Monday, February 9th 2015
Today was my first day of school in Belgium! But before that I had to get a Belgian Bank Account. So, around 10:30 I went to the bank. When I was finally finished with that, I went to my 1:00 Robotics course. I was there a bit early but just spent the time looking into registering for courses. The class was about 35 people. There was only one other girl in the room, and everyone there was getting at least their first master, which means they are all studying for graduate degrees. But I didn’t let the dissuade me. The professor asked what everyone’s major was. At least a third of the class was Artificial Intelligence and another large group Biomedical. Those who didn’t fit into those categories said their major outloud. I went in, sat down, participated in class and tried to absorb as much from the professor as I could. The class period was spent on briefing us on the project and explaining what we would be doing in the class. I felt like I mostly understood what was going on and that I had a good grip on the assignment. I really liked the professor. He seemed intense and will challenge you, but truly a great person to learn from. The format of this class will be that We will work on projets in our team and then present our findings to the professor in 4-5 meetings throughout the semester. This means we won’t have any other lectures, which is great and it felt more like an Olin course then a Belgian course. The only thing was, is that it was a team project and we would have to pick teams. Who in the room would want to work with an international female bachelor’s student!? I was getting quite nervous, because it didn’t look good. But either way I kept being an active participant in class and just kept hoping that it would be ok. Eventually the class ended a few minutes early and when the professor stopped talking, the boy infront of me turned around and said “did you say you were a computer engineer? We are computer scientists and could use a third person to work with”. I contained my excitement and pleasure, but with a big smile I said sure I’d love to work with you. We ended up talking with a group of 4 and set up a meeting on Tuesday to figure out what we were doing for the project. In the meantime, I did introduce myself to the professor. I figured I kinda stuck out, so it might be a good idea.
From there, I jumped on my bike and raced back to Leuven for my next class. I had Organizational Decision Making and Change. A big jump in brain power from Robotics. When I walked into the classroom, I grabbed a seat in the back and joined the lecture. There were 35 students in the room and they were mostly female. The professor was very interesting and spoke very well. We each introduced ourselves in the class. I was the only non-Psychology or Education major in the room, let alone a technical major. Let’s just say that when I said I was a computer engineer, it surprised a bunch of people. The class was good and got me thinking, so I am looking forward to the rest of the lectures and the discussions that we will have in the rest of the semester. During class, I met Sirri, a Belgian student who seemed very nice. I know that we will have to split into groups soon, so maybe I will look into working with her. But, I do know that I have to really think about what part of Decision Making that I want to focus on for the semester.
By the time class ended I was starving! I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. So, I biked home and ate some snacks while I skyped Emily Wang to figure out where we were going to travel in a week and a half! We decided Berlin! After talking to her I biked to the grocery store… which was soo cheap! It was incredible. I vowed to always go to that one (which didn’t happen because it turns out that there is a regular grocery store on my way home from Haverlee and sometimes you are just too lazy). I came back to the house and joined 4 or 5 of my kot-mates for dinner. I cooked tilapia over salad and they were all very impressed. It seemed as if most of them warmed up food that they had brought from home for dinner. I wasn’t and won’t be so fortunate, so I will continue to cook for myself. They were all very nice and fun to sit with, although unfortunately it didn’t seem they were that comfortable with English, so it was a lot of sitting and listening for me. Later I realized that it wasn’t that their English was that bad, just that they are naturally very shy. Belgians have quite timid and reserved personalities, so even though they can speak and communicate in English fine (and I don’t care if they make mistakes), they are too nervous to talk infront of others in English.
I spent this night buying my plane tickets and organizing my trip to Berlin! Unfortunately it took me so long that I didn’t end up going out that night went to sleep.
By the time class ended I was starving! I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. So, I biked home and ate some snacks while I skyped Emily Wang to figure out where we were going to travel in a week and a half! We decided Berlin! After talking to her I biked to the grocery store… which was soo cheap! It was incredible. I vowed to always go to that one (which didn’t happen because it turns out that there is a regular grocery store on my way home from Haverlee and sometimes you are just too lazy). I came back to the house and joined 4 or 5 of my kot-mates for dinner. I cooked tilapia over salad and they were all very impressed. It seemed as if most of them warmed up food that they had brought from home for dinner. I wasn’t and won’t be so fortunate, so I will continue to cook for myself. They were all very nice and fun to sit with, although unfortunately it didn’t seem they were that comfortable with English, so it was a lot of sitting and listening for me. Later I realized that it wasn’t that their English was that bad, just that they are naturally very shy. Belgians have quite timid and reserved personalities, so even though they can speak and communicate in English fine (and I don’t care if they make mistakes), they are too nervous to talk infront of others in English.
