GLASS

GLASS - GAVIN DEGRAW

WASHINGTON DC

Today was my first time in the nation's capital and it was amazing. We first had lunch with an old friend of my dad at George Washington University. The campus of GW was about three blocks from the white house! We rushed over there before our campus tour and my dad was telling everybody we were having lunch with obama. ;) The garden was huge and it was really cool for me to see it! The school is really urban, but I like the campus a lot more that at Boston University. The size was good for me. There are about 10000 undergraduates and they even had a campus that was not in the city for freshmen. I really liked the school, because they're really strong in the majors I'm interested in (among with others). I would like a campus community feeling which this school really lacked, but I'll consider it. After the tour we had some coffee at the student union and we decided to walk toward the Lincoln Memorial and it was amazing! I loved it! It is really ten times better than they show on TV in Holland. ;) We took lots of pictures and it was beautiful, because the sun was just setting. We were walking towards the Washington Monument and there were these people playing frisbee right along the reflecting pool. We were watching and I actually played with them in jeans and a T-shirt. haha. They were actually from the state department and this was the only time in the week they could get some exercise so they had no rules and it was just for fun. It really reminded me how much I love this sport. You can just go to a park in America and play pick-up everywhere! That was so much fun and after a while it got dark and we walked to the Washington Memorial. It is really beautiful by night and we made a ton of pictures just standing right against it and looking straight up.

We had dinner at the student union and talked with some students from GW and it made me a little negative, because they said that classes were huge and that you didn't get to know your professor really well. I'm really tired so this is a short post.

Photo's will come tomorrow!

Vicious Circles!

BREATHE

BREATHE - ANNA NALICK

BREATHE

Wesleyan

Next stop …. Wesleyan University! We had to get up really early and we had a plastic breakfast at a motel. We had to drive for an hour to Middletown, Connecticut. We always get there way early so I don't stress out. We have gotten lost on our way to universities a couple times already. Navigating is not a skill I can proudly put on my resume. ;) I had an informational interview at Wesleyan. That means that the interviewer doesn't evaluate you, but if you're interesting enough they'll take note of it, or as my dad calls it, they'll put a star next to your name. I had expected that I would be asking a lot of the questions, but he had a lot more surprising questions for me. He basically asked me what I did last summer and if I could pick a favorite moment and he was wondering if I ever go off and explore on my own. The courses I take in high school, what classes I like most and what about it do I like most. I must say that I never think about why I like History. I just know I like it and I never question myself why so it's good to start thinking about. At the end I had some questions and he asked me about my extracurricular activities and I got a huge black out. I couldn't even remember what I do after school. He is a senior at Wesleyan, but just to give you an idea:

View from Foss Hill

Wesleyan has about 2700 undergraduates. It's a pretty small school. It's a real left-wing school and really liberal. It has really small classes and more discussions than lectures, which I love. It has 80 clubs ranging from quidditch (forget how you spell that) to an MUN club. You can option to live in an international dorm room from sophomore year on, which is really cool. You can live with people all over the world. The campus is really pretty and really new. All the buildings are really pretty and their cafeteria is amazing. They have everything including a vegan, vegetarian, mexican, asian, gluten, low calorie meal plans. Their dorm rooms are apparently really pretty and pretty big which is better than the other mini rooms I've seen so far.

We took a tour with about two families and the tour guide was a girl from India! She was really nice and she explained everything and she made me really interested in Wesleyan. It's funny, because all the tour guides at every university walk backwards while talking. Part of their training is actually learning how to walk backwards. It was really nice weather today!  It was s beautiful day. I didn't even have to wear a sweater and a jacket, haha. The campus also has this hill called Foss HIll and the first thought I had when I saw it was: I'd love to roll down it on my side! We didn't have time, but I would have gone otherwise.

