Gender Roles and stereotyping

I promised to write about the search for the missing brothers Julian and Ruben, but then my dissertation prep caught up with me and I stopped having time to stop and write. And now it's more or less dropped from Dutch news, so I don't think I'm going to bother any more; I missed the moment. Let me just conclude my thoughts on it by use of the following statement: I know it was an emotional affair. It was a horrible thing, and my thoughts go out to their Mum.
But the hysterical reporting reminded me an awful lot of the massive outrage over stranded whale Johannes last year.

There are, however, plenty of other serious topics to write about. This is one I care deeply about.

***

Recently I've been getting worked up over a lot of things, including rape culture, the perpetuation of the patriarchy, people who argue against gay marriage and against blasphemy, and democracy. I've become a regular visitor of Everyday Sexism, which exists to point out that despite some people arguing the opposite, sexism is (unfortunately) very much alive - and surprisingly ingrained.

And quite simply, all issues I get worked up over all come back to one basic concept: people should be treated as individuals of equal worth. My main issue today is gender roles; the ideas that men are supposed to be men, who are into women, and women are supposed to be women and there for the enjoyment of men (because, as is an unfortunately still prevalent belief, "women don't like sex" - which is an obviously ridiculous idea). 

Before I bounce off into a rant about everything that's wrong in this world, let me spell out my privileges. After all, you can't properly criticise existing power relations without acknowledging your own position within them.

I think I classify as middle class. I attended a solidly middle class elementary school, in any case, and grew up in a solidly middle class town. I've been brought up as a white, Dutch, agnostic protestant in the white-majority, protestant, prosperous Netherlands, and have received a good education. I have never been discriminated against based on race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, education, political preference or religion. I have been and am immensely privileged.

There should be no external hurdles for me to do anything I want to do - except for being the leader of a strict hierarchy, because, as my father has now declared in two discussions, "women don't do hierarchy well" (Don't get me wrong, I really do love my Dad, we just tend to have different views on different things - doing discussions is pretty much our family sport).

I suppose I understand my father's point of view - his was a time in which males went into the army at 18 and females stayed home to take care of the family. I don't think he ever expected to have to defend his views of whether females are generally particularly unsuited for certain types of work to his daughter.

But this is not what makes me angry, though it does get me worked up.

What makes me angry are the comment sections of online news articles I have been reading lately, where people broadcast their opinion that somehow females who dress in short skirts ask to be raped and that somehow males are losing their masculinity for allowing females to "feminise" society.

But neither are particularly worrisome issues. Sure, these opinions are tremendously grating, but they can be opposed. They can be discussed, because they have been vocalized.

What is, however, a worrisome issue is the underlying corrosive attitude towards gender and gender-roles.

Gender still so often forms part of our identity. Many people before me have gone on to state how there is a difference between sex and gender - sex is what gives male homo sapiens their XY chromosomes, and what gives female homo sapiens their XX chromosomes. It's basic biology.

What isn't biology, however, is gender - gender is a social construct. When I say 'male' and 'female' in this post, I mean biological sex - when I say 'man' or 'woman' (or the plural) I mean gender.

Gender is what makes people expect females to like pink and glitter and flowers and ponies and stuff, what what makes people expect males to like beer and sportscars and steak and boobs and stuff.

Gender is, regrettably, also the thing that make people say truthfully idiotic things such as "women should not be in charge of a ship because women don't do hierarchy", or "men should not be nurses because they aren't caring".

Gender stereotyping is what makes me lament to one of my friends "sometimes I wish I were a guy, things would be so much easier - I could just wear a three-piece suit if I'd like to" and what makes manufacturers like McCoy's proclaim that their crisps are man crisps - so I can't possibly enjoy them?

It's what made McDonalds release a commercial in the Netherlands in 2006, in which they promoted "man-burgers"...

Translated transcript:

Woman: Oh, I'll have a man-burger.

(McDonalds falls quiet)

Voice-Over: Okay, if you girls want to act like men, we'll act like women!

(Man trying on wellies)

Man: It's exactly what I'm not looking for. It's the wrong colour, the heel's ugly...

(Different shop)

Man: Well, they feel right.

Woman: Yeah, I think they're...

Man: But they're really ugly.

(Different shop)

Man: Colour's exactly right. But those ridges, I really don't like ridges...

Woman: Ridges?

Man: Yeah, they're ugly, those ridges.

(Different shop, woman offers a pair of wellies, man only sniggers)

(Different shop again)

Man: It's so difficult. I think I like those in the first shop best. Yep. We could drop by tomorrow.

V.O.: The Big Tasty with Bacon. A man-burger. For men. And women, if they still feel like one now...

I'm fully aware that commercial was to be taken as a joke. It's not like I lack a sense of humour - I giggled tremendously when I first saw it.

Except the whole fact that I feel the need to defend myself by asserting that I do have a sense of humour is already a result of ingrained gender roles and the perpetuation thereof, because the whole notion of a female finding fault with commercial products that perpetuate gender stereotyping, no matter whether ironically or unironically, is far too often neutralized by the simple remark that the female who finds fault with the commercial simply lacks a sense of humour. Such neutralization is of course tremendously useful, because if you can neutralize something without having to actively consider it, you save yourself the trouble of questioning the underlying assumptions.

More simply said: accusing people who take offence with female-driver jokes, female-kitchen jokes and female-sandwich jokes (worse still, rape jokes) of having no sense of humour whatsoever allows people to go about their business as usual, without having to wonder whether females are often marginalized and then - gasp - actually having to do something about it. But actually, making a joke about females (and reducing their experiences of sexual abuse to a joke) is just as bad as racist jokes. No one wants to be known as a racist, so why is being sexist still okay? Why is it so much easier to call out someone on saying something racist than it is to call them out on a sexist joke?

I fully support seeing gender - like sexuality - as being on a continuum. Sex is generally dichotomous (though, as always, there are exceptions), but gender is far more fluid.

Gender stereotyping is a dreadfully narrow thing.
I am female and generally identify as a woman, but display many characteristics considered unfeminine or masculine; I loved to play with my brother's Lego bricks as a child, prefer technical and scientific documentaries over soap operas and talent shows, loathe chick flicks and chick lit and want my crime films to be as gruesome as possible, and generally enjoy taking charge of my own affairs.
Women are, however, generally expected to not like or even be capable of science and technology (consider the awful EU campaign about science for girls, see below - even if women do science, it can, apparently, only be so when science is pink and can only have to do with make-up and other "girly" things), generally expected to love chick flicks and despise action films (consider so.awfully.many internet how-tos for a woman to get a male friend to join her to see a romantic film, and so.awfully.many action film reviews that have at least one point of why women would love that film too, not generally having to do with enjoying the action but with the looks of a male star), and generally are expected to have their male companions pay for them and sort out their affairs (consider the majority of Everyday Sexism anecdotes).

I am no different from most women, or most people for that matter, in enjoying the things I enjoy. Should the things we ought to enjoy really be dictated by our sex, or can we just accept that people have different interests, which have nothing to do with their sex or gender?

Do be aware, most people are in one way or another guilty of gender-based assumptions and stereotyping. Just the other day I found myself accusing someone of "acting like a woman" for holding a grudge.

Similarly, men are expected to behave irrationally when it comes to sexually attractive females - should we really believe that men are so terribly weak that they cannot control themselves when they see a flash of skin? Funny then how there are still places in this world where females can walk around with uncovered breasts and the local males don't go into horny fits. Isn't assuming that men are sexually weak creatures not also gender-stereotyping? Placing men within the beer-drinking sports-watching category, in which men turn into drooling stupid-boxes whenever a somewhat-sexually attractive female passes by.
Most importantly, should men somehow really be denied their active role in sexual crimes, as so often rapists are assumed to be male because women are not considered to actively seek out sex? Generally, according to infuriatingly large sections of The Internet, females are apparently somehow asking to be harassed, because apparently to these sections it is a man's right to consider females public property, to be touched and used at their own discretion. If a female goes out wearing a short skirt and she gets raped, how is it that her fault? She did not request to be raped, the rapist decided to do the raping and went ahead with that. There are so many men out there who do respect females as people, and who show no signs of acting irrationally whenever they see an attractive person - is it then really irrational to ask all people to at least respect others regardless of dress and behaviour? 

Gee.

If you identify as a woman and you're somehow less than feminine, you're criticised for being un-feminine. If you're attractive, you're 'asking' to at least be harassed, as if access to 'pretty girls' is somehow an inalienable male right. If you're unattractive, you're supposedly not worth the attention, or only negative attention.

