I guess I'm down to one blog a month.. Meh, works for me.
So I'm slowly getting into that state of panic again, when everything comes hurling at me all at once. It's almost three months now that I'm basically getting paid to sit at home. The recruiters still haven't found anything for most of us, and I'm also hearing sounds of others about not having their contracts extended. I've already been looking for something else anyway, the job keeps sounding less and less wonderful. I have some leads, but for now they're still just leads..
I also have to find a new residence in a month or so, and there's not much progress in this area either. Turns out that Utrecht is the most expensive place to live, at least concerning renting a place (since my work related future is as clear as last New Year's Eve, buying is not an option). Not just expensive-expensive, but overpriced-expensive as newspapers and politics say. And of course they don't just say-say it, no, they disaster!crisis!fire!!-say it as usual. Still, any possible solutions have to be discussed to death for decades before something finally happens, so I'm just gonna keep on looking myself.
It's become a rather long post, I originally just wanted to introduce you to my upstairs neighbours.
Friday, June 06, 2008
Monday, May 05, 2008
Supermarket Shananigans
I've been talking and thinking about taking a vacation for a while now, since I don't really have anything to do now (they still haven't found an employer). Since today was a sunny day, I thought I'd explore the city a bit more and go look for a different supermarket (Albert Heijn practically has a monopoly in the city center).
And since I'm feeling wild and crazy (well, as much as you can be on a blog), I'm doing the story IM style!
Jax: "So I looked up a Jumbo supermarket and headed over there. When I got there, it was settled somewhere in one of those roof-covered malls"
Jax: "The first thing I noticed, was like: have I crossed the border to another country?"
Jax: "About 85% of the people there were like Arabs/Muslims/Turks, Morrocans. Then there's about 7% of other foreign people (AzNs RePrEsEnT!!!!11!1 Or something like that. And people from Africa, Suriname, etc.) And finally some 8% being native Dutch people"
Jax: "I know that there are a lot of non-Dutch people here, but I've never seen them so concentrated before. It really feels like I'm in a foreign country"
Jax: "Anywayz, on to the Jumbo"
Jax: "I'm doing the groceries"
Jax: "Then head over to the check out register"
Jax: "The cashier there is probably bummed because she had to work on such a sunny day"
Jax: "Or it might simply be PMS"
Jax: "(I love how we get to blame everything on PMS :P)"
Jax: "But whatever it was, she wasn't exactly full of life"
Jax: "Which became very apparent when I wanted to pay. First off, she didn't even state the amount to pay. But that didn't matter, I always look at the screen anyway (since I usually have music plugged in my ears)"
Jax: "She just stared off into the distance"
Jax: "So I'm thinking: ehhhhhh.. eeehhhhhmmm.. helloooooo?"
Jax: "Still no respons.. So I'm gently trying to shove a 10,- bill in her face"
Jax: "Nothing."
Jax: "Well I might not have any work to do yet, but I don't have all day..."
Jax: "So I just start to load up the groceries in my backpack. I mean, if she doesn't want my money, fine by me"
Jax: "And then she finally starts to show signs of life. She deftly stops me as I try to take the veggies. And it becomes apparent why she's acting like a zombie (well partly anyways). 'It has to be weighed', is about all she says. And after a few (long) seconds more, she requests for someone to come get it and weigh it"
Jax: "Some teenaged stockfiller comes up and takes the veggie away to weigh it"
Jax: "Meanwhile, the wheels in my mind start to turn. She probably saw me coming a mile away, another spoiled Albert Heijn yuppie, where you don't need to weigh anything! (they have a built-in weighing scale in the register scanner). Which is why she rolled her eyes and stared off in far, far away-land"
Jax: "Well excuuuuuuuuse me for not having other supermarkets close by to my disposal. But then again, she wasn't exactly full of life before she got to the veggies. Guess it's PMS after all..."
Jax: "Dude comes back with the veggies, cashier finally takes the money, I put all things in my bag and take off. I've had enough vacation for now..."
And since I'm feeling wild and crazy (well, as much as you can be on a blog), I'm doing the story IM style!
Jax: "So I looked up a Jumbo supermarket and headed over there. When I got there, it was settled somewhere in one of those roof-covered malls"
Jax: "The first thing I noticed, was like: have I crossed the border to another country?"
