Author Archives: Niki

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About Niki

I run the blog http://www.lifeinthehague.com

Trouble approaching (Or: Passive voice in Dutch)

Posted on July 7, 2012 by Niki

Over at dutchgrammar.com, the latest two sections that I have studied include using passive voice and the imperative commands (geef me chocolade! nu!).

I just know the passive is going to be trouble in Dutch. Particularly because the Dutch use zijn (to be) for the construction of the perfect tenses – i.e.

My hair has been washed = Mijn haar is gewassen.

My hair had been washed = Mijn haar was gewassen.

So the perfect tense uses is/was… which is normally the present tense in English. Uh boy. I can just see me mixing that one up. But everything I learn just makes it easier to figure out things, so I am usually happy to find out some weird quirk like that.

On a random note, one Dutch sentence Marco gave me today had the word sowieso (regardless) in it. I forgot about that word, but I love how it sounds. so-we-so.

I think it is time for me to go crash… not enough sleep last night. Figures!

Categories: Learning Dutch | Tags: | Leave a comment

Study sessions (Or: Reading Dutch over videochats)

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Niki

Number of days (straight) I have studied Dutch: 6.

The Dutch learning streak is going well! Today’s fun: reading the previously mentioned children’s book to Marco, page 1, over MSN videochat. I was decent at it, though of course my pronunciation needs improvement. Lots of improvement…

He helped me with some words I didn’t know (and that the small Dutch-English dictionary didn’t have). It’s baby steps, but so far I have read 3 pages of the book. I guess it doesn’t help that I read a page at the end of the night, around 11PM or so. I am usually pretty tired by then. Although usually earlier in the night I am studying over at dutchgrammar.com.

Here are two random blog posts I want to highlight today:

Resources for Learning Dutch, by Floating in Dreams

Expat blogs and other expat info, by Adventures in Expat Land

Categories: Learning Dutch, Reading | Tags: | 3 Comments

NCLEX exam (Or: Watching students progress

Posted on July 5, 2012 by Niki

One of the benefits to being an academic librarian is that even when one crop of students graduates, another group will inevitably arrive to replace them. One of my more memorable set of students was the ABSN (Accelerated Bachelor of Nursing) students who have called my department home for most of the last year.

The ABSN program is an intensive year long course that is guaranteed to make you pull your hair out. Of note, there frequently were two students who made my department home – it was common to see them arrive in the late morning after their class and stay until 8PM or later. (It almost made me feel guilty to leave at my normal time, but darnit, I had an IM or videochat with Marco waiting for me!)

Continue reading →

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July 2009 (Or: NYC fireworks with Marco)

Posted on July 4, 2012 by Niki

One of my favorite trips with Marco was going to New York City in July 2009 to see the fireworks. It’s odd to realize that it was 3 years ago today. Only two days removed from the job interview that would eventually secure me the job that I have now (July 2, 2009, a Thursday).

We waited at 12th Avenue and 34th street, as that year the fireworks were on the west side in the Hudson river. There were actually 6 (!) barges setting off fireworks from the river, so that millions of people could see them. Both from the New York side of the river and the New Jersey side.

The crazy thing was how fast the area filled up.

Looks like there is a lot of space, right?

(Above) This was the area right after we arrived (around 4:30PM, or so?)

This was the area just over an hour later (not kidding).

The crazy thing to realize is this is only 40% of the action… only 2 of the 6 barges are pictured (we could see another 2 or 3 of them).

You were actually penned in – once that section filled up, the police closed off the area so no one could easily enter (or leave!). After the fireworks were over, the police opened up sections one at a time, so we had to wait around about 5 minutes before they let us out. Nice crowd control.

(Below) Here is a view of Times Square (different day).

This was probably shortly after they opened the pedestrian areas in Times Square, giving us more room to roam and lounge around.

And here was a picture of Offspring, another awesome memory from the trip. Roger found out the concert was happening, and Marco dutifully took me along. Of course he was happy, since Sum 41 was the opening act.

Woot. Awesome concert… awesome memories.

All and all, a fun trip.

My local town is actually shooting off fireworks in a few hours, at 9:45PM tonight… if the rain holds off!

Categories: Holidays | Tags: | 5 Comments

Kinderboeken (Or: Dutch children’s books)

Posted on July 3, 2012 by Niki

As mentioned in a previous post, on my last trip to the Netherlands I picked up a few kinderboeken (children’s books) from a secondhand shop.

“Het geheim van de verliefde hulpkok” – some words that I don’t know are underlined. If I found the definition, I wrote it in. It was painful to write in the book (I think it’s heresy) but hopefully it is worth it!

I decided to try an additional tactic towards learning Dutch – we’ll see if this one sticks. While I have been studying verb forms over at dutchgrammar.com, I thought it might be helpful to do a bit of reading as well. One of my flaws is running all over the place and trying new things, so hopefully this is in addition to not instead of.

I checked on bol.com for information about the book. (Bol.com is like Amazon, but the Dutch version. If you have any questions about that website, feel free to ask Roger. He’s the expert on that site!) I was expecting to see a groep designation (like grades in the United States), but it just went with the direct age. The book is for children 7-9 years old. I guess I am a kid at heart, huh?

At the elementary level, there are 8 groepen, with groep 2 roughly translating to kindergarten (the first compulsary grade). After elementary school, the children move on to high school (there are three different types based on the education level of the child).

