And we're back in the house I grew up in. The travels on Tuesday were fairly painless. It did involve getting up at 5.30 am, getting out of the house at 6.30, taking an airport bus at 7, arriving at the airport at 7.30, then waiting for my flight at 9.30. The flight seemed to be slightly late, but we arrived in Amsterdam on time so I guess there must have been favourable winds. There were no queues to speak of at passport control, and the luggage arrived with whizzing speeds. I hardly had time to get a train ticket from the machine before I could pick up my suitcase and leave. Of course, even with the trip going so smoothly, you arrive in the terminal about 3 minutes after the train has left, so that means another 57 minutes to kill at the airport.
Reading materials for the trip were the latest issue of Time (the English edition, the one with the best news pictures of 2005), the latest BBC History magazine, and the Christmas issue of HP De Tijd.
So far it's a weird mix of work and holiday. I do have a big load of EL1 tests to mark (13 down, 17 to go - and then to compare marks for consistency and give final marks), and AMcM seems to expect a first chapter of some sort somewhere in the first weeks of term. But other than that, I also have enough time to watch television. I have a television, and 31 channels!
Next term I am planning to take two Honours courses just because they are interesting. One is Historical Linguistics, the other one is Language Classification (or something along those lines). I found out one of my class mates for the Historical Linguistics one is going to be SN. That could be interesting...
Today we're going to the Museum of Falsified Arts. It'll be me, my parents and my mom's best friend (partly as a translator, cause the guides there seem only to be able to speak dialect, which is totally unintelligible to those from outside the area). And there we will meet my aunt, my cousin and his wife. They (HB and WW) live in Los Angeles and are over for Christmas and New Year's. They'll be staying with us for the next couple of days, so that should be good.
Thought of the day: It's okay that there should be a prize for the best television commercial, but I don't exactly see the need for a two-hour live televized gala. Also interesting that I knew exactly none of the nominated commercials. Living abroad without a telly may have something to do with that...
(My computer is still on British time though:)
Reading materials for the trip were the latest issue of Time (the English edition, the one with the best news pictures of 2005), the latest BBC History magazine, and the Christmas issue of HP De Tijd.
So far it's a weird mix of work and holiday. I do have a big load of EL1 tests to mark (13 down, 17 to go - and then to compare marks for consistency and give final marks), and AMcM seems to expect a first chapter of some sort somewhere in the first weeks of term. But other than that, I also have enough time to watch television. I have a television, and 31 channels!
Next term I am planning to take two Honours courses just because they are interesting. One is Historical Linguistics, the other one is Language Classification (or something along those lines). I found out one of my class mates for the Historical Linguistics one is going to be SN. That could be interesting...
Today we're going to the Museum of Falsified Arts. It'll be me, my parents and my mom's best friend (partly as a translator, cause the guides there seem only to be able to speak dialect, which is totally unintelligible to those from outside the area). And there we will meet my aunt, my cousin and his wife. They (HB and WW) live in Los Angeles and are over for Christmas and New Year's. They'll be staying with us for the next couple of days, so that should be good.
Thought of the day: It's okay that there should be a prize for the best television commercial, but I don't exactly see the need for a two-hour live televized gala. Also interesting that I knew exactly none of the nominated commercials. Living abroad without a telly may have something to do with that...
(My computer is still on British time though:)
