Starting University | A Journal

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

  1. I haven't had dinner yet, but I think I can write already, as I've relaxed for quite a bit already after university (I had planned to maybe read a bit, but I didn't feel like it, and it's Friday, so I don't mind). If I write about today now, I will be able to do the dishes and shower after dinner and still have time for some fun stuff. :)
    You know what I did in the morning already. I wrote the very long post about Thursday. ;) I decided to not try doing the Logic homework, as my head felt rather full (probably because of my being ill), but I went through the studies from yesterday's lecture instead, and completed what was missing from my notes.

    Today, the bus arrived at my bus stop almost 10 minutes late (while I was extra early, as I didn't want to risk missing it, after yesterday :p). It normally arrives with quite some time to spare, though, so I still arrived at the right building in time, and I didn't need to use the lavatory (besides getting some water, because I could) which spared me time.
    To my surprise, the room was almost entirely empty, even though it was 5 minutes before the start of the lecture. André was early as always, though, so I took a seat next to him.
    The lecture was fun, but our teacher was supposed to discuss three things: memory, problem solving and mental imagery. That could easily be done in 90 minutes. But he really loves the subject of memory, so he spent 5 quarters of an hour on it, leaving 15 minutes to talk about problem solving and mental imagery. :rolleyes: Honestly, that seems a mistake on his part, or a flaw, as he did it deliberately, but oh well. I had read the chapter already, anyway, so I could still follow what he was saying (but I suddenly had to write my notes three times as quickly).

    After the lecture, I felt like hanging around, it being the end of the week... but I didn't know who with, or what to do. So I decided I'd just go home.
    And that's it. :p Today's relaxedness nicely compensates for yesterday's stress!

    By the way, there's a lot more to studying to university, I know... but I've been ill since the introduction camp, and haven't felt like joining for any events. But I think 3 events have already passed this week, and this evening there will be a barbecue, so there's a lot to do! But nothing of it is mandatory, of course.
  2. All the best in your future endeavours I start my second year in a few weeks
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  3. Today of course no university, but here's a small update anyway. :)
    I had a really good day, so far! A disappointment in the morning because something I ordered from eBay didn't work. But I thought of something else fun to do.
    After breakfast I first planned my dinner for the rest of the week and made a shopping-list, and then started my Logic homework, and it went well. :) It's a lot of writing, because for proofs we need to be very explicit, and on other parts of Logic the syntax often takes a while to write (defining trees, especially...). I then went to the supermarket, and had lunch.

    After lunch I continued my Logic homework, and finished most of it. I had a break to play piano, and then wanted to do the rest, but I realised that I'd still have the tutorial on Tuesday to work on it. So I decided to look at the neural myth assignment instead. There were some issues, but the girl in my workgroup was active on WhatsApp and I could find solutions. :) I made the slides for the presentation, which wasn't easy but didn't put me in discomfort either.
    Having finished that, I had a call with my mother, as I do miss her after 20+ days. :3 It was fun to speak to her for half an hour.

    Now I'm taking preparations for making dinner!
    Tomorrow, I'm planning to write about the introduction camp. :) It might take a couple of hours. :p
    And I should practise the presentation, also!
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  4. I'm quite certain the post about my introduction camp, when I finish it, isn't going to fit in one post. :rolleyes: I'd like to post it in one go, though, to keep things organised, instead of having bits of the introduction camp mixed with posts about more recent happenings.
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  5. I was planning to write about today right away, but then I decided to do some other stuff first, and now I'm so tired that I'd almost rather do something else. :p Oh well, I'll put on some music and start, as there are some things to write about. ;)

    Today we had the neural myth presentations. Two of us four were going to give the presentation, me being one of them. In the morning, I practised it once, and then another time, to check if it was a good length.
    I could tell I was a bit tense at anticipation of the presentation, as I got stressed twice for ungrounded reasons. Once, I suddenly thought I was going to be late for my bus. I got so excited that I acidentally pulled out the barn door handle when I left. :p I put it back, though, and set off at great speed. Then I did some calculation, and realised I had plenty of time, even if both traffic lights would be red for a while.
    Waiting at the bus, I had another moment of stress when I realised I might not have my chip card on me. But it was in my purse.

    The bus was late, and when it arrived, it was very full. Fortunately it still stopped for us. I and one other guy had to stand outside of the area where you're supposed to be able to stand, next to the driver. At the next stop the bus driver did a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ as he couldn't take the people that were there (that's quite unfortunate!), but at the one after that there was just a single woman, who we did pick up.
    Then it got interesting, as a conversation started. The bus driver turned out to be retired, but he still got asked to drive frequently, as there are too little bus drivers in Utrecht (perhaps in the Netherlands or Europe or Earth as a whole, I wouldn't know). He also was able to explain a bit of why... they get one break in the entire day, but that break is at the final station. In this case, there's nothing at the final station. Just a field with a bench and two trees. Without even a toilet, the female bus drivers have to take a bucket with them when they're driving. That's messed up! :confused:
    For the rest of the trip, he talked about interesting occurrences on the bus itself. Once, someone didn't want to pay, and he gently forced him out of the bus. A few days later, he was called to police office. He was acquitted, but it did take 3 hours. :confused: Another remarkable story was that six years ago someone entered with a pistol, exclaiming "Money! Money!". So the bus driver said "Sit down, I'll get you some money." "Money! Money!" "Calm down, here's money. Count it out with me. 5 cents, 15, 25, 30..." The guy with the pistol was getting uncomfortable and quickly got out. :p What an amazing act!
    With these and other stories, I certainly had an interesting time on the bus. Eventually arriving at university, most people had to exit, including us three.

    I was still in time for the start of our class, but the girl in our group said that the guy I was going to present with wasn't there (I'm not sharing why, here). This was unfortunate for him, but I honestly didn't mind. I could present our entire story fine, and now we wouldn't have to decide who was going to do what. Our teacher was okay with it also, so after the break I gave our presentation, on my own - although the girl did the slides, and answered questions after the presentation. It went well. :)
    The other presentations were mostly interesting too, and one stood out particularly because of the quality of presenting. The two guys who did this presentation apparently appreciated me too, as when I had finished it, I heard them utter the Dutch words for "Warrior" and "Soldier". ;)
    When all presentations were done (only 6 in total, it went by quicker than I had expected), everyone left really quickly. I had a few words with the teacher, and he remarked that one subject I included was particularly well-done and important - one which was entirely based on information and points of remark my mother sent me when I asked her about it last week, so thanks, mom!

    Now I was done already, but I didn't feel like going home yet. When I did exit the building at last (some other things happened in-between, but not much worth of mention), I noticed a guy who was there when I entered too: he was handing out information about some 'students church'. I had already taken the leaflet before, but I hadn't looked at it yet, so I did so now. There was one thing I wasn't so sure about, and in part for that reason I was attracted to talking to him. I did so eventually, but didn't address my concern; I did however write down my (university) e-mail address when asked for this, as I might want to take a look at some point.
    I told a friend from last year's study about it, I'm wondering what he thinks. :)

    At first I forgot to write about this, but I deleted my post to retry. The way back on the bus was interesting as well! It wasn't that crowded now, so I could have a seat. I did have a seat with three people who knew each other, though, which can sometimes be awkward. These people were nice people, though. I didn't participate in any conversation, but I did quit trying to act like I wasn't attending after a few minutes, as if I was hearing their conversation anyway, I might as well listen.
    Now at some point the girl started a riddle, and one of the two guys already knew it, so he added to it (it's a riddle involving a production rule, so they could make up as many parts as they wanted). I didn't know the riddle yet, though! The guy riddled couldn't get to the answer, but I had already got an idea about what the production rule might be involved with (I won't be giving it away here, as it doesn't work in English anyway, so I might as well stay vague to minimise the chance of spoiling it ;)). When the girl hinted it had to do with the title of the riddle, I got it. I said so, which of course made the guy who didn't feel worse about himself. Near the end of the bus trip for us (only the guy being riddled had to go further), I also joined in for a relevant addition to the riddle, but it only confused him more. :D
    That was fun!

    At home, I cleaned the bathroom, at last asked Ilse if we could talk on Hangouts (this won't make sense yet, as I still haven't published posts about the introduction camp :p), and read in my Cognitive Science book. I read a big part of the chapter on neuroscience, and it's really awkward subject matter to me. :$ I feel like most of the chapter consists of a lot of biological terms I don't care about. But I might have to care about them, as the chapter is one of six (or even five, not counting the introductory chapter) included in the test coming up at the start of October.
    I'll also likely miss the lecture, as I'm planning to leave Amersfoort on Friday morning, to see my family in Heerenveen, as I've got a birthday Saturday evening, and a convention Sunday, so I'd rather spend the weekend in Amersfoort. I haven't seen my family in a while, though, so I'd like to be with them even if it's just for less than a day.

    That was it for today! I'm probably going to continue writing about the introduction camp after dinner.
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  6. I did not continue writing after dinner, as I was rather tired! I played piano instead, which was fun. :)
    This might be a shorter post, as it's already a bit late, and I am again tired. :)

    Today, I had another day starting with a tutorial, at 11 AM. This was for Logic, where we could finish our homework (I had purposefully not finished it yet, so I could do it now). I asked some questions, did the last assignment, then asked for some more clarification before reattempting the only assignment I didn't understand before, and after that I even did the extra credit assignment (I did look at the slides from another school's lecture for some more information on the subject, but I got the idea for the proof myself :p).
    I thought I was going to have to go to the inner city to post the homework to the pigeon hole, but our teacher assistent said we could simply give it to her now, as tomorrow she is going to get the homework from the pigeon hole anyway, so she might as well have it already. I felt like I might still want to look for the pigeon hole, as our teacher had made a slide with a rather adventurous description of how to get there, but it seemed like a waste of energy, so I did hand it in there before leaving.

