School

People on Holidays and a Schoolyear

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Into the city today with the Mom πŸ˜€ First I had to go see the medical social worker again as one of the required parts of transitioning. Most people see her regularly, but I saw her last in January. We’d agreed then that I would contact her around March for a follow-up but I forgot and when I did remember it wasn’t a priority for me as I don’t feel the need. Everything is going quite splendid.

But in May I finally mailed her, and then she maybe lost it or something as I never heard back. On itself not a problem, at least I could say I did my part. But as July came around and the new law about name and gender change came into effect, I needed some form of contact to figure out what to do to get the needed statement. So I mailed again, and now I got a response and we set a meeting for today. And she referred me to another person for the paperwork.

When I mailed that person, I got the auto-mailer informing me they were on holiday but here’s a link with info. Which was nice as I learned how it works. The piece of paper is €65 *gasp*. And if you haven’t been in to see a psych or the social worker in the last six months, they consider you no longer in active treatment and then you have to pay another €250 for a consult… o.O So I was particularly glad I had set that appointment as January is about six months ago…

Anyway, it was a nice chat, took an hour just as before. And also just as before I am a well-adjusted, grounded person with a well developed sense of self and such. I have no problems she can help me with and I feel excellent.Β With an agreement to contact again after I have an appointment with the Plastics dude (if all goes well I get a referral in August), I left.

Before that, at the end, we spoke briefly about the name/gender change and the paperwork and she put me on the list, which saves me an extra phone call later this week. Unfortunately, not only is the admin person on holiday, so are both the psychiatrists who are vetted to give the required statement… Which is kind of embarrassing for the gender team, and means it will be August before they get around to work down the list. I hope they hurry up then, I need my data changed, especially seeing as how I’ve finally decided on the how and what of going back to school.

Yes, I have πŸ˜€ I have been searching for what to do in regards to learning for quite a while now. I wanted to do another university level thing because, even though I rationally know HBO is also very good and offers many options, I’ve done a university BA and half of a Master’s before. And it would feel sort of like settling if I didn’t do it again. Problem then was, what and where. I realised pretty quickly that a regular BA wouldn’t work, what with the new laws regarding how fast you have to do things I can’t squeeze that in to my life after working 36 hours a week. So part-time it had to be, however the official part-time options Groningen offers kind of suck. And what I do like and is available part-time, is all in Amsterdam and such and therefore not doable in terms of travel.

But last week my brain remembered the thing that is the Open University. An accredited university that offers distance learning, lots of online/digital stuff with,if so desired, the option for contact hours and more guidance. So I looked at their offerings and saw individual classes that I liked and then I stumbled upon the Bachelor’s program for Cultural Sciences (Algemene Cultuurwetenschappen). After reading it through, I realised it matches my interests very much, and is also a program with a lot of options for customising. So, I have decided to enroll. However, I first need my name and gender changed to have as little confusion as possible and no issues later on with names on certificates and diplomas.

Oh, and after my appointment, Mom and I then went on to the mall for a wee bit of shopping. Bought some books, some fake flowers and a mail holder for Nienke and we stopped for a late lunch. We had a good time πŸ™‚

Blog About Me [17/52] My Most Proud Moment

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Hmm, tricky. If I have to pick a specific moment, I think I would go with getting my university Bachelor’s degree. I’m partial to intellect and intelligence, so achievements of the mind are quite meaningful to me.

However, I’m also proud of my continuous efforts in gaining Milo’s trust, and proud of Milo himself <3 He was such a scaredy cat, literally, when I got him. Running off at loud noises, weird shapes, unexpected things. Skittish to be approached and not often found near me. But now, two years later, he’s around me all the time. Whenever he can he will follow me around. If I lay down, he comes to sit on Β my chest and knead my belly. When I am in a room, most often he will be there, too. He no longer runs off when weird things happen, and if he does, he immediately turns around to check if it was worth running away from. And, he allows touch at so many more spots than before.

 

The Week in Review: 2012-10

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I’m grateful for the fairly quiet times at work that enabled me to take two extra days off so my one week off turned into a glorious week and a half.

I’m happy with my new tablet (a Qware pro 3, 10″). I ordered it online last week after I’d been to the Intertoys for the 7″ version for the third time and they still didn’t have it. This one was more expensive, but the added screen real estate makes it worth it. I spent the weekend loading it up with apps and am contemplating adding a custom rom to update it to Android 4 (it has 2.3 now). And, I’m blogging from the tablet now. Which is showing me one thing very clearly: I need to get a dictionary imported here somewhere because I spend way too much time correcting myself.

