Monthly Archive for June, 2009

Less positive Monday

Published
by
ploenk
on June 30, 2009
in My Life and Written in English
. 1 Comment

• There was a leak beneath the kitchen sink and the main tap had to be closed in order for it to stop. That is quite annoying, I can tell you, because it made all water usage impossible. Taking a shower, washing your hands, going to the bathroom, brushing your teeth, it didn’t really work. Luckily, somebody came to fix it, earlier as promised. I can’t understand they let fat old guys like this be a plumber, but ah well, I think he managed in the end.

• Even though we had no water and even though it was stuffy, I decided to do some gardening. There is no better way to ban annoying thoughts from your mind than cutting huge branches from a monster ivy. There were a lot of yucky snails in it, probably the same who ate all our flowers in the front yard. When I wanted to put the mountain of leaves in the green container, it turned out it was already filled up. So now we have a snail mountain in our backyard.

• I went to the blood bank in the evening, I had to wait for a long time for the check, and then my Hb level turned out to be too low to donate. Probably because of the warm weather, because your blood vessels get wider then. So instead, we washed Mom’s car, which was actually a lot more fun.

Positive weekend

Published
by
ploenk
on June 29, 2009
in My Life and Written in English
. 0 Comments

• Saturday morning hadn’t even started yet and I already joined three nice activities. First I went to the CouchSurfing Monthly Meeting, starting like ‘back in the days’, with me walking to the bar with my big heavy backpack (and ice cream this time too). Then I had a little pot of tea, in a bar, after midnight, with classical music on the background. How cool is that?! To end the night, I watched The Bourne Supremacy, struggling not to fall asleep and keep up with the story, which I managed to do!

• On Saturday itself, after sleeping in and taking care of three shopping carts fully loaded with empty bottles, I went to have a Spanish lunch. It started as a proper Spanish lunch, well after three. We had gazpacho, a cold tomatoe/paprika based soup, which was absolutely marvelous. Then paella, containing the best and only squid I ever liked. Of course, I continued in the Spanish way, with a kind of siesta, but unfortunately some thunder and a text message kept me Dutch.

• I started the Sunday very hungry, the first thought in my mind was how to prepare the baguettes for breakfast. I needed a lot of melted cheese, and that’s what I got, with ketchup even. Woohoo! The day continued with a lot of rain, which was jammer because I couldn’t go for a walk, but good because the city would get the chance to cool off and I could read in my book. And, I also found out Kung Fu Panda is a must see movie!

Nice interview…

Published
by
ploenk
on June 26, 2009
in My Job, My Life and Written in English
. 1 Comment

My first CouchSurfer of the summer stayed over from Sunday night till Wednesday morning. I was supposed to do fun stuff with him. I wanted to cycle around the neighborhood, I wanted to visit Leiden, I wanted to have dinner with his friends in Amsterdam and I wanted to be a ‘gezellige’ host. But things turned out differently.

Because I had a job interview on Wednesday morning.

I prepared and prepared. Not day and night, but enough to make me feel pretty sure of myself. Half an hour after the CouchSurfer left, I went to the interview. It went quite well, except for the fact that it turned out I had forgotten to get myself acquainted with the general subject of the TV program behind the website. Stupid!

So, that was it. Days of stress, blown in half an hour. And now my CouchSurfer was gone.

But I visited the market, bought yummie water melons, cleaned the house, read a book in my mom’s garden, far away from my own annoying neighbours, had a good evening with the family and started my Thursday fresh and fruity. I wanted to be productive, so I wrote four pieces for the travel website.

And today, I found another sweet vacancy for which I immediately wrote a letter again. There are no ups without downs, I guess.

Joggen

Published
by
ploenk
on June 25, 2009
in My Life and Written in Dutch
. 1 Comment

Zus en ik zijn dus begonnen met joggen. Met een Belgisch mevrouwtje op de iPod rennen (“We beginnen met een minuutje lopen.” “Beginnen met lopen? Okee.” “Goedzo, stop maar, we gaan nu een minuutje wandelen.” “Aah, hihi, nou, opnieuw beginnen dan maar?”) en lopen (Ja, wandelen dus, op z’n Belgisch gezien) we achter elkaar aan over de straat en de hei.

Het idee is om op maandag, woensdag en vrijdag te ‘trainen’, maar dat komt ons niet altijd even goed uit. Daarom beginnen we wel maandag, maar is onze tweede les meteen dinsdag. Woensdag is namelijk het maandelijkse familiediner (waar je met vier opgeschoten kinderen en een bijna vijftig-jarig mamaatje trouwens de meest interessante gesprekken kunt hebben), dus dat is niet handig.

Donderdag kan Zus niet en vrijdag komt het voor mij niet goed uit. Dus om niet al meteen álles fout te doen, gaan we deze keer apart. Als ik donderdagochtend wakker word, bedenk ik me dat die avond mij ook niet handig uitkomt. Vanmiddag kan wel. Maar dan is het wel extra zweterig, en dan moet ik vandaag twee keer douchen.

Dus ik besluit om maar meteen te gaan, vies, slaperig en wel. Om niet meteen flauw neer te vallen na een minuutje lopen en een minuutje wandelen, eet ik twee tomaatjes en een abrikoos. Ik weet niet of het komt doordat ik deze keer alleen ben, doordat ik te weinig heb gegeten, of doordat het ochtend is, maar ik raak veel sneller buiten adem dan voorheen.

Mijn reden om te joggen is wel om mijn uithoudingsvermogen uit te breiden, zodat ik niet zo snel buiten adem raak bij een beetje sporten, maar dit is toch niet helemaal je van het. Dus vanaf nu ga ik proberen om niet alleen tijdens het joggen op mijn adem te letten, maar de hele dag door. En ik ga niet meer ’s ochtends vroeg op pad. Dan maar liever twee keer douchen. Lang leve het werken aan de longfunctie!

Positieve dingen

Published
by
ploenk
on June 23, 2009
in My Life, My Thoughts and Written in Dutch
. 2 Comments

• Zus en ik hebben gisteren de eerste les van onze jog training gedaan. Het ging goed!
• Vriend en huisgenoten hebben een nieuw huis gevonden. Ik ben blij voor ons allen!
• Ik ben me aan het voorbereiden op een sollicitatiegesprek. Dat is erg spannend!
• Ik heb een pot courgettespread geopend en hij is lekker. Straks nog een bammetje!

Eleventh week of job hunt

Published
by
ploenk
on June 19, 2009
in My Thoughts and Written in English
. 2 Comments

(…)

Things are difficult, but life goes on. I promised myself I wouldn’t complain anymore, so don’t ask me how things are going, just assume I’m fine and I will be fine, thank you!