Fluently flu-ish

Wow, time flies! This reads like one of those obligatory "I'm not dead!" posts after a long period of blogging silence, but it is also honestly how I feel. The last couple of days I've been under the influence of a very violent and persistant virus, having what is euphemistically called 'stomach flu', but which I like to rename 'a snake writhing around in your intestines trying to rearrange som organs'. It wasn't pretty. I won't go into more detail.
But! Lots of other stuff happened, since my last post and before I got the bug. I've been promoted, meaning I am now no longer a generic-sounding 'project manager' but rather a 'publisher'. Sounds posher, is significantly more tricky to fill in on an entry-card to exotic holiday destinations (the first time I went to Africa the steward on the plane suggested we were creative with our job descriptions, putting 'artist' if you were a photographer, or 'writer' when you were a journalist; it would save us lots of time at customs. Sadly, I'd forgotten that by the time I went to Morocco in 2016, and I put in 'publisher' as my profession as 'project manager' wouldn't fit in the teeny-tiny space, and the customs official grilled me for 5 minutes about what I did, who I worked with, what kind of books I published, until he decided that school books must have something to do with the government, I wasn't a radical self-publishing element, and could safely be let into the country).
Also, I had my birthday (more on birthday baking in a next post), I visited London for a week, staying at a great Airbnb and enjoying it more than I'd expected from a city I've already visited six times, and of course I did lots of reading (birthdays always mean more books!). All of that and more, still to come, when I feel more like a human being than home to an intestinal snake! 

Survival mode

So these last two weeks I've been running on what I call 'survival mode'. This sounds very dramatic, but what it basically means is that I've been busy. Really busy. Not just with work stuff (although I do go quite a bit over the amount of hours agreed to when I was employed) but also with a lot of social things. Late nights, little sleep, lots to do, and not a lot of time to just sit back and relax.

So at some point during such busy times, my 'survival mode' kicks in. This means shutting down of all processes not strictly necessary, and focusing on the 'essentials'. During this time, I turn into the most efficient planning machine known to man ('efficient' seems to be a word people use a lot to describe me at any time, but it may be a bit disconcerting during survival mode): doing the things that need doing in the most logical and least time consuming order, delegating when possible, and letting everything else just fall by the wayside. This can take extreme forms: I find myself not taking off my shoes because I know I have to leave the house again in an hour's time, and taking them off and putting them back on again just takes too long. Or I will ask people to do the most mundane things for me (throw away used coffee cups) because it saves me a trip. Usually, when I catch myself doing those things, I can laugh at myself and tell myself I'm taking things a bit too far.
But the scarier part of this goes on inside my head, and I usually don't realise that until it's over. What happens is that I can only think in terms of actions. What do I need to do? How much time does it take? How important is it compared to the other things I still have to do? Is it dependent on the outcome of something else? Can I delegate it? What will people think if I don't do that thing? It's all about planning the next step, the next move. Things such as feelings or ideas, creative processes or general opinions just disappear from my head all together. I can look at angry people in amazement: who can waste time and put energy into something as mundane as being angry or annoyed? I waste no time in idle chit-chat, and talk about work stuff even during lunch breaks, because why would I spend time talking about someone's private life? When people ask me what I think of something, I can make up an opinion off the top of my head, but it's generally a then-and-there thing, not something I've been mulling over for a while. And even when I sleep, my head doesn't waste any time; I basically stop dreaming. Now I usually dream a lot, and quite vividly too, but I know I've entered survival mode when that stops.

Reading back the above, this sounds quite scary, but when I'm in survival mode, I don't realise that. I just keep on going. It's when I get out of it, and start having opinions, discussions, dreams, and conversations about movies or politics or holidays again that I realise; I have been removed from the real world. I was there, I took part, but I in my head I was somewhere else.
Basically, what it boils down to, is that I've been too busy. Not too stressed, because I don't suffer from the situation and can get out if it pretty quickly, but just doing too many things in a too short period of time. I haven't taken enough 'me time' (oh, how brattish that sounds). Generally I'm pretty good at focusing on the here and now, and taking time to read or write or just sit and think, but there are times when this 'mindfull' state of being is just not possible. Yes, I just wrote about 'mindfullness', and to get really new-agey, I have a quote for you:
When you are depressed you are living in the past
When you are anxious you are living in the future
When you are at peace you are living in the present
This is by Lao Tzu, and it doesn't really completely apply to my survival mode, but I still try to remind myself of it every now and then.

This morning I woke up with my head full of dreams, intentions to be creative (write, bake, blog) and the energy to take a long walk. To be sure, I have left my survival mode and am back in the real world. And I don't think my survival mode is a bad thing per se, because it gets me through the (sometimes unavoidable) busy times, being able to do everything I want without forgetting essential things or actions or people, but I prefer the creative, active, opinionated me. And after such a busy period, in the sharp contrast to the survival mode me, I like this me even better.

Summer hibernation

High summer, the period when all schools are closed for the holidays and the 'bouwvak' (= builder's vacation) is in session, is called 'cucumbertime' in the Netherlands. We produce a lot of cucumbers, mostly around this time of the year (although actually year-round, since they're grown in greenhouses) and apparently this is the only actual interesting piece of news in summer. 'Cucumbertime' denotes the time that nothing really happens, parliament isn't in session, most people are away on holiday, and we can all fall into a pleasant slumber while the German tourists take over our coastline and the Asian tourists take over everything else.
This year, we went on holiday really early, in the beginning of June, so we get to experience the whole cucumber event for the full length. And it is really true. Nothing really happens. People are contently slow, waking up late, going to bed early, doing nothing much in between. Except when you have to go to work of course, which I still have to do most days, but even there it is really quiet, a maximum of 20 emails a day, lots of time to catch up with colleagues or get down to annoying-and-lengthy-but-still-important tasks you couldn't find time for in the rest of the year. But you go home a bit earlier, do less when you actually are home, go to bed early and sleep badly because of the heat. And then repeat, until some time mid-August when the whole country suddenly snaps awake again (already, my work agenda has been filling up from the 20th of August down right until the beginning of October).

