Boat, museum and party (abr)

Woke up with a terrible headache this morning, and still feel a bit sick. I don't know if it was that glass of Heineken I drank yesterday, the nuts, olives or airline sandwiches, but ever since this morning I've been having this terrible feeling of dizzyness and like there's air in my chest I can't get rid of. When I breathe hard, the back of my neck hurts and my chest feels compressed.

I blame it on the beer. Frankly I don't like beer, and it's been years since my last 'pint', until yesterday that is. I don't know what posessed me to drink something that makes me want to throw up and pee all the time, and feel all gasy and nauseous afterwards...I guess when all the guys were drinking it, I sort of 'had' to too.

Since today's programme didn't start until noon, I could lie in a bit, which helped get rid of the nauseating feeling, if only a little bit. Picked up our 'packed lunch', packaged in a green paper bag, the contents of which look like they managed to skim off the left-overs of KLM's (Royal Dutch Airlines) on-board catering service.

Met some more people, all on the same course I'll be doing. And that was pretty nice, since for the day I basically had company and people to talk to. We did a boat trip, cruising around the canals and lakes around Leiden. This ancient city is shaped like a star and surrounded by moats. It was here that resistance against the Spanish (Catholics) was staunchest. For the sake of religious freedom and freedom of expression, the citizens of the town refused to cave into a siege in 1574. As a token of appreciation was rewarded with a university in that very year by William of Orange ('Father of the Netherlands'). That university is Leiden University, with the motto Praesidium Libertatis, (‘bastion of freedom’) on the emblem. And I'm now a member of that bastion.

Old(er) students and professors of Leiden include Rembrandt van Rijn (painter), who never actually graduatlly and registered for the sake of getting cheap beer as a student (believe me beer is definitely not the reason why I'm studying here). The Dutch Royal family has traditionally gone to this university too. Rumour has it that during the years when our Crown Prince William Alexander, who is reputed for being a bit...slow, the tradition of publishing everyone's grades in public disappeared. Einstein taught here a while (there's a pub named after him), while Kamerlign Onnes was won the Nobel Prize for Physics for achieving the lowest temperate possible (absolute zero). My law faculty buidling is named after him, and located in the very building where he conducted the experiment. Then there's Huygens, who invented the telescope, and has a space probe named after him. Then there's the likes of Spinoza and Descarte, who escaped to Leiden on account of its libertarian values and freedom of expression. I doubt I'd come close to what these great people have achieved in my lifetime, but it's something to mention when people ask me in the future why I chose this uni as my own. I guess.

A museum visit was also part of the tour, and we were taken to Boerhave Museum, named after the physician who introduced natural sciences as key to the study of medicine in Europe. Besides the famous Huygen telescopes and clocks, the sight of numerous 'pickled' feotuses, ovaries with a fertilised egg, fingers of young children, skinned snakes, inner ear of a dog, drawings of a disected woman carrying a baby, real skeletons of human beings, cats, elephants, horses and a turkey were not all that appealing. Especially when I was already feeling like throwing up the whole day. Dinner was immediate after the museum. I waited at least an hour before I could take a bite and swallow.

It was a bit silly how they organised the programme. By five we were ushered into the canteen and fed. The next event was the party at 10pm. Five hours to kill, in a town, in a country where shops are few and close at 6pm sharp. A bunch of us, three guys and two girls, all on the same course, sat around, got to know each other better, lurked around the empty streets a bit more, sat at a cafe and chatted the hours away. It was surprisingly relaxing, and we were pretty much on similiar wave lenghts, so I had a really good time. [...]

Starting 'school' (abridged)

Woke up this morning a little before 7, and it was the earliest I’ve woken up in months. A laid-back life of being a bum gets you…laid back. Didn’t get too much sleep last night, since, well, ‘worry me’ lay in bed and had thoughts running around like crazy trying to picture what’s going to happen today.

