The Life and Wisdom of our (House) Master, Part 2

by Ida van Zwetselaar

This is a continuation of our interview with Maarten Diederix, half of which was published in our last edition. Sophie Hudson and I sat down with him in November to ask him about his life at and before UCU. So far, he has talked about his past growing up in multiple African countries, going through military training, women at work, and all sorts of other complaints about campus. Now, the Boomerang is back to give you the rest of the story. Disclaimer: the original article has been edited according to the interviewee’s wishes.

"Maarten believes we should stop being so sensitive to his yelling and just go get things done, which - according to himis not UCU students' speciality."

Those who fail to follow COVID-19 guidelines tend to irritate Maarten. He told us proudly about how he yelled at an alleged student superspreader, “fresh of the plane from India”, to stop hugging all of her friends. He’s in fact not very fond of physical contact at all: “I do not like touching!’. When someone made a Facebook event called ‘Hug Maarten Day’ some years ago, prompting many people to spontaneously hug him during the day, he was not particularly happy. I think we can all picture this giant man screaming angrily, but would rather not be around when it happens.

“I can understand that a lot of students are frightened of me. Especially in their frst year. I have a loud voice”. But please do not be afraid of his authoritarian aura. Diederix is normally carrying out a thousand tasks all at once, so he fnds that “it’s not interesting how I transfer information - it’s about the contents! Shall we stick to why I’m shouting at you in the frst place?”. In other words, Maarten believes we should stop being so sensitive to his yelling and just go get things done, which - according to him - is not UCU students' speciality. I’m starting to feel like someone should remind him that, while we may be living on the old Kromhoutkazerne’s grounds, this place is no longer an actual army base. You could treat university students as inhabitants, then maybe we would respect you more as well.

As has happened several times during the interview so far, his phone rings, but this time he actually picks up. “Let me get this out of the way”. He winks and immediately puts on a much sweeter voice to greet his wife, whereafter complaining to us about missed her lunch due to our interview. They have been together for 29 years. And happily so, despite Maarten not being the easiest person to deal with (his words, not mine). They’ve stayed together because they accepted cer- tain roles within the relationship, and have never run out of topics to talk about. He fnds modern divorce rates atrocious; “I go to birthday parties of young children, for example, and there are like four parents there and three granddaddies. What is that? Hell?!”

Nowadays, everybody is too lazy, whether it comes to upholding relationships or ordering everything online. Apparently his son comes by when he runs out of money to take food from the freezer, but never asks his dad for any cash. Maarten staunchly maintains that our generation lacks “the element of zelfredzaamheid [self-sustainability],” which “brings back the creativity in you”. By the time he began referring to his daughter as a “wench” for ordering pizza without free discounts, I decided to backtrack the long talk to UCU.

“I heard a rumour that you’re an honorary member of Primus?” I pried, and he immediately replied, “and UCSA!”. He has the board’s same voting power, but chooses to abstain from it. “I’m heavily disappointed when things get organised, by UCSA or UCSC, or students on campus, and nothing shows up. An event, or a meeting, or a get-together or whatever. No interest!”. He attended two formal dinners with Primus, because he told us that, way back, he found their manifesto in a bin on campus, and returned these papers to the fraternity's founding fathers. Technically, he’s an honorary member of campus itself.

"According to Diederix, living a stressfree UCU life is actually easier than we make it out to be. “Many of you think you work voraciously hard. Wrong."

If you haven’t seen (let alone heard) him bike around, or read his emails, you must’ve been living under a rock. Or, in his words, be one of UCU’s “shadow people”. By this he refers to students who focus on nothing but their education and literally lock themselves in their rooms, basically a more extreme case of ‘campus ghosts’. Maarten estimates that around 15% of campus could belong to this “hardcore I-don’t-give-a-shit, I-neverparticipate-in-any-part-of-it” group, which has been growing over time. “You’re living in a country where practically everyone speaks English. And yet you are incapable of making contact? Shouldn’t you change that?

[...] There’s no reason to be lonely. How can you be lonely with 700 people? Your age?”

I don’t know, it sounds obvious to me, but maybe boomers do not see that young people that have just endured a wave of worldwide lockdowns probably struggle to make social connections, or maybe they genuinely just enjoy learning.

"He thinks we should stop using this as a weapon, “to get out of class, to get good grades, I don’t know, for excuses”."

On the other hand, he believes there’s a “UCU light”, which encourages students to do the bare minimum of breadth requirements, selecting only the easiest credits, and getting passing grades. For example, “group work is usually one working very hard, one following the queen bee, and two doing fuck-all”. As long as you are always one of those getting away with it, you can have a stress-free experience here.

According to Diederix, living a stress-free UCU life is actually easier than we make it out to be. “Many of you think you work voraciously hard. Wrong. You do the same amount of work as other students, just in a little shorter time”. He says the problem lies in the “unreasonably long” holidays we enjoy twice a year, so in order to cope, “you’re going to have to work a little harder (he says, imitating a baby voice)”. He shrugs theatrically and laughs at himself.

He likes students with a plan, as well as those who build up something outside of the college’s bubble. “Don’t try and change yourself here. Don’t hope to become a better person”. Instead of looking for answers at UCU, we should have changed enough beforehand in order to be ready to be here. In general, he advises everyone to make backup plans, and to not “crash and crumble when the shit hits the fan”. It appears that he’s had to help out some of us in difcult situations too often to sympathise with us anymore; “There are also students that just cry and insist that someone comes and helps you. That’s not a backup plan”.

