An average girl's perspective

Back home after a nice 3,5 week holiday in the south of England. Lots of things to do there, although the weather was a bit to cold to call it real summer. Picking up work from of today and hoping to post more regularly than I did in the last two months.

It seemed like such a good idea to have the family around the house and enjoy a barbecue party. It should be dry on Saturday according to the weather forecast. But then there is always our Dutch weather with it’s nasty tricks. So, although we could sit outside parts of the afternoon, every time it started raining and did we have to find shelter in the house.
So no barbecuing at the lawn, but HK and his brother using the cover of the garage to get the meat ready, bringing it in to the kitchen, where we kept it in the oven until the other things were done. The food was good though and the atmosphere too. My sister even thought she enjoyed it more this way, because she could eat the meat together with the salads, rice and potatoes instead of stuffing up while waiting until the meat was ready…
The day ended with watching TV for Life 8 and we saw among a lot of crap, a great Robbie Williams (that guy really knows how to play his audience) and the rock legends The Who and Pink Floyd. Hope it will influence and inspire our world leaders to make a generous gesture to relief poverty.

The past few days were nerve wrecking because work and income were both at stake. The company my partner works for is in rough waters at the moment and they are downsizing in two steps. The first round was in February, the second round in June. In Holland usually the principle of last in first out is used to determine who has to leave. In this case every professional group was subject to this “lifo principle”. Since my partner was the last one in (although 15 years ago!!) as work and safety professional, we were expecting that he would be laid off. But today we heard, HOORAY, no such thing happened. He can stay and that’s a HUGE relief I can tell.

Meanwhile I was unexpectedly offered a four day job at the Netherlands Center of Occupational Diseases where I already work as editor/webmaster. It is a challenging job in the field of knowledge management: gathering, developing and disseminating knowledge on occupational diseases. It was totally flattering that my colleagues proposed to ask me for that position, so I know they trust I can do the job. Had a thorough discussion about it at home first, because I’ll be gone to Amsterdam three days a week, work one day home. My daughter didn’t like that too much, but on the other hand she realized she will be at school most of the time. Altogether it will be a big difference starting somewhere in September, but I accepted it with pleasure and hope I’ll make it work.



So time to celebrate tonight and in the weekend, as it is HK’s birthday tomorrow and most of the next of kin are coming. Barbecue probably. Now I’m going to plant some of the flowering plants I bought this afternoon, to brighten up the front garden a little.

This weekend we celebrated my dads birthday at my parents home in Assen. After some thunderstorms it was much cooler, which was a relief. Assen is the town I grew up and spend 18 years. It’s in the north of Holland and only famous for its annual international motorcycle race, the Dutch TT, which always coincides with my dads birthday.

So although I don’t watch this sport at any time during the year, I always follow it with one eye with this race. Each year it’s a big festive event in Assen with a lot of bands performing, motor trials, people watching the qualification training sessions and a big fair. On the night before the race – Friday night – there are all kind of parties in town to entertain the crowd. About 100.000 – 120.000 people come to see the race each year, a lot of them by motor bike. When I was young there used to be riots, vandalism and small fires in town during the ‘Night of Assen’, but now it’s usually more peaceful.

To avoid the traffic we came to Assen in the middle of the day and left late on Saturday night. No problems then. We had a nice and quiet day, watching the Dutch soccer team under 20 loose the quarter final of the World Championships and preparing my dad for his new computer.

Today summer came at 8.46 am and the sun will be out for 16 hours and 45 minutes. Fortunately it’s not as hot as it was yesterday. More wind and some clouds. It was even bearable to sit outside for a while.

After one year at high school the summer vacation is dawning for BK. Next week the last series of big tests and this week finishing of all kinds of school projects. So I think this girl is really busy for the first time this year . Must say she is doing great, zealous working on the computer these days. Not too much TV, surfing, gaming and MSN going on as far as I can see.

