Last night, after dinner, I went "pooling" with some of the AIESECers. That is, we went out and played some games of pool. Using the word "pooling" is more efficient, isn't it? So, I'm going to call it that from now on. Anyway, without any care about sounding really arrogant, I was awesome. Whenever it was my turn, I would sink at least 2-3 balls. On two occassions, I was "snookered", but I played the "jump" shot to perfection, and still sank the ball I was aiming for. The AIESECers were totally speechless. At least, they didn't say anything about it (hehe).
On the way to pooling, I cycled down a street which was almost exactly like the "Auckland in 1864" exhibit at the War Memorial Museum. The street was narrow, the buildings were so similar to the ones in the exhibit, and the sky was totally black. And, there were no cars around - just bikes. It was like going back in time!
posted by James 6:34 pm
I have been in the Netherlands for exactly two weeks, and it hadn't rained until yesterday. I went to the supermarket to do my mid-week shop, and I parked outside (of course). After doing the shop, I left the supermarket to find my bike and the surrounding ground completely wet. Using my powers of deduction (or, is it induction?) I concluded that it had been raining while I was in the supermarket. Either that, or someone decided to hose down my bike. I haven't actually been "in" the rain yet, but I figure that will happen one time when I am biking to the train station.
Also, when shopping, don't pack your bread rolls at the bottom of your bag. They will get significantly squashed, and it is impossible to "unsquash" them after you get home. On the bright side, at least I have a more compact lunch. On a related note, I bought a huge tub of tiramisu last night - after I consume the contents, I will use the container as a lunch box. It's perfect for it!
posted by James 10:55 am
For the past three days, I have been working on the entry to a competition called "New Ventures". Our entry is based on one of the clients of this consulting firm. It was a good exercise in planning the start up of a new company - you had to consider your products, your target market, your competitors and other obstacles that you may encounter at the beginning. It was due in at 6pm, and we e-mailed it in with five minutes to spare. I feel good because I wrote all of the content of the entry. Of course, I had to check a lot of things with Paul and there were quite a few drafts, but, I still did it. And, its a relief that it's done.
Now, I can put some more of my own input into the creation of the actual business plan. The last AIESEC trainee here has already done most of it, but it still needs some tidying up. And, the circumstances of the client are always changing. This business plan will be around 100 pages long. Conveniently, it will also form the basis of our entry for the next round of the "New Ventures" competition.
Last night, I was invited around to Lia's house for dinner. She lives very close to town - it must be only two minutes bike away from the town centre. I met Lia's flatmates - Claire and Maartin. Maartin studies journalism and he was very talkative. It seems he spends the whole day reading newspapers, and he has to tell everyone about the news! Of course, he is very knowledgeable about Europe and its current events. He gave me some great advice about nearby places that I should visit while I am on my traineeship. I am lucky in that everything is so close. After just a few hours in a train, you could reach so many countries and interesting places. It was funny listening to his description of life in the Netherlands - the traffic jams, freezing weather, politics, whatever! Everyone said that they were jealous of me living in a country where there was so much open space. According to Maartin, everything in the Netherlands is carefully planned and political decisions may take a long time. Even "natural" areas of land must be carefully planned and created.
We all had dinner in Lia's room (which seems to double as a dining room). After dinner, Lia and I had my Dutch lesson. (Tuesday is Dutch lesson day with Lia). Maartin was there too - he speaks five languages (!) so he was a great help. He has given me some useful information about how to learn the language quicker. The book that I have at the moment is useful, but it is not teaching me the phrases that I would most likely want to use at the moment. It teaches me how to ask if someone is married, but I would like to know how to ask for a return ticket to s'Hertogenbosch. I think I will use a combination of working through the language book, asking my friends for useful phrases, and, occassionally, attempting to translate short articles in the newspaper. (Each morning, when you go to the train station, they hand out a free newspaper).
I am gaining bike-riding skills. I am becoming good at cycling up to the garage door of my place, stopping and getting off the bike in one clean movement. Perhaps one day, I will be able to unlock the garage door in the same movement. I figure if I do that, the bike may roll inside the garage by itself, and then I can just close the door. It's all part of my drive to streamline processes. OK, I can dream. I still have to master signalling a left turn while remaining wobble-free on my bike.
posted by James 6:34 pm
The rest of my day at work went more smoothly than the beginning had. Whenever I had a conversation with Paul, I gave myself the goal of making sure that I understood everything. I made sure that I was calm, and spoke clearly. I slowed the pace of my voice down - mainly to make sure that I was understood too, but also as another means of remaining calm. This strategy appears to have worked. The conversations were of a more friendly tone and Paul doesn't shout so much when making his points.
I didn't have any time to type out my "expectations" list today, but I will probably do that tomorrow.
posted by James 6:33 pm
I was just in the kitchen, eating some of my lunch, when Paul (my boss) came in and had a pleasant conversation with me. As in, friendly, non-work, and normal voice volume (not shouting). So, I was immediately more receptive to what he had to say. I wish he would speak like that when we are talking about work, or he is giving me tasks to do.
posted by James 11:30 am
Every Monday, the AIESECers have their meeting at a bar in town, and afterwards the trainees are invited to join them for drinks. I eagerly accepted this invitation, as I really wanted to get out of the house. A lot of the AIESECers were there, and many of them had just returned from an international conference in Sweden. Jaspar showed off the business cards that he had collected, and Katrijn was wearing her new t-shirt that she had been given by a Swedish AIESECer. At one point, while the AIESECers were still having their meeting, I heard the "Reach for the Stars" song, indicating that they had learnt some new linedances. The next time we meet up like this, I will definitely bring the line-dance CD that Winston made for me before I left.
