Somehow you did not end up living that artsy student life in Berlin or London, taking your coursework on the tube, instagramming a different take-away breakfast everyday. When people ask you to justify your choice for Middelburg, you stutter that your university looks just like Hogwarts. Under your breath you ask yourself if that makes up for the fact that there is a field of sheep two metres from the train station or that you run into your professors at the Albert Heijn. How do you compensate for your life in Zeeland and pretend to live that artsy student aesthetic? Tick the boxes.
- You walk the extra mile to Robuust in your coffee break. The taste of the coffee beans is just so much better when they grind them in the vicinity of vinyl.
- You are ironically bourgeois.
- You’ve read the Wikipedia page on Foucault. You are so in sync with our intellectual inheritance.
- When the world discovered the Stranger Things soundtrack, you were ready to supply everyone with synthwave playlists. This is your field.
- ‘HoneyPie is so extra’ you laugh into your St. John’s double shot Arabic Melange with mocha whipped cream.
- You force philosophical meanings on things that don’t have/need one.
- You have at least one film poster in your room/house. You maybe stole it from that one Koestraat common room. You have not seen the film.
- You talk about films, not movies.
- You join think tanks about sociology and philosophy. They talk about the fetishization of technology. You nod. They talk about the downsides of Capitalism. You nod. You have no idea what it’s all about but you’re a part of something.
- You own tiny cacti. You hurt yourself on the pricks daily.
- You share thought-provoking videos on Facebook and write a few paragraphs on it in which you do not fail to mention what you have learnt in social psychology. You are a liberal arts student.
- Fairy lights are not just for the festive season; you are living that Tumblr bedroom dream every day since summer.
- You find solitude on Abbey square, with your feet in the autumn leaves. You make sure to take pictures and tell the world about your newfound inner peace.
- There’s a German novel on your bedside table. You bring French poetry to a café. 100 level language courses just make you so sophisticated.
- You love the locals that put crates with second-hand books outside their houses. You make a big scene of going through the books and recognizing titles.
- There’s Polaroids of you staring out of a Bagijnhof window. Extra points if you’re smoking or playing the ukulele.
- You gladly pay the extra 4 euros for hardcopy concert tickets because they look cuter on your wall.
- When the book bazar asks for the Janson’s art history book you let everyone know it’s really heavy and expensive. Although you want to keep your gorgeous copy, you spread those pdf’s like wildfire. You grin to yourself. You are the supplier of the masses.
- You’re bitter that your friends don’t take candid photographs of you.
- You’re overjoyed when expensive wine is in the bonus at Albert Heijn. Not because you drink wine, but because the bottle makes a great candleholder.
- You boast about UCR’s music performance programme. ‘I know a guy who plays lute.’ You contribute to this musical community by playing that one Amélie song on the piano in F-15.
- Half of your film roll is our university building with gorgeous pink cotton candy skies in the background. You sigh. What about your Instagram feed diversity.
- The other half of your film roll is avocado on toast.
- You make mood boards of your ideal apartment: white walls, white linen, lots of houseplants. You stare at your common room, walls covered in memes and innuendos. A single tear escapes your eye.
- You say ‘that’s so meta’ at least twice a day.
Joëlle Koorneef, Class of 2018, is a Literature & Antiquity major, from Zwijndrecht, the Netherlands.