College Row

At the end of our tour the guide gave us her card so we can email her. The other girl and her mother who were on the tour were really nice. I think her name was Maddy and she is a senior in high school and she had exactly the same interests as I did! She was going to mostly small school (like Wesleyan). Tomorrow she was going to Vasser and she was really friendly. She was also at Brown yesterday and she loved it. I didn't see her there. My dad and I got hungry so we decided to go eat some Thai food that the tour guide had recommended. On the way their Maddy and her mom asked us if we could give our email. We said we were going to the Thai restaurant and we were too so we decided to have lunch together. We arrived at the Thai restaurant and they didn't turn up. We asked at the restaurant if there was another Thai restaurant and there was. I decided to walk to the other restaurant which was about two blocks down. I walked three blocks down and I couldn't find it. Meanwhile my dad was eating his lunch and mine was getting cold. I came back and my dad went out to find the restaurant and I ate my lunch. He found them in the other Thai restaurant, gave them our email and left. Once he came back I was done with my lunch. That was my first lunch I ever ate at a restaurant where I ate alone with another person absent.

Olin Library

I was getting really excited, because I was going to an ultimate frisbee practice of the vicious circles. A women's team at Wesleyan. At 4.15 pm there was nobody yet. I was getting a bit worried, but they all had had fall break so they were all just coming back from home. Six people show up and the team captain had rushed from the airport just to make sure she'd be on time for me. They were really excited to see me and I was first a little shy. The captain who I had emailed was Nora and she was a really extrovert junior and they were all really excited and yelling. We first warmed up and we started out with hotbox. I quickly noticed that compared to them I was pretty good. After that we had a long drink break, which was really long. After that nobody wanted to get up and eventually I said something like: But I've come all the way from Holland for this practice! Haha. We did a basic drill. In the next water break I was spinning a frisbee and then the captain asked me if I wanted to take it with! So now I have a frisbee of the vicious circles. :) I even suggested a drill after they ran out of ideas and they asked me to throw the hucks after a while and I'm not very good at deep throws. And I was throwing for the first time and I heard someone saying 'wow' behind me. They were really impressed with my throwing skills, which are not my strongest point. It was a really fun practice and I chatted with them after practice. They were all sophomores, juniors and seniors. They also invited me to dinner, but unfortunately I didn't have any time to stay longer. My dad took a picture of them and me and I'll post it on my blog very soon! It was great. I did notice that they were less competitive than me, but it's hard to get really good as a team when every year the best players leave and a whole new stream of freshmen come in who have never touched a frisbee in their whole life. They also play on a horrible field with bad grass and they rarely play indoors, because the varsity sports get the best gyms and fields. I could really be a leader in that team, I think. That would be really fun. The only problem would be that I wouldn't improve a lot. The team seemed really fun to be in and pretty completive. They go to a lot of tournaments, but they're now in the phase of teaching new freshmen how to throw. It was really nice to talk to them too and get to know them and they wanted me to skip a year so I would graduate and they'd make sure I'd get accepted to Wesleyan. ;)

Disc Vicious Circles

Got a disc and a lot of new contacts out of the deal. :) I told them if they ever want to come to Holland they're welcome to. 

I'm getting tired and hungry. It's a long drive to DC. Tomorrow I'll be in the capital. My dad and I are having dinner with Obama. ;) We just called him up and he's really excited to see us. Haha

Seeyousoon!

BREATHE - ANNA NALICK

EVERYTHING’S RIGHT

EVERYTHING’S RIGHT - MATT WERTZ

EVERYTHING'S RIGHT

Front Gate Brown

WOW. That was truly one of the most amazing universities I've ever been to. Brown University is a really beautiful university. There's a lot of greens (big grass fields). People are sitting outside, reading, studying. The leaves are beautiful and everybody looks really serious. We came there early and we walked around the quad and we went to the student union. They had a coffee bar there. (they have those everywhere with muffins and all sorts of stuff) We had a cup of coffee there and pool tables and a student market and a lot of silent rooms. And everyone has a Macbook Pro. At noon a student from Brown came to take me to a class of hers together with another junior Christina who is Chinese going to boarding school in the US. The student Evelyn is a freshman at Brown and she really liked Brown. We went to a lecture with about 50 students called Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience and it was really interesting. When people have strokes certain parts of the brain are damaged. Some people have the input or intake (i forget) damaged and then they just speak a lot, but they're just meaningless sentences. They're not grammatical errors or spelling errors, but if you ask them a question they wont answer the question. They will start saying things that are totally meaningless. And other people have the output area damaged and they can't get things out of their mouth. You can think of it as if I'm having a conversation with you and for every word you pay a dollar. So if you're trying to say: I'm going to go to the store to buy some chocolate. You would probably say: Store. Buy. Chocolate.

