I just finished my first official seminar for my History of Political Culture course. Courses in general are going well. The lecture for the same class, which I had yesterday morning, is giving me a crash-course in Dutch academic jargon. It's not actually too terrible, and the main professor of the course (there are five in total, who will be rotating lectures) assures me that the exam questions will be taken from the readings, not the lectures, since he is the one writing the exam and does not actually attend the other lectures himself. I will continue to go for the sake of personal discipline, for the fact that I have a class immediately after in the same building, so I might as well show up, and finally because it is genuinely good for learning Dutch.
I already have learned a number of words! Heden means "be present," while hebben means "have." Zeggen is "say," and manschap translates loosely to "man" or generally "person," but can mean "troops" (as in military) when used in the plural. Eenheden is a term referring to general political units, and banden is a connection or bond. Persoonlijke banden, for example, is a sort of individual political association. AND I DIDN'T HAVE TO LOOK THESE UP! They're just off the top of my head! Now if I could just learn grammar...
Anyway, the seminar/lecture system in the Netherlands is apparently different than it is in the US. In the US, during "recitations" (=seminars), we typically go over the readings for the lecture, discuss the readings/ themes in a smaller, more intimate setting, etc.
This is not the case here, at least not with this class. This class is apparently a subset of "history of political culture," focusing specifically on party culture. The structure will be similar to my undergraduate history seminar of last semester, centered around the creation of a final essay. The major difference being, this essay will only be 4,000. words. :)
The weather here is ICY. Fortunately it is dry, otherwise there would actually be ice. However, I am hoping it will start to warm up next month. The bike ride home from class at 6pm last night was brutal.
