Wednesday, December 1, 2010

heeey!! Ik moet eerlijk zeggen dat ik de afgelopen twee weken helemaal niet zoveel gedaan heb! Ik realiseerde me 2 weken geleden, dat de deadlines veel eerder waren dan dat ik dacht, en aangezien ik nog helemaal niks gedaan heb, raakte ik helemaal in de stress! Ik heb dus de afgelopen twee weken studerend doorgebracht. Vorig week kwam ik erachter hoe fijn het is dat de bieb hier 24/7 open, zat op een gegeven moment gewoon tot half drie te studeren en daarna nog weggegaan, en dat bijna elke dag nu, waardoor me hele ritme nu verstoord is! Ik leef (lees studeer) in de nacht en slaap (eigenlijk helemaal niet) tot ongeveer 10/11 uur. Result is dat ik nu bijna 2 van me essays af heb, waarna er eentje na feedback van de leraar grotendeels verbeterd moet worden. Nog 2 te gaan! Van 2000-3000 woorden elk! Heb me eigenlijk wel gerealiseerd dat essays schrijven heel goed is, omdat je tussen het semester door meer doet, en meer leest enzo. Ik heb drie boeken in de bieb geleend over het werk van Immanuel Kant, een filosoof. Ik heb in me drie jaar op de uvt zelfs nog nooit een boek geleend! Verder wat ik heb gedaan is.........

Ik had bezoek uit Nederland::D . Een goede vriend van me van de middelbare school was langsgekomen, we hadden een bijna een wedstrijd van manchester united gezien. the ticket office had nog maar een kaartje over.. net een minuut te laat.
Het weekendje daarvoor zijn we lekker naar Dublin geweest, een hele mooie historische stad.. wel echt heel duur. Maar zeker een geslaagd weekendje met de meiden hier.
Ik had een etentje bij een Duitse jongen thuis, met wat andere meiden. Hij heeft echt heerlijk gekookt! Ik ben om de dag/elke dag weg met een vriend van me hier. Vandaag is het offerfeest, de hele school is echt leeg! Heb daardoor nu wel lekker een pc op een van de fijnere plekjes op school :d En dat was het eigenlijk wel zoon beetje... beetje tijd te kort ook.. ik moet zo weer weg! Tot snel!

Monday, November 1, 2010

The day-to-day life

I really feel like I'm settled in here in Bradford and starting to get more and more routine in my days. I haven't posted for 3 weeks almost now, but I'll give you just a small update of what I have been doing here.
I have seen a lot of movies! 3 in 2 weeks time! Went to see crash at the university cinema. Which is really cool.. If you dont have anything to do just go to the campus and watch a movie.. and I have seen wall street and the social network. The latter one was really really good! If you haven't seen it, it is definitely worth it! I have also been partying a lot since it is part of student life :p.

Next to that I also had a visitor from Holland!! My best friend was here to keep me company for 5 days! We had an amazing time and I really missed her! Had a lot of dinners everywhere... The food here is just sooo delicious and going for dinner in a restaurant is really not expensive at all! We also went to Manchester and spend the entire day at Arndale shopping mall, resulting in a true shop till you drop feeling at the end of the day. We were truly exhausted from shopping! Who said shopping could not count as a sport! We had soo much fun, staying up all night and talking, going to the cinema (again). Unfortunately on monday the fun was over and I had to take here back to the airport meaning that it was time for me to do some serious schoolwork!

The last weekend was also fabulous! I have celebrated Halloween for the first time in my life and I loved it! The costumes of some people were just amazing! Nice to see how people really put effort into making themselves as scary as possible. On friday night there was a special halloween edition of FND (Friday Night Disco, the parties that are organized every friday at Student Central). It was the best FND ever! And I have been to all of them since I am here.
The rest of the weekend I didn't really do much... clubbing two nights in a row on high heels can do serious damage to your feet...
Last night I still went out though... Played pool at Student Central.. After 6 games I realized that I am not getting any better and that I need a lot more practice, so I will be working on that a bit more while I am here!

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Too much fun!

