Random stuff...

Yesterday I got a Draveno-Polabian version of the Lord's Prayer. I thought it was quite funny because I know very little about the Slavic languages, but this I could almost understand :) Draveno-Polabian, a now dead language, used to be spoken in a small part of Lüneburg in Germany - a now German and Low Saxon speaking area. Most Slavic people there have probably also had Low Saxon as a second language, which explain the many Low Saxon loans in the dialect - wader (vader, father) Rîk (ryk, realm), komă (kome, may come), vil'ă (wille, will), brind'oj (bringe, bring), kå farsükońě (in versöyking, into temptation), lösoáy (löse, deliver/redeem).

I wonder if my Polish friends can make any sence of this text. Even my Brazilian friends should be able to understand Nôße (nossa) :P

Nôße Wader,
ta toy giß wa Nebisgáy,
Sjungta woarda tügí Geima,
tia Rîk komma,
tia Willia schinyôt,
kok wa Nebisgáy,
tôk kak no Sime,
Nôßi wißedanneisna Stgeiba doy nâm dâns,
un wittedoy nâm nôße Ggrêch,
kak moy wittedoyime nôßem Grêsmarim,
Ni bringoy nôs ka Warsikónye,
tay lösoáy nôs wit wißókak Chaudak.
Amen.

Gosh, a dog taking pictures hmm...
http://www.engadget.com/entry/2116781680277657/

Puh that was a long day at school :S Stayed there till around 7 o' clock because I had to do some assignments. I have to do around 3 assignments each week and then hand in a report...so far it hasnt been that difficult and some assignmens have even been quite interesting...especially visualizing of medical data. There is one problem though; most of the assignmens are very badly formulated...it is not that the language is bad, but more that you have to think like them in order to understand what they actually want you to do...:S This means that I am wasting a lot of time figuring out what I am supposed to do, and when I figure it out (or someone who had the course last year, tells me) then it is normally not that difficult.

So far it seems that I have made some nice study friends, which is quite an improvement over my study in Denmark. They arrange a lot of nice parties here, my mentors are extremely nice and always have time to help me, and they have a coffee room :) Well it is a simple and well working idea. They have a small room where you can get free coffee or tea every day between 12:30 and 13:15. This means that many people go there and there is a good chance that you meet your friends or make new ones!

Speaking about parties. I stayed long at school as I was working on some of my assignments. Afterward I went directly to the city with two of my new friends. Here we met up with 9 others and we went out eating! :D The food wasn't perfect, but the atmosphere was very good and I enjoyed myself a lot. Afterward we went to the 'borrel' and around 2 o' clock I started heading home again.

I met some nice people at the party and I hope that some will become real friends..we will see...

Some people asked me why I never talked about computers. They found it a bit strange that I study computer science and until now haven't said a word about 'em. Well, the truth is that I do speak about software etc...but I think about a lot of other things as well, so there is only a few people that I discuss software and computers with. Actually I kind of miss my Danish friend Rasmus Halland as he was the person I enjoyed discussing software with the most - actually he was one of the only one that I liked discussing this topic with. Rasmus is a Windows user and a huge Microsoft-fan :P (he will kill me for saying that, but it is almost true :P) but he is also interested in Linux etc and reads Linux news sources as well. I am mostly a Linux user and don't really follow what is happening in the Micro$oft world. For this reason Rasmus and me - who are serious people who don't critizise software because it is made by people or companies that we dont like - often talked about the new trends in software development with enthusiasm and shared a lot of visions of the future. I liked that a lot...probably because we could keep our discussions on a serious level. Most nerd can't really do this...They have idea of what they think is right and wrong, and noone can make them change their minds so instead they start flaming eachothers :S bah, dislike that.

Oh well...speaking about Computer Science...I just realize that I have my first exam on thursday....bah...it is a very hard topic (Geometric Algorithms) and I am very afraid :S

Internet hasn't been working at home for some time :S It has annoyed me a bit, but if made my start organizing my music,...and in the process I found some lovely music that I haven't played for some time! Nice!

Lop, jeg hader lopper...

Aften spending many hours I figured out that the adware that was infecting my computer was the so-called Lop.com search bar. Knowing this, it was just a matter of time before I found a small program that could remove it! Thanks God! Nice...but I dared using my internet bank again. Unfortunately, it can first transfer money after the 27th and it takes 3 days :S this is really bad as I now only have 10 euros to live for for the rest of the month :S ...I really wonder how I will succeed...maybe I should visit some friends :P

I figured out that the sim-card doesn't work with my phone but with others :S bummer...now I need to buy a new mobile / cell phone :S ...oh, bother...

