Today I filled in the final form for application to med school. A huge weight has been lifted of my shoulders, knowing that I don’t have to worry about them any more.

Of course this is no guarantee that I will get in, but I am one step closer. On the basis of these forms they wil decide who needs to come in for a selection day, and based on that day they will decide the order of entrance.
This is how it works: when you want to apply to medical school you can choose to go through a selection process, that way you might have a better chance of getting in. They make a list based on your application forms and selection day, the higher up you are on that list, the better chance you have of getting in.

The standard procedure is a exam mark based lottery. They take all the marks you got on your final exams, and average them. If you have an average mark of 8,0/10 or higher you automatically get in to medschool.
All medical schools have a standard amount of places they can give away. First the 8,0 students get in, after that half of the places left go to the lottery, and the other half goes to the selection process.

This is why it’s important for me to get high on that selection list. I really, really don’t want to try my luck in the lottery.

So, fingers crossed!

Being multilingual can turn out to be surprising sometimes. Speaking four languages (two fluently, one enough to make me understandable, and the last just phrases) can mean that words with the same meaning (ofcourse different in different languages) can have a different emotional charge.

One of these phrases is ‘I love you’, for some reason, the emotional charge that comes with this phrase in English, is less than in Dutch. Native English speakers just seem to throw it about, whilst here I hardly ever here it said.
Same thing in German and French, the phrase in either language doesn’t have the same emotional charge.

I guess it’s because I’m not in love, and never really have been, and because I’m not a native speaker, but the difference is pretty weird.

I’m a pretty frank person, it’s how I’m brought up. I don’t mind people knowing my personal physical problems, and generally I have no problems discussing my menstruation in front of a whole load of other people. I figure, well hey, it’s natural, isn’t it?

Occasionally it’s even fun to drop a little bomb into a conversation about your health, just to see how people react. I really enjoyed it the last time I did it, and I even enjoyed in more when I did it on Friday.

This Friday I was in a restaurant in Grenoble, with my classmates from Physics. I was sitting at the same table as a dear friend of mine, the guy that keeps the class interesting with all his weird questions, and the technical support guy for all the physics experiments. (He sets them up, and he helps us when we have to do some. He also does the demonstrations).

Halfway through the dinner my phone rang; it was my alarm. So I turned it off, and the guy asked why I had my alarm set at 19.15, surely that’s no time to wake up? So I explained to him that this was usually the time I took my pill (The Pill), but I couldn’t then and there because I’d been stupid and left it at home. His response:
,,And you always tell us you don’t have a boyfriend!”

That was a very funny moment, because I don’t take it for that reason, I take it to control my menstruation. It’s funny to see what people assume when they hear certain things, isn’t it?

Do you ever wonder stupid things? I do, a lot. Most of the things I wonder are inspired by books, or by something I saw, or something that just randomly pops into my head.

Some of my latest wonderings have been related to Twilight, and been infused with some science, my inspiration has been the trip to Grenoble.

I went to see the Synchotron from the ESRF,  and they have this concentrated x-ray beam thing going on. The guy giving us the tour said that if you walked through it you would be neatly cut in half. Of course the first thing that popped in to my mind was: ‘What would happen if Edward walked through it?’ Idiotic huh?

Some of the things I wonder about are incredibly stupid, and can probably never be scientificly proven, but I wonder them anyway. I should probably read more encyclopeadias, they could tell me a lot of things. The things is: they don’t tell me about twilight. >.<

Lately I have been in need of some moderately brainless entertainment, what with testweek and all. Therefore my interests have been a little bit brainless too, but I will share them anyway.

• Red String
  It’s actually a very nice graphic novel, but it’s perhaps just a bit too chicklit to qualify as something substantial. At least it is for me. I started reading it last Wednesday, and I read the entire archives in one day. Now I’m eagerly awaiting the next page.
• Taylor Swift – Love Story, You Belong With Me, The Best Day
  My sister introduced me to her music, and therefore it cannot be something other than brainless, because my sister has typical 15 year old girls interests. Despite this, I find myself listening to it more and more, and the ending of Love Story never fails to make me smile.
• Twilight
  Some where half way through studying for something or other I’d decided I had enough of it, and acquired the film. To my surprise, most of the scenes were actually watchable. I cracked up at some, but I really liked over 75% of the film.
  I’ve also gotten into re-reading some parts of the books that I really remembered and enjoyed. This is mostly Breaking Dawn, because however idiotic it may be, I’m a sucker for a happy ending. There are parts that I refuse to re-read though. The birth of their daughter being one of them xD

I hope that after reading this you don’t think any less of me, after all, we all need some mindless entertainment sometimes, don’t we?

Occasionally, whilst sitting in one of my classes, odd/weird/smart ideas will pop into my head, as if out of nowhere. In my Greek lesson on Monday, I suddenly realised why there is no such things as world peace.