I was annoyed with the reflection essay I needed to write to finish the education track at work. I hate those sort of essays with a passion so when I finally sat down for it I spent two hours hatefully avoiding it and complaining about it ( πŸ™‚ ) and then decided to go all the way in, over the top and all. So an hour later I had three pages with artfully inserted quotes and section headings and all that jazz.

I learned that I’d been playing my ukelele wrong (and slightly cheating here since this was actually yesterday and thus already week 11). Turns out I’d been counting my strings wrong. I started at the top (near my chest) with one and then went down, while in fact the top one is string four. So the c and d that play on the third string I was actually playing on the second. And the e, f and g that play on the second string I was playing on the third. No wonder the Frere Jacques sounded off. Got this fixed now so I’ll be spending this week getting the fingerings on the right strings under control, as well as practising the two beginner tunes on the next page: Frere Jacques and Mary Had a Little Lamb.

I discovered I still have some residual unresolved sort-of-jealous feelings about something (and yes being vague on purpose). I thought I worked through this, rationally I understand the choice, but feelings can be a bitch sometimes.

Random Occurence of My Mind – Whoosh!

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Here’s a little bit of everything post to kill some time and populate the journal some more with stuff beyond just books (even though that is clearly more than enough πŸ˜€ ). Also, I’m hanging out at the parents and need to kill some time until my laundry’s done (I don’t own a washer myself so I come over here for theirs).

So, let’s see… I’ve had fun this week helping my best friend Nienke move house. She went from a tiny house about 50 yards across from me to a somewhat less tiny house right next door πŸ˜€ It was much fun both to watch people move pieces of furniture across the field separating the old block from the new place and to be walking back and forth myself. Connected her computer, messed with furniture placement in the living room and repacked the bookcase. I LOVE organizing bookcases. Seriously, if you want to make me happy, give me access to your bookcase and let me re-organize it.

Right… So Nienke handed in the key to her old place yesterday and then went off to Ikea to get some additional furniture and shelves and such. I was going to spend the day doing some chores around the house so I emptied the trash cans, made food, went to the store and then wanted to vacuum. Only to realize my vacuum cleaner was still inΒ Nienke’s house and I didn’t have a key yet… (And so began the quest to get the vc back!)

So, instead, I grabbed the dust buster to get rid of the biggest clumps of cat hair and then had a relaxing afternoon. The weather was absolutely lovely for the time of year: sunshine, decent temperature, hardly any wind, so I opened all the windows and the back door to let the fresh air in. The cat was ecstatic to be able to walk in and out as he pleased. He was also very happy to find that Nienke has her attic window (where her bedroom is) open enough for him to climb in to (he jumps from my large trashcan on to a little wall and then on to Nienke’s mud room roof and from there it’s easy-peasy into the attic window…). He apparently spent some time sleeping there ‘ cause Nien found a load of cat hair on her bed yesterday evening πŸ˜€

When Nienke came back she had brought me three little stuffed rats from Ikea as a present. They’re absolutely gorgeous and very cute. Then she went off again to go with her parents for dinner. I remembered the vacuum cleaner just a minute or two too late. I ran towards the road but they were gone already… *sigh*

She got home late and since it was too late to actually do anything with it, I forgot about the vacuum again. Instead we watched Stargate. We’ve been working our way through the entire series, we made it to Season 9 a day or three ago and we’re enjoying the Daniel-Vala dynamic immensely πŸ˜€

This morning I got out of bed and did remember the vacuum cleaner πŸ˜€ I pulled the sheets from my bed and put them in the laundry and then hung the duvet and coverlet out to air. Then I tried Nienke’s door to see if she was awake, but no such luck. So I grabbed a handful of cat kibble and started throwing them against her window until she appeared.
After that, I asked her to watch my bedding for me (they are expecting rain today) while I was away and got the vacuum cleaner back, yay!

Not that I really want to vacuum… it is the chore I hate most. However, with a cat that never seems to run out of hair to drop everywhere, it is a necessary evil. *sigh* The dreaded thing awaits me when I get home. If it’s still dry then I think I shall open the door again to at least keep some fresh air coming in while I work the monster πŸ˜€

Outside of the banalities of the household, I should start studying for my history exam in ten days. It’s a mid term about the first half of the class (of which my attendance was far from regular). It shouldn’t be too much of a problem though, it covers the middle ages and I’m reasonably familiar with that period already; both from my fascination with history from childhood on and my archaeology BA. That was also the reason I took the class in the first place, I figured it’d be an easy way to fill up five of the required 30 credits πŸ˜€

Ooh, methinks the laundry is all done. See ya!

