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The ethics committee at Utrecht University governs what can and can’t be done in scientific experiments, especially in psychology and social neuroscience. Experiments with any threat of inflicting psychological or physical harm on a participant are forbidden. (e.g. Milgram, Stanford Prison Experiment)

A shame really, because those experiments are often the most cited, and revealing.

[In other words, the glory days of psychology are long gone.]

Having an ethics committee sounds good (and morally sound) in principle, but now it just leads to a whole bunch of bureaucracy and paperwork. Graduate students and professors complain about how it takes years just to get approval for some experiments.

~

“Do we have to worry about the ethics committee?” asked Marissa. We are in a study group together and we need to come up with a project proposal within two weeks.

“Not here.” said the professor. “They’re quite good.”

The Rhijnauwen is the forested area behind the university campus, complete with cows, sheep, and a gorgeous pancake house in the center. It used to be a castle and fiefdom, but now it’s a public park. A lot of families and old couples like to spend their mornings and afternoons here on a sunny day.

It’s also a fun place for beer bicycling at night.

Every week, the Erasmus Student Network (ESN) arranges a different activity for the international students, and this week was the time for bierfietsen. Most events take a few days to fill up with people, but this one sold out within a few hours. The promise of unlimited beer probably helped with that.

The beer bike is like a modified open-air food truck, except instead of being powered by a gas engine it’s powered by ten pairs of feet. Five people sit on each side, with each seat having its own bike pedals. There’s one sober driver, and at least one person serving out the beer. Neon blue lights, loud sound system, and a bell to ring when a stranger passes by — the beer bicycle is just screaming for a good time.

We spent about one and a half hours riding around the forest and the school campus. You could see cows resting, and parents biking back home with children riding on the back. Some people avert their eyes and pretend nothing is happening, but the older people passing by tend to cheer us on.

Many of the paved roads in the forest are only wide enough for one-way traffic, so every car that had the misfortune of encountering us had the glorious view of drunken international students until the next turn came up. Walking is three times faster than the beer bicycle even with ten people pedaling, so this meant we could spend some quality time with each other.

Every so often the beer bicycle would make a stop so people could pee behind the trees. And every time there was a bump or pothole in the road, the coordinators would should shout hold onto your beers! One lady even fell off before one of the turns.

~

So why go on a beer bicycle in the forest? Apart from the good exercise, wouldn’t it just be easier to go to the student Cambridgebar downstairs for cheap alcohol? (We actually went inside for more drinks afterward, but that’s beside the point).

Experiencing the same locations in novel contexts is one way to create and reinforce lasting memories.

Any time there’s a sunny day I run around the forest. It’s a familiar routine and I’ve done it enough times that I have mental notes on where each trail goes, and where the coziest benches along the river are for picnics and kissing. But beer bicycling on these same routes? Now that’s unfamiliar and exciting. And it’s left such an impression on me that every time I run, the beer bike creeps into my mind, even if I’m not in the mood for beer.

The Cambridgebar below where I live in Cambridgelaan is run by student volunteers, and is the only bar in Utrecht under Heineken’s “Star Serve” program. That means that every bartender in the Cambridgebar should know the proper way to serve a Heineken beer. People who work at Heineken organize training sessions, and every once in a while a secret customer will come in to see if everybody is getting the “Star Serve” experience.

So, what is the proper way to serve a Heineken beer?

Continue reading “the star serve program, or my first time bartending”

I could see brown rice porridge in the pot. I wasn’t trying to make porridge, and I don’t remember using brown rice. It tasted like sludge, and there wasn’t enough community Sriracha hot sauce left over to mask the flavor. Rookie mistake, sure – but at the moment I thought it was unforgivable because it wasn’t my rice to burn.

“I’ll still eat it,” say the unfortunate souls who agreed to let me cook dinner. I would eat it too of course, but this was embarrassing. I promised two new friends that I would cook for them, eager to show off what I had learned after hovering over their shoulders as they made stir-fry the past couple days. “Are you sure about cooking dinner?” “Oh, absolutely!” Two hours later they were greeted with so many apologies that the word “sorry” lost its meaning. It was a simple pot of rice, and yet, I still took it personally.

“Wesley, don’t be sad. We weren’t expecting much anyway, and I’m happy that you made us dinner.”

Blunt truth and gentle encouragement – more comforting than sugar-coated compliments and forced “mmmm”s and nods of approval will ever be.

They weren’t even that focused on whatever I was cooking anyway – they had more pressing concerns, like not being homeless for the year after realizing that the landlord had tried to scam them by advertising apartments already filled. And yet, for all that time (or at least for that hour I was cooking), I had felt that the whole world revolved around me, what I felt, and whatever I burned inside that pot. Me, me, me. Now that’s embarrassing.

This example is a tad melodramatic, but you get the point.

~

Say a loved one cooked something shitty, and everybody in the room knows it. Saying it isn’t bad won’t make the food taste any better, and it won’t preserve their precious ego either.

So the best thing you can do in a situation like this? Tell them to cook again the next day.

The instructors for our Dutch Culture & Language program have been very kind. Along with teaching us about Dutch culture, they’ve been treating us out to drinks nearly every other day, especially when we go out on field trips to big cities. Drinks after visiting the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Drinks after touring the Parliament in Den Haag. Drinks in Café Broers in Utrecht to start off orientation, and drinks once again to end orientation.

I’m not saying that they’re turning us into alcoholics, or that I’ve learned more about a country’s beer more than the actual country, but the professor’s gesture of paying for his students’ drinks is always appreciated. Order a fancy five-euro cocktail though and you’re on your own – gotta be reasonable, y’know.

There is a nine-day break between the end of the Dutch Culture & Language orientation and the actual start of the school year, and the landlord has just kicked us out of the temporary housing to make room for incoming students. Up until this point, only students from the UC campuses were living in the dorms – the other international and Dutch students hadn’t moved in yet.

Getting kicked out isn’t too bad. At least it gives us the excuse to travel and have sleepovers in other people’s rooms. Even the common living room is full of stranded students.

I’ll be out of the country for a week, but I’ve scheduled a few posts in the meantime.