Jax: "About 85% of the people there were like Arabs/Muslims/Turks, Morrocans. Then there's about 7% of other foreign people (AzNs RePrEsEnT!!!!11!1 Or something like that. And people from Africa, Suriname, etc.) And finally some 8% being native Dutch people"
Jax: "I know that there are a lot of non-Dutch people here, but I've never seen them so concentrated before. It really feels like I'm in a foreign country"
Jax: "Anywayz, on to the Jumbo"
Jax: "I'm doing the groceries"
Jax: "Then head over to the check out register"
Jax: "The cashier there is probably bummed because she had to work on such a sunny day"
Jax: "Or it might simply be PMS"
Jax: "(I love how we get to blame everything on PMS :P)"
Jax: "But whatever it was, she wasn't exactly full of life"
Jax: "Which became very apparent when I wanted to pay. First off, she didn't even state the amount to pay. But that didn't matter, I always look at the screen anyway (since I usually have music plugged in my ears)"
Jax: "She just stared off into the distance"
Jax: "So I'm thinking: ehhhhhh.. eeehhhhhmmm.. helloooooo?"
Jax: "Still no respons.. So I'm gently trying to shove a 10,- bill in her face"
Jax: "Nothing."
Jax: "Well I might not have any work to do yet, but I don't have all day..."
Jax: "So I just start to load up the groceries in my backpack. I mean, if she doesn't want my money, fine by me"
Jax: "And then she finally starts to show signs of life. She deftly stops me as I try to take the veggies. And it becomes apparent why she's acting like a zombie (well partly anyways). 'It has to be weighed', is about all she says. And after a few (long) seconds more, she requests for someone to come get it and weigh it"
Jax: "Some teenaged stockfiller comes up and takes the veggie away to weigh it"
Jax: "Meanwhile, the wheels in my mind start to turn. She probably saw me coming a mile away, another spoiled Albert Heijn yuppie, where you don't need to weigh anything! (they have a built-in weighing scale in the register scanner). Which is why she rolled her eyes and stared off in far, far away-land"
Jax: "Well excuuuuuuuuse me for not having other supermarkets close by to my disposal. But then again, she wasn't exactly full of life before she got to the veggies. Guess it's PMS after all..."
Jax: "Dude comes back with the veggies, cashier finally takes the money, I put all things in my bag and take off. I've had enough vacation for now..."
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Welcome To The Rat Race
You know that you're in the rat race when:
1) You have to get up so frikkin early in the morning (especially when commuting from one place to another
2) You and thousands of others try to cram their way onto the escalator to the trains
3) You and thousands of others have to wait for hours (well it seems like hours) before the passengers that are already on the train have disembarked; and after which we try to cram ourselves into the train
4) You drink coffee before you start, and then during every break or whenever you get the chance to
Well the 4th one I've managed to avoid so far, I do my best to avoid becoming a coffeeholic, maxing at 2 cups a day. I see others though, that do 2 cups per break O_o
And despite how chaotic the traffic sounds, it's still only when commuting between cities. I still shudder at the total anarchy that happens every weekday in a city like London or New York.
But anyways, I probably should start at the beginning. I recently moved from Groningen to Utrecht, where I found a job as a trainee in "effecten administratie" or securities administration, basically processing everything that has to do with stocks, obligations, etc. Not exactly my area of expertise, but close enough. At least (or I should say "at last") I'm starting a fulltime job, hopefully with enough growth potential.
Now the first thing we get is a training, after which our recruiter finds us a company to work for. The training itself is held in Amsterdam, which means I'll have to commute there every day of the training. Which is fine by itself (it's not really that far, 20-30 or so), but not when every-frikkin-body else has to do the same thing. After about a week of information cramming, we'll be starting our new jobs. I can hardly wait.
*Update*
I'm not sure whether it's the reorganization of our rectuiter (which recently got taken over by another company) or whether they just don't know what they're doing... Either way, I'm still sitting at home enjoying my freedom, as they haven't found anything for me yet. That's right, I'm getting paid to sit at home doing nothing. Alright, there's some studying to do, but student mentality has worked for me so far (cramming everything in the last couple of days before the exam). They say the average time before dispatch is about 2-4 weeks. I'm at three already..
1) You have to get up so frikkin early in the morning (especially when commuting from one place to another
2) You and thousands of others try to cram their way onto the escalator to the trains
3) You and thousands of others have to wait for hours (well it seems like hours) before the passengers that are already on the train have disembarked; and after which we try to cram ourselves into the train
4) You drink coffee before you start, and then during every break or whenever you get the chance to
Well the 4th one I've managed to avoid so far, I do my best to avoid becoming a coffeeholic, maxing at 2 cups a day. I see others though, that do 2 cups per break O_o
And despite how chaotic the traffic sounds, it's still only when commuting between cities. I still shudder at the total anarchy that happens every weekday in a city like London or New York.
