It also turns out that it is apparently fine to assign three reports in one class due a week from being assigned. Seriously. And, because we are graduate students, the reports should be good quality. Again, seriously?
They try to mitigate the "WTF" factor by making every assignment a group assignment.
As students (and professionals) past and present are aware, group work can only go two ways: 1) everyone communicates and pulls their own weight, making for less work and faster output, and thus more free time, or 2) people slack off because there are other people to pick up the work and one or two people end up doing everything. And the lazy bums get the same grade.
In short, group assignments are a terrifying crapshoot when you don't know your group mates.
By what can only be described as sheer luck, my lab group has a pretty high output quality and the unusual tendency to do work before the deadline we set ourselves to for review. As a result, after a few long days and annoyingly late nights, the massive amount of stuff due Monday is done and the weekend is mine. Although I really should do some reading for my tunneling class...
Amy Approved Way #1 to Procrastinate Schoolwork:
Baking delicious foodstuffs. So far I've made two batches of cookies (I don't have measuring cups so I've been doing things based on proportions. The second round of cookies was significantly better.) and a peach cobbler. Peach cobbler is delicious. And really easy to make. I'm not sure if Ev had more than one helping, since I ate it for breakfast twice and lunch once. I may have a problem.
While we're on the topic of food, during one of our leisurely strolls around Rotterdam we found a little coffee and bagel shop. Wistfully thinking of our long-running Sunday Morning Lulu's (local bagel shop of the tasty variety) tradition from home, we stopped for a bagel. And chocolate truffle tart. Which may have warranted a return trip to the bagel shop.
Amy Approved Way #2 to Procrastinate Schoolwork:
Phone contracts. Having finally gotten a bank account and the University finally transferring my money into it, we decided that we really needed to get off the pre-paid phone card and on to something that is a) cheaper, and b) gets us new phones. So Saturday, although I intended to settle down and catch up on the copious amount of reading for my classes, we went into town and got phone contracts.
I kind of assumed that phone contracts worked the same everywhere, so I was planning to open an account and then add Ev to the plan. Turns out, there is no such thing as a "family plan" in the Netherlands (and maybe Europe). So basically, for a family of 5 people, there are 5 separate phone contracts. Because Ev doesn't have a residence permit yet, this made things complicated. Somehow, although it should not have been possible, I managed to open two accounts on the same day. Cell phones acquired, half the day of perspective studying passed.
Impulsive climbing. We've gone bouldering in Delft a couple times with another American and invited her out to Rotterdam to climb at our gym. After Saturday's cell phone adventures, I settled down to do that damn reading on Sunday. 30 minutes in, Davaja asked if we wanted to hit up the gym in a couple hours. Being good little climbers, we said heck yes and proceeded to have a grand time closing down the climbing wall.
In case it wasn't obvious, there is a 95% chance I will say yes to spontaneous activities that involve rocks or running.
Or, in the case of this weekend, Switzerland. I'm jonesing for some mountains!
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