World of Jop

My Goodness….

It is hot!!!After the tropical wave described earlier, we Dutch thought things would be normal here again, with loads of annoying rain and stuff…But no, instead we got an even longer tropical wave!This one already last two weeks….Becasue of it, I start to work at 7 in the morning nowadays, so that I could be home around 4 for a short siesta…

Otherwisely, things have been fine these days. Granny is still in hospital, but much better now; talking a lot like ussual, thereby kind of overtalking the other patients and their families in the same room. Work goes well too; the project-manager of our big project TITAAN really seems to like me and tries to give me more challenging work than I got so far. By now, I realise what specific challenges there are in a govermantal organisations…So much time is spend with searching for the right information and getting one document through all the processes….Yet, it has to be: by law, responsibilities have to be shared, so one should not take too much responsibility. It is kind of funny, because in the management-course I followed during my study always giving a lot of repsonisbility was considered as one of the major factors for success…making the employees as committed and motivated as possible, so that they would be more productive.

Otherwisely, things goes quite well too. Last weekend celibrated the summer festival in Nijmegen, which was fun like always…Made some pics with my new, smooth telephone, guess I should load them up in a while.

My goodness, it is far to hot too type….Better going to drink some juice!

Well, great news….the operation of granny went very well! Allthough the operation went better than expected, initially some complications were there. Quite drugged by the medicines, granny told us something had gone terribly wrong; she was a hamster now. Allthough we all felt she still looked quite like a human, we were quite worried. After all, my mother already has so many hamsters but only one mother, and we have only two grandmothers, so all in all we were not very happy with the prospect of an extra hamster ;-).

So we told granny she is not a hamster, but she was not listening to our feeble arguments. She assured us she made a big misstake, pressed on the wrong button (of the elevator where she fell asleep), and now had to be a hamster forever. Moreover, she also told that in the night weird things were happening in this hospital. She told some guy smoking drugs was there (well yes, smoking softdrugs in Holland is kind of legal as you all know, but it is not that that happens in the hopsital ok?) who was killing the hamster in the night and than selling them.  She told my father to take steps and start investigation on the internet.

Well, in the end it seemed the only thing we could do were just talking along…’ yes, we will do that’….Because we did not feel arguing was the best thing to do now. After 3 days, granny managed to get out of the hamster phase; she is doing well now, being healthy and shifted from intensive care to normal care. Our relief is great.

So, what else last week…Work went quite well, and Friday-afternoon I got a nice compliment. Since my direct boss left last Firday, I got more responsibilities, which I try to take as much as possible. I believe that if I give full energy in something, I could be successfull in everything…It is just a matter of putting enough efforts in it. So suddenly  I was the one preparing as list of over items that had to be ordered in an over 4 million euro’s project for the purchase department…Quite funny to do, because if I make a misstake they buy the wrong stuff, but I double checked well so I believe it is ok. It seemed the project manager of the project was quite impressed, because he enquired if i would like to stay longer than the planned 4 months, to assisted him…He told me he was very impressed with fast way I understood things there. Well, it is not bad after two weeks already getting such a compliment…It has give me a lot of confidence for sure :-).

The weekend will be nice…tonight going to the yearly summerfestivals in Nijmegen. They take 6 days, and are combined with a walking tour lasting four days…but in general, I ussually choose the evening programm. Artists are everywehere, thousands of people gather…A great event, in the city where I lived for four years.

well, that will be it for now….Gonna coock my diner.

Ps: Thanks Helen and Wanie for the encouraging words…such things mean a lot in this kind of situations. Thanks

After a week of hard working, I was looking forward for a relaxing weekend; but fate had something different in mind. Saterday early morning I was wake up by a call from Liesbeth, my youngest sister; my grandmother had had a heart-attack and was in hospital, in critical condidition.

Obvioulsy I went to hospital as fast as possible, to see my granny and support my mother. On my way, many thoughts went through my head…Like, why I was too busy to fix a date to meet my granny for diner recently, while I realise my grannies are getting older and it will not be possible anymore one day…Than, I also felt happy I was not abroad at this moment. In fact, my grannies probaly have been the most important reason to come back to the Netherlands instead of staying in Asia, something a big part of my heart wanted and still wants.

It was kind of emotional to be back in the Rijnstate Hospital of my city Arnhem again. Several years ago, I was in the same hospital with my grandmother (the same one who is in hospital now) because my grandfather had a brain-infarct, and was in coma. The rest of my family was on a vacation in Denmark; I had stayed home to take care of the house and the bird-hopsital of my mother. It was the most difficult task in my life so far, than, as we had to make the decision to go for a heavy surgery, which would make my grandfather a man without a normal life, or to let nature do its work, which would mean the end of my grandfather. We decided to do the latter in the end, as my grandfather already had become very weak and dependent, which he hated being a very proud and independent person. The next night my family came back, and my grandfather died. The night my grandmother and me spend together with my grandfather in coma has brought us very close together.

The situation yesterday was very serious, and pictures showed that she had to undertake a very heavy heart-operation. If not, she would die in a week. I could not believe it, my grandmother is still so vital and mentally healthy…By than my sisters and father also were there, and everyone had the chance to say some words to granny. It was bizar…it might have been the last words…Allthough things look stable now.