    In the 2.5 hours of waiting, I first went to our alternate headquarters, and finished studying an article about an experiment that my workgroup might want to reproduce and alter. It was nice to be with people, but the people there are mostly not my type of people, and after some time it got too tiring, and I went to the library (there's something in between these things, but it's not particularly interesting). I finished the neuroscience chapter, and once again got rather drowsy being there.
    I don't like how I have so little interaction with friends at university, so I sent a couple of people a message asking them for their timetable, as I'm hoping for options to be together in my spare hours in the future. I don't really mind being alone at home, but the 2.5 hours of nothingness I have on Tuesdays and Wednesdays are rather dull. It's strange to be in a place with so many people but having nobody to talk to. :p (I am talking with a friend from secondary education at this moment, who's also studying at Utrecht, we're going to hang out some time :))
    On the way back to the lectureroom I did come across another person from high school. I've never been friends with her, but we knew each other somewhat, and we met on the train last year and talked for a bit then. Anyway, she didn't have time to have conversation now, as her lecture started 15 minutes before mine and she had to hurry.

    The lecture was fun! It was indeed by another teacher (I am going to ask someone if it's okay to mention names of teachers, as I feel like it probably is, but I'm not sure). He was rather nice, though. But we went too slowly, as he wanted to really make sure everyone understood everything. I feel like we spent 15 minutes explaining minima and maxima. ._.
    At the end, he had to go really fast, and I couldn't follow anymore. I was also a bit worn out paying attention, as even though he went slow for most of the lecture, he was really excited about everything, which was cute, but also a bit exhausting. :p

    That's it! I told you it might be a shorter post. ;) I was planning to keep writing until the first tests, and I will probably do that. But I'd rather not miss a day until then, so if I have little time and/or don't feel like writing I'll just keep it a bit shorter, if possible.
    Oh, and I shouldn't forget to say: we got an 8 on yesterday's presentation! :D
  7. When I arrived at the bus stop, today, 3 buses arrived and departed. :p But I knew the next bus would still be quite on time.
    When I arrived (nice parallel) at university, I didn't see anyone I knew yet, but soon Guy 3 and others from his group arrived (not Sloth yet, though). I went with them again, which was fun. One of the guys showed his homework to Guy 3, to which Guy 3 responded "Is that your homework? Run!". We were supposed to post our homework before 10 AM, and in this guy's mind, it was to be posted past 10 AM. :p I don't know the logic behind that. :rolleyes:
    During the lecture the deadline actually got shifted to 12 PM, but he hadn't missed much anyway. The lecture was on research methods. Mostly basic stuff, but I did find it a useful lecture! At some point (this will be relevant later) someone was quoted saying "If something isn't measurable, it doesn't exist". But our teacher actually nuanced it!, saying that these things couldn't be studied by science, but could still be really interesting.
    After half an hour, the teacher said he'd pause for 10 minutes, as he was ill. So it seemed like that was an early break for us.
    A bit over 10 minutes later, he entered again, accompanied by our other teacher for Introduction to Cognitive Science. He (our intended teacher) explained he was dizzy, and had to leave. The other teacher would attempt to take over the lecture, even though he of course hadn't prepared it. We applauded, and our teacher left.
    The replacing teacher actually did rather well! It was basic stuff, as said, but with no preparation at all I think he tackled it remarkably well. At some point (this will also be relevant later) we learnt that a solid theory should be falsifiable. After learning about what it meant, I pointed out to the girl next to me that evolution theory isn't falsifiable. Then it turned out that was actually in one of his examples! :D
    Guy 3 was really bored, as he had learnt all of this before already, and he started handing out cookies. :p Something else interesting was that the teacher gave us a strange example (measuring someone's intelligence by how well they can plank), and then it turned out to be on the next slide. He was really surprised, but he must have known subconsciously, I think. :p He scrolled through the slides a bit before, so maybe he saw it flash past then, without noticing, and that's why he thought of it when needing to think of an example.
    There were over 80 slides, and before our teacher left we were only around 20, so we couldn't get through all the slides, but I think the replacing teacher made very good choices about what to talk about.

    After the lecture, I didn't fancy being alone again. I considered looking for my afore found bosom friend again, but I decided to go with the people from group 4 instead, as I was already with them. They went to a place I hadn't been at before, although it's right under where we've got lectures. It really reminded me of a zoo. :p
    Sloth and I were attempting to read, but we were mostly talking, and I didn't mind, as I was ahead anyway (I've already read everything for the first test), and had wished for some fun time with friends.
    Then, something happened I had expected to happen at some point or another, but I wasn't quite expecting right now... although it was the perfect time for it. Sloth asked me a question, which I answered, and he said he agreed. The other guy, however, very much disagreed. I elaborated that if you supported dualism it followed easily, but this guy is very much a monist. So I was defending my belief in dualism, until after some time the girl asked "Then do you also belief in an after-life?" and I replied "Yes, I'm a radical Christian." Well, their minds were blown, figuratively speaking. During the discussions that followed, they were very surprised that a Christian would be at university. I consider this rather naive, to be honest, but I guess they might be living in a sort of 'atheistic bubble', whereas some other people are living in a 'Christian bubble'. Whereas our teacher had nuanced the expression that unmeasurable things didn't exist (see, I told you this would be relevant! ;)), this guy quoted someone saying something like "If an assertment can't be proven it can be dropped". And when I told him about me liking how evolution theory was used as an example of non-falsifiable theories, because I considered evolution to be an implausible theory, besides all three (Sloth was still there too, Guy 3 was off to his tutorial class) being very amazed, the girl exlaimed "That's what you meant?!? I thought it was a joke! :o". :p
    So yeah. We argued back and forth for some time, but soon it was just me answering their questions, as I didn't think we were going to get anywhere, but they were still trying to convince me I was wrong. I think I was almost certainly supported by the Holy Ghost, as even though these discussions were quite intense for me, both rationally and emotionally, I was still able to reason and to admit things I wasn't sure about, and I didn't come close to crying (while usually I easily cry when I am not understood).
    I was going to talk to my mother during this time of no classes, but because of this discussion, I wasn't getting to it. When we had wrapped up, I still got a new burning question from either the guy or the girl after every few seconds of silence. :p So I decided that I had rather go to the library, and told so. Sloth was off to the lavatory to refill some bottles, including mine, so I waited until he was back. As I left, I wondered if they were now going to talk behind my back and stated so, but right afterward I added "Eh, it doesn't matter anyway", and left.

    Having arrived at the library, I could finally start talking with my mother about some practical things, as planned. However, my mind was full with the discussions just had, and we could only talk about that. Even when we had done so, I wasn't in a state to make decisions about these practical things. So we decided to postpone it.
    Again, I considered looking for my bosom friend, and I went to the place where I had seen her previously, but when she wasn't there, I gave up. Later, when I was home and could check WhatsApp, I learnt that she was in fact at the library. :oops: If I recall correctly, with some other people I'd have liked to see, too! But oh well.
    I started writing a personal diary entry, to get some things off my mind about what had just happened. I had been prepared for these kinds of discussions by the education I had last year, but when it's for real it's really quite different. :p Still, having been taught so much really did aid my confidence, and keep me from feeling entirely uncomfortable. I really do appreciate those classes a lot more now!

    When I had eaten some bread, the tutorial class was already almost starting, and I still needed to use the lavatory. So I went to the right building, and found it easily again.
    Again, the class wasn't too interesting to mention. The guy who was ill last time was again, but the guy who was away for personal reasons now was back. Our idea for an experiment had to be dropped, as I had found, and our teacher agreed, that it was way too hard to reproduce (in the original experiment, the test subjects had 10 hours of training... :rolleyes:). At the end of the class, we did get to a new idea, though!
    I wanted to present it to the teacher, but many others did as well. Because of this, I waited, and waited. After the others discussing ideas for experiments there was someone who asked our Introduction to Cognitive Science teacher whom he had to contact because of failing to hand in his Introduction to Logic homework. :p The teacher of course didn't know, but I advised him to tell his teacher assistent. He didn't know who this was, however, and I explained some things to him. After this, I could finally talk about our idea with the teacher, and he did like it, although he's not too experienced on the subject so we would have to look for further direction and ideas on the internet.
    When I got outside, I saw the guy that didn't manage to hand in his homework again, and he told me he found his teacher assistent's e-mail, and thanked me.

