So I'm here.
I've landed in Den Haag (the Hague), seat of International Law, the Palace of Justice, the Dutch Parliament and the home of my new school, the Institute of Social Studies. I'll be here for 15 months undertaking a Masters of Arts in Development Studies, specializing in Population, Poverty and Social Development.
How did I get here?
A sudden gust of wind and fate it seems. In the new year I was working with the Elizabeth Fry Society, and after the program I was working for was suddenly terminated, I felt the need to regain control of my own destiny. I decided to start in for my MA a little sooner that I'd originally planned. I searched the internet and found only 2 programs I was really drawn to; an MA in Social Work from the University of Calgary, and this MA from the ISS. I applied to both, assuming to be rejected in the Netherlands and accepted in Calgary. While I waited for replies, I began to look into living arrangments in Calgary.
Strangely enough, I was accepted to the ISS and rejected from the U of C.
And here I am, living in Den Haag at a student hostel, with ambitions, a nervous knot in my stomach that has been there for months now, and a new monkey on my back-a $25,000 student loan (debt) from the Royal Bank of Canada. They say that which you love most always comes with sacrifices; for that, I find myself oweing my sense of security and probably the next 10 years of my life, to Big Business. I should mention the fact that I've also put some 10,000 kilometers between myself and mi amore.
There are 55 nations represented in this batch of MA students, including people from Nigeria, Indonesia, Bolivia, Pakistan, the UK, the US, China, Japan, Tanzania, Uganda, Chile, Kenya and Surinam, to name a few.
The staff joke about the ISS being a mini-United Nations. They joke, but they're really not that far off.