Odisseus’ Mom

My first class conference last week was crushed by an e-mail came from one professor in the ISS, it was about a joke between a Rabbit and a Fox. Soon it became a famous joke between us, all ISS participants, especially when Lorenc (one of my pal) gave a respond for the e-mail. Let’s name the professor as Prof. JB, he teaches “Public Sector Reform” class, here comes his joke–I’d like to give it a predicate as e-mail and joke of the week on MA student conference, the “Policy Lesson”: 

It’s a fine sunny day in the forest and a rabbit is sitting outside his burrow, tippy-tapping on his typewriter. Along comes a fox, out for a walk.

Fox: “What are you working on?”

Rabbit: “My thesis.”

Fox: “Hmm… What is it about?”

Rabbit: “Oh, I’m writing about how rabbits eat foxes.”

Fox: “That’s ridiculous ! Any fool knows that rabbits don’t eat foxes!

Rabbit: “Come with me and I’ll show you!”

They both disappear into the rabbit’s burrow. After few minutes, gnawing on a fox bone, the rabbit returns to his typewriter and resumes typing.

Soon a wolf comes along and stops to watch the hardworking rabbit.

Wolf: “What’s that you are writing?”

Rabbit: “I’m doing a thesis on how rabbits eat wolves.”

Wolf: “you don’t expect to get such rubbish published, do you?”

Rabbit: “No problem. Do you want to see why?”

The rabbit and the wolf go into the burrow and again the rabbit returns by himself, after a few minutes, and goes back to typing.

Finally a bear comes along and asks, “What are you doing?

Rabbit: “I’m doing a thesis on how rabbits eat bears.”

Bear: “Well that’s absurd ! “

Rabbit: “Come into my home and I’ll show you”

Scene : As they enter the burrow, the rabbit introduces the bear to a lion.

Moral: IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW SILLY YOUR THESIS TOPIC IS; WHAT MATTERS IS WHOM YOU HAVE AS A SUPERVISOR.

And then my “crazy” pal, Lorenc, from out of nowhere, thought that he should respond the e-mail. He tried to figure out how to respond for Prof JB’s joke in a “proper” manner. After a pause of some time for a hard thinking (according to Ita), he came to a crazy idea for responding Prof JB’s joke. Read it yourself, “Policy Lesson, Continued…”, then you will find out how really “crazy” Lorenc is:

A rabbit was assigned the Lion as Supervisor for his research thesis.

Confident enough that through his research he would discover something that no one else knew, and contribute to the wealth of animal knowledge and understanding,

The rabbit sat near a canal and started typewriting.

After a while a fox passes nearby. The rabbit was eager to show her what he was writing, but she simply greeted him and continued her walk.

Soon after a wolf passes nearby, and the rabbit jumps to tell him what his paper was all  about, but the wolf said he had to rush cause his wife was on holidays and he had to take care of the kids at home.

Finally a bear comes along and asks: “What are you writing?”

The rabbit was so happy that started to make a summary of his paper. But the bear interrupted him abruptly: “Don’t care to know, just asked for being polite”.

Moral: “NO MATTER HOW GOOD YOUR THESIS OR YOUR SUPERVISOR IS; PROBABLY THERE WILL BE ONLY THE TWO OF YOU WHO WILL READ IT”

Have a nice weekend everybody…:)  

The Hague atmosfer is changing as spring comes. Tourists are coming again to enjoy the city, people are hanging around the park in front of Queen’s palace, people are either biking or walking trying to enjoy the festivity of spring season. For me, it’s the first time I’d be able to enjoy spring season. It’s beautiful and amazing I think, especially when I start to realize that trees and leaves have already begin to grow again. Their small and green leaves, white, pink and yellow petals, are symbols of miracle and God’s mighty to re-grow something that once in the winter seems have already died. The sun shines bright and warm and raises a feeling like I’m at home, even I don’t feel totally complete here without my husband and son. It would be very great and complete if only I could share this season with them. But thank God I have such a good friends here, which somehow could ease a bit my lonesome feeling.

This spring what I really want is to inhale the city’s new atmostfer. I feel like I just want to get the most of this season. For example, last Thursday, when I went to a park in front of Queen’s Beatrix’s office in Noordeinde, I did it intentionally just to have a read of a journal that Robert has asked me to (fyi, Robert is now becoming my thesis’s supervisor), while at the same time also wanted to get mixed with all tourists came to enjoy this city. And last Wednesday as well when I read John’s e-mail in the conference about bike riding. He invited us, all ISS participants including the rector, to have a bike riding together on Friday’s afternoon. “We’ll go biking to the Queen’s garden and some The Hague spots that you have never been discovered yet before, just prepare your bike with fine tires, gather on in front of ISS at 1 pm, and bring along your lunch and camera”, as he wrote on his e-mail. I replied. “I’d like to join the bike ride, please count me in”.  I really thought that this would be a nice trip.

Unfortunately, when I had my bike, camera, and lunch prepared, it seemed that most of my dearest friends could not come and join the ride, since they had a class either at 2 or 4 pm yesterday. It was a bit dissapointing. I didn’t want to go biking without anyone close enough to me join the trip. At the last moment I had decided not to come and join the bike ride, it wouldn’t be a cheerful trip without my close friends join the trip. To resist myself became more dissapoint and lonely, I tried to organize my own bike trip at 4 pm, lucky enough I could made Mirna and Dina as the starters to join my bike riding trip. Then Ita and Herni, then Mba Diah and Adrian. At 4.40 pm there were 6 people gathered in front of Dorus for this trip: me, Dina, Mirna, Mba Diah, Avi, and Daigo, but then Adrian caught us latter at 5.30. Ita could not join since her bike’s gear seemed to have a problem and it was not fixed yet until the time we left, and Herni, she had a class at 4 but she did caught us latter in our way to the beach at 6.

Daigo suggested us to go to Rose garden first, it is in the middle of the way to the beach, we agreed and then followed him. The first stop we made was at a park, this park has a small lake, and a monument erected in the front to remember and give respect for all Dutch’s soldiers who became victims of World War II. From the monument, we continued our trip to the Rose garden, I don’t even know why they give Rose name for the garden since we didn’t even find any roses there. This garden is belong to the Gemeente of The Hague. Some families and couples were enjoying their spare times there and we even saw a family party being held at the garden. Small boats were lying down in the lake side inside the garden.    

For me, a bike ride would not be complete without going to the beach, as usual…:) It already feels like a ritual for me to have a bike ride to the beach. This time, the beach feels more joyful and merrier, people of many ages are everywhre, snakc and souvenirs shops, bungee jumping spot, coffee shops, restaurants, amusement park, sea life aquarium, casinos, and theathers are all opened for the visitors. We locked our bikes and went to a patat and vis (potato and fish) shop near a corner to have our meal, yes, biking had made us starving I guess. We ordered seafood menu with potatoes and soft drink and enjoyed our meal in front of the beach, sharing stories and jokes, unfortunately we felt very full already because of the seafood, therefore this time there was no ice cream as our desert. For me, it’s just a few of many more ways to enjoy spring, I have re-invited them this morning to have another bike ride to Mariahoeve next week, let’s wait for another story of spring time in The Hague. 

Mirna, Avi, me, Daigo, and Dina

Daigo, Mirna, Mba Diah, Avi, and me

Girls only….

The Rose Garden, which seems don’t even have any roses…:P