    It was 15:20 at this point (the class was supposed to end at 3 sharp), and like last week, I didn't know where to go for the bus stop. I went in the same direction as I did last time, but this time I didn't recognise where I was, and I had to check Google Maps. I realised then where I was: at the further bus stop. I saw that it was 10 minutes until the bus arrived, so I decided to go back and find the closer bus stop (closer to home, not necessarily closer to the class), as that was really way more efficient, and if I wouldn't look for it now I'd probably have forgotten by next week.
    I did find it, but my sense of direction only recovered itself when I was within 3 steps of the right stop. :p But now I should remember where to go, next week! (left)
    On the bus back, I was really hoping I could get a seat, and I could. Next to me was a girl who must have been trying her best to not show any sign of noticing me. Seriously, it was impressive. She didn't look into my direction once, even though I looked at her multiple times, and grinned at her completely ignoring me. Eventually I forgot about her as well because I was having more discussions with the atheists in my head, but when I remembered her I was once again amazed at how she had managed to not look at me once, but more at why. I'm next to you on the bus, why would you be so impolite to act like I don't exist??... Oh well. :p

    This took a while to write, and I'm frankly not expecting anyone to have read it in full. ;) But I'm glad I wrote about this! My 'first real discussion of faith with real atheists' is something to be remembered. ;) I sure hope the guy and the girl are still friendly to me, next time I see them. :p I'm pretty sure they will be, though, as even during the discussion, they did stay somewhat polite. They at least tried to not attack me directly, but just attack my views (which are inherently a part of me, but oh well).
    Sloth also said I should talk about this with Guy 3, and I might in the future, I wonder how he will handle it. ;)
  8. 1: I've read all of it. ;) Should have started on chemistry homework though, but that's beside the point... :p

    2: I can see why you say that, and I can also see why they would disagree with that [your views are inherently a part of you]... :D (assuming they are reasonable people:) Even though they might strongly disagree with your opinions and views, they won't think any or much less of you. Most reasonable people will just think "eh, he has a different opinion than I have, I tried to show why I have a different opinion than him, his opinion hasn't changed, okay, no problem, interesting to know, let's agree to disagree, but you're still a cool guy, wanna get some lunch?" (or similar. :p). Anyways I feel like I can't come out of my words, but I hope you understand what I'm trying to say. :p

    ---

    I really like this thread (as you might have noticed... :rolleyes:), and I love reading your experiences, especially because you've got an interesting, different viewpoint and way of doing things than "the average guy". I'm looking forward to every new post on this thread. :D Good luck with your studies! :)
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  9. This is amazing, it's going into my bookmarks. :D
    I'm honestly a bit overcome with joy. :p
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  10. Today was a day where very many things happened. We'll see how long this will get. It's still Thursday evening, and am very tired, bordering on a headache. But I'd like to write now. I can't do it tomorrow morning, anyway, as I'm going to Utrecht for something.
    I'm also not writing too efficiently, probably, as besides being tired, I'm listening to music, as I recently refound a great website (I might post about it later in Things You Appreciate On The Internet).

    Anyway: for today's journal entry, I should start before the day started. A bit before 2 AM I woke up because I had been bit four times by a mosquito. I'm highly sensitive to mosquito bites, so I took a tablet against it. It didn't work right away, though. I considered trying one from another package, but I read the leaflet and it said you should only take one tablet per 24 hours. - I just noticed a very bad spelling mistake ('raid' instead of 'read'), I'm so tired that I might make some strange mistakes, I'm sorry if I don't find and fix them. :p
    Anyway, after some time I tried to sleep again, and it actually started working, and the itching got less. But then I found out that the mosquito was still around. It would rouse me, I would put on the light and try to find it, but even when I did two times, I didn't manage to kill it. At 3 AM, the mosquito finally stopped appearing.
    I had lost an hour of sleep, though, so I tried to make up for it by heading back to bed when I woke up around 7:20. And I actually slept until half to nine, then! So I had got enough sleep, but I started the day later than usual. I was hoping to be able to do some homework before going to university, but first I needed to get groceries. And before that, I needed to make a shopping list, and before that, I needed to decide what I was going to eat until I am going to go to the supermarket again. It all worked out, though.
    I went to the supermarket, and it was like it was one year ago, when it was still a challenge to find what I needed, and I'd often need to call my mother to ask for advice. I did now, too, as I thought the type of shampoo I use was gone, but it turned out they have slightly updated its look, which made me not recognise it anymore.
    When I thought I was done (a bit of implied dramatic irony, here, if that's a thing) I checked out and put the groceries into my backpack. And then I realised I had forgot to get the vegetable mixes. And I couldn't get them later, either, as I was going to need one for lunch. I considered whether I should go back right away or go home first, but as my backpack was quite full already, and heavy, I decided I'd first go home.
    Cutting ahead: I did eventually get everything together succesfully. I did have another uninteresting issue which I couldn't figure out, and as my mother is ill, I couldn't ask her for advice again either. I ended up opting for a less than optimal solution.

    Making lunch went very well! That was nice. I was afraid it might not, as I had to break two eggs, and I consider that to be one of the hardest tasks in cooking. :p
    This time, I had also looked up ahead of time when I needed to leave, and I made lunch earlier, so I didn't have to fear being late. In fact, as there wasn't enough time anymore to do homework, I left rather early.
    That was nice, though, because a man who was looking for someone to encounter encountered me. See, I live behind a church, our fence door opens into the church's property. He asked me if I knew if he could get it, and when it would open, as the doors were closed. I said I didn't, because I didn't understand what he wanted. He then elaborated, saying he had done his first communion there 60 years ago, and asked me if the church was still in use. Well, that I could certainly confirm, and I added that I played organ there. Then I got the idea of going back inside to look for my houselord, as he's got the key. The man was delighted by this idea, and it was a success. I hope he enjoyed seeing his old church again!

    I don't think there was anything remarkable about the travel to the international campus (where I have the Logic tutorials). That's remarkable, as there were remarkable things throughout the rest of the day. :p I saw Mole, and we walked together (he didn't know the way from this bus stop yet).
    The weather was really nice, so the people were staying outside until it was time to start. I saw the guy and girl from yesterday, and Guy 3 was with them too, now. I guess my arrival prompted it, but they were talking about me. I greeted Guy 3, giving him opportunity to ask myself about the matter (he was also a bit unbelieving), but he didn't say anything, although it seemed like he was expecting me to say something. I didn't have anything to say myself, though. I wonder if they did realise I heard them, but it would seem strange if they didn't, as they were really close to me... Oh well.
    The tutorial itself was also somewhat interesting. It was someone's 18th birthday anniversary, which I knew but had forgotten about (he talked about it with the girl in my workgroup, yesterday).
    Also, during most of the class I worked at a single assignment (with 5 tasks), which I eventually gave up on. It seems a bit overly hard to do by hand, to be honest. These are things we usually tell a computer to do, or at least do in Notepad++ or something similar so we can keep track of parentheses without constantly counting all of them. Our working memory isn't great enough for keeping track of a dozen parentheses! :p
    Here's a photo of arguably the easiest one:


    (not all necessary information to do the assignment is in the photograph)

    I had looked up when to leave to be comfortably in time for the lecture, but I had hoped some others would go early too, so I could follow them to the closer bus stop (my bus doesn't get to that stop). I don't think I'm going to do that again, though. It was still a pretty long walk, and we had to wait a while (I'm not sure, but it felt like over 5 minutes) for the bus, while at the other bus stop there's one every 3 minutes, I believe.
    At the first stop I got out, but someone called me back in. I still don't know at what stop I got out, because I did get back in and wait until the next stop, when every one of us exited. But that's another advantage of the other bus stop: there's no stop in-between it and the right stop.

    Now, for this lecture, we were going to finish what the other teacher started. As you might remember, our actual teacher is away, this week, and we have two replacements. The previous one was pretty good. This one was much worse than I had even expected, and I expected bad. You see, this teacher is our tutor, and when he spoke at the very first day, we had a lot of trouble understanding him. So I thought that might be the case now, too.
    First off, the usual start: "Can you guys in the back hear me?" I answered "No", as I was on the front row and could hardly hear him. Some tweaking was done, and then some more, until he decided to hold his mic closer to his mouth. This worked, but it meant that for the rest of the lecture whenever he said "P" (which he did a lot, as 'p' and 'q' are often used in logic) we'd hear a loud pop.
    But there was another striking issue. This professor didn't know how to use a pdf to present slides. He had simply double-clicked the pdf, I guess, which opened it in an internet browser. It was zoomed out so far that there were three slides at the screen at the same time, and even from our distance it was hard to read them. As he was using the pdf meant to use for presenting the steps one by one, and not the pdf meant for reading, he had to scroll past lots of slides-in-progress every time he wanted to go to the next subject.
    It didn't work. After not too much time someone lifted their hand to hint "If you click the button next to the minus it will be more like a Powerpoint". "Yes, I would much prefer that". He looked at the computer screen, but didn't do anything. Some dude who was observing the lecture (there's always someone there, but I don't know what their function is), who had also tried to fix the audio issue, walked toward the computer, and I thought he was going to click the button. But he just pointed at it on the screen. Then our teacher tapped the monitor.
    Oh, well. Then he might as well just continue the lecture, right? They couldn't figure out how to use the mouse. How impressive is that! In my previous educations, whenever something like this would happen, people around me would pressure me to fix the problem, as I was known for fixing computer problems easily and effectively. However, I don't have that reputation here yet, and I took advantage of that, by staying relaxed, and not even considering how the problem should be fixed.
    But then Ilse came forward to have an attempt! She didn't know how to fix it, but she knew it had to be fixed, so she tried. She got a lot of support from the audience, but indeed didn't know how to fix it. But now that the lecture was paused anyway, Guy 3 decided to make an end to the madness. He fixed the problem with remarkable efficiency. I don't think I would have done it any better myself. Good job!
    ... Unfortunately, while now we could read the slides, that didn't help too much. We had already missed many important definitions, and the couple of times when someone tried asking for the meaning of something, that didn't help either. The teacher knew what things meant, but he assumed we did too, and could only give slight hints, and not actually explain anything. This was obviously a big issue. Besides not being able to explain the things we had missed, he didn't explain anything else either. He basically read aloud what was on the slides and confirmed that it was right. I'm glad I had decided to not try to take notes early on, as I wasn't following at all. But, us being university and not high school, it did stay relatively silent in the room, even though there was some more talking than usual.
    One advantage of the teacher not explaining anything is that, now that we actually had a proper slideshow instead of a zoomed out inefficient pdf, we were going through the slides extremely quick. Mole and I observed that at this rate, we would be done before the break. Which was very convenient, as we were expecting most people to leave during the break.
    But the teacher astonished us yet again. On the third to last slide, and some minutes before intended break-time, he said we'd have a break and proceed afterward. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ As expected, most people took their bags with them on their break, obviously not intending to stay. I had also decided to go home, as I wasn't picking up on anything useful, and was tired. I did talk with Guy 3, Sloth and a girl I don't really know yet about what we had just endured. Poor teacher, but he seemed very poorly prepared. These people were staying at university, as there was a reroomwarming of our alternate headquarters, this evening. They went to get something to eat, and I walked toward the bus stop. The wrong one, again. But, to my great satisfaction, as I arrived the bus arrived as well, and with a bit of a sprint I could comfortably make it.

