Feels like Christmas

Guess I’m excited that Christmas and the winter holidays are coming, that time for cozy warm socks, big cups of hot cocoa and untangling the bundles of Christmas lights to put in the window. Christmas shopping is already in full swing though, with its charms and annoyances, like the stern-looking Grinch’s who always seem to be late for something as they push through the crowd. ‘This Christmastime is shit,’ I overhear a foreign student complaining to a friend as she attempts to navigate her bike through a Friday koopavond crowd. I just sigh – some people find the negative in everything.



People love complaining that Christmas has become too commercialized, yet I bet that doesn’t diminish their excitement when opening their presents on Christmas morning. Me, I love Christmas shopping: selecting that special something for that special someone, meticulously wrapping gifts in shiny paper, and then hiding them away in the secret gift stash deep in my closet until its time to give them.

One of the best things about Christmas time is getting together with family and friends – something you don’t really appreciate until you go study abroad. Partying with mates is one thing, but sitting down to a home-cooked meal with the people closest to you is an entirely different dimension of social interaction. Suddenly it’s ok that as a child you were forced to sit through boring dinners with your distant cousins, because as an adult you now perfectly understand their importance—older generations are always much more curious about the younger generation than vice versa. Younger generations tend to be curious only about themselves, or, that is, they are until they end up in a foreign country with no family or close friends. Then every opportunity to get together with family is eagerly anticipated.



But not everyone will have the chance to see their family for the winter holidays. Many international students don’t have the luxury of returning home during their years of studies in Delft. What a terribly lonesome experience that can be, especially during the holidays. All your Dutch friends go home to their parents, the European ones to their home countries, and you’re left to skulk around in an empty student house, wandering through deserted hallways and feeling sorry for the lack of holiday spirit in your life. That’s a moment when you realize the importance of family and true friends!

But even if you’re new in Delft and haven’t yet formed deep meaningful connections with others, this doesn’t mean you must spend Christmas alone in your room. There are other people in your same situation, so organize a holiday event together. ‘Build it and they will come’: announce a time and place, invite your neighbors to join your celebration. Sure, this won’t compare to a cozy family Christmas dinner, but it’s better than spending the holidays alone, and it will perhaps even start a cozy holiday tradition, so that your next Christmas in Delft will be spent in a circle of close friends. 

In Utrecht beet oud-minister Jacqueline Cramer (PvdA) het spits af met een college over duurzaamheid. Er volgen nog lezingen over Hannah Arendt en het Eichmann-proces, Plato, poëzie, stress en besluitvorming, globalisering en nog veel meer.

Palet
De bedenkers van de marathon willen een zo breed mogelijk palet aan wetenschap aanbieden en dat is gelukt. Er treden 27 hoogleraren aan en in totaal zijn er meer dan 75 sprekers. Met die bezetting hopen de organisatoren op zo veel mogelijk studenten, liefst ook midden in de nacht. Youp van ’t Hek moedigt hen aan met een promotiefilmpje, hoewel hij weinig anders zegt dan dat de marathon eraan komt.

Hartritmestoornissen
Om twaalf uur ’s nachts zal Paul Schnabel acte de présence geven in Utrecht. In de vroege ochtend, vermoedelijk voor een iets kleiner gehoor van studenten, volgen lezingen over hartritmestoornissen, maar ook over een groen oplichtend kwalletje dat een revolutie in de levenswetenschappen heeft veroorzaakt.

Groningen
Op dinsdagmorgen neemt Groningen het stokje over, waar hoogleraren, politici en ondernemers college geven. Ook Henk Pijlman, voorzitter van de Groningse Hanzehogeschool, zal een college verzorgen.

Amsterdam
De marathon eindigt donderdagmorgen in Amsterdam. Natuurkundige en president van de Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen Robbert Dijkgraaf zal daar over de grenzen van de wetenschap spreken. Ook PvdA-leider Job Cohen, voormalig burgemeester en universiteitsbestuurder in Maastricht, zal het woord voeren. Andere lezingen gaan over seks in videoclips, gezichtsbedrog, de Middeleeuwen en burgerlijke ongehoorzaamheid.

De colleges zijn te volgen via www.studiemarathon.nl.