Sometimes I wonder how people think. There was something I wanted to write but I JUST COULDN'T remember what...but I did remember when I thought about it...I remembered looking at eggs when I noticed the think that I forgot...weird...later I remembered again....and I was right...I was indeed standing by the eggs...WEIRD how we think..

Anyway, the funny thing is that they started selling christmas things here....GOSH! that is a biiiiiit early I think! Pepernuts, X-mas chocolate...etc...crazy Dutch people :P

Some of my friends have been asking how they can notice that some people are Dutch and not Danish...hmm...that is kind of hard to explain...though you often notice it. One thing is that many boys have a bit curly hair (and often a bit long, like 10-20 cm or so) and look a bit more ..hmm...cannot explain (Dutch? heh) :P have to think more about that. I have also noticed that many girl have huge teeth...really ...I have never noticed that in Denmark, but here is seem to be quite normal...donno if that is only in Groningen though...but it is really something you notice as a Dane.

One of my students were asking me why it is 'jeg behøver' (I need) in Danish and not 'jeg høver' which would be more like Dutch 'Ik hoef'. I have no idea about this, but when I thought about it, I notice that I myself say 'A høves' in my dialect, thus no 'be-'! but now I really wonder why I use '-es' in my dialect...weird...languages are weird when you think about them :D

I also spoke some about my dialect with my German/East Frisian friend Helge yesterday. He is writing a thesis (I believe) where he is comparing the Low Saxon dialect of Sleswig (Northern Germany, close to Denmark) with the South Jutish dialect of Denmark. I send him some sound samples and he liked it a lot. He cannot understand Danish or my dialect very well, but Southern Jutish and Bornholm gives him less problems as they have no glottal stop...funny. He also asked me what a weird R we had in Western Jutish. Hehe, yeah that is a very American like R...very weird that we have it there...in such a small area...but he liked it and told me that Danish is not only funny, but at times also very cute :P I think so too, that is why I always speak Danish when I have to be realllly really cute :P

I have seen that some friends of my friends are reading my blog regulary...I am really wondering what you think about it, and why you read it :D Does my life sound interesting - or boring? Am I writing a lot of weird thing? etc etc...Send me a reply if you feel like it. I am just curious.

Take care everybody! Se cuida!

Oh oh oh...

Oh oh...noone apparently cleans up here in the Kitchen...it is so discusting and it makes it hard making dinner...oh well...now I just spend the last hour doing it :S again! Well, I still am not sure who is making all the mess and who ain't so I cannot really complain yet.

Oh well...

Today I went to the post office in order to pick up my new SIM-card for my mobile/cell phone. I looked much forward finally being able to use my phone again...but apparently not :S since the card apparently doesn't work...I called the hot line with another phone (quite expensive to call the hot line) but they just let me spend a lot of time waiting and they didn't know anything :S :S :S

Some days ago I went to a faculty party with school...It was quite nice! I first went to my friend Daniels home and drank a beer there and talked a bit...then we went to the party. There was supposed to be around 150 people there, but I think there were less...

Here in the Netherlands people think in 'rounds', meaning that everyone buys like 6 beers and then walks around and looks for some friends to give them to...well, that is kind of okay and nice...but at some point you just get too many beers ...and so I ended up with a huge headache the day after. I had promised myself not to start skipping school just yet...so I went to school feeling very bad...bah...so bad...the whole day was full with mathematical proofs....so I ended up with 10 times as big a headache :S

I installed MSN Plus, but it infected my computer with a lot of adware even though I chose not to install that :S Apparently the auto-update did it :S bah...I have no idea on how to get this off my computer again :S I have been spending a lot of time trying to get rid on this blue search bar...

Hmm, some of you know that my aquaintances has gotten kittens...they are sooo nice...but for some reason I am not allowed to see them anymore...:S She just says that her room is messy so she doesn't like people to see it...but I think that a quite stupid excuse...as noone would mind or think less of her because of that...anyway the cats have to go soon as the house where she lives will be inspected and they are apparently not allowed to have pets there :S But they are SOO CUTE..I want one :P

Hmm, today I was supposed to study...but like authors can have a writers block I am quite sure that I have a students block right now :P

For a long time I have been complaining on how stupid it is, that I had lost my remote control...what's the use of a television when you cannot set up the channels...:S well, now I was so lucky to finally find it :D ....for some reason it had been wrappen in some of my clothes :P

It seems like Google are working on a web browser. At least they have recently registered GBrowser.com and hired the guy who worked at Microsoft on the Avalon project (web and toolset related). Some people have also found some secret mails and bugzilla entries that document that Google are working on a branded browser based on Mozilla or Mozilla Firefox. It sound very interesting to me...It won't surprise me if Google at some point basically own the internet. Btw, if you don't know the Firefox browser you should really try it. It is more secure than IE, it has popup blocker build in, is quick and small, fully themable, supports tabs and is more PNG compliant...I am really amazed and I should do a review of it at some point. :P Check out www.getfirefox.com - it is free as both free beer and as free speech.