    At one of the stops, a blind lady was waiting on the bus. The driver had noticed her and asked the person on the seat next to the door to find another seat, and told the woman the number of the bus (it was the right one), and that the seat was free.
    When we arrived at the train station, the lady asked how to get to the platform, and got directions. When she was trying to get there, most people looked at her but walked on. I was tempted as well, but felt like I couldn't do that, as I saw that she was going the wrong way. An older man also felt responsible, and halted on the stairs as well. I made an observation to him, as up to that point there had been no talking. It's strange, actually: the woman was within hearing distance of both of us, so why didn't we give her directions? The man thought she was going to the elevator, but I doubted this personally, as the elevator isn't for general use. And she did turn around at last. We were approaching her when another woman came from somewhere and asked her where she wanted to go (the stairs, indeed). She said that this gentleman (I wasn't sure, but I think she targeted me, not the older man) wouldn't mind helping her, right?, but then she brought her to the stairs herself.
    I considered how much of an impact the absence of vision must have on your sense of direction. When she had walked down the stairs, she observed that she thought she had gone too far, but she actually hadn't got to the stairs yet. This was a completely wrong conclusion, which was apparent to us as we had seen where she was before, but she had no way to know, not seeming very well acquainted with the area. Last week I tried playing Super Mario Bros. with my eyes closed. Even after 10 minutes of training, I still couldn't beat even the first level consistently. And I could simply open my eyes if I had lost track of where I was.
    The man and I both followed her separately, to see if everything went well. It did, although she did poke her stick between a young woman's legs, but that woman of course didn't mind, and even said she had been standing in an inconvenient place.

    Everything was well, and I waited on the train to Utrecht. After quite some waiting, the train to Zwolle came, and I watched her get in. Then the train to Utrecht would come shortly after. And at that point I realised that I was trying to get away from Utrecht, not toward it!! *facepalm*
    In my defence: I hadn't ever taken the train this way before, from this station. On top of that, the information display above the track to Utrecht was glitched out, and didn't display the stations, so I couldn't notice Amersfoort wasn't in there. The train to Zwolle, on the other hand, displayed so many stations that I didn't notice Amersfoort in there when looking at it a few times.
    So now I had to wait 30 minutes. I had things to do, though: I sent a message to Ilse to compliment her on trying to fix the slides issue, and she was online, so we talked a bit. I also looked up where I need to go tomorrow morning and at what time, and I downloaded an article we need to read for Cognitive Science, so I can read that during the 1-hour bus drive.

    So yeah, that was my day. :) Now that I have typed all this, I actually feel quite happy with myself. I'm doing great. ^.^ I should also watch out that I don't exert myself too much, though, as I don't want to exhaust myself more and more. Next week I will finally go home! Hopefully my mother will be well again by then.

    It is at 15k characters, so this post ends. Have a good day/night!
  11. Hello!
    This morning I went to Utrecht, for an introductory meeting with my new personal coach. I can't find a 1-on-1 translation for this kind of thing, and it might not even exist in the USA, so I'll try to explain. In the Netherlands, if you've got a psychological disorder (in my case, autism), you've got a right to personal coaching, for whatever you might need help with. The municipality pays for this, it's free to the clients.

    I had been at the location once before, with my mother, but we went by train then, and got a bit lost. I decided to travel solely by bus now, which would take an hour, but that wasn't a problem as the appointment was at 10 o'clock, and I could read the article I downloaded yesterday on the trip.
    The first part was simply the route I usually take. But now I got out at an earlier stop, to wait for the bus I'd take to the location.
    Oh, I should mention: the weather today was extremely different from yesterday. It was really warm yesterday, with a very pleasant atmosphere, and today it was cold and rained. I was wise enough to take my jacket with me, but as I went outside I thought "I should've left it at home, the weather's fine...". Four minutes later I thought "I'm glad I took my jacket with me!". :rolleyes: I couldn't put it on on the bike, though, so my vest had gotten rather wet. It is hard to describe these things, as clothing must be different here, as I often can't find English words for these things. :p So I guess I'll move on. ;)
    I had taken an earlier bus than intended, so I had to wait a bit now. I could already see the bus I needed to get on, though, which made me feel comfortable. All buses that needed to depart soon where parked within sight, so I would notice when my bus would start moving. When it did, I got it to stop! That felt like an accomplishment, even though it was very easy. :p But I was the only one at the stop, and the bus was of course empty, so I had to do it.
    I also had to make the bus stop at my stop, but that's as easy as pressing a button. Literally. :cool: When I was a bit surprised to see that there was a bag over the stop's information sign saying it was out of use until October 1st. I almost felt like I had an issue, but I could ascertain myself that my bus had certainly stopped, and I was at the right stop now. :p There were a lot of roadworks going on (that sentence doesn't make total sense, I think, but I hope you know what I mean), so it wasn't that strange that the bus wouldn't stop there - but mine did.

    The introductory meeting went well! My main concern was that so far university is going quite well, and I don't really need coaching. However, I might get an inconvenient timetable in the future, or a group assignment I don't know how to deal with, or a relational issue, et cetera. And if I do have an issue, it'd be really nice if I had someone to get advice from, besides friends and my mother. And for professional coaching in the future we'll first need to build up a relation. :) It's quite an investment to make, and it might turn out to not be very useful, but if I do need it and don't have access to it I'll be very sorry!

    The meeting took a bit over an hour, and at the end I got the wifi code so I could check my timetable to make a new appointment, and see how I should get to university. I concluded the easiest way was via Utrecht Central Station, as pretty much all buses went there, and there was a bus stop close by where buses did drive normally. At first, I was on the wrong side of the road again, but none of the buses were stopping anyway. On the right side there was a lady, and I was in a good mood, so I decided to greet her. This made her lighten up, and happily greet me back! After a few seconds, she asked "You don't get cold, do you?", to which I replied "Actually, I am a bit". In case you don't know me: I wear shorts until December. She asked if I misjudged the weather, and as I didn't feel like making myself seem so weird that I would indeed wear shorts until December (I suppose I'll seem that weird anyway, in a couple of months :rolleyes:), I stuck with remarking that yesterday, the weather was very good. ;)

    When I had got to university, I still had one and a half hours left until the lecture. I first ate an apple and sent some friends (including my mother, I guess she can go into the friends category here) a message about how the introductory meeting had gone. Then, I looked through the library to see if I couldn't find some friends from last year. I indeed could not. At some point it started beeping. I didn't know what it was, but it beeped consistently inconsistent. I wanted to have some lunch anyway, so I exited the library, but on the way out I had a strange thought occur. There were many people in the library, and none of them seemed at all bothered by the beeping. So what if I was the only one to hear it? But then I realised that I didn't act bothered by the beeping either. :p When I got to the beginning of the library, I saw a red light accompany the beeping, and someone explaining to someone else why it couldn't be fixed quicker, and as such got solid confirmation that I wasn't the only one to hear it. ;)

    I finished reading the article, and then was still early to the lecture. When I got there, the guys from group 4 were already heading into the room, but I didn't want to sit with them, as I was a bit tired, and they are quite challenging, albeit fun, company.
    I decided to wait at the end of the stairs, and considered I might even see Ilse, if I waited long enough. And I did! :D When she noticed me, she approached me and we talked a bit. Robin and Remy joined us, and when I finally suggested that we would enter the room, we had apparently persuaded her to take a seat with us. ;)
    The lecture was fun. There were some attention experiments among the slides again, and although I knew almost everything, there was a couple of experiments that I actually hadn't experienced before! I was quite amazed at the second one.
    I don't expect it to take you so long as it did me. :p (you also might spot the change instantly, because of the thumbnail, and perhaps not watching it full-screen)


    Today, for the first time, I went to the right stop after school! :cool: Just on time for the bus, too - except I couldn't find the number, and was afraid that it was the wrong one, until I finally found it but thought it was too late to enter, until it actually was. That wasn't an issue though, as in 3 minutes two more buses would come. Or they should have. It took much longer than that. :$ But besides it being a little cold, I didn't mind, as it wasn't too late yet, and I had already decided I wasn't going to do any schoolwork at home, so I wasn't in a hurry.

    Tomorrow, I'll hopefully be able to do a lot of work! I don't have to get groceries or do the laundry, so I should have a lot of time. :) But I'll make sure to do some relaxing things as well. ;)
    Harp4Christ and TomvanWijnen like this.
  12. Woah!! The post for yesterday was missing! I don't know how it happened, but I noticed because I was going to sent the link to it in our workgroup's WhatsApp group. :eek: Fortunately I'm using Notepad++ for this now and not regular Notepad, as I could ctrl+Z back to when I opened my text file, so I had yesterday's back!
    Thank God I haven't lost it! I mean, I've lost some parts before, but not an entire day... Here it is!

    I was going to do the dishes, but then my housemates were, as they are ahead of me in their schedule for once, so I decided to write this first, but now they're done. Oh well, I'll write it now anyway, so I won't have to do it afterwards. :p
    I had a good weekend, I guess. I had the two activities that I wanted to have and both went well, and on Saturday I also did quite some work for Logic. Oh, now I'm playing my DS... (well, I just stopped) See, that's a great result of the weekend: I bought a DS and some games. :D

    But besides all that, I'm not feeling great. I'm well physically, but not happy. I'm not sure why, but at the same time I had expected it, as I don't usually feel good for weeks in a row. I guess it's normal to have some periods where you aren't feeling as great, right?

    Anyway, here's a summary of today. Not too much happened, really. I wanted to play my DS in the bus, but it was again way too full. On Monday morning it's really a problem that there are 3 buses that leave within 8 minutes, and then the other bus leaves much later, and much earlier than the next. But I'm glad I could at least enter. There were also some people who didn't want to be in such a bus, and 3 people had to be at the stop where I entered, which made us have enough space to pick up 3 more people later.

