Starting University | A Journal

Discussion in 'Miscellaneous' started by 607, Sep 2, 2018.

  1. I won't feel like going to bed already and I do feel like writing, so I might as well try. :) I've got two songs in the queue on SST, so I'll want to stay up now anyway. ;)

    The morning went as planned. At 12 o'clock, I did the dishes, which I hadn't done yesterday. None of us were home besides me, so I could freely move to my music. Unfortunately Shuffle didn't deliver any tracks with lyrics today, so there was no singing involved. ;)
    After this I wanted to rest a bit, before making dinner. When I did make dinner, I had some trouble finding a pot and cover to use... when we'll have dinner together come Monday, we'll have to discuss this. The main problem is one of us doesn't like doing the dishes, and keeps the used things on his room, where they are hard to find and become really hard to clean, as the filth sticks to them. While a bit annoyedly doing this extra preparation for cooking, one of my roommates came home, and offered to lend me a cover, which did make things a lot easier (oops, I forgot to clean it, myself... as I had done the dishes just before :oops:).
    We also talked a bit, about music! That was fun.

    After dinner, I mostly played piano. I practised some recently learned tunes, and started learning a new one, which was quite challenging. I did get the part I was working on though, in the end.
    I had decided to try to leave earlier today, as otherwise I might leave later, and be late.
    In the bicycle storage, there was a woman who hadn't put her bike in the storage, but put it beside it. A man criticised her on this, and she wanted to explain, but the man ended up repeatedly saying "Nonsense!". The woman did eventually decide to say what she wanted to say anyway, probably just for her sake, but I was able to hear: she didn't have a lock on her bicycle, so if she put it in a slanted place, it would drive off. However, the man quickly found a suitable place, and called after the woman that he had. She was gone, though. I was leaving too, but as I was, I saw the man come back to move her bicycle. *facepalm* I mean, he was right, I suppose, but he acted rather childish. :p

    At the platform, I liked how the 'stored' trains were looking. I took a picture from a distance, but then I saw two other people taking their time to take a better picture. I thought I might as well do so too then, so I got a bit closer:

    It's still a Nokia picture, of course... :rolleyes:

    I was expecting to meet Guy 2 again on the bus, and I did. He was with someone else, today: someone from his high school. We talked about the exams at university, and then about exams we had on high school, and later about some other stuff as well. It was nice. :)

    This exam was in a different room. We were waiting in roughly the same place, though. Ilse came earlier this time, I thought, and I talked a bit with her. On the same height as me (we were on the stairs) were the girl from group 4 and another girl from group 4 - at least so I think, but I couldn't find it on our website, even though I thought I would be able to - and I then spoke to them. I had planned on mentioning something to the other girl... because yesterday I found out that she is the ex-girlfriend of a good friend of mine. I knew she was doing the study and I knew her name, but I didn't know how she looked, and I didn't know the name of this girl. :D But I asked Sloth and the ex-boyfriend yesterday, and it turned out it's her. She wasn't particularly happy at me knowing him, it seemed like. :p I know she's got some stuff from him that she never gave back, but I figured I had better neglect mentioning that. :p
    Again, as 16:45 was approaching, it was getting really busy. I hated it even more than yesterday, and it lasted a lot longer. At 16:56, we were still waiting. Shortly before 5 o'clock people finally started going inside, and the exam ended up starting 10 minutes late.

    We had 2 hours for the exam, but it was a lot longer than the mock exam, it seemed like. I mean, if I recall correctly, you could get 50 points in the mock exam, and you could get 100 points here... and that one took me about 50 minutes, while this one took me 100! So I wasn't done super early, this time.
    But I did do splendidly. :D There were certainly some questions that surprised me, also earlier on, but after some thinking I always found an answer. I was a bit warm (but of course I was wearing shorts!), and tired because of the business before the exam, but I was able to concentrate fine. There were some questions where I thought: I'll try these now, and then when I've finished the exam I'll ask permission to use the lavatory, and then take another look at them, and perhaps find an answer. But for each of these questions I ended up finding an answer earlier than expected! I am very happy about that. ^.^

    When I had finished, used the lavatory, and changed back into my jeans, there was still only one person I knew done also, and he was engaged in conversation elsewhere. So I waited in the same spot as we were standing yesterday. The guy with the blue hair (from the intense discussion) passed me, and I tried to greet them, but without success, like yesterday. I hope he simply doesn't notice me. :p
    A bit later Sloth came, and we started talking, and were joined by the guy who had been engaged in conversation elsewhere, and someone else; not too much later, the girl from group 4 joined us also. It was quite fun to discuss the exam, but it became even more fun when Guy 3 joined! At some point he found out that he had corrected a right answer into a strange mistake, and felt rather bad for that. :p
    We were still talking when the time for the exam was over, and the people who kept at it until the end (which were lots!) streamed past. Ilse wasn't among them, however, while I was pretty sure that she hadn't finished while I was using the lavatory. And sure enough, she had stuck around at the stairs above, as she did eventually come. She did well! Better than yesterday, at least. ;)
    I continued talking with the people I was with, as I thought the bus would go at the same time as yesterday, and that was a little while still. When they left, I went with them.