But this year, it's different. This year, a plane was shot down, and the whole country has been in a state of bewilderment and shock for about a week now. The most trivial facts suddenly become massively important, with the major news outlet sending out push messages whenever our king or prime minister utters a few words in public. Also, news reporters are reporting more about their own personal experiences on their respective sites, than that they're doing much actual reporting. And everybody has to know everything about everything that happened and everybody who was affected and it's like there is nothing else happening in the world but bodies being found and moved and put into trains and trains moving to other cities and bodies being put into air planes and air planes flying to the Netherlands and bodies being put into cars and cars going some place where they will finally identify said bodies. That, and the Tour the France, of course.

Somehow, it all feels like cucumbertime squared. It's just so many tiny details that in ordinary life are important to no one but are now suddenly massive news. It's not about the politics behind this, or the war, or about the humanity, it's all about the little details. The vox pop, the human side of things. Interviewing anyone and everyone remotely connected to aviation, the military, the deceased, etcetera. It's like we're still not realising that this year, there will be no pleasant summer slumber, this year, something really happened, something massively important, and that we should pay attention. To the big things, the times in motion, not the small details. It's like they're still wanting to speak to the lady who just learnt to double park her caravan, while that same caravan has just been shot down by tent salespeople. Or some other weird analogy.

In any case, it feels pretty surreal, and maybe the best thing to do is to return to our summer hibernation and return when the world has somehow been patched together again. And we will be able to process this as normal news, in the normal way. Which is not to disregard anyone's feelings in this thing, it's just an observation on the way news travels and is digested in these long, slow summer months.

New phone

So I got a new smart phone. Some of my colleagues are still naively awaiting the day that we will all get one for free from our employer, but I don't really think that's ever going to happen, and if it will I will probably be in an employee category that doesn't get one. Also, I would be devastated to get a nice shiny new smart phone that isn't really mine and that I can't really play games on or install other nice apps on because it should be professional and nonsense-free. So I got a new one myself.
I got my first smart phone for free with my phone subscription, and it was new and shiny and marvellous with its touch screen and key board, and really it was actually already outdated when I bought it, which means that after 2.5 years the battery kept dying on me and I couldn't actually update the software anymore because my phone was too old to understand it. I had the same problems with the two (non-smart) mobile phones I had before that: kept buying the things I like, but those things had already gone out of style, which is why I could get them cheaply, but also why they wouldn't function properly anymore after a couple of months.
So this time, I wanted do things differently.
I bought a phone that has only been on the market for 3 months, the newest type in a very popular series, so that several friends and co-workers went 'ah, you have the same one as I do, only the newer version'. Which felt like I'd spend my money wisely, because this time it definitely won't stop functioning properly before I'm actually done with it.
On the other hand, having this very shiny, very new, very expensive (okay, could be worse, but quite expensive) thing makes me kind of anxious. I was never really worried about losing or dropping my old phones (I have in fact never lost or dropped them, so it wouldn't have been a very rational fear), but somehow I feel like I am more responsible for this one because it was more expensive. And because it is newer. And because I made the decision to buy this one much more consciously than with the previous ones, where I just went 'oh, keypad, I like it!'.
I'm not one of those phone-obsessed people that always wants to have the newest and fastest thing, but now I kind of feel like one because I'm so overly attentive to this one.
But it will pass, I know. In a couple of months there will be a newer, shinier version, and anyway, I tend to forget what things cost me pretty quickly, which is a pretty good financial survival instinct. But the next thing I got after choosing which phone I wanted was a protective case. Which went on almost before I got the phone out of the box. And which will probably save me many more anxious moments to come.

Time

I've known for quite a while that time goes faster as you get older, but I wasn't expecting it to go this fast!
I seriously cannot believe that it was a week ago that I wrote my Modern Art post - it feels like yesterday. Days are flying past at an amazing speed, one moment it's Monday morning and I'm on my bike thinking of the things I want to do at work that day, the next it's almost Friday afternoon and I've barely managed to squeeze everything I wanted to do into the past week. Which also included extra unexpected things, such as hauling my bike through the snow and over icy roads, and meeting people I hadn't seen for a very long time. It's not that I'm overly stressed or overly busy, it's just that even when I think I don't have lot to do, things creep into the free time that I thought I had. All nice things, but they take up time. Also, my evenings are usually pretty full, which doesn't help, because having lots of things to do makes time go even faster.
So I'm party happy that time is going fast, because it means I'm busy and doing lots of things, and as they are mostly things I like to do, without stress or other negatives attached, it's all good. I'm also partly unhappy, because it feels like I never have time to do the things I want to do whenever I have a free moment, such as finishing my book, sending a few postcards, writing a blog post (I've been meaning to write about Hemingway and the First World War for a while now), or even filling the bird feeder in the garden. The things that make you relax and make your brain stop whirring for a while. People then tell you to 'make time', and if anybody can explain to me how to pull that one off, I'll be eternally grateful.
For now, I'll just continue on the crazy-busy road filled with crazy-busy, but very nice, things.

Life talks

When I was in university, most conversations with friends were about university stuff: studying, boring subjects, impossible deadlines, weird lecturers, mad dashes from one building to another to make it to the next lecture, expensive food in the canteen, classes that went on till 22:00, anything and everything to do with our main occupation. Apart from that, we had conversations about hobbies and tv-series we were watching and the weird habits of our roommates, because we were still having time for hobbies and tv-series and living with random other people.
I have several friends who are still in university, and our conversations are generally about their world: university. This is a world we both know and can both relate to.
Then you get to the second 'step' in the conversational ladder: work. We are both working full-time, and several of our friends do too. These conversations are all about work: what we do, whether we like it, strange twists and turns in company policy, the quality of coffee in the pantries, conferences, weird co-workers and their weird habits, how much money we make, things that went very wrong, the joys and problems of office landscape, again; anything and everything to do with our main occupation. With friends that are still in university, you can't really have these conversations, because they've never experienced 'the working life' (or more accurately 'the office life'). The same is true for the next step on the conversational ladder, the step that I haven't yet taken but some of my co-workers have (and some of my acquaintances, which I haven't really spoken to since, as will become clear in a moment): children. Even though we share the same work environment, most of the non-work-related conversations I have with co-workers are about their children. What they eat (and don't eat), when they go to sleep, wake up, what funny things they did or said, what they're doing in daycare, what they're learning in school, what their teachers are like, what they did during the weekend, how much they like or hate their other siblings, anything and everything to do with their children.
Now I can't really participate in these conversations, because I don't have any children of my own. Somehow, this doesn't stop the subject from appearing or being discussed, even though my side of the conversation is only that of attentive listener with the occasional remark.
This made me wonder: why is it that I don't talk about work things with university friends, but that people with children do talk about their children with people who don't have them? Is it because children are considered such a universal topic that anyone must be interested and also have something to say on the subject? We all know children, we've all been one for a part of our lives, so the subject must be okay? Or is it that once you have children, there is no room in your life or in your head for anything else, and it is the only subject you can really express yourself on? Maybe I will find out when I get my own.

