Classes Begin!
- tossought
- Sep 10
- 4 min read
Evidently, the way to get things done is to complain about them to the Internet At Large, because quite literally the day after my last post, my SIM card, missing for six days past the two-day estimate somewhere in the ether, arrived, my BSN was activated, and I was able to open a bank account. My loan money took several more days to find its way into that bank account, but it's there now, safe and accessible - this is good, because I am quite behind on ordering textbooks for my courses, and now I can speed-run the first week or readings once I have access to them.
Anyway, my first week of courses is almost at an end! The university schedule for bachelors students is quite different than it was in the US: the year is divided into two semesters, each a total of 20 weeks, and then there is a summer break for the remainder before the next school year begins. Each of those semesters is further divided into three blocks - two of 8 weeks, and one of 4. For each 8-week block, I will be taking two courses total, and for the 4-week block, I will have one. This means I am only required to focus on learning on 1-2 subjects at a time, which is a vastly more doable task, I feel, than the 4-5 I was accustomed to for my first BA.
However, this also means my midterms are already approaching in a few weeks, so being behind on the first week's pre-reading does put me at a it of a disadvantage. But thanks to a few, ahem, cleverly sourced pdfs, and the ability to actually buy things like books and subscriptions means I can catch up during the latter half of this week and over the weekend, and feel comfortable moving forward from there on out.
My courses this block are a generalized Intro to linguistics, and the introductory language course into NGT - Nederlandse Gebarentaal, or Sign Language of the Netherlands. That course has immediately become my favorite, not only because I always love language classes, but also because it is entirely taught by immersion. There is no speaking allowed in class, and though we can certainly write out words or questions we simply aren't grasping, we are highly encouraged to just Pay Attention and learn through context. I love that. In addition, we have access to an extensive online dictionary of signs, and online modules we can take on our own time to further deepen our understanding. I never did take any formal courses in ASL - American Sign Language, and my exposure to 日本手話 - nihon shuwa, or JSL, Japanese Sign Language - was too brief to learn much beyond my name and how to say hello. And so, having formal teaching for NGT and a comprehensive dictionary to explore is super exciting. I am looking forward to when the degree narrows scope, and I can study more about the sign language linguistics as a whole.
Aside from that, I have been sorted into a seminar group to design and run our own "wug test," based on the famous one run in the 50s which studied how English-speaking children absorbed linguistic information like plurals, suffixes, compounds, and the like - and was incredibly important in determining human language is not a rote memorization of words and meanings. My group's focus language is Dutch. We will need to create our own experiment, find participants, and then conduct our studies over the next few seven weeks.
Also, the University Library downtown is phenomenal. It opened only a week or two ago, and I made the trip to take some photos. One such photo is the cover for this post - the rest I will add to a gallery at the end. If you have time and reason to visit, please check it out!
I don't want to take up all of your time reading about the details of my student life, so suffice to say I feel like I've gone back in time 13 years and am once again diving into the word of freshmen...but also while being an adult-ass human. That part is very odd, and I'm sure will make my studies quite different than they were the first time around. Hopefully it also means I'll be able to balance schoolwork with trying to wrangle a job for myself and help my husband find his own way here. I think the most likely route will be the DAFT visa, while the Dutch government is still on friendly-ish terms with the US. My greatest fear is that situation changing suddenly, and thrusting not only my own and my family's ability to emigrate here into uncertainty, but affecting those who I've already met here on the DAFT long-term. Tensions between communities can rise rapidly, I know from growing up in the US. Hopefully my concerns will prove unfounded, and our emigration here will be safe and easy.
Thank you again for reading, and especially for sticking with me through this great life change. I miss my friends and family terribly, but this was and is the right decision to be made. My long-term health, and I believe the long-term happiness of both myself and my partner requires it! I am always a message away for anyone who would like details on the DAFT - I'm sure I'll be writing more on it as time goes by - or about emigrating as a student.
Be well, all of you, and I will see you next Wednesday! Kiss your kitties and partners a little extra on my behalf this week.
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