Lets imagine two fighting groups of people, as two people in an argument. Imagine you are one of those people. What are you feeling? Most likely anger, and possibly fury. Betrayal perhaps, depending on what the other party did to you, and you are probably not interested at all in how the other party is feeling. So you feud for days, weeks even, until someone has decided it has been enough, and starts to mediate.

When you talk to this mediator, perhaps part of your anger, and betrayal will go away, and you will realise how the other party feels. So the smart part of your brain, the well adjusted, reasonable part, the part that doesn’t hold grudges, will decide that it’s probably better to forgive the other party, and end your feud. However, a part of your brain will still be annoyed at the other party, and perhaps hold a grudge. It is not in human nature to forgive completely.

Now take this mind image back to the group of people fighting with eachother, and imagine that the majority is the well adjusted, nice part of your brain, the part that doesn’t hold grudges. The other part will be a minority, and will be silenced enough by the masses, until it has decided that it is fed up with not being listened to, and decided to take matters in to its own hands.
This is what I would call a terrorist group. Both these terrorist groups will escalate the previously peaceful coexistence, and thus ending the peace.

This is why world peace can never be achieved. (Of course my example does not apply to veery conflict in the world, and this was written keeping Israel/Palestina in mind.)

I am not a fan of roadtrips. Although I have to do a lot of traveling by car, because some places you just can’t cycle to, I don’t like it. I even hate going to my grandmother’s by car. A journey which often lasts no longer than an hour each way.

I’m not sure why I hate roadtrips so much. The not being able to move shouldn’t bother me, because I’m certainly able to sit still for a long amount of time.

Perhaps it’s the cold, because I hate cold. When we came back from our trip to Rome, it was the middle of the night, and the bus was relatively warm. However, for some reason the spot I was sitting in was incredibly cold. The reason: a very annoying draught, probably the airconditioning.

So this time, for my epic road trip to Grenoble (1100 km), I’m bringing a blanket. Due to the fact that we’re leaving at 3 in the morning today, (when you read this I will have already left, and hopefully arrived at my destination) I will need to do some sleeping the bus.

And I can only sleep when I’m completely comfortable.

I hate it when people lie. I don’t care if it is becuse they are convinced of something, a lie is a lie is a lie, and I hate lying.
Especially when it’s big blatant obvious lie.

A lie like this one: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5923927.ece

The pope says condoms are not the solution to AIDS?! IS HE KIDDING?!

People just don’t abstain, not matter what, sex drives usually win out over reason. Especially when there’s a horny teenager involved. So what do you do? You give out condoms to try to make sure that there’s no unprotected sex.

Dear, dear pope, you seriously don’t know what you are talking about. Get stuffed, and take your faulty idiotic study with you.

Sometimes when I get thirsty I’ll buy a soft drink in a bottle, and because I’m not a littering person, I tend to keep these bottles lying around. You never know when they can come in handy!

Of course, when you have had some of them lying around for weeks, you have to clean them before you decided to use them again. My mother once had the brilliant idea of putting them in the dishwasher, but that rather backfired on her. They came out all misshapen.

So here’s what I do:

1. Boil water. After it has boiled let it cool down for about 5-10 minutes. You still want it hot, but not boiling.
2. Take a bottle and unscrew the cap, pour some water in.
3. Screw cap back on bottle, and shake it about. Sometimes it’s more effective to hold it sideways, and then make the water go round, that way you know every part of the bottle has been in touch with the water.
4. Unscrew cap again, and pour the water out. Rinse out with cold water, just to make sure the bottle doesn’t change shape.

Eh, Voila! A clean water/soda bottle, ready for you to use.

I have the slightly neurotic, highly annoying tendency to over-pack. When I go away, I always bring too much stuff. Take for instance a typical family holiday. We go away for three weeks, and I bring enough underwear for two, enough socks for two, way too many T-shirts for me to wear, and enough pants to last 6 months. I usually only wear half of the clothes I bring.

However, when I went to Rome last year, it was a different story. We had the largest suitcase in the house (which is still pretty small), and I didn’t bring enough. I had not enough shirts to prepare me for the heat (and thus sweating) I would face there, and boths my pairs of pants broke, whilst I was there. In effect this left me no choice, but to wear the least damaged pair. The one with the broken zipper, it would still zip up, but then it would get open somehow, whilst the thingy would still be at the top of the zipper. It required some very long T-shirts. xD

So I’m not taking any chances when I go to Grenoble. I have started packing today, and even though I’m only going to be there for two days (we’ll be gone four, but two are travel days) I’ve packed two T-shirts, four knickers, and four pairs of socks. I’ll probably bring back-up pants as well. You never know after all!