As always, there are exceptions to the rules above. I have several co-workers who refuse to talk about their children at work, stating it as 'un-professional'. They (generally men) talk about soccer, other sporting endeavours and tv-programs. Also, those co-workers with children who are older, secondary school or above, generally talk about films, cooking, books, or other generic topics.
And then there are the friends who do have a job and no children, but don't feel the need to talk about their work all the time. With these friends you can have in-depth conversations about travels or life plans or other major subjects, the things that you usually don't really get to with all the people mentioned above. These are the real conversations, with the real friends, with whom you can talk about the important stuff regardless of what life phase they or you are in.
But otherwise, conversationally speaking, I'm on the middle step. I do wonder whether I can still relate to my university-step friends when I get to the children-step. Only time will tell.

Eat to live

In the Netherlands, people generally bike a lot. Looking at the 'bike basement' at my job, and the parking lot in front of the building, I'd say the ratio is pretty much 50-50, with those coming by car usually living more than 10 km from work and/or having to drop off several small children at day care before they come to work (lots of people also bike around with a small child in front and one in the back, but if you're working in a place that expects you to arrive relatively wrinkle and sweat-free, this isn't really an option).
I'd say most of us are a pretty healthy bunch: hardly any smokers, most people use the stairs when moving between floors, and a lot exercise or walk or move in any other way. The other company in our building is a health insurance company, which ironically has a larger percentage of smokers, and more elevator-users, although to be completely honest we do work on the 5th floor whereas they might be on the 11th.
Anyway, apparently, we're not healthy and sporty enough. Last week, there were leaflets in the canteen, stating that coming to work by bike was healthier than driving a car (which I'm sure most people know, and those able to bike generally already do so). The leaflet ended with a table of foodstuffs, and how many minutes one would have to bike to 'lose the calories' in that food. You come across these lists quite a lot, especially in women's magazines. There are several things that surprise, and maybe even worry, me about this development.
Firstly, it somehow emits the messages that when you bike, it's okay to eat these fatty things. You've biked to work? Great! Have a packet of crisps! As if it is somehow a reward you deserve for undertaking the great exhausting move of coming by bike.
Secondly, there are only unhealthy things on the list: crisps, candy bars, chips, other fried foods (egg rolls etc) but also hamburgers and other 'whole meal' options. Why not show how little time you need to 'lose' an apple or a wholemeal cracker? Wouldn't that be more motivating?
Finally, it makes it seem as if the only reason we eat, is to lose it as quickly as possible. As if you don't actually need the vitamins, protein, and fat (yes, fat) in your food. As if the only reason you're eating is to have something to do in your lunch break, and it's only purpose is to run through your body as quickly as possible and then be gone.
Now I know these leaflets won't really get much attention in our canteen, as most people already eat fruits, yogurt, salads, wholemeal buns and other healthy things. But I cannot help but remember the colleagues I had at the sandwich shop at the train station, who would literally tell each other 'I can have cookie today, because I came by bike!'. If that's the way we're treating food these days, not as something you need to survive, but as a treat you give yourself for doing a normal thing like move around, then I don't think we're going in the right direction. Having a piece of chocolate or a bag of crisps is nice every now and then, but just to enjoy it, not because you've already worked off the calories it contains.

To have or not to have

Now that Netflix has finally arrived in the Netherlands, lots of newspaper commentators are going on and on about the 'new society'  in which people no longer want to have certain things, they just want to have access to these things. They no longer want a rack full of CDs, they'll just listen to their music on Spotify. They no longer want row upon row of DVDs, they'll just watch whatever they feel like on services like Netflix. They no longer need a bookcase full of books, they'll just have one eReader/Kindle with thousands of copies, with more ready to be downloaded online. Homes will be come empty spaces, filled only with the devices needed to access the outside world.
I think this is true to a certain extend, namely the extend of the young and hasty, who do not have time to go out and buy books or other objects, but do want to have them ready and waiting at those sparse moments they actually have time to read a book/watch a film/etc. And as it is the young and hip we hear most about in the media today, this makes it seem as if everybody is living this way.
But there is one important factor that these enthusiastic article writers are forgetting: people who will just order a film on Netflix could just as easily have bought it. To them, there is no difference. They have enough money and means to buy both the object itself or access to that object. To those people who do not have the money to buy these things, the actual posession is still very important. When they loose access to Netflix when they are not able to pay their fees, they still want to have that DVD laying around. They need the security of knowing these things won't go away when the money tides turn against them.
Not needing to own things is a new way of saying; I am able to buy all these things, but I'm not, because I don't have to. In that way, it's falls in the same category as so many expressions of wealth and 'better than thou' actions over the centuries.
Moreover, all those young and hip people not buying books and films are the same young and hip queueing for the new iPhone or GTA V coming out. So the 'access is enough' thing only goes so far.
Finally, there are of course still many people who do want to own a certain novel, LP, or DVD, for whatever romantic reason (not wanting to live behind a screen the whole day is a good one for me). Only its those romantic 'lagging behind'  types that you don't often read about in the media. Which does not mean they don't exist. Even stronger, I'd say most people belong to this latter category. And the fact that you're not reading about them all day is another clue that those 'not owners' are in it partly to show off their ability of not-possession. We don't need to tell everyone how well off we are not owning things: we'll just keep quiet about the stuff we (can) have.