    Today in Cognitive Science tutorial class we did some questions to check our grasp of the knowlegde needed for the actual test next week (mine apparently isn't too great yet), and were to share our ideas for experiments with the other groups. There was something else too, but I decided to skip it, as it was with regard to the article we had to read, and I was the only one in my group who had actually read it (it was an interesting article though, so I don't mind I did).
    The problem with sharing our ideas for the experiment was that we hadn't settled on an idea yet. I thought we had, but then suddenly (to me; it might not really have been that sudden) we had 8 ideas. I didn't want to bother too much, so I let the rest do most of the thinking. Eventually an idea was settled upon. But I guess I won't share it here, as some potential test subjects might be reading this. ;)
    That was mostly it. In the bus back I was able to play, and I enjoyed it. I'm playing a Japanese game, and I don't understand what people are saying, but sometimes I do read out the text in my head, for practice. :p

    At home, I was able to go shopping (groceries) relatively quickly, as I had made a shopping list this morning.
    I also spent more time at my Logic homework, going back to the 'inhumane' assignment, as I had e-mailed our teacher assistent and got a reply saying that we could use tools if we wanted, so I used Notepad++ to keep track of the parentheses. At its longest, the formula contained 44 parentheses. :|
    I haven't done everything, as I couldn't figure out the hardest ones. I'll hopefully get to that tomorrow. In the tutorial class we'll discuss last week's problem set, but we'll hopefully also ask questions about the current problem set.

    So I guess that's it. We'll see how tomorrow goes. ;)
  13. Now here's the actual post for today!

    Today I was happy again. Perhaps because the weather was nicer. I am wearing shirts with sleeves since this weekend, though, and I like it so far. I got used to it quickly.

    Today I thought I had to leave at the same time as yesterday. I did wake up later, which was nice, so I didn't need to think of something to do while waiting. But then I realised that today I had Logic tutorial, which is at another location, with both a longer bus drive and an additional walk. I realised I would be late, but it wouldn't be of use to hurry, as this is the bus that leaves on its own, without a bus shortly before (or after). I did arrive at the bus stop fairly early, but that wasn't a problem, as the weather was nice today. I tried to not hurry anything, as I would have to wait anyway. And then a bus arrived! :eek: At the perfect moment, too: I was just done chaining my bicycle.
    I guess the bus was very late, as I'm pretty sure there wasn't supposed to be one at this time. What makes this a likely answer is that some people were already waiting at the stop, even though I was quite early for the next bus. But it was nice, as I even got a seat! I could play Starfy, today. ;) (that's the Japanese game I got: The Legend of Starfy 4, translated)

    I had another interesting moment at the elementary school, but I did arrive easily in time. The third person from our workgroup (I'll get a name for him shortly) was outside smoking, and asked me something about the homework, which I tried to explain. After that we went to our classroom, but even after 11 o'clock, it took 15 minutes before our teacher assistant decided to start. That feels like a bit of a waste of time, so if that happens more often I'll suggest changing it. I did use it now, though, by studying last week's problem set we got back for potential questions and looking up some transit information.
    Discussing the problem set's answers itself went well. For this course there's a system where the teacher assistant asks for each assignment that might be unclear to someone if someone wants to present the correct answer, and everyone needs to present at least once. I also presented an assignment I liked. Oh, by the way: I actually got quite some of the points, on last week's problem set! Even though I got 0 points for the bonus question, because although I had the perfect idea, I hadn't written down the proof in the desired way. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Oh well, I guess I know to watch out for that on the test, now. But I still got a lot of points, enough for a 9/10, I later heard!
    After this we had some time left to work on this week's problem set, but I was mostly distracted. I did have someone explain one of the assignments I didn't understand to me, though, and then when I still got stuck he gave me a hint, after which I got it. I had decided I was going to hand in the problem set now, so I could give it to my TA directly. Otherwise I'd have to post it to the pigeon box, which is elsewhere in the city. And for the only other assignment I hadn't yet answered I expected that I wouldn't be able to understand them until having this afternoon's lecture, as our teacher was going to go over the things we had been supposed to be taught last week (as you might remember, the second Logic lecture last week was really bad). And I was right, actually, I did get to understand the assignments at the lecture, and could conclude that without the knowledge I missed I couldn't have made them. But I knew I wouldn't be going to complete the problem sets this evening, as I would be tired, and want to write this journal entry with the time and energy I had to spare. Tomorrow morning we've got a lecture, and then only one hour until the problem set needs to be handed in, so that probably wouldn't be enough time to comfortably do the assignments. So that's why I decided to leave the last two unanswered. :) (one of them was the bonus question, anyway) I did finish the other one, that someone explained to me; outside of the classroom, as the class was over and someone else needed the space. But I asked my TA if she could wait a little, so I could write the conclusion to my answer and hand in my problem set, and she did. :)

    When I was back at our usual location, I was going to look through the library, to see if I could maybe find my earlier found bosom friend there. But Sloth met me on the way there, in company of the third person from our workgroup, and someone I don't know but have seen before. They said the library was full, and I decided I'd go with them. We got a seat in the canteen under our lecture rooms, where we also had the discussion last Wednesday (but in a different section of it). At first it seemed quite loud, but we were able to work there.
    The rest was going to work on their problem set; I considered doing some of the additional assignments posted to Blackboard by our teacher, but I decided I'd rather look over chapters from the Cognitive Science book, in preparation for the exam. I had forgotten to take it with me, however, but luckily the person from my workgroup had it. He even had a summary written by some person two years ago, printed out, which seemed useful.
    I didn't do too much reading, but I did get through the introductory chapter and half (or perhaps most) of the Philosophy chapter, which seems pretty good for being in pleasant company. :) I also spent a lot of time explaining things to workgroup guy and Sloth, who naturally had a lot of questions, not all of which I might even have answered perfectly, as we hadn't had the lecture about it properly yet.
    At some point I felt a hand at my shoulder, and I looked up at my bosom friend's face: "I didn't see you!". Well, I hadn't seen her either, and was a bit unprepared to see her, as I was in the middle of explaining something. :p So I said I was explaining something, and then she left. The others seemed to find this unsocial, and when I had finished explaining I realised myself that it maybe wasn't the most tactical of me. :p I sent her a message, but she quickly replied (me noticing the message only 7 minutes later) that it was fine.
    At some point the guy from my workgroup was leaving, and wanted his stuff back. Me unable to proceed studying, I decided I might as well play a bit of Starfy. :p Also because it seemed fun to show my new Nintendo DS to Sloth. When I had finished that, as the lecture was getting close, and had used the lavatory, Sloth was still finishing an assignment for the problem set. Then I realised that my bosom friend was actually really close to our table, and still there. I didn't feel enough motivation to walk up to her, though, so I just kept standing, waiting until either she or Sloth was going to leave. :p Sloth noticed, and inquired, and I answered, but remained a bit vague, because I could. :rolleyes: When she did leave, we waved at each other, and a bit later Sloth was ready too. Although... he needed to use the lavatory, now. I said I'd go up ahead of him and wait there, which I did: it took longer than I expected, though, and I was starting to get afraid he had somehow got into the room without me seeing him. :p (which would be very strange especially as he knew I was waiting for him) But there he was. His friends were in a full row, so we took seats behind them.

    It was nice to have a proper lecture again. Over half of the lecture was taken up by going over last week's two lectures though, unsurprisingly. I had a question to ask and a mistake to correct, but the teacher apparently didn't have time to answer my hand, so I went up to him in the break. That cost me my entire break, as there were some people ahead of me who it took a lot of time to understand whatever they were trying to understand. But oh well, I did get an answer to my question (which entailed I will have to look into something to practise, which I don't mind, but is very good to know), and I got a candybar. ;)
    In the actual lecture, there was a lot of ununderstandable stuff, but it didn't even seem like exam matter. I'll study it a bit later anyway, but I'm quite sure it's not important to know. The last model explained was important, though! He didn't get to explaining how to use it, though, so we will have to study that before the next lecture, as in Thursday's lecture he will go through examples.

    I went to the right bus stop again! It turns out Sloth and Guy 3 go to that bus stop as well. I was surprised, as I didn't think it could be more convenient for them, but Guy 3 could convince me it was.
    I didn't play Starfy on the bus back, as I preferred to have some peace of mind. :)

    Tomorrow I'm getting up early, so I shouldn't stay up too long after this (it's already past 9 o'clock when I finish writing this), but I do think I'll play one of the games I got Sunday for a little bit, as it's a lot of fun to play games when you've got them very recently. :)

    Edit: Forgot to say: during the second half of the Logic lecture there was some talking in the room. Probably because people weren't following. Our teacher made a remark about that a couple of times, though, and then it improved.
    Harp4Christ, TomvanWijnen and mijna13 like this.
  14. I was going to write the entire journal entry before dinner, but I am feeling too tired. There's something I'll write now, though, and the actual entry can be in a different post.
    I got a really nice pm yesterday evening. I asked the writer if I could address parts of his post in the thread, and he's fine with that. :)
    I guess I do talk about the bus and train a lot, I will do so this evening too. :rolleyes: I suppose that shows that the traveling does really make quite the impression on me. It's certainly good to describe my frustrations, I think. I don't explain too much about my private life because while this is a diary, it's not a private or anonymous diary. People reading this know who I am, and thus I shouldn't share things I don't want everyone to know.
    I try to not go into the subject matter too much, as people reading this might not be interested in the actual fields of study. However, when it was relevant, I did write about my considerations (in the post from September 19th).
    Is this relevant to university? :p I did mention it most of the time, by the way, but I thought it was getting boring so I started leaving it out more. I could write some more about this as long as it's something I'm willing (and allowed) to share, but I feel like it doesn't have to do too much with university.
    Well, um, I shouldn't say I dislike people, as they might be reading it. :p In general, I don't want to focus too much on specific persons if it isn't necessary, as that might get in the way of their privacy.
    Assuming you mean romantic love: non-existent. :p (and any other kind of love mostly too so far :() But if there would be more to it, I wouldn't even allude to it here, as I don't want my mother and the people concerned to read about it. ;)
    I hope that answered some of your questions. :)
  15. I once again forgot to post my post. And I know why it happens, now: while I'm writing the entry, I open up BlueStacks, to check WhatsApp. But as it's slow, I just continue writing then. When I'm done, I want to post to the thread, but as BlueStacks is still open, my pc is very slow, so I can't. So I go on WhatsApp first, and then forget.
    Conclusion: I won't go on WhatsApp between starting and posting my journal entry, anymore!

