The implications of having signed up for a degree course have just begun to hit me: I'm going to be stuck with my nose in a book from now till Christmas. I'm enjoying it but I didn't realise it'd be quite like this. Should have known. But there are you are... Trouble is, we're having such GORGEOUS weather at the moment. Real blue sky, sun and heat stuff. It must have been 28 degrees at 5pm this evening; can't imagine what it must have been like out in the sun at midday. By that you can gather that I've been hiding inside for much of the day, not daring to venture out into the belching heat coming up from the courtyard that our balcony looks on to.
Bud's back home. He had a good time in England and I had a good time, of sorts, having home rule. But we did miss each other and the idea of living in two separate countries (never mind, houses) for a while doesn't seem very appealing at all. The plan we had appears to be flawed on several fronts. Bud is still smarting from having been told that he doesn't meet the requirements for the course he was applying for. Moreover, after two days observing classes in a school, he's decided that teaching schoolchildren - even as a temporary option - is just not for him. So, back to the drawing board. In a way, it's a relief. I'm not sure I could cope with having him move house/country etc in September.
What else is new? Oh, we have a new princess in the Netherlands. Born at around 3pm today. Anonymous at present. We should have a name by Thursday. She's third in line to the Dutch throne. Dutch Prime Minister (and Harry Potter look-alike) Mr. B. went on TV to congratulate the happy parents, reeling off the usual niceties in his usual wooden, uncharismatic way. Poor chap, he should go and do some media training; he must surely be able to afford it.
The papers are full of stories about the sad state of affairs in the Netherlands - reinforcing Pal's feeling that he'd like to leave. The quality newspaper NRC has a special English-language supplement featuring comments by foreigners living here and looking into questions like "Whatever happened to Dutch tolerance?" Thing of the past, I guess.
One interesting little titbit that came to light in the press recently is that the Netherlands - known for its multilingual workforce - will run out of young people able to speak German if drastic action isn't taken soon. Germany is Holland's biggest trading partner (and next-door neighbour). Yet the number of students enrolling for German at the small number of universities here that still teach it runs to no more than two or three dozen! Compare that with 300-plus German students at just one university in Germany who are learning Dutch (why, I can't think) and you see the size of the imbalance. Anti-German feeling runs deep here, even among the young people. It shocked me when I first arrived here and still continues to surprise me - even though I know that Holland was occupied by Germany during the war.
Other than that, I haven't much to report at present. I've not had much time to visit your places but will get round to it in the next week. I'm worried about one of you, the one that's pregnant with a married man's child and is now in the process of dropping her job to go and work with him. It all sounds so risky after the way he's treated her. I feel as though I'm watching someone go round in circles, caught up in a cycle of pain (it feels familiar - I spent much of my life like that) and hope of emerging seems to be fading at present. Is it right to carry on watching this? Does the fact that I'm watching, anyone's watching, fuel the drama and make it carry on? I don't know. Probably not. Blogging, she's said, is her way of working things out. And I so want it to work out well for her. She's a remarkable person playing a difficult role in this play called 'Life'. Come on, Life, give her some peace.
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