Dexter's Lab

Safe and sound in The Netherlands

2005-07-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

I arrived safely in The Netherlands today. And, I've already had:
* yummie beer
* yummie wine
* yummie food
The only things still missing are coffee and milk, but well....we can do something about that, can't we?

The flight went smooth: no annoying custums officer, I retained all my luggage (in fact, didn't have to wait for it! I came in the baggage hall and there it was already circling around at the conveyer!), and at about 15:00h I was drinking a delicious beer with my brother, my uncle, and a friend of mine.

Hot again

2005-07-02T03:45:00.000-07:00

It is hot again! Average temperatures: 40 degrees Celcius. But well, it is nice as well, because at least I can get a little bit of tan again ;)

Cheese please

2005-06-15T06:33:00.000-07:00

Some time ago, I felt myself very lucky: I'd found cheese! And not just a random local cheese, no 'Gouda' (гуда) and 'Edammer' (едам).... unfortunately, only the name had only a 'Dutch flavour' (in fact, all the cheese taste the same).

Beautiful Metro

2005-06-15T06:25:00.000-07:00

In Tashkent, it is easiest to travel by metro; it is not that warm and it goes rather quick.
And additionally -in stark contrast to the carriages though- the stations are real pieces of art! The космонавтлар (cosmonaut) is my favourite: you really feel in space! Several teints of blue, and starts and planets..beautiful.

Watching footbal this evening?

2005-06-07T21:51:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I was all set to watch the match Oranje - Romania (Oranje = Dutch national team).
But snif-snif...instead they broadcasted some other veeeeeeery interesting game; Kazachstan versus ......
(forgot, just another 'top-squad')....

Hopefully, I will have more luck this time (however, I am a bit sceptical...)

Russian 'literature'

2005-06-06T11:36:00.000-07:00

I've started to read my first Russian book: "красная шапочка" (I bought both "красная шапочка" and "чаревна-лягушка ") It's real literature! The one I started with ("красная шапочка") can be translated as 'Little Red Riding Hood', or in Dutch: Rood kapje. Yeah, this is appropriate literature for a graduate of the university....hahaha (especially when you see this 'book' - it's this colourful, booklet for children that start reading)

boom-boom swimming

2005-06-06T11:33:00.000-07:00

Everybody knows boom-boom cars, right? It's fun and particularly as a little child, I liked it. Now, I kind a 're-live' my childhood, but now in the swimming pool. It's in swimming pool 'Mitrofanov' and it takes me 20 minutes by metro and and additional 10 minutes walk to get there. I pay 1.500 сум and then I can swim for 1 hour. There are however some drawbacks: everybody likes to swim in random patterns.... I like to swim in a straight line (in one lane).... I guess you can predict what happens if these two styles are used in one pool....

At the computer centre (again)

2005-06-06T00:28:00.000-07:00

Finally, I've installed an English version of Excel, so, now everything is fine! Woehoe!
Now I'm playing with the Excel 'solver' - somebody told me that it's rather handy, but I must admit that I've never used it (actually, when he told me about the existence of 'solver' in Excel, I was rather surprised: "Oh, does such a tool exist??")

Well, I've spend enough time here in this computer lab, so it's time to have lunch - I think I'll have some 'плов'....

Пока!

Weekend is short !

2005-06-04T06:41:00.000-07:00

Today, my students had listening comprehension.... Yup, on Saterday. Actually, their only free day is Sunday. But well, I only teach three times a week, so I can 'plan' my own free days...

The listening comprehension went well.....I don't think it went very well. I thought it was 'do-able', but I'm afraid that for a lot of students, it was too difficult (for the insiders, it was a TOEFL, model 7 listening test). So, the only thing left for me to do is correcting the CV's and application letters.... (of course, after one week, we start the thermodynamics part, so I think the course break won't be a real break...snif-snif)

By the way, again, the weather is extremely hot! It feels as if you are walking in an oven! I'm not a person that starts complaining quickly when it is hot (yup, I'm a 'kou-kleum!'), but even I think that it would be more comfortable if it was a bit cooler... (now it's between 40 and 50 degrees Celcius).

Exams (job interviews)

2005-06-02T12:47:00.000-07:00

Today was a very exhausting day because we had exams today. What kind of exam? Well, it was 'English in use'. In this case, we did job interviews. So the students had to apply for a job (they had already prepared a CV and an application letter). And I can tell you: having interviews from 09:00h till 13:00h is a rather exhausting activity!!
But I think they have learned a lot (so that's what I'm here for, right?) The results were fairly ok - some could have done much better, whereas others really performed above their average level - quite interesting to see how human unpredictable people are (if you do not choose a proper frame of reference)

So, is this it? Nop. On Saterday, they have listening comprehension. So, finally, their mark consists of four parts:
* CV
* application letter
* job interview
* listening comprehension

So, 1 down, 3 to go....

Check

2005-05-31T13:13:00.000-07:00

Let's see if I can manage to make Cyrilic appear on the screen:

цйук-ен-гшщз
фыва-пр-лоджэ
ячсм-ит-бью.

Woehoe! I managed1 Now, let me spell my name:
Патрик

So, that's all for now, so let me close in Russian, Uzbek, Dutch and English;
Пока! Hayir! Tot ziens! CU!

Verdonk is a real football expert as well!

2005-05-31T12:21:00.000-07:00

Zo zie je maar weer - onze Rita heeft echt overal verstand van....(let vooral op de laatste alinea)

"Kalou tekent bezwaar aan tegen besluit Verdonk"
Bron: www.nu.nl
Uitgegeven: 27 mei 2005 23:15
Laatst gewijzigd: 27 mei 2005 23:17

ROTTERDAM - Salomon Kalou tekent bezwaar aan tegen het besluit van minister Verdonk van Vreemdelingenzaken hem niet in aanmerking te laten komen voor versnelde naturalisatie. Dat deelde de aanvaller van Feyenoord vrijdag mee.
(..)
Kalou kreeg te horen van de minister dat volgens haar gegevens het niet aannemelijk is dat hij al een grote bijdrage kan leveren aan het Nederlands elftal.

