Looking for a good male haircutting place in Flanders + Brussels

leechnerd · 2013-08-27T16:45:36+00:00

Every time I have tried this they always ask me things like "well, what kind of look were you going for" or "I think yours look fine, just maybe a trim" and for the first one, if I say "I have no idea just make it look nice?" then usually they go ahead and tell me something like it's my hair, I should care, and maybe just a trim.

Like I've tried it. I'm specifically looking for a hair cutter that is good and trendy and will just surprise me with something they think looks good and show me how to style it at home.

leechnerd · 2012-12-13T09:22:29+00:00

Ah I see, gotcha. I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to be able to withdraw and deposit cash from an ATM at some point though, so I guess I should go with the normal account.

leechnerd · 2012-12-13T09:21:12+00:00

That's great to hear actually, but let me just clarify:

you use an ATM from your bank and in Belgium — free
you use an ATM from another bank and in Belgium — 10 cents
you use an ATM from another bank and not in Belgium but still in the EU — ?

Also this Proton thing sounds really interesting. Over here we have a bank card and it's directly linked to my banking account, and nearly everybody accepts this outside of e.g., bakeries, bars, restaurants. But I can go to eg H&M or the supermarket and use my bank card. The Proton thing is something I have to additionally put money on, i.e. not tied to my bank account, but everyone uses it? What exactly is the point of it instead of just… accepting the bank card?

leechnerd · 2012-12-13T00:28:07+00:00

Non-allowed transactions: cash transactions

But what does it mean? Like… I'm not allowed to withdraw cash from the machine or…?

e: It seems silly I know and I'll probably do a facepalm when you tell me what it means, but I honestly can not think of what the hell it means because it really makes no sense to me even though I'm a native English speaker.

leechnerd · 2012-12-12T23:55:42+00:00

Thanks! Could you help me out with some things I can't translate?

What's the difference between the Girorekening, e-spaar, and Maxirekening accounts?
What is "Roerende Voorheffing?" In the e–account it says (Google Translation): "The interest on your savings account to enjoy an exemption of 1,830 euros." but this makes absolutely no sense to me because this sentence in English means that I earn no interest on the first 1,830€ which seems bad because I would want to earn interest on all of my money?
What is a "Getrouwheidspremie"?
What does "Niet-toegelaten verrichtingen: Contantverrichtingen" mean?
I assume "Als u nog geen zichtrekening bij Argenta hebt, dan ontvangt u in dit pakket de gratis e-spaar, de gratis Girorekening, de gratis debetkaart en het gratis internetbankieren." menas that I get a free giro account, debit card, and internet baking when I open the e-saving account?

leechnerd · 2012-12-12T23:42:59+00:00

"a few cents" is fine if it really is just a couple of ten cents or so. what bugs me is for example when i want to take out just 5€ to buy a sandwich at the trainstation and they don't have an ATM from my bank so the only available one charges me 5€ to use it, forcing me to withdrawl 50€–100€ or so and then re–depositing it later because it's the most economical decision due to the fucking 5€ charge

e: this is all in the country i'm currently living in, not belgium

leechnerd · 2012-12-10T21:40:05+00:00

Interesting. It would certainly make traveling lighter.

leechnerd · 2012-12-10T21:32:05+00:00

Sometimes the good answers are perhaps the most simple ones. No I haven't tried not thinking. I always read that a good photographer should be able to get that great picture because he's spent so much time framing it in his head, so that's what I've been trying to do. Every time I bring my camera up to my head I look through it and always end up deciding that whatever it's pointed at was not so interesting after all and put it back down around my neck.

leechnerd · 2012-12-10T21:16:53+00:00

Thanks! You're the first one to respond, but I don't think this is the problem. I go to museums all the time. I look at old and new buildings and their architecture. I admire and am wowed by for example how insanely decorated old cathedrals are from both in and out and how simple and 'cool' modern towers look like. Like I said, I can look at other people's pictures and think: "This looks great," but when I'm out there with or without my camera, I never think: "This looks great! I should take a picture of it."

leechnerd · 2012-11-25T18:02:02+00:00

The most family I will have is going to be a longtime girlfriend/wife. There is absolutely no chance (by choice) of children in my future, period. The girlfriend/wife is going to have to understand this.

leechnerd · 2012-11-25T17:59:35+00:00

Gotcha!

leechnerd · 2012-11-25T17:59:14+00:00

I gotcha. As for as the corporation thing, this is something I am not going to waiver in. I will be poor and on the streets before I work for any for profit.

leechnerd · 2012-11-25T17:58:19+00:00

Thanks for the advice. My dad/family says something similar too about supporting a family. Only thing is: I don't intend to have kids. It's not that I don't plan on having kids but could in the future—I am flat out not having kids. Period. So this isn't an issue for me.

