Because I had to keep a blog for school, I thought I'd post it here so you guys could read it aswell. It's quite long. Skip bits if you like!

A series of boring blogs about adventures in a school library. Part one - Prologue Friday 17th of April

It's friday night and I'm a bit bored. I guess most people are now either packing their bags, on a plane to far, far away or are already on their spot!

okay, um. I got a spot at the Neale Wade community college, which wasn't my first choice. I started with asking mrs. Fitzpatrick if she knew anyone in Ireland that would be of help. Then I asked an old roommate of my mom's if she might know anyone. Then I asked some friends of my dad's, asked his best friend to contact his Scottish relatives, got my neighbour to help me out a bit aswell and also ask a friend of mine who's lived in the UK if she knew anyone. None of this really got me anywhere, surpisingly. You wouldn't think getting a place in the UK would be so difficult, would you?
At the end of my wits I asked mrs. Lycett for help and she told me to contact mr. Field from the Neale Wade, who I still remembered from the exchange project a while back. She gave me his email adress and he said, 'Okay!' Now, that wasn't so difficult now, was it?
So then. Planning never happens the way you plan it. I emailed the school's official email adress to ask for permission for my work experience. They didn't reply, so I called them and then all they could do was give me the proper email-adress that I should send my email to. Two weeks before I was supposed to leave, they give me permission and also wonder if I need to come on the 20th or if I could come on the 27th aswell, which would be the better option because that would be a full working week. So, we switch weeks. I need to inquire with my work if I could have the days off, even though I already asked for the days off the week of the 20th. They're not too happy with me.
Mr. Field then informs the the head of personell would like me to bring a Certificate of good conduct. My thoughts: What is that, how do I get it? A trip to city hall enlightens me and I learn that it takes those people 4 weeks to prepare that certificate and it costs 30 euros. This is, in my opinion, quite pointless. I attempt to call the school to ask if I really need that COGC and I get the answering machine telling me that they're away on a holiday untill the twentieth. I will call them this monday.
Then, the planning of my trip itself. The things I know is that I will be heading for London on friday the 24th of april with my mother, stay there until sunday when I will get the train to Peterburough and March. I'll be staying with mr. Field and his family. I will be put in the school library to help out a certain ms. Bulbrook, who I am informed is very nice. I will be leaving again on the 1st of may. That is all I know so far, really. My mom, who was to help me plan my trip, has gorn orff to Italy until Thursday so she got a friend of hers to help us out planning the trip. Said friend is now my hero as she is also helping me plan my train trip. I'm quite nervous for travelling with the train because I feel like I have the tendency to get on the wrong train and end up in Llanfairpwgll rather than March.

So. What I need to do:
-Be like a mushroom about not showing up at school this week
-Ask the school if I need a COGC
-If the answer to above is yes, ask if a letter of reccomendation would also be enough
-If the answer to that is yes, make Jake write one.
-In the answer to that is no, explain the situation thoroughly and try and persuade them.
-If that fails, show up at their doorstep anyway and dare them to kick me out
-Pack
-Sleep well
-Get a present for mr. Field for taking me in
-Get all my travelling information sorted out so that I do not end up in Llanfairpwgll
-Hand in all the neccesary files
-Think about all my friends who are all far away while I sit at home, reading their blogs and sending them text messages

So. That's part one of a series of boring blogs about adventures in a school library. Gee, I think I might name my blogs that.



SBBAASL. Part two - An ouverture to the commencement of a very rigid journey Friday 24th of April

This is the only time I'll steal the title from Everything is Illuminated (which is a really cool book and a really cool movie, aswell.)

Tomorrow I'm leaving to london with my mom! While I'm there, I suspect everyone will start dribbling back in from their trips. I've printed out all kinds of things, I accidentally printed my plane ticket 3 times so I put them all in 3 different places so I can't lose it.
Well I could, you know me, but it's a great deal more difficult.

Now, I've packed everything, I think. It's getting quite late and my mom is picking me up to go to schiphol at 8:30. NO MORE SLEEPING LATE FOR ME, I FEAR.

I wonder who will be reading my blogs, anyways. Comment, if you do! I'm human, humans need confirmation.
So, tomorrow I'll leave and I will return here a year older, my birthday is the 27th of april so feel free to send me gigantic presents. I like ponies.