I spent this night buying my plane tickets and organizing my trip to Berlin! Unfortunately it took me so long that I didn’t end up going out that night went to sleep.
Tuesday, February 10th 2015
This morning, I went to my placement. I had a desk in a room with 5 other women working on the Postgraduate programme. They were all very nice and friendly. I worked on understanding the current situation of their program, which you can read about in “The Other Half of the Integration” in my education blog.
Around noon, I went to meet with my new Robotics teammates from yesterday. We sat in a computer lab and discussed the possible topics for our project. There was clearly two distinct theories… to create something and build it or to do research and really understand an aspect of Robotics. I was more favorable to the second one. It seemed much more tangible and something that I don’t do as much at Olin (and easier to handle while on a study abroad without my electronics and the goals of travelling a lot). When the team split into two groups of two, I was very happy to be in a partnership with the person who was in agreement with me on the method of the project. One thing that I learned from my time at Olin, is the people you work with are equally or if not more important than the topic of the project itself for a successful and enjoyable semester. This doesn’t mean I don’t pick the things I’m interested in, or never work with people I don’t want to, but when the whole field of robotics is new to me and there are so many options, I am more inclined to work with the person who has the same mindset towards the project as myself. We emailed the professor to set a meeting time and agreed to meet the next week.
I went to a student café next door and enjoyed a bowl of delicious soup for lunch. One of the ladies in the dining hall was very helpful in translating and helping me choose what to get (and informing me of the options). While looking on my phone, I realized that my next class was canceled! It was a bit surprising, and it would’ve been nice to get an introduction to the class, but either way I went back to my placement to get some more work done before the evening.
That evening, I knew there was Ultimate Frisbee practice for the KU Leuven team. I thought it would be a good thing to keep me in shape and a fun way to meet people. Practice was close to my placement, so instead of going home for dinner and coming back, I asked Rik to meet me for dinner. Rik is a Belgian student who studied at Olin last spring and I had remembered that he played Frisbee. So, I asked if he would meet me to get dinner and then go to practice. We met at Alma3 (another student restaurant) and had a nice dinner catching up and talking about Leuven and Olin. The food was alright. I had a chicken leg with rice and pineapple. It worked as a pre-practice dinner.
When we got to practice, I introduced myself to the coach (Mathias). He was very excited to have me and also seemed like a very genuine guy. If you didn’t know, Ultimate Frisbee is a Co-ed sport, so both boys and girls were on the field when I arrived. Rik and I played catch to warm up before the practice got completely started. We did some very similar things, like shuffles and karaoke, and some very different things, like doing laps around the field while throwing. Running and throwing was not something I found I was very good at. We did some throwing practice, and I noticed I was on par or better than the majority of girls on the field. We did some drills and then scrimmaged. It was great to be on the field again. The weather was a clear, cool and beautiful night. If it was Boston, it would be the perfect winter practice night. Everyone was speaking in a combination of Dutch and English (the English mostly for me, other than the plays and Frisbee terms that everyone naturally said in English). They played in a very similar way that we played at Olin. The field was quite shorter and they constantly switched the handlers, but besides that the game play was the same. Practice eventually ended and I vowed to myself to return next week.
As I biked home with Rik, he showed me the coolest bike invention of the city. To get from Haverlee (where my placement, some classes, and Frisbee practice is) to Leuven (where I live and have other classes), you have to cross the ring, which is a busy road around the city. But, there is a bike tunnel! To get to it, you ride down a ramp, make an incredibly tight turn and then ride down a longer ramp. Then to get back up, you repeat the two ramps and sharp turn. I haven’t yet mastered the turn and certainly screamed while going down the ramp for the first time, but it is a great help that he showed it to me.
Around noon, I went to meet with my new Robotics teammates from yesterday. We sat in a computer lab and discussed the possible topics for our project. There was clearly two distinct theories… to create something and build it or to do research and really understand an aspect of Robotics. I was more favorable to the second one. It seemed much more tangible and something that I don’t do as much at Olin (and easier to handle while on a study abroad without my electronics and the goals of travelling a lot). When the team split into two groups of two, I was very happy to be in a partnership with the person who was in agreement with me on the method of the project. One thing that I learned from my time at Olin, is the people you work with are equally or if not more important than the topic of the project itself for a successful and enjoyable semester. This doesn’t mean I don’t pick the things I’m interested in, or never work with people I don’t want to, but when the whole field of robotics is new to me and there are so many options, I am more inclined to work with the person who has the same mindset towards the project as myself. We emailed the professor to set a meeting time and agreed to meet the next week.
