Long overdue

This update is long overdue, of-course, but with stress, a job and a big lack of interest I have not found it a rewarding idea to update this blog.

So, I passed my high school in the Netherlands, which was the one point at which I personally could fail and pretty much ruin all chances of my fabled America year.
So that was great, but going to America is not that easy.

Between now and passing my finals, I have had to visit the doctor (several times), the bank and the US consulate, trying to prove my to them that I am, in order; not a danger to the national health figures of the United States of McDonalds Drivetrough, am financially stable enough to live in the nation of endless and mindless debt and loans, and finally that I am not a threat to the Government that has a constitution protecting the right of everyone to bear arms up against aforementioned goverment.
Sensible huh?

Pluspoints though, I am now slightly less mortal (vaccins reduce the amount of things I can die from), am now capable of bankrupting my parents (I get a creditcard with access to the household account) and am somewhat experienced with international diplomatic actions (hint, be prepared to wait, and never EVER bring your parents).


So, now I am all set and ready to leave for a predetermined place in about two weeks right? HECK no!

Due to iternal affairs, the sharpening of background checks for possible host family's and general insuficiant ammount of host family's almost half of the applicants going to the US have no host familly yet, I leave it upto your sense of story telling to understand to what half I belong to.

So now, my life altering journey has been postponed for two weeks, I now plan to leave the 30th, I will be so happy once I am in the damned plane.

The seventh shall be the last day on my current job as a, well a guy who does what other people rather not waste their time on, after that I will spend some time aiding the Socialist movement, I shall promote the work of the Young Socialists.

And if all goes well, THEN I will leave.

So there you go, a blog, its right here, you probably just read it, so yea, seeya.


''The attack did not succeed as well as I had hoped, no small impediment having been the loss of my right leg. ''
Peter Stuyvesant, while balancing on one leg

Im IN!

Quite a while ago, I was made to FINALLY make the aphorementiond test.
It was rediciclously easy, questions like ''the dog is under the sofa'' and then pictures of a dog in various places surrounding a sofa-ish piece of furinture.

Anyways, that is done and it has been send back in the mail. And I just got a email saying Im now completly into the program!! I IZ IN BITCHAS

Will probaly make this post longer later.

(isnert quote referring to the Dutch or the Netherlands here)

I got shot!

A few days ago, I got shot, its OK though, it was just a injection-shot.

yea apparently I didn't have all the needed injections yet, so Im getting some now.
Good thing we started way early, because this injection is a nasty one, it requires a injection just like it four weeks later, and after about 6 months they get lonely these shots get lonely so they need yet another amigo, and then the three of them work together to improve my body so I become immortal! except for things that are not related to their specific disease that is, well it makes me a bit less mortal, Ill take that.

Actually, that was just one of three shots I needed, the other two wherent so needy and where content whit being alone, to keep the ammount of unauthorized holes in my body to a minimum the docter decided to make a nice little cocktail of the stuff inside these drugs, so now lets pray they don't cancel eachother out or something, I assume the Doc knew what he was doing, but who can be sure?

Anyway, so I got my shots, what else happend, lets see.
Ow, I dindt get to go to Utrecht in order to have a conversation to test my conversational English!

You might think that that is nothing special and you didnt get to do that either, but for one thing, this is my blog so I decide what is special and whats not, and for another, I didn't do it, but I was supposed to.

You see, in order to go to Utrecht I need to take one boat and several trains, no I don't actually take them, Im not that strong, Id just sit in them as they take me to a predetermined point.
Anyway, as you might know, it is currently Winter on this half of the globe, and for some reason, its a hard one, the whole NL is turning into a ice-cube. This extra harsh winter has caught us with our pants down, so now we are standing in our boxershorts in this weather making our nuts freeze off, and our train system can't handle it.

So long story short, I must now go at another time, preferbly a time where I actually can leave the province.

Why Im not telling you more? Like that my Mandolin arrived and Im very exited about that? Or that Im going to school wicked early tomorrow morning? Because those things are completly unrelated to my oncoming trip to America, but I still would like to mention them, so as the dutchmen say, ''bij deze''.

anyway, blog aus.



