Sick leave II

It was last Sunday that my tummy started to ache. We were watching a movie in the afternoon and sitting was becoming less and less comfortable. Later that day, I could hardly move. I was lying for more than 3 hours straight but I wasn't able to find a position that eased my pain. I started throwing up in the fourth hour. I spent the first half of the week getting better and trying to figure out what was wrong: I was at the hospital twice and I saw three gynaecologists and all of them could only guess what had happened. On Thursday, I finally felt well enough to go to work. I had little bit of a temperature in the morning, but I was in a good mood, I didn't feel any pain, so I spent a day at work. It was all fine. Then Friday came, I woke up at 6 and felt sick immediately. I couldn't eat a thing, I was dizzy, made 8 visits to the bathroom in the morning - so, I was definitely less than well. My mom took me to the doctor who this time - having pressed every little inch of my abdomen - sent me to a surgeon, saying that it's either the inflammation having spread onto something else or I have caught an influenza at the hospital, but let's start with the worst case scenario. So, I spent half a day at another medical centre, having my blood drawn for the second time in a week and myself being inspected. The comforting conclusion was that whatever this is, it doesn't require an operation. Phew. It would be somewhat more comforting to know what it is though...

I spent a week at home and I literally didn't do a thing because I did not have any energy to do anything. It sucked. It still does. Just when things finally started to work at work, I'm not able to work. I missed my sister's szalagavató (the ceremony when the graduating class receives their ribbon from the school) and Jani is playing in the large hall at the Cinetrip tonight and I'm not able to go.

Exhausted

Things are not really going the way they should and I'm trying hard to make everything right. It's as if an evil spell was put on me; nothing works out these days.

I'm working from home during the weekend to catch up with the workload.

Few good things have been happening.

I did make a great pizza yesterday, however. And I made my first tócsni/macok ever this weekend. And I made my usual poppy seed pastry today. I still love cooking, I just don't have any time to cook.

The weather finally started to turn bad and the greyness doesn't help me feel better. Last weekend, the weather was good enough to go hiking and Jani and I climbed the mountain that we had first climbed 2 years ago. I think that it might have been our first proper date, only the two of us, without the usual salsa crowd. So, we brought some bacon and a few sausages along, made a fire on the top of the mountain, roasted and ate our stuff, drank a bottle of beer, smoked a cigarette and enjoyed the sunset over the Danube. We weren't great at planning because by the time we reached halfway down, it got completely dark and a huge red-purple bruise on my ass reminds me of having fallen on a large rock.

Good news of the week: it seems that my sister got accepted to a US college with a sports scholarship. She just has to reach a ridiculously low score on her SAT and she'll be in :) How absolutely great! I think I'll miss her very much now that she'll be the one abroad...

Table tennis

I drove to my grandparents' place 2 weeks ago for a nice lunch. My grandma tried to make us eat as much as possible - what else should grandmas do, right? - my grandfather tried to make us drink as much as possible - Jani, at least, since I was driving - and once we had stopped eating and had given the necessary update on our lives, we said that we should go. We still wanted to go biking back here. That was when my grandpa proposed that we should play table tennis.

I haven't played table tennis with my grandpa since I was 9. We used to go to the playground and use the tables there when the weather was nice. The weather was gorgeous that day: sunny and warm. Jani and I looked at each other and we said 'why not?'. I asked him some time ago whether he knew how to play and he said that he did, but he wasn't too good at it. I haven't played in ages. The last time that I remember was at the age of 16-17, when we played during the empty timeslots in school. My grandpa is 83. He has large lumps in his leg and walks quite slowly. I thought we were off to a little casual table tennis time.

I was completely wrong. Let's start with the fact that Jani is very good in table tennis, which I should have known because when he told me that he was an okay skater, it turned out that he was a great skater. I lost badly. Then, I played with my grandfather. And I lost again. The moment we started playing, he started jumping around and he literally bent it like Beckham. I hardly knew where to expect the ball to arrive. Then Jani and my grandpa played and Jani won 21:20.

It's was hard to believe that an 83-year-old guy was able to beat me in table tennis, but I was happy. This guy was a war prisoner in a gulag for 2 years, built his own house, worked his whole life and at the age of 83, he still starts his day with exercises, goes for a walk twice per day and takes the train to Zebegény to take care of the house and the garden. Quite amazing. I hope we'll have him around for long.

Career fair

The season of the career fairs has just started. Being new to this business and enthusiastic, I offered that I would spend my afternoon at our stand at the first large Autumn career fair.

My team leader tried to prepare me for the experience, but I guess you have to see it for yourself. Conclusion: (some) people are (really) weird.

There was this girl I was talking to. She explained what she was studying, told me she was interested in HR. I asked which part/area of HR she was interested. Her answer was: what areas does HR have? I thought I was going to scream. Then she told me she was going to graduate in 2012. I couldn't do anything but laugh and give her one recommendation: learn another language. These couple of months have taught me a few things and one of them is that if you speak two foreign languages, you'll always find a job. It might not be the one you really wanted, but you'll have a job. Better than prostitution.

There was also a woman who thought it would be a great idea to pour her emotions out on me about having applied several times and never being contacted. She maintained that she has always met the requirements and no one has ever got back to her. Apparently, she thought that her intermediate English exam will qualify her for jobs that require advanced language skills. WTF to the power 3.

