Busy, busy, busy.

Life's been busy recently.

I had a couple of interviews for vac schemes, but didn't get any further than that, so I'm still hoping that the remaining handful of law firm will see some potential in me. I want to get some legal experience, if only to see whether I would enjoy this sort of work. After last summer I know that sitting at a desk all day, with little human contact is not ideal for me, so I would like to see whether working as a solicitor is more fun. 

I had a trip to London for Teach First Insight Programme (my post on Teach First can be found here) which was a tiring experience (staying at a hostel in Camden coupled with an over 8 hour long bus journey back has resulted in a terrible headache the next day). The AC itself was, however, highly enjoyable and I loved the people I met there. I didn't hear back about my place yet, so keep fingers crossed for me!

Also, I have a new haircut! I haven't had such short hair since I was about five or six, so I wasn't sure what it'll be like, but I'm quite happy with the result. I'm yet to discover the best way to fix them on my head, and I had to redefine my hair routine (a hairdryer is a necessity now: no more going to bed with wet hair unfortunately), but it was great to spend over an hour being treated with utmost care and it's good to change something.

A bit blurry, but you can see the hair!

No classes next week (!!!) for a reason that remains a mystery to me, so hopefully I can catch up on some little bits and bobs that have accumulated during February, such as internship applications, baking experiments, art activities and hopefully a theatre involvement (I auditioned for one role this afternoon and will audition for a couple more tomorrow).

Back to reading my lines then!

Post Modern Jukebox!

Inside Paradiso

So last night we went to Paradiso in Amsterdam to see Scott Bradley and Post Modern Jukebox. This was by far the best thing I've seen in my life, had so much fun. We danced, sung along, laughed a lot, because PMJ was just hilarious. I wished a had some proper pictures from yesterday, but it was far too enjoyable to spoil it by being busy with a camera. 

Also, it was the first time when we actually had TIME to wander around Amsterdam without rushing anywhere, so it was a treat for me do go on a little adventure and just explore.

Alto jazz bar with the kindest staff ever AND bonus live music.

Is studying abroad just a whim?

What a fantastic idea has the Polish Ministry of Education come up with! It will finance studies abroad of 100 most talented Polish students. What a grand idea! And it will cover the costs of fees, accommodation, maintenance, travel and insurance. Fantastic, isn't it?

Well, there are two major problems with this. First, a smaller one really, although based on a flawed logic,  is that to be released from an obligation to repay you need to either do your PhD in Poland or make social and health security payments here for 5 years during a 10 year period after finished the sponsored studies. I guess the idea behind it was that only by physically attaching somebody to Poland they can 'give back' hat they got, but this is surely not right, you can still work on things that will benefit Poland living elsewhere, paying your social security contributions elsewhere, doing your PhD elsewhere. Secondly, the grant will only be available to students who finished their undergraduate studies in Poland (or 3 years of a 'uniform Master's studies, which largely comes down to the same thing). However, there is much more funding available to Master's students anyway, it's really the undergrads that need financial help. I've had plenty of young people about to finish school asking me how to pay for undergraduate studies, because money is just unavailable. Before I started my course I also worried a lot, but fortunately was lucky enough to get a bursary directly from Oxford. But not everyone is so lucky.

Someone shared this news and one of  the comments said that studying abroad is just a whim and Polish government should not sponsor it. Again, two things here. To deal with the government sponsoring it, I think that the British system is superior here: you take a loan and repay it after your studies. Repayments are small . Of course EU students don't get maintenance grants, which makes it difficult to gather money for living, but the same loan system could be potentially established.

However, more importantly, how could you say that wanting to receive top quality education is just a whim? Let's be honest: Polish universities are not the top of the world. They lack funding and are overcrowded. Old-fashioned structures still prevail. So I don't blame people who want to study abroad, I did it myself. I had a choice: I could study everywhere I wanted and I've chosen the best university I could get into. I've never considered it as something fanciful: I invested in my future, so that I can do something good after my studies. I don't collect degrees: quite frankly I cannot wait to stop studying and start qualifying. Education is something natural though. And everyone should have an opportunity to get the best of it. Studies abroad broaden your horizons, and this is not just an empty phrase. From my own experience I can say that those, who spent some time abroad, either studying or working, are generally more open-minded, understanding and sensitive. Not to say that people who don't do it are doomed to be closed-minded, but why not seize an opportunity?

Funny that going on an Erasmus doesn't provoke such heated discussions. And yet we pay for this whim of hundreds of young people, because it is funded through EU contributions. And such exchange is rarely for grand study purposes: it's rather for making friends and seeing another country, which is not bad in itself, but I think if we question financing someone's studies abroad by the government, we should first look into programmes like Erasmus: doing a whole degree abroad is a completely different thing.

You can read about the programme on the government site here (all in Polish, but translation plugins are a blessing!).

Bagels, cheese and all that jazz.

