I thought of an obvious way to protect my work shoes from wear and tear. There is no rule that I must wear these shoes to and from work, only that I wear them at work. So, I have chosen to wear a pair of sneakers instead. I will keep my work shoes at the office, and simply change into them when I get there. When it is time to go home, I will change back into the sneakers.
I thought of this while I was on my run, last night. I tend to think more clearly and creatively in these circumstances.
posted by James 8:00 am
I am less likely to respect a person who acts with narrow-minded stubbornness. Paul was like this, again, last night when I was scanning some documents for him to e-mail. I had found a way to get the file size down to 300k in such a way that the text was still easily legible. (I had even checked it for "legibility" with Paul). Yet Paul wouldn't even hear me out, saying that it had to be scanned another particular way (which would result in a much larger file). I find it impossible to communicate with him, when he is like this. I feel like I am being treated with a lack of respect, when he won't listen to me or even consider that there may be another way.
My current solution is to do what he says, just to spite him, even though there could be a better way. It feels unsatisfactory, though.
My bank account situation still isn't resolved. I asked Paul, yesterday, how much he had paid me at the end of last month. He replied that he had paid me my normal salary. So, this is confusing me. I intend to call the bank to see if I can get a transaction history of what has happened in the past month.
In the meantime, my only (legal) option has been to call home and ask my parents to transfer some more money to my Dutch bank account. This is disappointing because I felt that I had budgeted well and wouldn't need to do this. But, it feels good to know that I have this "last resort" back-up.
The other day, I was walking home in the drizzle with my umbrella up as I passed under a street lamp. At the same time, a huge person, holding a massive umbrella, sped past me at double walking pace. Man, I was freaked out! There was a banal explanation, though. It turned out it was just my shadow.
posted by James 8:49 am
Last week, I received an unexpected e-mail from Sue, a friend of mine from Auckland. Our lives share a common thread. We were both members of AIESEC Auckland (we joined in the same year) and we have both been on a traineeship hosted by AIESEC Tilburg! Sue’s traineeship was a couple of years ago. She currently works in Germany. She was in Tilburg for a fleeting visit, so we agreed to meet up for a drink on Friday night.
I met Sue and Ivo, her boyfriend, at the train station. She also likes Kadinsky, so we went there for our drink. Sue speaks a little Dutch. She asked me if I had a girlfriend, in Dutch. I replied “Nee”. Sue and Ivo corrected me, saying that the appropriate response, in The Netherlands, is “Nog niet” (“not yet”).
The AIESEC member turnover rate in The Netherlands is high. I have asked some of the current AIESECers if they remember Sue, and none of them do. Sue had asked AIESECers from her time if they had met me, and they hadn’t.
I enjoyed our chat about our impressions of The Netherlands, the AIESECers over here, New Zealand and our future plans.
I woke up reasonably early, for a Saturday, to catch the 9:32am train to Rotterdam. Earlier on, I had been debating whether to watch the rugby in the morning and then travel to Rotterdam in the afternoon. Hindsight confirmed that I had made the right choice.
On the way to the train station, I tried to buy a strippenkaart, but I didn’t have enough money on my card. This surprised me. I have been religiously tracking my expenses on a spreadsheet at home, so by my reckoning I should have had over EUR 200 in the account.
I had a strong feeling that the shortfall is due to Paul not paying me my full salary at the beginning of the month. I owe Paul EUR 400 from a salary advance he gave me a few months ago. However, due to my cashflow situation, I can really only afford to return him EUR 100 each month. We agreed on this. So, it would annoy me if he had settled the loan, his own way, by paying me a smaller salary.
I was in a sour mood for the first part of the train ride. I soon convinced myself that there was no use in worrying about it as I could do nothing until after the weekend.
I met Ingeborg and Akko (another Rotterdam trainee, from Taiwan) at the Rotterdam Centraal Station. We made a preliminary plan for the day. Ingeborg generously took my big pack back to her place and agreed to catch up with us an hour later, in the Museum Park. In the meantime, we went for a walk, taking interesting photos along the way. Akko decided that she had to buy a hairdryer, so I wandered around by myself for a while.
I had a cursory look inside one of the city information centres. There were two blown up photographs of the city – one from 1932, the other from 1946. The centre of Rotterdam had been flattened by German bombers in May 1940. The contrast between the photos was palpable. The 1932 scene was full of buildings; the 1946 version was a barren landscape with the occassional building still standing. The rebuilding process embraced a liberal attitude to architecture, and this is reflected in contemporary Rotterdam. All of the modern buildings give Rotterdam a different feel to any other Dutch city. Occassionally, you spot a building from historical Rotterdam, creating a link from the past to the present.