But it wouldn't be fair to highlight the weirdos only. There were plenty of smart and interesting people at the fair and it was definitely worth going. I even arranged an interview with one of them. The guy I went with got tired and somewhat frustrated by the end. I, on the other hand, loved it.

Hasonszőrű

I find the word fascinating. It means 'similar' and I'm not sure about its etimology but if you translate its components, you get 'similarly hairy' (or 'hairy on the tummy' - but that makes even less sense).

I was taking the tram from the Moszkva square to Klára's, my colleague's place to meet her dog and to go to a party later, and I was thinking about this word. Because it's nice to be surrounded with hasonszőrű people and this is exactly what the environment is like at my workplace. They are young, friendly, easy to talk to, interested in a lot of things and cool in one way or another. I love them. I'm now member of the lunch team, the group of people who go to get lunch together. Someone sends an e-mail around 11.30 (or earlier, depending on how hungry they are) to our e-mail addresses about where we should go and after a short discussion, we are ready to leave at 12.05. I'm surprised how little time it took to feel so cosy with them and how little time it took for them to take me in. It's gezellig.

The next week is going to be a milestone for me. On October 1, my initial try-out or probation period expires and my legal status changes. I'll be a proper employee. That is, if they don't state sometime during the course of the next week that they don't want me anymore. Normally, I wouldn't worry because I've been working hard, I am well integrated into the team and my TL likes me, but there are some big changes coming up which probably imply personnel changes, too. People are in a state of uncertainty, their professional career and their team is at stake, and RA was a place that was a great choice both in terms of career and team spirit. The management says that not many things are going to change but we feel that not many things are going to remain the same.

We'll see.

Since I hardly ever get the chance to write, I'll make use of the fact that Jani is still sleeping upstairs (he was working early morning) and mention everything else that may be interesting:

1. After a party in the RA office, a colleague asked me whether I am willing to bartend at events. Sure, I said and I found myself bartending alone at a wedding for 160 guests. The preparations were funny because the groom was a real mierenneuken, he called me every other day before the wedding to ask me questions. The bride, on the other hand, was quite laid back, very sweet. She said that she wanted a small wedding originally, with maybe 20-30 people, but the guy insisted on inviting everyone. So, a big wedding it was and I arrived within the last 15 minutes of the civil wedding, just before the beginning of the party. In the first 3-4 hours, I continuously had a queue of at least 10-15 people in front of the bar (2 school desks because we were in a high school) but even later, there was not a single moment when no one would ask for a drink. I agreed to bartend till 1.45 but at that point the hosts asked me whether I would be willing to stay longer. In the end, I spent 7 hours mixing drinks without a single break (not even a bathroom break) and then I joined the remaining crowd to dance for a while. I got home around 6 and I only realized how tiring it was the day after. Pretty much all the cocktails included shaking and 7 hours of shaking is quite an exercise, and about half of the cocktails involved fresh lime, lemon or orange, which damaged my fingertips to such an extent that I was hardly able to type the next day. I stood there for 7 hours, leaning forward (because school desks are never as high as a proper bar) and my back hurt as if I was 70, seriously, I fell back on the bed the day after because I wasn't able to get up and I moaned every time I got up from my chair on Monday. But it was a nice party. I enjoyed it, I made some money, 3 guys asked for my phone number and the groom called me the day after to tell me how absolutely great I was. Quite an ego booster. I'll have something else coming up next week.

2. I had the worst hangover within the past year yesterday. I was with friends, we committed the mistake of drinking a wide variety of liquor (vodka, pálinka and absinthe) and wine and the result - besides a great night - was a total disaster the day after. I didn't really want to get up because my head was killing me but Jani said we should eat some soup at Bábelék (our favorite little restaurant around here), so we hopped on our bikes and eventually got there. It took me half an hour to eat a single bowl of soup because I felt my stomach screaming me 'no' after every sip. But I won! I ate the soup, it took me another 3 hours to get better and I swear I won't get so drunk again within a year.

3. My sister is going to do her SATs soon! How exciting! She was contacted by a couple of US colleges and they would consider her to be a good candidate for sports scholarships. I hope she'll do well.

Sick leave

Coughing doesn't let me (or Jani, for that matter) sleep and I figured it would be best to get up. I'm on sick leave. It sucks. Yesterday, I had the chance to experience a piece of Hungarian reality when I had to wait 1,5 hours to see my doctor. She said that what I have is a combination of a viral and bacterial infection of my windpipe and the rest. I said I wanted to go back to work on Friday. She said no chance. The only problem is that she'll only fill out the pink form (proof of illness) when I go back to see her next week.

So, in the breaks between blowing my nose and coughing my lungs out, I have some time to update you, guys, on how I'm doing. Healthwise, quite badly, obviously. Workwise, okay. I never would have thought this was such a fierce market. And there are a number of factors that are really important in my work

Speed. You need to find the right candidate as soon as possible. You often see a deadline for application on job boards. As an applicant, you should disregard that completely. The way companies hire resembles rolling admission at universities. What this means for me is that I need to be quick in finding and contacting the right candidates, especially because other recruitment agencies are working on the very same assignments. And only one gets paid: the one that introduces the candidate who gets hired. All the agencies are working with the same pool of applicants - people registered on job boards - and so it's quite likely that we'll find the same people. The question is who finds them first.

