and a lot of German. I'm trying to remind myself that I speak three languages and that's pretty good, but I feel a little clueless right now since two of those three are pretty useless in my current situation! A little more quality time with Harry Potter en de Steen der Wijzen and I'm sure I'll be checking off another language by the end of summer.
The one thing I haven't been doing is research for my Independent Research Project. This is something that I really need to get started on, because I have to write 10,000 words on "The Blog and the Book" next semester and it's always good to get a head start. Also, I have the possibility of continuing work into fall, and if I can get a lot of research done before the semester begins, I'll have more time to work. And since I love working, it seems like a good idea.
Well, today I'm free - no work or anything, so I guess I'll spend it reading, writing, and just maybe doing some background IRP research. Or, at the very least, order the book I'll be studying, Petite Anglaise. Nothing unusual.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Hey everyone!
Sorry for the inconvenience but I've switched blogs...
The new one is:
http://grace-on-the-go.blogspot.com/
I've explained my motives for this on the new blog (if you're interested). Hopefully I'll be posting more often now. So please replace this url with the grace-on-the-go one!
See you over there.
Sorry for the inconvenience but I've switched blogs...
The new one is:
http://grace-on-the-go.blogspot.com/
I've explained my motives for this on the new blog (if you're interested). Hopefully I'll be posting more often now. So please replace this url with the grace-on-the-go one!
See you over there.
6 June 2008
I hope that you have found my new weblog and are actually reading this, and that my words are not just hanging out there in cyberspace (which reminds me of the Simon & Garfunkel song "The Dangling Conversation"). I changed my blog, and my blog url, and everything, and for that I am sorry! It really doesn't work to change blogs all the time.
Here's the thing, though. The title of my other blog ("Ik Kom Uit Amerika") was made up quickly, on the spot, because I wanted to write and didn't want to worry about things like blog titles. As a result, I picked a title that I am sick of and don't really like. Besides, the coming-from-America part of me seems lesser every day. Not in a bad way, it's just that I don't define myself as "American" anymore - if anything, it's "Half-American, half Czech, lived in a lot of places in between".
Hopefully this blog title will be more lasting. I think "Grace on the Go" can work for a long time because I will probably be on the go for a long time, and even when I stop being on the go, really I will still be going places, if only on vacation - or even if you have to take it to the literal extreme and see me as going to the grocery store, etc.
Another reason for the change is that I use gmail now, but for some reason I haven't been able to switch my blog onto my gmail account, and have to log out of one every time I log into the other. I think I can save a lot of time by changing again - one last time!
So hope you found it. Sorry for the confusion, etc.
Here's the thing, though. The title of my other blog ("Ik Kom Uit Amerika") was made up quickly, on the spot, because I wanted to write and didn't want to worry about things like blog titles. As a result, I picked a title that I am sick of and don't really like. Besides, the coming-from-America part of me seems lesser every day. Not in a bad way, it's just that I don't define myself as "American" anymore - if anything, it's "Half-American, half Czech, lived in a lot of places in between".
Hopefully this blog title will be more lasting. I think "Grace on the Go" can work for a long time because I will probably be on the go for a long time, and even when I stop being on the go, really I will still be going places, if only on vacation - or even if you have to take it to the literal extreme and see me as going to the grocery store, etc.
Another reason for the change is that I use gmail now, but for some reason I haven't been able to switch my blog onto my gmail account, and have to log out of one every time I log into the other. I think I can save a lot of time by changing again - one last time!
So hope you found it. Sorry for the confusion, etc.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
DUBLIN
Sorry everyone - I did a lot over break, and then I spent all my time working so that I wouldn't have to do anything I didn't want to do on my birthday, and now it's almost like break never happened and I am biz-zee, biz-zee, biz-zee!
But here's a quick look at my trip to Dublin:
Day 1 - March 21st
Our flight on the 20th was supposed to arrive in Dublin around 8:30 am, but instead it was repeatedly delayed and we arrived around 5 pm. Yayyyy.... We were shocked to find that it cost a whopping 8.50 to take a shuttle bus from the airport to the city center, and then another 1.50 to take the city bus to our hotel, and resolved to take a taxi for only a couple euros more when we left six days later.
So our first real day began with breakfast at Cafe Insomnia, where I ate tea brack (above). It was like fruitcake, and tasty. The coffee was also some of the best coffee... no way near as good as Portland coffee, but the closest thing I've had to it in ages.
Next, it was on to St. Patrick's Cathedral.
It was Good Friday, but they opened for about an hour, so we only had to wait half an hour or so to go in.
Waiting wasn't a big deal because there's a really nice park right next to the Cathedral.
The park includes plaques of all the famous Irish writers. My tourist side came out and I photographed every single one, but I'll only put Joyce here, since he's the only one I've read. Well, I've read Oscar Wilde, too, but he is less Irish, and I wasn't reading him at the time...
The inside of the Cathedral was very nice. I love going into churches. I haven't gone to that many lately, but I went recently to one in Liege, and I always feel like I'm in Europe when I visit Cathedrals.
