They’re our favourite busy bees, pollinating information and support between various antennae, projects, working groups, NGOs and more. As a CD Member you have a lot to say, both literally and figuratively, but curiously there are some things they never seem to say… The AEGEEan decided to make a list of ten of these oddly missing phrases. If you missed part one, click here.
6. I miss people around me
If you are familiar with the CD House, you know it is packed with people and it is harder to find a quite place than at a Kristian Nairn concert (Nairn also being the actor who played Hodor in HBO’s Game of Thrones). And just like Hodor, when you live and are visited by so many people, you might leave the room with somebody else; so it is important to hold the door.
Most members even have to share a room, so, if you want some peace and quiet, you might want to try the basement… unless you have visitors over, cause they tend to gather there to relax themselves. If you have no nose whatsoever, you could go ‘Michael Jackson’ and try your luck in the room with the oil-powered generator or you can go into the archive… unless there are people there too, in which case you can move even further to the room where, when moving into the house, some, let us say, ‘kinky’ toys were found. Nobody knows what that room served for. #torturechamber #fiftyshadesofBelgium
7. We don’t welcome visitors
There is a hilariously weird scene in Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, where the protagonist, Sigmund, enters the house of Hunding, a man whose clan wants to kill him. Even though Sigmund is horribly injured and cannot defend himself, Hunding cannot kill him, because the ancient Germanic custom dictates to always treat any guests in your house hospitably. This means, in Wagner’s work, that Hunding has to wait an entire day, and feed and take care of Sigmund as if he was his friend, before killing him in a duel.
While CD members don’t generally provide complete free meals and clothing for their guests (or duel them), they do host a lot of AEGEEans from all over Europe over the course of the year. They provide free shelter, in some cases reimburse at least some of the travel expenses, occasionally provide free ingredients for their guests’ meals, and even provide medication, if possible. A CD member surely is as gracious a host as those according to the customs of old.
8. I never speak English
Yes and they are also never kind or open. Furthermore, they never eat, nor do they ever cook well, and they are never, and I mean never, polite. They never use the rest room, they never take time to talk to you, they never go out to have a drink and they are never even in the slightest bit funny or witty. Most importantly, they never understand sarcasm. Honessendaret anglar, CD honietdá ot.
9. We all had dinner on time today
Dinnertime is a curious custom around Europe, because it hardly ever happens around the same time. This lapse of coinciding hours are due to some cultural factors that determine when you are most likely to have dinner.
In certain Eastern European countries, it is customary to enjoy a warm meal at noon or early in the afternoon. In North-Western European countries people usually start eating somewhere between 5 and 6 pm, and in Southern European countries this may be postponed as late as 8 pm.
Because members of the CD hail from vastly different countries, they either have to adjust to a, for them possibly, unusual time… or they’ll have to eat alone or in smaller groups. As if planning to eat with an entire group was not hard already.
10. I never work after 8 pm
Unlike the ‘English thing’, CD members tend to work after eight at night. This could be because they have to have a Skype conversation with some members outside of university-hours, or because they need to go to important European events in Brussels, or simply because the workload happend to be incredibly high that day. Regardless, some working days are extremely long, especially when major events are coming up.
That does not mean, however, that all working days go on until after 8:00 pm, or that CD members are merciless workaholics. Just like you and me, they also like to relax at night, maybe watch a movie or maybe go out and have a drink. We are all AEGEEans after all.
Written by Willem Laurentzen, AEGEE-Nijmegen (based on the original concept of Svenja van der Tol, AEGEE-Nijmegen)