It seems like he’s a bit sick of the inhabitants of campus, but alumni and the third years “see, or fnally understand” what he’s trying to achieve here. He claims to know all the tricks in the book; “Your lies are so evident, so shameful. There’s not a student that can lie well”. Nonetheless, he fghts for our campus every single day, a battle to save it from UU protocols and from having it moved to Science Park. If that eventually happens (he doesn’t think it will!), it’s unsure whether he’ll follow the college there, as his pension will be met by then.

"When someone made a Facebook event called ‘Hug Maarten Day’ some years ago, prompting many people to spontaneously hug him during the day, he was not particularly happy."

Maarten Diederix certainly is someone who has been there and seen all the gnarly and glorious sides of UCU, and thus has infuence over how things get done.

He does not understand how increasing numbers of young people throw around “mental health issues” as if it were equal to having a bad day. He thinks we should stop using this as a weapon, “to get out of class, to get good grades, I don’t know, for excuses”. As friends who are in class together and who both have our fair share of personal problems, Sophie and I eye-signal each other to change topics again…

We could not resist asking about his Instagram account, which has been gaining attention lately. “I have never ‘liked’ anything in my life,” he boasts, “not even my own wife’s pictures”. While he doesn’t understand the concept of reacting to others’ social media posts and counting views, he does enjoy

Editorial

Dear everyone, spending time designing perfectly bitter and sarcastic posts, such as the mythical “spoiled brats” post of our entrance gates. “For me, that’s not my fnest one. But I do hear a lot of people like it. I think it was more the concept that I spent an hour trying to fgure out how to. I liked that challenge.” In order for content to end up on @ucu_housemaster, however, it needs to be exceptionally funny. “I am amazed by people who are capable of pulling up to Instagram every day with something that is funny [...] I fnd it very difcult to fll it up”. “With pessimistic things?”, I asked. “Well, one day I said I’d do a positive month, and I couldn’t even fnd anything positive enough to put on Instagram”. We all laughed. “I set high standards for myself”.

Many people think that Maarten Diederix’s mentality is not aligned with our college’s community values. As a former military and oil rig employee, his sentiments and jokes about some people on campus are outdated, biassed, and stereotyped. As we understood it, Diederix knows the ins and outs of our bubble and has a complicated range of valuable life experiences, but the views he expresses are questionable and could hurt several members of our community.

I wish I had asked him what exactly he has to say about that. But paradoxically, the way he speaks about his marriage, childhood on the African continent, and hopes for the future of UCU, is quite endearing. “You guys feel at home the moment you go through the gate. It’s not your house you come from, it’s the gate you come home”.

"Nonetheless, he fghts for our campus every single day, a battle to save it from UU protocols and from having it moved to Science Park."

So, as we stand to protect diversity of opinions, shouldn’t we embrace the devil’s advocate biking around on campus as well? In the end, our housemaster is only human. A very Dutch, incredibly loud, and very controversial human, who ultimately is the one to wake up in the middle of the night to help you into your unit when your keys are lost. Still he says that - on occasion - he gets nothing but disrespect and ungratefulness from students in return. Luckily enough for him though, “sticks and stones hurt, words don’t”. Right, Maarten?

I like to tell myself that days are fnally getting longer, and that the sun’s light is getting brighter and happier by the day. It may just be wishful thinking, or it may just be that my sunlight-deprived brain can no longer tell light apart from gloom. Wishful thinking or not, the slow coming of Spring has helped me get through my frst edition as Editor-in-Chief of The Boomerang.

This edition is brought to you after many weeks of stress and uncertainty. With an abruptly understafed board, many of us have had to transition ourselves into new responsibilities, and we’ve had to learn how to carry a newspaper forward along the way. Mistakes have been made, but alas, we have pulled through - here’s The Boomerang’s Spring Edition, with precisely zero spring-related articles in it :D

This edition also comes to you after many weeks of efort, love, and dedication from our current and past board members. First I want to thank everyone who recently left the board. Kitty, Isa and Hilde were with us during Fall semester, and their spirit still lives on with us. I also want to thank Sophie, who quit just some days ago, but helped me out with budgeting for the past few weeks (she also came up with the prompt for Quad Queries).

In their place, I’d like to introduce you to our new editors, Mila and Alicja, and to our new layout manager, Jasmine. Welcome to this perpetual group project, I hope you enjoy your time in it. I’d also like to give a special mention to Noor and Avantika, who were on the board a while ago, but still helped out immensely with layout and transitioning. Thank you so so much <3

And fnally, I want to thank every writer and illustrator who contributed to this edition. I leave you now to continue looking at the products of your hard work - be it an article about fnding home, a handbook for exchange students, or a beautiful drawing of a bull protesting against animal cruelty.

With the kindest of regards,

Pablo

Boomerang Board

Pablo Ruiz Delgado | Editor-in-Chief

Katrina Joy Funk | Editor

Alicja Anna Chojnacka | Editor

Mila Maria Grazia Frattini | Editor

Ida van Zwetselaar | Art & PR Manager

Jasmine Yi Carder | Layout Manager