As such, I wasn’t too worried that I had little money to spend. I was content with walking around, taking photos.
After reuniting with Ingeborg, we inspected the famous cube-shaped houses by the city market. Each house is a regular cube-shape, balanced on one of its edges rather than one of the flat surfaces. It would be cool to say that you lived in one, but I could imagine the space being restricted inside.
Just before 2pm, we reached the Maritime museum where we had agreed to meet Andrei, Rens (an AIESECer), Yolanda (Rens’s girlfriend) and Johanna (a Polish AIESEC alumnus). We walked to the harbour where there was going to be a Sinterklaas parade.
According to legend, Sinterklaas comes from Spain. During the year, he keeps a huge red book of all the children in the world and he records whether they have been bad or good. The good children are given sweets (such as pepernoten), and the bad children are put into the empty sweets sack and taken back to Spain.
Around mid-November, Sinterklaas arrives at a harbour town, on a steamship from Spain, and is met by the mayor and a delegation of citizens. He parades through the town, on his white horse, accompanied by his special helpers - zwarte piets (Black Petes). This marks the beginning of the Sinterklaas season. So, we were lucky to be in Rotterdam on this auspicious occasion.
We arrived there just as the “steamship” was drawing closer to the wharf. Sinterklass gave a speech and children sang songs. The zwarte piets mixed with the crowd. Each had a big sack of treats to hand out to good children. I got a big handful of pepernoten so I felt pleased. Akko was given an orange. Hehe.
Andrei left us to buy some batteries for his digital camera and we never saw him again. Rens and Yolanda returned home to study for exams, so Akko, Ingeborg and I followed Johanna back to her place. Her boyfriend, Simon, is a director at AIESEC International, so our plan was to have a look around the office, later on. (It was on my “things to do while I am in Rotterdam list”).
We enjoyed a cup of tea at their place. When Simon learnt that I am from New Zealand, he said “sorry about this morning”. My stomach sank, as he was clearly referring to the World Cup, but part of me hoped that he was just messing with my mind. The reality sunk in later, when I checked the internet at Ingeborg’s place. I also found out that we had lost the cricket to India by a hundred and plenty runs, but, sadly, that didn’t really surprise me.
The AIESEC International office is on the top floor of an inconspicuous building in one of Rotterdam’s back streets. The office is open plan style with different desks strewn all over the place. It was messy, yet organised. Naturally, I sat at the president’s desk and had a tour around the other rooms.
After a day encompassing a lot of walking, we were all too tired to go out in the evening. We had a nice dinner at Ingeborg’s place (Simon and Johanna joined us) and we spent the rest of the evening watching television.
I had a great sleep in on Sunday morning, not getting up until it was past 10am.
Ingeborg and I went on a day trip to Den Haag, while Akko returned to her place in Delft. The weather was miserable – I wore four layers on top and carried my umbrella everywhere, to shield me from the constant drizzle.
Ingeborg had suggested that we visit the Escher museum. I immediately agreed because Escher is one of my favourite artists. He is a graphic artist who has made many works with wood-block prints. As such, only one colour is used. To give the effect of different shades, various cutting styles and line thicknesses are used.
My favourite works are those that fall within the category of “regular division of a plane”. Escher was a master of tessellation, leaving no empty space on the page. In one picture, a sea of fish cleverly transforms into a sky of birds. In another, reptiles are all interlocked with each other, unable to move.
I also appreciate some of Escher’s later pictures, involving tricks of perspective to create logically impossible situations. An example is a building which has a self-feeding waterfall where the water appears to the continuously flowing downwards.
It was late afternoon by the time we returned to Rotterdam. The weather was still depressing, but I wanted to walk across the Erasmus bridge - another example of interesting Rotterdam architecture. We rewarded ourselves with a hot chocolate at the New York Hotel, on the other side.
Tired of walking, we caught the train back to Ingeborgs. We had a simple dinner and talked over a bottle of wine. I left to walk to the station at 7:30pm.
Ingeborg was a very hospitable host and I really enjoyed having her as my Rotterdam guide. Her traineeship finishes in mid-December, so it would be nice to see other Dutch places with her, before she leaves.
I caught the 8:15pm train with an estimated travel time of 50 minutes back to Tilbug. However, with just 10 minutes to go, the train broke down. We were stranded on the tracks for a full 90 minutes. In the end, we transferred to another train and arrived in Tilburg after 10:30pm. As such, it was not until 11pm when arrived back at my place.
I was tired, but my spirits were lifted when I found a cool package from Daniel (containing cryptics, gossip and a tea set) and other mail from home.
posted by James 7:01 pm