Firsts

It has been a year! Here are some of the things I've done in the past year:

1) Forgot / lost passport, had to travel 3 hours to get it back
2) Setup an experiment using somewhat dangerous radiation while I was suffering a headache from lack of sleep
3) Was the last person on a plane, having nearly missed it (this experience is over-rated)
4) Laid out a portion of an integrated ciricuit that (if it works, crosses fingers!) will have 5.12 GBps going through it
5) Lost PhD topic
5.5) Lost PhD topic
6) Found PhD topic (errrr.....I think?)
7) Went all-in and won a poker pot, went all-in and lost a poker pot, successfully spotted a bluff at a poker table, successfully set a trap at a poker table
8) Gone to one of those fancy European clubs in Paris (it was worse than I thought and I will not be returning)
9) Bought plane tickets, booked a hotel, flew on plane and checked into hotel within 5 hours of one another
10) Successfully found apartment in a foreign country and moved into it from another apartment
11) Gotten a first-hand view of how difficult it is to be an immigrant
12) Earned the title Expatriate

Things I haven't done:

1) Successfully had a conversation in Dutch (I haven't had many successful ones in English over here, either)
2) Joined a choir
3) Written a paper (I'm working on one right now, and I have two in various stages of the paper pipeline)
4) Used tools to go from VHDL to ASIC

By the numbers:

Guitars purchased - 1
Bicycles purchased - 1
Haircuts - 2
"Original" research ideas that someone else had actually tried but adviser didn't know about - 3
Canned hot dogs consumed - 4
Moose seen - 4 (two real, two mascots)
Shoes purchased - 6
Countries book was purchased in - 5 (6 if you separate England and Scotland, 7 if you include online purchases)
Countries "visited" - 7 (Scotland, US, Canada, Switzerland, Ghana, France, Belgium)
Passport resources used - 27 boxes from stamps, 2 pages from visas
Train tickets purchased - ~100 (I go through about 8 a month)
PB&J Sandwichs consumed - ~150 (they have this awesome sour cherry jam over here)
Emails sent - 2,088 (more than I thought, 25 were to myself)
Emails received - 2,698 (fewer than I thought)
Most lines of code written in a single day - ~3,200 (most of it was test code...firmware test code can be pretty massive to go through the appropriate states)
Lines of code written overall - ~16,000 (again, around 14,000 lines are test code)
Heartbeats - ~37,000,000 (the heart is a work of art)

And finally:

Dutch postcards sent - 0 (yeeeeeeeah...I still owe a lot of people postcards.....)

Naturalization

I have been a bit surprised about the topics in my Dutch language courses. My previous foreign language courses were in high school, and American high schools avoid controversial topics. My Dutch courses tackle the difficult topics head-on. Our most recent lesson, "Are you married?", briefly went over some of the differences between marriage in the Netherlands and elsewhere. Weak English translation:

Dutch teacher: Do you have children?
Female student: No, after all I am not yet married.
Male teacher: Must you be married before you can have kids? Do you really need that? Is it really necessary?
Female student: Maybe not in the Netherlands, but in my society that is absolutely necessary.
Male teacher: What happens if a women is expecting a child while she isn't married?
Female student: Then you must immediately marry. Preferably with the father of the child.
...
Teacher: Not so long ago that also held for the Netherlands...the last 30 years, though, have seen many changes to marriage. People still marry, but frequently they'll live together first...You can also register with the government as "living together." Then you will be treated almost the same as if you are married, and it is a bit easier.
Another student: What is the difference between marriage and living together in the government's policy.
Teacher: That is indeed small, it is mostly the vows you've taken.

Aside from marriage, the book also goes over the population policy of the government, parties, alcohol, the police, and how the Dutch are friendly but difficult to know really well. I do not believe the policy on drugs is mentioned.

I'm not sure what to think about mentioning controversial topics with public opinions in the language course. They are only a small part of the course. I also think it is critical for immigrants to know about government policies and the values of the people. I think it is important that people make informed choices about where they live, the values of the people they live with, and what policies they support with their tax money. People are given a chance to share what their own country values during the discussion classes.

On the other hand, language courses are required for the spouses and other family members of any long-term immigrants. No one knows enough Dutch to explain the complex ideas behind the social values. It feels a bit like the government is forcing public opinion down the throats of minorities.

In the bigger picture, though, the language courses are one of the least controversial aspects of immigrating. Dutch law requires most new immigrants to watch a social orientation video containing gay men kissing and women on a crowded top-less beach. The video is so racy that an edited version of it was made specifically for Middle Eastern countries.

(I'm waiting for the sequel before I see it. I hear there is going to be an action sequence involving sheep)

Accesibility Technology Helps Immigrants, Too

A recent NYTimes article on accessibility technology is correct about this technology helping more than just disabled people. While video subtitles allow deaf people to watch TV, they also help immigrants learn the language. Multiple people have told me that foreign TV with subtitles helped them learn a language. I haven't found an internet source of Dutch video with subtitles.

I've been putting off the inevitable, but I think I'm going to buy a TV and hook it up to cable. -5 indie points.