Precision. There are a number of things that have to be administered properly, otherwise things might go horribly wrong. Imagine a scenario in which a company asks a recruitment agency to find the right candidate to replace one of their employees - who has no idea that he or she will be fired in the next couple of weeks. You can't mention the name of the company on the phone because if you do, you might cause a nice little scandal. Another issue is accidentally contacting an employee of one of the companies that we work with. Obviously, it wouldn't be too ethical to call someone that a company hired through us and lure him or her over to another company. Most of the time, I think we can't recruit anyone from the companies that we work with, regardless of whether they were our placements. So, checking the CVs and our central database is very important and even then it might happen that we see an old CV which does not yet include the most recent change in the person's professional life. Checking the database is also important because it will tell you whether anyone from the office has already contacted the person. It takes time but it also spares time because it might turn out that they don't want to change jobs at the moment or that their English is not good enough. In that case, you don't call, obviously.

People management. When you work with people, you have to be good at establishing and maintaining contact with people. Candidates are surprisingly thankful when you call them to let them know that our client chose someone else, because they are used to not being informed about the final results if they were not the ones who got hired. And it frustrates them. So, the rule is: always follow up and always answer e-mails. And for me, this is the most difficult part, because you might not reach someone for days and you might forget about them, or you might have things to do which appear to be more important - after all, you can't make money of letting people know that they were rejected. But maintaining good human relations pays back. For example, one of my candidates rejected the offer he got from our client but he said that he wanted to keep in touch because of all the agencies he had been in touch with, we provided the best services. So, maybe in a couple of years, we'll be able to "sell" him.

I learn something new every day, and some of my tasks are gradually becoming routinized: it's taking less and less time to check CVs, for example. It takes practise to know what to look for. I'm becoming better with cold calls, checking every important aspect of the candidate's profile on the phone before inviting him/her for an interview.

All the rest is fine. I finished my thesis and got an 8. I rented out my apartment. I officially moved in with Jani. I had a lovely surprise birthday party last week. And I'm slowly catching up with friends. Life is happening.

Habituation

The first couple of days I was back were off. This city of mine was not my city, these (I actually typed 'thesis' here...) people were not my people. This city is ugly, dirty and stinks. No one cares to renovate buildings. Getting from one point to the other is impossible. People are ugly. They have a despicable taste in clothes. (I'm a prime example, but imagine crowds that are dressed even worse than I am. Scary.)

And in a matter of days, I ceased to notice the holes in the pavement and faces became strangely familiar. Habituation, what else?

So, I've been sucking at writing, I know. Being at the office 9 hours per day and writing my thesis in the evenings and during the weekends has not exactly been great. 2 more weeks of this insanity and then I'll be done with my thesis. Finally, I'll be able to socialize and do what I want. My dreams are really simple: go out for an evening of salsa or get home and cook a nice dish or go biking with Jani or meet my ex colleagues for a drink. Simple little things could make me so happy...

Work is still swell! I'd love to write a lot about it, but I'll do that after my thesis deadline. My colleagues are fantastic and that may be the best part of it all.

Okay, I guess this is enough just to show that I'm alive and well.

Dia: out.

Salsa - the Amsterdam videos

The Job

So, let's do this ab ovo style. I found an ad on profession.hu about 2 and a half months ago, in which they were seeking applicants for a junior HR position. Last year, I talked to a recruiter who told me to always follow up on my application by calling the recruitment agency, and I decided to call them rightaway this time. I said I wasn't sure whether I should apply because I would only move back to Hungary later (this was a good excuse to talk to the consultant that was responsible for the position) and she said that I should send my CV to her anyway. Next week, I called her again to ask whether she had the chance to read it and we scheduled a personal interview for a couple of weeks later, when I was back in Hungary. Then, a week later, the same recruitment agency posted an ad, which said that they were looking for someone to join their team and once again, I called the consultant I had talked to before. She said that since I was going to meet her anyway, we can talk about that position, too.

The day of the interview was a cold, rainy and windy day. By the time I got to their office, my hair was a total mess, as if I was applying for the position of a scarecrow. Anyway, the girl I talked to on the phone seemed very interested in everything I said and after about half an hour, she said that she would like me to talk to someone else. She left the room and she returned with a tall, handsome, very neatly dressed guy who wore a huge smile on his face. He shook my hand, looked in my eyes and asked: Hoe gaat het? I was so surprised I could hardly answer. Goed, en met jou? This was the boss. We had a nice conversation in English, at the end of which he said that he would like me to meet a couple of other people in the office. I told the girl who initially interviewed me that I was going to go home in 2 days, so it would be best to get this over with as soon as possible and she immediately organized 3 other interviews: with the other boss, a team leader and the office manager. I left the office tired but I had a good feeling about how it all went.

In the following weeks, I mainly had e-mail contact with the company. Let's call them RA (recruitment agency). One week before I moved home, I had a phone interview with the guy who was going to be my team leader and I met him in person the day after I moved home. That was the toughest interview. I was lucky that I had a good night of sleep the night before because otherwise, I would have been likely to freak out at some of his professional questions. We had a nice conversation, nevertheless, and I had to wait for a day for The Phonecall. I was so happy I had to call Jani, my mother and Irma immediately after we hung up.

You know everything about the week after that, which is when we went skiing. We returned Wednesday evening and I was already in the RA office the morning after. Paperwork, training, introductions, information overflow. People were nice and I joined the girls from my team for lunch. Ever since the first day, I've been following a "yes" strategy, that is, I say yes to pretty much everything. Would you like to write that report for X.Y.? Yes. Would you like to call this person? Yes. Would you like to join us for lunch? Yes. Would you like to join us for a cigarette? Yes. It's been working out great. I learn a lot, I work a lot and I socialize a lot. The best combination.