If you identify as a man and you're not so much into sports or anything, people are actively supporting the idea that you should have your man-card revoked, whatever that means. If you're a man and you like taking care of other people, same thing.

Awfully oppressive, isn't it, being denied the basic right of being respected and being considered worth equally to all others just for failing to fit these dreadfully narrow stereotypes.

And respect really isn't that difficult a thing. It is nothing more than considering others individuals with basic inalienable human rights such as, well, set out in the declaration of human rights. It is a social glue, keeping society together, lifting destructive conflicts (conflicting with others for who they are - like Hitler's attempt at annihilating just about everyone who didn't adhere to his Aryan ideal, and on a much more individual level, the rather silly fallacy of the Ad Hominem) to the level of a constructive conflict (conflicting with others for what they do).
And it's not at all difficult to implement, either. When I was in Cairo, of all places, a few years ago (pre-revolution), with my father and brother, our male tour guide took my questions about Egyptian politics, economics and the Islamic faith just as seriously as he took my brother's and father's on the same topics, and actually asked my permission to put his hand on my shoulder when we took a photo with him. Of course asking me and not my brother or father this is still recognizing a gender difference, but far more along the lines of recognizing that some women (should've been people) might be uncomfortable with others touching them without permission. At the time, I was surprised and actually found it a bit silly, as I have been lucky enough to not have had to endure much groping and catcalling in my life, but as I keep reading articles about females feeling sexually harassed my appreciation for this gesture has increased exponentially. The reverse has happened with the man in Luxor the year before who, although probably in jest, offered my Dad a good lot of camels in exchange for me - at the time I felt incredibly flattered that 1) I was apparently worth a good lot of camels, even if it was a bit of a joke and 2) my Dad was offered more camels for me than he was for my Mum 20 years earlier in Tunisia. But I've come to realise that not only is it very, very wrong to treat women as pieces of meat, to be traded against camels, as a joke it's in as poor a taste as "sandwich" jokes are.

What if we just let people like what they like, do what they do, regardless of their biological sex, wouldn't that at least stop a whole lot of nonsense about people somehow being worth less for who they are rather than for what they do? 

Was Ernest Hemingway a marvellous writer because he was male or because he wrote things like For Whom the Bell Tolls? Sure, he's a "manly" man writing about "manly" things, but does that make him any better or worse as a writer?
Was Jane Austen a wonderful writer because she was female or because she wrote the wonderful Pride and Prejudice, among other things? Sure, she was a woman writing novels that seem currently most often read by women, but does that make her less of a writer than Hemingway?
Furthermore, I simply love Oscar Wilde's writings; would one even remotely think it reasonable to consider him a better or worse writer than Austen for the sole reasons of Wilde being male? Surely not. Would one even remotely think it reasonable to consider him a better or worse writer than Hemingway for the sole reason of Wilde being gay? Surely not.

Surely, are all three completely different writers who should be judged for their own merit.

On the very clever Oscar Wilde-segue, let's discuss sexuality.

With rigid gender attitudes comes a rigid attitude of heteronormativity. It seems that a lot of (straight) males are more or less homophobic, perhaps because in homosocial (a social situation of men amongst men) situations, being bi or gay is supposedly less manly (i.e. the idea that a lot of men are scared to be even be for a second thought bi or gay because they think their male buddies might think less of them for it - the reverse is a man being able to pick up numerous very sexually attractive girls who are in their mid-teens to mid-twenties).
Most (straight) females are much more socially free to 'experiment' with other females, presumably because of pornography in which "girl-on-girl" is a trope - or the pornography trope is reflective of the general male arousal as a result of "girl-on-girl", in any case, it seems much more accepted, perhaps because a majority of heterosexual men appear to find it attractive - not judging it too harshly serves general (straight) male interests. But in the end, women are still expected to settle down and have children.

I don't understand why some people are against homosexuality. Seriously. If a person against it on religious grounds, fine, they should go ahead and deny themselves every same-sex sexual urge they might ever have and be miserable about it. But why try and forbid others from doing what they please? 

I suppose what I don't get is the "threat" of homosexuality. How is it threatening? Some people seem to be afraid that people of their own gender might crush on them. But then I still don't get the threat. What is different for a straight-man-identifying male between a woman crushing on him and a man crushing on him? 

Perhaps it's indeed the homosocial status thing but then I still don't get it. Shouldn't one feel flattered that someone fancies them? (on that note, being flattered because someone fancies you is very, very, very different from being sexually harassed - fancying implies a respect for the person behind the looks, considering them actually people rather than pieces of meat or public property).

And why do people protest so vehemently against gay marriage? Surely marriage is a personal thing, a personal contract between two people (and sometimes their god) - surely such a personal bond cannot be made worth less or more based on whoever else decides to use a similar template to formalize their personal bond?

If one truly feels it's a sin, shouldn't they leave it up to their god, à la Matthew 7:1, "Judge not others; then God will not judge you. 2 For God will judge you in the same manner as you judge others, and God shall judge you according to the measure with which you judge others." (apologies, translation from my Dutch bible, but the message remains the same).

If gender is on a continuum, then sexuality must be so too. If you particularly fancy people with certain characteristics, should it then still matter as what they identify?

I personally often find myself socially attracted to funny people, who've read books that I like too and like to discuss things like politics and films and ethics. Though I so far have only been sexually attracted to males; if I were to feel sexually attracted to a female, would that make me a different me? Would that change who I am? Surely not.

Shouldn't we then agree that people should be judged according to what they do and how well they do it, rather than according to whether they identify as man, woman or anything in between and rather than according to the type of people they generally feel attracted to. Let's try and be as my Cairene tour guide and treat people as people, whose opinions and beliefs are important regardless of gender or sexual preference and whose bodies are their own, not public property. 

Because people are just people, and they have every human right to be happy with themselves just the way they are. 

Poem: Luxor

Apart from being a criminologist I also like to consider myself a writer, and poetry is of course very suited for a blog because the narratives I write are both too long and still require too much work to post here without me feeling anxious about them.

This is a poem I wrote two years ago.

Luxor

As though the Gods alone could create
That which bears such historical weight
Sphinx and ram bordering the lane
Guardians of faith and priests' long-held reign
Bronze are the sands pouring into the Nile
Biblical river offering soil so worthwhile
Red spotted heights topping off the King's Valley
Approached through the desert's lonely alley
And at the end of the stairs that amazing sight
Looking over the city from royal height
Site of the temples of Gods long past
Oh, how they perceive time flying fast
Wonderous city of one-and-thousand dreams
How far and yet near our last meeting now seems

It was mainly inspired by those great fourteen lines by John Burgon, part of his 1845 poem about the desert city of Petra in Jordan. I can only wish to write so beautifully as he does, but I'll keep practising and though this blog is meant for serious criminological and sociological pieces, every once in a while instead I'll try and post a poem.

Petra

It seems no work of Man's creative hand,
by labour wrought as wavering fancy planned;
But from the rock as if by magic grown,
eternal, silent, beautiful, alone!
Not virgin-white like that old Doric shrine,
where erst Athena held her rites divine;
Not saintly-grey, like many a minster fane,
that crowns the hill and consecrates the plain;
But rose-red as if the blush of dawn,
that first beheld them were not yet withdrawn;
The hues of youth upon a brow of woe,
which Man deemed old two thousand years ago,
match me such marvel save in Eastern clime,
a rose-red city half as old as time.

Naturally I should've copied that wonderfully rhythmic "eternal, silent, beautiful, alone!", that's just marvelous, as marvelous as the comparisons with Greece and nearer churches and cathedrals - I should've compared stuff too.

And though I've never been to Petra and so can't judge whether Burgon's poem is in any case truthful, I dare say that he is right in claiming that things of that level of beauty seem to be particular to the Middle East and parts of North Africa.

So, poetry. Because criminology can get really depressing sometimes.
I promise something more serious later this week, about the media coverage of the Dutch case of two missing (now found dead) boys whose father was found two weeks ago having committed suicide.

Committing Criminology

This blog was never intended to play out as a sort of online diary. There are other ways to keep my parents informed, such as Skype.

This blog was initially intended to outline the academic stuff I do. Sometimes I did - I wrote a tips page for current (Dutch) undergraduates thinking of studying in the UK, and every once in a while I tried to give my opinion about politics, but I keep returning to diary-like posts.