The beer glasses are really small - at least half the size of what you would receive in a typical bar in New Zealand. That being said, I still had six of these for five euro, which I thought was a good investment.
I had a really long sarcastic conversation with Judith (who is hoping to visit AIESEC Auckland this year). I kept threatening that I would pass on gossip about her to the AIESEC Auckland exec, and she took this in her stride. In turn, she would regularly abuse me using Dutch, which, of course, I understood none of. I have almost taught her the moves to the "Monkey" dance. It was one of those strange but fun conversations.
Mum called me at work this morning. It was nice to have a chat with her and Dad for 20 minutes. I reassured her about my flat situation and how things are going at work. (I had been a little stressed last week). I will probably have a phone conversation like that every Monday - it will be a good way to start the week.
On the cycle home from the train station, last night, I was thinking about the exchange that I had earlier had with my boss. At the time, I figured I had contributed to it somehow, but I just couldn't be bothered trying to figure it out. The cycle home had a calming influence, and I saw things more clearly. I need to be more assertive. If I don't understand something, I should say so. It is better to clear things up at that stage, rather than falsely saying that I do understand, just to avoid a possible conflict. It is also about standing up for myself at work. Last night, I also made a list of expectations that I have for my boss and work (and what he should expect from me). (I had done a cursory list of such expectations when I was in New Zealand, but now it seems so inadequate!) I will give it to my boss today, and get his feedback.
Even in light of the above paragraph, I still had an annoying conversation with my boss this morning! When he speaks to me, he is basically shouting everything. I also felt like he said a lot of patronising things. When he talked like this, I immediately went into a defensive frame of mind. I was angry at him and I was really close to shouting some of my answers back to him. I don't really feel like talking to him at the moment. I'm just glad that I will be typing the expectations list instead of telling him about it. I feel that he would just interrupt me, anyway.
I'm still annoyed, so I'm going to have a cup of tea in the kitchen. If my boss asks me what I'm doing, I'll say I'm having lunch. I don't care that it's only 11am.
posted by James 11:12 am
It seems that I have the exact opposite to the problem that Fiona is experiencing at her work - I feel like I am being given too much work! I just had a meeting with my boss, and it has given me such a big headache. So, I just have to write something in this online diary, to express some of my feelings and also get more relaxed. (Writing in this diary is a good way to calm down). So far, my job has involved studying the 100-page business plan of one of the firm's clients. And I mean, really study it. I have to know it inside out - the products, how the business systems works, the financials and even what happens when you change certain numbers in the spreadsheet. Today, my boss had a meeting with the client. As a result of that meeting, there are lots of changes to make to the business plan, and my boss wants me to make them. So, he talked about all the changes, speaking really fast, and expecting me to make notes at the same time. Often he would ask me, "Do you understand?", but in such a way that it seemed that he would get upset if you gave any answer aside from "Yes". Often, I would try to explain how I understood things, but he would just talk over the top of me. It was such a fast-paced conversation. I got the gist of what he wants me to do, but some of the detail just went over my head. It was so frustrating. I also got the feeling that he expects me to take work home and do it at night. I refuse to do that. I want to be able to relax once I get back to Tilburg, and keep my work confined to the office in s'Hertogenbosch.
[James puts his head in his hands, and lets out a big breath of relief]. There, that was good to vent out. Hopefully, I am just being stressed by the method in which I was given the work, rather than the actual workload.
I would also like to say a few things about what I have been up to over the past few days, because it has been a while since I have had diary access!
On Friday, I finally got things sorted out with my money stress. My parents very kindly put some money on my New Zealand savings account, which I transferred to my new Dutch account. The bank has also sent me my bank card, so I don't have to carry around lots of cash like I have been doing.
I also did my first real "shop" at the supermarket. I went there with dreams of doing all of my food shopping for the next week. However, I soon realised that what I could purchase was constrained by the capacity of my backpack. I would only take one backpack, because that's probably all that I could carry and safely cycle at the same time. The best purchase was definitely the box of instant mashed potato - each box has three sachets and a sachet satisfies your mashed potato requirements for one meal. The box costs just over one euro. Mum may be pleased to know that I have a drawer in the fridge well-stocked with carrots, brocolli and brussel sprouts.
On my street there are three bakeries! So, on Saturday, I went to the nearest one to my house and bought a huge, fresh loaf of bread. My lunch was great that day. I sat at the dining room table, cut myself really thick slices of bread, heated them up in the mini toaster/oven on the table, and enjoyed them with lots of butter and honey. the outside was crisp and the inside was warm and fluffy. Of course, I complemented the food with a big cup of tea.
On Saturday, I also went to town to buy a Dutch/English dictionary. Unfortunately, it was a separate dictionary for each translation direction - so I bought both. (It was actually the first purchase that I did with my bank card). For those of you who were wondering, the Greenpeace woman was no longer there. (Although, what do you expect after a week!)
I went for my first run on Sunday. There were a few reasons why I chose to do that. Firstly, I miss not running in New Zealand - it had been about two weeks since my last run. Secondly, the weather has been warming up - it has been consistently above freezing for the past few days. And lastly, I couldn't believe that Fiona was running and I wasn't! As an experiment, I wore my usual running clothes and an extra t-shirt (just in case). I ran from my house (well...yeah) to the place where I saw the kid kick his leg through the ice (refer to earlier posting) and back. The whole run took 42 minutes, I had no stitch to speak of, and it felt great! I will continue to have a long run on Sunday (Sunday is runday, after all) and I will ask around the AIESECers to see if others are interested.
Today is Monday, so the LC meeting is tonight, followed by drinks. I am really looking forward to being somewhere else aside from this office or my house, and to talk to some AIESECers. (I haven't done that since last Thursday).
posted by James 6:18 pm