    Here is yesterday's entry.
    Last night, I had some trouble falling asleep. I didn't like this very much, as I was to get up early. But I had gone to bed early, as planned, and when I finally fell asleep it was probably still before 11 o'clock. The bus was again very full, but I didn't mind too much.

    For this lecture, I took a seat at the front of the room again, with Remy, André and Kim, who it seems like are almost always there (certainly Kim). This was the lecture about the Neuroscience Approach of Cognitive Science: one I really wanted to attend, because I found it the hardest chapter in the book. Strangely though, I didn't recognise very many things in the lecture. There were quite some things in the lecture that weren't in the book, if I'm not mistaken, and quite some things in the book that weren't in the lecture. Also, our teacher said twice "This isn't important to know", which confused me, as if those things weren't important, then what was?
    I guess I'll just look over everything, but not study hard on memorising all names of structures and their functions. The exam is multiple-choice, by the way, which should make that a good strategy anyway.

    Today we didn't have a Cognitive Science tutorial, so after the lecture we were free. I wasn't, however, as I had an appointment with my personal coach instead. I didn't mind this, as I could do some of the additional exercises for Logic at school. I also looked through the library again, to see if I could find my bosom friend (I tried to find a name for her last year, but didn't; now I don't really mind, though, as at the moment she's the only bosom friend relevant to the stories, so I can simply refer to her by that).
    My mind had already settled on not being able to find her, but then I did find her! There was even room for me on the seat next to her. I did two of the exercises, before I wanted to leave so I wouldn't be late (I was 15 minutes early for the early bus... I really could've stayed and done another exercise, but oh well). It was nice to study in her presence. :) We also shared a few fun things we came across with each other. This time I didn't get drowsy, probably because I was actively doing work, instead of only reading.

    I was fairly tired, and this made coaching more difficult. However, I decided I should try to still say what I wanted to say, and I did. :) We even decided on 3 things I might not have been able to get settled on by myself!
    We decided to not have another appointment next week, as I have exams on Wednesday and Thursday, and the only other possibility was Tuesday in the evening, but then I would probably be tired to make the most of it. So we went straight to the week after that. My coach did get confirmation that he can have our appointments at my home! He also lives in Amersfoort, so it's sometimes a lot more convenient for both of us to have the appointments here.

    Now the day's already almost over, and I haven't written too much yet. So this might be a shorter post (but I did already make a post today). However, there's one more thing. I had to get back home. I looked up the possibilities, and there were 2 fast ways: either back from the stop I came from, or by train. The issue was that on the stop I came from, I only know of a stop on one side of the road, and there was a sign there saying the stop wasn't in use. So I thought that might not work out, and I still think it might not - perhaps I could check, somehow.
    Anyway: I chose the certain in favour of the uncertain, and took the bus to Utrecht, to take the train there. But the certain wasn't what I supposed it to be. It was very uncertain indeed. For a start, there was something wrong with the train. Well, not with the train itself, that was on time, and going in the right direction. However, the display on the platform said "No travel information available", and the display on the train itself said "Rotterdam Centraal", instead of "Groningen". I was quite certain that it was impossible for a train to go to Rotterdam when 10 minutes later a train was going to go to Groningen, on the same track (they're in opposite directions). Most people seemed to arrive at this conclusion, or at least some trend-setters, as after half a minute almost everyone went inside the train. But I didn't. I didn't want to go into a train that claimed to go in the wrong direction. I almost thought I was going to stay at the station, and have to wait until the next train (which wouldn't have been extremely long, and in the end actually might have saved me a lot of time, but I couldn't and can't know how things might have been), but then a woman asked someone from the staff, and the answer was "Yes". I didn't hear what she asked, but I knew it was the right question, as she then pointed out that the train display was wrong. But even if I wouldn't have been positive yet, another woman asked if the train went to Amersfoort, and once again the answer was Yes. So that was settled.
    At the station I was to take bus 8, I had looked up. I checked again, to see if it was really 8, and to see from which line it was leaving. It arrived, and I got in. There was an issue, though: the display in this bus also didn't display any information (besides there being no information). But I could see what was going to be the next stop on the display for checking in or out, I thought. But after the first stop it didn't update anymore. Uh-oh. After 5 or 6 stops, I decided to look it up on my iPad, as I still had the route planner open. Um. The third stop was supposed to have been mine. Uh...
    Long story short, I took the bus to the end, then back, only to arrive at the train station again, after half an hour. It did not go via the bus stop where my bike was. I looked it up later to make certain, and yes, it really was supposed to. I heard someone talk about it on the phone, also, but he seemed to know Amersfoort better, so he could think of another stop to get out. I had no idea, so I thought it would be safest to just wait until I got back. Besides, I had hope that we would visit the right stop on the way back, but nope. Now, I had to walk. At the end of the bus ride, I called my mom, to tell her what happened (basically rant a bit :rolleyes:). Then I started the walk back, but I was so angry that I refused to get out my iPad again and waste time by checking Google Maps. Until I realised I didn't know how to get to the bus stop from where I was. I got out Google Maps, called my mom again, and then walked there. It took a while (13 minutes, I could check by checking the duration of my last call), but it wasn't so bad anymore, as I knew where I was now, and was on the phone. I was a bit hungry, but at least I had some water left. To make the most of my time, I decided I'd discuss an important matter with my mother: how I was going to study, come weekend (I've got a brother and a sister, and we might get in each other's way if we don't set some expectations ahead of time).

    I got home at last, but didn't at all make the most of my time before dinner. I had already decided I wasn't going to try do homework anymore, after I lost an hour to the bus issue, but I had planned to at least write this, and I didn't get to that either. Oh well.
    I have now recovered from the bus fiasco, and am not angry about it anymore. :) It happened, and there's nothing I could do about it. I hope something like that won't happen again. And as long as I have my appointments with my coach in Amersfoort, I won't even have to risk it. ;)
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  16. Today I was going to miss the tutorial, and the start of the lecture, as I had an appointment with someone working for the municipality of Amersfoort, as the payment for my personal coach has to be settled.
    At coaching yesterday, we had decided that this morning I would start like it was the weekend: try to not get out of bed early, and do some gaming before breakfast. It worked perfectly, and was quite nice. :) Then when I did have breakfast I still had a couple of hours left to work before lunch/dinner. I studied the Logic slides we didn't get to last lecture. I really went into it, but I didn't grasp everything. However, I assumed that in the lecture the teacher would go over the slides again, before moving on to the examples planned for the lecture.
    After that, I did two more exercises of the extra ones I started yesterday. I didn't quite understand everything, so I regretted not being able to go to the tutorial, as now I would have to save questions until Tuesday, and that would be very shortly before the exam. However, Ilse suggested to me that I could also send questions to our TA (teacher assistant), which is a good idea, if I do still have questions!
    I did go on a small walk, but besides that I was behind my desk for almost the entire morning and most of the afternoon. During lunch-time (having dinner) I actually looked up how to recognise the difference between ツ and シ and ン and ソ, and did some practice, and I think I've got it now! I'm not studying Japanese at the moment, but while playing Starfy I realised I wasn't able to keep apart these pairs.
    After a bit of a break I finished the exercises for the Logic subject I was practising, and found some mistakes in the solutions, which I mailed to the teacher (in Dutch, so he gets some more practice ;)). I do think I can do it now... but there's also a mock exam, which I'll probably do on Saturday, if I can!
    - I pause writing to start boiling some water for tea, I figured I should mention as it might be interesting to some :) -
    I did some other things for school, and then it was only half an hour until my appointment, so I decided to have another break. I read Bible, cut a pear and started going through my alerts on here, but then the doorbell went. Already?, I thought, but yes!, she was very early. This was intentional, though: she knew I would be late for my lecture and would rather have me not have to be late for my lecture, so she came as early as she could and intended to get matters sorted quickly. :) And we did get matters sorted quickly! I could even finish my alerts before leaving. And I also didn't have to worry when I had some trouble getting out of the door, as two kids were playing with a giant swing, which was in the way. I suggested that the kid on it had better get off it for a moment, but he simply answered "No.". :rolleyes: The other pulled the slide toward him, though, and with some effort I could get myself through the door.