And yet, for the last week I've been trying to write a post on gender equality, which should be serious enough. I ended up analysing the Boston Marathon Bombing-reporting in my Crime and Media paper, while instead I could've written about it here.

I suppose a blog name as 'Adventures' does not actually encourage many serious ideas either, which in turn easily leads me to turn to writing semi-diary posts. As some of you might know, I've been trying to find a new blog name for a while now, and I finally have found one.

The other day I attended one of the Scarman Lectures here, which was this time done by Dr Barbara Perry from the Uni of Ontario Institute of Technology, about islamophobia in Canada. Her lecture consisted mainly of anecdotes by victims of islamophobic violence. From these anecdotes it seemed apparent that much of that type of violence is justified by the offenders to themselves through a sort of Othering-mechanism (e.g. comments to go back to countries of origin), which upset me.

In my view, the things that upset me - gender inequality, Othering, ignorant politicians - all relate to one thing - the existent power structures. Crime and especially crime reporting relate to this too - calling a mugging criminal and banking fraud culture are very much in line still with Sutherland's crimes of the powerful and those of the powerless. Calling one set of behaviours criminal and immoral and the other not simply maintains existing power structures, and of course media representation of crime feeds especially into this by making criminals seem monstrous, non-human.

Which is also why I am writing my dissertation on how UK newspapers reported on the notion that multinationals companies that make large profits in the UK - Amazon, Google, Facebook, eBay, Starbucks, etc. - avoided paying taxes through accounting tricks. Technically, this is legal. Technically, this is not criminal. The newspapers, however, seem to think otherwise - though it is not strictly called criminal, it has by at least one paper explicitly been called immoral, while a number called for boycotting these companies. And several drew criminal justice process-analogies by terming Starbucks's decision to pay 20m in taxes over some years as pleading guilty. Which is a fascinating turn of events; a sort of pre-legislative criminalisation of corporate behaviour, which seems quite rare judging by the general apathy towards legislating against corporate misbehaviour that over and over again is apparent in corporate crime-literature.

I suppose it all, in the end, relates to my belief in true democracy, a more or less Aristotelian constitution - in which everyone is a citizen, i.e. with equal rights and the duty to consider what is in the advantage of society. In such a society, everyone would be seen as of equally human, whether rich or poor, sick or healthy, or in any other way advantaged or disadvantages, and everyone would have the duty to contribute to the best of their abilities. Indeed, if everyone did what they enjoyed best and what they are best at, there comes into existence a true free market, exchange of goods and services, and one would expect general utility to continue going up. I might come back to this at some point in the future, for I do have more to say on it.

Which is why any type of power structure that deprives any human, whether through stigma, through bad education (or none), through general violence, is immoral to me. Industrial organisation teaches that eventually, theoretically, monopolies should disappear because the continuing invasion of other companies trying to get into the market should force them to keep prices low, and those sorts of mechanisms. The same should work for incumbent power structures - if the powerless continue to invade the spheres of the powerful, at one point the power structures must change. Except that industrial economics don't always seem to take political (lack of) power and societal apathy into account.

This. This is the stuff I want to be writing about. I want to explore morality and equality and crime reporting, I want to go into adventures in the land of criminology. I want to continue. I want to discover what makes people violent and what can be done against harmful acts, whether criminal or legal, whether corporate or individual. I want to understand society.

Dr Perry referred to a statement by the Canadian PM, who took a dig at sociologists by saying that it was "not a time to commit sociology". But it is, of all the moments in all the centuries in all the past, this is it, and I want to commit criminology in my time.

So from now on this blog will called 'Committing Criminology', and I will be writing about serious things. Mostly.

Tan

So it's been a while.

I've polished and finished my essays, and I've started on collecting news articles on corporate tax evasion by multinationals in the UK as reported over fall 2012 and spring 2013 for my dissertation.

To finish the essays we sort of formed a small library gang, hanging out there everyday from about 10 to 7, just to help each other do this and finish. And it worked tremendously well, as well as just being fun - especially now that the weather's turned warm and sunny (it's 20C right now!) and we got to spend hours in the park.

I'm still waiting for news from Leicester and London about the PhDs, but that will probably still be a good number of weeks.

So now I'm more or less stuck waiting for my grades (hand in was today, so it'll be another three weeks) and doing dissertation.

But today will be a park day, celebrating hand-in, and tomorrow I'll attend stuff for course rep and other interesting things. Oh, and do a proper spring clean this time around, since now it's warm enough to actually drag stuff outside while I clean my room.

I will be posting updates about my dissertation etc in the future, as well as perhaps excerpts from my essays, because some of the stuff I wrote was pretty okay I suppose.

But let's first try and work on my tan.

What I learned from doing my essays

So, now my essays are done and I can relax for a few days before polishing the essays and going all out on my dissertation.

Some of the things I learned from doing these essays:

• The Netherlands are really very much over-regulated, so much so that any amount of information available on things for which the government is responsible is completely overwhelming - but not necessarily very helpful. I think they're trying to create opacity through transparency. That said, really crucial information still needs to be WOBbed (Wet Openbaarheid van Bestuur, or the Law on Transparent Governance) and won't be released easily.
• I really don't like the system of amendments to British laws. It's incredibly opaque. 
• The different legal approaches of the Netherlands and Britain make for legal constructions that are surprisingly similar despite being based on completely different legal ideologies.
• Britain is safety before privacy, the Netherlands vice versa - for now.
• I really enjoy doing comparative legal research.
• The Media are evil.
• People don't care about what's real, only about what fits with their own idea of reality. 
• The Media pander.
• The Media have always been evil. There has never been such a thing as "oh my, the media sure weren't that bad-news-oriented when I was a kid" - they were, it's just the same state of mind as the one that goes "today's youth sure weren't as badly behaved in my time!" that makes you think differently.
• I really enjoy doing media-sociological research.
• Effective policing is really difficult. 
• Transnational crime hinges on market forces, not on transnational policing efforts.
• Europol has a really annoying website.
• Europol's annual OCTA reports are very clear, but not very helpful.
• Europol's publications reflect the country that Europol is located in - the Netherlands.
• Europol's publications are mainly pro-Europol propaganda.
• Europol is really pessimistic with regards to the future of transnational crime in Europe.
• I should never toss out old papers, and also not any of the paragraphs I take out of papers to diminish the word count.
• In order to actually effectively approach transnational crime, law enforcement in Europe needs to be harmonized to a degree that would make even the most pro-European party cry about loss of sovereignty. 

So that's some of the stuff I learned from doing these essays. Fascinating stuff, really. 

The Netherlands are idiotic

It's 5 am and I'm still awake and I can't stop thinking.

I love Britain, and the Netherlands are an idiotic country.

In the Netherlands...

...Politicians debate whether the titles of academic and professional degrees should be made the same - that is, people who would've previously gotten a B Eng or a B Ec or something of the sort will suddenly all get a BSc or a BA in the future, supposedly because B 'Something not Sc/A'-degrees are not recognized abroad (nevermind that there are plenty of foreign educational institutions that offer precisely such degrees), while ignoring the fact that this will tremendously devalue all current BSc/BA-degrees;

...Politicians debate whether to (finally) abandon the Law against Blasphemy - yes, that was an actual law that existed in the Netherlands until 2013, and yet even in 2013 there were parties trying to keep it. I have no problems with religion but people's faith should not be imposed on other people's lives just like that;

...Politicians accuse each other of "nibbling space cake";

...For the inauguration of King Willem-Alexander, the composer of some of the Netherlands's most successful and simultaneously worst songs (the Dutch should be famous for their tremendous lack of any taste in music) is employed to write a song, which predictably ends up bad - when everyone is suitably outraged, he withdraws it, and then despite there being fairly okay-ish alternatives, the Inauguration Committee says "screw the public, we're going with the bad song anyway" because that's just how Dutch committees roll;

...The release of and criticisms on said bad song actually received about the same amount of coverage as the Boston Marathon Bombings;

...The Rijksmuseum is finally open after ten years of refurbishment and restoration - it took about three times longer than planned and went about four times or so over budget because the Stadsdeelraad of the part of Amsterdam in which the Rijksmuseum is located was actually making an expensive fuss over a stupid bike passage;

...State secretaries who make a mess of their responsibilities don't actually get kicked out of office;

...UPDATE: Political parties (though the same as the one that was making a fuss over Blasphemy) are now trying to move to forbid adverts for the website SecondLove, because the site encourages adultery. Seriously, regardless of what I *personally* think about adultery, who gives a toss about what other people do in their spare time, as long as it's not illegal?

