Traveling around the World

Heya!

Haven't posted here for quite a while... Currently I'm keeping a different blog, so any lonely souls here can redirect themselves there. The link to my TravelPod is to be found on http://www.rutgervd.nl - it documents my daily stories and pictures of my trip around the world :)

xxx
Rutger :)

[ Project Finished and Online! ]

Hey Everyone!

Sorry for having been absent for a while, I had decided not to update my blog when i was in the Netherlands, since it is my "Bournemouth blog" - but when I get a chance i'll put some pics online anyway :) my "Vrije Universiteit" account has been removed as it appears, so my pictures have gone offline. i hope they'll reinstate it soon, but we'll see about that...

anyway, i'm still alive. Up and running again in Bournemouth, where it is HECTIC. I have handed in my project last monday, and upcoming monday is a 4000 word essay which is pressuring me. But o well... got to keep it short now too, since i'm here in the library to study...

Daan was nice enough to lend me some webspace, so I could put my project online. I have zipped it since it weighs 26.8 MegaBytes. Not that much considering there is quite some video footage and a LOT of imagery in there :) let me all know what you guys think, feedback is important to me! :)

Grab your copy here: http://www.dbexpertise.nl/rutger/TheMobiusCase.zip

Got to write now!
xxxxx
Rutger :)

Ciao Bournemouth! :)

Ha!

The last two weeks flew by again, i presented the work I managed to produce until now. Which went ok! And christmas holiday started last week. Although I'm not quite sure if I'll be able to relax much studywise... The 17th of January I have to hand in the project I put a sample online from earlier. The 24h of January I have to hand a 3750 word Media Theory and I have do some interviews for the 3000 word case study that is due in March, but since 3 new full time subjects are starting the 10th of January already... I'd be better off if I round it up as early as possible... We'll see!

I'm looking very much forward seeing everybody again at home! Most of the international students I know here, have already gone home also. So at the time of writing, it is cold and lonely here! :) But that was only for a day :) And now, tt is almost 3AM in the morning, and since I have a plane to Amsterdam to catch tomorrow... I should get some sleep! :)

If you guys see me in the Netherlands again, I haven't had a hair cut in 3 months! Just be prepared i'd say! ;)

Hope Bournemouth will survive without me for a while! I'll be back! Soon enough... ;)
xxxxxx! :)

Coming Home Soon! :)

Hey hey all my fluffy bunnies!

I wanted to let you all know that I'm landing in Amsterdam the 14th of December at 21:30, to check if everybody at home is still alive! I'll be doing this until the 9th of Janary 09:30 in the morning. I will be mostly busy studying during my christmas break, but of course I want to have seen everybody when I leave again! I'll be joining Innercity in the RAI the 18th and Rob, Vincent and Maarten's x-mas dinner party the 23rd. Christmas will be spend with family, and Daan, Bob and me will try to go to Prague for a few days ... if we can make it! Car-Acquirance-Issues-Wise... ;)

My projects and essays deadlines are all in January. So it's not all fun'n'games :) Things here have been quite the same... I really don't have the time to do much else than studying, the project is the most time consuming thing and I haven't even begun writing the story yet! *mooooo!* Of course I do little things, like going to the movies some nights or chat up with friends. But no crazy party hat parties! Well maybe one at Valerio's, but it would be hard describing that ... shoes flying out the window and all! Hope to get those pictures soon! ;D

My dad and stepmum just went back to the Netherlands today.Tehy both joined me for the Weekend, which I enjoyed very much! I showed them my roooom, my universityyy, my studiooo and we went out for dinner 2 times ... next to that ... i introduced them to Sigal!!! MUWHAAA! MEET THE PARENTS!!! ... poor little Sigal was a bit nervous at first, but when she noticed she wasn't eaten alive after 10 minutes, she ever smilingly started chattering away :)

So, yes yesh, things are going very well with me and Sigal! She's also very busy with her studies, so most of the time we are just sitting at her place typing, writing, designing, editing or discussing stuff :) - Everybody here is getting more and more busy... Christmas break is coming and everybody is stressing more. Guess it's the same all around the world, but I haven't had it this much before ever myself! But I'll survive! :)

Well... time for me to make some dinner now:)
I send you all a big kiss!
And a big hug! :)

Muaaaaa!!
Rutger :)

[ Project Sample ]

Hey Everybody!

Sorry for the update inactivity on my part. Been making 8 to 15 hour study days for a while now. I have made a "trailer" of my project for you guys. So you can see what i'm working on. It takes so much time making everything go more smoothly ... and then still...