SBBAASL. Part three - London town Saturday 25th of April

My mom and I went to the airport yesterday, and nearly missed our flight. There was a man, horribly camp, telling us that we were late and he would have to see what he could do for us in order to check in. It worked, yay. It was 1.15 hours flying time and it was okay. The only thing is that the air in the airplane irritates my nose and I have a cold. I keep getting nosebleeds.

ANYWAY. I'm in London, in a hotel with people shouting at the television and a lot of Italians. Yesterday, we visited Globe Theatre and bought 3-day subway tickets. In the evening, we went back to the Globe Theatre. (for those amongst you who are not into shakespeare, it's a replica of the place nearly all his plays were performed. The actual theatre doesn't exist anymore, allthough there is still some signs on the place it used to be a couple of hundred yards away.)
Romeo and Juliet was to be performed that evening and it had sold out. However, there is a queue you could stand in so that people know that you would like to get a ticket, so if someone has a spare ticket they can sell them to you. A ponytailed German guy was wondering if this was legal. There were lots of people selling single tickets, but most people wanted a pair of tickets so that they could be sure to get in together. Me and my mom weren't up for all that waiting so we just bought whatever tickets became available and if we could upgrade, we would. She get a £15 seating ticket, I got one for £33. Standing tickets cost £5. She was all the way up in a corner, I got a spot right in the middle of the theatre on the second floor. Best seats ever. I would feel guilty for my mom because of her poor seat but I don't because I'm the shakespeare fan of us. I got like, 5 buttons with shakespearian quotes from the gift shop. The play was performed in old english, the original version, and they had made some things pretty funny about it. Wouldn't expect that, would you? It was a really cool experience, well worth the money. After it was over I kept thinking in Elizabethan English. How lame is that.

Today we went to see the national gallery, which was nice, saw st. Paul's cathedral as well as st. Bartholemew-the-great (which is a really nice romanesque little church.). Then I needed to find an HMV, which was surprisingly difficult considering it to be a british chain of record stores and this being the capital of England. We found one near leicester square, finally, I managed to buy 2 cd's (Elbow's Leaders of the free world and Laura Marling's Alas I cannot swim -DID YOU SEE THAT, LAURA?!!!1) and also dvd of teh BBC-television show QI. It has stephen fry on it. I was dissapointed that they didn't have much of my favourite bands. NO GRAMMATICS? FOOLS. THey had a box of doctor who dvds, series two, but it cost 70 quid. Quite strange considering they have it for 18 pounds on their website.

I'm feeling a lot more confident about going to March by myself and flying back by myself and not ending up in llanfairpwgll. My mom makes more mistakes on the subway than I do and it all seems ridiculously easy at the moment. I bet things will turn out fine anyway. Tomorrow at this time I will be in March, and they day after that I will be turning 17.

I will try not to write so much boring blogs about things that NO ONE IN THE WORLD cares about. Love you all anyways if you read all of this.

SBBAASL. interlude Sunday 26th of April

My mum just went away to heathrow airport and left me all alone in London. I wonder what I could do. Maybe I'll dump my bag at the reception and walk around for a bit until I feel like getting on a train to March. Problem is that today is the day of the great big london Marathon so I suspect the streets would be quite crowdy. *shrug*

SBBAASL. Part four - Can you believe i'm up to part four already? Sunday 26th of April

I haven't even begun working anywhere.

I am writing this whilst sitting at mr. Fields computer in the study, while his wife is working on my left on something for her job at a primary school. You know what that means?
Heck yes, it means that I've arrived in March!
I'll begin at the beginning so that I can bore you in the most optimal amount.
After my mom left me, I went to the park opposite to the hotel, thinking what I might do next. I still wanted to see Westminster Abbey and Piccadilly Circus. So, I went back to the hotel and put my bag in the luggage room. Clasping my subway ticket and map tightly, I set off on a big adventure (yes, I am overstating.)
First, I went to Piccadilly circus (I've noticed that mr. Field has a mousepad that has the underground map of london, which I am quite familiar with at the moment.) There wasn't that much to do because all the shops were closed accept for a great big tourist shop selling all sorts of crap. Downstairs, they also sold pretty skirts and dresses. I didn't buy one because I haven't a lot of money. I bought two more buttons and I've stuck them on my bag.
Then I went to Westminster. Popped out of the underground and the first thing I see is the big ben, staring at me. I turn around and I see the London Eye, seeing me aswell. I turn 90 degrees and see a crowd of people. Ooh, I think, marathon. I was right. Stood with them for a while and applauded the people passing us, definitely looking as if they are in pain (rather them than me). I didn't see anyone strangely dressed, Sandra, but I did see someone dressed as a rhinoceros on the news. The same rhinoceros as me and my mom saw when we were heading for the globe theatre on friday.
(8)They call me the rhymenoceros, not because I'm fat, not cos I got birds on my back but because I'm HORNY.