I am a fool...

I just hurt myself real badly...well I was sitting on the back of a bike for probably 20 minute biking and when I jumped on I realized that there had been no blood circulation in my legs, as they disappeared under me :S auch....that hurted...I tried getting up but there were absolutely no feeling in my legs :S but it is almost back again...but I am still left with the shock and the scratches :S

Oh, well, why did I sit on the back of a bike? Well I was invited along to a birthday party by Han, which seemed like a good occation to see how a Dutch birthday party was like. Well, it wasn't that is was a really Dutch party as quite some of the around 25 guests were foreign studens of some kind.

If I have to compare it to a Danish birthday party (for young people, ie. not the family version) I will say that it was quite nice and quiet. There was a lot of small snacks to eat and it was easy to talk to a lot of new people. In Denmark a party like this would mostly consist of refriguators full of beers and very loud music...What do I like the most then? Well, that is kind of hard to say...I guess I like both version...:)

Some things are cheap in the Netherlands

(and something ain't, but we ain't going to talk about those this time).

Today I bough a honney cake (a socalled Dutch breakfast cake), 2 liters of cocio-quality chocolate milk, a half white bread, and american cookies with chocolate...and I spend 4 euros!!!! That is 30 DKK! That is like nothing :D

So why did I buy all this? Well, I like eating yoghurt in the morning, but I need to supplement it with something else as I am drained from energy 2 hours later, and because everyone keeps telling me that I have lost weight. I was told that the Dutch often eat the Dutch breakfast cake (Ontbijtkoek) and that it would be a good supplement. I followed the advise and some things extra that I can eat while studying or on the internet... not very interesting, but well...

Anyway, today I went to Leeuwarden (damn expensive with the train :S need to find someone to drive with! and quickly) to start as a Danish teacher. Today was the introduction evening so it was a bit different than normal. I had no idea how to get there so I asked the guy organizing everything and he was so nice to give me a route description...unfortunately the one bus that I needed to take was only driving during day hours :S so I couldnt take that one :S

I kind of looked forward going to Leeuwarden as it is the capital of Fryslân and I have never been in the frisian part of Fryslân...but unfortunately it was raining cats and dogs and I didnt really see anything. A bus driver was very helpful and drove a bit off his route to set me off close to the building where I was supposed to go...unforunately I couldnt really find the place and walked in the wrong direction. I had heard that some people in the city Leeuwarden didn't speak Frisian but an old mixture language of Low Franconian (Basically Dutch) and Frisian, but I expected there to be very few speakers who would probably only speak it home and speak Frisian or Dutch in puplic...but apparently the bus driver spoke it and some of the passagers as well...that was quite funny...but luckely easy understandable.

At the school there was some introduction talk and it was done in Frisian. The man luckely spoke clear Frisian and I had no problem following him, which was good as he was also introducing me...and I was supposed to stand up in the crowd so that people could see me...I was a bit afraid in the beginning that I wouldnt understand and then either not get up when I was supposed to, or get up when I wasnt supposed to...lucky I did everything correct.

I talked to some of the other teachers and also to some of the various students and most people were really nice!!! so it turned out to be a good evening with one exception :S I missed the scheduled train and had to wait 1 hour outside in the cold rain...next time I will be on time! I promise! :P

Skik concert

Oh I am getting lousy at writing here :S

Yesterday me and Han went to a concert with a Drenths band called Skik. I have a CD with Skik and I like it quite a lot, especially also because they sing in Low Saxon and not in Dutch. I have heard from some that they had sold out and started to write songs in Dutch and English instead and that the vocalist had become a jury at the Idols show here in the netherlands. Because of this I hoped to hear some old songs, but expected the whole show to be quite commercial (speaking Dutch, singing soft pop rock songs) but I was taken for a surprise!

The show started with a "warm up" band called something like Mindhouse (not quite sure about the name). It wasn't that good, but their songs became better as the show went on, and we ended up with approx. 10 people standing in front of the stage and A LOT of people sitting down on the seats (the Dutch syndrome :S). Many people who went there were my parents age and older so I expected that the standing crowd wouldnt increase that much.