I love the job. There are a variety of things I have to do: call people, talk to them about their professional background and their plans, browse databases for CV-s, interview people (from next week on), write reports about applicants whom I observed during interviews, administration. I do get very tired by the end of the day, but it's nice that I don't have to spend the whole day in front of a computer or the whole day talking, because it's a mix. And with the nice vibes we have in the office, I really feel very good in this role and this environment.

I think this is approximately how deep I can go into this topic because I signed a very strict contract of confidentiality, which can get me totally screwed if I share confidential information about how we do our job. So, I won't. In any case, it's interesting to sit on the other side of the desk at an interview and to browse CV-s for specific skills and background. It's tiring, it requires full concentration, but the feeling of meeting a good candidate, writing a nicely phrased report or finding a CV just like what you were looking for is very rewarding. The small pleasures of this job.

Hintertux rulez

I learnt that I had a new job on Tuesday and I had about a week till the day I had to start. Jani was still working for a day and his new project also started on July 1, so he too had a break and we decided to do something nice that week. It was his idea to go to ski. See, some of the glaciers in Austria are open throughout the summer, we did some research and decided that Hintertux was THE place to ski during the summer. I found a nice little B&B very close by the ski lift, with a view of the mountains and the glacier, called to make a reservation and we were set to go.

The area was gorgeous. The tiny town was 1500 m above sea level and the 3 main ski lifts took us 3200 m high. In the valley, it was completely summer, 20-25 degrees (you can imagine how we felt dressed up in our ski gear...), and around 2400 m high, you started to see patches of snow around you. From 2600 m on, pretty much everything was covered in snow, a lot of it melting (that's why there were so many pretty streams and waterfalls lower down the mountain), but it was snow indeed. On the top of the mountain, the temperature was between 2 and 6 degrees, depending on the weather and the sunshine was blindening. You wouldn't survive without sunglasses and strong sunscreen.

The first lesson I learnt about skiing during the summer is that sunscreen only works if you use it. And use it right. The first morning, I smeared the (factor 30) sunscreen across my face, paying special attention to my nose and my cheeckbones - those get sunburnt very easily. What I did not pay any attention to at all was my hairline, my ears and my neck. This was a total disaster. You feel the strength of the sun, but while you ski the wind cools you down, so it's not that unpleasant. By the time we got back, I collected the most horrendous burns, especially on my neck. The area turned purple (instead of red), then my skin started to dry out completely and wrinkle up, then it turned brown and it really started to resemble a rhino's skin. All that accompanied by lots and lots of pain. Well, that was a good lesson for the first day and of course, it still hasn't healed completely. Any time I touch my face, my neck or my ear, my skin literally falls off.

Besides the burns, it was fantastic, of course! Coming from the summer to the winter in half an hour is an exceptional feeling, especially if you can then ski the whole day. Well, not exactly the whole day, and that was the second lesson. I did do my research about skiing on glaciers and one of the things I read was that most of the time, you are not really able to ski after 2 p.m. due to the worsening snow conditions, i.e. the snow starts to melt and it's not that pleasant to ski on melting snow. From the second day on, we had breakfast at 7.30 so that we could spend as much time on the pistes as possible.

One thing I really loved was that there were so few people, as opposed to what you see at a popular ski region during the winter. No crowd whatsoever. Jani made the observation that there were only great skiers around us, and that, besides making us feel slightly inadequate, was entirely true. Most people on the slopes were professional skiers and children training to be professionals, doing their summer training. The Eastern block was very well represented: Bulgaria, Serbia, Ukraine, Russia, Poland (at least their ski suits said so), but there were also people from the US, Spain, Switzerland and Germany. Of the few people who were not professionals, we met a father and son from Hawaii who were on a Euro trip and wanted to do a couple of days of skiing in the meantime. Quite cool.

The sun was shining consistently, except on the second day. It was cloudy, the mountain caught a cloud and it just wouldn't let go of it. The snow blended in with the cloud, we had no idea where we were and you could see as far as 5 m in front of you. It was total whiteout. (I'm not sure whether you can call it a whiteout if it's not snowing plus the storm etc., but it was pretty much a whiteout - you couldn't see a thing.) 5 m when you are standing still is okay, but when you are skiing down a mountain... it's bad. When I was learning to drive, my instructor told me that "blind driving" is forbidden, that is, you have to be able to stop the car within the distance that you can see. So, if it's foggy, you have to adjust your speed to the extent that you would be able to stop within those let's say 50 m that you can see. This was almost impossible skiing downhill. 5 m is not enough to do anything, and Jani being bold and stuff just skied down pretty much with his usual speed, and I lost him immediately.

One thing that demonstrates that we didn't see anything is the story of how we wanted to slide from one drag lift to the other that day. There were 2 drag lifts on the two sides of a valley and, in theory, it would have been possible to just let your skis run when you were skiing down one side of the valley and end up at the other drag lift, which was, let's say 50 m far from the other one. In complete whiteness, you don't just let your skis run until you realize that it's really safe to do so, and by that time it was too late and we had to put some effort into getting to the other lift and we had to start walking (or "ski-skating", doing those skating-like movements on skis) on the flat terrain. We had an approximate idea of where the other lift was, so we passed the first lift, turned a bit to the left and started ski-skating. We saw nothing. We didn't even hear a thing from that direction. After a while, we stopped, started turning into all directions to try and listen to noises. Jani said that he can hear it, and as we went in that direction, the sound of the source was getting closer. Aaaaaand... we ended up at the first ski lift! We were so disoriented that we just walked straight back or in a circle or I've no idea how but we ended up where we started.

