Welcome to Grad School

As everyone who has attended (or attends) UAF knows, you basically attend classes in windowless bunkers. Don't get me wrong, UAF is a good school, but for three months or so in winter you literally don't see the sun. You go to your 8am class in the dark, stay in Duckering doing classes and/or homework all day, and by the time you leave at 5pm it's dark again. As many, many of my friends can attest to, it can get really, really demoralizing. Also, most of the desks in the windowless pits they call classrooms are too tiny to put a binder on, let alone a water bottle, too.

Well, I am happy to report that TU Delft has classrooms with WINDOWS! Lots and lots of windows, with sunlight and trees and they even open! And the desks. Oh, the desks! They're huge. It's awesome.

That's right. I'm putting a picture of desks on my blog.

Grad School Realization #1:
I am so out of practice. Seriously. I got used to the world of working and design, where you leave the office and are done for the day. With school, you're never really done. You spend 8 hours a day (or more) in lectures/doing research, then go home and do reading in an attempt to stay abreast (or ahead) of the lectures in each class.

This seriously cuts in to my play time.

WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?!

Interesting Fact of the Netherlands #3 (it turns out Lessons and Hilarious Tidbits were what had a bunch of numbers):
The spiders are bloody massive. Think twice the size of your thumb nail.

I am not a fan.


Interesting Tidbit:
If you get your pizza to go (or get a doggie bag), you get a sweet pizza box bag to carry it in. Freaking brilliant.

I'm hoping we can run away for the weekend and find somewhere with mountains. Or at least big hills. I think the flatness here is making the homesickness worse. Maybe France... we'll see where the cheapest train tickets will take us.

On another, totally awesome note, Ev interviewed with a research group called TNO. TNO is the biggest research group in the Netherlands and is kind of a big deal. They're looking to expand/create a seismic division and develop a seismic code for the Netherlands. Apparently the oil extraction in the northern part of the country is done by fracking, which is causing small magnitude earthquakes that may or may not be damaging surrounding houses (they're not so big on real foundations around here). 

Anyway, in order to be hired at TNO you have to go through 3 intensive interviews. Ev had his first interview last Thursday. They told him they would get back to him within a week to let him know if he had a second interview. Around 6:30pm Thursday night, TNO called Ev to tell him they wanted to give him a second interview. Apparently Ev is so awesome they only needed an hour or so to decide to move him closer to a job.

(/end girlfriend bragging)

And one more thing... I've already started using baking as a distraction from studying. Whoops.