The Skik came on stage! and they didnt speak Dutch but Low Saxon instead...and during the whole show only one song was in Dutch and all the others were in their language/dialect. They started out with some of the songs I knew and people ran to the stage...it was pretty cool...they really got people rocking and they did a funny stage show. They they also started playing some newer songs...and I got surprised again...I expected soft poprock songs but the newer songs were almost punk with a scene show like NOFX...I didnt really expect this...but it really rocked at the concert! I think a lot of people couldn't quite follow what they were saying, since at least the girl behind me was contantly asking what they were saying, like 'what does nije skoenen (nieuw schoenen, new shoes) mean?' a bit annoying as I wanted to enjoy the music :P A funny thing was that they translated the VERY hollandic song Amsterdamse grachten (The waterchannels of Amsterdam) into their dialect...which is not Hollandic at all...They of course did that for making a joke...and it was a nice touch!

Tonight I had some nice dreams...at least the first one...I wont say anothing about them except that they were nice and contained one special person! :D

This morning I found a scary letter :S I just registered officially at the university and paid the intuition fee...and now I got a letter saying that I registered but didnt pay and will be thrown out :S ARHG when will this h*ll stop!!!!

I love my monkeys!!!! (if you know me, you will understand what I mean)

Anyway, I started biking as slow as the Dutch...well not really, but I am biking slower now...so why? you might ask...well I guess there is a reason why the Dutch bike so slow and it is called trafic lights! They stay green for 3 sec (enough for 1/3 of the bikers waiting to cross to actually cross) and then they are red for minutes! This means...you will ALWAYS have to stand in a queue in the rush hours...so biking quickly just means that you will have to wait longer between the lights :S Also it annoys me that the lighs are on my side on the road and not on both sides like in Denmark...this means that I bike to far (further than the actual trafic light) and then I cannot see when it is changing to green...on well I might get used to this with time :P

Something bad is happening here in the Netherlands. Well I live in Groningen, which is one of the poorest regions of the Netherlands. This is because of historical reasons. Because of this Groningen gets regional financial support so that they can invest and attract companies etc...create new jobs...etc etc...BUT! now the government wants to stop supporting Groningen (and let it rot in hell...well the government is of course situated in the Randstad/Holland :S) and give to money to the Randstad instead. This will probably mean that less development will happen here...there will be less jobs, people will move away and criminality will increase...thanks! :S

Oh well...I don't want to get involved with politics again...took too much of my time when I was involved in Denmark (Socialistic Folksparty: www.sf.dk)

Wednesday is the First Years school party. It is not really for first years, but more a name, or a reason to make a party :) I kind of look forward going there to meet more people from my study and find some new friends...we will see if it will be fun or not...I hope it will.

There is probably a lot I forgot writing about...but I will have to catch up on that another time....until then!

I forgot to say that I got screwed by the old place I lived. I paid a deposit and I thought I would get most back. My one door was a bit broken, but it was a VERY CHEAP door...I will show a pic of it once. I thought, well such a door can max cost 200 DKK, and it costs approx 150-200 DKK per hour they need to work with it, so I would max loose 600 DKK....Think again! I LOST 1600 DKK!!!! That is just amazing...it can NEVER cost that much to fix it, but what should I do? They have to pay me the money back and they wont pay that back...and I am not situated in another country and my parents on another island (300 km away)...it just sucks getting screwed that way...and it wasnt the only thing they screwed me with :S


Post scriptum:

For those of you who don't know the different between Holland and the Netherlands, I have found this map:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Netherlands_map_large.png

You will see that Holland is only a small part of the country, but that the most known cities are situated there (A'dam, Den Haag, Rotterdam, etc)

Time for another entry

Puh...Lots has happened since I wrote here last...and unfortunately, I have forgotten exactly what :P Well, I have learned how Dutch people bike. It is kind of amazing...Groningen should be the 4th (so I was told) largest biking-city in Europe....and the people here just cannot bike! at all! They bike extremely dangerous and EXTREMELY sloooooow...I think I bike slow...but compared to people here...hehe...I don't.

At school I met a Swedish guy (David) who invited me along to a party for international students. It was quite nice. First we went to see Big Fish (my second time) and then we went to the bar called De Beurs. Here I met some nice people from various countries like Sweden, Aruba, Germany etc. It was also quite nice to speak some Swedish and German again. A girl from Sweden (Karoline I think it was) was sure that I had lived for at least a year in Sweden...hehe, the truth is that I have only been there 3 days. The first 2 days I have just been driving through Sweden in order to get to Norway and back again and the last day I went to Lund for a lecture and then back again :D so, no...I haven't! But it makes me quite proud...now I just need to improve my written Swedish :P

Today a German guy from Westfalen (born in Ostfriesland) is visiting me. I haven't seen him before, but he studies Frisian here in Groningen and wanted to meet me since I speak Low Saxon just like him.