SO THEN i headed for Kings cross, dragging my 18 kilogram bag along with me (how did it get up to 18 kilogrammes? I DON'T KNOW!)
From there, there are plenty of trains going to peterborough so I caught the first one. There was a baby sitting in front of me who kept waving at me and sticking is chubby little hands towards me. Cute at first but it gets annoying. 'Yes, mr. Baby, here I am. Peekaboo. Yes, hahah, gagagoogoo. Can I look out of the window now, please? If you stop staring at me I won't feel so guilty for not smiling at you and ytour little baby head.'
At Peterborough station, the train had been delayed, but not by that much. It should have arrived at 15:18 but would arrive at 15:41 or something. Another train headed for march stopped at the station at 15:46 so I got on that one. Mr. Field's wife Katherine came to pick me up from the station. THey live like 200 meters away from the station. Their house is really nice, they've got a big garden, a cat that seems to like me, twenty billion rooms, as english houses usually do, and two sons. One of 11, one of 15. I brought them liqourish, stroopwafels and pepermint. I also put my cheese in their fridge so that it wouldn't get even stinkier than it is at the moment.

So yeah. All is well. I'm cycling to school tomorrow, they wondered if I could ride a bike. Little did they know that us Dutch are cycle MASTERS. We are to run-of-the-mill-cycling what Kenyans are to running competitions. I say run of the mill cycling because well, lance armstrong is hardly Dutch at all.

How do I keep coming up with all these things to say? Honestly? HOW?




SBBAASL. Part five - The beginning Monday 27th of April

YES, FINALLY.
Yesterday evening after I updated my blog we had dinner. Mr. Field wasn't home yet because he was off on some trip somewhere. The food was nice and after we'd finished we started watchin tv and playing games. They've got a wii, and I played mario karts. When I was playing single player game, I kept coming in first and second which seemed to impress Tom and Alex. :cool: When I played against alex, though, I kept losing. XD Had fun anyway. Then Tom started playing Tomb Raider and for some reason spent like 20 minutes running around in circles shooting at some centaurs and didn't get anywhere. I kept watching because I had nothing esle to do. After that we were watching Gordon Ramsay on the television and mr. Field came in. We quickly summarized the episode and I kept cracking up when tom said 'and for a change, mr Ramsay has really lost grip of his manners.' It was very deadpan.

I slept well, fortunately. This morning I cycled to school with mr. Field. I hope I can remember the way back here again tomorrow. Oh and not to mention the way to school, aswell. :/
In school I was introduced to the staff and they wished me a happy birthday. There was a virus in the computers here at school, so no one could use a computer, which everyone found quite annoying. Then Lisa came in, who I work with in the library. She's really nice and talkative and stuff, so it was not too boring in the library. She runs a little shop in the librarby as well, people kept coming in for pens. I actually COULD use the cash register, as opposed to the one at Hema where they kicked me away from it. What did I do, again? Well, firstly I was sent to put up a display outside of the library, hanign up the posters and pictures and displaying the items that they sell in that little shop.
Then I was given a lot of paper forms-type things and I was to write the day of the week and date on there. I wrote from september until july, not including holidays and weekends. Then there were a lot of forms for the students going on a work experience, I needed to mark the name of the place where these kids were going and put them all into individual sleeves and then in alphabetical order. A girl from hong kong was hanging around at the school and she helped me out with doing that. Her name is Ella and she's done her gcse's here. I'm not sure why she was here today but she was nice and she helped me, so I'm not complaining. Then there was also some books that needed to be arranged properly so I went and did that. The bookcases are really low built there so I needed to stand up and crouch down a lot. But oh well. At the end of the morning they had fixed the virus and the computers where free again. When I told Lisa that I wanted to study english literature she gave me this bunch of books and leaflets about universities and careers. Pretty neat. I gave her a baby gouda cheese which she liked very much.
At breaktime, pupils came around to help out in the library aswell. They know more about how it all works than I do, obviously. They were nice though and two girls showed up who started talking to me about holland and stuff. one of them goes to houten every year for a pigeon show or something.