    When we arrived at the bus stop, I found out that the bus to Bilthoven wasn't going. This meant I'd have to go via Utrecht, which I actually liked, as I was enjoying the company of these friends. Guy 3 and Girl 1 (that works, right? I didn't want to ask the girl from group 4 what name I can use as I might end this soon, but I also refer to her so often now that it gets old to keep using that description :p) are always discussing about whether bus 12 or bus 28 is the better one to take (Guy 3 says bus 28, Girl 1 says bus 12). We did take bus 12, and for once, there was enough room to all be comfortable! No seats, but that was fine.
    We had some more fun on the - rather long, honestly - trip, once even touching on the dualism subject (fortunately the guy with blue hair wasn't there :rolleyes:), and I didn't mind the length. At the train station, Girl 1 looked up which train I could take, and told me it would leave in 2 minutes. I said bye, and got it in time!
    No playing games on public transit today; I don't know what I did on the way back, I guess I just enjoyed life. :)

    In the bike storage now, a man was having some issues, evidently, as he was taking a while getting out. I was about to ask him if something was the matter, when he asked me if there was some helpdesk available. I said there was, and that he'd have to press the 'i' button. He didn't understand this (I guess he didn't see the button?) so I pressed it for him, and a call started. I didn't want to make matters more complicated and I wasn't in a hurry anyway, so I said I'd wait (since the update of the guarded bike storages there's only one way in and out with your bicycle). He wasn't too sure about this, as he seemed afraid it would take a while, but it doesn't; the helpdesk always picks up quickly, as far as I've experienced, and it did so now as well. An hypothesis for the problem was formed (the mistake had been on the man, of course), and the helpdesk opened the door for him so he could get out without paying anyway. He thanked the helpdesk and thanked me, and while he was riding his bike up (this sounds strange in English: he wasn't on it :p) he said something, but I couldn't make it out at all.
    I went on my way, stopped, turned on my lights, and went on my way again!

    And then I came home, quickly told my housemates about how I did, went onto SST, went onto EMC, and started writing this. :)
    This might be the last post for some time, as my exams have now passed, and I won't necessarily write about every day anymore. I'm not expecting tomorrow to be particularly interesting, and if I do feel like writing, I'd probably rather write on the introduction camp post!
    I do have one fun thing planned: in the evening I will call with an old bosom friend of mine: OrangeDuck! I very rarely speak to her anymore nowadays, so we should have a lot to talk about. :)
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  2. Me, in myself: "noooooooooooo...." ... :p I think that says enough. :p

    Oooohhhhh I'm jealous. :O I love those trains. :D I still miss the Mat '64 (the yellow one in front), and I don't think I've ever seen the Mat '54 (the green one next to the yellow one) in person... (or maybe once many many years ago) Awesome, thanks for sharing! :D

    I'm intrigued by the quality of the picture, it's weirdly enough both shockingly bad and quite okay. Interesting. :p
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  3. I know, right? It feels like it captures details better than larger and simpler objects, for some reason...
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  4. September 16th:
    I should really start writing today, as if I don't, I probably won't ever, and if I start writing today, I can continue later if I can't finish it. ;)
    This is an account of three days, so it might take a while. :p I won't write in full detail, though. Besides that taking too long, there are also some things that are either not appropriate for EMC's audience or not appropriate for a public journal. ;)

    Friday morning, September 7th, I wrote about my morning already, while writing about the day before. After posting my post in this thread, I spent some time on WhatsApp, as Karen had asked if someone could record the lecture. I thought my phone wouldn't yield enough recording quality, so I had tried to charge my MP3 player. When I had to leave, though, it was still almost empty, so I thought it wouldn't make it. I did a recording test with my phone, and thought it might do, if I left my phone at the front of the room.
    Now, though, I was leaving rather late. My houselord asked me if she should bring me somewhere by car, but I told her that wasn't necessary, as if I would be late, I would be late for the lecture only, and not for the camp.

    So I left, with two backpacks and a large shopping bag... I really underestimated the length of the walk to the bus stop, and the weight of the bags. :$
    On the way, I sometimes paused to change the way I was carrying the bags, and eventually I found a pretty good way. I was getting to be just on time, so I ran the last bit. I managed to get to the bus stop 2 minutes early, though, and I could finally take my bags off my shoulders and arms and rest.
    And then the bus didn't come.
    ...
    Firstly, I messaged Sloth, to ask if he could record the lecture instead, as I would be late. Then, when I was writing a message to my sister, the bus arrived. I thought it had departed 3 minutes too early, but it was 10 minutes late instead. This meant I would still be in time to record the lecture, to which Sloth replied that he wouldn't have been able to record it.