Despite all this, I've lived in that stupid country for 22 years. It's my stupid country.

Despite all the idiotic over-regulation, there are things I miss about it.

I miss how the Dutch are open to the point of rudeness. I find it tremendously difficult here to gauge what people think of me (if they even do so), while of Dutchies I'd generally know fairly quickly whether they like or dislike me. I think I'd rather have a "sod off" than a blank stare.

I miss how Dutch supermarkets have a proper selection of vegetables. I'm getting really annoyed of alternating between cauliflower, sweetcorn and green beans. Though I did see that the greengrocer on Queens Road has rhubarb, so I'll have to drop by that place.

I miss how the Dutch don't look at you funny when you try to make small talk while queuing in the shop and actually respond.

I also kind of miss not having a strange accent.

Funny how it's the little things that make me feel somewhat homesick after 7 months in the UK.

Tuesday Drinks

As the weather outside is getting warmer again, I am reminded of going out in Middelburg. Do mind that this post concerns memories that might be slightly rosy-tinted.

Going out in Middelburg was completely different from the way we go out here in Leicester. It did often include a pub - Seventy Seven, De Mug, or, before it was demolished, Barrel - but usually ended in a Koestraat common room or Bagijnhof living room..

Actually, on warm spring and autumn evenings, going out in Middelburg would often be punctuated by lying down on the Market Square, gazing up at the stars, and discussing life, the universe and everything. Actually, every place in Middelburg attended by RA/UCR students was a place to discuss life, the universe and everything.

One of my favourite traditions of the time was Tuesday Drinks, a fairly random and small collection of people, and we would gather on Tuesdays (but not every Tuesday) around 9, 10-ish, as Wednesday was our traditional day off (though over my six semesters at RA, I've only had three in which I didn't actually have class on Wednesdays). There would inevitably be six-packs of whatever brand of beer was cheap that week - 'but not the really cheap stuff because that's like flavoured water' - crisps, chocolate, a stack of plastic cups and a deck of cards. We'd start out discussing the latest gossip - inevitable in a university college of 600 - but quickly moved on to discuss politics. I vividly remember having a discussion on whether Mubarak's reign in Egypt around the end of my first year - mind, this was way before the Arab spring - was democratically valid, and whether he'd last much longer. Politics often led to philosophy and theology, while the deck of cards and the plastic cups led to games of King's Cup and, once bored of it, Never Have I Ever.

What strikes me in retrospect is the ease with which we switched from topic to topic, and the respect we had for each other's points. We had markedly different political views, and of course our discussions turned quite heavy and a bit shouty every once in a while, but it was all done in good fun. Some of the discussions touched on topics that might have solicited very different reactions from different people - for instance, though our little collection was half female, half male, there was no rudeness from anyone with regards to sexuality, whether we discussed pornography (it was easily taken for fact that yes, women like porn too), experiences (no slut-shaming) or anything else of the sort. Everything was up for debate, whether we should put the fake goldfish floating in a half-empty Bagijnhof fish bowl into the King's Cup which at that moment held a particularly awful mixture of beer and Bailey's, or whether Plato or Aristotle's model of the perfect government would be better suited to deal with the global economic crisis.

We even put forward Quidditch practice once as something to try out - which we did, even trying to set up a team, before our efforts fizzled as graduation approached.

Going out in Leicester's good fun, and I'm sure that everything is still up for debate and I'm sure that my fellow Criminologists would approach such topics with the same kind of respect and sensitivity. Actually, I know they will, as similar things have been discussed here, both at parties and, for instance, in the library.
But in Tuesday Drinks we had a forum, and if there is one desire I have for the next room or flat I rent, it's that it needs to have enough space to invite people over for dinner parties and drinks.

To Tuesday Drinks.

Things that are Cool

Now they've gone and done it.

Alright, they went and done it back in 1965, but still.

I think they've now covered just about everything I find supremely cool in Doctor Who. They've done Egyptians (Nefertiti in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship), Napoleon (Reign of Terror), Vampires (sort of, in Vampires of Venice), Shakespeare (more than just one episode), Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe (well, they mentioned them in A Christmas Carol). And I'm watching The Chase now, and not only is Ian's dancing and his remark to Barbara to "get with it" slightly embarrassing ergo hilarious, they've featured The Beatles. On telly, but still.

I also find Vicki's remarks regarding The Beatles surprisingly apt. Mind, this was 1965. They were big, they were massively big back then, but they still had 5 years to go, to get even bigger.

Mind you that nowadays, Abbey Road is still crowded on cold Thursday mornings with people trying to take pictures of themselves on the crossing. That's almost 50 years later. Would the BBC have known, back in 1965, how big The Beatles would still be years and years later? How it would endure? Mind you that nowadays no one expects - whatever Deity you choose to believe in, please help us if I'm wrong and they do endure - Justin Bieber or One Direction or Nicki Minaj or whatever's the most popular thing going on right now to still be THAT popular in 50 years. Okay, sure, Vicki's from 400 years into the future and perhaps The Beatles will have faded in 400 years, but they haven't as of yet.

Also I love her classification of them as 'classical music'. I suppose they are, though. Classical pop.

Pigeons

So, turns out my trip to London had completely wrong timing - not only is the weather much better this week, but they also shot stuff for Doctor Who today. My dear friend Danou saw them though, on Trafalgar Square. I'm only slightly jealous ;)

Coincidences continue with this clip: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p017gl8h, mainly because Strax says 'flying predators called pigeons' - it's coincidental because though most people really hate pigeons, me included, my Dad and I had a thing going all week about pigeons secretly being aliens out to destroy all of humankind - my Dad had this hilarious thing going on when we walked back from Buckingham Palace to Green Park station about pigeons hiding teeth in their beaks and how one pigeon marching back and forth among a small group was a general inspecting the troops and how a pigeon on the path was out to attack me. He also pointed one out to me telling me how that was the evil one and that you should never trust a pigeon.

It's a good thing though my Dad and I are certifiably not mad. I think.

Yet Another London Adventure

If you're a regular reader, you might've noticed my week-long absence. Or at any rate, you might've noticed I wasn't as active on Facebook last week as I normally am.

That's because my Dad was over, and seeing as Leicester's not thrilling enough for a week's holiday, he flew west and I took the train south and we spent an almost-week traipsing around London.

It's been years since my Dad was last in London (a truly vintage city map that's now in my possession dates back to 1990, which may not seem like much until you remember that that's 23 years ago), so we did all the touristy stuff while trying a bit too hard not to seem too much of a tourist - " 'tourist (noun):  loud with polyester coats and bum bags and tennis shoes" - which was fun.

Many of my photos - I didn't take many though, I'm not really the photograph-clicking kind, plus my Dad took a picture every three steps so I'll just rely on his collection - are basically just of things I find tremendously cool just now and/or that would work nicely as a Facebook profile pic. So here's my stuff.

The first Leaky Cauldron. Because once a Potter fan, always a Potter fan. Also photographed now because I couldn't find it last time I was in Leadenhall Market - turns out, I'd walked right past it. Well. So much for my ability to observe stuff. 

The global zero centre coordinate point that I wrote about in the post about Time. Photographed on a massive map in Greenwich. 

Me at the Greenwich meridian. Loved being here. Loved seeing this. It's such a weird thing to be real, to think that this is where the Earth supposedly starts and ends. I've been close to another important map-line before, the Tropic of Cancer, back when I was in Abu Simbel, but then I still was a bit away from that particular latitude, so now I've truly stood on an important place for coordinates.

Also I've travelled in time by jumping back and forth on the line. 

Of course we visited Madame Tussauds, so here's me with the magnificent Humphrey Bogart.

I do love Casablanca. 

So many people walked right past him, not recognizing him. People these days have no regard for classic films. For shame. But at least I didn't have to work my elbows to take a pic with this particular wax statue - I think I had to battle an entire army of middle-aged mums to take a photo with the statue of George Clooney.

Ah, there's a vacancy in the Bates Motel. Yes, let's stay there.

Further epicness (and lack of elbowing - truly people, for shame!) was ensured by the wax statue of Oscar Wilde. I just about kept myself from throwing a teenaged-girly fit over the awesomeness.

