Days 43 to 46, Mon to Wed - Getting down to business
So as nice as all this swanning around Europe recently has been I must remind you dear audience (and myself!) that I am actually here to study! So this week it was back to the classroom for University Boot Camp. Think three 9am to 5pm days of library tours, practice tutorials, lectures on exam and plagiarism protocol blah blah blah. The University College Maastricht prides itself on its Problem Based Learning system (stick with me here, I promise this won't turn into an ad for the uni's teaching methods) but to be honest its not exactly revolutionary. Its similar to a tutorial back home - brainstorming, discussion, questions - except you have to do everything in a precise order. You also HAVE to do the reading, you HAVE to contribute, you CAN'T be more than a minute or two late... certainly more strict than laid back Aussie education! And on that point, I am the only Aussie in any of my classes (think a contemporary world history class full of Germans discussin WWII...!) Anywho, it wasn't all bad this week. The uni managed to throw us a "welcome" dinner of Indonesian food (which is apparently really popular here) and gave us a UCM mug and chocolate! The mug might sound lame but when ur student kitchen is crockery-challenged every piece counts.
Outside of Uni Boot Camp there were a number of other interesting happenings:
Mistakes: Trying to pump the tyres up on the Moo Mobile and somehow managing to let all the air out of them instead. Quite the "deflating" moment ... badoom tish! Managed to rectify the situation by walking my temporarily lame bike to the nearby uni guesthouse and borrowing a pump. However, I paid with my pride. The bloke who helped me dissed the Moo Mobile as an overpriced lump of rust (sure she's seen greener pastures but he was just downright conceited about it!). He was wearing a pink euro sweater tho (you know, the woolen ones with the crew neck...) so I decided to disregard everything he said! He probably owned a 400 euro pink bike to match his sweater!
Mini victories: Managing to get out of paying 433 euro for my visa. I can now apply for a 41 euro visa but have to do a bit more legwork without the help of the uni. Still, its worth it for the boos to my new Dutch bank account.
Dutch I've learned: "Lekker" - delicious, useful in many situations
"Spreek je engels?" - Do you speak English? also very handy!
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