    The funny thing is that when I had asked the teacher if I could record the lecture and laid my phone down there, André informed me that Robin had said he would be able to record the lecture. So I went back and got my phone. :p
    I don't remember much about the information taught in the lecture (don't worry, I've got notes, and read the chapter in the book), but I do recall that there was an echo in the sound installation. :p After 5 minutes, the teacher eventually decided he would have to talk without a microphone, and raise his volume to a level so that the people in the back of the room would be able to hear him still.
    Meanwhile, technicians tried to solve the problem, but after 15 or 30 minutes they gave up and left. :p I decided for myself that I didn't have to try to help, so I let it be. The lecture also included two videos, which were also quite affected by the echo issue. :p

    André himself wasn't going on introduction camp, so I said bye to him. I wasn't sure what to do then, besides taking my baggage out of the teaching room and putting it where some more was, but I decided that if I'd go to the lavatory first I'd figure out afterward. And I did: there was a clear queue, now. The only thing we needed to do was say our name and sign a paper, but of course I did skim through the text, just in case we were being fooled. :rolleyes:
    I turned out to be the first person of our group to get through the queue, even though most other groups had got quite some people together already. Mentor J was waving a flag in a colour that at first seemed dull to me but I got to really love, and informed me that our superhero was 'Black Widow'. I didn't know who that is, and I still don't, and I don't really care. :p We made up our own superhero later!
    Then it was a matter of waiting for the other people to get through the queue. We got to wear a chain with 'bellenblaas', which is apparently called 'bubble solution' in English, and a little plastic cup. Wait, I should take a picture, I imagine this is very hard to imagine without it. xD

    Of course having to drink it was only a joke, as that would seem dangerous. I read the text on the back, and it says you shouldn't drink it, but if you do, you should drink a lot of water after it. Makes sense. :rolleyes:
    It took a while until we were all there, so I walked off for a bit, as it was quite busy with everyone waiting. Eventually though, we could go! We travelled per group, and each group had even been told at what train station they should exit, lest we should tax the public transit in the south too much. :p

    The trip to our location wasn't particularly memorable, but also not unpleasant. During the train part, I read a bit, and on one of the buses I was playing Super Mario Bros. Deluxe when someone behind me got quite excited about my Game Boy, and I let him play. :p (he didn't die as quickly as I was expecting him to ;))
    For the last bit we needed to walk, we had already been told, but it wasn't as long as I thought it would be. It was still quite a toil, though, with all those bags I had! Now I know the appeal of a suitcase on wheels. :rolleyes:

    Before taking the last bus, I had wanted to use a toilet, but we only had a bit over 5 minutes. It took me 1.5 minutes to find the door to the toilet, and then I couldn't find 50 cent, which I needed exactly. I tried a euro, and I tried twice 20 and once 10, but only 50 could fit. Interestingly, when I was looking for money on Saturday evening I found 50 cent immediately. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    When we arrived, we were told to look for our room. We weren't told where the rooms were, but just to look around until we found our name on a sheet of paper on a door.
    To most people, this was quite an effort. To me it wasn't: the first room door I saw had my name on it. I was however searching around the building just as much as the others, as I wasn't able to find a toilet. I eventually found one in the very back of the building, but of course there was no toilet paper. Oh well.

    We had wraps for dinner. There were some queue's, but when I was ready to have dinner the meat had run out, which was quite convenient, as I had signed up as a vegetarian. :) I liked the food! I took a seat at the mentor's table, and talked with mentor J mostly. It was also fun to hear my mentors talk with the other mentors, as I suppose they mostly knew each other already.
    Oh, by the way, I should mention: there were about 140 first-years at the introduction camp, and including the mentors and other teams we were with at least 160 people. That's quite a bit! That's why we moved to a new location this year, I guess (all previous years the introduction camp was elsewhere).

    I'm glad the introduction website is still online, as I don't think I'd have remembered the order of everything otherwise. :p After dinner we had a quiz. 10 questions about anything, 11 questions about the study association (if I recall correctly; they were basically logic puzzles, some clever, some stupid :p), and 12 about music (the beginning of a song was played and we had to write down the song title, artist, and if we knew it, album and year. Of course the first song was Darude - Sandstorm and the last one was Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up :rolleyes:).
    I enjoyed it, although we weren't doing too well, and ended at the second to last spot. :p Robin managed our answers, and I sat next to him. It was funny to sometimes observe the group being divided between A and C and him writing down B, or something of the sort. :p

    After the quiz the student association's board did a presentation. Each of the five members told a bit about themselves and their role in the board. It was a lot of fun! Then one of them, who I knew from a mandatory activity last year, showed a short film he had made. I didn't understand the plot at all, but it was funny regardless. xD

    Oh, this is ironic. Just after I said "I'm glad the introduction website is still online, as I don't think I'd have remembered the order of everything otherwise" I messed up the order of things. After dinner first was the study association board's presentation, and then the quiz. After the quiz another film activity is planned, but I don't recall that happening.
    We were quite behind on schedule, anyway, and shortly after the quiz I went to bed. I had a room with 7 boys, of which I only knew one. But we weren't on our rooms much anyway.