My granny needed to be operated in Nieuwegein, a city close to Utrecht, and parents and me went there too. We stayed with my granny as long as possible, and the moment she fell asleep because or narcose was a difficult one….Especially as the docters had spoken their big concern about the situation, and told that they had detected even bigger problems than seen before.

We could just wait…While we did, I went to bathroom to pray. Very little people know I pray sometimes, not being raised religious at all….But praying often gives strength, and when I pray ussually feel Someone is listening…

Would it be because of that? The operation went perfectly, and the problems were less than they had foreseen…the heart has been repaired, and the situation of my granny is stable now. Still, we have to wait….the recovery will be a hard process for a lady of 82, but than, my grandmother has a strong determination and will for sure. Well, I am full of hope now…and keep on praying of course!

Probaly the Malaysians, Indonesians, Singaporians and also I guess the Pinoys among you would laugh about it, but here in Holland we have an official ‘ tropical heatwave’ now. According to ‘ the rules’ it is officially such a tropical heatwave when the temparture during day is higher than 30 degrees for at least 5 days. Consequently, we were sent home 2 hours earlier last two days. I decided to go with the flow and not mention the fact that it was always like that in India and Malaysia, allthough AC’s are not standard in Dutch buildings. I am still like a schoolboy in that sense that I love some free hours and feel like running outside the building after getting them. But being a interim professional finance now, I managed to control myself :-b

One should think we Dutch are happy now, because we all are always complaining that the weather is too cold and too rainy and the sky is too gray while the wind is too strong to go with our bicycles and the temparature too low to walk without our coats.But it is not like that, we Dutch just love complaining all the time. Now still almost nobody is happy: ‘ I wish it would be rainy again soon. This sun is so hot. My garden needs water. What a stupid climate we have ANYWAYS. Yes I wanted some sun, but not for so many days. I get sweaty all the time when I am cycling. And I just bought an expensive fashion coat….now it is too hot to wear it!!’. Yup, complaining is definitely part of Dutch culture, which sometimes can be a little bit annoying indeed. Never ask a Dutch person feed-back about some work….He will pay attention to the bad points only without giving a single compliment at all, as only looking at the negative points ;-). 

Well, the heat makes me too lazy to write more….So here is the shortest blog of Jop so far ;-).

Enyoy the weather…

Still a proud Dutch, Jop

My, it is hot these days in Holland…the temperature is above 30 degrees. Even now, when the night is falling, it is still hot…Allthough it is not easy, I do like it. Live is far more relaxed than ussual in our country, which is always so much determined by strict planning and tight schedules…often leaving little time for the unexpected, spontanuous personal contacts. Than, there is a good reason for that: in the ussual, colder weather, noone ones to be outside longer than strictly needed, so good planning is required!I realised this during my time in Estonia, where the weather is far colder…and the planning even stricter!

Listening to an Indian CD now, fitting very well with the current weather and giving me back nice memories of my time there. Truly, it would be a dream to go back there one day, maybe to live there forever…Than, I also would like to see new countries, like Indonesia, Phillipines and Japan, and of course missing Malaysia a lot too. Well, let’s see what comes on my road…so far,that attitude has brought me only good things :-).

The last week, things went quite fast in terms of my job: my first assigment has started! I will work for four months for the Ministery of Defence, where I will work on a department which develops all kind of communication systems for the Dutch army. Examples of the projects are communication tools between certain departments, and certain individual packages making it possible for individual soldiers to get up to date data and communicate new data to central computers. It seems that the Dutch army is very far advanced in this; at my work they told me only the US army has more advanced systems, and many NATO-countries come to learn more about our projects.

The environment is interesting enough. Allthough the Ministries of the Netherlands are settled in The Hague, I work in Ede, where the communication unit of the Dutch army is settled. It is quite interesting to work in such a militair setting; there is a very specific culture, and during lunch break I will have lunch in a canteen full with soldiers in their green uniforms. Even certain of my collegues in the building wear them, and I already got an email with all the rangs I should learn according to my boss!!

In spite of such a setting, I hope the work will be interesting. I am assisting someones whose task is to monitor the budgets of the many projects which are running, and to allocate funds. So far it seems that the work is embedded in a complicated set of processes, making it very specific. Than, it is an interesting experience as well, because this might be typical for governmental organisations with their typical sets of protocols and bureaucracy. So far it seems that political games are more important here than in the company I worked too, so I could learn from that too I guess….

Overall, I am very happy with this experience. It just is the thing for me I guess…to enter a new environment, adjust to the culture as fast as possible and learn a lot because of this new environment…I believe it happens because a new environment gives a lot of energy and makes it difficult to hide…You HAVE to show yourself. Of course, professionally-wise it will look good on my resumé too to have worked for the Ministry of Defence…But I must be careful that I also will develop my ‘ hardskills’ -specific knowledge-, instead of only my ‘ softkills’ -interpersonal skills, being effective in different settings-. Well let’s see….At least it gives a really good feeling finally to be back to work again!