Realists and dreamers

We have this self-sufficiently book, The New Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency by John Seymour, and today for the first time I noticed the sub-heading: "for realists and dreamers". Which struck me as very apt in our case, because we have been thinking about growing more veg and fruit, and also planning to live in a more rural setting and maybe having some chickens and/or a goat and trying to 'live off the land'  more for quite a while now, but so far it's mostly been dreaming. And also, were realists enough to see that it will remain just dreaming for quite some time to come. So in a way, we're both realists and dreamers.

Dreaming isn't bad, I love to dream about many things: taking a year off to sail around the world, or just backpack around it, or going to Africa to film things in the Big Cat Diary way, or doing a fantastic internship at Penguin or just moving to the English countryside to write novels, or to New York and be a sort of Desmond Morris-like city-biologist/anthropologist, or any other variation that does not involve the job I currently have, the house and city I currently live in, and the things I currently do every day. And I know there are people who actually quit their job and sell their home and start up a little farm/restaurant in the middle of France, or start a diving school in Mozambique, or write novels on a mountaintop in China. But then, that's not really me. I'm not the one to leave everything behind and start somewhere new. I need a firm base, a mother ship so to speak, to return to. Also, I'm not the kind of person who can just drop their cats and books and tea off at someone else's and not return in a year. I need a lot of things to keep me happy and comfortable. So even though I would love to do all those things, I'm both a dreamer and a realist, and I see it's not really going to happen any time soon.

But that does not mean I'm not a little bit jealous at those people who actually do do these things. But I comfort myself with the thought that in the case of the little cottage/farm with the vegetable plot, fruit trees, and chickens, there is the smallest chance of it actually happening one day.

September in the air

Joe Fox: Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me wanna buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address. On the other hand, this not knowing has its charms.

Famous lines from a famous film (You've got Mail, in case you were wondering, which is still the only proper film Tom Hanks ever made, maybe apart from Forrest Gump).

Strangely enough, the atmosphere it conveys, of autumn and falling leaves, of crisper air and new beginnings, that atmosphere has been hanging around for the last week. Somehow, it's September weather in the middle of August. The nights are getting properly cold again, the air smells wet and faintly rotting, and somehow all around people are talking about new beginnings, about changing things in their lives, about doing things differently.
Now autumn is still my favourite season of the year, so I'm not complaining, but it is a bit worrisome that somehow this years summer only lasted about 3 weeks. We had cold and snow until well into May, then we had cold and wet, then we had some heat, and now we're down into cold and wet again.
Also, I am still feeling faintly worried about not having re-applied to university, as this is the first time in 9 years I won't actually re-enroll, because I've graduated, but the nagging feeling of I-still-have-to-do-something-really-important-but-I-can't-remember-what-it-is is still lingering.
About the new beginnings: several colleagues are planning on eating less sweets, exercising more, etc, with the really ambitious planning to work less the coming year (by 'less' I don't mean 'less than they're supposed to work' but rather 'less outrageous overtime'). I like this atmosphere of new chances, it is always more energized and hopeful in September than in January, when the obligatory New Year's resolutions come around. We all know it's not going to happen, but the motivation and energy it brings is helpful to us all.

But still, I wouldn't mind a couple of days (maybe a weekend?) of nice, sunny, warm summer weather!

The read-on moment

So I've been reading The Hundred-Year-Old Man who Climbed out of a Window and Disappeared, the novel that ' everybody'  has read and that is still in the top 10 of English novels at my local book shop (where, probably, about 10 people buy an English book a week, so it may not be a very accurate representation), and to tell you the truth, I didn't like it very much.
The writing style interesting, typically Scandinavian (even in translation this shines through), and it takes a while to get into. Jonasson likes to explain things that are very very obvious. He likes to give so many details that when asked you could actually tell which colour someones toe-nails were painted. He likes to make most of his characters either very stupid or very weird. All of this is amusing, funny even, when you start to read, but as you get to page 50 you start to think: is he still using this trick? I'm kinda done with it now!
Around page 150, I was seriously contemplating not reading any more. I hardly ever put down a book without completely finishing it, but this might have been one of those rare cases.
But then, somehow, he made me read on. It was not that the story gripped me (I won't spoil too much, but it is sort of a murder-mystery combined with Forrest Gump, only in this world, Forrest would be one of the normal guys compared to most of the characters), you can see where this story is going from about chapter 2. No, his writing style somehow got better, more natural, less in-your-face typical. The annoying little side-steps and superfluous 'of course' and minute detail somehow worked. It felt like Jonasson himself was struggling to get to this part of the novel, and now that he was half-way, and knew where it was going, he could somehow relax and write better.
Which is funny, because that is exactly what happens when I write a novel.
But leaving that aside, for me, every novel has sort of a 'read-on' moment, when you get totally immersed in the story and just cannot put it down. For some novels, this is the first line, such as "Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much" or "Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her" (if you don't know where these are from and do care, look them up). Sometimes it takes a while, such as with A Game of Thrones, the novel that a friend had been bugging me to read for months some time around 2004, and when I finally started, it took quite a while for me to like it (I've re-read it several times now, and it still takes a while). Several Neil Gaiman novels have the same effect. Other novels you can't really appreciate until you've finished them, and then you have to go back and re-read them. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was one of those for me, and The Remains of the Day too.
It makes me wonder whether everyone experiences these 'read-on' moments, and whether they're actually the same moments for everyone. And are they really the moments an author was fully confident that their story was going to work, or are they imposed upon the novel by the reader?
With my next new novel, not sure which one it's going to be, but I'll try to pick a good one, I'm going to try and keep track of this. I still have to finish reading about the 100-year-old first, although that does not seem like such a problem anymore now.