I suspect it won't run on all computers as fine... and it takes a while to load the Intro screen it goes to. So be patient! ;-) I just made the trailer fast, so I hope it works well. Any comments... please let me know! The more the reviews the better :D

The trailer is here: http://www.cs.vu.nl/~rdijk/maime/Splash.html

xx
me :)

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Heyyyyy'all! :)

I've been so busy with my studies last week, didn't get round to updating my blog. From last week monday on, I've spend almost every day studying and working on my project, which is basically the same, but mmmkay! ;D I've just posted some more pictures in the post below from the week before. I'm still missing out on some pictures... because it is kinda hard collecting them from lots of different digital camera's from lots of different people :)

I won't get into too much detail of last week, since it is mainly studying. Some days I spent from 10:00 till 20:30 in university just coding or trying things... i'm a bit worried at the moment, since all the stuff I produced isn't very "coherent" yet. Which should be the case for a project. I've been mainly programming in ActionScript, trying Cinema 4D and learning Flash. I hope I can get some samples up sooner or later...

Fridaynight after university I went to Ozz' place, where we had a beautiful 3 course meal and one of the UK's finest wines... *coughs* ...that day it was "Guy Folks" - a national celibration day. And we went with a bunch of people to Poole to watch the fireworks show.. it turned out to be really cool, even though Jan managed to miss it all and ended up just having a bus tour from bournemouth to poole ... and back! ;D We decided to go out to the Showbar on the peer later on with me, Sigal, Ozz, Jan and Joy. It turned out to be a really cool club, I couldn't stay much longer, because the next day;

Saturday; I had my scuba diving exam dives... I got up at 6:30, managed to miss the train - but my sweet little sister Debbie picked me up by car and we drove all the way via Poole to Portsmouth. The dives were at a military complex, where they had sunken a helicopter, a boat, a landrover, mines, torpedos ... you name it ... the dives went well, but the only thing was: IT WAS FREAKING COLD! Diving with a water temperature, even in a wetsuit, is bwwrrrrrrrrrr!! ... But the hot chocolate and burgers in the breaks made it up for it :) After a long trip back, I went to watch Fahrenheit 9/11 with Joy and Sigal ... I was so wondering why Bush got re-elected last week ... incredible!

Sunday; Quite the same as saturday, get up very early, drove to portsmouth, another 2 exam dives and ... I PASSeD! I now got my PADI Open Water Diving License ... yay! ;) - Got home and was so incredibly tired that I caught up with a lot of sleep :)

The last 2 days have been mainly studying again... today and tomorrow will be the same. Not a bad thing, but not as interesting to write about of course ;-) I haven't talked to some of you in quite a while, so please drop me a mail!! :) For the ones that didn't notice it has changed to: rutgervd@gmail.com.

Lot's of Love,
Rutger :)

And some More :)

:D !


Off to the Halloween Party! :)



Nico and Me

Sigal, Valerio, Joy and Nico :)

Help meeee!!!

Our own little mummy! ;D

The Duck Race :)

Me, Joy, Ozz and Emily :)



Me, Joy, Ozz and Emily :)

More Pictures! :)

Finally some time to put 'm up! :)


awww! (;

At the Freshers Ball

Muwha!




Little party at my place (:

Same little party :)

4th week: Bye Daan! Working on Project :)

Hey hey!

I saw Daan posted a comment on last weeks post, so I'll start with that one.
Sunday; (Daan Mode) Well, let me finish the Sunday...

After typing his blog Rutger was a bit bored. Didn't feel like anything (i guess when you have a relationship the urge to party 24/7 gets a little less). But i'm still Daan and still single so I did my sellingtricks and got him to go with me to the casino again. And we had a lot of fun! The 2nd tourney of the day started at 20.30. Unfortunately we couldn't afford any rebuys. We had to stay in with the 500 chips we got. Rutger didn't had the luck (it's a skill game, but some luck doesn;t hurt) on his side. He went out after an hour. I was sitting with a pretty big stack on another table, so he decided to have a drink with his (i have to admit, very beautiful and very cool) girlfriend. And I tried to make my stack even bigger. Finally at 0.15 I got some really bad luck and left somewhere around 16th place (was even better then 5th that afternoon).

Rutger, you can tell the rest of the story... The very cool going away party you gave me...
p.s. Uni and Rutgers friends in Bournemouth are very cool, but English people and clubs there suck! I will never complain again about the clubs in Amsterdam. (Still we had a very good time in the Bournemouth clubs! But that was more because of the company.)
(/Daan Mode Off)

Thx Daantje! ;)

Monday; So yes, Daan's last day here. I took him to university, since I had classes from 10:00 till 17:30. I tried leaving him in the library, but he just can't stick in one place! So he bumped into Jan and got him to come to my place for a party... so I called some people and that evening we had drinks at my place. Daan managed to drink a WHOLE bottle of vodka (no "Daan Exaggeration Factor" in this story! ;). After that Daantje was on fire, he even organized a dancing competition INSIDE my room... latin america vs holland! I think we won! ;D

Tuesday; After 3 hours of sleep I got up and made Daan his last English Breakfast and around 06:45 he took his cab (: Got back to sleep and spend the rest of the day in uni studying.