That's what happens to those patients who have the output all wrong. They also make grammatical mistakes. The funny thing is they know that they're making these mistakes! I was surprised I could understand a lot of it! That was really cool. :)

Next we had lunch in the cafeteria and this cafeteria food was much better. It was very good and we had fun talking to the Brown student. She really loved Brown and she was focused mostly on science. I forgot which major. The only problem with Brown was that you had to pick a major, but they didn't have a core curriculum which is really nice. A core curriculum is the plan for students where everybody has to take a couple courses like math or science or english. You could fill your requirements for your major in your own way. The next thing was that they didn't have a lot of interdisciplinary courses or didn't mention it. Evelyn (hope I spelled it right) was really nice. She was from LA and she said that a lot of students were international and that about half of her floor was international and that the campus was really accepting of international students and the orientation for internationals was really good. The international orientation is pretty good everywhere, but the students felt really open and nice. It's a really good idea when you go to a college to go shadow a student.

Quad Brown

We had a information session after that and it was informative and good. They were enthusiastic and nice and they have a lot of experience with international students and their applications. Next we went on a campus tour, which is really beautiful. The students leading it were a little fake I thought. They were nice, but not the most genuine students I ever met. I asked about ultimate frisbee after the tour and they said the teams would be practicing at a field at five. We went there after we bought a 'Brown ultimate frisbee' and s sweat shirt from Brown. Ultimate is really popular here so that is really fun! I would like to go to a school with a good team. At this point it is probably a far shot to go for Brown. It is kind of a dream school for me. At this point Tufts and Brown tie for my favorite school on this trip. The junior Christina from China was a little bit envious, because I had a lot more chance of getting in than her. (she said) Because I'm the only person from my school who would be applying and that there already are a lot of Asians who apply. Admissions officers read by regions. They compare students from the same school to see who is the best. At her school about thirty students would be applying and universities want a diverse campus. I hope they see I would bring that, but I'll see what I think after this week. This is only the fourth American University I've ever seen. Haha. Fun fact: Emma Watson from Harry Potter goes to Brown. ;)

Brown University

I'll keep you posted. All of these pics have not been taken by me. It’s a lot of work to load them all online.
EVERYTHING'S RIGHT - MATT WERTZ

HAVEN’T MET YOU YET

HAVEN’T MET YOU YET - MICHAEL BUBLÉ

HAVEN’T MET YOU YET

This morning I woke up and for the first time in two weeks I got to sleep in and it was great. In the morning I worked on my previous blog post. At twelve o’clock I was supposed to meet up with a student from Boston College. We started our journey by going to our car (obviously) and we saw about twenty smashed pumpkins all over the street. We still haven’t figured out who or why someone did this. It’s a little early for Halloween to be smashing pumpkins.;) We got totally lost after that. We didn’t know where we were and in the end I was a half hour late. Once I got there we saw the library and we saw her dorm room which was a little small. All dorms get better once you get older somehow. There was also a friend of hers from her old high school in Miami. She was visiting all the colleges where former seniors lived now. She was a senior. And they both could have come straight from ‘The Hills’. They spoke the accent and they were totally into the same things. They were interested in the weed smoking in Holland (obviously) and the drinking and else. They were both party girls and according to Americans all Dutch people are partiers too. We had lunch at a cafeteria and I’ve never seen so much greasy food compiled in one place. People go crazy there on food and eat like five times a day. No wonder Americans sometimes are so fat. I wanted a sandwich, and when I got to the front of the line they were putting mayonnaise on by the liter! It was amazing how much they were putting on. I decided against the mayonnaise. They also put five pieces of ham on, which was really unusual for me.

In Holland you’re lucky if you can get two pieces of ham on a sandwich. After that we looked at the senior housing which was nice. And we hung out in the sun. It was really warm, warm enough for sunglasses!  I didn’t discover a lot about BC, but I did discover a lot about how some people at university live. They had gone out the night before until about five o’clock in the morning. Boston College is really beautiful though. The view from some places is utterly amazing and the buildings are really old and historical. With the sun shining between the buildings it was a perfect day to promote Boston College. I didn’t discover a lot, but I did discover that although it is a pretty catholic college they don’t enforce religion on you. I was worried about that, because religious American I always think of as really religious. Tomorrow I’m off to Providence to go and see Brown University!

See you soon!