I went to a student café next door and enjoyed a bowl of delicious soup for lunch. One of the ladies in the dining hall was very helpful in translating and helping me choose what to get (and informing me of the options). While looking on my phone, I realized that my next class was canceled! It was a bit surprising, and it would’ve been nice to get an introduction to the class, but either way I went back to my placement to get some more work done before the evening.
That evening, I knew there was Ultimate Frisbee practice for the KU Leuven team. I thought it would be a good thing to keep me in shape and a fun way to meet people. Practice was close to my placement, so instead of going home for dinner and coming back, I asked Rik to meet me for dinner. Rik is a Belgian student who studied at Olin last spring and I had remembered that he played Frisbee. So, I asked if he would meet me to get dinner and then go to practice. We met at Alma3 (another student restaurant) and had a nice dinner catching up and talking about Leuven and Olin. The food was alright. I had a chicken leg with rice and pineapple. It worked as a pre-practice dinner.
When we got to practice, I introduced myself to the coach (Mathias). He was very excited to have me and also seemed like a very genuine guy. If you didn’t know, Ultimate Frisbee is a Co-ed sport, so both boys and girls were on the field when I arrived. Rik and I played catch to warm up before the practice got completely started. We did some very similar things, like shuffles and karaoke, and some very different things, like doing laps around the field while throwing. Running and throwing was not something I found I was very good at. We did some throwing practice, and I noticed I was on par or better than the majority of girls on the field. We did some drills and then scrimmaged. It was great to be on the field again. The weather was a clear, cool and beautiful night. If it was Boston, it would be the perfect winter practice night. Everyone was speaking in a combination of Dutch and English (the English mostly for me, other than the plays and Frisbee terms that everyone naturally said in English). They played in a very similar way that we played at Olin. The field was quite shorter and they constantly switched the handlers, but besides that the game play was the same. Practice eventually ended and I vowed to myself to return next week.
As I biked home with Rik, he showed me the coolest bike invention of the city. To get from Haverlee (where my placement, some classes, and Frisbee practice is) to Leuven (where I live and have other classes), you have to cross the ring, which is a busy road around the city. But, there is a bike tunnel! To get to it, you ride down a ramp, make an incredibly tight turn and then ride down a longer ramp. Then to get back up, you repeat the two ramps and sharp turn. I haven’t yet mastered the turn and certainly screamed while going down the ramp for the first time, but it is a great help that he showed it to me.
My busy day continued when I got back to my kot. I quickly showered and changed before joining my kot-mates in the kitchen for a house party. We all chipped in some euros and then shared what was on the table. Throughout the night, I tried some new liquors, like apple jenevar and Safari. I actually really liked them! I was told that I should try lots of jenevar flavors, and that even a waffle flavor exists. A bunch of them tried to speak English to me, although it was clearly unnatural to them. We went around the table and introduced everyone. At that point we had reached around 15 people around the table. I felt very welcomed and like they were excited to have me there for the semester.
At some point in the evening, we decide to go out! So we grabbed our jackets and headed to Oude Markt. On the way, some people stopped at The Wall of Food, which was basically a fast food vending machine. People behind the wall are cooking the food and then put it into slots. You put your money in and then grab the food from the slots. A brilliant anti-social invention! After my kot-mates had their snack, we went to a bar or club that was essentially a beer celler. It was a stone building and there is a tight staircase down into the bar area. We found an area we liked and put our jackets down and started dancing. The music choice was a little weird… a combination of Ameican pop music (mostly older than what we would be playing), older American music (like Sweet Caroline and YMCA), European music (even the English ones I didn’t know) and Dutch/Belgian music. It was very fun, especially to see how they reacted to the Dutch music. They were so passionate and excited about dancing. I did notice that boys and girls didn’t really dance together. This is something I started to notice last week and was confirmed at the house by asking one of the girls. It is normal to dance in a circle and not with anyone. It was fun for sure, but not at all what I expected after hearing from Maxim. It certainly makes sense with the very shy culture here. One of the personality traits of Belgium is uncertainty avoidance. This means that they don’t like situations where the result is undetermined.
On the way home, some people got food. As they ate it, they peeled off the wrapper and threw it onto the ground! I was shocked. Littering was so natural to them and seemed to be what everyone did. The culture differences are still surprising. We walked back to the kot as a group, which was very nice. After a late night I finally went to sleep.
