On the way back from the city centre, I saw someone riding a bike while balancing a tray of 36 eggs on one palm. Now, that's what I call self-confidence.
posted by James 5:19 pm
Last night, I watched a tape of the Super 12 final between the Blues and the Crusaders. It was a good game, yet the end was not as exciting as I had been expecting. Then again, that's probably because I already knew the outcome.
Steven generously let me watch the tape at his place. Actually, he and Charissa decided to make it the "reception activity" for the week. There were only four of us there and I was expecting such a low turnout. To be honest, I was only concerned about watching the video, not who turned up.
Throughout the game, the other three were having a loud conversation in Dutch. They were pretty much oblivious to the game. I would have preferred it if they had gone into another room to have their conversation. If it were my room, I would have told them to do so. However, it was Steven's room, and I would feel uncomfortable about asking someone to leave his own room. I compromised by moving closer to the television. I think they understood this body language.
posted by James 2:35 pm
I am drinking more coffee in the mornings. I think this is because, now, I'm the person who makes the coffee and I don't want to see something that I have made get wasted. Is this illogical?
posted by James 10:36 am
In general, a frustrating situation is one where you realise that you are (or have been) moving in the wrong direction to achieve your goals, or that the achievement of your goals is delayed.
Miscommunication is frustrating. The person listening has inaccurate information, and often, any action which is based on that information is inefficient. You think you are working towards a common goal (with the speaker), but instead, you are moving sideways or backwards.
At the end of work yesterday, Paul and I realised that we had had another misunderstanding about the task he had set for me. I understood that I would be fixing the financial spreadsheet of another client. Part of this entailed creating a new cashflow forecast, but I thought there was no urgency about when this was required. Late in the afternoon, Paul had a meeting with that client and he wanted the cashflow forecast. I hadn’t even started it! I had been working on other things in the spreadsheet. It felt frustrating that the work I had done yesterday was a waste of time, in the context of what Paul had wanted by the end of the day.
I hope he understands that the way he explained the task contributed to the misunderstanding. When there is a problem with communication, it is almost never entirely the fault of the person listening. (I can think of only contrived circumstances where the listener’s fault would be absolute).
posted by James 9:25 am
Work has suddenly become busy again. I need to do some serious modifications to the financial spreadsheet of another company. However, the type of business is very different to that of the company I had been working with up until now. It is also based overseas, not in The Netherlands.
[James senses a headache coming on].
posted by James 5:37 pm
Across the road from my place, someone has hung the Dutch flag out of a window and a school bag is attached below. I learnt that it is traditional for school children to do this when they have finished secondary school.
posted by James 4:00 pm
I just found out that it's Escher's birthday today. He was a Dutch artist famous for "mathematical" art. I like his work.
posted by James 1:43 pm
I turned up to the AIESEC drinks at 10:30pm. I was late because I wanted to listen to some music before returning the CD player to Katrijn. When I got there, I heard that there had been a presentation from a Dutch trainee who had been to India. I was frustrated that I had missed it. If I had known about it, I would have turned up to the drinks at the usual starting time. I'm surprised that AIESEC Tilburg didn't send us an e-mail about this. Doesn't it seem like something that we would be interested in? Surely they can't assume that we will always turn up to Monday drinks on time, if at all.
posted by James 10:43 am
In the weekend, I visited Utrecht to spend the weekend with Wei Jian and Bregje.
To save time on Friday, I decided to catch the train to Utrecht directly from ’s-Hertogenbosch. (Paul was nice enough to let me wear my weekend clothes to work). I caught the train at 7:30pm, so I stayed at work until then, just wasting time on the internet. It could have been a good opportunity to write in my diary, or catch up with some e-mails, but I wasn’t in the writing mood.
I met Wei Jian and Bregje at the station in Utrecht. We stopped by Bregje’s place to drop off our bags. Her apartment has been recently redecorated and it is very comfortable. None of the rooms have right angles! The building is literally a stone’s throw away from the Dom Tower, and even closer to another church building. This makes it easy to find, but you are likely to have your sleep-in disturbed when the church bells toll at 8am.
That night, we met Daniel, Bregje’s boyfriend, and we saw “Phone Booth” at the movies. It centres around a man in a phone booth having a conversation with a stranger. It was strangely compelling, and I recommend it.
