I need to get more sleep. At 2pm today, I was so tired and I could have easily fallen asleep at my desk. I will relish tomorrow's sleep-in, that's for sure.
posted by James 5:43 pm
I have organised my New Zealand presentation to be on December 1. It is on a Monday night, right after the AIESECers have their local committee meeting.
I have had a lot of time to prepare for this - I confirmed the date over a month ago. I have used all of the time available to me. It has been so easy to go overboard with information. The hardest part has been cutting it down into a presentation of reasonable length. My notes are still eight pages worth, so I will be refining it further tomorrow.
My main goal is to make a well-received presentation about New Zealand. I am nervous but excited. I will be pleased if the audience finds it interesting and learns something. Making presentations is not one of my strengths, but the experience alone will be good for developing that skill.
posted by James 8:59 pm
I have never been excited about receiving my bank statement, but I was when it arrived in the mail yesterday. I scanned the list of transactions and, now, I have a clearer idea of what happened with my account earlier this month. Paul paid me EUR 100 less than usual - I assume this is the EUR 100 that I agreed to repay him this month. There is no point in getting upset about this now, as it is nearly the end of the month and I was going to pay him that money at this time, anyway.
As for the remaining "shortfall", I think there must have been an error with the vending machine that I tried to use last fortnight. It said that I had no money on my card, but there must have been some. I know this because my bank statement showed a positive balance, yet the emergency money transfer from my parents hasn't shown up yet.
I feel much better about my money situation, but I will continue with my strict budgeting practices.
posted by James 9:32 am
Vincent, a friend of mine from school, paid a visit to Tilburg last night. He had been in Eindhoven with a few of his friends from the hospital where he works in England. I was excited about this, because it was the first time that I had met up with a friend from New Zealand in Tilburg, rather than some other place in The Netherlands.
I met him at the train station on the way home from work. I had to buy a few things from the supermarket, so we stopped there on the way home. Vincent was very generous, insisting that he pay for the groceries and selecting a bottle of wine to drink with dinner. It was impossible to persuade him otherwise.
I showed him the range of Dutch Sinterklaas treats in the supermarket and he chose a bag of pepernoten. We also picked up a packet of stroopwafels to eat for dessert.
For dinner, we heated a pizza in the small table-top oven. Afterwards, we experimented with the stroopwafels by also heating them.
Vincent inspected my work shoes with the massive holes in the soles. He diagnosed the wearer as having an abnormal gait. I replied that he was talking rubbish.
Vincent was confident that he would leave the house at the same time as me this morning. With this in mind, I decided to be easy on him and have a sleep-in, waking up at 7am. His attitude was different in the morning. He understandably wanted a longer sleep-in.
I gave him some advice about places that he could visit in Tilburg before going back to Eindhoven, then we said our goodbyes. The next time we see each other will probably be in New Zealand.
posted by James 6:34 pm
Last week, AIESEC Tilburg ran their career week. This is a major project for the local committee. The week is professionally organised and dozens of companies take part. Students register an application in advance, with their CV attached, and pay a fee. They can attend seminars and workshops run by the participating companies and learn about their employment opportunities. Some of the students are selected for actual job interviews. It is a good way for companies to promote themselves and recruit some of the best students. It is also a useful means for AIESEC to promote itself and, indirectly, the exchange program.
The success of the career week was celebrated at a party on Friday night. I hadn’t seen Maja, Moise or Gorken for a couple of weeks, so it was nice to catch up with them. I left just after midnight because I was keen to get a reasonably good night’s sleep before the trip to Groningen on the following day.
About ten of us, including all of the trainees, went to Groningen, on Saturday, for their reception weekend. Groningen is the biggest city in the province which shares the same name, at the top of The Netherlands. It took just under four hours to get there – a huge trip in terms of travelling within the country.
We were intending to leave Tilburg train station at 8:39am, but our departure was delayed twice. Firstly, we were waiting for some of the slower AIESECers to turn up. The second time, the train destined for Zwolle (our transfer point) had only three carriages – far too few for the number of people waiting on the platform and not very safe to ride in. It was ridiculous! We practised our patience skills waiting for the next train at 9:39am and when it arrived there was plenty of room for all of us.
