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!
 

Sometimes, especially when you are open towards it, life can bring some unexpected and nice surprises; opportunities to do something new, never done before, giving thrills never felt earlier. When my good friend Michel called me Monday, I definitely did not realise one of these valuable moments of life was about to come!

Michel started the conversation with a kind of puzzling remark: ‘I don’t have a blond beauty at my disposal - Lucky you!!!!’. Surely I wished Michel had such a girl to his disposal, knowing his passion for girls with blond hairs, but I did not realise right away why I should be happy about it. For one second, the though crossed my mind that he might have become homosexual and was about to ask me to marry me, which is, as we of course all know, is a legal thing to do in the Netherlands. But, there was no need for me to worry (it would be a very sudden change in Michels attitude, as a matter of fact): Michel was invited by his insurance agent for air ballooning, and also could bring a partner. Considering his status of being bachelor, he asked if I would like to join instead. Of course I would like to!

The ballooning was in Brabant, one of the more southern provinces of the Netherlands. It is always nice to be there: the people there love to enyoy their life fully, and many great restaurants and bistros can be found there. The people are more kind-hearted than the Dutch in the north and especially west in a way; the spend a lot of time talking to each other, and personal contacts seem to be a little bit more important. They also have their own way of speaking; it is kind of funny that even in our small country, some -yet small- cultural differences can be found.

We met with the account manager of the insurance company, who originally came from the city of Arnhem (like Michel and I), and loved to talk a lot. His father had his own company giving commercial trainings, and it seemed he also used to give his son private trainings all the time! Because the guy was extremely talkative and commercial, allthough he also was nice and fun. Besides, also an older gentleman and his wife were there. The gentleman was a truly ‘ Barbander’, who seemed to like to eat a lot and spoke with that fantastic, Brabant dialect. His wife was more silent, but nice nontheless. The group was completed by the guy who would pilot our balloon, a former soldier, and Helmut, an older man orginally from Germany who had an extreme dry sense of humour.

Before going to fly, we first had an excellent diner, as is ussual in Brabant restaurants. To tell the truth, I felt a little bit intimidated, coming from a big family where little attention used to be paid on dining manners. My parents never liked all these etiquettes and learned us other things in life are so much more important. However, I managed quite well by following the others and orderign for instance red and white wine at the right moment. I even overdid the etiquettes when I offered the older lady next to me a chocolate during the dessert before taking one myself, as noone else seemed to have thougt about this. Maybe because of that, the older lady was extremely nice the rest of the evening to me.

After the splendid diner, we went outside to the balloon. The all of us helped setting it up, and I was quite amazed by the really small basked the six of us were supposed to go in…Helmut did not join, he was supposed to following us by car. First gas was put in the balloon, than it was made hot…and the balloon started to climb. We all went in the basket…and there we went!!!! What a feeling, to see the earth slowly getting away….people all around had gathered to see us going up, and we were waving to them like were some sort of royal family. Quite funny.

We went slowly through the air, and I was completely overwhelmed by all the new impressions. How quite it is in the air…how great to see all activites on the ground small like scale models…It was quite funny to see, by the way, that all dogs started to bark against our balloon! All of them, without exception…Also, horses run away  and sheeps started to run in circles…And also rabbits behaved like we were a big predator. Well, maybe ancient instincts, when big flying dinosaurs were there after small and tasty mammals…

After a great flight through the air, we slowly went down looking for a field to land. It was not that easy; it turned out corns were in one field, making it too dangerous to land their, and in the next field all kind of animals were there including some donkeys. It meant we needed to get up again in order to avoid to crash in some threes, and than to go down very fast for the next field, hitting the top branches of these trees…The landing was quite spectaculair and our basket fell, which did not please the older man a lot, by the way. It also turned out there were some nervous big cows in the field, but luckily there were no bulls ;-).

It is tradition that the owner of the field get a present from the balloon pilot, but this owner was too annoyed and refused any cooperation / present. We managed to put the balloon away and than had to kneel on the ground, being officially ennobeled to barons and baronesses! First we get some grass on our heads, the grass where we had landed, and than some champaing was thrown over our head while we had to answer the question ‘ who are you?’ with: "I am the baron from Helmond (where our tip had started) till Someren (where we had landed)!". It was a nice end of our balloon trip.

We drove back and the four of us went for a drink to end the day, in some strange bar trying to combine the ancient Egypt with modern lounge-style. It was nice and we also got an official certificate, but we all missed the charming Brabant Beauties who waved us goodbye when our balloon went up heroically :-).

Next time more about my first working day, which was today!