Autumn colours

I love autumn colours. I may have mentioned this before, and it is something that is usually on the back of my mind throughout the year, but when they actually arrive in full force, I can't help but be amazed at how much I love them.
Yesterday we drove to the zoo in my hometown and there were stretches of road that were completely orange or red or yellow, or a beautiful combination of them all. When we were in the US I was dying to see some famous "fall foliage" and I'm really sad that we missed it, but now that I see the stuff around here I'm wondering if it was always this good and I have just been missing what was right in front of me all those years? Surely, the world was never this pretty and warm-coloured and showering leafs down by the bucket load?
Sadly, they're usually gone within the week. Also, because of some weird warm weather we've been having lately, some trees are still enthusiastically and brightly green, while others are completely bare already. Again, not sure if this happens every year, but it struck me.
It's one of those things where I go "ooh, that's pretty" and then not take a photograph or make myself look better, thinking that it will still be there the next time I'm around, but it never is, and I always feel sad about missing it, or not really seeing it. But that's how it goes, I guess, even though most people now do take pictures and put everything on Facebook for the whole world to see and remember, I'm sure many young parents today will still go "they grow up so fast! It feels like they were still babies yesterday!" when their kids go off to live on their own.
And in a way it's good you can't remember everything, or your head would explode.

Anyway, even though I haven't been taking pictures myself, I've been asking for autumn colours on Postcrossing, and I got some especially nice ones that I can't help but share with you. They're from around the world, although of course pretty much restricted to the northern hemisphere (one of the reasons I'd never move to Australia, I don't think I'd be able to survive without a proper autumn).

US-1895607 received 9 October 2012

FI-1562808 received 15 October 2012

JP-319569 received 15 October 2012

ETA: oops, nearly forgot this one, which shows beautiful Lapland:

FI-1552323 received 4 October 2012

(I have more general forest/forest path cards too, which I think are lovely and magical and beautiful in their own way, but I'll save those for another day.)

Space connections

So yesterday I watched Felix Baumgartner jump from his balloon back to Earth. I wasn't alone in doing this, apparently 8 million people were watching the live YouTube stream at the time of his jump. Now apart from the fact that I wouldn't even be able to blink my eyes if I knew 8 million others were watching me do it, I think this really shows how information and the sharing of information has taken a giant leap forward in the past few years. 5 years ago, nobody could have imagined something like this being streamed on the Internet for that many people to watch. Information has become available to all in so many ways, it is almost impossible to keep up. I know a lot of people are angry at Facebook and Google because of their 'share everything' policy, as it sends your information to advertisers. But in general, the principle is undoubtedly very good. Also, I think it shows how humans all over the world are inherently similar in so many ways, which will do even more to connect people and possibly work against future misunderstandings, discrimination, and wars.
Yes, I know, I'm both an optimist and a pacifist.
In other space news today, there is a Dutch company, Mars One, aiming to settle the first human settlement on Mars around 2023. Not for any lofty scientific purposes, no, they want to make a reality series out of it. The audience would be able to select which group of settlers is allowed to go first, and then follow their every move. Voting people off would be a bit difficult, as once they land on Mars, they won't be able to ever go back again. This means that those crazy enough to go (they appear to have 1,000 applications already) will be stuck on Mars for the rest of their lives. And those lives will be streamed back to Earth 24 hours a day, for as long as they all shall live.
I am unsure what to think of this. I am uninterested in reality series personally, but not against them per se if the people participating are aware of what they are doing and have fully agreed to it. It is another side of the 'information free for all' I just mentioned. However, I do think the exploration of another planet may be a bit too serious to throw into a reality tv format. Then again, sponsoring and actually achieving the goal (a human settlement on Mars) may be easier to achieve this way than through academic/scientific missions, and if we have to choose between no exploration or exploration through commercial means, then the latter is probably the better option. Still, it feels different than watching Felix make his record jump, even if in principle, it is the same thing...

A Writing Rush

So apart from the internship (which I will not say much about apart from that it took some time to get used to working in an office with a lot of other people around me after working at home for so long, but which is going very well and which I am enjoying immensely) I am also writing my MA dissertation. This is the final big piece of independent research I am required to do before I can graduate, and it has to be about 15,000 words. I'd known since last year, when I took a course on the subject, that I wanted to write about Jane Austen, and already arranged my proposal and background chapter before going to the US.
But then, when I came back, the struggle began. How to start. I think this is the biggest problem most people who have to do a really big assignment that will span several months face, and for me, it was no different. I was planning to start the Friday after we came back, but no, to much other stuff to do; the Monday then, no, to many appointments; the Tuesday, no, then I had a meeting with supervisor and could still put it off until finally, last Friday, I actually started writing. This feels like it was weeks ago, so I am surprised to think that I've only been officially writing for 5 days. By that time, mind you, I was completely freaking out, already behind on my own schedule by 2 weeks, and convinced I would never finish the thing.
I know a lot of people are freaking out about their dissertations right now, as it is already October and we have to be done before February, but as usual, I should not have bothered. About an hour ago, I finished my first chapter. It's 2,500 words, it compares the two novels I wanted to use in depth, using 3 primary and 8 secondary sources. I have no idea how I do this, but somehow, whenever I start writing, things just work. I get into this zone of writing, which usually lasts about 3 hours, and at the other end I'm halfway there. Add another day like that and most of the chapter is there, and then a final day to make some changes, put in some extra footnotes, and check the last things, and done.
This does not mean that the chapter is 100% done, of course, I could keep adding more onto it until my entire dissertation consists of just this chapter (which I won't do, obviously, unless my supervisor wants me to add something), I still have to re-read it to see if I don't want to change any sentences (I haven't even spell-checked it) and also, once my supervisor has looked at it she may well ask me to rewrite the whole thing. But most of it is there. Again, I have no idea how I do this or why this works for me. It's highly efficient, as I'm done after only a couple of hours work each day, but this somehow bothers me and I keep sitting behind my computer thinking up all the things I could be doing (right now, I'm already writing stuff for the second chapter, the easy bits which don't need that much thinking over) just because I feel like I should be doing more. I know some people are jealous of me because it seems to come so easily, but they may be forgetting that I'd already read 15 books on this subject (plus the 6 novels I'm using) before I started writing, and that I've been thinking about this stuff for 3 months now. So it's not that strange that things easily form connections and make sense in my head, but also, it's not as if it's effortless, because I am completely drained after a day's work.
Still, it feels like I should be doing more, as if it's coming too easy to me, as if what I've written can never be good enough. Over the years, I've tried to ignore that voice and just handed things in a week before the deadline only to stop myself from fidgeting about it when it was really done. I think I should do the same with my dissertation, even though it feels really weird to stop working before 15:00 when you still have so much to do. But if I can do that amount in a really short time period, maybe I should start enjoying all the time that is left over a bit more, instead of worrying. Ah, if only...