Showered, got dressed, got beautiful, and got out the door. Sat in the train with a bunch of commuters trying to get a shut-eye, or open their eyes into through papers. It’s been over two years since I felt I was part of a community—a community of commuters with a purpose and a destination. Though by the looks of some people’s haggered faces and sad expressions, some may feel less like they have a purpose in life, let alone at work.

Arrived at the place where we were supposed to gather, only to be intimated by a crowd of around 100 people standing around, surrounding by a slight drizzle and the background noise of general chatter. They were doling out tea and coffee, so I got myself one, to keep warm, and keep my hands from fidgeting from nervousness. I don’t function well in crowds. Glanced around, looking for a place I can ‘butt in’, but everyone seemed so engaged in their little groups and conversations already. There were a couple of others who hadn’t managed to mingle yet, like me, and I wondered if they were as nervous as I was. Stood around a bit, thinking what a great way to start.

Then we got divided into smaller groups, according to our studies. Phew, I thought. Much better, since you know then the people walking around with you are going to be your classmates. One thing you have in common, one common topic to break the ice. Once that ice is broken, I guess the conversation just rolls from there…where are you from, what were you doing before, where, smile, why, how, when, smile, listen, talk, relate, answer, ask, smile.

The tour itself was alright, though our group was a little left out. You see, I’m going to be doing a Masters in Public International Law (LLM), and at this uni there are two courses of that: there’s one which is so-called ‘advanced’ LLM, because it offers more choice and better facilities and services, and then there’s the ‘normal’ LLM—the one I’ll be doing. The difference between the two? Oh, only around €10,000, give or take. No surprise why I’m doing the ‘normal’ one.

And from the moment go the differences in treatment were clearly visible. The ‘advanced’ people were taken away for an exclusive meet-and-greet with staff over coffee and a choice between apple pie, chocolate cake and cookies. We were told to hang around and wait to be picked up. There was coffee to be fair, but no pie, or given the choice, chocolate cake.

I guess the time we were ‘abandoned’ to wander the corridors of our new faculty was a welcome opportunity to mingle, meet and greet more people. And I guess it went pretty well. There are lots of Americans and Brits on the course, and all the rest are from the rest of Europe. We basically just talked and exchanged one another’s lives and experiences, and that’s plenty of material to cover. Another topic of common interest was how disorganised the whole course is, since courses start next week and almost everyone I met had no clue when and where the classes are going to be. Complaining, another ice-breaker.

All the new people had a welcome address from the Rector Magnificus (Latin for ‘head rectum rector’). Whenever that name was said a bunch of people burst out laughing. Not too much exciting news there, the usual why-this-university-is-so-great, how-privileged-you-all-are-to-be-the-select-few, and well-wishing for our future studies, because frankly we might not even get to see him again. Then this academic coordinator came up and started going through the list of (almost) all the countries in the world. The point of the ‘game’ was whenever a country is mentioned, people from that country should stand up, and he’ll try his best to say ‘hello’ in that country’s language. The first, being ‘G’day’ (Australia)…half an hour later Zimbabwe. We all sighed with relief that that was the end.

But it wasn’t the end. We were treated to a ‘movie’, made probably more than a decade ago, about Holland. Witty, amusing and revealing, but sometimes left me wondering why I need to know that the highest point in the country is 322,20m, and the lowest is 7m below sea level, or that Amsterdam, with 725,000 inhabitants, is the world’s smallest metropolis. All the facts, figures, need-to-knows, national dish (buttered bread and cheese), national flower (tulip), national sport (football) etc, etc. People cheered when the picture of a cannabis leaf appeared on the screen (cannabis is ‘legal’ in this country).

And that wasn’t the end either. Another lady came up and gave us a lecture on ‘culture shock’. Generalisations of course, but having lived here for years and years a lot of these things I can relate to:

• While visiting someone in their home, when offered a biscuit, take only one. Take two and you won’t be invited again. (Dutch stinginess)
• Complain, curse, whine, lament about the weather (Dutch national topic of discussion)
• Guys will not pay for dinner on a date (heard of ‘Go Dutch’?)
• Men do not hold doors open for women (Dutch sexual equality)

As we left the lecture hall and walked passed town hall, a lesbian wedding was in progress (Dutch sexual orientation equality)—Congratulations to Ilse and Roos!