But here I am, jokingly still stuck in groep 4 or so (grade 4). For now!

Categories: Learning Dutch, Reading | Tags: , | 5 Comments

Euro 2012 ends (Or: A Dutchie’s perspective)

Posted on July 2, 2012 by Niki

This post is from Marco who has been clamoring to write a blog post of late…

* * * * * * * *

So the European championship soccer–nay, voetbal, has come and gone.
Obviously the Dutch team didn’t make it. 3 Losses in as many games. A disgrace! 🙂
In the weeks leading up to the tournament, Niki posted a lot of pictures of how we got ready, turning everything orange.
Well, as you can imagine things quickly turned back to their regular color after they got ousted.
But don’t worry, they were the talk of the country even after being eliminated.

Rumblings about why the team couldn’t work together, what the coach did wrong and what not.
Hours and hours of tv were dedicated to the situation.
Eventually, after some evaluation talks with the KNVB (Koninlijke Nederlandse Voetbal Bond – Royal Dutch Football Union) the coach resigned.

But that’s not why I asked Niki if I could write this blog.
I wanted to take the time to point out some fun differences in how we do things surrounding the game.

Continue reading →

Categories: Sports | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Aan het continuous (Or: Expanding Dutch grammar knowledge)

Posted on July 1, 2012 by Niki

Number of days (straight) I have studied Dutch: 1.

Ha! Back to “1” from 0. Technically I guess it could be a 2, because I did stare at some things yesterday, but I didn’t get anywhere fast and gave up pretty quickly (wasn’t feeling that well). I had planned to try to make some digital flashcards to review all of the verb tenses that I have learned (see below for the summary) but ended up nixing that idea for now.

Today I looked at two sections at dutchgrammar.com.

1.) Summary of the 8 ‘basic’ Dutch tenses: present tense, past tense, present perfect, pluperfect [past perfect!], future, conditional, future perfect, and conditional perfect.

Continue reading →

Categories: Learning Dutch | Tags: | 9 Comments

Snack addictions (Or: Another one for the expats)

Posted on June 30, 2012 by Niki

Seen at the Amsterdam Centraal Station [Edit: this is actually at Schiphol airport at a store called “Food Village”, see the comment below]:

On the bottom you can see the Cheez-It crackers. It is one of my current addictions. Sometimes (not often) I also go to the local deli and get some fresh cheddar cheese slices to put on top. I definitely prefer salty snacks. Oh, and yellow mustard, which is thankfully at Marco’s local Albert Heijn.

Number of days (straight) I have studied Dutch: 0. Whoops! Forgot all about it on Friday. We’ll see what I can do about making that a 1 again.

Categories: Daily Dutch living, Food | Tags: , | 3 Comments

Heat (Or: Maybe I’ll fly to Seattle)

Posted on June 29, 2012 by Niki

The theme of the weekend is heat, heat, and more heat. I think the States are slowly turning into a large sweltering desert.

For your reference, 100F = roughly 38C. For me, it was still 95F at 8PM tonight. But, it still beats the harsh winter. And the heat can mostly be countered by lots of ice water. Though of course then I want to chew more ice! But Seattle (in the upper left) looks nice at 69F.

Heck, let me just move to the Netherlands 5 or so months early…

Tonight is more Olympic trials — for diving and gymnastics. The latter is my favorite summer Olympics sport by far, even if sometimes I can’t watch since I don’t want to see someone fall! Did you hear about the London taxi cab driver who is going to turn his taxi into a hotel room each night of the Olympics?

It carries such amenities as a solar powered fridge, an iPad, a bedside lamp, curtains, and more. It’s not so much that he is trying to make extra money, just recoup the money he expects to lose. (Taxis are not allowed to use the special Olympic traffic lanes, so they expect more traffic and slower journeys.)

On a non-Olympic note with something closer to home, don’t forget to watch your step. One of the subway exits in Brooklyn has a rogue step that causes a lot of commuters to trip. The cringe-inducing incidents were caught on tape in a 87 second video by a New Yorker who realized that no, he wasn’t a klutz… everyone was tripping at the same place.   (In the video you can see a quick look at the step).

The issue is that the steps preceding it are about 7 1/4″ tall or a bit less. The rogue step is about 8″ tall – about an inch too high for the MTA’s guidelines. To their credit, within 24 hours of the video appearing (and gaining over 300k hits) the MTA had already closed off that particular subway exit and were looking at refurbishing the entire staircase by tomorrow. Apparently you’ll have to find somewhere else to lose your balance.

Just not on an Olympic balance beam, please.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , | 4 Comments

Sticky! (Or: What can you make from 450k post it notes?)

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Niki

Artwork for the Tour de France, of course! The race is starting from Liege, Belgium this year, so their local mall used 450,000 sticky notes to create a collage of bicycle related art.

Laurent Dubrule/Reuters

Of course, it would not be Belgium without the MediaMarkt store in the background of the next photo… MediaMarkt is also somewhat visible in the picture above (you can see the red text at the bottom).

Laurent Dubrule/Reuters

Of course, I don’t really follow the Tour de France. This is mainly because the television coverage isn’t that great in the States. Only two of the dates are airing on NBC. The rest will be shown on the NBC Sports Network. I heard that channel is $20 a month extra!

Categories: Sports | Tags: | 2 Comments

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