    No bus particulars this time, although I did take a bus I've only taken once before. I was 20 minutes early, and not many people were there yet, probably as most were coming from the tutorial. I knew Ilse was working around there somewhere, but I didn't know where, so I decided to wait around. Oh, I should mention: I had a stomach ache this evening, because of some trouble in my intestines. At the beginning of the lecture I took a paracetamol, but it only got better near the end of it, and got worse again on the way home (but I'm fine now).
    Anyway: Remy was present, but he stayed outside doing whatever on his phone, and I walked around in circles a bit, in hopes to lessen my stomach ache. Eventually Remy did go inside, and shortly after Kim arrived. I decided I'd take a seat as well, as it didn't feel very useful to wait around.
    And it ended up not being necessary anyway, as Ilse actually came up to us! For some reason she left a seat between me and her, but when Mole arrived and wasn't sure whether to take that seat or the one right of her, she explained she thought there wouldn't be room for our bags otherwise. But I didn't think it would be a problem, so Mole could take the middle seat - but then Ilse did, which was nice.
    Here's another thing I could write about: what do I usually do during lectures? For a start, I haven't got Piwi with me. I took him with me to university only once so far (excluding the introduction camp), and I think he stayed in my backpack that day. I don't miss him too much either, so he can stay home if there isn't a special occasion. During the lecture, I take a lot of notes. In the Logic lectures, I mostly copy what's on the slides, but sometimes slightly altered, and often selectively summarised. I've noticed not many other people take notes, but I think it does help me. I didn't use to do it, in high school; I learnt to do it during my education last year. Ilse didn't even have her desk up most of the time, except at some point when she used it as a headrest. :p In high school, I also often closed my eyes during classes, but nowadays I can stay alert and pay attention. This time however, there wasn't much to take notes of. I had already gone through the most important slides in the morning, so now I could simply look over my notes while he further explained things. Then came the examples, which I didn't need to write down, then some optional proofs, and lastly information about the upcoming exam. So I myself also spent some of the lecture with my desk down, but it didn't seem like much of an advantage, as with it down it obstructed my legs a little, and with it up I could rest my arms on it.
    After the break (I already described the entire lecture, but not the break) I was late, as the break wasn't a full 15 minutes, I wanted to eat quite some bread because it was my usual dinner-time, and I spent longer than usual using the lavatory, because of my intestinal issues... However, it would waste quite some time to walk around and use the back door, and as I knew they must just have started, I decided to figure out how to open the door from the outside (it was easy, fortunately :rolleyes:) and walk toward my seat through the front. I didn't mind too much, to be honest. I also only had to pass Mole and Ilse to get to my seat, so I didn't cause much disturbance. There were also two people who came in after me.

    After the lecture, I quickly went to the right stop, and easily made the bus to Bilthoven, this time. Someone else from AI was taking the same bus, so I decided to take the seat next to him, but he didn't feel like talking. I didn't mind, as I was going to play more Starfy, anyway. In Bilthoven, I saw a nice German locomotive, and then an iconic Dutch train, until our own arrived: a very old one - the only type still driving that's got a separate locomotive pulling or pushing it, instead of the driving force being inside multiple unit with passengers as well. In fact, it didn't fully work anymore: one of the doors was defective, so the people on that side of the train had to get to the door on the other side of the carriage. However, the conductor apparently didn't care much and whistled for depart: the people still inside had to run to get out.
    I liked to be in this type of train, again, though, it's nice. :) There are no displays inside it, but I decided that wasn't an issue, as I knew I had to get out at the second stop. Besides, the conductor called at each stop anyway, and the broadcast function did work (at least in our carriage it did :p).

    And then I cycled home! Not at all a bad day, I enjoyed it. :) I hope you enjoyed reading about it. ;) Any questions are welcome, by the way: I enjoyed answering the pm I got.
  17. Just noticed I again didn't like all your posts for some reason I really don't understand. :p Fixed now. :)

    (image because quoting cut the other quotes and I'm lazy. :D)

    I personally quite like the parts about the bus and train. :) (though I do have to admit that I am a bit of a travelling interests me in general, and that I generally like reading what you write. :p)

    In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing more about your private life, the subject matter, or what you do at home too - as it's all still interesting, you write nicely, and it gives even more context. Of course, you should never write anything you're not comfortable sharing, but whatever you are comfortable sharing, I'm sure will be appreciated (at least by me. :D). :)

    I have no clue if you've done this already or not, but did you know that you can download the map on google maps? Go into the "menu", and then look for "Offline gebieden/[whatever it could be in English]", and download one stretching from Amersfoort to Utrecht. :)

    Those trains are nice, I really like them. :) We used to get them here a lot, but some years ago they changed the fleet here to different trains, also old, and also cool. ;)




    One slight correction though, there are still more trains with separated locomotives: the Intercity Direct, the IC Berlin & Brussel/Beneluxtrain, and freight trains also still use them. :)

    Good to hear that, I definitely enjoyed reading about it. :) Above here are a couple of question- actually those weren't questions. :p I'll see if I can think of more later. :p
  18. I was planning to keep this journal until the first exams. I think I'll stick with that. I was going to write about the weekend now, but I don't think I'll bother.
    Actually, I will, but not in my usual extensive manner. I feel worse than I've done in a while; I'm sorry. :(
    Friday I went to Heerenveen, and studied Cognitive Science on the train. I then visited my old high school. I talked with a Christian teacher, then showed my Logic notebook to my maths teacher (also Christian), and then went downstairs.
    Two friends of my sister came down the stairs! I know both well, one of them especially well, as she's the sister of Jortus Maximus, one of my friends from high school. I talked with them for a while, and then visited my sister, who was working on a creative creation with a friend.

    On Saturday, I finished studying; it took a lot less time than expected. Throughout the rest of the weekend I did some fun stuff, and also had quite some conversations with my mother and my sister. I earned 3 new worries; none of which I'll address here.

    I decided to stay another day, and leave Monday. That's this morning. I was very tired when I got home, but it was early enough that I could still successfully get groceries, even though I was slow.

    That's about it. As said, I don't feel good. But I'm quite sure the exams will still go well! They're only Wednesday and Thursday evening, anyway, and I haven't got anything else those days.

    There's also some really happy news at this moment, but I'll keep that to myself for now. It's sort of EMC-related, though. ;)

    Edit: Oh, I also wrote 1500 more words for the introduction camp post. That will be finished (deo volente), look forward to that. :)
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  19. Hello! Today was my last day of school before the mid-term exams. First a tutorial for Logic, then 2 hours of nothing, then a Q&A lecture for Logic. However... I had received an e-mail from our TA saying that she had not been able to grade our homework. That meant she couldn't tell us what mistakes we made, and could only answer any questions we might have anyway.
    After some considerations, I decided that I would stay home. I could probably ask (most of) my questions at the Q&A in the evening, and I didn't feel like traveling to the international campus and having 2 hours without anything to do, at school.
    And I didn't do much! In the end, I looked at the slides of the first two lectures for Cognitive Science, but the rest of the day I managed to be content with doing other stuff. ;) I messaged some friends, made an appointment with the haircutter's (which I had to find first - or rather, my mother did) and threw my glass in the proper container, when it had stopped raining (I had saved up 16 glass pots, I hadn't been to the container in a while :p). I probably also did some other things I don't recall right now, but I didn't do any gaming or piano playing. I'll do that tomorrow!

    And then I was almost getting late for the bus again, somehow. I'll try to stick to the idea that it takes 12 minutes to get to the bus stop, even though it doesn't, as when I actually want to leave, I tend to still lose +/- 5 minutes somewhere. In this case I got into even more of a want of time as there was a bicycle parked in the cellar, that was apparently in the process of being repaired. It was probably about as much in the way as it could have been. :rolleyes: I did manage to get my bicycle out the door, but I couldn't turn it around, so I had to get it up the slope backwards. See, the place where I store my bike is one floor beneath ground floor, and there's a rather steep incline out of the door, toward the fencedoor at the back of the garden. With my backpack on the top instead of the bottom, it was a bit tricky to get my bike up. :p
    But I succeeded, and even though I arrived at an orange traffic light and told myself to stop, I still arrived at the bus stop 2 minutes before the bus should arrive. As there was so little time left, though, I decided to chain my bike to the fence again, instead of walking to the bicycle storage a bit further on. And then, I waited... After 3 minutes, I decided to call my mother, as if the bus wasn't driving for some reason, I would have to look for another way to get to Utrecht, but I didn't think I could, with the primitive web browsing technology on my phone. My mother was able to tell me that the bus was still coming, but 10 minutes later than intended. That was fine.
    It was 5 minutes later still, in the end, but it came! The bus driver was the retired man with the good stories. He had some fun with two guys who thought they might want to take this bus as well but didn't even really know where it was going.

    Wow! I just remembered! Obviously, as I'm writing this: I thought I might enjoy playing my DS again, but I found out that I had forgot to put it on the charger. But I'll do it now! Anyway, I didn't really mind having nothing to do.
    I had decided to wear my jeans on the bus, as my mother really wanted me to start wearing my jeans to university. But I took my shorts with me in my backpack, as of course I'm not going to sit through a lecture or exam with jeans on yet. :rolleyes: Seriously, though: I did feel that I'm not ready for it yet. And the exam week is not a place to experiment too much! We did win some time back, and I still had time to change my trousers before the lecture.
    Inside the room, I only saw two people I knew: Mole and Karen. I decided to get the seat next to Karen. She was with a girl I've seen before, but I don't know anything about her. There wasn't very much interaction, and sometimes it was hard not to be distracted by their conversation, but it was nice to not be alone!
    At the beginning there were few questions, but I couldn't ask mine yet either. I had noticed in the bus that I forgot to take anything but my iPad with me. *facepalm* Oh well, I guess this was the perfect lecture to do that for! At least there was no new information I missed out on noting. Some questions took a while to answer, especially because our teacher didn't always understand what the asker was unclear on. Most of the time he did, though!
    I also asked my questions: one turned out to be a mistake, the other he explained. I had two more uncertainties, but they were on some of the more difficult questions, which I simply didn't get. And I don't need to, as I don't need to be capable of getting a 10/10, to be honest. :) If you get all easy stuff correct, you already get an 8/10.
    Ilse had asked me to tell her if our professor said something interesting, but I decided to also update her on our professor saying not much of interest to us. :p I'm glad I went, anyway. As the normal break-time approached, people started leaving. I left 20 minutes later, when about half of the people who were there at the start (few to begin with) were left. I wonder for how much more the Q&A went on for!