[...]

A tribute to SOAS

Saturday afternoon and Sunday I went around town a bit more. I had to visit my alma mater, the School of Oriental and African Studies—the place I studied and worked in (not to mention dozzzzed off in) for three years. Here’s something I wrote about SOAS in the final days of uni:


(Graduation 2004)

Behind the grandeur of the British Museum showcasing loots and wonders ‘borrowed’ from a past of glories and conquests, I found her. She herself is a remnant of an empire lost, but today much changed in the face of a different imperial order. A vision in golden lettering, glistening on the side of a lump of concrete that could easily be mistaken for something built out of a fury of socialist construction: ‘SOAS’ spoke to me. She beckoned me to leave the streets of chaos and people, and enter a tree-lined yard behind gates plastered with posters demonising the present world order and its eunuchs. Behind these gates, beyond the reaches of a London to fast and too wild to capture, I found refuge for the next three years.

[…]

(Main entrance)

For strangers to SOAS, the revolving see-through glass-doors at the entrance screams of a pompous hotel reception. People the world over check in, check out. Some come to expose themselves to the worldly knowledge disseminating from lecture halls and seminars; others come to expose themselves to that familiar mix of (not just…) cigarettes and booze. The additional barriers to SOAS’ window-dressing are indeed the latest of high-tech: students and staff, despite countless visits to the building, are sometimes randomly left stranded at the gates…maybe wondering what it was they did or wrote that exposed them to the wrath of modern machinery. Erect a few X-ray machines, metal detectors, photographic and finger-printing machines (with the glum-looking security guards always too happy to help already present), anyone could be mistaken for having stepped into that realm of paranoia of the US of A. Behind squeaky doors, on tea-stained carpets, gum-glued furniture, ‘squatting toilets’ and within crumbling walls is a place of (quote) “intellectual excitement”.


Yes, SOAS’ flaws we all know too well, and her snail-paced bureaucratic machinery
never ceases to amaze, but at face-value SOAS scarcely does justice to the substances she has to offer. I have come to be proud of being part of this tightly-knit community of the world’s peoples and diversities. Too often I find myself (and I am apparently not alone) having to spring to defend and explain what SOAS really is all about to those (shockingly!) unaware of the fact that she even exists.


It is the place where once colonial servants trained in the arts and languages of
Africa and the Orient. It is where vocal activists, socialists and crowd-followers often start their marches against war, injustices and poverty of this problem-ridden world. This is where the hijab meets the kippa, where dreadlocks meet almond eyes, where people are blind to the colour of your skin, where the robed monk meets with the shaman, where children of [quote] “diplomats, spies or gypsies” congregate. This is where, in a world where constraining structures and hierarchies threaten to stifle the voice of the voiceless, subversion is the norm rather than the extreme. Marginalised at SOAS are no longer the vast majority of the globe. In a world where ‘western-centric’ influences dwarf all else, the lecture halls, seminars, societies and pub at SOAS are filled with alternatives to the current political, economic, social and environmental structure. I imagine more gets done and said by Soasians than at social gatherings of ‘UNrepresentatives’. And yet amid this daily activism and idealism that the world could be seized, understood and revolutionised, Soasians linger the earth with such an meditative air of calm and peace. It is a school of contrasts, a school of differences and a school with a life of its own, warm with the blend of the aromas, cultures, diversities and peoples of a much greater world.

(Thornhaugh Street, where SOAS buildings are mainly located... really a tiny college of the University of London with just 3000 people altogehter, but we make up for our specialisation and uniqueness.)


Yes, SOAS meant a lot to me, and will always do. Though to be honest, the square and streets around my old uni felt so ‘empty’ this time I was there. Perhaps it was because it was summer, and a Saturday.

At least, that’s what I’d like to think.