*hides in corners*

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I managed to abandon the blog for another three months, yay me. Not. I don’t know how it happened but one day it was July 9 and I posted and suddenly it’s October 4…

I’ll give a quick rundown of the last three months. Most importantly, new school started. New school is a two-year program to become an elementary school teacher. The program is meant for people who’ve already gotten a diploma or have lots of experience with kids already as it is two years shorter than the regular program.

I follow this program at pabo De Eekhorst in Assen and so far I’m really liking it. The people in my class as well as my mentor/coach are really nice and I’ve learned a lot already in just a few weeks.
I contacted the school assigned to me for practical training yesterday and set up a meeting for coming Monday to discuss which days I’m coming in and which year I’ll train with first.

Then, a little over two months ago, I got a cat. He’s a four-year-old, black and white ex-male with the name Monet. I amended that into Jethro Venantius Monet but just call him Monet.
I got him from the animal shelter on the 24th of July and now it’s as if he’s always been here.
I’ll get some pictures up soon.

Besides that I had my birthday on the 28th; I turned 23. I celebrated with friends that Friday and the Sunday after with my family at my parent’s place as they won’t all fit in my house. I got many very pretty presents including a teapot, a lovely children’s book that was one of my (many) favourites when I was a kid, a concert dvd of Laura Pausini, cat toys and other stuff.

Today is World Animal Day and normally I would usually do something about, get Tessa a present, cuddle Monet extra but, unfortunately for them, I’m going swimming with two of my friends in the really fancy pool on one of those bungalow vacation parks.

*waves*

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Oh, wow. It’s been a while isn’t it… I could’ve sworn I made an entry somewhere half June but apparently I didn’t. Ah well, never mind, Tse’s back.

I’m working on the site again. A CMS, again. This time I’m trying Drupal and from all the ones I’ve tried, I like it best (so far). The adding of content is super-easy and same goes for the creation of menus, which is what was my main problem with other CMSes, I could never get the menus to come out just as I wanted. All I need to do is add some more content and see about changing the default theme to something I like better.

Also, last week I sent in the application for my new school. I already got an e-mail from the coordinator person saying he received it okay and I should be getting a letter with information and all that somewhere this week. Yay!

Feel good

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As you know I went to Castlefest the first weekend of this month. Just before we left, I handed in the first version of my Bachelor paper to the marker. I heard back from him last week saying there were some things I needed to fix and add but that I would pass. Yay!

Yesterday I went to the library to get some books and I will work on the thing the rest of the week with the goal of handing it in again on Thursday (preferably) or Friday.

I also updated some site stuff. I added a page to the Personal section with my Pandora radio stations. Pandora.com is a very cool website where you can create your own radiostations (max. 100 per user). The cool thing about Pandora then is that, you create the radio station based upon one artist or song, and then Pandora adds more artists and songs to it based upon a detailed analysis of the artist or song you added. This is the perfect way to get to know different kinds of music you otherwise might never hear.

You can also add more artists or songs to radio stations you already created to expand the scope of the station. So far, I have a handful of stations made. One for folk music which I created with Kate Rusby as initial artist. One for celtica created with Enya and Gary Stadler as base. One for country with Tim McGraw, Faith Hill and Keith Urban as base. One for singer-songwriter music with Gary Jules and Chantal Kreviazuk as initial artist and finally a Female Power Songs that has Sheryl Crow and Meredith Brooks as base artists.

Back to site business, I also added a questions page should someone have a question for me…
Besides that, I’m researching gallery scripts to ease the job of getting photos and stuff up here. So far, I’ve seen a few promising things but they require the installation of some other stuff first and since I’m no expert, it might take a bit. This means no new photo pages until I know for sure whether or not I am capable of installing a gallery package.

All Work And No Play… Well Little Play

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Had another study session with Nienke today. We’ve had them twice before in the last week and a half or so and I find it very beneficial. During these days, I actually get stuff done.

We’ve agreed to make this a habitual thing and get together at least once a week to study. This will keep Nienke up to date on her psychology stuff during the summer holiday and will enable me to work on my paper.

