I feel I didn’t really get the full experience of being a student at Erasmus. Apart from attending classes, I did socialise with my classmates (who are a very fun bunch!), and used to go to the canteen and university library almost on a daily basis.  But over the course of the last two terms, we had less courses and I saw my classmates less and less. I only went to the canteen once and to the library twice this year. These days I just go to the library in Blaak because I think it’s nicer, or study at home. But somehow getting on my bike and going to the library makes me take it all more seriously. Besides, all the ongoing constructions on campus don’t make it too appealing at the moment to hang around longer than is necessary. Today, I handed in the last paper of my last course of the media master programme. From now on, I’ll probably be going to the campus for meetings with my supervisor. Now I feel like it all went by so fast, and that I could have perhaps been more engaged in the University. It would have been nice to take some Zumba classes at the gym and join the magazine. Could have definitely gone to more ESN and student parties, but I feel I went to other really good parties that were more varied and not always in the same venue with the same kind of music and the same kind of people wearing the same kind of clothes all the time.

I don’t have any wacky stories about Rotterdam today. I’ve spent the last few days paper writing in different peaceful settings outside of Rotterdam. This is a great city, but it’s so energy boosting to go into Dutch nature when the sun shines, I feel like I came back completely revitalised. To seal the stage of master courses and prepare myself for the new phase, I spent about five hours today intensively cleaning my room and rearranging my bedroom. It was worth trying out a bunch of possibilities until I found one that felt like BINGO!
I’m happy my room is all the way on the top, because we have a rat invasion at the anti-squad hotel where I live! It’s way worse than the cute little mouse I was complaining about when I lived in the Rotterdam Zuid. We suspect there’s a whole nest living between the floor and the roof of the basement; we’ve seen a variety already and they’re getting more brutal by the day because they used to run away if they were seen and now they just look at you. The ROTEB (a service of the Dutch municipality that comes to get rid of rats) is coming tomorrow. I have no idea what they will do, and I won’t be home because I’ll be at work and perhaps that’s for the best.

UB40 – Rat in mi Kitchen (Original)