Trine Blogs: Why so serious?

In continuance of the previous week’s post about brilliant stupidity, I can relay that I last week managed to call a fax machine in Denmark. I wonder if that will make my phone bill (or their fax) explode. Once I got through to the actual office I briefly considered telling them, in case their fax machine had started beeping or acting strange, but I didn’t want them to know think that I’m incompetent at this whole thing.

I have discovered that I do not care for doing research. It’s difficult to get participants, it’s awkward to call people (and their fax machines), and you are utterly dependent on what other people decide to do with their limited resources. It’s not much fun. What’s worse is, my entire thesis depends on this research, and without any research I don’t really have a thesis. I was recently reminded of a stellar opportunity that I failed to grab, and that just makes everything worse. I’d be much better off had I given that other offer a chance, but I was determined to go with my other brilliant idea. But it’s always easy to be clever in hindsight. Or “backsmart”, as we say in Danish.

As the new semester is taking off, I am suddenly realizing that there is very little time before I have to be a serious person and get myself a job. Any job. Currently I’m focused on becoming a ticket collector on the train or a “sandwich artist” at Subway – I feel I could probably do both those jobs without too much language confusion. Especially now that I’m rocking the Dutch I for International Students. But in all seriousness, the deadline for figuring out what I’m going to do is approaching with rapid speed and it’s making me dizzy. I know Tilburg University has a career centre; maybe I should pop by. Although no one seems to give a fig what the Humanities students end up doing…

So with all this seriousness, I’ve decided to immerse myself in work that has nothing to do with university work. Some of it involves dressing up as a female version of LMFAO at carnival this weekend. I’ve never been to a carnival before, but I hear it’s great fun. Of course, I’ve also heard (mainly from my friends in the north) that I should pack my personal belongings and take the first train out of town if I value my sanity (and my possessions). To me that’s like saying “don’t push the button”. What’re you going to do? I’ve got passion in my pants and I ain’t afraid to show it…

Trine Larsen (23) from Denmark studies Management of Cultural Diversity at Tilburg University and blogs for Univers.