A chameleon of accents

It was during one of my first classes for my bachelor English, I think it must have been some Linguistics course, that I realised that not everybody speaks the same English. Up until that moment, British English and American English and Australian English sounded perfectly similar to me (I did like the people in Australian series better, but that may have been because the Australians simply make better youth tv series). This was the same as listening to my grandfather speak to my mother, he with a strong local accent, she answering in standard Dutch: I could understand both of them, so I didn't notice that they were speaking different accents.
After thinking about this for a while, I have decided that this was not weird. It may have been weird because I was studying English, and thus must have had some under laying affinity with the language, and thus may have noticed these differences before, but as I was mainly studying English for the written variety (literature, perhaps writing some things myself), this wasn't really an issue.
But for me, accents have never really been an issue. My mother never tires of telling how I, after we'd been in France for a couple of days, perfectly adapted to the French accent and would call "mama!" in the French rather than the Dutch way (there is a strong difference between these two), copying the French kids around me. I have also spoken with an Amsterdam accent for a while, which may have been influenced by the tv programmes I watched. Then, when I started getting friends in the south of the Netherlands, my accent shifted to their pronunciation, sometimes to the confusion of my northerly friends.
It took quite a long while to fix on a 'proper' accent for my English studies (yes, we get proficiency in the language as well), perhaps because of all the mixed influences I was getting. I have been called Mid-Atlantic by some, which is not really a compliment. But finally, I picked British English, and passed my speaking courses with this. However, after only a week in America, people started to ask me where I lived or studied, as my accent was so genuine (I have since found out that Americans will say that someones English is 'great' when they can utter simple sentences, but I have the feeling that this went a bit further than that). I also noticed in myself that I started pronouncing things in an American way; rhotic (that means, pronouncing the 'r' in certain locations in words, Americans do this, most British don't) and generally rolling the words around in my mouth more, the way Americans do.
I think this is simply an adaptive strategy. When I talked in British English, I sometimes had to repeat myself as others did not immediately understand me. When I went with the American accent, it was easier to make myself understood, and it was also easier to deal with things without getting the added 'she's a foreigner!' bit. Same goes for my Dutch accents; it is adaptive, but also a way of blending in. When in the south of the country, if you speak in a strong northern accent, people will look at you in a funny way, and you immediately feel like you don't belong.
I have no idea why I do this (it is clearly not a conscious effort on my part, even more, I was trying to maintain my British accent in America and failed miserably): it is an automatic thing. When talking to an Indian shopkeeper in America, I almost replied to him with an Indian accent, but caught myself just in time (I was afraid he may have thought that I was making fun of him or something). It comes in handy, usually, as like I said people will take less notice and you will blend in. But it does puzzle me, and sometimes worries me a bit. The way you speak shows where you're from, your background, your culture, your roots. If I will just adapt to whatever location I find myself in, people will never go "ah, but she's from the north! clearly!" when I open my mouth. This may be a good thing, in some instances, but on the whole I would like it if my accents would be a bit more stable, and I would be a little bit less of a copycat.

Administrative blaaaaaa

I realise that administration, paperwork, and contracts are what makes this world go round. I also realise that it is what keeps all of us from throwing ourselves into things without knowing for sure what they will bring us or what we can expect from others. I know there have to be rules and regulations, but surely, not this many?
The first thing I'm kinda getting fed up on: contracts. I've signed a contract with the company I will do an internship for, which I think is logical, as they will be providing me with lots of information and a workspace and what not, and they'd like to see me commit to actually giving them something in return. Conversely, I still have to write up and have signed (by 4 different people) the contact between me, the university, my university supervisor and my company supervisor saying that we will all help me get the internship done and that the uni will then give me credit (the final 10 ECTs). It's a lot of work, because it requires all kinds of specific wording and many many things which I don't know yet, so I'm spending a lot of time thinking about this stupid piece of paper, which should not be the main thing on my mind right now. Finally, I still have to write up a contract with my dissertation supervisor. That's right, it has gotten this far; because students can't trust their supervisors (to help them properly) and the university doesn't trust students (to finish on time, which is actually resonable), we have to sign a piece of paper saying that we both commit to me finishing the 15,000 words on time and her helping me do that.
I mean, where is the trust? I can see how the uni and the internship company have to protect themselves from me not doing anything (while they either pay me or give me credit) or how I have to protect myself from them not providing the things I need, but seriously, my dissertation supervisor? With whom I chat about my US travels, grading papers, the new Jane Austen film, and what-not? Sigh...
Then there is the paperwork that comes with either travelling or moving to another country (I have no experience with the latter, but yesterday I spend the afternoon helping a friend who will move to Sweden on Tuesday, and boy, does it involve a looooot of paperwork). Sticking to our US trip, we have insurance, pre-booked tickets (there is literally only 1 venue that offers will-call, for the rest we have to print them out and carry them around for 2 weeks), international driver's licences, booking confirmations... the list is endless. I am starting to realise why people take these all-in vacations where you don't have to do anything yourself (including thinking), although I'd really hate to do one of those, so plodding on here.
Moral of the story; anyone who tells you that paper is dead and everything will become digital soon, they're either lying or don't get out much. Paper is what this world runs on. It is also what my desk is filled with, and what makes it impossible for me to do the things I should be doing, as there's other stuff to fill in or sign or print out first.
The only good thing is that I know that once the trip is done (and we've actually used all those bits of paper), the internship is on it's way, and the dissertation is going smoothly, I'll be happy I've done all this administrative prep. Something to look forward to!