At some point in the evening, we decide to go out! So we grabbed our jackets and headed to Oude Markt. On the way, some people stopped at The Wall of Food, which was basically a fast food vending machine. People behind the wall are cooking the food and then put it into slots. You put your money in and then grab the food from the slots. A brilliant anti-social invention! After my kot-mates had their snack, we went to a bar or club that was essentially a beer celler. It was a stone building and there is a tight staircase down into the bar area. We found an area we liked and put our jackets down and started dancing. The music choice was a little weird… a combination of Ameican pop music (mostly older than what we would be playing), older American music (like Sweet Caroline and YMCA), European music (even the English ones I didn’t know) and Dutch/Belgian music. It was very fun, especially to see how they reacted to the Dutch music. They were so passionate and excited about dancing. I did notice that boys and girls didn’t really dance together. This is something I started to notice last week and was confirmed at the house by asking one of the girls. It is normal to dance in a circle and not with anyone. It was fun for sure, but not at all what I expected after hearing from Maxim. It certainly makes sense with the very shy culture here. One of the personality traits of Belgium is uncertainty avoidance. This means that they don’t like situations where the result is undetermined.
On the way home, some people got food. As they ate it, they peeled off the wrapper and threw it onto the ground! I was shocked. Littering was so natural to them and seemed to be what everyone did. The culture differences are still surprising. We walked back to the kot as a group, which was very nice. After a late night I finally went to sleep.
Wednesday, February 11th 2015
This entire day was very chaotic. My alarm didn’t go off as expected, so I ran to my class (fortunately it was only a few blocks away) of Economics of Education and Lifelong Learning. The professor was amazing! I really enjoyed listening to him and he made some very interesting points. We each will have to choose a research paper and I’m considering doing mine on MOOCS (Massive Online something something… essentially Online lectures) in developing countries. I went back to my room afterwards for lunch, before getting some tea at Pangea and starting my wild goose chase. I first needed to get my bank card and put money on it. Then I biked the length of the city three times trying to get my insurance, before realizing that there was a huge line and I would have to come back anyways. I made my way to physical therepy and met with a doctor. My ankle had been bothering me while walking. He diagnosed it as ankle tendonitis. So, then I met with a physical therapist and went through my history of injuries. It was interesting to be doing it in another language, because it certainly wasn’t the same. I have some things to work on, and needed more time to figure out exercises, so we agreed to meet again tomorrow to start working on that.
I made my way home, stopping at a grocery store to get laundry detergent and a few things for dinner. I went home to cook. I was making pasta sauce from tomatoes, onions, mushrooms and what I thought was chicken. Turns out, Belgians have a very difficult time telling the difference between chicken and turkey in English. Fortunatly my cooking came out amazingly either way. But actually I was very surprised that with so few ingredients and seasonings my sauce came out so well. It was more like a meat stew with tomatoes over pasta, but either way I liked it.
I spent the night doing my laundry, so I would have a clean bed! It was remarkable. Then I did some work, cleaned my room and went to sleep. I did notice, however, that Belgians don’t always look at you when they are talking. They are in general super self-conscious people and even though their English is so much better than other nations that I have visited, they are scared to speak it. I have noticed quite a few people say they don’t speak English, but then speak it very well, or don’t make eye contact with you when you speak.
I made my way home, stopping at a grocery store to get laundry detergent and a few things for dinner. I went home to cook. I was making pasta sauce from tomatoes, onions, mushrooms and what I thought was chicken. Turns out, Belgians have a very difficult time telling the difference between chicken and turkey in English. Fortunatly my cooking came out amazingly either way. But actually I was very surprised that with so few ingredients and seasonings my sauce came out so well. It was more like a meat stew with tomatoes over pasta, but either way I liked it.
I spent the night doing my laundry, so I would have a clean bed! It was remarkable. Then I did some work, cleaned my room and went to sleep. I did notice, however, that Belgians don’t always look at you when they are talking. They are in general super self-conscious people and even though their English is so much better than other nations that I have visited, they are scared to speak it. I have noticed quite a few people say they don’t speak English, but then speak it very well, or don’t make eye contact with you when you speak.