We arrived in Groningen just after 1pm and walked from the train station, through the city centre, to the AIESEC office. As it was Saturday afternoon, the market was in full swing with all kinds of stalls everywhere. I had a favourable first impression of the city. The building facades are varied and the layout of the streets looked interesting to explore. Groningen is famous for being a student town. It’s hard to explain, but as I walked around, I felt like it was a welcome place to enjoy the student life.
We were one of the last groups to arrive, so we had a rushed lunch after having registered.
Our first activity was ice-skating. I don’t go ice-skating very often – perhaps once every three years, or so. I was excited about trying this activity again, but nervous that I might hurt myself doing it.
Luckily for me, there were many other people with the same level of experience, so I wouldn’t stand out as the obvious worst participant. Wearing the skates was such an unusual sensation and actually setting foot on the ice was worse. It was difficult to slow down effectively (without using the “fall over” method) so I was hugging the wall for the first lap.
I skated by myself. Skating as part of a linked line of people has never really appealed to me – it seems restrictive and I am afraid of being responsible for falling over and pulling the rest of the line down. As I skated, I tested theories on how to become a better skater and, for interest, I timed my laps of the rink.
Marjolein, the AIESECer I know from Twente, was at the reception weekend and she is a skilled skater. She gave me some helpful advice. Try to plant the skate side first, when taking each step. That way, you keep the blade of the skate level with the ice. It also helps if you can make each step last as long as possible, increasing the “glide time”. Finally, you should lean forwards. This lessens the chance of you landing on your back should you fall over.
My first lap of the rink (without wall support) was over five minutes. This is very lame. By the end, I had cut it down to a slick 2 minutes and 20 seconds.
Towards the end of the session, the AIESECers had prepared a warm snack for us – erwtensoep and rookworst. Yum! Aside from all of the sweet stuff, these are my favourite Dutch foods.
When I changed back into my regular shoes it was a great sensation to have so much control over my feet!
After the skating, we all returned to the city centre. From then, until dinner time, we had free time. We met up with Martin (the AIESECer who would be letting us sleep on his floor) and hauled our stuff back to his place. Martin’s house was right in the city centre, literally 15 seconds walk away from the market square. It had the typical Dutch student house feel about it – lots of posters everywhere and a plentiful supply of beer crates adjacent to the kitchen.
We had dinner at a restaurant in town, then headed to another place for a private party. As it was just our group, there was a lot of room for open-space dancing. The beers were EUR 1 each, but I only drank during the boat races (as part of the “trainees” team). We reached the second round only because our competitors in the first round were disqualified for dropping a glass. We were soundly beaten otherwise. Our last team member (me) hadn’t even started by the time the other team had finished!
The boat races were disorganised, but that meant for a shorter duration. If they had been conducted under the same scrutiny usually employed at a New Zealand AIESEC party, it would have lasted for much longer.
Martin had given us a spare key, so we could return from the party whenever we liked. I took this opportunity to leave before the others, when I was tired. However, his front door had a peculiar lock, which appeared to yield only if you turned the key and pushed the door a certain way. I was very patient with the lock and tried, what I thought, was every possible permutation. But, even after 30 minutes, I was unsuccessful. There was nothing left to do, aside from wait outside the door until someone else with more “lock luck” came home.
Martin, himself, arrived at around 3:30am, took his key out and unlocked the door in one motion. Damn it!
I was recharged after my sleep and woke up with plenty of time to prepare to leave for home.
We had brunch in the same place were we had lunch on Saturday. I took five cheese rolls and a coffee. I finished early, so with the time to spare, I walked around the city centre, by myself, and took some photos. The streets were empty - such a contrast from the Saturday market scene and the previous night. Of course, as it was a Sunday, almost all of the shops were closed. It was also moderately raining. It was peaceful walking in the rain under my umbrella, taking the time to frame my chosen photos.
We needed to change trains in Zwolle, on the way back to Tilburg. We were minutes late for our train of transfer so we had to wait 30 minutes for the next one. I have never been to Zwolle, so I took the available time to have an abbreviated walk around. I had enough time to walk to the city centre, touch the side of the church and return to the train station.
posted by James 8:23 am