    I mentioned before that mentor J was waving a flag. Every mentor group had one of these flags, in a different colour, and with an emblem resembling their super hero. Oh, yeah, by the way... I think I forgot to mention the theme of our introduction camp was superheroes. :p Mentor J had told me that in previous years, people would sometimes steal flags from other groups, even though it didn't yield any points (for each activity, our group could earn points). She had given it to me to take care of, as she observed that I seemed like "a reliable person". That's nice. ^.^ And so I did! At night it was super safe: my bed was in the corner, and under another one (I had been one of the first to find our room, so I was able to pick where I wanted to sleep). I put my flag in the corner, so it was practically unreachable. :p (except when I was using the toilet, I suppose)
    The downside of our room being located so close to the outside was that I could hear everything that went on outside. And as I went to bed around 12 AM already, people were still being loud. I did eventually sleep for half an hour or so, until I was waken up by Sloth and someone else, who went to bed around 1:30, if I recall correctly.
    I don't recall how the rest of the night went, but I did have some more sleep! I've certainly had worse nights at such events. I even slept until 8:45, when we were woken up according to planning.

    I got out quickly, but there wasn't much to do yet. We could have breakfast, but I preferred to have that later. Because there was something planned for the morning: morning gymnastics! As was to be expected, not nearly everyone showed up, but there were still quite a few people there, actually! And it was nice that the gym wasn't entirely full of people, as that would make it hard to follow what we needed to do. :p
    I had fun! It was nice to get a little active in the morning, although at some of the exercises I really felt my shoulders from the bag-carrying.

    After breakfast, we had a crafting activity. There's a great word for crafting/tinkering/DIY'ing in Dutch: knutselen. It's a shame something like that doesn't exist in English! Although it's also cool that Dutch's got several words that English is in want of. ;)
    We were to make a cape, mask/headdress and weapon for one of our mentors. There was quite some stuff available: plastic straws, feathers, 'gems' et cetera. Of course we also started with paper and tools, and fabric for the cape.
    Most people simply made one of their mentors into the superhero their mentor group was representing (so there were persiflages of Superman, Batman, the Hulk et cetera), but as nobody of us really knew Black Widow, we thought that wouldn't be interesting. It took a bit of time, but then someone (I'm actually not sure who) got a brilliant idea, just by 'knutselen' (tinkering) with the supplies we had! Out of ice-cream sticks and a plastic straw a really long nail could be made. We decided that we would turn mentor Manouk into a superhero (I formerly called her Mentor A for some reason, but I can now use her name) that would use these nails as a weapon.
    I'd love to explain more, but it can't really be done in English. :p But I can tell how the projects were judged. We were going to have to present our superhero to the judges and the other groups, and there were going to be five judging categories. They can't really be translated to English, but I'm going to try to envision what they could be if they had been English: Creativeness, Beautifulness, Superness, Punness and Poenkness.
    Nobody knew what Poenk was, (to those who don't get it: I'm sure the judges didn't either, although they were able to judge Poenkness quite plausibly) so we didn't really have to worry about that. I honestly don't think we were one of the best at Beautifulness, but the Creativeness we got down with our idea! The judges also ended up considering our presentation to have a lot of Superness, because we were the only one (so far, there was one later that did something similar to a lesser degree) that didn't just have someone explain who the superhero was and what the weapon did and so on, but played out a play.
    I found it quite an ambitious plan at first, as there wouldn't be any opportunity for rehearsing, but it was certainly a fun idea! Ilse, a girl who I'll probably mention more later, had a lot of good ideas for the plot. She contributed to the Punness as well, but we still weren't getting very far. But I realised that I might be able to help out here. So far, I was crafting nails, as we needed at least 10 for our superhero. But my nails didn't look too great, and many others were crafting nails as well (in fact, none of mine got used :rolleyes:). But now I switched to looking up idioms on my Nokia. I was able to invent quite some new puns, and our play was eventually riddled with them. :p
    I don't recall how our Poenkness was rated exactly, but I'm pretty sure we must have had a good amount of it. ;) Ilse and I were the voice-overs in our play, mentor Manouk, as said, was the superhero ("Nagel Mindy", but you won't understand that if you aren't Dutch :p), mentor J was the bad guy (a headdress was made for her too), blowing bubbles at people in an evil way (remember everyone in our group had got bubble solution at the start), and the others added atmosphere by blowing some extra bubbles. As said, I can't explain much more, as almost every pun only works in Dutch. :p But the final pun, ending the play about our long-nailed superhero, was in English: "I nailed it!" :cool:
    We were picked as one of the first to show our superhero, and I was quite tense (I thought this word didn't exist in English, and then I remembered it does!). I even forgot the name of our superhero. xD But after a few seconds of silence and a helpless look at Ilse she completed my sentence. :p The rest of it went well, although there were some puns that went unnoticed by most (I guess there were too many :p).
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  5. After our own performance, we of course watched the others. And during this, something bad happened... our flag was stolen. I wasn't as reliable as I had thought! My attention being drawn to the performances, I didn't notice someone from another group taking the flag and walking away with it. Someone else did, I heard when inquiring, but he wasn't able to tell me which group. I looked around for a bit, but it was nowhere to be seen! I am actually impressed by someone managing to take it, as it was still with me, I hadn't left it behind anywhere; I just didn't have it in my hand, but beside/behind me. But now our flag was gone! D:

    September 30th: after a bit of setting up (I'm now on my desktop pc for the first time since I started this journal), I am finally ready to resume writing. ;)
    So, our flag was gone. After concluding that I wouldn't be able to find it, I... had lunch, I guess. I don't really recall how or when, at this point it's been a while since. :p I guess that might make the rest of the journal entry shorter, but hm... we'll see. ;)

    The next activity was a 'commission market'. Within our study association, there are various commissions responsible for various things, and each had a bit of a stall with a representative, some samples if applicable, and a sheet of paper to write down your name if interested. I did quite enjoy this! I had planned to not join any of the commissions right away, but I was told that it was only letting them know you were interested, and I was interested in three commissions: one organising activities for first-years, one dealing with the website and one responsible for the college newsletter. Since then, I've turned down the first one, as I think it would take me too much time and effort. I'm still interested in the third one, and have a meeting coming up the week after next, and I haven't heard anything about the second one yet since.

    Following this, there was an activity with a misleading name: "Het Grote Zandvlaktespel", which means as much as "The Big Sand Plain Game". However, there wasn't much sand around, so I supposed we were to go somewhere, and hoped it wouldn't be too intensive. But then it turned out that it was simply on our terrain, and the name has stuck from previous years, when the introduction camp was organised elsewhere. :p
    The game itself wasn't really one game, but rather a game circuit. You've probably done something similar: there are several separate games where you can score points, and the points get added up to a total (subtotal, in our case, as there were also other things like the quiz). Sometimes with these games, there's a set time for all games, and something like a bell is rung when you need to progress to the next game, but here that wasn't the case, as some games took much longer than others. We were also free to go anywhere we wanted, there was no set order.
    I was planning to simply recall all games in one numeration and then move on, but there are several that I want to elaborate upon. First, let me try to recall all the games:
    • Carrying an orange (I think) between our backs, in pairs
    • Some game with forming answers to hints using letters on our heads (apparently taken from a tv programme "De jongens tegen de meisjes")
    • Trying to get a pen on a thread behind our back into a bottle
    • Throwing our clothes upon someone, who could undress themselves at the end
    • Solving logical puzzles
    • An elaborate superhero quiz/memory game
    • Movie charades
    • 30 Seconds
    • Building as high of a tower as possible and putting everything back within the time
    • Walking a course and emptying a spoon of beads while blindfolded
    • Keeping a tennis ball moving on a canvas with holes in it
    • Guessing the title of a read Wikipedia article, with that title omitted from the excerpt
    I think that's all! And it's certainly a lot. They're not in the order we did them in, but we did start with the orange-carrying game, because our mentors organised that one. We did the superhero quiz/memory game last, because it was the longest, and thus occupied most of the time.
    I was quite good at getting the pen in the bottle quickly, but in the end it turned out to be for nothing. At the beginning of the game, we had to choose a number between 37 and 42, if I recall correctly, and we picked 39 (perhaps it was different, but something like this). It turned out that our amount of points was simply the difference between our picked number and 37. <.< To my surprise, everyone accepted it easily, there wasn't much apparent frustration. :p
    By the way, there's something I still haven't explained... during the entire camp, in each group there was one Mole. In the Netherlands and perhaps part of Belgium, this is an universally understood term, I reckon, but elsewhere it probably isn't. :p One of the most succesful tv programmes in the Netherlands is called Wie is de Mol? (Who is the Mole?), and from this the term Mole comes. The Mole tries to make as many points (or in the case of the actual show, money) get lost, by subtly sabotaging. You'll already know who our Mole was, because I've called him 'Mole' whenever I've referred to him since. :p However, during these games, the people being suspected most were Elise and Lukas. At one point, though, Mole was suspected quite a bit. But I, I didn't suspect him, I helped him mole... :oops: This was the game where we balanced a tennis ball (and later two) on a canvas with holes (everyone holding a part of the canvas to keep it steady). The best strategy was of course to make the tennis ball roll around in tiny circles, in a safe area. However, that safe area had to be at the far end from me and Mole, for some reason (probably because some people were suspecting Mole :rolleyes:). However, Mole didn't like this, and I didn't either... we wanted the ball too! Plus, it was boring to make the ball roll around in such small circles! Surely, we could do more than that... but we evidently couldn't, as we were dropping it all the time anyway. :p At some point people accused Mole of being the cause, which he didn't like, so he let loose of the canvas, after which it still kept dropping, so Mole had proven his innocence. Except that of course Mole letting loose of the canvas made it a lot harder to balance, as the canvas wasn't strained tight. :p Near the end of the game, with two balls in play, Mole and I, and surely others too, got a bit less serious, a bit more playful... sudden jerks here and there made the game even more comical, and even less playable. :p We had by far the most negative points of any of the groups! :D
    During the movie charades, we had 3 rounds of 1 minute to enact movie titles. Ilse thought this would be fun but wasn't sure if she knew enough movies, so she let someone else go first... but when she did start, she was very good!! We were quite impressed. We got a lot of points there. :) As I had expected, I wasn't very helpful in this game, as I don't know a lot of movies.
    There was another one where I was expected to do a whole lot better: the Wikipedia articles! Reading Wikipedia articles is a hobby of mine. ;) Unfortunately though, there weren't that many articles to guess, and most of them were really easy. One of them I easily would have known, but I had heard a bit of the excerpt already when we walked past the game to another game, and I had told Ilse the answer, who know immediately said "The Legend of Zelda" at the beginning of every article. :rolleyes: I, on the contrary, wanted to wait until the moment I would have got it otherwise (the year of release), for the sake of fairness. Oh well. Anyway, there was another article where I was expected to do well. One of the hosts of this game was the girl I've mentioned in the post about the first day, when I couldn't find the lunching place. She apparently knew I knew a lot about video games, as she had said to the other host before we arrived that I might know the answer. I did not, however! I actually learnt something new about video game consoles! :eek: The article in question was about the Game.com handheld. I didn't know it, fortunately, so I really couldn't have guessed it. But as we had about 2 minutes left to get back to this article, after correctly answering all of the others, I did partly embarrass myself by producing names of various obscure video game consoles, of which many were obviously the wrong answer. :p But then again, the others didn't get much further than "Playstation", while the article was about a handheld from an obscure manufacturer. :rolleyes: After the game, I looked up the article myself, and even browsed eBay afterward, to see if there were any good offers for it, as it really sounds quite interesting!
    I think that's what I wanted to tell about the 'sand plain' game. :p We did mediocre at most games, good at some, and very bad at the canvas + balls game, so in the end we didn't score too many points. But we did have a lot of fun!