    At the bus stop, I heard someone speaking English to Guy 2. I greeted them, and the person looked questioningly at Guy 2. Guy 2 introduced us to each other, producing my name after a few seconds of consideration. The person speaking English was apparently his boyfriend, telling him something about Shakespeare. I didn't hear anything more about Shakespeare, as now the conversation included me. It was a bit awkward, but not too much for comfort. :p They took the bus to Bilthoven, which I didn't need to do, as the bus to Amersfoort still went.

    At home, I was going to need to go downstairs to ask my houselord if I could microwave my dinner, as our microwave is defective, I learnt yesterday. But as I had got home early, I didn't need to hurry. One of my housemates was playing a musical piece he was composing to the other who was home, and I checked it out too. Then, while getting my food from the fridge into my plates, I proposed some dates for us having dinner with all 4. We haven't done so yet since I've got new housemates, and it should be useful to get to know each other, and maybe discuss some stuff, and also generally fun. It's looking like Monday might be good, we'll only have to ask the other housemate!
    As the subject had just been on composing, I asked the guys if either of them knew a certain theme from a certain Dutch tv show. One of them thought he did (he didn't), and then I said I had finished an Atari cover of it yesterday. I explained what Atari is (a game computer and home computer developer from the '80's and '90's), and when he looked up the original theme, I decided to boot up my laptop to let him hear it.
    He enjoyed it, and I also played this cover I did a year and a half ago. :)

    I then microwaved the food and had dinner. After dinner I was going to take a quick shower, as I want to ensure good hygiene if I've got an exam coming up. However, I decided to postpone it until shortly before heading to bed, and writing this first. That is, after I finished talking to a good friend of mine, with whom I've talked a lot on Hangouts since 2015, but haven't often 'hung out' with in real life (PayBack_TY, I've mentioned him several times before, but probably not in this thread).

    I had fun writing this, which makes me doubt ending the journal soon... I could maybe still write from time to time? It's mostly that this costs quite a bit of time, and I might rather want to spend that on playing piano sometimes, or working on a project, or even reading. But I do really enjoy this. :)
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  20. This morning, I thought I could do whatever I pleased, and relax. I had forgot about one intention; I'll get to that later. I played Mario Golf in the morning, on the GBC. It was a bit frustrating, as I did much worse than on my last try, which I finished yesterday evening, but it was still fun. :p
    After breakfast, I spent some time on EMC and then started doing my finances for September. I had also put a piece from one of my favourite soundtracks in the SST queue (I'm still considering making a separate post about that somewhere, I'm really enjoying that website :p), and was waiting for that to play. But then I realised... I had planned to cycle for 30 minutes in the morning of both exam days! I called my mother, who said I could still do so, and I decided to agree. That did mean I missed my queued song, but oh well.
    The cycling went fine, but it took longer than intended, as I went back after 15 minutes, but didn't realise that I was going downhill, so the way back would take longer. Perhaps tomorrow I should head back earlier. :) I could also go uphill instead, but I don't want to risk losing track of where I am, so I'd rather cycle the route I know best (to my school from last year, and then to a friend's from last year).
    After that, I finished my finances, and then I made dinner. During dinner I started looking at some more lecture slides, and I continued after it, but I felt like it wasn't very useful, as I already knew almost everything, and it was tiring. So I looked swiftly at the slides for the hardest chapter, and then quit.
    I was going to play piano, but saw two of my housemates play a Lego game split-screen, which looked fun, so I watched for a little while (it was Lego The Lord of the Rings). Then I played piano, first finishing perfecting an arrangement of a certain theme and practising it twice, and then playing some medleys of other music I've arranged.
    I wanted to play one more theme but decided I shouldn't, as I shouldn't risk being late. I'm glad I decided so, as when I arrived at the train station, I only had 7 minutes to spare; a bit less and I could have got quite stressed!

    At Bilthoven, Guy 2 saw me in the bus, and took his seat next to me. I was playing Starfy again, and he asked me to explain the game. Then while I played, we discussed some other video games. He also told me about a pub quiz coming up in a while (November 1st), and asked my number so he could add me to his team. It sounds fun, so I'm in, if I'm able!
    We were early, but I suggested we'd look for the exam room ahead of time. We found it, and Guy 2 apparently decided to stay, which seemed like a good idea. We talked some more, and as we got closer to 16:45, more people came. Ilse did, too; I'm not sure if she saw me, but she did sit down next to where we were standing. I was in conversation with Guy 2, though, and she picked up her textbook, so I decided to not acknowledge her for now. After I went to the loo, however, the doors to the exam room were still not opened. There were now a lot of people, though, which was unpleasant. I remembered and remarked to Guy 2 that for my exams in high school, I stayed away until the queue started moving inside.
    Ilse and I did now acknowledge each other, and I knelt down to her (or something; I do know it was uncomfortable, as I had to adjust a few times :p) so I could speak with her. It seemed strange to me that she would still be studying now, but she said she had a feeling that it might help. However, at some point she had to put it away anyway (I'm not sure why exactly).

    Then finally we could go inside. I considered getting a seat next to someone I knew (Ilse), but I decided not to, as I might be distracted, and really, I probably wouldn't need the emotional support. Ilse might have, though... Anyway: I took a seat somewhere, and clicked through the information. At the Rules screen, it said you were only allowed your laptop and ID card on your table, but I was quite sure you were also allowed food and water, so I placed those as well. The rules also said you weren't allowed to use the lavatory, and I wonder if that's actually true. I should check with someone who ought to know, as otherwise I might want to try to have an exception made for me, as I sometimes need to use it fairly shortly after I last went (and for these exams you're allowed two hours).
    When it was 5 o'clock we got some instruction, which included that you were allowed food and water on your desk, and that you weren't allowed to leave until 30 minutes had passed from the beginning of the test. When the instruction had finished, we didn't get access to the test right away. I was getting a bit tense, and decided to take a moment to pray. When I had finished praying the test had apparently started. :D
    The first two questions were rather intimidating for me, but after that there were many easier ones too. In general, I felt like that the later questions were at average easier than the earlier ones. At the last 15 questions, there were even many where I knew the answer before looking at the options :p (in case I forgot to tell: it was a fully multiple-choice test, consisting of 40 questions with answers A, B, C and D).
    After 15 minutes, I had finished the last question. While going through the questions, I had been annoyed at it going so quickly, as I would have to wait until I could leave. However, I was actually happy now, as otherwise I might have decided to simply end the test, and leave, so I could be the first one to do so. However, now that I'd have to wait anyway, I might as well look through my marked questions again. I even changed my answer for two of them! Hopefully to the right answer. :p
    I couldn't really do much, while waiting. But I considered that now that I had handed in the test anyway, I would probably be allowed to use the built-in calculator (the rules said not to use it). So I had some fun with that. :p These were Chromebooks, by the way, so I couldn't do any other strange stuff. I guess they don't want people to cheat. :rolleyes:

    There were about 10 other people who were done already when we were allowed to leave. I considered leaving immediately, as someone else did, but I'd have to change back into my jeans first again anyway, and after that I decided to stay. The girl I know from group 4 was also done at this point, and I approached her. We talked for a while, being joined by one or two others, and finally, Guy 3. That was fun! :) I haven't seen Guy 2 or Sloth after the exam.
    I was staying for three reasons: firstly, I had expected to be home late, and didn't feel like going back already, secondly, I was enjoying talking to people, and thirdly, I was waiting for Ilse, as I assumed she hadn't finished the exam yet.
    When she came, it looked like she was going to go home immediately, but I started talking to her anyway, walking with her a bit, as I wanted to know how she had done. I asked her if she had fun with the exam, but she said it was scary... she didn't elaborate much more, as she wanted to go home, and I said bye. This evening I have talked to her a bit on Hangouts, and it seems like she had a case of performance anxiety. I won't go into details though, as I guess she might not appreciate that. :) I hope future exams will go better for her!

    After she left I was going to look up when the bus to Bilthoven departed, but I remembered I had forgotten to put my iPad in my backpack. After a bit more time I asked the girl from group 4, though, and after some time she found it was leaving at 18:32, which was in a bit over 15 minutes. I decided I wanted to wait for it, as I didn't feel like going via Utrecht. Shortly after, Guy 3 and she left, but with a reconsideration, I again came to the conclusion that I'd rather wait to travel via Bilthoven.
    When I finally went to the bus stop to wait, after some time I saw Guy 3 on the other side! I decided to cross, and ask them, and they were still waiting for their bus. :p So I didn't even have to wait much longer for the bus to Bilthoven: maybe it was actually faster. It was certainly much more pleasant, as even though their bus was made up out of 3 segments (that's so long, I wonder that it can get through corners! :eek:), it seemed extremely full; on the contrary, I could actually get a seat in my bus. ^.^

    On the train, I was having some trouble with a certain puzzle in Starfy: I knew how to solve it, but I kept making mistakes by wanting to go too fast. :p As a result, I couldn't get to the next save point before the train arrived at Amersfoort, so I put it my DS in sleep mode and continued at the platform. :p

    And now I feel rather energetic! But that's not too strange I guess, as throughout the day I spared my energy, which I'm glad I did, because it made me able to bear the business shortly before the exam, but the exam itself actually wasn't too intensive, so now I've got energy to spare. :p I don't need to go to bed too early, either, as I have the entire day free again tomorrow! The Logic test starts at 5 o'clock. I think I actually prefer doing the bicycle trip with some proper fuel in my body, so I'll intentionally have breakfast first, tomorrow. :)
    And now I'm going to have my short shower! Have a good night. :) (or day or evening or afternoon, I don't know when you'll be reading this ;))

    Edit: Oh, I forgot about one thing! When I was leaving for the bus stop, I saw Marnix, and we greeted in a popular fashion (which I'm not good at :rolleyes:) and started talking about the exam. He asked me some things about questions he was unsure about, and I provided the answers. ;) That was fun!
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