Wednesday; Worked on my project today and went to "Man on Fire" with Denzil Washington that evening. Must say I was really quite impressed by the editing of the movie. Very cool cinematography! Even the story was good and well structured :)

Thursday; After another long uni day I went with Jan to my place to have a drink and make some prepackage ASDA food. Around 20:00 we went to Sigal's place, to put on our Halloween outfits! (: I wrapped Jan in toiletpaper, so he looked like a mummy (he actually just looked silly, but that's ok!) - but since there was nothing left for me. I just let Sigal and Joy get creative with their Eye Pencil Unit Thingie. The results will be up soon I hope (having some problems getting the pictures online lately). Joy, Sigal and Katy (a friend from Sigal from Costa Rica (yes! Sigal is from Costa Rica! ;)) - were dressed up as cops. The party itself was cool! Lots of silly people, limbo competition, costume competition and silly conversations as always... international students rock! :) We went clubbing afterwards and got home pretty tired around 02:00.

Friday; Later on the day there was a party at Simon and Christine's place in Boscombe. Me, Sasha, Jan, Trina and Christine took the bus and we were all in a fun mood already before the party started. It wasn't really busy, but we had a great time playing games all evening. Quite different from all the other parties, but really good! :)

Saturday; Duck Race!!! Yeeehaww!! ... yes yes! you could buy a rubber ducky for 1 pound in town for charity and they released all the duckies in the stream in the biggest part of the park in the center. My ducky didn't win, even though I had coached him so well in advance! :( - but i forgave him and me, Sigal, Joy, Jan and Ozz went for a walk on the beach, where we bumped into Emily and took her along as well. It was a sunny day, pretty rare, and we enjoyed it greatly! In the evening I worked on my project again (:

Sunday; I spend all day at Sigal's place studying. I did drop by Doa'a's place for a little ActionScript gettogether with chocolatechip cookies, crisps and juice. Which were excellent!! ;D

Monday; I'm in university at the moment. Class starts in 1 minute. Really have to get some pictures up soon ... lemme try! :)

X
(: meee! :)

3rd week: Girlfriend! :)

Ola! I don't have a lot of time, so I'll try to keep it short this time ;)

I decided to go for a quiet weekend last week. A bit of studying and relaxing. Monday; school. Tired afterwards.

Tuesday, just one workshop and in the evening ... the Freshers Ball! Yes, a ball is like what we call a "gala" in the Netherlands (: I went straight from university to Antonio's place, because he was the only guy I knew with a suit and he was ok with lending it to me. We talked for a while and I offered to bake him and Jan pancakes. So me and Jan went to ASDA, bought all the stuff and I ended up buying a whole new black suit ... (: thought i might need it later on and it was very cheap anyway :) I also manged to get 1 pink rose for free ... but taking it out of a bigger bouquet. I'm so evil! ;)

The pancakes worked out fine and after getting ready at home, around 9:30 i picked up my date ... date? ... yes! people have dates for those kind of Balls! (: ... well... my date was looking so incredibly beautiful! didn't get her to blush given her a rose though! :) ... so off to the ball... which... sucked! Wrong kind of music, university student union sure don't know how to throw a ball! So there was nothing else to do then shoot a lot of photos ... with me, sigal and joy in it. which i'll put online soon, hopefully after this post, guess who my date was afterwards :p

Wednesday I decided to play a $2500 tournament online. Jan popped by with pizza's, so I showed him how to play. And after 4 and a hours ... i managed to win the tournament! I turned my 6 dollars in to 700!! WOOHAAA!! :D - we celibrated it by going for some beers and the cinema afterwards with a lot of people; Shark Tale ... pretty funny! :) Afterwards i went home with Sigal and that evning I asked her ... if she wanted to be my girlfriend! :) We've been seeing each other a lot the last 4 weeks and I told her I wanted to take it easy earlier on, but I started feeling more and more for her the last few weeks and I feel very very happy about my decision (and hers of course! :)

Thursday; school all day. Went for "Goodbye, Lenin!" afterwards and at 22:00 Daantje arrived at Talbot Campus! haaaaaa! very cool to see him again! funny to have a piece of "home home" coming over to Bournemouth :) made me realize i'm already totally integrated here as well :) so we got his stuff back to my place and went out to Elements that night with Joy and Sigal :) Was ok there, not anything special (:

Friday, i took Daan to university and put him in the library to study there. I finished my Flash workshop at 16:30 and afterwards we had some rum and cokes in Hurn House before we went to Valerio's party in Winbourne house. The party turned out to be a LOT of fun, we got a bit too tipsy ... but i guess that was part of the fun ;)

Saturday, slow starting day. Showed Daan around town for a bit, had some coffee, met up with Ozz and Jan and we watched "City of God" at my place. Then went to Bar Bluu for the night, it was almost like a wickedjazzsounds session, so we all hit the floor like crazy! Emily joined us later on and received quite a lot of attention of the male supporters of my group, excluding yours truely, because i'm such a good little soul of course! ;D we moved to party over to "Camel", where we smoked a Mango waterpipe and we hit the floor and bongo's like nobody else (since everybody else was sitting ;) - absolutely GREAT fun, truely smashing evening! :)

Sunday, i took Daan to the casino to play the 5 pound poker tournament. I busted out 9th and he busted out 5th ... JUST out of the money, but it was exciting and a lot of fun :) At the moment we are sitting at home, Daan is studying and i'm typing this at the moment :)

I'll go and try to put some pictures up now ... they are on my laptop, so could take a while (:

x x x
moi :)

2nd Week: Slowly getting busier...

Another week flew by! It is getting busier and busier by the day… Study really kicked off this week. I could actually be found in the library at times! I’m not even sure I know where the library is in the VU (Vrije Universiteit) back home…

Saturday, where we left off last week… i went straight after the blog update for a milkshake in town. Even though it was extremely cold and raining … we drank it outside on the terrace! :) Afterwards, me, Joy and Sigal went to ASDA to do some shopping for the Latino party, which the 2 Latino girls were having that evening. The turn up was huge! And the hostesses managed to get pretty drunk! Too bad the party was terminated by the security guards, but at least it was an ending in style! ;)

Sunday, I went to play a 5 pound buy-in Texas Hold’em No Limit Poker Tournament in the Gala Casino here in Bournemouth. Very exciting! Since it was my first real life tournament. I was surprised to find out that all the tables had to do their own shuffling, cutting and dealing… The tournament progressed and I managed to triple up at one point, after that the blinds seemed to start climbing like a madman. I made it to the final table, but after a total of 3 hours, I had to make my final stand and I threw all my chips in on 78 suited. Nothing hit and I went home in 7th place. Price money started at 4th place, so maybe next time!

I got out and found myself sitting in the cinema with Joy and Sigal an hour later… Wimbledon! Yeshhh! Some cool shots in there, but quite the “chick flicky” movie :) Went home to catch up with some reading for the next day afterwards.

Monday, a long day in university. The day started with a class in CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) in combination with Dreamweaver and it progressed through a really boring lecture in Media Theory to the first “Design for Interactive Media” class. We had to catch up with the class we missed last week, so it went quite the pace. This is the one of the subjects I really hope to learn the most from, since I came here for “design purposes”. It was interesting to hear that quite a lot of my course mates came to learn the technical side, cool that everybody wants something else from the course :)

Like I mentioned before, the project I have to do for the “Designing for Interactive Media” course is linked with “Narrative and New Media” course is going to be really really cool! I have to create a visual book with pen and paper to crystallize all my ideas on the design/aesthetical issues, next to that I have to write a story that can be followed in a non-linear fashion, so that the user can jump through the story as he/she chooses. There are so many forms to choose… it is overwhelming! I want to use video, but also 3D. I want to design pretty pictures, but need to be able integrate it in the Interface well… I need a story, but it should fit the design … music, sound… wahh! (:

I’ll keep you guys posted on it … it keeps my brain busy a lot though! They have so many facilities here, sound editing studios, 3D labs, video studios with blue screens and they even have a motion capture facility for animating 3D models … I wanna use ‘m allll!! So many things, so little time!! :)

Last class was a Media Theory seminar with David Gauntlett, who wrote the book “Web Studies”, which quite some of the studies at the VU use. I find him a really interesting and entertaining guy, and no I’m not writing this to suck up, just stating an opinion ;) not sure he even found his way to my blog yet ;D

After uni I felt like seeing Sigal, so I dropped by her room in Cranborne house. I intended to only stay for a bit, but we ended up telling each other our life stories for about 6 hours… :) ever sat down and told somebody your life story? Where to start? What to tell? What are you forgetting? There is just so much! :) So for today my children; tell somebody who doesn’t know your life story! …. ;)

Wednesday, the results of the ISOP photographic competition were announced. I had entered with the picture of my room with the 21 people in it … but … shockingly … I DIDN’T WIN! RECOUUNNTTTT!!! ;) – but at least the picture made it up on the board showing the best entries ;D – so we know what that means!