Wow, so nice….just spoke with my good friend Ruth from Malaysia after a long time. We spend more than 1 hour talking, like always we had a lot to share. Ruth I met during my stay in India during AIESECs International Development Congress in 2003, in Jamshedpur, India. Since than we remained good friends and she also was the one to bring me forward to the HIV/AIDS project in Malaysia. I believe it is very special are friendship maintained time and distance so well, making her one of my most special friends.

Today, for the first time since weeks I had a really busy working day. It started with a meeting with my account manager, with whome I discussed my targets of this year. I will be judged on those, and if I will do well I will get a bonus….Afterwards i was busy preparing my interview tomorrow at ministry of Defence, where I might get my first assigment. Than an experienced interim professional dropped by, who will be my coach…so we spend one hour of talking and learning to know each other. And than, I also got a personal training from an idle human resource management employee for tomorrows meeting! How well could I be prepared, hehe….

Yesterday, it was Holland Argentina but before the match I went to play football with some friends. We love it, doing that in the summer….the warm weather should drive us towards Brasilian Samba football impressing the girls, but unfortunately we hardly have the skills for that ;-). After our game we saw Holland draw Argentina…thus being number 2 in the group. But, that is not so bad, some claim they did it on purpose….being number 2 means  Holland will stay in the same, trusted hotel, play on Sunday instead of Saterday, and would avoid Germany in the quarter finals. Instead we would play England, which in our opinion is weaker than Germany by far…

If Holland will win from Portugal, I might go to Germany with some friends to see that match in Gelsenkirchen! Of course not in the stadium but outside on big screens…the atmosphere should be great, allthough I hope the English hoolies after their lads being elimanted by the orange machine…Hehe…Keep on dreaming ;-).

Gonna do the last preparations for my interview tommorrow…

Mmmm, boring days nowadays…As I am still waiting to get on assigment for my work! Of course it sounds good, working only 3 hours a day, and yet being paid fully…But without true work, the days pass by slow and my motivation decreases. Luckily, there are some prospects for assigments: Friday I will have an interview at the ministery of Defence, and the week after at Creamy Creations, the liquor company mentioned earlier in a blog. I hope one of those will lead to my first assigment for Yacht…If not, I might seriously consider to quit. After all, I never expected I would be for 2 months idle while taking that job, and in one way it would show the accountmanager who took me fails in her responsibility of matching me…But let’s see how these interviews go first. I try to prepare myself as good as possible, to make sure they simply will take me! Hehe…

Otherwisely, things are ok. Holland went through to the second round of the World Cup last Friday, by beating Ivory Coast 2-1. They really had to fight for it and were not unlucky, but it is good to see that finally the Dutch can be effective and also defend a lead. Traditionally, Holland plays attractive football without a lot of result and spirit…But nowadays, a trend can be seen where Holland also shows a lot of team spirit and truly fights to get a result. In that way, the under 21 squad won the European Championship earlier this month, while PSV was quite succssfull in the Championsleague…it gives some hope for this tournament.

What else? Weather is rainy here and tonite going to play some football with friends, before the match Argentina-Holland. Otherwisely, learnt to know some Filipino’s here in Holland! It turns out there are quite some in Holland, often working as au-pair in the west of the country. The ones I met so far are really nice not to mention charming :-). It is interesting to learn a little bit more about that country for sure. It must be nice there, maybe I should put it on my list of  ‘ countries to visit’  too….Or, considering its location, combine it with a visit to Indonesia and Malaysia in the future! Well, before that better earn some more money….

Mmm, also got a call from the Bahai community in the Netherlands…My Malaysian friend Naveen had mentioned my interest in that religion when I was in Malaysia, which comes from my general interest in religions…they tell a lot about people and ussually contain a lot of wisdom. Bahai interested me quite, as it seems to reconcile different religions in one…Something fitting closely to my conviction that there is not something like a superior religions, and that in the end most religions have a lot in common. I got invited for a meeting next wednesday…still considering…One way it would be interesting but other way, never I am a big fan of ‘ obliged groups’…Well, let’s see. Surely I should have a look, what is the fun of life when not trying new things…

So far from Holland!

