Dual-Process blog

15 November 2009 I wrote the following:
Winter is coming. You notice because of the early night fall, the decreasing temperature and leafs falling from trees. The most obvious signal though is the sudden entrance of the good-old winter depression.
More and more people I ran into were complaining about life, about uni, about whatever. There was this girl who was sick and tired of everything cause she wants to go abroad but simply got confused cause of all the rules, data and millions of other difficulties. All she thought was fuck uni, fuck life. ,,I wanna quit and leave all the shit that’s called university behind me”.

And then there was that moment I got caught by the ghost of winter depression. It was a crap Saturday and I went out to watch my fav football club DOVO that was playing in Leerdam. They got 0-1 ahead, and the opponent got a red card for a reckless challenge. Still, they managed to fight themselves back in the game and win 2-1. God that sucked, especially cause it was the third week in a row they lost and the third week in a row they were actually better than the opponent. But okay, these things happen, right? So I decided to just have something a eat and focus on the match that Holland was going to play against Italy. That could be good. Well, it wasn’t. The worst game in ages by both the Dutch and the Italian national team, and a total waste of time. When I got in my dad’s car to go to the train station, I remembered I left my iPod on the kitchen table, and there was no time to recollect it cause I had to catch the train. Now this means I won’t have my iPod for two weeks as I was planning to stay in Nijmegen the next weekend. -1 on the happy scale… So you can imagine how I felt yesterday evening. All alone, crap weekend, it sucked. Then I started to think. I don’t see my friends often enough due to everybody’s crazy schedules. Most of my friends are in their master years of uni and work parttime, so there is hardly any time to grab a drink or have dinner together. Besides from that, many of them live outside Nijmegen and in order to get to them I have to travel at least for over an hour by train. And those who live in Nijmegen are busy busy busy.






25 January 2010, I wrote:
It’s 2010 now, still cold and wintery outside. So what’s up today? Well, not much. I did loads of studying the past few weeks. I had to write an essay, a research proposal and a full research report. That brought me to a total of about 20,000 words written in the past three weeks, and so my brains were kinda drained… At this moment I’m working on getting my internship at the alumni agency of the uni accepted as a part of my master thesis. I will perform a small study on the need for an internship- and job databank developed by the alumni desk, and get paid for it, so I can extend my holiday plans for this year ;-). It would be great to be able to combine this internship study and my master thesis, as I will save time by doing so.
Besides this thing I also have two other courses on my plate that include (massive) research, so enough to do in the coming weeks. Important weeks, cause this will decide whether I’ll be able to finish my master programme this June or not. With that, choices for next year come lurking around the corner. I have to think about whether I want to keep on studying in 2010/2011 or start working immediately after my Business Communication programme. I’m thinking about moving to Amsterdam and following some courses there, maybe on humanities or languages. Another option is moving to England, either Edinburgh or London to study Event Management or International Marketing Management. This second option is more expensive though, that’s a pity. And of course, it requires more effort cause I’ll have to move everything I have abroad (again). It is in interesting and eye-opening option though, so I‘ll definitely keep it in mind.
The final thing I want to do this month (February) is making holiday choices for this spring and summer. I would love to go to the United States this year, but I need a travel partner that I can count on. My great friend Alice might be that person, so maybe we’ll go together, just have to see what’ll happen. Another option (and great plan!) is to go “interrailing” with some friends from the Netherlands to Istanbul. I would love to see that city as it is the gateway between Europe and Asia; a culturally rich city that I have to see once in my life. And then, as a final choice, I would also love to go to a few nice festivals this summer. There are great (small) festivals in Easter-Europe and the Balkan that combine great music and great weather with a tremendous atmosphere. I’ll keep my eyes open for that!
Of course I already made some plans. I’ll be joining my study mates on a trip to Tallinn and Helsinki. I’m really looking forward to that, it’s gonna be a great week! I’ve never been to Scandinavia before, so it’s all new to me. We will leave on 30 April (yes, Queensday) and will stay there for about seven days. I hope that gives us plenty of times to combine sightseeing and partying.

Okay, so finally I finished my blog that I started three months ago. Being used to the winter weather and all that, I still hope spring kicks in soon. Anyway, I’m looking forward to my friend Alice coming over to Nijmegen again, my possible trip to Bergen (Norway) to visit Jurriaan and all the parties that I’ve got planned for the coming weeks (Bloody Beetroots, Slagmalsklubben, etc.). I hope you enjoyed reading my blog again, I certainly enjoyed writing in English to all of my friends again. Talk to you again in my next blog!

Oh, the pics I added are from my trips to Hamburg and Berlin last December! Enjoyed that a lot!