I have been at work for almost 3 hours today, and I have probably done only 10 minutes of actual work. The rest of the time, I have been checking e-mail, looking at other websites and making travel plans. It has been nice, but I wouldn't want work to be like this all of the time.
posted by James 11:58 am
Things seem to have a way of evening out. Generally, what this means is that if you do nice things for people, then you tend to have nice things done for you. In the same way, if you act selfishly, then bad luck seems to affect you more often.
An example of this happened to Moise on Wednesday night. After being finished with some chewing gum, he couldn't find a rubbish bin, so he spit it out near a drain on the footpath. But later, when he was at the movies, he stepped on someone else's old chewing gum and got it stuck to the bottom of his shoe!
posted by James 4:01 pm
I just did an easy DCF calculation for Paul and he was confused about how I calculated the discount rates. I explained it to him, but he didn't believe me! He is now reading up about it from the McKinsey book. This seems like such a waste of time to me! This is really basic stuff. I don't understand why he doesn't accept my word about it.
posted by James 11:32 am
Last night, I saw “Bruce Almighty” at the movies. I really enjoyed it. It is a very funny movie and it has a nice message too.
Before the movie began, Moise, Huimei and I were having a conversation and it turned to the topic of relationships. Huimei asked me if I were interested in anyone in the Tilburg LC. I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, because I am developing an interest in her! So, I jokingly replied with “No comment”! Moise knows how I feel, so he helped me change the topic of conversation.
After the movie, a group of us went to Kadinsky. This is a café, located close to town, which offers a wide range of specialty beers. After a brief look at the menu, I roughly estimated that there were about 150 beers to choose from. I had the blandly named “Student” and later, a “Lucifer”.
One by one, people went home, and only Huimei and me were left. It was past midnight. Huimei asked me if I were having one last drink. I said I would if she also had one. So, we both had another beer!
We had a friendly conversation while I concentrated on not saying anything too stupid. At one point, Huimei asked me the same question from earlier – am I interested in anyone from the local committee. I persisted with my “no comment” line. She playfully continued that line of questioning, getting more specific. Was I interested in anyone on the executive board. There are only two girls on the board – Huimei and Lia. I said that if I answered THAT question, I would be revealing too much! Then again, with an answer like that, it is easy to read between the lines.
Perhaps, subconsciously, that’s what I want her to do. I think I will get to know her more and see if I really do like her before I use a more direct approach. She lives in Tilburg and that makes this easier.
It was 1am when we decided to go home. I offered to cycle her back to her place and she accepted. It felt good. She lives close to the university – only about 5 minutes cycle from my place.
When I got back home, I typed this out before going to bed. I did some proof-reading, this morning, to make sure it made sense before I posted it!
posted by James 11:26 am
There was light drizzle when I left the house to cycle to Monday night drinks. So, I had the opportunity to use my new umbrella for the first time. I can cycle with no hands, yet I found it tricky to ride with one hand on the bike and the other holding the umbrella. The umbrella became the bane of my bikeride. If I held it at the wrong angle, it felt like the wind would wrench it from me. When indicating to turn right, it looked as if I were using an oversized shield to fend off an attack. More than once, I had to use my second set of brakes (my feet on the ground) to save myself from crashing into things.
At the drinks, Lia gave me a present on behalf of the local committee. It is a nicely framed collage of photos. By coincidence, the perfect place to put it is in the kitchen, where the clock used to be!
It is now July, so AIESEC Tilburg’s new executive board has officially started its term. Lia is the new incoming exchange coordinator. Earlier on Monday, she had sent Moise and me separate e-mails to see if we were coming to the Monday night drinks. The consensus between us was that her being on the new board was one of the reasons for this. After all, she had never sent such e-mails in the past. I shouldn’t be too cynical though. Whenever anyone is elected to a position of responsibility, it is natural for them to put more effort into activities associated with that organisation. In AIESEC Tilburg, this means e-mailing trainees more often and staying at the Monday night drinks longer.
On Tuesday evening, I had my 30-minute run. I always do this run a bit too fast. It seems like such a short distance and my competitive streak urges me to run for a record time. Such was the case last night. As I turned into Hasseltstraat, I had taken 25 minutes and 30 seconds, so I figured it was possible to break 30 minutes. With about 200 metres to go, I passed a group of five kids who looked to be in their early teens. They all started running with me! I picked up the pace. Three of them hung around. Feeding off this challenge, I broke into a crazy sprint just to see who could keep up. The last one gave up about 50 metres from my house. With that extra pacing, my time was 28 minutes 48 seconds – making a mockery of the 30 minute barrier. Noteworthy!
posted by James 9:31 am
Ania and Kasia have moved out. Kasia has gone back to Poland and Ania has moved to another place for her last two months here. As they were packing up all of their stuff, they gave me a few of their things. I now have a new umbrella, but I have already eaten all of the chocolate which they left for me! Ania took the clock from the kitchen. I didn’t know it was her’s – I had always assumed it “belonged” to the flat!
Marina has gone to Prague for the week. So, I have the place to myself for a while. It will be lonely in the evenings, but at least I know that it will be easy to get my bike out of the garage in the mornings.
