Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Epilogue: After the camp - what remains

Only 2 weeks...it was very short to accomplish many. However, it was certainly meaningful time in terms of learning Dutch and people's culture.



What is my achievement?
It must be meaningful to reflect what I have achieved after the 2 weeks of intensive training.
I would like to say I have achieved very important target which is removing negative feeling toward Dutch language. This negative feeling is the most critical mental block learning this.

Just in case, I should say that I had had never bad experience with Dutch people. My entire stay here is very good. I would say "big"people have big heart :) (good friend of mine's height is nearly 2 meter high!)

Then, you may wonder why I developed the certain negative feeling toward their language? It is related to how I met this language and what reasons brought me here in the Netherlands.

The reason I am here is simply reunification with my family member (my husband). My husband was here alone for nearly 1 year before I arrived.
It was happy moment to see him here but I felt lost. The job, my profession is my life..It took much of my energy to learn and built career but I eventually needed to stop for a moment. So, I readopt to other culture and job market again. It is exciting time but at the same time I felt lost. So, Dutch language attaches to this feeling of lost.

(For some technical reasons, I could not stay his home country. Just in case, I should say...I did not commit anything bad there simply visa status reason. After many thoughts running through my head, I decided to come to Netherlands.)


How can I achieve this?
Simply I just focused on the time and felt always my presence in the moment. The environment such as beautiful and serene nature, classmate, teacher's presence helped me a lot to focus on study.

And certain pressure helped as well. A person who came here from outside of Netherlands and received approximately 300 euro per month salary feel taking this course is really really big investment! So, I could not afford to feel something negative about learning this language.
For the fairness of the school, tuition fee with accommodation of this school is quite friendly! But I could not help feeling that it is big investment considering my earning of previous job.


Friendship
Another "souvenir" of this camp was friendship. I did not expect this much since I really needed to study hard. (now you know I felt certain pressure..) I was placed with other adult learners. I could have nice conversation with them.
I miss my classmates after the course! So, my husband, one of these classmate and I enjoyed mimicking our friends (Please do not get offended!). We spend quite enough time together then somehow we learned person's certain character and way of doing things. What we have done is not nice to mention here but it is one way of keeping our good summer memories.

I took friend's pictures and save the happy moment. However, it cannot be substitute of memories. It may not come same people stay in the same place. But thank you for the technology, I still stay in tough of these friends (especially classmates have Facebook account!)



Epilogue
After the Dutch summer course, one of the classmate stayed in our house in the Hague for 2 nights since she did not book the flight going home immediately after the summer course. (it was good decision!)
Therefore we were allowed to spend time together. We went shopping for our groceries, traveled to the Rotterdam to enjoy the festival and city itself, biked in the Hague together...

She is very much eager to learn the language then, she always tried to get a chance to talk to the locals. I should take a lesson from her...Along the way, we met and had conversations with many locals such as a mother with her children, workers, vendors, professor and even former actor..She showed me learning is never end.

After she went to home, we start exchange letters. She is a person of letter. This friendship will stay long and makes us motivate to continue studying Dutch.

I wish my husband and I will see her and other classmates soon and somewhere again. Maybe next year of Dutch language course?

Who knows..and waarom niet?

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Other articles - Dutch summer school 2016 - 

1. Why I need to learn Dutch?
9. Class activity-Communicate in Dutch with local people: going to the Pancake house
12. Preparation-MUST do! before joining Dutch summer school
14. Epilogue:  After the camp - what remains

These are my view and experience...therefore, if you want to know more about the school, please visit the official website>> blc language course website
Tel: +31-648074618
Mail: study@dutchsummerschool.nl

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