A little less than an year ago, when I came to Netherlands to study Engineering and Policy Analysis(EPA), against choosing Georgia Tech in the States, a lot of people ridiculed me. They seemed to have had their reasons, firstly it was Netherlands, thanks to the image painted by the godforsaken movie Euro trip. Little do they realize that for such a small country, Holland is the home for names like Shell, ING, Philips, Heineken, just to name a few, and is one of the hot spots in the shipping and logistics world, a founding EU member nation, English-friendly, strategically located in Central Europe and a prosperous one too. I should give some credit to their second question, the details of my course. It takes about 15 minutes to explain what it is actually about and still you wont quite understand it completely. Yeah we(EPA students) revel in abstractness. They teach us real world issues here, which are by default vague, direction-less and quite hard to perceive . To sum it up we make sure(at least we try)that there are no right solutions for the wrong problems, speaking in the system dynamics language. We all seem to be getting good at it and ask any one of us a question,and you will get an answer that begins with "It depends". Setting aside the apathetic humor, I will tell you why coming to the Netherlands to pursue my Masters in EPA was the best decision I've ever made.
The last one year was so eventful. I did a lot of things compared to what I used to do back home . A lot. I took a lot of courses, did some neck breaking projects, was actively involved in a committee of the Curius study association, did an exchange program in a Madrid university, traveled to some 8 countries, partied like crazy and all this apart I met some fantastic people. My EPA classmates would be first on the list. There couldn't be a better combination.The result of putting smart and funny individuals from all over the world, like-minded with a broad perspective towards life in the same classroom-you end up learning a great deal not just inside the classroom.Also, right from the day 1 there was instant bonding, and we knew we were going to became great friends, and it was so true.Just within a short span we were so comfortable to share all our joys and worries with each other and got really close.We knew so much about each other, that almost each one would know what the other person is upto that evening. We are so cool together. It seemed like yesterday and an year already,and now some of us have to leave to finish studies elsewhere and its a tough time . I never hated goodbyes this much ever before. But while thinking about this,all the wonderful times I had with these guys were flashing in my head.
Our class was legendary. The right mix for awesomeness. Out of the 26 people who initially started in August, there were people from 17 countries. Well the majority being Chinese ofcourse!
EPA is very proud of its Chinese community. They are a lovely bunch.Some are amazingly crazy like Shi nan(Christina, all of them have English names mind you!) and some as cool as a cucumber like Jing Cai(Vanessa). Talking about English names, I was trying to show off my Chinese skills by making a point to avoid their English names and call by their original name. This made Sizhu very uncomfortable. I had no idea, when she was insisting on me calling her 'Josie' rather than Sizhu. Damn these cultural differences, she took almost a month to tell me that the way I was pronouncing her name meant 'dead pig' instead of 'a beautiful girl', which was the actual intention of her parents when they named her. And I was initially saying Donkey for Danqi( Danchee, how would I know the Chinese pronounce 'q' as 'chee'). I suppose they love me too much to slap me . I can even 'speak' some Chinese. Pablo taught me to bat my eye-lids fast and speak in a high pitched tone. Again, they like me so much not to slap. Marija claims to be half-Chinese, I don't know why! But she is way too tall and brunette for being even 1/16th Chinese, but yeah whatever makes her happy. Sun Hao and Liu Chang are soft-spoken, but yeah when Shi Nan does all the talking for entire China put together, they don't stand a chance. Still, very nice people nevetherless. I got duck eggs, and moon cake from He Jia, for the autumn festival and and a nice pair of chopsticks from Zhang Hao in a beautiful red silk cover . Hao is an awesome cook, and he makes his presence in all the group dinners. Talking about dinner, we had in numerous class dinners, that made up for the sad dutch cuisine available. China again receives the honors for getting it started. Vanessa made a dumpling dinner night in the first few weeks of EPA, and we never turned back. We used to meet one or twice a month at each other's place to have great group dinners. They are tasty, varied and the after dinner talk is the best. During one such conversations, the topic of cricket came up. Most of the boys in my class come from die-hard football loving nations, and after my 20 minute explanation about cricket and its importance in India, Edmundo, who appeared to have understood everything made a remark that would get him into some real trouble if he said that in India, that was "Ohh that's the game they play with the horses right?". It was painful to hear that. It took me a great deal of courage and personality to accept the fact that there are still people on this planet that have no clue about cricket. I almost cried you see.
