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Exposure

Photography. Linux. Life. Me.

Posts tagged with "society"

Spring!!! - And choosing...

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Meteorologists state that the first of March is the first day of spring. YAHOO! And I'd seen the first flower last monday. So... I thought the time was right to take my sunglasses, swimsuit and goggles out of the closet. How wrong could I be! When I took the train back to Zwolle today, I arrived in a complete chaos. The busstation was overcrowded with buses that didn't go anywhere, the street was jammed with cars... And loads of desperate people trying to get home. What a bit snow can do! I decided to try to walk home.

Yeah, you scandinavians, you all wil laugh about this situation. The whole system is jammed because of three (3!) centimeters of snow... :lol:

But Hey.... HELLOOOOO!:eyes:

It is spring!! The season where everything should be freshly green, not white!!!


Anyhow...

Now it's time for something else... Choices.
Now the Netherlands is going the (neo?)liberal direction, things have changed (and still are changing any further). Last year we were for the first time ever allowed to buy our energy from another provider. (Before that, it were state-companies). Several months later the public health sytem has got changed. What meant that I had until er... today (!) to choose a insurance-company to cover my health. It appeared to be a tough job: make a selection of tons and tons of proposals, sometimes even different proposals from one and the same company. And since those contracts are on a year-basis, I wanted to make a wise decision. It took me four full days to make up my mind. I must say: it took some lots of time, but I'm satisfied with my decision.

So I've made enough choices for now??? Didn't think so.

Next week (7th of March), there are municipality elections. And to be honest: I havn't any clue what to vote. Will it be some local party? Or the local department of a national party? That it will be something on the left wing, thát is for sure. I guess I'll make up my mind next weekend.
Television-polls say only 57% of the Dutch will give their vote. That's a big, big shame. I guess a lot of those non-voters are just tired of choosing. Choosing abstract things as politics, insurance and so on about four times a year is a little too much, I think.
But in my opinion, when you HAVE voting-rights, you have to vote, or be silent for the next four years (until the next election). Right... I cannot be silent in Politics that long. Nobody can!

Career...
Next friday I'm going to a career-event. Never been there though. I'm curious: don't know what to expect. Loads of people in suit (including me), that's for sure. But what wil happen...? I'll try to go there for a chat with some recruiters. Especially I'll try to talk to some people outside the advocacy, to figure out what just 'ordinary companies' can mean to me whan I've got my LLM-degree somewhere between september and december.

Music
I've figured out some new artist. At least, He's new in The Netherlands. I'm talking about Gabriel Rios, A Puerto Rican guy from Gent, Belgium. He writes very nice songs, with a little bit fragile but positive sound. His breaktrough in Holland was his awesome song 'Broad day light' that was used for a Dutch orangejuice-commercial...

Maybe it is a bit soft, (probably a bit gay-ish as well), but I really like his music.



It isn't THAT bad, is it???

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Here in Holland, it's customary to complain. About the weather, about our gouvernment, about the weather, about the trains getting late, about the weather, about the prices in the supermarket, about the weather, about the €uro, about the weather, about Europe, about almost everything. Dit I mention the weather?

Isn't that weird?
The fact that we all are complayning about those futile things (the weather, the price of a 2 litre bottle of Diet Coke, the fact that foie gras is'nt at stock in the stores) says me that we have it all very, very good.

In a materialistic point of view, that's true. But when we start looking socially and morally, we're not there yet. Now, at this point I'm not going upon the barricades for some alternative weardness, but we are bothered in the Netherlands about the general feeling that everyone is doing it all just for themselves and nobody is bothered by the wellbeïng of others. And most people here are complaining about that as well...:ko:

I'm bothered. And I know I can't break iron with my bare hands, I can't change the whole community in my own. But I've the feeling there's something to change. The last few months, the Dutch public media is changing. In the last months, two initiatives started. One, called 'clubvan100.nl' is a community of people who can help and people who need help. Everyone has some talent, and in the community all those talents are used to solve problems of others within that community for free. Like an exchange of services to and fro.

The fact that those things are happening, make me feel like there's something to change. The opinio gerneralis that individuals can't change anything gets broken down.

That's a good thing. It's pragmatic: No one has to change his/her life dramatically to enrole into such an initiative. Just those small things like doing the grocaries with your 85y/o neigbour... I mean: don't you need grocaries yourself?

No, It isn't that bad in Holland. Life's good to begin with, and the negative spiral of egocentric thoughts is getting toppled down. It's getting better and better, step by step...
July 2008
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