Jop

Yesterday I suddenly saw something funny…I got comments on my last posting! After 14 postings I already thought that would never happen, perhaps because the function does not work or perhaps because my are not that interesting to read, but suddenly there they were, three postings…

It was especially good to read that we have some support for el mechanica orange as our national Dutch football team supposingly is called in South America (meaning ‘ the orange machine, not bad at all) in Malaysia too, from my most talented chess opponent Rubern. Last weekend, finally the Dutch played their first match; and we (when Holland lose it is ‘they’) managed to beat Serbia and Montenegro by 1 to nil. Allthough we all agreed the play was not superb yet, it was great too see that the time spirit was excellent, and that Robben is in a superb form. Considering the fact that teamspirit often was a problem during past tournaments, we Dutch feel we could come far in this tournament now…So does the team itself, as it has put ‘ on the road to gold’  on the players buss, by the way. Our next game will be Friday against Ivory Coast and if we win, we should be through to next round, which is not bad in a group characterised as ‘ the group of death’ on before hand…But of course, Ivory Coast - playing in Orange too by the way-  has some great players, Drogba of Chelsea being the most famous.

Otherwisely, things go well these days. Finally, there are some options for my first assigment of Yacht. The first one will be at a company called Creamy Creations. The name is quite kinky (actually they had to pay a lot to buy the website domain which was quite kinky indeed), but the company is making all kind of liquors for marketing purposes. Another option would a project for the Tax Department. Well, that perhaps would go at expense of my overall popularity but ok, looks nice on my resumé….and the third option perhaps it would be the most funny, that one is at the Ministry of Defence. The funny thing is that a far family member, Mr. Joris Voorhoeve, used to be minister of Defence several years ago. I guess he did quite well, until an incident in Kosovo where a Dutch United Nations team failed to protect the local population during fights in the Balkan war. The poor performance of the Dutch was heavily critisized and ‘ uncle Joris’  reputation was quite harmed. By the way, my father always jokes that ‘ uncle Joris could not learn a profession and thus became minister’ . Traditionally, Dutch like to be sceptic towards politicians…

Anyways, I might be in steps of uncle Joris now, allthough my profession would be mainly administrative. Today I needed to fill out a hughe form of 16 pages, as a security check will be conducted on me being a potential candidate…They will check out if I have not contacts with terroristic organisations, or are some spy of some country planning to invade the Netherlands the coming years.

Well, sounds interesting enough to me…but of course we will have to wait all developments. Options means they might take me…but they also might very well choose another candidate. Let’s see!!

Well, not so much more is there to mention…Needing to clean my room, actually!

Hallo from Holland, where the summer really starting now. In three days the Dutch Team will play its first match against Servie Montengro for the World-Cup. This matches always bring a lot of social activities; friends will gather in houses or pubs and watch the match together while drinking some beers. Victory will result in euphoric, collective, orange-coloured utterances of hapiness as described in a previous posting.

My personal day was less euphoric, I must admit, as I managed to fail second time for my driving test. As such it is no disgrace at all, as these tests here (like all kind of tests where you can get licenses and stuff) are among world-widest hardest, but of course I am quite sick of it. Would it be yesterday, I would have blamed the date (06-06-06 is supposed to be a day of evil, I heard, as six is the number of the devil; I heard some even expected the apocalyps yesterday), but 07-06-06 should be fine I guess.

The last time I started so cautious that my engine turned off right away, so this time I had planned to start more eager. Actually, I was a little bit too eager; I almost drove into a ‘ trolleybuss’ , which are a symbol of Arnhem (only Dutch city where you can find them). Luckily, my examinator did not really pay attention to it, obviously because nerves can be quite there during the start of a test.

Actually he was quite a nice man, but also had a sadistic route in mind. He told me to drive to some country-side roads, the ones where I probaly never would come, and where one needs to go half of the road to let opposing cars pass by. Of course I did that, but he had the annoying talents to tell me to move aside just one micro-second before I was planning to do it. Of course, he mentioned that he had to tell me to move aside all the time after the test…

I was delighted to have to do a ‘ hill-test’  this time, as I practiced a lot on it after my last traumatic experience with it (see previous post). it went perfect and moral increased. It increased even more after some well executed parking and drving away backwards excercise. Than, some things went wrong.

The man lead me into a part of Arnhem I never had seen before. After leaving a small street I missed a ‘ not allowed to enter’  sign, which forced him to interrupt. Major misstake…Followed by another one, when I gave priority to a car where I was supposed to take it while driving on a main road. Of course that would be better tahn the other way around (tkaing it when not having it) and I tried to save the day by joking that one always should let such a charming girl first (she was, I myst say ;-)), but of course this showed that I had missed some roadsigns. Indeed, I was more focused on the technical part at that time…

Well, it would not be that bad if all these friends, collegues anf familymembers asking me if I made it…the reaction ‘ well, there are worse things than not passing your driving exam’  of course is very true but gets annoying after a while ;-). Than, we should remain to be positive…Things went far better than the last exam and as we say in Holland: ‘ drie keer is scheepsrecht’ . Which means something like ‘ third time you will get it’ .

Caio from Holland..

Jop