I have an exam tomorrow. I have written the re-take date into my calendar. It's not that I think I will fail. I just dont want any stress. Between aiming for the middle and planning for a retake my stress is remaining low. After the exam I have plans to walk around town with a fine lady who will show me some of the buildings of the Amsterdamse School of architecture. The brickwork here floors me. No, serious. Sounds boring but get this - where I live is SE of the city center. There is construction going on everywhere. You know what I see when I walk past a building site? Bricks being laid, one by fucking one. Yup. My source tells me that the brickwork covers the cement or standard cheap ugly building material found in mass housing construction, but I have yet to see it. Even so, why bother with the bricks then? And not just red bricks - terra cotta, amber, sandstone, dark gray, nearly white, earth tones. Building A is gold, building C is nearly blue and the elevator portal that divides them is olive green. All brick.
Two things stand out here. First, if you are a bricklayer and want social protection -- thats what we in COLS call a welfare state (employement protection, unions to a degree, hardship benefits) -- then learn some basic Dutch and maybe come on over. Second, look at how many industries stay vital due to this commitment to brickery - ya gotta get the sand for the bricks, pound it, churn it, dry it, mix it, transport it. Someone has to make it available, promote it. Someones gotta sell it. And then...all those hands gotta turn it into a building.
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I leave for Dusseldorf tommorow morning, swayed by this article that promises a christmas hard-on. The top two are beyond my r€ach at the moment, but D'dorf is fifty euros for a train and fifteen for a hostel bed. I'll take the train to Koln on Thursday to check out their Christmas magic. Just gotta get away for a spell.
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My term paper is due on the 5th. Have hardly touched it since the peer review on the 12th. The review made it easier rather than harder, as all the advice was: omit. Omit, omit, omit. "Very ambitious" is how they say it when they think you are out of your mind. Thanks for making my job easier, guys. Funny how people inclusing my professor seem to think that 6000 words cannot fit into three weeks. Christ I've done it in days. Was it any good? I dunno. I got straight 4.0's. I wont get that here. I am not aiming for it. I want to learn something more than achieve something. There is a difference. Ere, I read to test. I studied to test. I bypassed reading beyond the required no matter how much I wanted to read more of the story. Now, read all I like, and barely give time to what is required. But I am learning. I am just learning my way.
Somehow I have decent grades.
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I must go do a last minute study for my exam tomorrow. I completed my spring cleaning, after the gym and laundry. I turned on the machine to do exam prep. So far I have left a review for a business, checked out the remaining time on my AV license and reformatted my passwords sheet.
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