As the title says, we didn’t just study, although the ‘play’ was limited. Nienke showed me a nice, little online game to kill time with which was very effective πŸ˜€

After dinner, we went to sit outside and continued our work there to enjoy the soft breeze that had come in after the sun had settled down. It’s been a very hot day, and now, at almost 01:00 it’s still 26 degrees in the house. I’ve a window open so some fresh air can come in but it’s going slow.

Nienke left around ten which resulted in a hectic couple of minutes as she couldn’t find her wallet, which, among other things, contained her public transport card and her college card, needed for the exam she’s having tomorrow. After a frenzied search through her bag and around the house on the places she’d been, she called home to check if she’d left it in the car, and guess what, she had.

This eased the biggest worry, she could do the exam. However, we still had two things to worry about, being 1) will we be on time at the bus stop, and 2) will she be able to get on, seeing as how she didn’t have her public transport card, and neither of us had enough money to pay for a regular ticket…

We made it on time to the bus stop with even enough time to spare for me to take a quick trip to the atm across the street to get some money, if Nienke needed it (her card was in her wallet). Just as I’d gotten back to the right side of the road, the bus came.

Since it was late on a Sunday night, the bus was one of those tiny 8-person van thingies. And, of course, it was full. As if we didn’t have enough bullshit already…

The driver called the central and after a few minutes managed to get into contact with the driver of another van-bus who said he’d stop by. And again some minutes later he did. And then Nienke’s luck turned to good for a little bit as the driver was familiar to her so she didn’t have to pay and he said he’d drop her off in her town.

But the turn in luck wasn’t for long… A little while later I got a phone call. It was Nienke and she was home, safe and sound and all, but tomorrow they were going to work on the sewage system in her town and no buses at all would go in or out… Not Amused

So now her dad will drop her off in the next town tomorrow where she can take the bus to school to do the exam. Later tomorrow, we’ll be going to the cinema to see X-Men 3: The Last Stand. I’ve already seen it in Gent with Gert and Reimer but Nienke hasn’t and the film was way cool enough that I’ll want to see it again. It’ll give me the chance to look for the details on the big screen. πŸ˜€

Stars

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To continue over from the previous post, last night I wanted to show my mother the stars but it was cloudy. Not too pleasant as it doesn’t happen often that my mother shares my interests in this way. Hoping tonight will be a clear sky so I can show her the constellations (at least the ones I know and they are limited to three at the moment) as well. She did see Mars however as it’s so close to the moon right now and very bright, even on a (somewhat) cloudy night it’s hard to miss.

Right, gotta cut this short now, I have to catch the bus in a little while to go to school (I study archaeology) for my Hieroglyph class.

Druk, Druk, Druk (foto’s)

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Gisteren de hele middag in de stad geweest. Eerst ‘s ochtends vroeg opgestaan (10 uur) en wit beddegoed en handdoek enzo gewassen (moest ‘s avonds weer droog zijn namelijk) en vervolgens wat gegeten. Daarna de half een bus naar het centrum genomen en door Humberstone Gate en High Street gewandeld. Nog een kadootje voor mama en Eva gekocht en uiteindelijk, aan het eind van High Street, doorgelopen en naar Jewry Wall museum geweest.

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Daarna, met een omweggetje, de weg naar de Castle Gardens gevonden en daar rondgewandeld en veel foto’s gemaakt. Het was er, ondanks het feit dat het nog winter was, erg mooi met rotspartijen en veel struiken en krokussen.

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Hierna langs de rivier teruggelopen en zwanen op de foto (en film) gezet.

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Uiteindelijk weer door High Street en Humberstone Gate teruggelopen naar de bushalte en daar 20 minuten op de bus gewacht omdat de vorige net weg was. Uiteindelijk was ik rond half 5 weer hier.
‘s Avonds geluierd (want moe), beetje krant gelezen en gehangen; niet meer, zoals ik had gepland, op internet geweest om een postje op het blog te maken etc…