Today is exactly three weeks that I am here, and it only keeps getting better.
Two weeks ago my first classes started, I got my schedule and was very happy when I saw that I only had to go to school on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. So I get to have a very long weekend. Classes here only take on hour. It goes by so quickly! I am used to the three hours lectures at Tilburg University. That is something that I really like, because I am someday that gets bored quite quickly, its good for me now that I can keep my attention at the lecture, the entire lecture. I have 6 courses to take, every course has one lecture of an hour and one tutorial. There are two courses of which the lecture takes two hours, but in these cases there is no tutorial. The lectures are very interessting, lecturers now how to make it sound interesting and also it seems that they are more practical here, with a lot of case studys.

So I already got some home work to prepare but I keep on postponing it. It is soo much fun here! The people are very friendly and open. ALways asking you where you're from, if you like it in Bradford, if I have any friends. And its very easy to get to know people, last night we had an exchange party for all the Erasmus Students. So you can meet all the other exchange students, we did some ice-breaker 'get to know each other' games. In such a small period of time I've met so many people from all over the world.
However, I also met a lot of local people. Here in Bradford there are a lot of people from Pakistan. They took me out, for some food (which was very good) and some Asian tea. The tea had a very different flavour but it was nice.

I still love Student Central here, on the campus. In the evenings we go out to play some pool ( I still haven't got any better) and last night we had another FND (Friday Night Disco).
I did some sightseeing to, the last two weeks, we went to Leeds and to Manchester. Leeds is very good for shopping, but Manchester is even better. We had so much fun in Manchester, we went to a museum and got dressed up like women from the 19th century, taking crazy pictures, making the other guest of the museum looking and laughing at us.

Last wednesday evening, we did drinking games here. They are better here then in the Netherlands, they have the most funny games and in the end everyone just got crazy. But it was hilarious.
And last thursday I went clubbing in the city centre for the first time. I had a great evening, but what I didn't now at the beginning was that the british version of Jackass would come to the club to do some stunts. I have seen very, very, very, crazy things that evening. At some point I couldn't even watch it, but luckily afterwards they played very good music and I again had a great time.
you'll here more from me soon!

Sunday, September 26, 2010

the first week

Hehe, after one week I found the time to tell you all what I have been up to here. The first week was very hectic, but a lot of fun! Saturday September 18th my journey began. First from home to Schiphol airport, there I met with Milou. Who is also an exchange student from Tilburg University going to Bradford. Eventhough it was hard to say goodbye, it didn't feel like I was saying goodbye for 5 months. I felt like I was going on vacation.

After a short flight, Milou and I arrived in Bradford. There we were picked up by some students from the University and brought to our new homes. They were very helpfull, they wouldn't even allow me to carry my own suitcase. Wich was very nice haha. Arrived at my room, I immediately texted Milou to go to the city to do our first groceries for getting settled. We forgot to buy a lot of things. Luckily the stores were open on sunday to! In the evening we went to Student Central. It is a really cool place for student, at the campus just next to the library, accros my flat. Students can come here to play some pool, table football, hang out, have a drink at one of the 4 different bars in 4 the different rooms and ofcourse party! It is a new place, and on sunday evening we had the official opening party of Student Central. Very nice with a mini casino and chocolate fundue. After a few hourse of sleep, on moday we had the induction at Bradford University. It was a day full of getting new information, standing in cues (lots and lots of cues) to arrange everything, take a picture for the student card and stuff like that.

Then the bad news comes, I got really sick on Tuesday (I will never eat free pizza in my life again) and stayed in bed for 2 days.
Thursday was the inducation at the School of Management, which is were my lectures will be taught. It's a beautifull school, looks like a sort of a castle. There again we had more information and we had to choose the courses we want to take, received our schedule etc. etc.

In the free time that we have I went with my new friends and Milou ofcourse to to the university cinema, a small lecture/cinema room, where you can watch free movies! I Finally saw Avatar. And ofcourse we did some more partying at Student Central.
We also did some sight seeing in York, the capital city of Yorkshire. It's a very Beautiful and old city with many castles, a huge church, and the old city wall.

On monday lectures will start, so the more serious life will begin again!