With an Accent from Holland

Sorry I didn’t update the last couple of days. I was either too tired or I just didn’t want to write anything. I don’t even remember when the last time was that I wrote. Last Tuesday I submitted my portfolio. It wasn’t great, but it was complete and I hope it’ll be sufficient. Last Thursday I had my Literature presentation, which was a small disaster. I had prepared well and I had read all the literature and I had tried my best. But when I heard the other presentations of my classmates, I didn’t feel so sure anymore. I went up and I did my presentation and it went fairly well. Before class I had been reading through one of the scholarly articles and I discovered a mistake in my presentation, so I adjusted that while presenting and that was OK. After all the presentations the teacher came to each of us for a personal evaluation, and he told me that he had expected more of me and that I could have done better. That’s so great to hear when it’s done (not really ). I did get a 7 (out of 10) so that’s at least sufficient, but I am really disappointed with myself and I should’ve done better. I also don’t really know where I went wrong.
Last Friday, my boyfriend and I went to the beach. It is really nice weather here in the Netherlands right now, so it was good to be outside. We didn’t stay very long. We went to Scheveningen, we walked there a bit and we ate a McFlurry
This weekend we didn’t do too much. Last Saturday I was really tired, so I slept for an extra hour in the afternoon. Actually, I had fallen asleep on Friday night as well, while I was trying to read ‘The Vicar of Wakefield’. This week I really need to finish this book, but I think I’m gonna succeed. Only 65 pages to go. Yesterday, on Sunday, I finished my essay. I really didn’t know what to write about and I didn’t have any research, so I chose a fairly easy topic where I had to compare 3 pairs of words and their etymologies: female-male, spinster-bachelor and woman-man. I think the essay is pretty crappy, but I’ll read through it tomorrow, and tomorrow evening is peer-review, so I have to time to improve it yet.
Sunday morning I went to a different church this time, this church is really close to my house, like 5 minutes walking. It was really nice actually. It was very quiet, I mean not a lot of people there, but the people were younger. Lots of them weren’t native Dutch people, but that’s what made it nice and what made the atmosphere really relaxed. I might go to this church more often, although not this Sunday, since I will have my First Aid weekend then. I am so nervous about it. At least I know who my partner is going to be, and that’s someone who’s really experienced, so that’s of some comfort to me. I’m so nervous about going camping on my own in a new tent, while I’ve never done that before. Well, we’ll see how that goes.
Tomorrow I have Pilates class, I need to finish my essay and do some other homework and at night I have my Pronunciation exam. I’m not too nervous about it. I think I’ll be fine and I’ll practise some more tomorrow afternoon. Wish me luck!

posted by Charda @ 9.5.06