CELIBRATE!! Yeehaw! Off to Ozz’s place! Beer! Pasta! Music! Woohoo! Ok, there were only 4 ppl there, but that doesn’t matter. Ozz decided to stay home with his “date” afterwards and me and Jan went to a triple birthday party at the Student Village on the campus … a full house! International students all over (:

Me, Jan, Joy and Sigal took a cab around 01:00 back to Cranborne house, where the fire alarm went off at 02:15 that night! Everybody had to get out of the building, not that every did, but still … after 30 minutes we could get back in the building and try to get some sleep again … which worked, but then at 05:00 it went off again! So far for a good night sleep! Went downstairs to eat some yoghurt with Doa’a, which was nice (: although she was uttering some incomprehensible sentences that were produced from a still half asleep subconscious (; - so after 40 minutes of an extremely annoying sound, I climbed back to the 7th floor to get back to sleep (:

(the attentive reader can draw some conclusions from this last paragraph… ;)

Thursday, daytime was full of lectures and seminars at university. In the evening watched Trainspotting at Carolina’s place with about 10 people, couldn’t see the end because me and my course m8tes were going for a drink with David Gauntlett (yes, our tutor from Media Theory ;) – cool having a drink with one of your teachers! So, I bought him a beer and now I can finally say I have at least once in my lifetime tried to get my teacher drunk!

Friday, I had invited a lot of people to my place in the evening. Turned out to be a really cool! The going out plans stranded, but lots of photo sessions made up for that … I hope to put ‘m up later on (:

Saturday, yea – here we are again! I’m going to study today, draw in my visual book and put my ideas about the design/narrative project into words. Another fun week in prospect, Tuesday there is the “Freshers Ball” – will have to find a suit for that … take a long educated guess who my date is ;) – then Thursday I’m having my first visitor coming over!! Well … dutch visitor that is … Daantje!!! I’ll go check where the best parties are this weekend and of course play the poker tournament in the casino with him ;D looking forward to it! :)

It is nice to hear people are having fun at home and things are going well. I got a phone call from mum yesterday, which made me really happy (: love you very much mum! :) – Bob also called me earlier on to let me know how things are going, thanks very much m8tey! Hang in there! ;D Also heard that people got way to drunk on Daan’s b’day party in the Paradiso, that WickdJazzSounds is still as fun as ever, that Rob managed to crash his face into the street tarmac, that Todd is doing fine as ever; cool reading your stories man! That Anna is getting along fine with her dissertation (and boyfriend! :) That Sanne is actually to be found in university … and is dancing along with Daan and Todd also :D And Remco is still in the race for a 3 year, salary included, job to become a lawyer in … St Maarten! I hope you’ll make it man! Even though that would mean I wouldn’t see you very much … but I’ll come visit of course ;D

Time for me to do some design and writing!
Big Beso,
Rutger :)

Some Pictures from the Last Weeks :)

Just a handful of pictures - click to enlarge! if you want some more of them just tell me on MSN and i'll send you some :)


Haaaa, as most as my friends know me on the dance floor! ;)


Me and Sigal on stage in the Walkabout :)


Valerio's birthday party, my cocktails worked out quite well!


Under the stairs at Valerio's birthday party :)


Party at Jan's floor last night

New Phone Number

So here we go, my new phone number is:
0044 7968 274643

Sending sms's to phone's abroad is pretty expensive here... so I won't always reply to them... but I can safely answer every call without going bankrupt now! :) So calllll meeeeeee!! ;)

First week in university.

Monday, so here we are, 10am in the morning; the official enrollment! After proving that I have paid my tuition fees, showing that I really am a Bachelor of Science, I am the one and only Rutger van Dijk and quite a few more things. I finally receive my official university ID card. Je me suis un étudiant once more!
After this we meet up in Media Studio 3; a push code mechanism protected studio with 14 wide screen Mac G5’s. This is the studio where we will be spending most of our study time; lectures, workshops or self study. We are introduced to each other and it turns out there are 11 full time students and 3 part time students. From the 11 full timers, there are 2 native UK students and the others span quite a bit of the globe: Netherlands, France, Spain, Columbia, Nigeria, Dubai, Lebanon, India and China. Backgrounds range from Multimedia to Business Studies over Computer Science to Microbiology. Fascinating bunch of backgrounds! I’m sure we’ll get the most out of it this year :) I signed up for Dreamweaver classes on Tuesday and Flash classes on Friday, next to that I will try to follow the MA Computer Animation workshops on Friday on Maya and one of the part timers offered me to help me learn Cinema 4D! I’m so excited I can actually learn this stuff in university! Woohoooo!