Vandaag (foto’s aan eind) was het Landscape Archaeology field trip tijd. Om half 9 opgestaan want moest om om half 10 op Uni zijn. Dit lukte ruim op tijd, was er om kwart over ofzo. Uiteindelijk om half 10 vertrokken met z’n negenen. De rit naar Beacons Hill duurde ongeveer 20, 25 minuten en vervolgens was het tijd voor de klim omhoog, met alle spullen… Eenmaal hier duurde het niet lang meer voordat ook John en Mark kwamen (eigen vervoer) en konden we echt beginnen. Groepjes waren al eerder gemaakt, John, Mark & ik geophysics en de rest allemaal lumps & bumps. Bij het groepjes maken was ik de enige die geophysics wilde doen maar dat kon natuurlijk niet dus toen kwamen John, Mark, Sue, Caroline en een andere vrouw erbij. Maar zij, Sue en Caroline konden vandaag niet komen en moeten ipv dit onderzoek doen in de SMR (Site & Monument Record). De andere 6 vormden twee groepen, een die total station ging doen en de andere die een hachure plan gingen maken en aanverwante zaken. Na het bevestigen van de groepjes was het tijd om uit te zoeken waar we onderzoek wilden doen en een site was snel gevonden, een stuk op de zijkant van de heuvel.

Voor ons geophysici was er eerst maar eens het uitzetten van een grid, vier vakken van 20×20. Een goed passend grid uitleggen op vlakke grond is niet altijd even simpel, maar een passend grid uitleggen op een heuvelkant is helemaal een uitdaging. Uiteindelijk een baseline uitgelegd waarna we de eerste twee gridvakken aan de onderkant konden doen. Ik denk dat we hier uiteindelijk wel een half uur mee bezig zijn geweest.
Hierna was het tijd voor het eerste echte geophysics werk. John & ik begonnen met resistivity meten in het eerste grid (ik meten en John de kabel vasthouden) en aan het einde van het eerste grid ongeveer draaiden we dit om. In de tussentijd deed Jeremy de magnetometry omdat John & Mark niet gedemagnetiseerd konden worden en ik bezig was. Mark assisteerde hem daarbij met het verleggen van de lijn elke twee banen.

Na de eerste twee grids was het tijd voor lunchpauze en daarna verder met het uitzetten van de laatste twee gridvakken aan de bovenkant van de baseline. Hier begonnen we met resisitivity in Grid 3 terwijl Jeremy weer de magenotmetry deed. Hierna was het eindelijk mijn beurt en nadat ik mijn spijkerbroek uit had en alleen mijn sportbroek aan had, mijn schoenen had verwisseld voor Jeremy’s wellies (aka rubber laarzen; het meegebrachte extra paar was maat 39 dus te klein) en mijn jas voor zijn jumper was ik er klaar voor. Na een korte uitleg een een testbaan was het tijd voor het echte werk. Grid 4 was, van alle grids, degene die het moeilijkst begaanbaar was met veel prikkende struikerij erop… Dit resulteerde er dan ook in dat ik halverwege een keer viel. Gelukkig mankeerde zowel ik als de machine niks (ik alleen een splinter in m’n duim die er zo weer uit wou en wat schrammen op mijn been zoals ik later zag). Hierna wel even de machine testen om te zien of hij inderdaad niks markeerde wat gelukkig zo was (magnetometers zijn erg duur). Na alle twintig banen van het grid te hebben gelopen; banen van 20 meter lang en 1 meter breed die ik elk twee keer heb moeten lopen omdat de magnetometer in dezelfde relatieve richting moet meten (dus meten als je naar beneden loopt en dan weer terug naar boven om de volgende baan weer vanboven naar beneden te meten; dit hoeft voor resistivity dus niet…), eindelijk klaar met het grid. Al met al een ongeveer een kilometer gelopen met de magnetometer. Hierna John en Mark geassisteerd met de laatste loodjes (2/3 ongeveer) van Grid 4 waarbij Mark het apparaat vasthad en John de kabel en ik, samen met John, elke twee banen de lijn verplaatste.

Nadat we klaar waren met Grid 4 was het ook zo’n beetje vier uur en tijd om te stoppen. Dus alle appratuur weer naar beneden sjouwen en hup in het busje en terug naar Leicester. Omdat we langs Welford Road weer terug gingen maar aan Mark gevraag om me er bij Freemen’s Common uit te zetten dus ik hoefde niet ver te lopen om weer in m’n kamer te komen, gelukkig.
Eenmaal binnen me omgekleed en mijn schrammen verzorgd die erger waren dan ik dacht, niet zozeer in ernstigheid maar in hoeveelheid, mijn benen zitten er helemaal onder. Hierna eten opgewarmd en gegeten waarna ik mijn camera heb leeggehaald.

‘s ik!
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Het uitzicht.
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Resistivity, uitgevoerd door Mar en geassisteerd door (en halve) John.
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