That might sound silly, because, well, I am in Europe. But it's the kind of thing that makes me really aware of that fact, and makes me feel really lucky to be here, and to have that opportunity.
These flags are for all of the knights, and the one with the red and the white is the flag for Cork. I just remembered that one from the chart that says which flag is for which knight.
I was very excited to be able to buy a copy of Gulliver's Travels in the gift shop area for only 2.50.
Ever the linguistic... fanatic, I photographed signs in Gaelic. It's a very interesting language to listen to... reminds me of Dutch a bit, but just because they have a phoneme in common, or similar, or something. Other than that, I don't really get it.
And fish and chips for lunch... extremely greasy goodnewss. (To tell the truth... I've had way better in New England. And there, the tartar sauce didn't come in a plastic tube...)
Day 2 - Saturday 22 March
We went to the museum of modern art, which is housed in the National Hospital - a building that is entirely too big for the collection!
It was interesting, but not at all what I expected. By modern art, they mean modern art. Which is fine. I saw some really nice stuff.
And the gardens were incredible.
Saturday night we went to, of all things, the Czech Inn, in Temple Bar. For dinner we ordered and shared pork in tomato sauce with dumplings (decent) and bramborak - potato pancakes, with sausage and sauerkraut (absolutely delicious.)
Our waiter was a young-ish Czech guy who spoke almost no English. I couldn't remember how to order in Czech, to my disgust. I tried to ask him, but he had no idea what I was talking about!
Day 3 - Sunday, 23 March
Sunday was Easter Sunday, and also the day we had to move from our hotel on the south side of town to our hostel, right in central Dublin (by O'Connel Street). I got up early and went out for coffee, wrote in my journal, and then walked over to St. Stephen's Green. (Which reminded me of Boston. I couldn't do anything in Ireland without thinking of Boston.)
Another day, another breakfast... this time, scones at the Queen of Tarts, a very cute place. I couldn't resist having cake, too, so I ate a slice of plum tart after my scone. I was stuffed but it was worth it!
Sunday evening, Dilyana and I (right) met up with two other RAers, Janneke (far left) and Inga (second from left). They're both from Germany; Inga is a semester ahead of the rest of us, and currently on exchange, studying in Galway. We went out for dinner and drinks, and talked about all sorts of things, from the Tabula RASA magazine (my committee) and the yearbook (of which Dilyana is chair) to school in general, an Arts in Action program, our plans for after graduation and, of course, our sightseeing agendas.
Day 4 - Monday 26 March
Dilyana and I pay a visit to Trinity College, where I am ever the intellectual.
Although, come to think of it, stroking your chin is probably the easiest way to look like a very goofy person.
The campus is basically beautiful. It's like RA, only there's more of it!
And being me, I always have to photograph any pretty skies. I just liked the layers of gray here. So I took a picture (and pulled out my beret, because apparently in Dublin, gray clouds lead directly to short showers.)
I spent my last day in Dublin perusing bookshops and buying, buying, buying... I went for quanitity rather than quality, which isn't the best idea because I didn't get myself any special Dublin souvenir. (When I went to Paris, I got a nice tin box.) But I did get some works by Trollope, Chaucer, Swift, and Edgeworth, and Dilyana let me pick out a book for a birthday present, so I chose Oscar Wilde's complete short stories. Now I practically have a Dublin shelf - so I suppose that is a memory.
On our last night in Dublin, Dilyana and I went out for whiskey sours - having already had a pint of Guinness earlier in the trip. Of course, the whiskey was not Irish whiskey, but an American brand, and the power went out at the bar so they had to kick people out pretty early. Even so, it was a good, tasty end to our trip.
On the way back to the hostel, I photographed the James Joyce statue - which I had never thought to photograph during the day.
I also took one last picture of city lights - who knows when I'll see those again?!?
We got back to Middelburg around 4 pm on Wednesday (26 March), and found traces of what appeared to be a significant snowfall. And indeed, Sara (of my cafe, Ko d'ooor ["my" because I'm so pleased to have a cafe here that I can call 'the cafe']) confirmed that there had been about 10 centimeters of snow on Sunday! This made me slightly bummed for two reasons: a) I missed the snow, and b) where the heck is spring and why isn't he in Middelburg yet?!
Sorry everyone - I did a lot over break, and then I spent all my time working so that I wouldn't have to do anything I didn't want to do on my birthday, and now it's almost like break never happened and I am biz-zee, biz-zee, biz-zee!
But here's a quick look at my trip to Dublin:
Day 1 - March 21st
Our flight on the 20th was supposed to arrive in Dublin around 8:30 am, but instead it was repeatedly delayed and we arrived around 5 pm. Yayyyy.... We were shocked to find that it cost a whopping 8.50 to take a shuttle bus from the airport to the city center, and then another 1.50 to take the city bus to our hotel, and resolved to take a taxi for only a couple euros more when we left six days later.