The Mondays last from 10:00 till 17:00, I have a technical workshop, a course in Media Theory and one in Designing for Interactive Media. This Monday there was a speech from the head of the Bournemouth Media School and a welcome reception after classes … free wine … you do the maths! When walking around the reception I felt really happy bumping in to all the people I have met already here, sometimes wonder how I seem to know so many already! Me and Ozz managed to collect a huge amount of free wine vouchers and happily took advantage of ‘m … after that I was going for dinner with Sigal … but she already had dinner when I got there! – this reminded me of this time I was going for dinner with Doa’a, but she already ate HER PORTION of the meal! Maybe it is the UK! ;)

Tuesday: my first Dreamweaver workshop – pretty basic stuff. I got home and started up a web cam session with Vincent, who was throwing his birthday party at his place. It was pretty weird seeing everybody at home having a good time and me sitting here at home all by myself! But my rescue Jan knocked on the door, who brought some Fosters along!

Wednesday: long live the bureaucracies! I tried all day, and I mean ALL DAY, to get a mobile phone subscription … 6 hours of visiting different stores, filling in forms, being sent away, etc. etc. I managed to still have nothing … extra papers you need, proofs, identifications, letters, bank statements, machines that are not working, faxes that won’t send … trust me … they got it all! Got home around 17:30 without a mobile phone still… Jan dropped by again for a beer, so I relaxed, had some food and then went to Doa’a for a little get together of people there. We went with a bunch to pick up Ozz, who was hiding in Club Med near my place and dragged him, me, Jan, Doa’a and a Jordanian friend to Klute. Quite a fancy place, but it was student evening! Free entrance shots and if you buy two glasses of wine, you get the bottle for free! Haaaa! I can’t exactly point out why or when, but it turned out to be a great evening! Silly moves on the floor, silly conversations, singing on the street afterwards and of course some Chicken Kebabs! Slept pretty well afterwards :D
Thursday: Got up early to go to the Orange store and finalize the deal … everything went well … up till the last moment: “we want a written letter from your accommodation officer that you are going to stay here a year”. My eyes almost popped out of my head, I had brought my tenancy agreement, my tuition fees payment proof, my university acceptation letter, my bank statement who was sent to my address and all my ID’s … but NO… walked back the route to my room for the 14th time now. I got the letter, gave it to them and they managed to take another hour of my time, but in the end I HAVE THE PHONE! :)

University was quite cool; Thursdays last from 12:00 till 17:00 and I have Professional Studies and a course in Narrative & New Media, which seems like a really cool subject. The course is linked with Designing in Interactive Media and we’ll have to deliver an interactive non-linear piece of work, both aesthetically and ‘narrative-ly’ pleasing. Should crack some of my brain cells, but I’m really looking forward to it! I hope to combine quite some of the media mediums … film/photography/3d animation/graphic design/programming/written language … we’ll see!

Afterwards I went to Carolina’s place to grab a pizza and watch a movie with 12 others. “The Insider”; pretty long movie, although it is quite good! Dropped by Sigal after the movie and had a really good conversation about how we look at the world … always makes me happy if I find people who look at things the same way :)

Friday: got up pretty late, since my Flash workshop starts at 15:00. Again a pretty cool workshop! A little bit of game design to learn how to use Flash and Action scripting, which I can handle quite fine because of my Computer Science background. Time flew and I found myself walking to Ozz’s place, who lives in the Winterborne part of Bournemouth. We watched some Computer Animation works, which he got from the library. He studies Computer Animation, so I hope me and him can exchange quite some knowledge about it in the year to come!

After walking back to the Talbot Campus, taking the bus to Cranborne house, walking to ASDA, buying a 1.5l bottle of Vodka + juices and continuing walking to Thor’s place, we found Thor sitting on the couch and within 15 minutes he managed to catapult his room mates mobile phone, over his other room mates head (who actually did a cool evasive maneuver) against the wall, which cracked up the phone quite nicely! Pretty nice aim by Thor there! ;)

We collected our ASDA stuff (and the mobile phone) and went over to Hurn House where Jan was having a floor party, well actually – I think we organized it FOR him, but that’s ok Jan! You know we love you! ;-) A lot of the international students showed up and it was nice seeing some of the people I hadn’t seen in a while (well … a week! ;) – and the balloons and straws me and Ozz bought in ASDA proved to be quite colorful and cheery! Antonio at one point offered me and some others some prosciuto at his place, so I managed to finish a whole pack of it, together with quite some parmesan cheese … ooeee GOODY! And Antonio’s soothing guitar sounds made it even better ;D

So with a full stomach (well, me at least) we arrived at the Walkabout – where people could prove they were still able to move after all the drinks. I think everybody managed, although Emily got close to failing her exam! ;P The club closed, people stumbled home and I guess in the end … everybody was happy! :)

Saturday/Today: here I am … typing away on my little computer. Still happy, a bit more organization in my head on what I have to do this year, what the study expects of me … and what people will be in the story in the end, the story I can call “Bournemouth” when I’m old and grey… :)

Although I’m doing so great and am busy at times, I do think about you guys! Especially Bob and Rob at the moment… I feel bad I can’t be there for you guys now … but you both know I’m here if you need an extra ear to talk to! Even though it is a virtual ear one at the moment …

*big kiss for all*
Rutger :)

Last Days Off :)

Aloha!