HAVEN’T MET YOU YET - MICHAEL BUBLÉ

MANY THE MILES

MANY THE MILES - SARA BAREILLES

MANY THE MILES

I was really jetlagged yesterday. I didn't finish my blog. It's a lot of info, because there were so many experiences.

This is my post from yesterday
Today was my first day to look at colleges in the States. I was really tired, but I had 3 cups of coffee so I survived. :) Coffee is really big in college anyway so you get the college scene just by sitting in a starbucks. ;)

Tufts University

First I had an information session at Tufts. The woman was really great and nice! She actually summed up all my questions in one speech and it was really personal and it was a really open and international feeling. I felt that it was very liberal arts. You could design your own major and there were a lot of interdisciplinary courses. They have a whole department just on courses that don't fit in any major. They get teachers for one semester and teach the greatest and weirdest courses ever. That is really my thing. So they would be teaching the bone structure in the evolution of a certain kind of monkey from 1500 to 1590. Really specific or they would teach things like a documentary class where you all get a camera and you get one semester to make a documentary and as teacher you would get Tufts alumni who are well-known filmmakers in the US.

After the information session we rushed over to Boston University, which is a campus in a city. The campus was not really spread out so that was nice. Usually universities are really spread out all over the city. At BU the campus is in one district. First we had an information session and it was mostly numbers, numbers, numbers. I don't really remember any of them and it was such a bad info session. I've made it a tradition that I ask one question (minimum) per information session. Someone from the admissions office was there and a student from BU. It was like they were performing on stage. It was a little fake and not really genuine. So I wasn't really impressed.

Boston University (internet)

After that I was a little lost in translation, because I was really confused by that. Then we went for a guided tour around campus. The student that led us around was nice, but the campus wasn't great. The buildings looked kind of rundown and the school is divided in colleges (like oxford and cambridge). I don't like that, because you divide the school. We also saw a model dorm room. And it was sooo small. I have never seen such a small room in my life. You can't even walk around in it without hitting into someone. ;) The campus sometimes was pretty, but it wasn't mind-blowing beautiful. It was a big campus so I must say that after the tour it was a 'no'. I just couldn't see myself walking around there, walking to class. I could see other people walking around there, but not myself. And that feeling is stronger than anything. We had a bagel for lunch! My first bagel since I have been back! :) And the coffee so good here! I totally forgot how much I liked coffee in the States. Boston is a pretty city. It's the most historic city in the US, because it was built by the English. So all the revolutionaries have been buried here and the independence war started here. The first shot was fired here and Martin Luther King went to BU and the Boston Tea Party happened here. It really reminds me of a European city with skyscrapers just dropped in it at really strange locations. I went to the university bookstore and I bought a notebook with Boston University on the cover. Just to have something to write all my notes.

Tufts University

After that we went back to Tufts University just to look at the campus. It was really a beautiful campus. All the leaves were gold red and it was such a pretty place. I went to the college library (really important to me) and it was magnificent. I've never seen such a great big library and everybody had a macbook. Next to the library was the student union where you could sit and talk, drink a cup of coffee and study. We bought coffee and we sat down at a table where a girl was studying and we talked to her for a while. And she was really happy about Tufts and really genuine and really friendly. She was not negative about the college at all. After that we walked around campus and apparently it was coming out week, because there were gay flags everywhere!

We went out to dinner and got a full guided tour by a friend of my dad through Boston and it was really great to see all the historical buildings! I walked so many miles today. My feet were so painful. We're going to have a lot of good exercise on this trip. ;)

Boston University

When we came home I was so tired so I didn't finish my post. Today I'm meeting up with a student from Boston College (there are no tours on Sunday) and after that we're near Harvard University so we'll take a quick look there. Just to see the campus. I really liked Tufts because you had a nice campus feeling, but you're only ten minutes away from Boston. I'll keep you 'posted'. ;)

MANY THE MILES - SARA BAREILLES

SUNDAY MORNING

SUNDAY MORNING - MAROON 5

Not too interesting video clip, but song is great. Couldn't find the right video.

Does anybody know if somebody else originally did this?