So our first real day began with breakfast at Cafe Insomnia, where I ate tea brack (above). It was like fruitcake, and tasty. The coffee was also some of the best coffee... no way near as good as Portland coffee, but the closest thing I've had to it in ages.
Next, it was on to St. Patrick's Cathedral.
It was Good Friday, but they opened for about an hour, so we only had to wait half an hour or so to go in.
Waiting wasn't a big deal because there's a really nice park right next to the Cathedral.
The park includes plaques of all the famous Irish writers. My tourist side came out and I photographed every single one, but I'll only put Joyce here, since he's the only one I've read. Well, I've read Oscar Wilde, too, but he is less Irish, and I wasn't reading him at the time...
The inside of the Cathedral was very nice. I love going into churches. I haven't gone to that many lately, but I went recently to one in Liege, and I always feel like I'm in Europe when I visit Cathedrals.
That might sound silly, because, well, I am in Europe. But it's the kind of thing that makes me really aware of that fact, and makes me feel really lucky to be here, and to have that opportunity.
These flags are for all of the knights, and the one with the red and the white is the flag for Cork. I just remembered that one from the chart that says which flag is for which knight.
I was very excited to be able to buy a copy of Gulliver's Travels in the gift shop area for only 2.50.
Ever the linguistic... fanatic, I photographed signs in Gaelic. It's a very interesting language to listen to... reminds me of Dutch a bit, but just because they have a phoneme in common, or similar, or something. Other than that, I don't really get it.
And fish and chips for lunch... extremely greasy goodnewss. (To tell the truth... I've had way better in New England. And there, the tartar sauce didn't come in a plastic tube...)
Day 2 - Saturday 22 March
We went to the museum of modern art, which is housed in the National Hospital - a building that is entirely too big for the collection!
It was interesting, but not at all what I expected. By modern art, they mean modern art. Which is fine. I saw some really nice stuff.
And the gardens were incredible.
Saturday night we went to, of all things, the Czech Inn, in Temple Bar. For dinner we ordered and shared pork in tomato sauce with dumplings (decent) and bramborak - potato pancakes, with sausage and sauerkraut (absolutely delicious.)
Our waiter was a young-ish Czech guy who spoke almost no English. I couldn't remember how to order in Czech, to my disgust. I tried to ask him, but he had no idea what I was talking about!
Day 3 - Sunday, 23 March
Sunday was Easter Sunday, and also the day we had to move from our hotel on the south side of town to our hostel, right in central Dublin (by O'Connel Street). I got up early and went out for coffee, wrote in my journal, and then walked over to St. Stephen's Green. (Which reminded me of Boston. I couldn't do anything in Ireland without thinking of Boston.)
Another day, another breakfast... this time, scones at the Queen of Tarts, a very cute place. I couldn't resist having cake, too, so I ate a slice of plum tart after my scone. I was stuffed but it was worth it!
Sunday evening, Dilyana and I (right) met up with two other RAers, Janneke (far left) and Inga (second from left). They're both from Germany; Inga is a semester ahead of the rest of us, and currently on exchange, studying in Galway. We went out for dinner and drinks, and talked about all sorts of things, from the Tabula RASA magazine (my committee) and the yearbook (of which Dilyana is chair) to school in general, an Arts in Action program, our plans for after graduation and, of course, our sightseeing agendas.
Day 4 - Monday 26 March
Dilyana and I pay a visit to Trinity College, where I am ever the intellectual.
Although, come to think of it, stroking your chin is probably the easiest way to look like a very goofy person.
The campus is basically beautiful. It's like RA, only there's more of it!
And being me, I always have to photograph any pretty skies. I just liked the layers of gray here. So I took a picture (and pulled out my beret, because apparently in Dublin, gray clouds lead directly to short showers.)
I spent my last day in Dublin perusing bookshops and buying, buying, buying... I went for quanitity rather than quality, which isn't the best idea because I didn't get myself any special Dublin souvenir. (When I went to Paris, I got a nice tin box.) But I did get some works by Trollope, Chaucer, Swift, and Edgeworth, and Dilyana let me pick out a book for a birthday present, so I chose Oscar Wilde's complete short stories. Now I practically have a Dublin shelf - so I suppose that is a memory.
On our last night in Dublin, Dilyana and I went out for whiskey sours - having already had a pint of Guinness earlier in the trip. Of course, the whiskey was not Irish whiskey, but an American brand, and the power went out at the bar so they had to kick people out pretty early. Even so, it was a good, tasty end to our trip.
On the way back to the hostel, I photographed the James Joyce statue - which I had never thought to photograph during the day.
I also took one last picture of city lights - who knows when I'll see those again?!?
We got back to Middelburg around 4 pm on Wednesday (26 March), and found traces of what appeared to be a significant snowfall. And indeed, Sara (of my cafe, Ko d'ooor ["my" because I'm so pleased to have a cafe here that I can call 'the cafe']) confirmed that there had been about 10 centimeters of snow on Sunday! This made me slightly bummed for two reasons: a) I missed the snow, and b) where the heck is spring and why isn't he in Middelburg yet?!
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