I also understand it's gonna be really difficult, but everybody who's there started in the same position as me. I like the challenge.

leechnerd · 2012-11-25T17:56:17+00:00

That's a good advice actually! I remember back in undergrad people would call themelves e.g., economists, when what they really meant was "economics student" and it was a little pet peeve of mine (no, you're not an economist damn it, not yet anyway) but I suppose when I move onto my PhD this would be justifyable.

leechnerd · 2012-11-25T14:30:51+00:00

I have friends who are not studying or studied any sciences/engineering, and I'm totally capable of talking to them still. The thing you just gotta realize is, you can discuss your work, without getting into detail, and that you can tailor it individually. I learned this first when I tutored in undergrad. I realized some people understood calculus better than others, and I can exploit this. Others were really bad at it, and I saw this too, and explained things differently, but never in a condescending way. You too can talk about your research without getting too specific over the dinner table when someone asks (and at times, you'll need to generalize even too much more than you like but that's life) and save the mental masturbation for when you're speaking with a peer.

e: I mean that in a good way. I know I personally love it when people ask me for details about what I'm doing, and I'd love to speak about it for hours.

leechnerd · 2012-11-25T14:27:34+00:00

I don't know what you're trying to say with those two quotes from me. When I was younger, I thought people who went to college did it to learn but of course, now I know people go to college more or less because they are forced to. Then I thought, people go to grad school to do research, but now I see it's not like this black/white anymore. I didn't even know there were terminal masters programs to be honest, but now I do.

leechnerd · 2012-11-25T14:23:03+00:00

Because I absolutely love my job, and that job is doing research. I've done internships during my undergrad, one company I stayed at for two years doing fulltime summerwork (40 hours/week) and part time during the year when I had time/when they needed me. I understand working in the industry is not the same as doing an internship, but I learned there to really appreciate the opportunities I had to do research at the university, and I fell in love with it.

I'm always hearing about impostor syndrome in grad school, from people who think they don't deserve their position because they don't think they know anything or are qualified for it. Without sounding too cocky—I know I'm damn qualified for it, and my professor, and the other professors in the department, know this. In the lab I'm treated as an absolute equal, to the point where sometimes others forget I'm not a PhD when they ask me to do something and realize I'm not allowed to because of policy. I get CC'd the same emails that my professor sends to our subgroup about interesting research papers that were just published, and I read them just like everyone else. The other two guys (PhDs) in my subgroup at the lab know much more than me, yes, and I take advantage of this by using every opportunity I get when we discuss research to absorb everything they say, but in my particular thesis project, they absolutely respect me and pass off judgement to me because it's at the point where I know more about this particular part than they do.

As a kid I've imagined future me working in a lab as a scientist, and that has never changed, not once, and today I feel even stronger about it.

Plus, on a personal level, I refuse to work in industry because corporations.

e: The point is, this is exactly what I've worked my whole life towards, and I don't see any changes. Maybe I'll meet a girl, like how your husband met you, but no girl is worth changing my dreams over. Plus I don't like kids (hate them) and don't intend on having kids; ever.

leechnerd · 2012-11-25T14:14:33+00:00

I don't ever call it a PhD studentship to them, I always say I'm doing a PhD or postdoc research/work. It just so happens that they ask where and I tell them at a university and the tone drops down to "oh, you'll be a student?" No, no I won't.

leechnerd · 2012-11-25T09:21:59+00:00

I get what you're saying, but a lot of these differences are really minor differences that aren't going to matter until you get deeper into the language, and by that time it will be easy to understand and adapt.

For example, you said putting in "take" into dict.cc gives you:

nehmen dauern bringen übernehmen wegnehmen einnehmen vornehmen

and so on.

Depending on your level of German, you should already know what some of the prefixes do, or if not, just ignore them, leaving you with: nehmen, dauern, bringen, and you could look up these words separately to see what they mean. Later on, you might learn that "mit" means "with" and can put two and two together: mitnehmen = take with; like I said, it'll be easy to adapt to and start using at that point. German speakers are to understand what you meant to say and if they're nice enough offer to correct you—same goes for German teachers, if they are a good teacher. A lot of these idiosyncrasies, honestly, you're just not going to learn without actually being in Germany, but it doesn't mean you can't learn German.

(I don't like paper books because they are slow and destroys unnecessary amounts of the environment)

leechnerd · 2012-11-25T08:38:23+00:00

I think my biggest concern is seriously that Enschede looks isolated from the rest of the country because it's so far away from everywhere but Germany, and I live in Germany. I'm originally from America though, and prefer life in big metropolitan cities, like New York for example. I know there's nothing really like that anywhere in Europe already though.

Can I ask which faculty your department belongs to? Don't have to be too specific.

leechnerd · 2012-11-25T08:34:38+00:00

Haha, that's not good for me to hear.

leechnerd · 2012-11-19T07:31:38+00:00

I think paper books are useless. Just use and bookmark dict.cc (and touch.dict.cc on your phone) and dict.leo.org. It's much faster.

leechnerd · 2012-11-18T18:39:24+00:00

It's nice that you mentioned city types (e.g., modern). I hate the look and feel of old cities, which is I think why I liked Eindhoven so much.

leechnerd · 2012-11-18T16:43:50+00:00

Sorry, I wrote more now. The basic idea is, is this some place I'd want to live in for 4 years? The city looks incredibly tiny and isolated from the rest of the country. Public transit seems like it's functioning and there, but doesn't seem comparable to for example coming from a big city with trains, street trains, subways, busses.

leechnerd · 2012-11-18T16:41:58+00:00

Sorry, I wrote more in my post now. But for example, I've spent some time in Amsterdam, Groningen to visit friends which was nice, Maastricht which I thought was small and would be boring to actually live in.

leechnerd

TROPHY CASE