These dinners gave us time to plan some great things. During a dinner at Monica's( read Zoi, she is the most organized person in our class, she even made Roland Holstlaan look like home, isn't she magical?), we all decided to go to Berlin, just like that. So seventeen people, in two Ford vans. Five poor drivers- Enrique,Edmundo, Salvador, Zoi and Tewes. We had such a crazy time during the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. The city was in a festive mood with concerts all over and EPA was conquering Berlin with their high spirits. Such a blemish for such a cool group,the lazy ones like me and Marija even managed to fall asleep in a 60's Jazz club. Good times.
Lorena, Rouz et al were then still not in town to join our crazy gang, but it wasn't too hard and dint take much time for them to revel in our EPAwesomeness.
We all hated winters and loved summers, like every other sane individuals, but had great times in both seasons. All of us were talkers. We talk a lot and laugh a lot. No doubt about it. We work a lot too.
The two systems modelling projects(one in winter, one in spring/summer) of EPA , along with the regular exams gave us all sleepless nights but also some wonderful bonding moments. There were endless coffee breaks(mostly in the faculty, some in the library), and the cafeteria was a chat room.I got to hear some crazy stories.These coffee table stories were such a relief from the mundane work we were relentlessly pursuing. I wish I could share them all but I'm a little selfish to keep some for a personal rendition and one of which goes like this-
Colombia, less known for her beautiful landscapes and nature, and more so for guns and some special powders, is often aided by America to combat these forces. So initially, when the United states deployed some ships along the Colombian coast, there was a funny phenomenon- A lot of young boys that were born along the coast were given a new special name. When we go into details, generally it is an honor to give a name to a boat or a ship, so our dear Colombian friends thought if such a mighty ship is called US Navy ,why not, my son will reach great heights, and unfortunately, Usnavy( sorry for the rude phonetic assistance but to be precise 'wuss-naa-vee,) was suddenly popular. This is definitely child abuse. Hope the poor kids were not beaten up at school. I was literally rolling on the floor when Pablo told us the story with his Latin enthusiasm. Angela, also coming from Colombia, and almost the same region is the exact opposite of Pablo. A really sweet girl who doesn't blow her conchs.
It was legal to kill Turkish people until 1986 in Iceland!! I almost spilled my coffee and when I exclaimed 'Come again!!!!?', Snorri explained that few hundred years back ,Turkish rulers invaded Iceland, and abducted several fisherman, hence the law was made and people just forgot about it. Recently, which is about 25 years ago, some politician was reviewing the constitution and realized, "Oh this is not right!", and got that bit changed.I don't think Sezi and Egemen thought this was as funny as the rest of us non-turkish people thought it was. But on the lighter side, we are all strongly routing for Snorri to become president of Iceland. After all ,with 300,000 overall population, he can pretty much go talk to everyone of the voting population.
Amongst others, the topics and events on the table were, Systems modelling troubles , Erik Pruyt's level of crazy brilliance, buying an expensive meal and discussing how disgusting that is, the recent documentary that Miguel finished watching , world events, Marija stories of Serbia during the war, her niece , her Miami tales, Serbian sheet, birthday plans of friends,Kukuh's remarks of 'Oh boy!', serious dissatisfied angry tones about principles of policy analysis,making fun of Hugo Chavez, sharing travel stories, planning to take over the world and change it all,Mamadou's mangoes(seriously understated, for the benefit of avoiding murderous emotions among majority of EPA students),EPA jargon(not-so-lame-at all etc etc), discussing weekend plans,ordering Chinese food to the faculty during a rainy evening,planning trips, Snorri's and Shi nan's crying together comedy, complaining and more complaining about the dutch weather and John's never ending explanations of every minute detail, .. Oh boy.. John... I could write a book about him. In dictionary terms. John G Beckett.n,v,adj - A bright South African white male who is characterized by the constant use of the word "Question". Everyone seems to know him. There is always a sense of recognition when his name is mentioned. He is quite popular( or infamous. :P). Its all a perspective. Philosophy doesn't seem to mask the blatant sarcasm. But John is an exceedingly nice person. Just way too smart and perfect for this world.
EPA has its share of super awesome, super crazy, super unique individuals. Be it Miguel or John , or Shi nan, or the non-categorical dutch minority Tewes zeef, EPA is full of surprises.
And i enjoyed every bit of it- Our well-knit group, who did some awesome things together.
I don't want to get all emotional and start saying cheesy stuff,I have a lot more to say,but I've already made this piece too heavy. But finally all you EMIN guys that are leaving Delft to achieve some great things in Spain , France,and China I'm not going to say goodbye, but will only wish good luck and see you soon. The rest of my people that are going to continue another year with me, I hope to have a super fabulous time like always. But what the hell, I'll say it.. I will painfully miss some of you . Love you all.
EPA rocks!!