But anyways, I probably should start at the beginning. I recently moved from Groningen to Utrecht, where I found a job as a trainee in "effecten administratie" or securities administration, basically processing everything that has to do with stocks, obligations, etc. Not exactly my area of expertise, but close enough. At least (or I should say "at last") I'm starting a fulltime job, hopefully with enough growth potential.
Now the first thing we get is a training, after which our recruiter finds us a company to work for. The training itself is held in Amsterdam, which means I'll have to commute there every day of the training. Which is fine by itself (it's not really that far, 20-30 or so), but not when every-frikkin-body else has to do the same thing. After about a week of information cramming, we'll be starting our new jobs. I can hardly wait.
*Update*
I'm not sure whether it's the reorganization of our rectuiter (which recently got taken over by another company) or whether they just don't know what they're doing... Either way, I'm still sitting at home enjoying my freedom, as they haven't found anything for me yet. That's right, I'm getting paid to sit at home doing nothing. Alright, there's some studying to do, but student mentality has worked for me so far (cramming everything in the last couple of days before the exam). They say the average time before dispatch is about 2-4 weeks. I'm at three already..
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Old Skool Chinese Parties
It's been quite a while since I last posted any party-related stuff.. Not because there hasn't been anything going on, but actually because there's too much going on. The last couple of months have been pretty hectic for me, and now that I've found a new job (oh yeah, I got a new job. More on that later :P) and have to move to another city and everything (bureaucracy is killing me!).
So anyways, with the current Chinese New Year festivities going on, I thought it'd be nice to shed a little insight on the way parties were held when I was a kid. For me it's been a long time since I had such a party, because I rarely have time to go back to my hometown during the weekdays, where and when such parties are held.
But this time I had some days off, and chan asked me to come along because his mom turned 50. And that's of course reason for a BIG party.
In the old days these kind of parties were pretty fun. You've got your 3-4 dozen parents, all spread out over their favorite pastime: Mahjong and Big 2 (Chinese Poker), a.k.a. gambling.
When you invite that many people (I'm not even counting the kids) and they all need tables and seats and such to play, how is that going to fit?
Well, it's quite simple actually. First, you fill up the entire living room with Mahjong tables and such, until there's no room left to even move anymore. Use up whatever saloon/coffee tables and couches you have for the men to play poker.
Once the living room is succesfully stuffed, proceed to any other room in the house that you have available. Here's a nice bedroom we can use, and here's another one. Well, that seems to be sufficient for most people, the rest will just have to wait their turn.
Now, what about us kids? That's pretty simple as well, find a spare bedroom and stuff em all in there. At this specific party there aren't many of us anymore, since we all moved out and many don't have time to come here anymore, so we have plenty of room for ourselves. Unlike the old days, where I was always astonished about how much the bed could tolerate.
While the parents gamble like they always have (and they always have..), we entertained ourselves with video games (ranging from ye olde NES to the Playstation, Xbox and currently the Wii), card games, and the occasional Japanese horror movie.
But as we grow older, the gambling gene starts to kick in, and next thing you know we're playing a Texas Hold 'Em tournament. Which I won, of course.
Since these parties start pretty early (probably as soon as they get up), they'll need a lot of food. And cooking for 50-60+ people no walk in the park. Unless of course you've been doing it all your life, and wouldn't you know it, that's exactly what all our parents do for a living. And then it's not surprising that dinner looks like an open buffet at a Chinese restaurant.
With the slight difference that this food is soooo much better ^^
I never put much more thought into it, because I figured that this is how Chinese people did parties, but since then I've met different kinds of people, including Chinese people, that are just as amazed as other people about these kinds of party (both go like "whooaaaah so many Chinese people here!"). I guess it's just the tight community we have here.
Which I'm beginning to miss, actually. Now that I think about it, the second generation (us) have all been scattered across the land, and unlike our parents we don't have the super asian cooking skills nor the mahjong gambling gene, so the chances of such parties in the future are pretty slim. So I guess it's true that in the old days things were better...
I'm getting old :/
So anyways, with the current Chinese New Year festivities going on, I thought it'd be nice to shed a little insight on the way parties were held when I was a kid. For me it's been a long time since I had such a party, because I rarely have time to go back to my hometown during the weekdays, where and when such parties are held.