Since the international orientation program ended last Saturday and I only had to do a handful of introductory courses this Tuesday, I was off the rest of the week. Just wanted to give you all a general impression of the last few days :)

Tuesday: After receiving my schedule for the upcoming year, learning about the campus library, the internal Media website for postgraduates and a short introduction to using Mac’s, I already managed to have myself promise two girls to help them with their life critical problems. So I took the bus back from campus with Doa’a towards Cranborne house…

Yes, 3 side notes here:
1) Bus: Yes Yes! I managed to have a flat tire on the first day already!
2) Doa’a: This really is a name yea! ;) Doa’a is also doing the MA Interactive Media, being one of the 11 lucky ones to study with me!! *cough* - I actually met her the very first day on the campus tour and have seen her quite a bit since then, she for sure is going to be one of my best friends this year and I hope we will do a lot of work together too! … next to doing some silly dance moves on the dance floor of course!
3) Cranborne House: the biggest student accommodation in town.

So, after a nice bus ride we got their and fixed the first problem… 1 second, an opened pickle jar and a happy smile later, I found myself in the elevator up to the 7th floor. *knock knock* - now, it is an ugly door, but the smile behind it it reveals is so beautiful! it is amazing how uplifting a smile can be (: :) – I was supposed to fix Sigal’s MSN on her Mac iBook – now, I know nothing about Mac’s… but that’s ok! And since her internet wasn’t working in the first place, there was nothing to fix anyway… silly computers :)

So we decided to do the shopping for the night, since I invited a total of about 15 people to come to my place … turned out to be 23 people in my room at one point; but that’s ok! Yes, well guessed! That is indeed the picture from the previous post! After a lot of happy cheers and drinks, we headed towards the Walkabout around the corner; a quite popular Australian club. Everybody was having a good time on the dance floor and it turned out to be a really good evening! :)

Wednesday: recover day – went to the movie Hero with Doa’a and Jan. Beautiful camera work and good story, a bit slow at times though :)

Thursday: was supposed to be a party at Cranborne House, but things were unclear and they were cancelled in the end… so up to the Old Fire Station! This is the most popular club, especially among the English boys’n’girls, it is very hot, very busy and there are more short skirts than you actually want to see… did I mention the queue takes an hour every time? – exactly why do we come here? ;)

I joined the queue with just Jan… but soon after we were joined by Christine and 2 of her Brazilians and soon Trina and Milena followed, who were both pretty TIPSY ;-) Now, you guys should know that I gave Trina one of my rubber ducks, which makes a lovely squeaky noise when pinched. I think the queue enjoyed the duck very much! ;P Within the hour we managed to learn some English, Dutch, German, Spanish, French, Russian, Tjech, Portuguese and Norwegian, not bad! :)

Inside, me and Trina had the duck float in every pint of beer we could find and we found out the duck is fluorescent… which makes a great attribute on the dance floor! After losing everybody else, we just had fun making a fool out of ourselves dancing … my favorite habit still!

Friday: Valerio’s birthday party in Winterborne House. House parties are mostly just an excuse to get drunk cheap … there were about 30 to 35 people in the 2 kitchens and the hall … pretty cozy! At one point me and Joy decided to go James Bond style through the staircase, we almost completed our mission: shutting down the entire electricity system of the house, but conscious got in the way and made us flee downstairs again. After retrieving Sigal from the party downstairs, we found a VERY small room under the stairs of about 1.5m3. We locked ourselves in, and managed to tell each other ghost stories for about an hour! … when the door flew open – and the police came in the house we decided it was time to go – a 45minute walk through Bournemouth brought us home safely.

Saturday: Visited the Information Fair on the Campus, which was pretty boring. Went for a long beach walk with Jan, we wanted to go surfing, but couldn’t get hold of 2 boards, so we crashed at Simon and Christine’s place for 2 hours to grab a snack. Cool chat … but it got time for the next party. A house warming party at Thor’s place! Again, people tend to get TIPSY at those parties! I danced a short tango in the living room with Kristin and afterwards we paraded to some clubs near my house. Another dancing evening and I finally fell asleep around 04:00, which is pretty late for UK standard ;)

Sunday: Went to play some Tennis with Jan, but was too tired to keep it going for very long. Went to the casino all by myself at night, because there is this Poker Tournament going on most nights at 20:30, it was supposed to last till 03:00 in the morning, so I decided not to join… after all … my first class is starting tomorrow!