Yesterday, the train station was doing a clean up of half of the the “bike park” outside the station. So, there was a drastic reduction in available places to park one’s bike. (I don’t understand why they couldn’t do this on Sunday, when less people would be using the bike park). I couldn’t find a park, so I rested my bike against another one and locked the chain around the back wheel. (So, anyone could take the bike, but they couldn’t ride it).
When I came back in the evening, my bike had been moved. My first thought was that it had been confiscated to the police station because it had been left in the wrong place. I was getting annoyed as I thought that I had done little wrong – there was nowhere else to leave the bike. I noted down the details of the place where I might find my bike, and turned to walk home. I carried out a last second scan of the bike park and I spotted my bike in the third row, in an actual parking place! How fortuitous! I unlocked it and bycled home, more pleased than I was five minutes earlier.
I stayed at work a little later than expected because of work that needed to be done on the spreadsheet. Someone else involved with the project was at the office and Paul was discussing the financials with him. I was a little frustrated with Paul because he was hurrying me to make changes with the numbers and layout when I didn’t really have enough time to do everything that he wanted. It also wasn’t clear which parts were important and needed to be done first. I felt like he expected me to stay late at the office. There are times when this is necessary and I understand this. But, he knew that he would be meeting the other person to discuss the financials, so he could have given me more warning that I may have to stay late (or that I should work faster on the spreadsheet). To not keep me informed and assume that I will stay late is being disrespectful.
I wonder how many conflicts in work situations are, at the root, caused by miscommunication? I suspect that it is a lot of them.
posted by James 9:26 am
Katrijn had drinks at her house, on Thursday night, as a farewell before she leaves for Rotterdam. She is going to be on the Member Committee (the national team) for AIESEC in The Netherlands. This was also the reception event for the week.
I turned up late because I had a 60 minute run to do after work. I was hoping to see Maja and Moise, but they had already come and gone by the time I turned up.
I spent most of my time talking with Martijn, Matijs and Lia. They make up most of the new executive board of the local committee. Often they would lapse into Dutch when they were talking amongst themselves. I don’t mind this that much, anymore, because it’s good language practice. But, I was disappointed that I could very little of what they were saying. I can understand much more when I am reading the newspaper! I’m developing a bad case of self-doubt about my Dutch language abilities.
I have given up trying to find places around Tilburg where I can drink water during my runs. I don’t feel comfortable carrying water with me. So, I am resigned to making sure that my longer runs pass by my place, where I will hide some mid-run drinks. The hiding place will be behind my bike which will be tactically parked outside the garage.
On Saturday, I went for my longest run of the week – a 90 minuter. Really, it was a 60 minute run and a 30 minute run, separated by the guzzling of chilled secret cordial. Having a drink midway through the run was very effective. I could sense a palpable boost of energy and the last 30 minutes were much easier than I had expected.
I have only been training proper for two weeks, but I am impressed with how things are going. I am recovering more quickly after each run and my upper leg muscles are getting stronger. I can sense this when I crouch down to put the dishes away in the lower cupboard!
Moise, Maja and I went to De Hoge Veluwe National Park on Sunday. Due to general absent-mindedness, we took five hours to get there! On one leg of our train journey, we were supposed to change trains at Arnhem after a short half hour train ride. We were so engrossed in conversation, that we had missed our stop and found ourselves in Deventer (another 40 minutes away!). We got to the park just before 2pm.
The land of the park was the estate of Anton and Helene Kroller-Muller. It was gifted to the state in 1930 and it is the largest national park in The Netherlands. That being said, it is only about 10km by 5km in area. The terrain is varied. There are large patches of forest amongst wide grassy plains and even sand dunes. Clearly, a lot of it was “planned” nature - you could see that the trees in some forests were planted in straight rows.
There are two main cycling tracks and we spent most of our time on the smaller one. It was a really relaxing place to be. Many people had dropped their bikes beside the bike path, and sat in the sun just enjoying the surroundings. I can understand why many Dutch would take a day trip from their town to visit the park. There are places where you can imagine that you are on a grassland in the middle of nowhere, yet the park’s visitors’ centre will be barely an hour’s cycle away.
I took the obligatory “jumping” photo and we did some silly poses around a huge statue we found in the grasslands. Good fun!
The park also contains the Kroller-Muller museum which apparently has a fine Van Gogh collection. Due to time constraints, we didn’t visit it. But, I may consider making a trip back to the museum later on in my traineeship.
This is the first month that I have given myself a budget and kept track of my spending. Following a budget can encourage disfunctional behaviour. For instance, towards the end of the month, it was clear that I would have a hard time keeping within my proposed budget for food and drink. So, I was reluctant to spend money on drinks in town or (gulp) buy my beloved stroopwafel. Yet, I was well within my entertainment budget, so I was way more relaxed about spending heaps of money on pooling or going to the movies. My propensity to spend was being determined by the category of purchase. It is strange how something as arbitrary as how I classify my spending can affect my financial behaviour.
posted by James 9:24 am