But the rest of the days were sunny and gorgeous, we walked around a bit, took lots of pictures, had some food outside, stood right in front of a big waterfall etc., so it was nice and we were exhausted by the end of every single day. It was a great, therapeutic holiday. I came home and I felt a bit out of place, the change was too sudden, but going away with Jani for a week, just enjoying each others' company and having fun together got me back on track and coming home after that really felt like coming Home. And once in a while, or quite often, actually, I was thinking about July 1, my first day at work, and a nice kind of excitement spread over me, an anticipation of what it was going to be like to go to work, meet the colleagues, learn all the things I need to learn and all the rest... That's what the next tale is going to be about! Good night, children!

Guess what?

I got the job!!!!! I almost screamed when my new boss called, told me that he was sitting in a car with the leader of the team that I am going to join, and that they've been talking about me and they would love me to work with them. Then, he noted that this was the reaction they were expecting :) The money is good (well, for a junior position for a freshgrad, considering Hungarian standards), people in the office are nice (I had 6 interviews with 6 different people), the office is super stylish, my boss is Dutch and I would be doing something that I would actually like to do. It's absolutely great! Tomorrow, I'll be off to a week of skiing in the Alps and next Thursday will be my first day in the office. Wow. I have a job.

Back at home

Here I am again. The day before travelling sucked big time, except for the BailaSí party, of course. I spent the whole day packing and cleaning and since I didn't finish on time, I continued cleaning once I got home and then once I got up. I slept two hours that night.

I knew the luggages were going to be heavy and I expected it to be like hell to get them to the airport in Eindhoven. Metro, train, bus... It was actually not as bas as I expected it to be in terms of difficulty (and two men were nice enough to help me - one at the station and one at the bus stop), but it was much worse in terms of the pain I had in my back afterwards. I didn't know back pain can be such a pain in the arse. Luckily, the logistics of pulling two large suitcases behind me and trying not to get my cabin luggage bump into them repeatedly directed my attention away from the process of what I was actually doing and its implications. The first break I had that day was the long trainride from Amsterdam Zuid to Eindhoven. You sit down, stare out the window and see familiar places pass by. The buildings around the RAI, then Bijlmer Arena and all the rest till Utrecht. Do you really need to see all these things once again, as if that one last time made a huge difference? Absolutely not. I could recall them anytime. So, eventually, I just switched on my mp3 player and closed my eyes. I've travelled that route so many times that I could tell where I was without looking around. You feel and hear it when the train crosses the bridges, they announce Utrecht Centraal, the next time the train slows down you're approaching den Bosch, you're at Best when things suddenly get very dark and it takes about 10 minutes from there to get to Eindhoven. I tried to switch off my brain but it was really difficult to do: all I could think of was what I was leaving behind.

Things went swiftly at the airport. For probably the first time in my life I did not join the slowest queue for check-in and the queue at the security check was tiny. I even found a chair to sit on right opposite to the board showing flights and gate numbers. The plain was one of the old Wizz Air planes, which meant that I even had space for my legs. Everything went so smoothly. I was too tired to think and I fell asleep immediately after taking off. I only woke up when we started descending.

Jani brought me home, he was absolutely sweet, he heated up the meal he made, we had some wine, we had sex, and then I slept for 2 and a half hours straight, till Irma called. Then, I slept for another 9 hours. That morning I had my final job interview with a company. I think it went well, but I'm not going to say anything about it until they call to let me know their decision. Tomorrow.

It's not easy. It's such a big change. One moment you are somewhere, living your life a certain way, and the next moment you are somewhere else, where expectations are different, where your role is different and it happens so fast. It's not the same when you're on holiday, when you know you'll be back again. This time, there's nothing to indicate that I'll be back soon and I am definitely leaving parts of my life behind. I wish I could take all the people, things and places I love and have them all wherever I go. The seafront at AC, the view of Budapest from the Margit bridge, the Winkel van Sinkel, the Bar, the canals, Uránia, Centrál Kávéház, Southerndown, the Quad, the way to the lighthouse on the coast, etc. and all the important people in my life. Just like in a dream. Vanilla Sky syndrome and nostalgia.

Packing

My room is a mess. My two luggages are almost completely full but a bunch of things are still waiting to be packed. Everything still to be packed or to be used and then be thrown away is on my bed. Everything that I'm going to give away is on my table. There is very little space left on it... Things that I don't know what to do with and the clothes that I'm going to wear tonight and tomorrow are on the couch.

And the cleaning is still to be done...

Lasts

Anything I do from now on - everything I've been doing the past week - is a last. The last time I see campus, I dance in the bar, have dinner in a unit, lie on the grass on the Quad, walk through the Wilhelmina park, go to the VU, walk to the AH to do my groceries, take the night bus to Uilenstede. More importantly, the last time I see certain people. At least for a while. I try not to think about it but it's quite hard. I hate moving from one country to another. There is no way not to leave people who matter behind. I chose this lifestyle, but it's really difficult to cope with some of its consequences.