I had such a great day yesterday. After a failure to make our way to Amsterdam, Captain America and I indulged in baking activities and made two batches of bagels. I love how everyone assumed we were expecting many guests that evening when in fact all of this was for us. Yes, we love food. And we love it to be plenty (and delicious: cinnamon bagels topped with sugar are divine).

Also, it seems that the Dutch are getting much nicer and open as they age. I'm not sure whether this is a matter of more life experience, but some of the loveliest people I've met here were those in the autumn of their lives. For instance the lovely cheese seller who I met at the market yesterday and we had a lovely chat about how beautiful Krakow was and about his Polish neighbours. The man was definitely not impressed by the fact that I was buying emmental rather than some Dutch variety of cheese, but he has given me a lovely bag as a present. Faith in humanity restored. This might confirm my theory that cheese makes people happy, so those who work with cheese are automatically nice and spread their happiness around them.

Next two weeks will be extremely busy for me with social events, work-related stuff and just life in general. Getting busy again! At last!

Struggle.

If anyone wonders what I've been up to recently, I've been trying to retrieve my academic transcript from PostNL for almost a week now and it feels like spitting into the wind. 

Have I told you that they don't care about their customers here at all? I honestly feel absolutely hopeless now, I need the transcripts for vac scheme interviews and can do nothing to get them. 'Wait a few more days' they said. But how long can you wait? The letter should have been delivered on Saturday, we have Thursday today and no visible prospects of a delivery. Order a new transcript, you could say, but I have no guarantee that the same thing won't happen again, causing me to spend more money and become even more frustrated.

So here I am, colouring my colouring book (yes) to destress a bit. This is all beyond me, what is left is to keep pestering the mail people and getting annoyed at their incompetence. Welcome to Holland.

Fish adventures.

Twice a week there is a market in Leiden and there are quite a few fish stands there, so I thought I would eat something different than pasta this time and purchased two mackerels. One ended up in the freezer, the other one was shuffled into the oven with some courgette, onion and potato wedges as a side. Since I had no lemon at home a tangerine had to do the job and I quite liked the subtle sweetness of it. I've never actually had mackerel other than a smoked one, so I was quite curious to taste it. 

And voila! My first fish adventure has resulted in a culinary success (and a full tummy). I would definitely try trout next time, add some carrots, and probably get a smaller fish or at least share with someone (;p), but it's such a good choice for dinner: it's cheap (I paid less than 3 euro for two fish), easy and quick to prepare and tastes really good. Now I'll probably reduce the amount of chicken eaten and switch to fish a couple of days a week, especially that it's so easy to get it fresh here.

Ready to go into the oven.

Tightly wrapped in alu foil, getting delicious at 190 degrees.

Delicate and moist, here comes my healthy dinner choice.

It's Friday! - Time for Good Polish Music.

This is a bit of a new series I had in mind: each Friday I'll post a video with some good Polish music. We have some true pearls there and I'll let them shine here.

Today: Niejasności by Gaba Kulka. Don't ask me what the song is about. It's rather abstract and, as it happens with languages sometimes, not that easy to translate. Just sit back and enjoy.

White fluff outside.

Josh has posted some pictures of snowy St Anne's on Facebook the other day, so I won;t want to be left behind at here are some pictures of Leiden in snow. (No need to say that it has all melted now, so the pretty view outside my window was rather short-lived)

I must say that I am rather unsatisfied with winter this year, there's been only a few days when there was white outside. My Dutch teacher kept saying that we'll get proper seasons in the Netherlands, but so far we have, indeed, had proper seasons, just all in one day, and it probably doesn't count. Let's hope that summer here is a bit more like summer.

Looking ahead.

Classes have finally started!

For those of you who don't understand how one can be happy about it, I've spent two months on the edge of being idle because all of my courses finished by the end on November and the new semester hasn't started until today. I did, however, have time to fill in quite a few vac scheme applications which I've mentioned in one of the previous posts, a luxury that most law students can't afford.

After those two months I actually can't wait to have classes, especially that I have signed up to only five courses, including a much awaited aerospace law and criminalistics (with a field trip!). Also having a more structured week and actual deadlines would be great: I'm a kind of a person who puts leisure activities into a diary to keep track of everything, so having blank pages is not a pleasant view for me.

My fitness schedule has also been sorted out more or less, although it will be a living thing anyway. On the novelty side, the sports centre introduces fingerprint-based entrance replacing old-fashioned cards (even though they are magnetic, which is in itself an advancement compared to what I've seen in some places).  So now I'll need to make my way to the desk there and get my finger scanned with an assurance that no one will be able to hack the information and use it for illegitimate purposes. Somehow this assurance makes me even more weary about the entire idea, but what can I do, the world goes forward.

Finally, weather-wise, it feels like March: it's not too cold, but it rains pretty much every day. I really don't know how people function in this country. It sometimes feels like my entire life is waiting for this very short moment when it stops raining so that I can't get out of the house and move from A to B. This website, however, is a great help showing me when it'll rain so that I can avid getting wet. And, surprisingly enough, it is actually quite accurate. This is why Dutch classmates come handy, they tell you about all these apps and website that make your life in the Netherlands easier.