Then I cycled home again with mr. Field and I'm a bit worried about finding my way around here, I'm not a good navigator. Maps, I can read. I just can't really remember roads very well.
So that's it for now! Thanks to everyone wishing me a happy birthday and everything, when I get back I'll celebrate it properly.

I MISS YOU PEOPLE! <3




SBBAASL. Part six - Day two Tuesday 28th of April

It feels like I should be a lot further than day two, I've been going on so much about it.

Oh right, yesterday evening I got a surprise! For my birthday the Fields had gotten some kind of orange juice white wine with bubbly mix so we could toast on my birthday. Aww that's SO sweet! <33 I thought. After that however it turned out they had also gotten a chocolate cake and put 17 candles on it and everything! I was really surprised and I thought it was so nicoe of them. I blew out all the candles but I forgot to make a wish. Silly me. They even got me presents! Like, wow! <3 I got chocolate,a birthday card and that new cd by U2 who i'm not really into but still it was so sweet of them. I was very happy.

Today, mr.field went to school by car and took me along. He said his students would probably make some remarks about him destroying the environment,he usually cycles. (Just between you and me, I've noticed that he keeps his pc on aswell, and one time he didn't close the fridge door! =O!

I went to the library and there wasn't a lot to do, per se. What I did was make 18 Horrible Sciences books ready to be put on shelves. I gave them a code on the spine, a number on the inside, a barcode and a little magnetic thingy and a piece of paper that would say the due date. THen I had to cover those books in sticky foil. What a job that is, the foil kept sticking prematurely but it was in a way quite meditative, juist like covering up my books at home. Lisa offered me some of the foil to use to cover my books at home but I politely declined because well, it's much more work than normal paper, you can't draw or write on it, and you can't take it off when you need to hand in your book.
In the lunch break mr. Field took me to go and meet some of the people going on the Dutch exchange this year to see if they could ask me some questions. They seemed really shy about it so there wasn't any much of an interesting relief from that slightly boring work at the library. I did get one question from someone paired up with someone from iraq, asking what iraqi's eat.

After school mr field and I discussed some music and politics and things like that. He mentioned that foreigners (including himself) were really shocked about that Zwarte Pieten business. I tried to explain that the kids like the zwarte pieten more and it's not so much a racist thing as it is some tradition. Not a lot of people think about it that much. I won't go into argueing this all with you because you know, well.

This evening, Tom and Alex went to an audition for a play-thing organised here in March. Their group was like 30 people big and they were preparing for a Midsommer night's dream. They read lines from it but this time, I'm not thinking to myself in Elizabethan english as I did last time. OH, loathesome, loathesome heart! What hast becometh of thee? Thou art aware that I would giveth my heart in thine favour! [/really pretentious]
Anyway, tom and alex were both really good and it was a lot of fun watching. At the end there was a game called the, eh. I've fogotten what it's called but you look down for three seconds and then you look up at someone and try and look them in the eye, and they're looking at you, you're out. You do this standing in a circle. I was asked to join in by the director (who seemed really nice by the way) and I sort of won together with this other girl. OF course it's easier to win when nobody knows you and you're taller than everyone there, because people don't look at you as easily.

And just now mr Field was watching tv to support Chelsea. That's about when I hogged his computer to write this blog. I'm going to go to bed now, eventhough it's quite early, I'm pretty tired. See you!




SBBAASL Part seven, the end Sunday 3rd of May

Goes by awfully quick, doesn't it? Yeah, I know.