On Saturday morning, we woke up at around 9am and scanned the television channels to see if we could find the All Blacks v England rugby game. Wishful thinking! There was a brief comment about it, halfway through the game, on the BBC World report, but that was it.
After packing some things for the day, we drove to Den Haag. Wei Jian and I joked that Bregje had a “spaceship” car. The back of the car is an interesting shape, and there is no ignition key – just a start/stop button!
Although the capital of The Netherlands is Amsterdam, the Government and the residence of the royal family are in Den Haag. Den Haag is famous for its art galleries and many countries have their embassies there.
Den Haag is also the home of several international legal entities. One of these is the International Court of Justice which is housed inside the Vredespaleis (Peace Palace). This was the first thing that we visited in Den Haag. The gates were closed and because it was the weekend, there were no tours operating. The building is very impressive, and we took some photos from behind the gate.
While walking to the city centre, we saw a blackboard outside an Irish pub which said that it had showed the All Blacks game that morning! We moaned and went inside, intending to ask someone at the bar for the result. But before we did, we heard that extended highlights were going to be shown in 10 minutes. It was UK Sky Sport, so the commentary was biased towards England. They talked of historic victory to England, and how New Zealand will probably make many changes before their next match. I watched the game, and I don’t think we played too badly. Still, New Zealand lost, and this is a surprise against England.
I will ask at the Irish bar in Tilburg to see if they are intending to broadcast the game against Wales, next weekend.
At around 2pm, we strolled over to the Mauritshuis. This is a small museum, with only 16 rooms, and it houses an impressive art collection. Every painting is a masterpiece. My favourites were actually a series of five paintings by Cornelius Troost, an 18th century artist. They depicted different stages of a dinner party held at a mansion. The detail was intricate, and it was interesting to follow the different characters (and their varying stages of drunkenness) through the series of paintings.
We walked through the courtyard of Binnenhof (the Parliament buildings). These are adjacent to the Mauritshuis. Someone yelled out a message to Balkenende (The Dutch Prime Minister), but there was no response.
Back at Bregje’s apartment, Wei Jian called his girlfriend in Brazil. I also got to talk with Fiona, who was visiting her for the weekend. I wasn’t expecting to speak with Fiona like this, both overseas and on trips away from our usual places of residence. It was nice to talk to another familiar voice and friend.
We joined some more of Bregje’s friends for dinner in a Greek restaurant. Dinner was very meaty and very filling. We had choice seats towards the back of the restaurant, so it was good for people watching while we ate dinner.
Another good place to watch people from is the outdoor terrace. There are many bars/cafes, in Utrecht, where you can do this popular activity. After dinner we walked to such a place, sat down and listened to one of the bands playing in a Blues festival which took place that weekend.
I really like how there are regular spaces closed off to traffic, so that stages can be set up for music, and cafes can place lots of seats outside. There aren’t many places like that in Auckland.
Afterwards, we walked around to inspect the other stages. There were, maybe, a few people very close to the stage dancing. But, as usual, most people were standing and drinking. Typical Dutch!
Bregje was very hospitable. Each day, she gave us a huge variety of things to eat for breakfast and whatever we wanted to drink. We learnt that when you directly translate Dutch to English, you can get some interesting results. Bregje asked Wei Jian if he wanted his egg “cooked or baked”. We established that the options were really “boiled or fried”.
The Dutch also like to eat buttered bread with a layer of chocolate hail.
Our mission for Sunday was to relax and be lazy. As such, we went to a lake nearby Utrecht. The lake is man made and there is a big island in the middle. There was white sand around the circumference of the lake and it felt good to walk on barefoot. I went for a swim to the island. At its deepest point, the water was up to my chin. Afterwards, I lay on my towel and let the sun evaporate the residual water. I learnt my lesson from the Breda bike ride, and I put sunscreen on this time.
At around 6pm, Wei Jian and I went our separate ways at the train station – me to ’s-Hertogenbosch and him to Amsterdam Centraal.
posted by James 5:25 pm
I haven't had a shave for five days. Laziness, I guess. This morning, I considered leaving it for another week, just to see what it would look like. I'm changing my mind. It has been annoying me all day. I will be shaving it off after tonight's run.
posted by James 2:41 pm