And Alex's message...more things to enjoy! :-)

Hell-O

I am posting my comment quite early today as I will be too busy later to be able to do anything else than teaching.
I am experiencing a terribly busy period right now... But it is worth the investment. I assure you.

First of all, Anisa, I want to tell you that I read all posts carefully, but your last comment did arrest my attention.
I have learnt a lot of vocabulary here since I lead oral production classes. I taught names of animals and I tried to find a list of animal noises (for my personal culture) but did I not manage to find anything interesting...
I know Professor Van de Putte expects a lot of improvement with relation to my linguistic competence... So next time she asks ''Wat is het geluid van de koe'' I do not want to be the only dumbo who shouts ''Moeeeeeeeee!...''
Do you get it? I want you to share your knowledge with me...
So next time we see each other, you will have to tell me all what you know about animal noises... Agreed?
Thank yowl very meow.
(And if you do not agree, it doesn't matter... I´ll see to it.)

Secondly, I want to tell Caroline how happy I am to read that you recovered. Nice.
Good to see that Caroline is back on line. (Saw any pun? Or alliteration?)
I am also proud to read that you got ''Flamish'' thanks to the Flemish.
You will be nicknamed Flemish Carbo-line! (Saw the other one?)

Finally, I want to thank Shirley for trying to help me. I appreciate it. XD

I learnt a lot about the Dutch culture. I think I have enough information to write a book.
But you don't want to read any book right now on this blog, do you? Anyway, most of you know quite a lot about the Dutch as well. Our beloved neighbours...
Hey, we had Dutch culture classes after all...
So I won't tell you anything about the way they speak, cheese, peanut butter or windmills... I'll put forward a slice of Dutch pedagogy. A little aspect of it that really shocked me.
--> In the Netherlands, when a student is badly behaved or simply not very studious, teachers automatically diagnose a clinical or social pathology.
Look, if you get a mark below six out of then, you will be ADHD (hyperactive), dyslexic or... autistic! No choice. So I am actually teaching in some kind of psychiatric clinic. Cool...
I am caricaturing the whole thing, but this is what I felt.
The fact that you sleep in class does not make you sick, does it?

This is in my opinion a real cultural clash. Teenagers will be teenagers. Sometimes they are just lazy. This does not necessarily mean that they have any medical or social problems.

Oh, yes, I almost forgot, the most difficult aspect to deal with was the fact that almost everybody sees the Belgians as a dumb people (like I explicitely proved it a few weeks ago.)
Well, I realized that victims are generally people who do not speak Dutch the way the Hollanders [...] do. Therefore, it is not that surprising that the Belgians suffer from this lack of respect.
So they have jokes about the Belgians but also jokes about the Dutch (only those who have a strong accent, though.) Sometimes they even make jokes about both nations.
Just to give you a little example, I went to Maastricht last Friday, and I read the following joke: ''What happens when a Belgian goes to live in Maastricht? The average IQ of both nations rises.'' Duh!

Besides, the Dutch treasure French culture, just like the British.
People, I am afraid we live in a world full of jingoists... (Maar de wereld draait maar door...) Life goes on...

Still, the Dutch are not mean... Just a bit naive.

Okay, I won't tell you everything, guys. I am saving some good ones.

So far for today. It is time for me to teach now.

Oh, by the way, Hilversum (a.k.a. Media Stad) was great. Jopke Veenman from NICAM arranged a meeting just for me. I had a private presentation of the Dutch movie classification and rating system, with tea and stroopwafels. So cool. So Dutch.

Haiu (as they say here)

Alex (Aalekzandè)