People ask if I will n/ever be back. Never is a powerful word. I'll definitely be back, at least to visit, but whether I will ever live here again... that's a good question. The plan is to start a life in Budapest. But who knows. Last time I moved home, it only lasted a bit longer than a year, although it has to be said that I was planning on doing masters at one point, and it's really difficult to get admitted to a program with a foreign diploma in Budapest. This time, I'll have a foreign B.A., an M.Sc. and a Hungarian postgraduate certificate, so I guess I'll stop studying for a while. I might soon have a job. I have an apartment. I have a couple of friends. I have a boyfriend. It sounds like quite a solid base for a life.

Today, Jani asked what was going to happen to us when I return. For a long time, I thought that if we survive these 10 months, we will definitely be fine. But could this be like your lungs filling up with water? During our lifeguard training, we were taught that people who were saved from drowning should always be taken to the hospital because they could still die the next day even if they survive the actual incident. Water in your lungs is a tricky thing. It was on the news today: a man fell into the Danube yesterday, he was resuscitated and he died today. I have always thought of leaving and the period afterwards as a period of crisis, but I never considered returning to be the same. This is as far as I ever got with this whole long distance thing, so the returning part will be new to me, too. I don't think I need to be worried, but I also don't want to be caught off guard by any issues that may arise. So far, every single time I returned was great, but I know that this time I am going to be somewhat sad because I am leaving the Netherlands, and it's absolutely essential that he doesn't think that it is something about him.

This is my last week here. I am sick. I don't think my body really appreciates my state of mind at the moment. I don't know what exactly I'll do the rest of the week. I might have some people over to finish off all the leftovers from my good-bye gathering, I might eat Chinese dumplings with Merina, I might go out to party with Dávid in Utrecht (he decided to stay abroad and not to come back home), I might meet Kristina for dinner or a movie, I'll see my supervisor and I'll definitely dance my heart out the last night in the company of the Cuban salsa crowd.

I can't stop the rain...

I'm hungry. I don't have any food and it's pooring cats and dogs out there. (Let's see if I start writing it stops.) I don't even have an umbrella. The AH across the Wilhelminapark is definitely too far (hell, everything is too far in this weather) but I feel like having one of those ready made meals that you shove in the microwave oven and have ready in minutes. Not that I don't want to bother with cooking, but Gábor's unit is so utterly disgusting (think 4 large bags of trash in the living room and the hallway, something clearly rotting, brown liquid stains under the trashbags, an army of fruitflies and it smells unbearable) that I want to spend as little time in the kitchen as possible. In fact, the only way I can use the microwave oven is to take a deep breath before leaving Gábor's room, run into the kitchen, get the food in the oven, run out, then wait for the beeps, run in, get the food and run out. I've lived with students for 5 years but I've never seen anything comparable to this.

So, I can walk to AH and get completely soaked, walk to Super de Boer and get slightly less soaked, or walk to the Turkish shop (they have wonderful stuff but I've already had food from there 3 times this past week) and get just a bit less soaked. Alternatively, I could go to the Smurf snack bar on the corner, and have junk food. The problem with that option is that all I had today is junk food. I had a handful of crunchy cereals, a small Mars bar, Smarties, an eierkoek, a coffee and a chicken curry sandwich. Not a particularly healthy meal plan. I need something warm and nurturing. I danced till half past 4 last night, I was in class by 10, I deserve it.

And now what I hoped for has just happened: the rain stopped. I'm going to run now.

I can stop the rain!

ASIC reunion

Last week was fantastic! The lab course required much more work and energy than I had expected, but it was also rewarding. (One of the students wrote an e-mail to the three of us and started it with "Dear Teachers" even though only Rosemary is actually a teacher.) It's nice to work with Merina; she's dedicated and a very cool person... and works too much. I think she's also having this let go thing with UC coursework, making up for not having anything to do. By Friday, the most stressful part of the lab course, speech synthesis and DirectRT troubleshooting, was over and we decided to leave the class alone for the afternoon. Rosemary, Merina and I went out to buy chocolates for the experimental subjects and some goodies from the Turkish shop for ourselves. We had one of those swell lunches on the Quad, eating Turkish bread with humous, sundried tomato tapenade, olive tapenade, artichokes and red peppers filled with cream cheese. Then, Merina and I decided it was time for some proper relaxation and we lay down on the grass to work on our tan just next to Newton. We figured students would find us if they had questions about programming. One of the groups asked me to be their first subject and just as I finished their experiments and claimed my well deserved chocolate, my phone rang. Unknown number. It was Anne Poorta, my fellow ASIC-er, our Chair. I must have been very excited because the whole class was looking at me while I was talking on the phone. I haven't seen him for 3 years and it wasn't certain at all that he would come to the reunion that evening. But he did :)

The reunion started at 5 behind Dining Hall, pretty much where the ASIC barbeques and the Communist Parties used to be. It was a lot of fun. New ASIC is still very enthusiastic and idealistic, well, cute, and I hope they will manage to keep their enthusiasm till the end of their second semester. They were really interested in our experiences as ex-ASIC. I think the oldest ex-ASIC person was from the ASIC of 2003 and my ASIC was best represented with Anne, Anne Sjoerd and I being present. Too bad Britt couldn't make it in the end, but the four of us might meet up in town next week.

