Hello everybody. Perhaps you’ve read more of my entries, but maybe this is your first time; and maybe I know you but then perhaps again I don’t. In any case, welcome to my 22^nd and last entry for the Erasmus International student experience blog.  I hope to somehow have fulfilled the function of this blog page well by sharing bits of my life with you being (kind of) an international student in Rotterdam. I say kind of, because I am actually from Venezuela but I got the Dutch nationality in 2002 and although I love the Dutch and I feel pretty Dutch nothing can take the Venezuelan latina out of me, and that’s a lot of fun. I suppose I formally cheated when I applied to blog for this page, because it was calling for international students, and although the master programme I enrolled in was in English I am Dutch on paper so that officially makes me a non-international student. I do think it would have been too “computer says no” to refuse my application, in other words thank you Marlous. I guess this is also a good opportunity to thank and congratulate Marlous Jansen, my blog supervisor, for being such a nice and progressive person to have contact with throughout my time as a blogger here.  I would also like to leave a note of written farewell to all the professors that taught me, but I am keeping my fingers crossed to see you at graduation.

Student life in the Netherlands has been nothing less than amazing in my experience. It is not for nothing that so many people come to study in Dutch universities from all over the world. I personally like the education system and find that there is much for national and international students to do here outside of class hours to be socially engaged in fun ways, while constructively contributing to something greater (being a member of a committee/association, doing voluntary work, participating in debates and conferences—you name it). At times I was, and still feel I am engaged in a lot of things, and I love it and learn a lot from it, but at the same time I have also learnt that I should better channel my energy and focus it more specifically rather than doing as much as possible. Quality not quantity. I haven’t been the best student in grades, but I really look back at my experience of education feeling very rich inside, and I am very thankful for that.

As a last inside-Rotterdam tip: if you’re looking for something funky and random to do on Sunday 8 July, you should go check out photographer Sebastiaan Hols’ photo exhibition Thin as a Shadow at 16:00 in Koffie Verkeert, which is a (mostly jazz) vinyl record store. The address is Van Speykstraat 145b, in the center of Rotterdam. If the weather is smiling at you, it’s very easy to enjoy Rotterdam. Here’s an example of how. Peace out.