Fun Dutch Facts

I have a bunch of things I want to post about, but I'm about to head to London for Easter to visit my family. SO for today, I will leave you with a handful of fun Dutch facts my Dutch teacher shared with us in class the other day. Some I knew, some I didn't...and here are my favorites!

1) The Rijksmuseum was designed to represent a church and "The Night Watch" by Rembrandt formed the 'altar piece.'

2) Manhattan, among others governed by Peter Stuyvesant around 1650, was purchased by the Dutch West Indita Company for the equivalent of 25 euros.

3) When you arrive at Schiphol Airport, you are four and a half meters below sea level.

4) The Dutch swapped New York, formerly called New Amsterdam, for Suriname in 1667 in a trade with the Brittish.

5) For more than 200 years, from 1639 to 1868, the Dutch were the only westerners in the world allowed to trade with the Japanese.

6) Sri Lanka was a Dutch colony from 1656 until 1802. Therefore, Dutch has contributed substantially to its official language Singhalese.

7) The last German emperor Wilhelm II found asylum in a castle near Utrecht in 1920. The castle used to be the home of the grandmother of Audrey Hepburn.

8) When queen Beatrix turned 65 she received a state pension just like everyone else, despite the fact that she is worth $300 million.

9)If requested, a sex worker will be provided for a physically and mentally disabled person, paid by the state.

10) The Dutch company Philips invented the CD player in 1979.

11) Out of the 16 Dutch Nobel Prize Winners, 10 received the prize for their research in physics and chemistry.

12) The first dikes were built around the year 1100 by monks.

13) The original color of a carrot is not orange. The Dutch artificially manipulated the carrot around 1600 into orange to match it to the national color.

14) In 1679, the Dutch scientist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek found for the first time bacteria and spermatozoa with his own made microscope.

15) According to Dutch scientist Simon Stevin, Adam and Eve spoke Dutch in Paradise, and Dutch would be the most logical language in the world. Therefore he wrote most of his work - late 1500s- in Dutch. This is the main reason why in Dutch most scientific words are Dutch not Latin.

16) In the beginning of the 1630s, tulips were more expensive than gold and cause a tulip mania. It collapsed as they didn't know yet the different colors and stripes were caused by a viral disease.

Is This Grade Ok With You?

In the last two weeks I have had to do my two big presentations for my UvA classes. For both of them, I had to present some of the weeks readings, provide connections to current events, and lead discussion and/or class activities.

For my sexuality class I got to work with a partner, which was actually really fun for a change - usually I'm not thrilled about group presentations because I want to control everything, but my partner was this awesome grad student from Spain who was super smart, so it was really. Though, he and I both talk too much.

My presentation for Religious and Cultural Diversity I was on my own though, and I have to say, that presentation was one of the most stressful presentations I have ever given, since I had to talk about somewhat dense political theory, and be sure it made sense to the rest of my class that thinks linearly, not in my weird looping logic.

(For those of you who were in the American Presidency seminar, I now sort of get what Heldman was trying to accomplish with our presentations. We were just so far from that its funny, but then again, we also only had 10min).

I got the grades for both of my presentations this week, and it was very odd. After Sexuality on Tuesday, Silke (my prof) walked up to me and said that she had been thinking about my grade for the presentation, and was wondering if I thought an 8.5 was ok? (it translates to an A/A-). She was basically asking what I thought my grade should be. I was a bit confused by this, and just said yes of course. A similar conversation took place for my other presentation, with the prof asking me if I thought my grade was about right for the class standard (he was subbing, my normal professor had a stroke and is out for a month).

When I texted my dutch orientation leader later I found out that this a pretty standard Dutch practice. Apparently, here professors are less interested in a hierarchical interaction with their students, and treat them more as equals. They also sincerely want your feedback on the class, and your feedback on how well you think you are doing. This is pretty strange to me, since I feel like talking about what grade you deserve feels a bit like grade grubbing, but apparently that is not the case here. It's somewhat refreshing in a way, but at the same time quite unnerving, as it is definitely not what I am used to.

My Return...and a Few Words on Academics

Hello blog readers! If you haven't stopped checking this out of despair that I would update, never fear, I am back! I took a short hiatus due to being busy with getting settled, and then promptly dropped out of the world for about a week as my dog got very ill and had to put down (while I was in class no less). But, I've taken some time to myself to process, and I return to you, if not as good as new, at least as spastic as usual.

I'm abandoning my attempts to chronicle in logical fashion my time here. Beyond the fact that I have just too much to catch you all up on, my brain just doesn't work in that logical, linear fashion. So, you'll be getting random cultural tidbits as they interest me. I have settled into my container, am going to classes, and have not yet frozen to death (though, maybe thats just because I'm being a wimp and taking public transportation everywhere and NOT biking).

Classes so far are going pretty well, though I have a TON of reading. Never thought I'd say that after taking a Boesche class, but jeez. Also, my classes through CIEE are MUCH easier that my University of Amsterdam classes (here on out referred to as UvA).

Beginning Dutch (CIEE): Just like any other basic level language class, where the professor has a sadistic love of randomly calling on you to read even if you don't have any clue how to say the word in front of you. I mean, come on...I'm still learning how to pronounce Stavangerweg (my dorm). Don't even ask me to pronounce my bus stop, Spaarndamanstraat.

Dutch Social Policy (CIEE): Basically what it sounds like, a class on all of the liberal social policies typically associated with the Netherlands. Probably my most laid back class, but still a significant amount of reading/writing. Pretty interesting overall, though I think I need to respect speaking space and talk less.

Sexuality from a Cross-Cultural Perspective (UvA): This looks like it will have significant overlap with my Queer of Color Critique class from this past semester. I'm a bit disappointed that the vast majority of the students are American, but I guess that can't be helped. Still, the discussion is good, but I feel like I am on a different level with the theoretical knowledge. That's not to say that the class is going to be easy mind you, its just odd feeling comfortable after jumping off the deep end last semester.

Regulation Religious and Cultural Diversity in the Netherlands (UvA): So far my favorite class...but also going to be my hardest class for sure. It is a political science class, which maybe means I can count it towards my major, but I have no idea if i'll be able to pull an A. (The conversion of grades may be not super beneficial). The way this professor leads discussion is..different, though I'm not sure how to explain that. I am looking at things from a different angle which is fun. I'm not sure I appreciate him saying "this week's presentation will be hard, you should do that one!" but we will see what happens.

Well, that's all for now. Good night folks!