Time flew by and we were still there when we ran out of food. It was getting cold, so I suggested that present ASIC gets blankets from the office and they suggested to get wood from the building site and make a small camp fire. So, that's what they did. There we were, Anne, Anne Sjoerd, Bernat (not ASIC but almost) and I, sitting on the couch, cosy, covered with a blanket, watching the fire, drinking, listening to Simon and Garfunkel (which is what we used to listen to in the office) and I got really nostalgic. I had a very strong feeling that it's never going to be the same again, I'll never have them around, and it struck me that I'll never be as happy as during those years. Luckily, around the peak of my emotional down, we decided to go to the Bar where we had 2 blue kamikazes and a bottle of wine, the four of us. The Bar slowly started to fill up and we danced till after 3, which is when I decided that I was too tired for any more dancing, said bye and headed to the Tower.

I love it how easy it is to be around these people. You share so much, then you don't see each other for years and when you finally do, it feels the same, you can continue your conversations exactly where you left off, as if you saw each other just after a short weekend. Okay, I did see Anne Sjoerd a couple of times, but I've only seen Bernat once since he had graduated and I haven't seen Anne at all. Anne is such a smart and kind person, seriously, he's great to be around, to listen to, to talk with and he really has all the right questions to ask and make you think about the important things in life. I find it impossible to be dishonest with him. He has this air of caring about him and I know that whatever I would say, he would understand. We talked about the times we had in ASIC, the night everyone slept over at the office for our bonding session, we played cards, smoked cigars, drank, danced, smoked a joint and watched a movie, the asicles we painted, working late in the office before the deadline for the teacher of the year nomination and accidentally screwing up the printer and all the rest. I haven't felt this nostalgic in ages...

Well, tomorrow might be a new occasion to feel nostalgic because the class of 2010 is going to graduate. I'll try to sneak in after the ceremony, then go to the alumni drinks and I'll hopefully end up in the Bar drunk and with friends. There are few things better than that.

I'm also expecting an important phone call tomorrow. For now, I won't say anything about it, but it might be something really good.

It's that time of the year again: summer term!

This was the third day of Rosemary's summer course and 'our' students seem quite exhausted already. Merina (the other TA) and I spent a day in the Newton computer area synthesizing speech sounds with them, which is not an easy task at all and it did get to some of them. Manifestations ranged from "I hate this program/summer module" to actual crying. We were supposed to stay in class till 4 but we were still there at 5.30. Well, 3 years ago, we were still working at 8 pm. Who said summer credits are sold cheap? Tomorrow is the day of the DirectRT workshop and I think that will be a bit easier - both on them and us.

So, I'm on campus again, living in Merina's unit in the Tower. It feels very homely because it's a small unit and because I used to live in this building for a while. This unit is on the top floor (#6), but I already pressed the button 4 in the elevator twice. Going home... The view is gorgeous from the balcony. Maybe some of you remember the old picture in the heading of this blog with the Utrecht skyline. That was taken from the 4th floor. It's even prettier up here. It makes me remember the time I fell asleep in an armchair on the balcony on the first day of spring, after our presentation for the teacher of the year award, and the time some friends said they would drop by in the evening and they dropped by the middle of the night with a crate of beer and like 5 of them, we carried the couch out to the balcony and we were just hanging out for hours.

It's gezellig here. I sleep on the living room couch and the first night I went to bed it was really nice to hear the chatter from the other room. Good old paper walls. One of my unitmates is a fellow ex-UWCer and he is listening to Gotan Project right now. I cooked with Merina yesterday evening and had dinner with a friend of hers. Then, after I had my daily Skype date with Jani, we watched an episode of FlashForward. Real unit life is going on here. I was talking to one of her unitmates and her boyfriend (as far as I could tell) during their dinner today and then we had mint tea together. It makes me wonder how I haven't gone insane living alone in Amsterdam.

Lit review blues

Warning: this post is about boring thesis stuff...

(Wow, one of the campus parrots just flew across above the building in front of my balcony.)

I've spent the past week writing the lit review for my thesis and the reasons why that's a bit worrying are the following: 1) writing lit reviews is not that hard, 2) I've had most of my lit review written for my proposal. But it just doesn't want to come together. I have 15 pages on meetings in organizations, sensemaking and sensegiving, meeting practices and the practice approach, group performance and decision making and organizational change and I've been shuffling these around, experimenting with different orders, writing different connecting and intro sentences and it just doesn't seem right. The order I have right now is something like this: I start out with discussing organizational change (because the meetings I have been studying took place and were initiated in the context of organizational change) and then I go on saying that meetings are exciting to study in the context of organizational change because they can further change or preserve the status quo. Then, I talk about what meetings are, I introduce 4 different conceptualizations of meetings and then try to come up with a synthesis under the umbrella of the interpretivist tradition. Then, I argue that the concepts of sensemaking and sensegiving can deepen our understanding of both organizational change and meeting dynamics. Then, I define what sensemaking, bracketing, framing and sensegiving are before explaining why these concepts could be useful in studying the meetings at UC. Then, I discuss the practice approach (pragmatic turn, practice turn, methodological innovations in the study of organizations, i.e. ethnography, strategy as practice - maybe I should just scrap SAP) and go on by saying that meeting practices are interesting to study because they can open a window into understanding group decision making and group performance, so it's pretty much applied research. Then, I have a mini lit review of group decision making and group performance. Then, I'm planning on writing a short part on studying meetings, sensemaking and sensegiving through language. I used to have two bits on language, one at the end of the sensemaking section and one at the end of the practice section, but I thought it would make more sense to have one. Maybe I should take it out of the lit review all together, but then again, I don't like really long methodology/methods sections and this would sure make it quite long. Oh, I miss positivistic research.

I think I'll read this again tomorrow and make some decisions.