    October 24th: Hm, I guess I should continue writing. :rolleyes:
    We were going to have dinner soon, in shifts. I think we had pasta. It was good! Mentor J informed us (or maybe she had done so before dinner) that our group was planned for corvee. Okay, this is interesting... this is the only word I can find for it, and it's the same as in Dutch, but in English the Wikipedia page is part of the series on Slavery... and in Dutch corvee isn't really associated with slavery xD Nevertheless most of us weren't really happy with this knowledge. I got excited however, as if done well, I enjoy corvee! I was a bit concerned, however, because there would be a study related presentation after dinner, and I didn't want to miss that because of corvee... but mentor J assured me that she would make sure we would be able to attend the presentation. So I was looking forward to it again. :)
    To increase the chance of the dishes being done in time, mentor J decided that we should start taking plates of those that were done eating already. I however found this a bit too scary, as most empty plates had been taken already by the time I got to it, and I didn't want to have to ask whether people were done or risk taking food they might still want to eat. So I simply wainted until we could really start.
    As I had been afraid of, it took a bit of time until I got assigned a task... and as we were with quite some people, most tasks quickly got taken. I however ended up drying the big kitchen ware after it was cleaned by someone I didn't know. I liked this task, although there were some challenges: firstly, the 'things' were quite hot after they had been cleaned, so I sometimes had to wait a bit until I could handle them without hurting myself. Secondly, for many things it was unclear where they needed to go. However, I had the courage to ask. Then again, nobody really knew where things went. I got pointed to some places, though, and quickly I was able to invent a system for what to put where. Another challenge, that got more relevant as time went on, was that not all clean things were clean. Near the end, the girl left bits of food remnants on nearly everything she cleaned. But that was fine, as I could get those off with my dishcloth (nice word! I hadn't heard that before. In Dutch it's teacloth). Speaking of my dishcloth: I hadn't one with me. It was on the list of things to bring we had received a while ago, but I hadn't remembered to check that list. Many people turned out to have forgot theirs, so it was a bit of a challenge to acquire one, at first. But someone got me one, I don't recall how. Anyway, that dishcloth was soaking wet (the Frisian word for this is beautiful: dweiltrochwiit (I'm not sure if I'm spelling that right, as I only get one result when I search for it on Google, but Frisian is very rarely used online (or written in general, nowadays), so that's not too unusual)) within 5 minutes. Whenever I didn't have something to dry right away (the girl was fast, so this didn't happen often!) I spent my time spreading out my dishcloth and swinging it back and forth, in an effort to get the water out. It made the dishcloth colder and less comfortable to handle, but not less wet. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ For a while I wasn't drying the items anymore by letting the dishcloth soak up their water, but by wiping the water off. :rolleyes: At some point someone saw this and asked if maybe my dishcloth had got wet. I said yes, and demonstrated by giving it a wring: a big splash of water hit the ground. :p (This wasn't a problem, as there was a sink in the middle of the kitchen.)
    The person who asked me (perhaps it was mentor J?) then got me a dishcloth from one of the others, who apparently didn't need it anymore. That made things a lot nicer again! As time went on, however, I did become a bit tired out... but I felt very accomplished at everything I successfully dried and put away, so I kept going until we were done, despite the offers I got to take leave! :)
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  6. When we were done, the presentation didn't start right away, in my memory. But I also don't recall anything happening in between, so maybe it begun relatively quickly. The presentation was done by someone who did our university course quite a while ago, and who was clearly a programmer. I mean, he told us so in his introduction, but you could tell by his appearance. :rolleyes: I recall that the guy first talked about something he wasn't going to talk about, but which would have been interesting, before moving on to the actual subject. I actually don't quite recall the point of the presentation... but maybe I didn't then either?... :p It was fun, though! There was quite some interaction. At some point each of us had to take in mind 3 trusted routers (I think it was 3, I'm not positive, it could have been 2), and we simulated a network. At first it failed, because nobody had taken Google, the person in the bottom left corner, as a trusted router. xD But once that was fixed, it worked quickly. The most efficient path was found automatically, and it was quite cool! I wasn't in it, as I wasn't on the diagonal between the opposite corners.
    The presentator also showed us a poem, which we had to interpret... before it turned out to have been written by a computer. :rolleyes: He showed us some more examples of the program's creations, and initiated a discussion about whether this was art or not. I wanted to argue that it was art, but he was the artist, and not the computer. However, there were lots of people that had things to say (which is nice!), so I didn't get a turn (I can't confirm if that's the idom... does anyone know it?).
    What followed was an algorithm that designed Mario levels. It was interesting, but I didn't see use in the algorithm, as it needed a human judge to decide whether a level was 'fun' for its evolution. Still, it was fun to play around with it! Someone was asked to beat the level, someone who was good at Mario. I certainly am, but I didn't feel like I would enjoy being in the spotlight. (Ilse evidently didn't mind, as she had volunteered to read out the poem, earlier!) It took some time for someone else to come forward, and he didn't even manage to beat the level. :rolleyes: Oh well, it was comical. ;)
    All in all, the presentation certainly didn't disappoint me! I had a good time.