But our visit wasn't just limited to stuff for teenage girls on a trip with their middle-aged mums, or slightly weird students - my Dad battled a battalion of greying and grey dads to get a pic with Paul, Ringo, John and George. I think he was also the one holding back a teenaged-girly fit over awesomeness when I took him to see Abbey Road and the studios on Thursday morning.

On Wednesday we went to Oxford, because I wanted to show my Dad the Bodleian and some other pretty buildings, plus I needed to pick up some things - also I was slightly desperate to visit Blackwell's, and it's now almost been a year since I had a chat in Oxford with two academics, one from Utrecht and one from Glasgow, over a very fancy dinner, where one of them told me that you don't need to be clever to do a PhD, just be really passionate about something, and where I most or less made the definitive decision to give Academia a serious shot.

As I sat in front of the Criminology section in Blackwell's, I held three books in my hands. I wanted all three, but I reasoned with myself that buying all three would be senseless. I most desperately wanted the one that - of course - also happened to be the most expensive one.

I still bought it, of course.

Crime and Economics. C'mon. I'm a Law and Economics (well, Social Sciences but those were my main tracks) BA. I've been contemplating going back to RA/UCR in, say, a decade and forcing them to expand Crime and Law Enforcement into a full track, and because of my background I've considered a course that draws on both criminology and economics.
I couldn't just walk away and leave it there. It would be a betrayal of all my interests.

So, Thursday was Abbey Road. It was also our day of walking around, from the London Eye to Westminster Abbey to Trafalgar Square to Piccadilly Circus. Of course that was also the day we were hit by snow and bitter cold, so I quickly turned quite cranky - sorry about that, Dad.

We had an absolutely lovely afternoon tea at Fenwick's, which was quite fun because we were sat next to two very posh ladies, who were absolutely delightful.

Friday we met up with Danou and indulged in a day of amateur Egyptology - wandering 'round the British and Petrie Museums, pointing out deities to one another and, while in the Petrie Museum, finding stuff that has been featured on the Joann Fletcher documentary-set that's been on the BBC.

I said goodbye to my Dad on Friday night, as he had to catch a very early flight out again, while I stayed another night to travel back to Leicester on Saturday.

As I transferred from the Central to the Hammersmith & City Line, I suddenly walked past something that I hadn't expected to see at all this week. Surely I'd been looking at maps of Central London to figure out where it could possibly located, as I'd been watching a documentary on it the other day, but I never intended to go and see it for real. But I did.

You see, as you transfer lines there, you have to walk from White City station to Wood Lane station, and as you do so, you walk right past the BBC Television Centre. Quite extraordinary.

But now I'm safely back home in Leicester, and I'll probably unpack in a bit, then eat something and then watch the newest Who.

Thanks again, Dad, for the trip.

PS Okay, so the new Who is quite cool. Bit deus ex screwdriver, as is to be expected, and I felt slightly worried about that system because after the parasite collapsed, what was that system's main point of gravity? Other than that, nice ep. Looking forward to next week - submarines!

Doctor Who s7e6 sort-of-review

So yesterday I watched the new Doctor Who-episode (Who-pisode?).

I was quite excited for it, also because it had been promoted as being somewhat James Bond/Jason Bourne-like. It wasn't like that at all, though.
Seriously, the Doctor can't be like James Bond - the only character in the episodes I have watched so far that can make claims to being somewhat Bond-like would be Ian, the 30-something science teacher in a suit (but willing to dress in funkier outfits) and JFK-haircut who, together with Barbara and Susan, was one of the first companions back in the 1960s (I do have a bit of a weak spot for the Ian character).

But I quite liked the episode, apart from a few things I am all too willing to overlook. Except for Clara. I don't like this version of her. I liked her as soufflé-girl, and I liked her as Victorian Clara, but current-day Clara is just odd. She seemed to be trying too hard to be feisty but missing the actual spark to be feisty. A bit too-cute-to-be-true, in a sense (also, didn't she call him 'Doctor' before he'd properly introduced himself as such? Might have to re-watch).
Monsters in the WiFi, heck yes. Nicely done, too, with the Spoonheads and a creepy CEO-type lady.
Motorbike - why? He's got a bloody TARDIS. Seems a bit contrived and just a plot-thing to have the Doctor drive up the side of the Shard, which seemed slightly off. I watched it going "WHAT." in my best Tennant-imitation. Slightly deus ex machina - "You can't enter" "Well I can because this motor bike that I've been driving around because somehow I thought it wise to leave my TARDIS on the South Bank and that no one has ever seen before can suddenly defy gravity". Yeah No.
Seriously, that could've been done much more easily with the TARDIS, without having to stick in a deus ex motorbike - "Say Clara, let's have breakfast" "Did you just park the TARDIS on the pavement in the middle of London?" "Yes I did" "Awesome" - breakfast - "Oh No, I have to be in the Shard!" - TARDIS - "Hello creepy CEO lady".
But in general I liked the episode. Nice pacing (which is what has me screaming at my laptop about the early episodes - mainly going "seriously Ian, DO SOMETHING!"), nice baddies, nice TARDIS interior, nice purple coat (purple is cool).
I watched the episode expecting it to be part of a bigger whole, which is why I am willing to overlook things - if they bring back the motorbike for something that can't be done with the TARDIS later on in the series, I'll drop all my complaints about it.
The only thing I felt was truly missing was something of a transition between the Christmas special and this episode. I know the prequel is there, but it's not sufficient. Hope they'll come back to that later in the series also.
In general, therefore, nice opening for a new (half) series but only if the writers are willing to wrap up a big number of loose ends.

Very much looking forward to next episode, if only because 'Akhaten' reminds me of the name of pharaoh Akhenaten, which is cool because Akhenaten was not only the heretic king but also the father of Tutankhamun (who really isn't important but his treasures are still cool) and the spouse of Nefertiti - which is cool because we already saw Nefertiti in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship.
Besides, Akhaten seems to translate to something having to do with the solar-deity Aten (whom Akhenaten made the focus of his monotheistic religion) and pharaonic effectivenes, or something of the sort.
The summary on the BBC website says "The Doctor takes Clara to the Festival of Offerings, but the Old God is waking and demands sacrifice!". I've seen the preview and trailer, and there's definitely a fiery planet or even star in there, so that works too. Of course it's in space - but who's to say Akhenaten's religion didn't travel?
So, definitely something with Gods, and Festival of Offerings sounds quite like something that fits with the religions of the Egyptian and classical world. Cool. Fingers crossed that they're actually putting in allusions to Ancient Egypt, for that would forever solidify my fanship of Doctor Who. They've already done vampires and Napoleon, after all.

Time

Seeing as tonight sees the broadcast of a whole new Doctor Who episode, this might be the right moment to write about one of my greatest problems with the show: Time. And time travel. Especially the Earth-centricness.

I don't have any problems with space travel, mainly because space travel is just covering distance and whether covering a certain distance in little to no time passing at all might well be possible when technology improves. Sure, if one travels by coordinates - as the Doctor seems to be doing - one needs to be extremely specific in order not to land halfway in the ground somewhere, or stuck in a ceiling - one would need to know the exact location of every atom in the general area of where one would want to land (which, so I've been told, is one of Physics's major practical problems in making teleportation possible). But I'm sure the TARDIS is perfectly equipped for this, and there appears to be a Galactic Zero Centre (http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Galactic_centre), like our global coordinates are at 0 where the equator crosses the Greenwich meridian, just off the coast of Africa. Such a zero point is an agreed-upon point and so not an absolute, but can still be used to measure against and so base travel upon. There need to be no extremes known - you don't need to know the "end", just keep on counting. It does not even need to be a Galaxy-widely held convention, even if only the TARDIS would use such a zero point, it can be used for travel, as long as elevation or at least a third dimension is taken into account.