Finished the second part of the ‘French assignment’ and I am glad they seemed pleased with the products I picked and the popular description sentences I made up. Unexpected problem was that I have to test the deep links to the resellers websites after removing the cookies from my computer: I had to log in manually in a pile of my own preferred sites again. Had a nice e-mail exchange with SS, the French project leader about work and other stuff that keeps us busy.

Yesterday they published a book on Dutch Bat, called Memories on Srebrenica – 171 talks with soldiers ("Herinneringen aan Srebrenica - 171 soldatengesprekken"). The soldiers were in Srebrenica in former Yugoslavia to protect the Muslim people, but were crushed by general Mladic in 1995. Ten years later it turns out that 40 percent of them have psychological and psychiatric problems, 10 percent suffers from PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). Apart from the terrible things that happened to the people of Srebrenica I think it’s an amazingly high percentage, considering it was supposed to be a peacekeeping operation. Wonder if any of these problems is reported as occupational disease.

Far to busy with work to write long entries. Have to be careful and not get hand, arm, neck problems typing and ‘mousing’ too much. The weather is much nicer since last Tuesday, so we can sit outside and even prepare a barbecue party for HK’s mum 81th birthday on Saturday. Hope to feel a bit better by then, because I caught a nasty cold with headache, cough and a stuffed nose.

Spend my evenings very lazy, watching some of the soccer world championships under 20 which take place in Holland. The Dutch team is unexpectedly good and play attractive. Very interesting to see ‘Dutch’ guys that actually come from 7 different countries (Suriname, Ghana, Bosnia etc.) play as a real team, advertising the multicultural spirit at its best.
Got Sex and the City episodes on DVD: I never saw it before and like it very much!



Lots of Dutch and European political problems going on and a interesting hunt for a mountain lion in the centre part of the country, called Veluwe (woods, moors). The ‘poema’ as it is called in Dutch is sighted a few times since last week and they try to catch it alive. Not many people understand how dangerous this animal can be if it gets hungry or feels trapped. So big wild life in Holland.

Have to go down not and check on BK’s homework. She has a test tomorrow on Dutch spelling and needs some more rehearsing.

Saw the movie ‘Girl, interrupted’ yesterday, which I thought was interesting to watch and well acted by Winona Rider and Angelina Jolie, but I was amazing by the picture they painted of psychiatry. Maybe because it was situated in the sixties, but I still think it was odd to put this depressed girl with a possible borderline disorder (doubtfull!) in a closed ward for 18 months. She came out well adjusted to society standards, but I’m not sure she should stay happy that way. The antisocial personality disorder was well acted though! Great performance by Jolie.

Friday night with some candles and the oil lamp and vivid memories of Rob. It’s was not too sad this year, just quiet remembrance….

Quite a cold and rainy weekend after one nice summary day on Friday. Had to do a lot of working, so that was easier now, but it didn’t feel like days off. Finished the first part of my work for the French client, a bit out of the ordinary, finding hardware compatible with Windows for use in the kitchen. By having a broad perspective you can come up with a lot of things, funny. Next week more of that to come. I started my report on the conference and did the first day and I did some work for the medical website too. Another 4 – 6 weeks with a lot of work to come.

Tomorrow I will light a candle and a little oil lamp in remembrance of my brother…. It seems so short since he passed away, but it’s already two years. Memories are still vivid and this time of year even more since every date reminds me of the days in SF, hoping and fearing at his bedside.

Long time back from the coast, where it was really hot, except on the moment it would have been nice (partying outside was not nice, because of the strong and cold wind). The conference was interesting, partly in English with guests from Norway, Finland, Germany and Scotland, but if you have to pay attention for two days it’s very tiring. My brochure was presented two the people that attended the conference and I got some nice reviews. Unfortunately they never said publicly that I wrote it. Vanity!

So I needed the weekend to recover, although I did some editing work on Saturday and Sunday. This week started with the Cnet project for Microsoft, which is totally different from what I do normally, but interesting for a while. Good contact with the French guy in charge of the project, he seemed positively surprised by the work I already did. Besides that two interviews and more editing work….. it is really working all day at the moment...