    After this, there was one program point left: a party! It took a long while before it started, though. But that wasn't a problem, as it was nice to simply socialise with people! The guys from my mentor group invented a game using Uno cards, and it was... rough... I didn't play, as I didn't want to be tied to any particular group of people, but preferred to be able to move around freely (and besides: I only drink water, milk and tea, usually... and playing such a game with water would seem a bit strange, although they offered me the ability ;)). It was fun to watch, though.
    Besides being there, I also spent quite some time at another table: I saw Sloth and Guy 3 there. It sounded like they were having an interesting discussion, and when I started attending I quickly got offered to take a seat. I did, and it was interesting indeed! I got to know the two people whom I was to have a discussion with later (if you remember from the future). The main point of discussion was one I'm probably not allowed to mention here. :p But it did make me think! Unfortunately, half of the times when I wanted to participate the guy from the future discussion hushed me, as he wanted to say everything himself. :p
    After a while of this, I asked Manouk whether this was the party? :p No, it was not, it was to start still. And finally, it did!
    The party featured a dance floor, music, and flashing, coloured lights. I guess most of you might know how a party works (maybe depending on your age). I had seen some before on Andrew Huang's YouTube channel, and my friend born_ego had been to one last summer, of which I had seen some clips, and I was intrigued by what I had seen! It seemed really strange. And it did now too.
    Both of the groups I had been with remained in their place, but at some point Manouk managed to convince the guys from our group to quit the game and join the party. I observed the party for a while, as it intrigued me so. Then Manouk came out, and invited me to join. I wasn't sure. I thought she would go back, but she didn't! She stayed with me, waiting for whatever I had to say, so she could encourage me. A particularly good argument was that if I wanted to experience a party, this was the time to do it, as here nobody would judge me, whereas if I would go with some people I knew in Utrecht or something, there would be people to judge me. Eventually, she managed to convince me, and went back in with me! The 'dancing' turned out not to be much like dancing, but rather moving a bit up and down and back and forth, or something. I didn't want to stay still, as that seemed... unsocial or something, so I awkwardly moved too. :p Most of the time I didn't need to do anything else, but at some point there was a song where at certain points everyone gradually moved their body down to the floor, and so I had to do that too, or I would greatly stand out. I am rather tall, but also rather flexible, so I could reasonably get my height down without becoming too uncomfortable. ;)
    The experience itself was strange. The music fortunately wasn't so loud that you couldn't talk without shouting, but it was still a strange experience to talk to someone, as half of the time they would be invisible, because of the flashing lights. Manouk was very glad I was able to be a part of it though, and me too. :) I am glad to have experienced it. I was even able to stay for quite a while, until I decided that it would be better for me to go to bed.