But Time. Time does not truly exist, does it, other than as a purely abstract idea to mark the duration of a sequence of events. Time, as a concept, is a human invention - the basic notion is the rotation of the Earth and the orbiting of the Earth around the Sun, nothing more. A day is the duration for one point - or line, the Greenwich meridian - to move from a specific location relative to the Earth's axis to that same location relative to the Earth's axis, or from Midnight to Midnight. But that's a modern invention, as for instance in the Ancient world, if I remember correctly, a full day lasted from sun up to sun up and so the duration of a day varied. But an agreed duration for a day is good, so humans could divide it by 24, and then by 60, and then by 60 again, and so forth, to find out hours and minutes and seconds and miliseconds. There wasn't even a unified time per country until railways demanded it, and then it still took a while for everyone - it took especially the French very long - to agree that time is to be derived from the Greenwich meridian.
A year is just the same, the number of days it takes to orbit around the Sun - 365.24... something, so we need a leap year every four years except some. To us, that is, because to the Ancient Egyptians a year was 360 days (12 months, 30 days per months, 3 weeks per month, 10 days per week) plus a festival of five days for the Gods, which fell outside the year.
And what is our zero for years? Some Pope decided that the birth of Christ was supposed to be zero, so he calculated zero, and still got it wrong, so that our calendar begins at a completely random point in time. Fair enough though if we can all agreed that that random point is zero, but then the Jewish are currently in the year 5773. And we can't even agree on the point when the year should begin - Midnight at the start of the 1st of January? Or later, in late January/early February, like the Chinese New Year? Roman New Year did not start until March, while Ancient Egyptian New Year was some time over summer.
Fine, so let's say the TARDIS travels by Gallifreyan time - one could presume that at least the Gallifreyans would agree on one time, some of them being Time Lords, after all.
Travelling forward in time should perhaps not be too difficult, if one can teleport or travel really really fast - something with time running slower than elsewhere, something Einstein, something relativity.
But travelling back in time should only be possible if each event, or each sequence of events, is stored in some dimension, and that time passing is just - I'm going fairly metaphysical here - our consciousness passing through those dimensions. A bit like our consciousnesses are watching a stop-motion film, but then they are part of that stop-motion film. I guess this could be possible with parallel universes etc., quantum physics and what not. Schroedinger's Cat and that.
Besides, time travel should only be possible if one can map time against something - but against what?

But perhaps I'm taking time too much as a linear thing and instead it is "a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey... stuff".

Anyway. What I did realise is possible was what I realised yesterday as I was trying to fall asleep. Basically, we only see parts of the Doctor's adventures (most notably the Eleventh Doctor suddenly ages from 900-something to 1100-something over a series, and we don't really see what happens in the 200 years in between), so at any point in time, if the Doctor were real, we humans could meet just about every incarnation - a TARDIS could appear right here in the grad lounge and the First Doctor could come stepping out "hmm"-ing (or, more interestingly to me, the Tenth could step out brandishing the sonic screwdriver). Of course that would also mean (I haven't watched any episode yet in which the Doctor meets himself, so bear with me) that a Doctor with little to no hang-ups about crossing his own timeline could easily meet himself in an earlier (or even the same - but hang on, he did that more or less when Rose wanted to save her Dad) regeneration. I'd love for the First Doctor to meet the Eleventh and go all "hmm" and "my boy" and patronising and all that until the Eleventh points out that he is him but - hilariously - older.

What if time passed faster in the TARDIS (or any other other dimension) than it does in the outside world? It would explain why suddenly the Eleventh Doctor is 200 years older, for I doubt he'd travel without the Ponds for 200 years while the Ponds were still free. If one is used to a human pace, and time moves faster in another dimension, what would seem like a month could indeed easily be a year, or even two centuries.
It would also explain why some Doctors (especially the Tenth and Eleventh - I've yet to observe Two to Seven) seem a bit hyperactive compared to a human pace.
Sort of reversed relativity.
Perhaps it WOULD, in case of reversed relativity of time, be possible to travel back in time. Perhaps the pace of time inside the TARDIS can be altered so that travelling in time both ways is made possible. I don't know.
Hang on. Time goes faster on the inside than on the outside.
The TARDIS is Narnia.
That, or the Eleventh Doctor spent 200 years in Narnia.
Either one is cool.

Fascinating stuff, time. I just have difficulty grasping it - I do wish I hadn't dropped my science courses in secondary school. The upside of all this is that if time was a stop-motion film observed by our consciousnesses, I'd be totally right in believing there is no Truth and all there is, is our observed reality.

Physicists, do feel free to step in and answer my questions...

PS I love this: http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970401c.html. I'm quite terrible at the whole sine/cosine/tangent bit of mathemathics (only mathematics test I failed back when I was still good at maths), but let's ignore that bit. This bit: "The Earth is doing a lot more than rotating, although that is certainly the motion we notice most, because day follows night as a result. We also orbit the Sun once a year. The circumference of the Earth's orbit is about 940 million kilometers, so if you divide that by the hours in a year you will get our orbital speed in kilometers per hour. We are also moving with the Sun around the center of our galaxy and moving with our galaxy as it drifts through intergalactic space!". Pure Epic. Basically, it tells me that there should be four basic units of time on Earth: a day (rotation), an Earth year (orbit), a Galatic year (moving around the centre of the Galaxy) and an Intergalactic period (a distance in drifting through Intergalatic Space). Yes, I *am* ignoring time derived from atom clocks etc.. So basically, the TARDIS would not only have to have a sort of internal library of the positions of every atom - impressive enough to start with - but also of every atom's movement through time - and surely this must include 'paths not taken', i.e. unrealised futures and disregarded pasts.
Whoa. Time Lord technology must be truly awesome. No wonder the sonic screwdriver can do lots of things that seem like deus ex machina plot-tricks to us mere humans...

Applications (part #whatever)

It was sunny when I woke up. At 7.

I woke up that early because I'd intended to complete some of the final bits of my PhD application for Leicester and seeing as MyFiles (the thing that allows Leicester students to access their documents on their uni accounts from pretty much everywhere - I LOVE IT) has been offline since about 3pm yesterday afternoon, I figured I'd go to the Library.

That is, until I remembered it's Good Friday, and though our Library rarely closes, I figured I should check.

Anndddd the Library is closed today.

So there I was, frustrated that I couldn't access my uni account, where I store digital copies of my important files, such as my transcripts and degree certificates etc. from home, and frustrated that there's no other way for me to access it either. 

I went back to sleep.

I woke up again at about 11, when it was bright grey outside, and figured I'd try again.

Nothing.

I did my usual round on the Internet - NRC, Volkskrant, Guardian, FML, DearBlankPleaseBlank, 9Gag, and had some facebook chats - and then suddenly I had a bright moment.

Maybe some scans were still stored in my email bin? I hardly ever empty that one anyway...

Lo and behold, I found my TOEFL scan. And, what's also important, I found out I still had .jpg scans of my undergraduate transcript and degree certificate hidden on my computer somewhere. I do prefer .pdf, but if it works it works. 

Those happen to be my key files. Anything else - Leicester transcript (they know my grades anyway, though), passport copy (I'm an EU citizen, don't need visa), etc. - is not thát important and can be sent tomorrow when I finish my formal research proposal (basically, dot my Is), when the Library is open again.

Fingers crossed now. I'm terrified. But happy. 

New Things

As I was cycling downhill to the city centre earlier today, I gazed upon the hills on the other side of the Soar valley. There was still residual snow there, and it looked positively alpine, also because the sun illuminated parts of it. It was pretty.

Furthermore got myself a new pair of Converse, as my old pink ones really aren't suitable for wearing out in public any more (which is why I haven't really worn them in ages) and I also do like Converse for walking around, as they're very comfortable - I'll have to do lots of walking around soon. I always get High-Tops because I have fairly weak ankles and these sort of support them.

And a new purse, since the last one I bought isn't holding up very well and I'm fed up with my little purses, which only hold my wallet and keys.

Here's a pic:

Boring (and I like it!)

(Warning: don't take stuff too seriously. Also don't confuse liking boring things with being a boring person)

So much for the melodrama - I feel much better now, thanks.

My congestion cleared up pretty much in sync with my cough, so I'm happily spared the dry cough. Nevertheless, I still asked my dad to bring over noscapine. Just in case.

I seem to have most of my hearing back, too, which is good.

Finally, I stopped feeling hopeless about my future. I'd hit a bit of a low point with my last post, I presume, but now I remember that there's always, somehow, a way. I probably just get a bit melodramatic over set-backs because I'm not actually used to them. In fact, the biggest set-backs I've experienced so far include a uni rejection, a job rejection ('a', as in a grand total of one), a funding rejection, and not always getting what I wanted when I wanted it - but, with regards to the last thing, I often did end up with a version of what I wanted later on, so those aren't truly set-backs. If that's the sum of all my set-backs, I should count myself lucky and I usually do, but it's so easy to forget sometimes.

That's also why I'm terrible at telling anecdotes - I don't really have any good stories in which everything goes wrong. I didn't even get seasick during the Cruise of Horror last year and "so yeah, I ended up fetching water for everyone and pouring it over their faces" doesn't do much in terms of heroism either. I'm really much better at telling fairy tales, which my dad will surely attest to.