SUNDAY MORNINGS

Hello again! ;)

Today and yesterday were so hectic I have a hard time recounting them. Yesterday I had a debate in class and I'm really terrified of debates. I hate doing them and it's hard because you have to give really good arguments all the time. It's not like a presentation where you just 'dish the facts'. You have to be on your feet, always. I stayed up that night till two o'clock in the morning just to get the job done and I looked like a zombie. With that in mind, I have two things that have always been hard for me to do:
One is getting out of bed. I can just snooze my alarm endlessly and I won't get out of bed. Second of these is being on time. My punctuality is far beyond bad. It is really insulting how long I sometimes make people wait. One time my friend had to wait for over twenty minutes. I remember that there's this country where it's normal to be an hour late. In France, as example, if you have a dinner party it is rude to come on time. You have to be late, so sometimes people will be almost an hour late! Can you imagine?! I think in Northern countries people are so ice cold from the weather. They get rigid and frozen and have to be on time for everything. So my conclusion, I'm living in the wrong country! My body is living in the Netherlands, but my brain and my soul belongs in Spain (in spirit).

But to get back to my point. I went to bed really early that next night (because of my punctuality problem). I had to get up at 6.15 am the next morning to drive to Amstelveen to the Intl. School of Amsterdam to take THE PSAT!! I was really nervous and when I got there. Well I have never seen a school so beautiful as that school. It makes my school look like a rundown youth hostel where the walls are about to collapse and crumble. Finally we get there. Through the gates with the person at the front desk. We had to sign ourselves in and we received visitor passes. Someone leads me to the gymnasium. And our names were called and we had to sit in a row at a really comfortable chair and huge desk with a radius of about 2 metres where no other desk was. It took 3 hours like always and I got stressed because I didn't have enough time every time. For the first few questions I held myself to 45 seconds a questions, but with the harder questions I needed more time so I had to work really fast. I'm used to tests with about 15 questions in 45 minutes. This was another cup of tea. In my senior year I'll be taking final exams just like that in a gym and it really felt like that. I realized I have another quality. While taking the test I get stressed out and my neck tightens and I get neck pains (never had this before). And I seriously still have neck ache. In the five minute break after 50 agonizing minutes you're not allowed to eat, talk and going to the toilet is one by one. So I couldn't go and as a result of that I had to pea during the test the whole second half. The other break is towards the end for about a minute. And it's funny, because everybody gets up and starts to stretch and move their shoulders and heads like a yoga group. ;) And the silence is agonizing for me. I'm used to studying in somewhat noisy environment and during tests at school it is never dead silent. But there, you could hear a pin drop. And the element of surprise is pretty big too. You usually don't have tests where you know what to expect and that's hard about the PSAT. I'll get results in December. I hope they are good.

For now, I just want to wake up tomorrow and have it being a Sunday Morning. Those are the best. For now I sleep and I hope tomorrow will bring a new kind of Sunday. The light falls in your window and you slowly open your eyes and there it is, a new day awaits you. Going to the US of A on Friday! So excited. I'll record what I think of every school on here so if you're doubting about schools you know what I thought of it. Saves you a trip. Or if you're just really interested in all the stories I'm going to tell. ;)

SUNDAY MORNINGS - MAROON 5

NO RAIN

NO RAIN - BLIND MELON

Hippies going wild. Really happy song and hopefully not too hard chords for me. ;)

NO RAIN

So today I had my first performance for music class and it was filmed by my good friend Dieske. She's in the second movie with a medley of pirates of the caribbean and I'm in the first movie and I'm singing Imagine of John Lennon. I had so much fun doing it and it was really fun to do with the people in my group. :)

IMAGINE - JOHN LENNON


PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN MEDLEY - DIESKE, NICOLE & JANNE

Next 4 weeks I'm going to learn to play the guitar. I can't play a single note, but I'm going to play the acoustic guitar. The song No Rain by Blind Melon.

After school I baked delicious caramel apples with Nicole and we succeeded (sort of) after stirring for about an hour. It wasn't going anywhere and it didn't taste like caramel at all, but after a while (without corn syrup) we did it! 

NO RAIN - BLIND MELON

CAN'T GO BACK NOW

CAN'T GO BACK NOW - THE WEEPIES

Kind of alternative music. Hope you like it.