    It was 2 AM - no, actually, I sent a message to born_ego when I had left the party, and I checked the time: 1:11. I guess I left earlier than I remember. I also was able to sleep relatively quickly, so I was probably asleep before 2 AM.
    I woke up again at 5 AM, but I am going to continue writing about that later. ;)

    November 3rd: Let's finish this. ;)
    I woke up at 5 AM because three of my roommates entered. One of them was rather drunk, and quite annoying. I tried to ignore them as well as I could, as I didn't want to have to talk to them. Eventually they went to sleep, and I then got up and put on some clothes, to go use a toilet. The toilet I went to the previous night now had the sink clogged with vomit, and in the toilet beside it the light didn't work anymore. I chose the latter.
    After this, I decided to take a look at the place I had left four hours ago. It was quite a different place now! Most people had gone to bed, but I still saw some people I knew, including Guy 3. It was a bit of a mess... but I went to bed again, and hoped it wouldn't get worse.

    I then, to my great surprise, slept until shortly before we were woken up by means of loud music from one of the leaders. I think it was after 10 AM when I woke up. That was nice! I didn't have to wait long until I could have breakfast, and I was fortunately able to easily find some rolls of toilet paper, as it was used up in almost all toilets. I don't know what I did until 'Activity Y'; probably not much. Although, maybe this is when Ilse was doing a puzzle in a puzzle book. I do recall trying to see which answers I could think of, and it might have been then. ;)
    Activity Y (that's what was on the planning) was a dodgeball tournament, with 3 teams playing each other at once, and single elimination. Unfortunately our group performed rather poorly. I recall Ilse, Marnix and myself staying in the game for longer than the others, but we still got out quickly.
    Meanwhile, however, mentor J had found our flag! She also stole the point stash of one of the other groups, to give us a chance at winning again. ;) After we were out, I and some others stayed to watch the other games. I was also in a spot where balls would sometimes fly into the bushes, so I was of use by stopping or retrieving them a couple of times. I saw Mole was holding our flag, and I allowed him this. Of course I shouldn't have... :oops:
    When a bit later (time is the most uncertain on the last day :p) everyone was gathered together and the moles were asked to reveal themselves, at first none of us stood up. But then Mole did. So he was it after all... and he had got rid of the flag. I didn't understand this until we had left already, so I couldn't ask him where it was. Oh well. Guy 3 does have their flag still!
    We then had to pack our stuff and clean the hall around our room. The groups who hadn't done corvee yet got assigned additional tasks. Packing went really fast for me, I think I might actually have done it earlier, shortly before or after breakfast. I did do some cleaning in the hall, but I wasn't sure on what was expected, and after a short time I decided I'd simply go outside. In the grass was a circle of girls, among which both Elises. I joined them. The weather was very nice!
    At some point we heard that there was still some dairy from breakfast left, and three of us went inside to get some. There was very little left, though, and although we had some ourselves there was nothing left to bring to the girls waiting outside. So it was just a matter of waiting until the buses would arrive.

    When they did, I went inside to use the toilet, and when I came outside again most people were gone already. I started fearing I'd miss the bus or at least be far from anyone I knew, but that wasn't the case. One of the buses had filled up already, but there was plenty of room in the other. If I recall correctly, I took place next to Robin.
    I later asked if he'd mind if I moved ahead a few rows, though, as we weren't talking anyway. I think I asked this so I would have more room to write a personal diary entry on my iPad. Like the trip to, the trip back was unmemorable, but not unpleasant. It was also shorter than I had expected. Because we would arrive at Utrecht Central Station and not at university (or home), I decided it would be more convenient if I used the toilet in the bus, when I had to go. It's unpleasant doing so in a moving bus, but it was fine. I did have to move up to the bus driver first, to ask for the key.

    There was not another collection of our group. I briefly talked with Guy 3 about what he should do with his flag as we were moving up the stairs. I also moved up to Ilse, and was intending to say bye to her, but didn't. I did send her a message on Facebook on the following day.
    ... And then I took the train home! And the rest is history. Well, actually, everything in this thread is history. But the other history I've written about already. ;) This history took me 4 days across 3 months to write... :p
    But I hope you enjoyed. :) And now this thread is done. ;) (Unless this gets replies, of course, which it might!)

    Edit: I just realised I forgot a part. :p I do briefly hint at it prospectively, but don't actually talk about the event. Oh well... this is long enough anyway, and I don't really feel like adding it in. ;) To those who were there: it's about the 'tostis' (grilled cheese sandwiches) on Saturday night. ;)
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