So I've been here for a full week... and things have been surprisingly okay. Distressing in its okay-ness, actually... I haven't really experienced any of the symptoms of "culture shock," from elation to intense homesickness. I haven't run into any real difficulties or massive bureaucratic hassles, as I'm fond of griping about. My flatmates are cool, my room is amazing, I've met a ton of other international students, and my classes seem to be exactly what I need.

The most dramatic side of me wanted to either succeed or fail brilliantly, and in reality everything has been ridiculously normal.

And I find I have ridiculously little to say.

Well...

Pigeons. Pigeons are everywhere, they are huge, and they are very strangely colored.

Literally everybody rides a bicycle. That is no stereotype. I refuse to buy one because it will cost 100 euro, will probably be stolen anyhow, and I have become a freakish miser.

Virtually everybody speaks English. And I speak very, very little Dutch. I feel guilty about this every day, but it is amazingly easy for a spoiled American to get around the Netherlands.

I am really, really tired of getting-to-know-you conversation. I am always inclined to skip out on the wealth of activities the international office provides for us; everytime I go I do have fun, but it feels fake and cheap, and like a lot of work. I don't make friends, it's just not something I do.

I've been drinking three times in this week and I've been legitimately drunk twice. I've had quite a variety of Dutch and Belgian beer so far -- I hate beer, and I don't find international brews any more palatable -- but Smirnoffs cost 4 euros and, like I said, I am such a miser. I'm surprised I've allowed myself to get drunk around total strangers, and I'm surprised how honest I have been in my conversations with at least one stranger... I've been unnaturally gregarious thus far, and I find it really pretty obnoxious.

Umm... this guy just came on in Dutch and I think he just said it's kvart over acht uur, and the computer center is gesloten. Umm, I think that means I have to go now.

Which is actually a relief... as much as I've craved communication with the outside world these past few days, I now find it very daunting.

Besides, I've got Time magazine waiting for me back at Bloemstraat: I've been equally craving any news of the outside world, and that requires absolutely no effort on my part.

So -- I'll be around more frequently than I supposed, hopefully with something more substantial to say in the future.

There are a million people I need to contact directly, but let me apologize generically now -- I'm amazingly rude and lazy. I will be in touch, I promise.

(Later, in my paper diary.)

I keep saying I'm surprised I haven't really felt homesick, or any of the other symptoms of culture shock, yet there are times I sit here and stare into space for I don't know how many minutes, playing with my hair and thinking nothing. I think I am terribly lonely, terribly affected, and won't allow myself to feel or deal with it. And with that though comes its necessary extension: how often do I do that in my normal day-to-day existence? I don't want to contemplate these thoughts now; I suppose I can continue to deny them.

Well, I'm lonely tonight.

Today was my first day of class, and I wish I could communicate now my earlier enthusiasm. Both are going to be excellent courses, with seemingly excellent professors, just exactly what I need at this point in my academic development. But no, I don't feel like elaborating.

Before my first course I got to talking with a girl named Erin. She is from the US, she has short red hair and wears glasses, she is an unapologetically liberal feminist, she has jumped on the Kerry bandwagon for electability alone, and she wears tennis shoes. Now I want to say she is the first person here I feel I could be very good friends with, but I am terrified this is because she is so much like me.

Well, I already knew that about myself: I prefer to seek out like-minded individuals rather than try to change the ideas, or even come to understand, the ideas, of someone quite different. Perhaps it just scared me to see this tendency in such a blatant physical manifestation.

Oh, I'm afraid I'm hopelessly naive and small-minded, yet every attempt I make, every possibility open to me to change that feels inauthentic.

I let Francesca in on a truth about myself, one I think should be fairly obvious: I said, "The truth is, I don't get along with most people. I dislike most people from the first time I meet them. I don't really like people at all." Really? she asked. Yep. That was that. I didn't qualify it with, "but I like you -- I liked you from the start."I may be disingenuous, but I don't lie.

And yet our friendship grows, I suppose: we're going to a museum in Amsterdam together on Wednesday. We go places together when we're both lost, when I need a guide and when I sense that if I were her I would like a guide; but I still feel the need to establish my autonomy; hence I went to CIM alone tonight rather than wait perhaps an hour for her, I chose a different seminar from her in our Dutch Present-Day Society course. I can tell, I leave her behind when she would prefer to have me around: she never did walk to CIM later by herself. If I wanted her, or if she needed me, I'd make more frequent gestures of friendship; things being as they are, I really can't be bothered.

I don't like to cultivate friendships, I don't want a lot of friends for the sake of having a lot of friends. I have Lani and Josh: they understand me in a way no one else can and I love them more than I can articulate. For them, yes I can be loyal, I can be loving. And I have Benjamin, at least occasionally: and I have loved him in my perverse way for as long as I have known him, and his presence, friendship and esteem will always be important to me. And I have people like Brandon and Miranda: who I know are wonderful and like-me and beautifully different, people who, if I'd allow myself, or if some other barrier were absent, I feel I could be very good friends with.

But if those barriers remain to Brandon and Miranda they will certainly to Francesca and even Erin. I am militantly antisocial, I don't like most people, I am self-centered and elitist and I won't throw my love around like its nothing.

And maybe I'm beating myself up about all this unduly, maybe I don't feel guilty enough... But the point is, this is the truth, and these actions are true to who I am, and I just won't relent for any thing or any one.