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So I was done for the day, the lecturer was kind enough to release us 10 minutes or so earlier than planned, so I rushed to my bike, rushed to the station, nearly ran someone over, rushed to lock my bike, rushed to padlock my bike rushed back to the platform because I saw the train standing there.
*smelt a very familiar smell*
Turned out a train was standing still in the station because its breaks had caught fire *that smell* so now no trains were allowed to ride between Den Haag and Rotterdam because the Fire Department had said so. There was not actually a fire to be detected, as the train operator had extinguished the fire himself using his emergency fire extinguisher, but now, with all the fire fighters crawling over the train tracks, train traffic had been halted.
Anyway, after a few minutes I decided to go to the tram and just take the tram to Den Haag and continue my journey to my Japanese class from there.
So I got to the tram, and it was -really- packed. Next to me was this not so tall woman reading 2 mangas, or Japanese style comics, at the same time. So I looked a bit closer and I noticed these peculiarities:- Caucasian female reading manga (maybe not so strange but I swear I have never seen this before)
- Adult reading manga in packed tram in the Netherlands (the tram was -packed- i tell ya)
- Person reading 2 mangas at the same time (who the hell does that?)
- Person reading 1 manga in Japanese (who the hell knows Japanese in this country xD )
- Adult readong shoujo (= name of genre translating to basically mean "little girl") (that genre is for -little- girls!)
Turns out she had 2 of the same mangas (Cardcaptor Sakura) but one in Japanese and one in English "for comparison" as she had put it. Anyway, as you may have guessed, I began asking her about those mangas and she said she was heading to Japanese her lesson so I promptly replied "me too". So that was a very funny coincidence. So we talked all the way untill we got to the train station in Den Haag and we parted after exchanging e-mail addresses. That was quite a funny encounter.
Mirk:  chipper |
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boom!
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Feb. 26th, 2009 @ 09:20 pm
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So most of you probably know about that airplane crash right? Hard to avoid any news about it especially here in the netherlands as all the papers' headlines are concerning that crash. CNN has been showing news items about it and well.. it's pretty huge apparently.
What's also interesting to know is that that crash happened right up my street! It's a long street so it's still 2 miles away but still! It is my street that plane's crashlanded next to. I didn't notice anything about it btw. I was at home at the time. But i only found out about it when i got to delft. And after a day i actually figured out it happened so very near me.
As for my comment on the crash itself. I was watching the news about it and the commentators and some of the "experts" were all shocked that the plane was devastated and whatnot. But when I saw actual footage of the plane I couldn't help but be amazed at how -not- devastated that plane was! And the number of dead people (9 at the moment out of 135 people on board) is so incredibly low that I am really interested in what had actually happened up there. It's kind of funny, because I'm used to learn about crashes and the death toll is mostly around 80%, also, the wreck of the plane is usually not exactly a wreck but a large collection of tiny bits in most cases. Especially when they land in the water.
Which takes me to that other recent crash in the Hudson in New York. The pilot of that plane apparently was a very experienced sailplane pilot so he managed to set down the plane in the water without any fatal damage! Now that's so unique it'll probably not happen again for many years.
I was also sort of amused at those people who were saying that they didn't want to fly anymore because of that crash, but yet they do drive their cars and stuff in which the chance of death is probably more than 6 orders of magnitude higher than the chance of death in an airplane.
I was also wondering what I would have done were i sitting in that plane while it crashed. I'd probably still be alive because I always get the crappy seats in the middle which are incidentally the safest, and i'd probably get all excited and would've taken out my camera to take snapshots of all the broken bits after i'd have tried to help some people to get out.
Anyway.. maybe i'm gonna take a look tomorrow or something, and take a few pictures.Mirk:  bouncy |
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So it's been quite al ong time since my last entry but here are some funny/interesting pics.
( Cut for convenience )
Hope you enjoyed this entry!Mirk: bouncy |
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As for the exam: I had my last one on friday, and I overheard the following -whispered- conversation during the exam.
Examiner/Lecturer who I believe is from Canada = L
Examinee who's native tongue is -not- English = E
E: *walks up to L looking like he has a serious issue with one of the question and whispers* *murmur murmur*
L: You are going to do WHAT?! *not whispered*
E: *murmurs some more*
L: You want to buy a chocolate?? *not whispered*
E: Uh, yes.. do you know.. where is the machine?
L: *looking a bit flabbergasted, points* It's out there in the hall I think.
E: thank you.
As you might imagine.. it was rather difficult for me to contain my amusement. But luckily I managed. It also did not help me very much that there was this person in the courtyard whistling some out of tune folk-song that echoed around like crazy.
