Many Hands Make Light Work

Or: A Letter of Thanks to the Maastricht Diplomat

Part 1: 16th September, 2023

On the 29th of August, 2023, 14:30, in the Franz Palmzaal of the Maastricht University School of Business and Economics, Dr. Sascha Hardt briefly mentioned a list of books that first-year students of the LLB in European Law had to acquire for the first period of their studies. A very prepared student asked Dr. Hardt to reiterate the titles, and she took note of them. Many of us took a picture of those notes “just in case.” We definitely needed all volumes of the Maastricht Collection (7th edition), probably needed Constitutions Compared (7th edition), and maybe Comparative Constitutional Law Documents (2nd edition).

At my previous institution, our books were provided for free. Still, since I knew how to purchase things, I thought to myself that all would be fine. And it was fine. There were just a few complications, including the Maastricht Collection being unexpectedly sold out due to the University of Amsterdam’s sudden interest in it, and my own general ineptitude in keeping track of the various book shipments. And so I took almost two weeks to gather my materials. Specifically, I had all the books I needed on Monday afternoon of the second week of period 1, meaning the book buying process for period 2 would start back up in 4 weeks, 6 days, and some odd hours. Unless, of course, we ended up getting the book list early, in which case I would have less than a month of freedom. Admittedly, I was feeling a little bit frustrated about the whole thing. 

After I had had all of my books for approximately 24 hours, a few of them were already about to get ruined by rain. I was sitting outside with classmates in a café when it suddenly started pouring. First, we tried to crowd under the big café umbrella, holding our bags in our laps and giggling, but eventually that was no longer enough, so we planned to pay quickly and run to our miscellaneous destinations. After my card (embarrassingly) didn’t work twice (it worked in the end), and we had dropped by the washroom, the rainwater was flooding down the streets, and we were quite stranded along with everyone else in there. A kind mother-daughter duo celebrating a birthday adopted us to their table, and we spent the next hour getting to know each other under warm candlelight. And when the rain finally slowed down and the streets cleared, when I could walk everyone back to their bikes one by one with my umbrella while just getting our feet a bit wet, when I could finally trust that I could drive home safely, I almost walked into an open pothole. 

Someone quickly told me to watch out, and I thanked them, noting that two men were standing across from each other on the street, holding the doors open while others mopped water out onto the street. I finally looked around me and saw potholes open all over, trash littering the street. I held the door open for the man who warned me, while he blocked off the pothole with trash bags, and I found out from the people in the area that the entire ground floor of the whole street had flooded. And when I was no longer needed, when I was walking towards the car, watching the canal waters whooshing past and the park paths completely covered in water, all my annoyance at the book-buying issue magically disappeared. 

Part 2: 20th April, 2026

In this last period at UM, I decided to return to my roots and do a bit of philosophy. Ancient Greek philosophy, even. About a week before we even got to Aristotle in that course, I watched an Aristotle-related interaction in The Other Bennett Sister. Mary, the, well, other Bennett sister, and Mr. Collins, Bennett heir and all around baked potato, have an unexpectedly enlightening interaction. They discuss his reading of Aristotle, his admission that he’s been thinking a lot about happiness. In their intent and reflective dialogue, they do not come to a conclusion on its contents and where one definitively finds this thing called happiness, but Mr. Collins has a starting point. Self-knowledge. You only have any chance at all at achieving it once we have awareness of ourselves, our strengths, weaknesses, and of our true desires. Mary reports her understanding of this: “Our happiness is in our own hands.” 

I suppose this is not so much a secret, and it is not so much the purpose of this piece, to speak of happiness. Not purely. But Mary does take her happiness into her own hands, gets out and does something. Mr. Collins quite literally cheers her on, jumping into the air in front of everyone. 

In the autumn, two things happened. I was starting my thesis work, and Claire got the email offering the MD the opportunity to organise the University Council Elections Debate for the second year in a row. We decided to take it on again. At that time, things were browning, darkening, and my thesis work felt like an exciting dark academic puzzle. An unsolved crossword in a newspaper I found in the corner of the library. With identifiable page edges, dozens of word-shaped outlines, bold borders where I needn’t go at all. 

In the spring, two things also happened. As my thesis deadline approached, the trench deepened. The whole thing was becoming more of a conveyor-belt activity, the discovery and humanity leaking out on the sides as I smushed Icelandic and English homicide cases into the right shape before packaging them up to make another brick on my stairway out of the thesis trenches. There was just so much left to do. 

And quite at the same time, we neared the University Council Elections Debate. On the day, there were over a dozen of us in every corner of UM’s executive building, dressed in black with our stark red press badges. We unlocked safes and unscrambled codes while preparing, and then sat in our respective spots as the lights went dark and the speaking began. We continued solving the puzzles that came our way, listening to the candidates on stage. In those moments, with our hands on something that felt important, my mind did not think for a moment of the thesis. 

By no means was this the first time. 

For example, just a few weeks ago, Carolina found and organised a trip for us to Tilburg to attend a conference for student journalists. At the end of the last workshop, Raquel exited the room, just onto the other side of the glass wall, to take a call, and then smiled a big smile at us through the glass. She had managed to secure a grant for our Spring printed newspaper. I couldn’t help but go back to a year earlier. The two of us were kicked out of a UCM building. We hadn’t noticed that it had gotten dark around while we had determinedly worked on the Spring 2025 newspaper.

Or when the posters for the University Council Elections Debate arrived, and Claire had already gone to most of the faculties to pin them up by the end of the day. Or watching her continue that way, directing meetings and holding each thread of what needed to be done for the debate in her hands, having the answer to every question. 

Or when we went to our first reporting event as the MD board, and those newest to the MD, Hugo and Azura, took to their roles immediately, taking the chance to get interviews and creating impactful pieces. 

Or when we all sat with rapt attention as Ingrid Cobben from De Limburger spoke to us about investigative journalism, and Augustin, who had organised it, naturally moderated the audience Q and A without a second thought. 

Or when we wrote an article in the Robert Schuman Forum in the Strasbourg EU Parliament within an hour, and ended up on French TV, seen sitting in those same seats during the opening ceremony for the EuropAgora.

Or when we were sprinting for our EuroMUN Printed Edition deadline, and Hugo, usually in the audiovisual domain, took on editing one of the written articles. 

Or when Carolina, Jaap, Augustin and I stood on the Vrijthof, dodging bikes that were trying to park nearby, cutting up and sticking the printed clue papers onto colourful card paper for our Maastricht scavenger hunt, and then made a trophy out of a flea market find and stickers.  

Or when we did a pub quiz in an Irish pub, not realising it was St Patrick’s Day themed, scribbling our answers in red ink over our pints of Guinness. 

Or the impromptu Christmas karaoke session in the law faculty after Raquel had taken the time to make and present awards to the MD for our efforts in the fall. 

Or the many late nights spent editing alone, and the many more walks to my car in friendly company. 

Or when Azura confidently presented us with a creative writing workshop, and while I reminisced about having nervously done the same thing the year prior, I saw my colleagues putting their pen to paper. The clacking of typing, the ear-scratch of pen on paper. Beatrice, sitting next to me, had her notebook tilted at a steep angle as she wrote at an elegant angle. Across from us, Jaap and Augustin, who were working away at an article, passed a laptop back and forth, their faces focused, looking a little as if they were writing a line each and passing it on. 

A lot of us came together for that, because we wanted to write, to create. Wanted to see what was happening, recognise things bigger than us, do something with it. 

Taking things into your own hands, indeed. And cheering each other on. How wonderful it is to have so much left to do.