Communication, you said?

I apologise for the poor updating but I've had a lot on my plate lately. I've attended only one lecture this week, which must be some kind of personal record in skipping classes, but I've been working so I guess that compensates for it. There is so extremely much we have to do this term that I don't even know where to begin. Also, ICM has shown its incompetent communication skills once again.

I emailed a teacher that I had last term because I still didn't get the grades for that course (which was about a month ago) and recieved the answer that I have to do a compensation assignment because I missed 2 classes.

...?

I did not miss 2 classes, but there must have been some mistake with the attendance list. Anyway, I don't even know what this compensation assignment is, and I'm still waiting for a reply from this teacher.

You have to just love ICM.

Back in NL

I had a truly great time in Sweden, and now that I'm in the Hague again I feel like I just want to book a ticket and go back. It was a way too short visit, with only two full days. After my flight arrived at Schiphol last night, we went out for dinner with two Norwegians who are friends of my boyfriend's family. It was very nice, but got quite late. Needless to say, I'm pretty exhausted after this weekend. I don't even want to think about how much I have to do in school.

Tomorrow: Sweden

This week is going by so extremely slowly, but tomorrow I'm finally going to go back to Sweden for the weekend! I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone again, and of course to introduce my boyfriend to them. My sister turned 30 on Monday, so on Saturday she's going to host a big party in Stockholm. Oh, I can't wait until tomorrow evening!

I'm just glad I didn't get Powerhaus Germany as my minor

Today I've been home studying since we didn't have any lectures. I haven't had any problems keeping busy though. There is just so much to do right now, and so many different group works going on that I'm having a hard time remembering which group was in which course. Anyway, I'm trying to focus on the internal communication specialization project for Europol, since that is the only thing on my schedule that is interesting this term.

I chose the minors last night. Since we weren't exactly offered a wide variety of interesting minors, I finally went with American Business & Culture, and Political Communication in the 21st Century. Let me add here that I'm not all that interested in politics, but I'm crossing my fingers that the focus will be on the communication and campaign side of it. So, that's what my next semester will look like.

Complete, utter confusion.

Sitting in my boyfriend's room at the moment, listening to Arctic Monkeys. He's off playing football so I'm just chilling here and the plan is to start catching up on this week's reading soon. We have several articles on Blackboard that we have to read.

I've been pretty annoyed with the Hague University lately, or with ICM in particular actually. It's time for the people who aren't going on exchange to choose minors for the next semester, and we had an information session about the different options on Wednesday I think. It was, to say the least, more confusing than informative. I find it quite ironic that the staff at ICM are always teaching us how to communicate effectively to a avoid confusion, but they are basically doing everything wrong themselves.

I'm not going to go into detail about the issue, but there is complete confusion among the students and inconsistent messages being sent out to us. The worst thing is that on Monday 00.00 the registration starts and I have to choose between bad or worse minors. I really have no idea what to do. Shame on you, ICM.

Slow start

Sorry for the inconsistent updating lately, but I haven't had that much inspiration to blog. Anyway, yesterday me and my friend went to Europol to have a meeting with Mr. Hesztera about a school specialization project we're going to do there. It's really interesting and so nice that we get to do it there. The report that we're going to hand in at the end counts for three different courses, so it's basically around 15 credits. No pressure at all.

Apart from this internal communication project, I'm really not motivated for this term. It feels like we just ended the project and I would need at least a week to recharge my batteries. So, it's week one now and I've already skipped two classes. Good start. Anyway, in exactly a week me and my boyfriend will go to Sweden for the weekend and just relax. I feel like I really need that, I haven't seen my family in almost three months.

Start of Term 6

This weekend was so nice! I really needed the time to relax and not think about school for once. Friday night I went to Rotterdam to meet up with my boyfriend and do some evening shopping (it was koopavond). I found a lot of nice things there!

On Saturday we went to Amsterdam with his dad to check out the hogeschool there. He's thinking about studying there, so we visited the open day. Then there was a lot of driving (Amsterdam - Oegstgeest - Delft - Oegstgeest - Den Haag - Delft - Den Haag) and in the evening we went to my friend's birthday party. It was really nice, and later on we went to SuperMarkt and danced. Yesterday was really chill and we slept long, then me and my roomie cleaned our apartment. That was really necessary!

Today I had the most boring day ever though. We had the kick-off for term 6 at 9.30 this morning and it was such a waste of time. They really didn't tell us anything useful. When we were done around 10.15 me and my roomie went downtown and had some coffee and did some window shopping. At 13.00 we had a lecture in Monitoring. I can't really tell you what it was about since I paid attention for about 5 minutes; it was simply impossible to focus. This term is already overwhelming me.

Finally Friday!

In a few hours I have my last exam, an oral in Strategic Communication. Me and my roomie spent the whole evening preparing for it yesterday, because we are in one team and supposed to hold a press conference about KFC and then answer questions from the "journalists". I really don't feel like doing this exam, and I'm going to be so happy when it's over. Tonight I'm going to Rotterdam to shop a bit and then I can just relax in the weekend. Tomorrow I'm going to an open day at Hogeschool van Amsterdam with my boyfriend to check out a study programme for him. Then in the evening my friend is having a birthday party. I'm really looking forward to the weekend, and hopefully I'll have too much fun to update that often.

Yesterday we presented our project and they liked it a lot! That was really nice to hear actually, and so far the exam grades I've received have been pretty good. That helps a lot to keep the motivation up.

Now I'm going to prepare a bit more for the exam. Wish me luck!

Almost over...

Today we handed in the project report, a 50 pages long "book". I can't describe how nice it feels to have that over with! Tomorrow morning we have our presentation, and then the project is officially over. Then we can just cross our fingers and hope we'll pass. On Friday I have my last exam, an oral in Strategic Communication. Me and my roomie will start preparing for that tomorrow. I really can't wait for Friday afternoon.

Update: the project

I've been quite bad at updating lately, but in the weekend I just needed to relax after the intense exam week. I was feeling a bit weak (stress hangover?) so I spent the weekend at my boyfriend's place, just chilling. This week I'm really busy with the project that is due on Thursday. We have to make a Pecha Kucha presentation, which is a special way of presenting, using an autorun powerpoint with 20 slides that each are displayed for 20 seconds.

Here is an example of what it can look like:

Friday

Finally Friday, and I'm completely exhausted. Tonight I'm going to hang out at my boyfriend's place and just chill. This morning I went to school to finish the Expert Analysis report, and then I went home, had lunch, skyped with my mom, and then slept until 5 o'clock. I guess I really needed that. I really have the best roomie, because when I woke up she had cooked Indian food for me. So nice!

Have a great weekend!

A little update from exam week

I haven't really had time to update that often this week. Exams, you see. Tonight I have the last written exam, and tomorrow I have the deadline for the Expert Analysis report. I'm not that happy with it, to be honest. I just finished it, but I still have to do the annotation for the bibliography (the most boring thing ever).

Now I've got to get back to writing, have a nice day everyone!

My roomie cut my hair when we were studying on Tuesday. That's how desperate we were for a break.