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woo!
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Apr. 23rd, 2008 @ 09:14 pm
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Some random sights.
( pixies! )
that's it for now! *forgets about those holiday pics all the time :S *Mirk: amused |
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One of the questions:
What is the lamest part about this course?
my answer (i had to choose from lecture notes and some other things and explain why i picked that option):
lecture notes:
it would have been nicer if there were better lecture notes, because now all the formulae are randomly scattered throughout the books and the table of contents are also somewhat unclear. It's a bit hard to explain but the feeling i got from the lecture notes was that they were just a big heap of information thrown onto a pile and cut into three pieces with a large battle-axe.
I would also suggest a sort of reader that contains the information given in the lectures in the form of a reader rather than the slides used, that probably was the reason why all the information looks so jumbled. Such a reader would also be more convenient during the exam.
Apologies if this comment is somewhat, vague.
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I was sitting in the lecture hall waiting for the teacher of Aerodynamics C / Thermodynamics who was really late (it was announced that he forgot he had a lecture, but when he came he said his schedule was screwed up [yeah righ]), anyway, I was sitting there and i heard someone behind me say "Ni - Hon - Go" it came from this guy who saw the chinese / japanese characters i had written on my notes thing, turns out he's from singapore and he's an exchange student for half a year. Next to him was this girl who looked rather chinese too and i guess she's from singapore too. It was quite funny, they said they could read my chinese characters but couldn't read any of the japanese characters i had written and asked me what it said.
Eventually we began talking about languages and i told them i thought i found german and french harder than japanese and it turned out that guy had taken 2 years of german classes and began talking in german to me! I was like "wtf!" so i said some things back in german, but his 2 years of german was way better than my 6 :S lol.. i sort of felt a bit ashamed for that lol.. (one of the reasons i took japanese on was because i felt so embarased that i couldn't speak any decent german or french after 6 and 7 years respectively of education in it lol). But i could answer him properly though. But i was sitting next to this guy who's parents are german (but he was actually born and raised here in holland) and speaks german at home all the time lol.. so yeah.. awkward.
I was also sort of intimidated by the way those singaporean people speak english, it's different from normalenglish but it sounds like they speak it all the time.. :S :P (which they do obviously, at least half of the time, here, and over there in singapore). Very interesting. I hope i can speak to them some other time.
During the lunch break i noticed a couple of people on the spot i usually sit, and i just knew they were japanese. So i sat next to them (with that german friend of mine) and sure enough, they were Japanese. So when i told my dad about it when i drove us back home from xochipilli he asked me "so did you say anything to them?" and i was like.. "no.. too shy" and he was like "you moron!" lol.. i should really do something about my shyness when it comes to speaking languages i'm not comfortable with :S :P lol.. what i did do btw when i was sitting next to them was.. practicing my characters.. lol.. i think they noticed, but they didn't react on it. Too bad lol..
i wonder when i will post more pics from my holiday last winter.. :S new zealand is supposed to be the next 2 updates of that :SMirk: amused |
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Apr. 1st, 2008 @ 07:16 pm
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the sun shone when i walked away from the calculus examMirk:  calm |
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just now i walked into the building where i always have my 2nd year lectures and there i saw Boba Fett and a regular stormtrooper :S (the picture will be posted in the evening)
I also want to do an update about where i ate on monday. I went to Shiki (sorry they don't have their own site) conveniently located next to a coffeeshop in some backalley, which is a japanese restaurant (run by chinese). When we were about to enter i was saying to my friend " hmmm the food better not taste like the air here" as alleys in amsterdam usually smell like ganja, and this one was no exception at all. Anyway, I had chicken teriyaki, miso soup and green tea, and it was quite cheap, and quite nice. The person i was with (someone from my japanese class, had fried udon with chicken and he was enjoying it as well. At first we went to Kagetsu because our japanese teacher said it was a good place, but when we got there we found out it was closed on mondays. So we went to Shiki instead. It's quite sad Kagetsu was closed because when a japanese person (i.e. our teacher) says a certain japanese restaurant is good then you can bet your house on it it's good japanese food :P
I should go to our local japanese restaurant again some day, the last time i was there i wasn't into Japan yet, and now when i pass it every week on my way to guitar class the only people i see sitting in there are japanese people. So yeah..
I also found out i have finally passed Aerodynamics-A, i had 6.9 out of 10.. and during the exam i actually did not do 1 out of 4 assignments, and it was the biggest one of them, which means everything i did have was correct 0_o;; now for that damned calculus :S if i pass that i'll be allowed to partake in the first part of next year's second year project.Mirk: shocked |
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