I attended one of the lectures in the Scarman Lecture Series here in Leicester today, and it was on being a police researcher and, more importantly, about the ethics and authenticity of that type of ethnographic research. I love ethnographic research, it's got such a feeling of adventure to it, but that's not the point - during the Q&A at the end, it was mentioned that in lots of ethnographic research things, the more salient bits are pointed out while the boring bits are... 'left on the cutting room floor' (my interpretation plus editing reference). It got me thinking - what bits of my life should be left on the cutting room floor? As said, I don't have any good anecdotes, no grand extraordinary tales, no 'remember that time when's.

Oh, I have that one time that I thought I was locked in an alley in Oxford for about three minutes once.

And that's wildly comforting. I'm jumping the right hoops, I'm not deviating too much either way, and so while I may not have anything super-exciting to say, at least I won't also have to be scared of everything going wrong.

I like boring. I like the minutiae of corporate crime and tax evasion and all that. Boring is just really my thing.

Gee, I must've been such an easy child...

Scared

I'm scared of the What-Ifs.

What If... I can't do a PhD next year?
What If... I'll have to move back to the Netherlands?
What If... I then still can't get a job?
What If... I can get a job but it's for 10 hours a week at a local shop?
What If... I'll be stuck in dead-end jobs for the rest of my life and will thus have wasted time on getting a BA and an MSc?

I was getting a little more optimistic about the economy lately, that is, until they pulled the Cyprus-plug.

I really do want to stay in the UK and I really do want to get a job in academia - anything is fine by me, though if at all possible I'd really like to be a teacher or researcher - but I'm afraid that going by the way things are now, I should not have too many hopes.

But let's trudge on. Next week might be different.

When god closes a door, somewhere he opens a window

It's 11:22 and I've been watching Doctor Who again, but this time while enjoying a tub of Ben & Jerry's cookie dough (because Sainsbury's had the brilliant sense of timing to have half off on Ben & Jerry's today).

And I've been re-reading the Cardiff says no email.

I don't think Cardiff said no to me. Not precisely, at least. And they're academics, so you should sort of expect them to be precise.

What they said to me was that my ESRC funding application has - well, not been rejected, but not short-listed.

Also my Cardiff application page doesn't say anything, it still says a decision will be made in 4 weeks after receipt.

Of course, rejecting my ESRC funding application still more or less kills my Cardiff application, but that's more because of personal finances, not because I'm not ticking all the boxes - because I *am* ticking all the boxes, or at least I should be.

I haven't received an official email from the Registry yet, perhaps the Registry email will hold the definite 'NO', but as of now I still have hope for an unaffordable 'yes'.

We'll see what happens. I could always try to get a job (don't laugh, I'm sure I'd be reasonably good at a real job!).

Ah, the uncertainty of applications. I'm just not patient enough for the whole process. I guess that's what scares me most - not having anything to do next year. Then what do I do? Get a job, a flat, a car and a cat? Can I actually get a job in this economy? I can't stay with my parents for too long, we'll all annoy the living daylights out of one another (I love them to pieces, but we're all way too stubborn). I need to do something next year. If this isn't the definite Cardiff no, and Cardiff ends up saying yes, and no other place says yes, I guess I'll just try and scrape things together... There's always a way.

Except that I need to know my limits, as I've been told in the past. Do limits exist, though? Are there such things? I don't know, but it seems I'll be finding out soon enough...

This is not the answer you're looking for

I got my Cardiff email.

It said 'no'.

Well, actually it said 'unfortunately your application was not one of those short-listed for interview' and then a bunch of apologies about how this year's competition was very strong etc., the usual set of euphemisms for saying 'haha, your application wasn't good enough!'.

I'm not sure yet how I feel about it, though I do feel a bit sad that I now no longer have a valid excuse to spend 50 pounds on a return ticket for the train to Cardiff and visit the Doctor Who experience. In any case I'm not nearly as disappointed as I was last year when Cambridge rejected me, though I must say I think Cambridge may have had much more valid reasons.

Because I'm now wondering what went wrong. After all, I do feel my credentials are quite strong - my secondary school grades are good (two 9s, in English and Literature, a whole set of 8s, some 7s and one 6 for Latin), as are my undergraduate grades (they more or less equate to a First, according to Fulbright - in any case it's a definite and strong First if one disregards my C+ in Calculus, and a) are there Criminologists who need advanced Calculus? and b) I think my C+ in Calculus should actually make my grades stronger even though it brough my GPA down by a tenth). I'm heading towards a Merit or a Distinction in my postgrad. I've got a load of cool extracurriculars, such as working in a court for one and a half years, chairing the Literature Commission, doing Ambassador things and being a Course Rep, plus I'm enrolled in the University of Leicester's Leadership and Management Award.
Besides, my research proposal has both been called 'interesting' and 'strong' by two different professors.
I did everything right in my personal statement.

Maybe they prefer people who don't have C+s in Calculus and who've already finished their Master's. I'm more or less annoyed, I think, just because they're taking away one of my options. As good as my back-up plan of heading back to the Netherlands and enrolling in a 2-year-LLB is, it's not something I'm desperately eager to do... But I still have my Leicester application.

What I will do now, though, is head to one of the second-hand charity bookshops on Queens Road and spend 20 pounds on a CS Lewis Narnia boxed book set.

Maybe I just shouldn't apply for universities in places that start with a 'C'.

PS On a completely unrelated upside, none of my belts fit properly anymore - they're all too long. Yay, losing weight/body mass.
PPS I just now sent in registration for the LLB in Utrecht. It makes me quite giddy, also because .... blaaah, Bachelor's degree all over again...
PPPS My awesome friend Kristy got a 'yes' from Oxford. I told her so. Also that's epic.

All Better

Well, I'm not entirely better yet, but well enough at least to do something again. So I didn't have the flu, that was the melodramatic bit, but I did have a serious fever day on Friday. Still have a cough and a very very congested head, and I very much do hope that that cough is the first thing to go because if the congestion goes first I'll end up with a dry cough. The thing I know works best for dry coughs is noscapine, which I don't think I can't get over the counter here because it's an opiate and I was already having the most difficult time trying to locate normal ibuprofen (so not liquid or fast-working or anything, just normal no-fuss ibuprofen) heavier than 200mg.

But so I feel mostly better again today, so mum, dad, no need to worry about me anymore, I'm fine.

I received comments from one of my professors here in Leicester about a research proposal for my PhD - I really want to research it now, not just have a fascinating topic to say "look, I've got a PhD-worthy idea!" but actually find out what's there - and it was really good commentary, as it had some really good points where I could improve but more importantly, points where I'd done things right. So I feel very encouraged now, and I'll definitely, definitely go on and submit an application here too.

The What-Ifs decided to haunt me again this weekend, so I made a back-up plan, a Plan C if you wish. It involves moving back to the Netherlands, getting a job - I can do both retail and administrative, so should be okay for a bit - and spending my time on a Law bachelor's at Utrecht, which I can finish in 2 years because I am exempt from a number of courses, and then in the meanwhile I can try again for PhD programmes until I find one that suits me and wants me. It never hurts to have an LLB.

It was foggy this morning, and then grey all day, but when I returned to Mary Gee there was a gorgeous bit of sunshine, and everything looked so much prettier. I suddenly noticed the daisies in the very, very green grass and snowdrops in the flowerbeds and how the croci and daffodils and all the trees are silently waiting to burst with colour.
Once, in my first year Rhetoric class, I had to write an Encomium and, seeing as it was about the same time of year as it is now, I did it on spring, because that's one of the best things about late February/March/April, when the sun comes out and all the plants blossom and everyone's happy. I couldn't compare spring to anything, however, so I refused to add a comparison, and I did receive a comment from my lecturer on that. I stand, however, by my refusal to compare spring to anything - what, truly, is comparable to the joy and hope contained in those moments where you suddenly notice that chill is finally about to fade from the air? George Harrison captured it very well in Here Comes the Sun, so I guess the feeling of spring is comparable to imagining the feeling of spring when listening to Here Comes the Sun, but that's like cheating at comparison, isn't it?
In fact, that must've been the same semester that I spent 6 out of 15 weeks with Here Comes the Sun stuck in my head. I'm surprised I'm not yet sick of it.

