the past days of orientation have, as well as relieving a completely new sense of anxiety and a weird internal turmoil, fulfilled most of the ideals one can have of such events, my fellow students were very interesting and interested, mostly foreign but not acutely exotic (belgium, norway, england, canada), very fulbrighty (at least four of us in a group of 24) and the days have managed to fill themselves by the comfortable natural logic that seems to set in when you completely give yourself up to kafkaesque bureaucratic processes. i have now registered for classes, all very similar to the ones i took in maastricht (war and modernism, but i also got into a class about cultural criticism), my professor was really nice and talk of classes soon gave way to planning the first liberal studies party (we discussed music and assorted cocktails).
these are still the days were you answer the same basic questions more than twenty times a day (liberal studies at the graduate faculty, dutch, i learned it from tv) in the elevator, on the steps in front of the building, walking home after buying multi-coloured clotheshangers. you are constantly forgetting everybody's names or pronouncing them wrong, going out to dinner with a few people, others tag along, you meet people on the way, and end up getting home really late, because you were discussing the particular soothing qualities of certain hollywood blockbusters (or the inherent absurdities of the american political system versus the divine nature of holland and its so-called liberal tendencies).
I've also been walking around, trying to get my internal compass in order (east west, streets, avenues, blocks, subway lines, that nice bookstore and the cheap supermarket), realizing you are closer to home (not yet home to me now, more like bunk, or place) because the skyscrapers before you, are the same as the ones outside your window. embarassingly enough, i still haven't seen central park, and i missed the big march because i was moving all my stuff (and because i was stuck in chaotic demonstration traffic waiting for a cab to take my new tv/mind control device back up eight avenue).
i saw my first celebrity last week when i was at toys-r-us where fellow fulbrighter mark was buying a bike, it must have been a sign of hope because i saw the lead singer of the polyphonic spree, a particularly overhappy and megajoyous crew of about 27 bandmembers. i guess i'm doing fine (just got another email, saying that i have to re-inform big brother of my change of address, oh the joys of beingdependent on forms and signatures) and i hope you all are too, love en kus,
f.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Posts
