Tot Ziens

This afternoon, I handed in a bound, 51 page ISP entitled "Sugar and Spice, and Everything Nice: A study deconstructing how parents, child-care workers, and primary school teachers contribute to the gendering and gender socialization of young children in the Netherlands."

I'm done! I'm finished writing and editing and it's almost all over. Tomorrow, I have to give a 20 minute presentation at 10 am, which I'll be honest- I haven't even started preparing for it yet. My brain has been trying to relax after spending days of writing and staring at computers and organizing thoughts. The strangest part of this entire experience is I only once felt overwhelmed, and it was over a month ago. Since that point, I made sure I was relaxed whenever I was writing. I set deadlines (like, write 7 pages today, and 3 tomorrow, blah) and followed all of them, but in a relaxed and calm way. And I finished writing my paper yesterday, when I had planned to be finished. Yesterday I edited it all day. I woke up this morning and read the whole thing out loud to find awkward sentences and little misspellings. Then I printed and bound and haven't looked at again because then I'll find problems and we won't even go there.

But, I'm done. And I was relaxed and stress free writing the largest paper I've ever had to write, which makes absolutely no sense because I used to stress over 10 page papers and this one was five times as long. Since I was so calm about the whole thing, I don't feel that "paper's done I can breathe again" post-paper high, either. I'm just finished.


Tonight I'm going with my IDFA friend Ioana to hear Mahler and Dvořák at the Concertgebouw, a gorgeous building I've always wanted to be inside of.
And I biked today in the "sneeuw" to hand in all my books and borrowed ISPs and my paper and everything. It feels so weird to be almost finished... After 10:20 tomorrow, I will be able to concentrate on everything else that I have to do.... 

1. Say goodbye to my favorite and darling Amsterdam, a city I feel really alive and at home. I've never felt more at home here than the past few weeks, so I feel like they're tearing me away from this city right as I get to know and understand it really well.

2. Pack.... ugh. This will be interesting, fitting all my Morocco stuff in my suitcase. I'll probably leave clothes here that don't fit anymore, since I lost 6 pounds here.

3. Return my bike and get my deposit

4. See two more museums, visit the Oudekerk, get coffee at this fabulous little place by the Albert Cuyp markt.

5. Say goodbye to Amsterdam.

I feel like everyone else in this program is really excited to go back. And I so am not ready. I'm not ready to leave my new friends, Gloria and the IDFA kids. I'm not ready to part with Irina's amazing south african/indian/organic cooking, with my bike, with the architecture and canals and omnipresent cafés and coffeeshops. I haven't felt more like staying than the past 3 weeks, and it's really unsettling. I also don't feel the "holiday spirit," since I'm out of my usual element of Advent and everything. None of that seems to really matter to me right now. 

I do look forward to seeing my cousin Theresa for a week. And eventually, to going home to Russ and my beautiful Cinnaminson friends. I can't wait to have conversations that actually involve TALKING and TOUCHING and LAUGHTER! 

All that being said- (I can't believe I'm saying this) 

I don't want to go home yet.