Except that the chill is not about to fade from the air. There's no snow predicted for Leicestershire for the next 10 days (praise whatever Deity you decided listens to you), but it will get cold again, about 4-5 Celsius. This annoys me, also because I've been really wanting to rock my new old tweed jacket and I still can't because I can't wear it under my coat - it's a man's jacket, it needs to be worn on its own - but mainly because I'm now truly sick (literally) and tired (also literally) of those long, long, long winter days.

But at least it now no longer gets dark at 4:30, now we've got daylight until about 6:15. It's something.

Foolishness

Sorry about all the illness posts, people, but since my parents are my most loyal readers, I guess I should keep them properly informed about me having the flu.

Plus, I get to be melodramatic.



I did something incredibly foolish today (and I'm sure I'll hear all about my foolishness soon)...

I went into the library, determined to finish a new draft of my research proposal (I'm also applying here in Leicester, after all, and they require a full research proposal), I snottered* my way there, picked up some methodological sources that I desperately needed and then sat down behind a computer to annoy a bearded hipster by blowing my nose every five minutes.

So far so good, until I went to the library café for an orange juice and a pepperoni panini. It was good to eat something - very good, actually - except that panini are toasted and so I had toasted crumbs tickling my throat, meaning I had a bit of a coughing fit.

Under the spiteful gaze of other customers I finally decided to take my sources and catch a bus home. I did, I finished the research proposal from the confines of my mint-green-coloured room (sixties buildings...), but next time I'll try to heed my mum's old advice to not go to school when you're ill, not even when you really, really need to.

Pinky swear, mum.



*Snottered is not a proper word. I don't care. It's my direct translation of snotteren, which means either blubbering or snivelling, but since blubbering is more like a very messy sort of toddler-like crying and snivelling feels very similar to sneering - probably the 'sn'-phonaestheme (HA! See, I remember stuff from LLADS), I feel that the only mot juste there is 'snottered'. It's the only proper way to express the - excuse the graphicness - snot being stuck in your head and your nose and it's dripping from every orifice and you're going through a six-pack of kleenex in a day. Basically, 'to snotter' is the only proper verb to capture in one word what it's like to have a cold.

Duvet cover

Okay, so I lied a tiny bit yesterday - I'm bothered by a tiny bit more than a cough - say head ache and tiredness. Still a normal common cold though, should be better in the morning, it's the normal pattern, one day properly ill and then back to normal.

The most peculiar thing though - whenever I'm not feeling well, I seem to be reminded of this duvet cover I used to have as a child. It was yellow - custard yellow - with thin white stripes on the one side, and white with custard yellow thin strips on the other side.
I wonder what happened to that cover, it was one of my favourites. It probably unravelled and ended up in my dad's rag box - it must've been as old as me, if not older. It went with us on holiday once, I think, probably France or Germany - one of the car trips, so must've been either of those - and maybe I tend to remember it when I'm ill because that's the only duvet cover in my mind whenever I remember when I was ill as a child.

If I ever find a similar duvet cover, I need to have it - there's something incredibly soothing about custard yellow-with-thin-white-stripes.

Btw, this is not it:

The stripes are too close together and the pillow thing never had buttons. But it's the right shade of yellow. I'd go mad over the number of stripes though. 

Cold (again!)

I'm not talking about meteorological cold this time, just the physical one, the one that's brought on by rhinovirus (mass noun, I learn something new every day).

Anyway, I'm fine, except for the cough. Besides, it proves a brilliant excuse to be spending too much time in bed watching Dr Who.

So not much news so far, just that I've made all currently possible preparations for the Heidelberg Conference (which means that I've registered and booked a hostel, all I need to do now is figure out whether I'm flying in or taking a train) and that some other things are going fairly well too - though still waiting for news from Cardiff, which is getting scarier every second BUT I guess the longer it takes the higher my chances of being short-listed. I hope. Fingers crossed and all that.

Anyway, happy Pi Day (I didn't even buy pie today, let alone bake one - came straight back home after Transnational Policing... blah) and I'll go back to watching Dr Who so I can flex my what I guess should be called 'speculative physics'-thinking... I'm not very good at physics (never was), but I still like discussing the possibilities of time travel and alternate dimensions with some of my far more physics-versed and infinitely more intelligent friends... Haven't done it in forever though, I really should again, it's good for my logical thinking.

Oh, and I saw Cardiff on Dr Who the other day. Looks pretty, like a mix between Middelburg and Vlissingen... I like pretty.

Ah, no, that should be 'I found Cardiff looking aesthetically pleasing, and aesthetically pleasing environs stimulate my thinking as well as alleviate any dark moods' - I should be turning in a proper academic, and should be talking proper Academese...

What the hell, Cardiff looked pretty on TV.

Cool. Cool cool cool.

Passport

It'd be vain to assume the Dutch Ambassador in London would read this post, and even more vain to assume the Minister for Foreign Affairs would. But if either of them does - thanks for the brilliant service.

Seriously.

When I went to apply for my new passport at the Birmingham consulate, I was already surprised at the efficiency and at how professionally they dealt with me. The whole process was so clear - fill out the form, have your picture taken at one of the places that has received instructions about Dutch passport photos, make an appointment, show up for your appointment, hand over your stuff, have your fingerprints taken (whether I'm happy with that is a different matter entirely), hand over your money, and go.

In and out in under 20 minutes - and no waiting, besides.

The consular official told me I'd have my stuff in about two to three weeks.

It's been two weeks, to the day (!), and I've just picked up my new passport from the porter's office here in Leicester. Now that's timely service.

And I like my new passport - I like the turquoise and the way my autograph looks and that I don't look like a criminal in my picture. My last photograph really did resemble some of the newspaper pics of Myra Hindley. And, most of all, I like how it says 'Ambassadeur te London' for the issuing authority - it makes me feel like a secret agent, like I don't just have some ordinary passport but one especially issued by the ambassador so I can provide special services for King and Country (yesss I'm thinking of the future) - on the other hand it also is a step away from the banality of having a passport issued by municipality, it's a sort of step away from mundanely living in the Netherlands.

What I'm also very happy with is the fact that I received my old passport and ID card back. I had to hand them over and though I didn't regret that, I do like the fact that I now get to retain my two Egyptian and my one Moroccan visa. Even though there've been holes punched through them and they were only valid for six weeks max anyway.

Major brownie points for the Consulate and Ambassador for providing a great service overall. So, Minister for Foreign Affairs, if I were you I'd give them a good pat on the back for this. The government isn't all horror and buzzkills.

Email

So this morning, while I was fiddling around with my mobile in Forensics (during the break, though, so no lack of attention for the lesson, promise!), I received an email from Cardiff.

The usual stuff, heart racing, terrified it would say no, all that stuff.

But it didn't say no.

What it did say was that I'll receive news soon about whether I'm shortlisted for funding and whether I'll be invited for an interview.

Of course the email also came with the disclaimer that there's loads of brilliant candidates and that they're having a tough time making decisions (i.e. don't get your hopes up too much really!) so yeah we'll see.

Basically, it was a confirmation of receipt of my application.

I'm even more anxious and terrified now.

Deutsch

I just realized that I'll have to dig up my old schoolbooks to polish my German; mein LinkedIn-Profil sagt dass ich Deutsch spreche, aber ich glaube nicht dass mein Deutsch gut genug ist für eine kurze Reise... (I solemnly swear I did not use Google Translate for that sentence).

It's of course grammar that does it, I tend to add 'e's where they're not needed and drop them where they are, and Der/Die/Das/Die is a complete horror too (I get about far enough to distinguish between forms in Nominativ - usually - and while I do know the purpose of akkusativ/dativ/genitiv [I've had 5 years of Latin, after all], I just can't... absorb it. Never could.).

Nominativ: Der/Die/Das/Die
Akkusativ: Den/Die/Das/Die
Dativ: Dem/Der/Dem/Den
Genitiv: Des/Der/Des/Der

See, my father can do those 16 off the top of his head (and likes to show off that he can, too ;) ), but I can't (but then, I speak Academic English, so there), so I'll have to do a bit of studying.

Vocabulary is fine, of course, usually, and if I don't know it I'll just go for the standard wie sagt Man dass... I glaube... ja... est ist and then a description.

If all else fails, I'll start reciting the lyrics from Ich wär' so gerne Millionär, if only to do justice to the fact that I am supposed to have had four years of German class, 2 hours per week, in secondary school. I'm sure my former German instructor will be very happy to hear that of all the things he tried to teach me, I remember that song best. And Flämmchen, of course.

Ah, but as long as I know zwei Bier und ein Bratwurst bitte I won't starve.