Sheets

Hello everybody,

You know you've lived somewhere for a while, if you can't remember how often you've changed the sheets. I've been in Boston for approximately two months now, and I really enjoy it. The awesome thing about Boston is that it has a lot of public parks and squares where there's always something going on. For example, a couple days ago, I was on my weekly bike ride to Trader Joe's to do groceries (thanks suite mate Alex for the bike!). Because I rode the wrong way just a little bit, I ended up on Copley Square, where apparently the nice Boston Book Festival was happening. (Pretty logical spot for a Book Festival, since the Boston Public Library is just next to Copley Square.) I'll try to upload a video here, to give you a good feeling of the festival, and Boston in general:

In the video I'm standing right in the middle of Copley Square. The wide building at the end of the video is the Public Library. The beautiful church in the beginning is called Trinity Church. I initially wanted to get more on the video, but my phone battery died..

I received a great question from my aunt from the Netherlands after my last blog. She asked about my experience with having to share my room with two other roommates (and the suite with 11 other suite mates). And she asked, even when they're nice, are you able to be on your own sometimes?
Well, I can assure you guys, I do have some pretty awesome roommates. But of course, we've also had some issues. The biggest issue so far, which is still going on, is that one of my roommates has lost his keys. So for the past three weeks we have to open the door for him, and he's still not motivated to get new ones. (Okay, that is pretty understandable from this point of view: they charge you about $200 for the three new keys.) The rest of the suite gets pretty annoyed opening the door for him every time. We are having a suite meeting about this issue with our RA (Resident Assistant) tomorrow night.
To answer my aunt's question more fully, I don't have much time alone. I admit that I miss that sometimes. If I really need to be alone or concentrate, then I usually go to our library on campus. It is often pretty quiet and it has some very comfortable chairs and couches, compared to the ones in our dormitory.

As some of you may have seen on facebook, I've been to an NBA game with my roommate Ryan this Wednesday. It was awesome to see the Boston Celtics take on the Brooklyn Nets, and win 100-86. The most spectacular play was this block by Jeff Green: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgKqJDrcpFw#t=11 (his last name is a nice coincidence, because the main color of the Celtics is green).

For school I've been writing essays, papers and proofs. The midterms of last week went pretty well by the way. It turned out to be only one big midterm exam for Calculus 1. We had to calculate derivates of about twenty different functions. I've been doing that for a long time in high school already, so I passed the test quite easily. You only pass it if you achieve 80% or higher, because they want everybody to be able to calculate derivates. In the coming weeks, we learn about integrals (also called antiderivates). That's also something I have done in high school. I hope Calculus 2 will be a little bit more challenging next semester. 
My other math classes are already challenging though. In Discrete Math we finally started writing mathematical proofs, which I find pretty enjoyable. In my Applied Math class we are talking about a method to solve mathematical models. And we're using the program MATLAB to apply that method, which is called the Simplex Method by the way.
Another interesting class I have is Computer Science. We are learning the programming language C++. I didn't have any experience with programming before this class, but I am able to follow the material pretty well. I find it fun to write my own programs with the skills we learn.

Baseball is going good as well! We're having a lot of strength training nowadays. I go to the gym at 6 am every morning with the captain of the baseball team. My suite mate Alex has joined us too, so were having a great morning every day.
I look forward to going to New Jersey with Alex for Thanksgiving. Even though that's still a month away, Alex made me buy my train ticket early. That was probably a good idea, because the prices for a Round-Trip were already sky high.

I hope you enjoyed reading my blog, I will go watch the MLB World Series now!

All the best,
Bram

Midterms

Hello everybody,

After another two weeks since my last blog, it's already the middle of the semester. We already had a couple tests, quizzes, exams, essays and papers, but now the midterms are coming. I will tell about some exciting things I have done in the last two weeks.

I got my first American haircut, in a real barbershop. I would say that it goes by twice as fast as it does in the Netherlands (just like dinner at almost every place around here by the way).

We had intramural football in the weekends. It was really fun to play American football with my baseball teammates. Later I also played football with my roommates. To make the game a little less aggressive we played the version called "flag football." So everyone has three little flags (lintjes) attached to their hips with velcro tape (klitterband). If a defender pulls a flag of the hips of an attacker, it counts as a tackle.

