With an Accent from Holland

So sorry, New Job, New Semester, New Hobby!

Okay, so I know I haven’t updated my blog in ages. I’m even afraid to look back to see how long it has been. I even received some complaints about it. Well, maybe just one, but it sounded nice, didn’t it? So, the good news is that I have news :) That’s the upside of not updating in such a long time: I do have something to say now.
First of all, I think I ended my last blogpost with a comment about a major life change. I was referring to a job interview that I had the following day. I didn’t get that job. It was a job as a cash register employee in a big supermarket, but I couldn’t work enough hours there. But in the meantime I have sent out several other application letters as well, and yes, I found a new job! Since the last week of August I have been working there already. I’m working as a salesperson at a large company at the luggage department, so I basically sell suitcases. I have to make sure the department looks all right, and take the suitcases into the store from the storage areas etc. etc. I have a contract for 13 to 30 hours a week, which is exactly what I wanted. I work now three days a week, which is great. I’m glad I’m finally making some money. The pay isn’t that great, but I’m used to that.
The new semester at the university has started and I’m working pretty hard actually. Last year didn’t go that great and I didn’t gather many study points (ECTS). But now in the new semester I’m trying really hard to do get some points this year. I have four courses at the moment: Language Acquisition 5, Philology 5 and two courses I chose myself about Gender and Sexuality. I’m actually enjoying this semester, at least a lot more than the courses I did last year. Of course I don’t really like Language Acquisition, but I don’t have a choice, I have to do that course. It’s about sociolinguistics, second language acquisition and stylistics. We have to do experiments and presentations and we have to write an essay. Philology is about Late Modern English and then about the language that it used in different text types, for example in recipe books or in letters. I am going to do my presentation and probably also my essay for this course on journals. I am very interested in the subject, also because I used to write in a diary for many years on a daily basis and I used this blog as a kind of journal. I’m not sure what I’m going to look into specifically, but I’ll figure that out later. The courses on Gender and Sexuality are really cool. We are looking at how people look at gender and sexuality throughout the ages and I really like that. I read Mary Wollstonecraft’s ‘Vindication of the Rights of Woman’ and it was so interesting to read how people in that time (1792) looked at women and at their rights. Again I was moved by a text of hers. I have written about her also in an earlier blogpost.
And today I did something really fun! I went to a theatre-workshop! It’s by a group of people from my faculty, so from the department of English from the University of Leiden. They are going to produce one big play at the end of the year and in order to prepare for that they are giving four workshops and today was the first one. I didn’t even know about it until this morning, but I was already in Leiden for class so I decided to go. It was so much fun to do something with drama and the theatre again. I have missed it so much since secondary school. I mean, I know I’m not a great actress, but it’s so much fun to do something active and to be around all these creative people. I have no idea what is going to happen next. I would like to participate in the next three workshops as well, but I don’t know yet at what time of the week they will be given – nobody knows yet – so it depends on that whether I will continue with this. I hope to be in the big play at the end of the year. If I could just get a part where I say one or two lines I would be so happy already. I love being on stage and wearing costumes and make-up. And I love the atmosphere backstage. I just love the theatre and I thought this was a great way to get in touch with it again. So we’ll see what happens next. I’ll try to keep you up to date ;)

posted by Charda @ 24.9.08