@juno
that description is spot on! i am german, lived in scotland for quite some time, so Dutch is not really a problem for me. the only obstacle vocabulary-wise is to remember when to use the german word, when it is the english word and when the dutch use one of their own creations ;)

the Dutch are pretty extreme house-buyers, just like the british. we have several phd students, who bought a house (every bank here is happy to hand out loans), but as a foreigner i dont want to be stuck with a house in the netherlands and a gigantic loan. besides, even the house you have to invest quite a lot of money to make it habitable.

unfortunately the dutch housing organizations have that stupid rule that when you move out of a flat you dont have to do anything - not redocorating or painting, no fixing,.... basically you can leave the entire flat in shambles and nobody cares. just the poor soul who moves in next ....

@juno: why would anyone want to learn dutch unless he is living in the netherlands? it is not spoken by that many people ... i am really curious, maybe you can increase my enthusiasm for that language ;) - i do speak it now after one year of learning, but all the coughing sounds are not good for my ears.

in the netherlands you NEVER get a furnished flat that is affordable to normal people. a renovated flat is already an exception (mine didnt even have a floor ....), actually getting a flat is already a hassle as you have to play the lottery to get one.

@juno
well i dont have a sofa yet (furnishing an entire flat including the kitchen was wayyyyyy over my budget), but i do have a big cuddly blanket, that helps a bit. unfortunately, lying on a carpet all the time is not an option.

yes, we do have HEMA - how come that you are so informed about holland?

regarding the bills: my dad is loving his head off at the moment, because i am complaining now about he used to complain all the time :D

well to answer it: no, i dont know anybody personally of that name ...

why should i know anyone by this name? holland is quite big you know :P

@juno
at home i have the same problem - just moved into my own flat and everytime i switch on the heater i cringe internally about the heating bill.

maybe getting hot chocolate is worth a trip to Germany, that sounds more delicious by the minute :D

i am a girl - does it make any difference to the rain? ;)

hot chocolate would be great, unfortunately the Dutch are such coffee junkies that it is really difficult to find good hot chocolate. Something like flavoured hot chocolate (i love the white chocolate flavour of the Oreilly(?? something with a big O, in every British supermarket)) is unknown. A trip to Germany to get some would be the only option :(

I am a lonely PhD sitting in Holland and just today the rainy season started again - having experienced Scotland i can say, Holland is even worse. Rain, rain, rain and more rain for days .... nonstop. I have no car, the public transport system is not that good, hence i have to bike to the office every single day in that weather. Which in turn makes me miserable, and when i am miserable i cannot work. so i dont get any work done, my supervisor gets miserable about that, i get even more miserable because the boss is on my back and so it goes on until spring comes :(

any suggestions how to survive the winter depression?

cheerio, charlie

i meant NEW country

i gained a stone in my first year (no country, rubbish living conditions, quite lonely ....), then a started loosing again, then i went to a summer school where they stuffed food into us and now i am back at my 1-stone-too-much

i am desperate for a working diet!!!

Hi,
i just received an email from a conference guy telling me to hold a talk at the conference instead of the poster. i know that i should feel happy , but i absolutely HATE talks - everyone is staring at me (and i have no photo model figure) and if i say something stupid i am totally screwed :(
on top of that, i really think the work we did and that i have to present is pretty much bullshit ...

anybody else having similar problems with giving talks? any advice?

thanks in advance.

Hi, this might be a weird question, but i am really struggling with it. In my research field there are tons of conferences and although obivously i cannot attend every single one (2 or 3 a year are the maximum), i try to keep track of the conferences so that i can have a look at the proceedings to check if something relevant to my research was published. But this is really tedious, i manually add the conference dates and the websites and everything, but 1-2 call for participations reach me each day. Is there some website or automatic tool available or am i just worrying far too much about other people's research?

a nice start of the week to everyone, monkey

thanx for all the answers, i am glad that i am not alone with this problem.

i am currently using JabRef (http://jabref.sourceforge.net) for keeping track of what i have read, that works pretty nice. the idea with the pictures is pretty good, i will try that!

Hi,
i am just about to hit the six month mark into my PhD and of course still in the "reading, reading, and more reading" stage. While I don't have much trouble to remember the content of papers (once given a hint) it is nearly impossible for me to remember the name of the authors for ANY paper - i cannot even remember the names of the important people in my field although i tell a lot about the papers they have written :(

that really annoys me - does anybody have a tip on how to get the names to the papers into my head??

thanx and a nice weekend!

Hi,
my very first post in this forum :)

i just started a PhD at the university of twente (the netherlands) in compSci.