End of summer smell

The smell is in the air again. I can't really describe it, but once I smell it, I know that it is August, probably mid leaning towards the end, and that A New Year is Coming.
That is to say, a new school year. This smell sets off feelings of both excitement and anticipation (a new school year! A new class! What will I do, learn, see?) and sadness (but summer is over! Where did all those weeks gooooo?) in my head. Usually, this is the period that I'm fully relaxed, have read everything I wanted to read, have done everything wanted to do, and am fully charged for a new year of activities. When in university, I'd be busy buying or ordering my books, checking out timetables, arranging my new work schedule, etc. Overall, this is a good time, a relaxed, happy time.
Not this year.
This year, I worked through the summer, initially doing various small jobs which then had larger things tacked onto them until they became quite big jobs. Then there was the preparation for my MA dissertation (which is still not finished), the administrative business for my internship next year (which is not even half-way) and all the prep for our big trip to the US in 2 weeks time. I don't feel relaxed, I don't feel like I've done any of the things I wanted to do or read any of the books I wanted to read, I'm not happily preparing for a new year as I still don't have a clue what or where or how that new year will be spend, and overall, I'm in a state of skin-deep panic rather than a nice tinge of anxiety.
This is probably over-reacting, but that is what a big trip to an unknown country (country? continent!) followed by an internship at a big fancy publishing company combined with an MA dissertation will do to you.
It's not like I haven't done anything this summer: we went on several day trips and spend a weekend away, and we generally had a very nice time with friends. But overall, it's been the same as most normal weeks of the year: boyfriend leaves the house to work for 8 hours, I stay in the house to work for 8 hours, and in the evenings we're tiredly trying to make sense of Tripadvisor or the Lonely Planet or government websites or Ticketmaster (this last thing we don't usually do, of course). We still have quite a large to-do list and I still don't feel like I know anything about the places we're going. We will take a sailing trip next weekend, which is also slightly freaking me out as I feel like I'm 'wasting away' those last precious free hours we have (which is nonsense, and it's probably very healthy to take a bit of a break away from home right now, to clear my head). Again, all of this is probably strictly speaking neither true nor fair, but as I said, panic mode is starting to set in.
So let's hope I'll get back from the US fully relaxed and re-charged. And let's hope that smell, flowers mixed with dried grass mixed with all kinds of herbs mixed with anticipation, is still in the air, so I can have a bit of a do-over for the End of the Summer.

Home or away?

I've been studying English Language & Culture for 4 years now, and I naturally feel a great affinity with Great Britain. Maybe that's even an understatement: I love the atmosphere, the nature, the countryside, the people, the culture. I usually only watch BBC programs, most of my favourite authors are British, and I know more about British culture, history, and arts than any other country, including my own. I've always loved British novels and tea, but now I've also acquired a taste for many other traditionally British things, including many bakery things, rugby, (British) theatre, and of course British humour (I still can't figure out cricket, but I will one day!).
So usually, when there's a sporting event, I back both the Netherlands and Great Britain (or England if the countries compete separately, as in the Six Nations Cup). I thought I might get into a bit of a conscience conflict with the 2012 Olympics, as these are held in London and I felt that I would probably back Great Britain more than the Netherlands.
Interestingly, the opposite has happened. I've cheered for the Dutch so much more, especially when competing against Great Britain, which happened mostly in the sailing, cycling, and equestrian sports, that I've been thoroughly annoyed at all the medals the Brits keep winning. Even more, in other sports I'm also starting to oppose the British, and starting to favour people from countries I'd never thought I'd like (yesterday I cheered for Ivan Ukhov in the high jump, but he's just the most eccentric athlete you've ever seen...). In any case, blood apparently does run thicker than water.
I wonder how this will play out when the Olympics are over. I'm generally not a huge admirer of Dutch culture or customs, even though I write extensively about them on my Postcrossing cards, I often think that I'd rather live somewhere less narrow, less self-absorbed, where people have more respect for others (I'm now thinking that probably everyone feels this way about their country, but hey). But then where ever I'd go, I'd probably still feel inherently Dutch, even though I'd always thought I'd easily adapt to whatever environment I'd find myself in. Not that I would be one for importing drop and hagelslag (Dutch things) because I couldn't do without them, but this has shown me that the Dutch thing is ingrained deeper than I thought.
Another positive revelation is that I apparently don't automatically back the horse that is doing best. The Netherlands are doing great, with 5 gold medals so far, but Great Britain is really on a roll. All I can say is: good for them!

PS: The title is from a round of questions in A Question of Sport, another BBC program, great fun even for non-sport lovers!