Thursday, February 12th 2015
Today was a day of going with the flow. I woke up early to go to the health insurance company to enroll. Fortunately that was relatively painless and hopefully I will soon be enrolled. Maybe I’ll have everything set up by the time I have to leave! I then went to the train station and bought tickets for getting to Geel and getting from Geel to Maastrict on Saturday before meeting with my group to go to a Donkey Farm. Yes, we were going to help with the animals that they use with Autistic children. At least that was our plan. We took the first bus no problem, but the second was actually a call bus, so it didn’t stop for us. So, we ended up at a bar, no surprise for Belgians I guess. At 11AM I was enjoying a beer, why not, it was cherry beer. The most surprising thing, though is that someone at our table ordered a tea, and it came with this alcoholic custard, which was so good! The other girl, from Austria, seemed to think it was very normal. Then we went back to Leuven and went to a different bar (ESN – the program I was supposed to go to the farm with – was buying, so why not again!). This bar had a compete beer packet of all of the beers they served. I think it was at least a few hundred if not thousand. It was a very cool place. I heard a story that it once burnt down and then was rebuilt. I had a delicious cherry beer at each one, the first a little sweet and the second much more savory. I guess finding beers that I like won’t be a problem at all when they are so good!
At some point I looked around the table and noticed that I was the only native English speaker, although we had been speaking English the entire time. It doesn’t occur to me that they aren’t natural English speakers because they all speak so well. It is very impressive how these other students are learning English at such a high level even when it is not their first language or language they use most days.
I then went to physical therapy and got a list of exercises that I should be working on. We discussed what I had been doing, and then assigned a few more. I went home to get some work done before going to Maxim’s house for dinner.
I then went to physical therapy and got a list of exercises that I should be working on. We discussed what I had been doing, and then assigned a few more. I went home to get some work done before going to Maxim’s house for dinner.
Maxim is also a Belgian student and he studied at Olin last semester. He was the savior that found me my kot and has been a huge help in moving in. I arrived at his place a few minutes after seven. I was welcomed in and shown their common room. Everyone there was really very nice to me. Most of the boys spoke quite good English. There were two girls there (both didn’t live there but were part of the group of friends) who I really liked. We spent the evening chatting about their classes and work and what I’m doing and learning about each other. You could tell that English wasn’t that easy for them, but they were making a really big effort to speak with me, which felt really nice. I truly felt like they wanted to get to know me. It was an interesting night for everyone because grades from the last semester were coming in. This meant that I got full exposure to how Belgians reacted towards grades. Some were very very nervous and focused on the grades while others were relaxed and knew there was nothing to change now. This has a similar correlation to med students in the US. There is one student that I met who wants to be a doctor, and the grades he gets directly influences his choice in studies in the medical field, so he was getting 18-20s, which is like nearly impossible. The grading system here is quite skewed. You can get grades 1-20, but a 17 is about an A and a 7 is about a D, so students really aren’t expected to get anywhere near the highest grades.
For dinner we had Mongolian Barbeque. They had a spread of vegetables and meats that you could pick from and then Maxim or his roommate grilled it for you and served with wine. I was quite impressed by their organization, well done boys. Later in the evening, Maxim’s sister came by. She was very excited to meet me and invited me to spend the weekend at her family’s house for one weekend. I was honored and really excited to be able to have the opportunity.
For dinner we had Mongolian Barbeque. They had a spread of vegetables and meats that you could pick from and then Maxim or his roommate grilled it for you and served with wine. I was quite impressed by their organization, well done boys. Later in the evening, Maxim’s sister came by. She was very excited to meet me and invited me to spend the weekend at her family’s house for one weekend. I was honored and really excited to be able to have the opportunity.
Friday, February 13th 2015
Today I had my first class of CSE. I woke up super early to catch the train. I mean like 5:45 early! Inge picked me up from the train station and brought me to the school. I spent the day in class with the students. It was 5 students, Inge, Jan (Inge’s colleague), Suzanna (a colleague from the Neatherlands) and me. Read my other blog to learn about the class experience! That night I went to Inge’s home. Jan and Suzanna also came along. We had some snacks and aperitif (a word I learned for the first time even in English!) and then we sat down for a nice dinner. It was actually a really big treat to be there because throughout the conversation I was treated like a professional. My opinion mattered to these very well educated professors. We cooked together and then ate, first just chatting about anything and then having productive conversation about education pedagogy. We drank some wine and had dessert before ending the night. I Skyped Cameron and Casey and they walked me around Olin, before going to bed.
Saturday, February 14th 2015
This morning I woke up and ate breakfast with Inge and her family. She has two sons around the age of 9 and 11. I had a very fun but broken conversation with her eldest son. He was really trying to chat with me (which is much more then you get from the college-aged Belgians!) and would often refer to his father for a translation. It was a very unique experience for both of us. Then, Inge and I went to class before she put me on a train to Maastrict.