BEAUTIFUL WORLD

Tonight I went to practice tonight and I was surprised, because we didn't have a normal practice. We had a practice on 'the greatest'. So now you're probably wondering what this is, but I'll explain. With other sports when a ball is out of bounds. It's out of bounds. That's true for frisbee too, but the piece of plastic is also flying through the air and you can control it in some way or other. So if you know you're feet are going to be out of bounds then if you jump and catch the frisbee in the air and throw it while you're in the air it won't be out of bounds, of course someone else has to catch it. So you have to jump, catch the disc and before you land you have to throw it away and the other person has to be able to catch it. Since you don't have a lot of time usually a lot of sloppy throws are the result. Okay, if you've been really lazy skip this introduction. It was too hard to read anyhow, just watch this movie. ;) There is no music included, but you see the guy hanging in the air right before he hits the line and throwing away the disc. It is harder than it seems and if I ever master it you'll be the first to know.

This really inspired me somehow to write this blog, because you're hanging in the air and if you do it right you get to do two things at once in such a short period time. It feels a little bit like flying I must say, because you're so concentrated on something else you don't even notice that your feet have left the ground or even when they touch the ground.

I'd love to fly someday. It's impossible, but I would love to. It's one of the ten things I would love to try before I die, but it's also on the list of impossible things. The other things I would like to try before I die are:

• Take a balloon trip
• Go help a good cause in Africa (orphanage etc)
• Fly
• Go rock climbing for a day constantly (not going down)
• Climb the Mount Everest (or at least a part of it)
• Eat a huge bucket of Ben & Jerry's all by myself (485 mL)



Ben & Jerry's 485 mL

• Travel around the world. See a lot of places
• Jump out of a plane
• Bring ultimate frisbee to countries who don't know the sport
• Walk into a very expensive hotel, go for a swim and walk out looking like a guest
• Swim with dolfins
• Make an invention
• Design a piece of clothing, which I would be able to sell
• Witness a solar eclipse
• Ski at the top ten ski resorts in the world
• See the seven wonders of the world
• Write a novel
• Learn how to play the guitar
• Go scuba diving
• Go bungee jump
• Go zorbing
• Go on the biggest and scariest roller coaster in the world
• ... (still thinking about it, any suggestions?)

At this point I'm still thinking about my list. What should be on it and when should I do it. I think I'd like to do all the things on my list. The flying part is actually doable, because in some places in the world they have this huge and really powerful fan that can lift you up and then you can fly for ten minutes and you pay for it. It's not the actual thing of course, but at least it's close to the feeling.

Well, I should go to sleep. I'm going to dream about my own bucket list (yumyum ben & jerry's).

Do you have your own bucket list? CommentComment.

BEAUTIFUL WORLD - COLDPLAY

CARPE DIEM

WASTING TIME

Today I wasted a lot of time on a oversized t-shirt and I turned it into something really cool, along with this tutorial on youtube. I finally know how to use a sewing machine!

I like the whole Do It Yourself (DIY). I think I'm going to do this more often.

WASTING TIME - JACK JOHNSON

VALENTINE

VALENTINE - KINA GRANNIS

Great clip and I wish I could play guitar that way! She's a really good guitarist. :)

BRAND NEW DAY

BRAND NEW DAY - JOSHUA RADIN

BRAND NEW DAY

Costa Rica

I had a great day today! I had a lot of fun with my friends getting a present for a friend of mine with 2 other friends. We spent 2 hours doing so. Haha, with result. I've had a really bad week. The weather has really made a turn for the worst and suddenly I'm walking around in sweaters and I really, really hate it. It reminds me why I really want a different climate.

Anyway, I was browsing through my old pictures and I came across this picture.
And I was there. I took that picture with my old camera! I totally forgot about this picture. It was a really bad camera too, which really shows how beautiful it was there! I went to Costa Rica about two years ago and it was great. We had like a couple miles of private beach. There was nobody! We were there during the low season, which basically means there was nobody.

St. James Park - London

And a friend of mine (dieske) took a really cool picture of me in St. James Park London. On this bridge you had this great view of the London eye and other things. It was really cool. We had so much fun too! So, I've found this really cool new artist. Her name is Kina Grannis and she is a really good guitarist! I really like music with guitars in it! And I love self-written songs. Tomorrow Dieskes party.

She's a really good artist. Check her out on http://www.youtube.com/user/diesketje

Well, I'll write to you soon! And comment pleaase.

BRAND NEW DAY - JOSHUA RADIN