So. I'm writing this from my own bedroom again. I didn't do much more interesting things in the library but this wouldn't be a Series of Boring Blogs About Adventures in a School Library if I didn't tell you about it.
I've been covering a lot more books on wednesday and also learned how to put them in the system and on the shelves and everything. What fun!
Well actually it was okay, but I'm the kind of eprson who actaully doesn't mind covering books. God knows why.
Anyway. I was able to cycle to school by myself, I didn't get lost at all. (y) The only problem was mr. Fields padlock to his bike, to which he had told me the code and I was sure I had remembered it correctly. So I wanted to lock the bike but the lock wouldn't work. So, after messing about with it for a while I decided I was going to suck it up and go to the staff room to ask if anyone was able to help me, me being conviced I was just pathetically weak rather than had forgotten the code. No one was able to get the lock to work so I went to the caretaker and just when I was getting my bike to drop it off in a room where they could keep it safe for me, I did one last attempt at turning the last digit of the lock around, and tatadaa, suddenly it worked. Gee, did I feel stupid. But ah, it doesn't end there! Lisa had gone out to lunch and some people came in who then later told me that the printer had no more paper left. So I though, akllright, I can get some paper. Looked through the little office and couldn;t find any normal paper. I handed them a bunch of Neale Wade logo-paper made especially for sending formal letters or something, explaining everything to them. They say, oh allright. Not two minutes later one guy (later found out is called Nick) comes back with a crumpled paper and says the paper causes it to jam. "Oh, shit." He goes into the office and looks around and before long finds a big box of paper. ^^, I must have missed that. He goes away with the paper and a few minutes later comes round again, slightly sweaty it seems, telling me he''s fixed the paper jam. (I didn't even know the printer was so badly jammed, I figured the crumpled paper he showed me earlier caused the jam and that that was it. Oh well.)
There was nothing planned in the evening so we watched tv. Their cat, who is supposedly terrified of strangers, came and sat on my lap which is remarkable, considering that it only ever sits on mr. Field's lap. That was pretty cool!

Thursday I covered even more books and such. At lunchtime, Tim (who works at the library during lunchtime) Janine and Shauny (who are friends of his) came round and one of the teachers put his cup of coffee on lisa's desk. It left *tuhtuthtuthtuhhhh* A coffee ring! Shauny jumped to clean it up out of boredom and it turned out that the table was really dirty so we decided that we'd clean all the tables, with the 4 of us. The cleaning stuff smelt like a horses stable, eww. We also assembled a whiteboard that lisa had ordered. That was pretty much the highlight of the working day. in the evening, Tom and two of his friends called Laura and Danni took me bowling. I suck at bowling so I lost. (y) After bowling, Flight of the Conchords were on TV. I was in luck because they're pretty cool and I didn't know they existed until like a week ago.

Friday I covered some more books, about christianity and Jesus and stuff this time. When I was having a break, that Nick person came in again and told me to stop slacking. Then I talked to him for a while and then got back to the books. That is, until he came in again not doing his physics homework. This was when lisa had gone out to lunch again and then he took his Ipod and showed me some bits of FLight of the Conchords and we started singing along and we decided we were the coolest people in the library. Which might very well be true because not that many other people bothered talking to me at all except for some people wanting a pen. At the end of the day, Lisa and I said goodbye and she wished me a happy life which I thought was very sweet. At home again, we ate pizza and watched a batman film which was really really bad. It had george clooney and Arnold Schwarznegger and Uma thurman in it. It was just awful.

On saturday, mr. Field drove me and his sons to Peterborough and dropped me off at the station and I went to London and I love London and England, just by the way.

So, to sum up: I'm kind of like filled with love for the people of England, because my host family was so so sweet, as was Lisa, who I worked with, as were Tim (who played pool on the pc with me and let me win because I sucked so much) as were Shauny and Janine as was Nick the printer-guy as were the girls who came by to drop off some poems they had written for their dead grandparents and everything.
I'm feeling pretty happy because I got back from Peterborough via London Heathrow to Amsterdam all by myself, so I'm feeling very independent and all. At Heathrow airport I also found an HMV (YEAAAAH!1!!!) and bought the cd CSS by CSS(cansei de ser sexy) for 5 pounds and also Doctor Who series 2 for 21 pounds. Very happy!
I came back yesterday evening and I had a small party with a few friends to go to right away, so i went there completely unpacked (my mum brought me, such a sweetheart ) and they had banners and balloons and everything for my birthday! Awww <3! Anyway, we watched PS I love you and after that we didn't have time for another movie so I showed them an ep of my brand new Doctor Who dvd. Eventhough doctor who, being a science fiction series, can get pretty nerdy, we all agreed that the Doctor is just very cool. In this particular ep, he beats aliens in a bathrobe and pj's, then someone remarks that that's very Arthur Dent. I love it when I get jokes that other people don't because I'm such a dork. (y)

And that was pretty much it. Relieved it's over and went well, but sad because I will miss the people!




---Fin---

So, thanks for bothering looking at all that!