''Those Dutchmen had hardly any imagination or fantasy, but their good taste and their scientific knowledge of composition were enormous'' -Vincent Van Gogh, famous Dutch one-eared painter

of interviews and postings

So, to make sure Im a real person and not somesort of bad (and expensive) practical joke I went to meet a AFS representative.

We took this chance to ask questions and to basicly get more of a feel of what was going to happen.

We have some information that undoubtly is very intresting to the parents, that there will be other AFS'ers there, that Ill get a counsler I can go to if need be and things like that.
Again, undoubtly very good to know for the concerned parents but for a kid thats going Yankee-way it is just white noise next to the omenous presence of the following fact, it is really happening!

We talked, and apperently made a sufficient impression.
We handed her our homework, like good pupils.
And like pupils, we didnt do it right (nothing much, just had to get a signature under a translation).

Now we play the waiting game, Im not likely to hear any of the details, the state Im going to, let alone the place or about the people Ill go to untill the end of this schoolyear.

Ill say it again out of pure amazement, it is really happening, surreal man!


Je Mantrai (damn right I know french)

School buisness

To go to America you must not only be able to prove your not a headace-patient, but also that your teachers and other school personell dont hate your guts.

In order to do this, you must get your English teacher to fill in a from about your english skills, this is all very open to opinion and therefore he is at no risk.

I had to write a essay too, in english, expect a full version of it online later, problem is that is has to be given in handwriting, but also readable, wich in my case is mutually exclusive.

So one of the AFS employees told me I could just let someone else write it, aslong as it was me typing the original draft, so thats a horror out of the way.

I got the school counselor (closest name I could find, Decaan in dutch) to fill in another form, social skills, intelectual skills, things like that (luckely modesty wasn't one of them).

But its not all form filling and opinion-gathering, actually it is mostly, sofar everything, but next Monday me, the parents and a representative of AFS will meet in a undisclosed location, somewhere inside the Doeksen ferry terminal.

Untill then, sleep is what lays ahead of me.

Lang leve de koninging, hoezee!

welcome, and first steps

Welcome one welcome all.

My name is Maarten Schroders, currently 17 years of age and living on the island of Terschelling in the Netherlands.
I am currently in the planning fase of spending one year studing in the US of A, with the aid of the AFS ( http://www.afs.org/afs_or/home ) and my loving parents (who will be paying for my little trip) I hope to gain life expierience, new insights, cool things like that

I created this blog with my own two hands, and a laptop, to give you, yes you insight into this life journey, do with it whatever you want.
As you may or may not have noticed, this is in English, not in Dutch, if you havent noticed please rub out your eyes, begin reading again and this time, pay attention.
The reason I do this is so I can practise my english a bit more and because Im planning on giving the link to here to some of my penpals, who in general know little to no dutch.


sofar, I went to the doctor for some information, they dont let just anyone in!
They havent asked me if I have Aids, or the swine flu, but they do want to know if I had the measels and headaches, priorities I guess.
The doctor didnt have a list of what injections I got and when, so we have to call someone else for that, I did get this other test though, not sure what, you get some stuff injected and if it goes red after a few days, your screwed.

The med story will have a tail, but I also placed a order for my first passport.

In the NL you have to carry around some form of identification, like a small plastic ID pass, people make a huge fuzz out of that, dont know why.
Thing is, in order to travel outside of the EU I must have a passport, not just a small ID pass, but a passport is more expensive, more likly to get stolen and harder to carry around (its so big and heavy) so that was a dillema, buy a ID pass now and deal with the whole passport thing later or buy a passport now.

If we bought the ID pass, itd mean we pay for 5 years but only use it for less then 1, and itd mean wed have to deal with the passport thing later and its always better to get that stuff done early, because of the stressfactor right before the trip.
If however we bougth the passport, wed have the risk of losing it, wich would be a very big load of crap for yours truly and prementiond loving parents.

We decided to buy both, this way I can use the ID for everyday use, like if the police suspects me of murder, I can ID myself! And the Passport wil be kept at home for safekeeping.

Sofar my first post, hurray! Ill form the blog later, for now this will do.

Voor Volk en Vaderland!

update* the medication info is in!