Update
For those who keep checking this weblog, in spite of my more or less implicit warning that there would not be much to look for until my return to Heidelberg: a small update.
I'm enjoying nice half-holidays in and around Utrecht, doing nothing, sleeping in, learning to drive, going through the bureaucracy surrounding driving licences in Holland, typing up lecture notes for QFT, and visiting the good old UC campus slightly more often than anticipated :p.
At the moment, I am slogging through Prof. Schmidt's derivation of the Feynman rules for Φ4-theory, trying to decipher his handwriting and wondering at his page-numbering (91, 92, 92, 92a, 93, 94, 94a, 95, 96, 97a, 97a, 97b, 97, 98,...). Apart from the fact that this means that I still am about halfway with last semester's material, if you get my drift, it makes keeping all the pages in the proper order rather tedious.
My other more or less organised activity is, as mentioned, learning to drive. Which is going more or less as planned: no accidents yet, enough mistakes to give me the idea there is some point in taking lessons, but also enough progress. What did not seem to be going quite as planned was the bureaucracy. According to the Dutch rules, in order to obtain a driving licence, one needs to have been registered as living in Holland at least 185 of the 365 days preceding the request. I learnt this today, 7 March. And I officially left the country on 6 September. Which is 182 days ago, i.e. two days too many. None of the institutions I called was able to tell me why this is, or how I might get around this rule. Luckily, I found out myself (having been enrolled at a Dutch educational institution counts as well), and was able to convince the right person to send me the right form.
Dutch bureaucracy is, after all, not all that different from its German counterpart as the Dutch might think, based on their stereotypes.
On a more highstanding cultural note, I have seen 'The complete works of William Shakespeare (abridged)' performed by seven UC students. It was very well done, and very funny :); see here for a video of a performance by the Reduced Shakespeare Company.
I'm enjoying nice half-holidays in and around Utrecht, doing nothing, sleeping in, learning to drive, going through the bureaucracy surrounding driving licences in Holland, typing up lecture notes for QFT, and visiting the good old UC campus slightly more often than anticipated :p.
At the moment, I am slogging through Prof. Schmidt's derivation of the Feynman rules for Φ4-theory, trying to decipher his handwriting and wondering at his page-numbering (91, 92, 92, 92a, 93, 94, 94a, 95, 96, 97a, 97a, 97b, 97, 98,...). Apart from the fact that this means that I still am about halfway with last semester's material, if you get my drift, it makes keeping all the pages in the proper order rather tedious.
My other more or less organised activity is, as mentioned, learning to drive. Which is going more or less as planned: no accidents yet, enough mistakes to give me the idea there is some point in taking lessons, but also enough progress. What did not seem to be going quite as planned was the bureaucracy. According to the Dutch rules, in order to obtain a driving licence, one needs to have been registered as living in Holland at least 185 of the 365 days preceding the request. I learnt this today, 7 March. And I officially left the country on 6 September. Which is 182 days ago, i.e. two days too many. None of the institutions I called was able to tell me why this is, or how I might get around this rule. Luckily, I found out myself (having been enrolled at a Dutch educational institution counts as well), and was able to convince the right person to send me the right form.
Dutch bureaucracy is, after all, not all that different from its German counterpart as the Dutch might think, based on their stereotypes.
On a more highstanding cultural note, I have seen 'The complete works of William Shakespeare (abridged)' performed by seven UC students. It was very well done, and very funny :); see here for a video of a performance by the Reduced Shakespeare Company.
posted by Olivier at 10:38 PM
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