Another cool thing I didn't tell you guys yet is that almost all my roommates now know how to say "good night" in Dutch. So every time I go to bed nowadays, I say: "weltrusten", and they reply with their best version of that.

Furthermore, the paper I was talking about in my last blog has made some real progress. I have found  the formula to calculate every number of the Fibonacci sequence right away (so without having to add all the numbers, where the Fibonacci sequence is based on). This is what the formula looks like:

To make such a nice mathematical expression we use the program LaTeX. This is the code you would need to type the formula:

\begin{equation}

F_n = \frac15\sqrt{5} \cdot (\frac12 + \frac12\sqrt{5})^n - \frac15 \sqrt{5} \cdot (\frac12 - \frac12\sqrt{5})^n

\end{equation}

It seems a little difficult, but if you start handing in all your math homework in LaTeX, you will learn how to use it. (We are also strongly encouraged to google something if you don't know how it works. We are told that knowing how to google, is a really important skill for now and later.) If you're interested in the rest of my paper, let me know!

Last weekend was a nice long one, we had Monday free because it was Columbus Day. A Dutch friend of mine who is currently studying at Cornell came over to Boston. We used the long weekend to explore Boston really well. Here's a list of a couple places we went to:

• Fenway Park
• MIT
• Public Garden / Boston Common
• Freedom Trail (which is actually a great route along some of the oldest buildings of America)
• Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
• New England Aquarium

I've made a map in Google Maps with all the nice places on it. If you're interested in that, also let me know.

I hope everything is going well in the Netherlands. I'm kind of missing the "pepernoten" this time of year ;)

All the best,

Bram

Being Dutch in America

Hi everybody,

It's been another week and I feel like writing another blog. This one will be about my experiences as a Dutch person in America. The first thing that stands out is all the measurements. I seriously think that the only measurement we share is time. Imagine if that would be different.

Another example is the cheese slicer. I have finally found one in the Stop&Shop, it's actually pretty nice designed, but I think I like the Dutch "kaasschaaf" better. Here's a picture:

Furthermore, talking English all day is of course a good exercise for later, but it sure was a big relief when I could finally talk in my first language with another Dutch person here in Boston. After we emailed a couple of times he was happy to sponsor me for the Wentworth Baseball practice camp in Florida in the Spring Break. I'm really looking forward to that!

Something that disappoints me a bit is that people around here aren't really interested in the MLB Playoffs. I know that the Red Sox didn't make it this year. But it's crazy that there are about 10 sports channels on our cable TV, all with College Football on instead of the Giants - Nationals game (which by the way is still going on right now). 

I did get to see the Wild Card games, the AL game Royals - Athletics was awesome with the walk-off in the 12th inning.

Our own Fall Ball is unfortunately over already. We had about a month of practices and a couple of games. Now it's getting too cold and rainy outside, so we're heading inside. We have two strength and one yoga workout per week. But the best thing is that Wentworth has an inside batting cage which we may use for free any time we want. (Except when other Wentworth Sports team have practice in Tansey Gym.) So I've been hitting a lot of balls the last couple of days! 

My academics are going good as well. Some classes are more difficult than other, but they're all pretty interesting. The most difficult class is called: Methods and Topics in Applied Mathematics 1. As it implies, it's only for Applied Math majors. My other Math classes (Calculus 1 and Discrete Math) also allow students from other majors, such as Computer Science or Mechanical Engineering. 

For that difficult class (which I would call Modeling by the way, because we're making and discussing a lot of Mathematical Models) I now have to write a paper about a subject which we were free to choose. I chose the Fibonacci sequence. It seems a simple subject where most of you probably already have heard of. But I'm going to try to find a formula which can find any number of that sequence without actually having to add all the numbers in the sequence. 

Oh, and we have to write our paper in LaTeX instead of Word. That's kind of the professional Word for Mathematicians. Has anyone heard of it?

I enjoy keeping you guys up to date. How's everything going in the Netherlands? You can reply below this blog :)

See you next time,

Bram