But this time I had some days off, and chan asked me to come along because his mom turned 50. And that's of course reason for a BIG party.
In the old days these kind of parties were pretty fun. You've got your 3-4 dozen parents, all spread out over their favorite pastime: Mahjong and Big 2 (Chinese Poker), a.k.a. gambling.
When you invite that many people (I'm not even counting the kids) and they all need tables and seats and such to play, how is that going to fit?
Well, it's quite simple actually. First, you fill up the entire living room with Mahjong tables and such, until there's no room left to even move anymore. Use up whatever saloon/coffee tables and couches you have for the men to play poker.
Once the living room is succesfully stuffed, proceed to any other room in the house that you have available. Here's a nice bedroom we can use, and here's another one. Well, that seems to be sufficient for most people, the rest will just have to wait their turn.
Now, what about us kids? That's pretty simple as well, find a spare bedroom and stuff em all in there. At this specific party there aren't many of us anymore, since we all moved out and many don't have time to come here anymore, so we have plenty of room for ourselves. Unlike the old days, where I was always astonished about how much the bed could tolerate.
While the parents gamble like they always have (and they always have..), we entertained ourselves with video games (ranging from ye olde NES to the Playstation, Xbox and currently the Wii), card games, and the occasional Japanese horror movie.
But as we grow older, the gambling gene starts to kick in, and next thing you know we're playing a Texas Hold 'Em tournament. Which I won, of course.
Since these parties start pretty early (probably as soon as they get up), they'll need a lot of food. And cooking for 50-60+ people no walk in the park. Unless of course you've been doing it all your life, and wouldn't you know it, that's exactly what all our parents do for a living. And then it's not surprising that dinner looks like an open buffet at a Chinese restaurant.
With the slight difference that this food is soooo much better ^^I never put much more thought into it, because I figured that this is how Chinese people did parties, but since then I've met different kinds of people, including Chinese people, that are just as amazed as other people about these kinds of party (both go like "whooaaaah so many Chinese people here!"). I guess it's just the tight community we have here.
Which I'm beginning to miss, actually. Now that I think about it, the second generation (us) have all been scattered across the land, and unlike our parents we don't have the super asian cooking skills nor the mahjong gambling gene, so the chances of such parties in the future are pretty slim. So I guess it's true that in the old days things were better...
I'm getting old :/
Monday, February 04, 2008
Duo Neurotic
So this one time I was still at work, Jessica called Harmi over to hang out. And of course they went through my stuff, as do all people do when they're at someone else's house >_<
Anywayz, Harmi made a cry of joy when she found my Duo Penotti, that chocolate paste stuff that comes with two colours, which we use to put on our bread. Not exactly my most favourite spread, but it goes great with a cup of coffee (which I definitely need if I'm to stay awake at work).
Why was she happy, you ask? Well, I have this peculiar way of getting some Duo Penotti out of the jar, namely scraping it from the top and twisting it around so I always get the desired amount I want, instead of jamming the knife in and taking a big chunk out of it (which normal people do, or so I hear). It's how I always done it and never thought more about it, but apparently it has made me a fellow with neurotic tendencies. I guess it does give the impression that I'm too careful with it, making sure that the colours don't get mixed up but stay seperate and intact.. Which is good for Harmi, because now she's not the only one in our group.
Although everybody has their quirks, it would seem. At least I don't have to eat all the brown M&Ms first, because that colour doesn't complement another colour, and then the green ones, so I end up with the primary colours (blue, red & yellow).....
Anywayz, Harmi made a cry of joy when she found my Duo Penotti, that chocolate paste stuff that comes with two colours, which we use to put on our bread. Not exactly my most favourite spread, but it goes great with a cup of coffee (which I definitely need if I'm to stay awake at work).
Why was she happy, you ask? Well, I have this peculiar way of getting some Duo Penotti out of the jar, namely scraping it from the top and twisting it around so I always get the desired amount I want, instead of jamming the knife in and taking a big chunk out of it (which normal people do, or so I hear). It's how I always done it and never thought more about it, but apparently it has made me a fellow with neurotic tendencies. I guess it does give the impression that I'm too careful with it, making sure that the colours don't get mixed up but stay seperate and intact.. Which is good for Harmi, because now she's not the only one in our group.
Although everybody has their quirks, it would seem. At least I don't have to eat all the brown M&Ms first, because that colour doesn't complement another colour, and then the green ones, so I end up with the primary colours (blue, red & yellow).....
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