Things are moving forward with getting official registered here. It has been a hard ride, though, and I have been at the edge of a nervous breakdown...damn burocracy...

In the weekend I worked on my room again. I got some help with the mirror and a few other things like transporting and buying a new table! I also borrowed some tools. Thanks a lot Leopold! I appreciated it a lot.

Puh....

I have been quite busy the last couple of days and when I have wanted to write something,
I didn't :)

So what have I been up to lately...Lets see what I can remember

Wednesday:
Wednesday I woke up quite imspired by someone :-P so I decided to go swimming. I went to the where the swimming hall was located but unfortunately the swimming hall was closed, so straight back home I went :S After that I tried figuring out how to pay my bills here in NL. Quite different from Denmark...Denmark is a small country so the banks are small and quite personal...you just go there and they often know you by name and want to help you in any way possible...well...lets' say: It is NOT like that here...Groningen only has huge impersonal banks...and noone there really wants to help you. Well after many hours of trying, biking from one bank to the other, I finally got my bills paid and I even figured out how to transfer money from my Danish account to my account here! COOL! In the evening me and two from my house went cooking together...oh well, mostly he did it...but I was around! It was a quite nice dinner also...later more jointed us and the people here decided that it was time to celebrate that I moved in...and so they did...and we throw a little party...one of the girls in my house told that one of her friends just got a knife knocked into his backhead some days ago...and that he went to the hospital...gosh...in Copenhagen we don't hear about much of these things, but here in Groningen there seem to be daily headlines just like this on the teletext...scary.... the girl also told that the brother (I think it was) of one of her good Italian friends was shot in Iraq and the execution was put on the internet..AWFUL!!! We hear so much from Iraq and we almost cannot believe it...but when it gets this close it is quite scary!

Thursday:
This was my first day at school! I went there at 10 o' clock and was quite scared...for the first hour I was just standing in the hall way with lots of people that I didn't know and who seemed to know each others...sometimes I hate being shy...I am actually not that shy...but not only didn't I know these people, but they also don't my language. Oh well, the 1 hour went by and I got in group 5. the people there didn't really say much too be until I met the Mentor...The Mentor (Maurits) was quite nice...he asked about who I was, etc and I explained that I studied the last years in Copenhagen. Then he asked me how long I went to study in Denmark and I realized that he thought I was Dutch (at first at least), which made my quite proud...heheh, my accent must be improving :D. The day went on with some semi boring lectures and a bit walking around seeing the many faces of the school. Our group 5 merged with group 6 and we went to the Mentor of group 6's house to bbq ! That was quite nice...we talked a bit, drank some beers and I got to know a guy called Joris who seemed very friendly from the first impression. After dinner we went to a café called Tivolie where we had fun talking, playing various games and drinking a bit...He I found out that most of the mentors went on holiday in Denmark! Apparenly there is another Danish guy studying at the university and that was one of their good friends! The mentos Daniel also suddenly started speaking semi danish to me...apparently he lived in Copenhagen as a child ! :D Haha...what a coincident! At some other point I was talking to two guys and a female mentor (mathematics), when the girl said "but you didn't do your bachelor here in Groningen". I answered "No, I did my bachelor in Copenhagen". She then asked me how long I lived in Denmark and I told her I was Danish. After that I got a shock as she started to speak fluenly Danish to me! Apparenly she lived 5 (?) years in Denmark :D haha...apparently everyone here has some kind of connection with Denmark!!! Later we went to a disco but I didn't enjoy it so much as there were way too many people and the were all taller than me...:S At around 6 we all decided to go home, and so did I...

Friday:
I woke up quite early...I think around 10 as Flip (a guy who used to live here at my house) ringed on the door bell...after that I couldn't sleep any longer :S so I biked with Han to the swimming hall (this time I checked if they were open :P) and we went swimming for one and a half hour...Puh! it is a long time since I have swimmed...so I was sooo dead afterward and went home sleeping for most of the day. I also tried internetting a bit...but it didn't really want to work :S At the evening I went to a party that I was invited to. It was okayish, but not really that fun...

Today:
Today I didn't do much...well slept long :) and woke up feeling quite good...I made myself some coffee and wanted to relax in front of the computer...maybe even chat a bit with friends...but it didn't really want to work...and when it suddently worked for about half an hour then the person I wanted to talk to wasn't online...:'( The last couple of hours I have been watching a bit of television...but that interesting...but time went by! :) Now internet is back working again...mas onde está você minha fofinha...