Life's phases

So today I open my Facebook news feed, and the first thing I see is that one of my old fellow biology students got engaged to her boyfriend. Last Saturday, I discovered that the first boyfriend I ever had (I was 16) had gotten married to his girlfriend of 8 years. A week before that, an old friend with whom I've lost contact also married, and he (well, his wife) is expecting his first child soon. I know of 2 other upcoming weddings this summer, one of which I'm actually invited to.
See a pattern emerging? I certainly do! Somehow, I now find myself in the "getting married" life stage. A few of my friends jumped the gun on this one, and are already in the "buying the first house" stage, while some are taking the "first child" stage a bit early (see above), and some can't be bothered about marriage anyway, but on the whole, most of the long-lasting relationships around us are getting married. How did this suddenly happen?
For me, it is kinda strange, because my friends can be divided along 2 lines: those I know from secondary school and my first study, who are all roughly 25-30, and those who I know from my second study, who are all roughly 20-25. The second group are mostly still students, busy moving out of their student rooms and getting their first rental houses, busy finding the perfect partner or thinking up what they actually want to do with their lives. The first group has got that pretty much covered, most of them already have permanent jobs (some of them own their own companies!) and houses, and are now ready for The Next Step. I somehow find myself in between these groups; I'm still studying, but also already working quite a lot and my boyfriend has a steady job, we've already lived in our own rental home for almost 4 years now, but are clearly not doing any of the Next Step stuff, because hey, it's a bit early isn't it?
I wouldn't say it's freaking me out, or letting me feel that I'm 'behind' (or 'ahead', for that matter), but it makes me think. People tend to move in packs, and apparently I can't decide whether I'm going to go early into the next stage, or linger around a bit in a stage that most of my friends have already left behind. This won't last much longer, I can tell you, because in half a year I will be finished and I will (hopefully) be working, and then we will also find ourselves in the "hey, suddenly I've got all this money, let's do something with it!" stage that you get between finishing your studies and getting children (clearly, I have no experience with this myself, but some of my cousins (with young children) sigh at my imagined freedom and financial wealth to come. But then they all waited until they were 35 before they had their first child, and that's not something I want to do. Oh dear, seems like I'll be jumping some stages ahead too...)
In a couple of years time, we will all be having children together (not literally...), and then the talk will be about schools and how difficult it is to combine babies and work and then how difficult it is to combine all you children's hobbies, and then we will all be having raving adolescents and mid-life crises and divorces together, and then... It feels like a drag, really, like something you can't escape. Technically not true, but you see it in groups all around you; once one starts getting married, all of them do; once one couple has a baby, all of them want one too, etc etc... (apart from the one "drop-out friend" that most groups have, the one who still lives in the fabulous apartment in the city centre and can't be bothered to tie themselves down to one specific job or partner, but I don't see myself taking on that role, and I have several friends who qualify for it already).
All in all, I'm very happy to have some 'younger' friends who tell me that I'm crazy to already be thinking about stuff like this, because they're going to study abroad for two years, and why shouldn't I?

Complaining

So yesterday I was eating breakfast with my boyfriend, and he had boiled some eggs, and I cut mine open and said; "Wow, that really is hard-boiled!" I like my eggs hard-boiled, if there is one thing that will make me gag it's gooey egg yolk running all over my toast. But my boyfriend took it differently and said; "That's what you wanted, right?" I found this puzzling, as I was trying to pay him a compliment, but he saw it as a complaint.
I had the same experience a couple of weeks ago, when we walked into a room for a meeting and I said: "Oh, it's warm in here!" I was happy about that, because it'd been cold outside, but the others took it the wrong way and said; "You shouldn't complain about that!"
There must be more examples, but I can't think of them right now, and trying to dig up negative responses from people out of your memory is no way to spend an afternoon.
But I do think it is interesting, and also somewhat worrying. Apparently, people's first response is to assume that you are complaining when you are making a neutral comment without expressing clear joy or happiness. I know I can sometimes come across as ironic or sarcastic, but in both these cases, I was just making off-hand remarks without any negative thoughts attached (or pronounced, as far as I know). This is not to say that the interpreters of my comments are wrong in interpreting the emotions of others, but maybe it does tell us something about the general mental state of people.

A few years ago, I bought A Complaint Free World by Will Bowen. This book encourages people to stop complaining (including gossip) for 21 consecutive days, which will then cure you from your negative state of mind. It provides you with bracelets that you have to move every time you do complain, so there is a physical action involved to tune your mind towards the complaining (I did not do the bracelet thing at the time, as I was working a job where I couldn't wear anything around my wrists for 8 hours at a time, but I might do it in the future). Now there is a lot of The Secret-like "The Universe will provide as long as you dare to ask" crap in there, including some veeeeery unbelievable "real life" examples and super-enthusiastic letters of experience from all of Will Bowen's family members, neighbours, and employees, but there are also some very good things in there.
One of the things that stuck with me is "people who hurt are hurting", meaning that people who cause harm or distress to others are themselves suffering from harm or distress, in whatever shape or form. Think about it. The last time you snapped at someone else, was there some other reason behind it? Were you tired, grumpy, stressed? Or was that person maybe doing something that annoys you in yourself but haven't been able to change? I think the general principle is true, and whenever people verbally assault or insult me, I usually try to see what might be behind this, and in many cases I can realise that their words are not specifically directed at me but just serve to relieve some of their own stress, so I don't get worked up or angry or sad myself (this can be very hard, as I'm not a very patient person).
Secondly, Bowen argues that the more we focus on the bad things, the more bad things there will be. Not really, of course, but if you lose sight of the good stuff, the bad stuff will more easily jump at you. This usually only works for your own bad stuff; as soon as someone talks about somebody else who is very sick, people generally appreciate their own health better, even though just 5 minutes ago they were complaining of back pain. But by focusing on that back pain, you are missing all the good things that you do have, and your mind becomes ingrained in focusing on bad stuff. This does not mean that you shouldn't say something if you are genuinely in pain, or distressed, or sad, but if it's just minor things, turn your attention to better prospects, and in the long run, you will notice more positive than negative things.
And finally, the people around you are often of the same "complaint-level" as you are. Groups of people often have similar levels of a multitude of things (income, education, political views) and complaining is no different. If you are thinking that all those people around you are complaining too much, then you probably are too. While reading the book, I started to notice this in people around me, both the positive and the negative, and I now have a lot less contact with several friends who were very negative and always complaining about things that they had caused themselves, could easily fix, or that were just out of anyone's reach (the weather). Complaining appeared to be their default mode of communication. Lessening the contact was quite a conscious action on my side, not because I did not like them anymore as people, but because I wanted to have a more positive outlook on life, and talking to them made me feel negative, sore, and depleated of energy.

Now I won't say this book did me any miracles, but the three main messages that I got out of it have helped me to get a better outlook on life. I can complain that I am sitting inside working while it's 24 degrees and sunny outside, and I can hear my neighbours laughing in their backyard, but that doesn't help the situation, and the work gets me money and the money will pay for my university fees for next year, so in the end that makes me happier. I've made a conscious choice to sit indoors and work, so why should I complain? I can still feel sorry for myself on the inside, but I've noticed that the more you focus on the good things while talking, the happier your 'inner voice' also becomes.
I do think many people have a negative outlook on life and assume that others are also complaining, and that this will be around for quite some time yet. But maybe we can all get a little bit more positive about our own life and situation with just a little effort.