HOT !!!!

2005-05-31T11:34:00.000-07:00

The last couple of days, it's extremely hot!! I don't know the exact temperature, but when you just sit, you feel like a small fountain...

Uzbek and Russian

2005-05-31T11:20:00.000-07:00

Now, let me tell something about the country. Oh, before I forget to tell: I'm fine. No inconvenience whatsoever with respect to the 'unrest' in Andijan/Ferghana.

So, again to this country. When you just wandering through the streets, you see a lot of different people - duh, ofcourse, you would say. Yup, indeed, but I mean, you see Uzbek, Russian, Kazach, Turkmen, Afghan and many more nationalities. In my class for example, I have three Russian students. Also, some students of mine come originally from Korea.

So, what do they speak. Well, education used to be inspired by the Russian system and consequently.... so most literature is in Russian and hence, almost all students can speak Russian. On the streets, you can hear Russian, Uzbek and Uz-Russian (in one sentence they mix Uzbek and Russian). What am I learning at the moment? Well, I try to learn some Russian and so far, so good... (although, I haven't had much time to study it).

And what about the public places and its signs? Well, sometimes it is inLatin and sometimes Cyrilic (writing they use in the Russian language) is used. But fortunately, the pronunciation is the same, so that makes it a bit easier.

Stijn

2005-05-24T06:11:00.000-07:00

He Stijn,
Kun je me een e-mail sturen; ik kan geen e-mail naar jouw hotmail adres sturen. Misschien heb ik het verkeerde adres.... Als je een e-mail stuurt, dan heb ik weer het goede adres.

Underdressed

2005-05-15T21:56:00.000-07:00

I forgot to tell, but everybody is I felt completely underdressed when I walked on the streets of Tashkents: the ladies dressed themselves very fashionable and many men wore tie-and-other-formal-clothes (formal trousers, formal shirt etc.) . So the first weekend I went 'formal-clothes-
hunting'. And I succeeded! It was quite nice buying things on the 'bazaar' (open-market).
However, not veeeery cheap (only a little bit...): shirt: 25,000 sum (= 25 USD), trousers: 30,000 sum (=30 USD). And well, it's not extremely formal (e.g. I only use a tie when I meet
some vice-president/rector -so twice), but still, at least I do not feel underdressed anymore.

Everything is fine!

2005-05-15T21:32:00.000-07:00

Some of you may have heard about some 'unrest'. Fortunately, I do not experience any unconveniences of it. Life is still great here, so there's no need to worry.

Identity crisis

2005-05-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

Most of you know that I look Indonesian....so, when I was in Indonesia, I was not very surprised that people thought I looked like an Indonesian person (well, they said: "You look like Indonesia!"...I presume they meant 'Indonesian'.....)

When I was in China, everybody thought I was American (In the beginning ofcourse, a big insult...hihihi).

But now, here in Uzbekistan.......what do you think? Yes! They think I'm from Uzbekistan!!! Can you believe it?! Moreover, they think that I'm from 'Andijan'. So, that's why I learned a new sentence:

men Andijandan men - I'm from Andijan.

So, now I can say the following: men Abupattoh va men Andijandan men
(I'm Abdupattoh and I'm from Andijan)

Stuffed Patrick

2005-05-10T06:49:00.000-07:00

I few days ago, I had dinner at my supervisors place. This place is not only the house of my supervisors (they are married), but also the place of the parents of Kobiljon (one supervisor). The day I had dinner at their place, it was a real family gathering: I think we were with about
grandparents, parents, sisters, cousins, uncles, aunts.....in total maybe 20 persons.

It was really nice, but I felt like exploding: "Have some more!" "Have some more!" At a certain
moment the grandmother of my supervisor got really mad, because he was talking to me and
-according to the grandmother- I did not have time to eat.....and I was so glad I had an excuse
to have a break! What did we eat? Cookies, apples, strawberries, plov (traditional dish), bread,
coklat, chuchvara (also a traditional dish), chicken, different kind of sausages....and much much more. But it was very nice and the grandmother already gave me a different name: 'Abdupattoh'.

So, I just close this message in a typical Uzbek way.
Hayir,

Abdupattoh

At the computer centre

2005-05-06T13:41:00.000-07:00

Now we're 'killing time' at the computer centre. The thing is, for my physics lectures, I need computers. Now we are booking the computer lab at the faculty of computer science. How come we're killing time? Because initially, we were planning to register me at the police/immigration office (don't konw which one). There were some difficulties (duh...ofcourse) and so we try to register again at 16:00h (now it's 13:40h).

Back to our booking the computer lab. Here we have some nice 'obstacles' as well: I need Excel. Ofcourse I wanted to test it, so I tried the command 'sum'. Instead of a nice result (1+2=3), I got "#ИМЯ?"...hmmmm.....you already got it right? They only got a Russian version. Now they're trying to find an English version.

Oh, we go now. Now we're visiting the electrical engineering department.

CU
-Patick-

Bule Asli

2005-04-16T09:53:00.000-07:00

Siapa namanya 'Bule Asli'? Gw bule asli, kan??

2nd blog

2005-04-14T10:43:00.000-07:00

Hmmmm....it's a little too 'pinkish'.....
agh....boeie!

My first blog

2005-04-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

Hmmm....this is my first blog (or in proper Dutch: "Bloggggggggggggggggggg")
Well, let's see....