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palfrey at 04:13pm on 01/11/2003
palfrey at 04:13pm on 01/11/2003Summary: bitching at papers, supervising exams, out on the tiles in Rotterdam
I've just spent most of Thurs/Fri supervising for exams at TUD, and being a complete and utter Grammar Nazi as part of the reviewing process for Koen's new paper. Ok, some of the problems are nederengels/Dutch-lish problems (jamming words together with hyphens, halve rather than half, etc), but over/under use of commas is now a new pet hate. For those who think I'm (now) insane, let me give you an example (this had been through 3 other ppl before it got to me) "this, is, an, example sentence". I can't remember the exact words, but I do remember four words in a row separated by commas... also, the excessive use of "something, hence, something else"... I am becoming various evil bastard english teachers, mostly on the basis of being the only native english speaker certainly on my floor, and probably on the ones above and below as well, and therefore am being treated as some sort of oracle re: questions on the english language. Heck, I just speak/write the damn thing.
Supervising Dutch exams when you know about 12 words in the language is fun as well (if anyone was doing IN3110 in room BB, or IN2310 in room DD, both in the Zuidplantsoen, i was the bored blond guy at the front). I actually got bored enough to exhibit one of the signs of spending too much time on LJ "You start to take notes for your next post". Cultural differences include:
Most confusing for me. Took a while to get used to.
Went out on Fri with some of the little social group that's forming from ppl I know via AEGEE. We ate together at one persons house (had to explain a Soylent Green reference *sigh*), then headed out to Rotterdam. Were heading for some place called the Waterfront, but we decided when we got there that it didn't look too good, and instead ended up at some complete dive of a bar/dance floor called "Big Ben". Not quite as bad as it sounds, but pretty close. Euro-pop remixes of what was in a few cases decent original songs (imagine a dance remix of "Knocking on Heaven's Door". yep, it's possible.). Random blond with dreadlocks and low-cut top came over and said her friend (sister? there was another woman near her looking very similar) liked my hair (this took a while to get thru a) the language barrier and b) the noise of the place). Should I have done something there? Possibly. I guess I just wasn't in the right frame of mind for that sort of thing - plus not really used to random women coming up to me (with the exception of Rachel, but that was a weird special case). Self-esteem cuts both ways in this sort of scenario. For those wondering what the heck I'd done to my hair, nothing really. The piccie on my "About" page of my website has just been updated this morn if you really want to see.
Uh, other things. Installed Sitebar to solve my problems of being in many places and wanting my bookmarks. It's cool. One of my HDD's (the non-RAID'ed one) is starting to die, so really must send off the indentical dead HDD to IBM and get a new one to back it up to. Bike *still* isn't fixed.
I've just spent most of Thurs/Fri supervising for exams at TUD, and being a complete and utter Grammar Nazi as part of the reviewing process for Koen's new paper. Ok, some of the problems are nederengels/Dutch-lish problems (jamming words together with hyphens, halve rather than half, etc), but over/under use of commas is now a new pet hate. For those who think I'm (now) insane, let me give you an example (this had been through 3 other ppl before it got to me) "this, is, an, example sentence". I can't remember the exact words, but I do remember four words in a row separated by commas... also, the excessive use of "something, hence, something else"... I am becoming various evil bastard english teachers, mostly on the basis of being the only native english speaker certainly on my floor, and probably on the ones above and below as well, and therefore am being treated as some sort of oracle re: questions on the english language. Heck, I just speak/write the damn thing.
Supervising Dutch exams when you know about 12 words in the language is fun as well (if anyone was doing IN3110 in room BB, or IN2310 in room DD, both in the Zuidplantsoen, i was the bored blond guy at the front). I actually got bored enough to exhibit one of the signs of spending too much time on LJ "You start to take notes for your next post". Cultural differences include:
- the tea/coffee ladies coming round the exam room (during the exam) to ask if anyone wants a cup
- students getting up to get more paper rather than putting up a hand and asking for it
- eating in exam (not sure if this is allowed in most UK ones?)
- everyone still talking in exam room rather than waiting outside followed by quiet inside.
Most confusing for me. Took a while to get used to.
Went out on Fri with some of the little social group that's forming from ppl I know via AEGEE. We ate together at one persons house (had to explain a Soylent Green reference *sigh*), then headed out to Rotterdam. Were heading for some place called the Waterfront, but we decided when we got there that it didn't look too good, and instead ended up at some complete dive of a bar/dance floor called "Big Ben". Not quite as bad as it sounds, but pretty close. Euro-pop remixes of what was in a few cases decent original songs (imagine a dance remix of "Knocking on Heaven's Door". yep, it's possible.). Random blond with dreadlocks and low-cut top came over and said her friend (sister? there was another woman near her looking very similar) liked my hair (this took a while to get thru a) the language barrier and b) the noise of the place). Should I have done something there? Possibly. I guess I just wasn't in the right frame of mind for that sort of thing - plus not really used to random women coming up to me (with the exception of Rachel, but that was a weird special case). Self-esteem cuts both ways in this sort of scenario. For those wondering what the heck I'd done to my hair, nothing really. The piccie on my "About" page of my website has just been updated this morn if you really want to see.
Uh, other things. Installed Sitebar to solve my problems of being in many places and wanting my bookmarks. It's cool. One of my HDD's (the non-RAID'ed one) is starting to die, so really must send off the indentical dead HDD to IBM and get a new one to back it up to. Bike *still* isn't fixed.