Yesh! Here we are, had 2 absolutely GREAT weeks. I really feel like starting the study now though … it is going to be tough … but I already found lots of people to get me through the year I’m sure :) … on to a great year!

Lot’s of Love,
Moi :)

My Room! :)

Hey hey! Just a picture from last night! These are all international students i have met last week :) Click to Enlarge :)



Wohoo! =D

Bournemouth! :)

Heyyy everybody! :)

Finally a chance to sit down and let you guys know I’m still alive. It has been quite a week! Where to start …

As most of you know I left about 10 days ago to do an MA Interactive Media at the Bournemouth Media School, which is part of Bournemouth University in … Bournemouth! The university has got a special team of people that organize the ISOP; the International Students Orientation Program. It is a week to help everybody on their way, get to know Bournemouth, the campus, to meet other students and have fun basically! It started Sunday the 19th.

I had just rushed out the swimming pool in a small town not too far from Bournemouth, where I was learning to scuba dive, after which I jumped into the car and drove up to Bournemouth. Luckily Mike (my step dad) knew his way around town and drove me up to the place that I will call home for the coming 12 months. It is quite a sight, there is a snooker bar on the ground floor, above it are 5 floors of parking space and on top are 120 rooms, looks like they are ready to fall off really! I picked up the key and went straight through to the first ISOP meeting. I expected myself to be at least a bit nervous, walking into a room where you know nobody … but no nerves what so ever! Met quite some people that evening and went home happy! – tried to unpack all my stuff, but within an hour an English delegation of like 8 people knocked on my door with a bottle of Vodka… I’m happy to say; my room still isn’t finished now! ;)

All week I was going up and down to the university campus, which is about 10/15 minutes by bike or bus. Meeting up with people from all over the world, I’m not sure if there is a country in the world that didn’t send a student over here! All the international students seem very open minded, a bit in contrast with the English people. Especially with the people I’m living with … quite some 18/19 year old 1st years English boys and girls around my house. But then again … English people are so funny! The “drink till you drop” myth seems to be true ;) – one thing is for sure, Bournemouth is a party city! After a few days I noticed I am actually more in the center than I thought I would be, some of the popular clubs are literally around the corner and the others are within a 5 minute walk. I can still very often be found on the middle of the dance floor, which is still one of my favorite places to be :) There are too many pubs too mention and there is a LIDL about 4 minutes away, which will safe me at least SOME money, because it is eXpensive over here!

When I’m not spending money, I can be found walking around town. The beach is about 600 meters away and is 7 miles wide, quite some surfing going on there – I’m looking for a surf club around here at the moment. Next to that I already met a girl from Norway that had 5 years of tango experience and would love to take some more lessons, I met a girl from Malta that wants to learn some breaking moves and there are quite a few people who have their open water scuba diving certificate. Guess that will all keep me busy! The city itself is quite beautiful, lots of green trees, quite hilly and some really nice parks, no Vondelpark-style though, but I’ll just introduce that myself next summer ;) Shopping fans can knock themselves out as well. – all in all; seems like this city really is going to grow on me :)

… I didn’t come here for all that now did I? … yes, the study! since the International Students Orientation Program has ended this weekend – my course is going to start pretty soon, I just found out today that that is not going to be until next week … more introductory stuff this second week, which is quite relaxing. it is “freshers week” and there are big parties going on every day, arranged especially for students … o wait, yes … study! … I was quite amazed to find out that the Bournemouth Media School is the number 1 UK university department for media related studies and computer animation; it even belongs to the top 3 of Europe! Not sure they told us that to scare us or motivate us! :) I have seen the 12 chosen people from my course today and there are only 1 or 2 English students. Everybody has got a different background and nationality, which should prove really interesting! The study is going to be really hard though, they promised us it is going to be more work than a full time job … I am going to learn a lot! They presented all the tutors, subjects and staff today and it feels like we are going to be guided through a really cool and intense program. There is quite a big block on design and probably my favorite subject to be; Digital Art Practices. yay! One thing is for sure, I’m going for it!

So everything is going more than fine with me! I feel happy with myself and it really seems to reflect on other people, since everybody seems to be happy to see me also! Everything is arranged very well, internet is working at home now, so I will be online more often and I should have my English mobile phone next week, I’ll give you guys the number when I get it … my address is:

Rutger van Dijk
Room 6, Glenfern House
Glenfern Road
BH1 2LZ
Bournemouth
United Kingdom

I hope everything is going great for everybody at home.
Love you all!

xxx
Rutger :)

Yippi!

Welcome to the Wonderous World of Rutger!