As for the rest of today: I'll submit an application to a trainee program and then try to get in the mood for a small huisfeestje that will be thrown by one of my thesis groupees. The weather sucks again. At least she also lives on campus.

A short holiday

I spent 5 days at home, mainly because I decided to throw a surprise party for my mother's 60th birthday. I started organizing it about a month ago, I talked to Béla bácsi, my grandma, my aunt and everything seemed fine until just about a week before the event. I called my aunt to ask at what time they could come and she replied that they had decided that they were going to have dinner in a restaurant instead. I was stunned. I came up with the idea, I booked a ticket to go home, I invited them, I consulted Rosemary on what I should cook (because she is the best. cook. and everything else.), I asked Jani to buy stuff for me, and then she tells me THEY decided that dinner was going to be at a restaurant? I wrote an e-mail to Béla bácsi saying that I heard of the new developments and that he should let me know where to go and when. Interestingly, Béla bácsi did not know of the change of plans, took my side and talked to the rest of the family. He basically told them that they were invitees and they had no choice. Way to go!

I arrived Saturday afternoon (I had 2 hours of sleep the night before because of the last salsa party in Medemblik), wrote the Cinetrip Ambient description of the week for the radiocafé website and collapsed on the couch. The black one. Even though that's the smaller one, for some reason Jani and I always take naps on that one. Then I decided to run a final (and only) rehearsal for the chicken and prepared 3 legs with lemon, thyme and garlic. It was amazing! The next day, I went to do the rest of the groceries and cleaned the apartment in the morning, then called Irma if she wanted to join me for the baking. Poor thing broke her arm a couple of days before, but she came to keep me company while I was baking the chicken. I opened the door covered in butter and thyme up to my wrists...

Tibi, her boyfriend picked us up by car, and you have to imagine a small car that had a small table and a tray of baked chicken at the back, Tibi was driving, and Irma and I were both sitting on the front seat. If I were a believer, I would have prayed for the chicken and for no policemen on the way to my place. We arranged everything upstairs and there were only two things remaining to be prepared: the appetizers and the salads. The bell rang at 17.20. I was expecting the guests at 18.00... Well, my cousin decided to come "a bit" early and I almost wanted to kill him for that. Arriving 10 minutes early is okay, 15 minutes early is bad planning, 20 minutes early is plane rude, but 40 minutes?? And he took his 5-month-old dog, which, of course, had to pee on the floor in the first 10 minutes. I pretended to listen to his chatter and complaints about not being able to meet girls and I just managed to get ready with the food by the time the rest of the people arrived. On time.

I think it's enough to say about the rest of the evening that the surprise worked.

I had another big event planned for the week, which was a job interview with a headhunting agency. I applied to one of the jobs they had on offer and when I saw that they were also looking for someone for their own agency, I called them again to mention that I was interested in that position, too. I only realized that the headhunter was quite serious about me when she said that she wanted me to meet someone else, too. I ended up talking to 5 people in the end, the headhunter, the two bosses and two other team members. The managing director gave me a call later to tell me that they really liked me, so that's a good start and we'll meet again in June, once I'm back in the country.

The rest of the week was composed of: some time with Irma, some time with Jani, getting a new haircut (which looks exactly like the old one) and some cooking. Pretty good, except for the ridiculously bad weather. We spent Wednesday evening packing, and really, the relaxing effect of travelling with Jani this time and the stress of him being so difficult about packing and travelling more or less cancelled each other out. The morning was much better than any other mornings when I leave the city. (Except that he can never get ready in time, for which I have a remedy - I tell him that we have to be somewhere 15 minutes before we actually have to be there - which usually works out fine, but it still gets me mad. See, I get everywhere on time.) We met Zsuzsa and János (her boyfriend) at the airport. We arrived to their hotel on the Beethovenstraat around 3 pm (and I was very proud of myself that I knew where that way), bought some wine, bread and olives and waited for the rest of the crew on the balcony (Eszter, Cini, Kincses, Orsika, Simi, Szilárd and Taki). They arrived by car, immediately unpacked their pálinka and energy drinks and started working on the "baseline" for the evening.

Jani and I sometimes joined them during the weekend, mainly for the evenings, but we spent most of our time together, just chilling. One morning he biked to the Albert Hein with me on the back of the bike - that was quite an adventure. I realized that I can do the running next to and jumping on the bike act after Kevin's St. Patrick's Day party, when Fede offered to take me home and that was my best shot at getting home before dawn. I wouldn't have jumped on his bike if I wasn't drunk enough, and now I figured that if I can do it drunk, I can probably do it sober. It worked. The weather was great the whole weekend and we spent a whole day lying in the sun, watching people doing capoeira, following the activities of a black bird, and reading a mediocre novel, the two of us at the same time. And at that point I figured that it cannot get any better than this. Here is the man I love, we managed 9 months apart and here we are, together, reading in the sun.

The story - continued

As it was to be expected, I received a very long e-mail from Jancsi about the other post asking me to delete it, password protect it or at least edit some things out so that if Rea ever found it, she wouldn't be extremely mad and upset. Fair enough. I am not exactly a fan of re-editing my posts, but in this case I'll make an exception. Partly, because I agree that a certain thing I wrote crossed the line. So, whoever has read the post already, you've seen the full version, and if you haven't, well, too bad.

These days...

...will hopefully be over. Eventually. I get up, check my mails, check facebook, start typing up my recordings, type for an hour, play 15 minutes of salsa, zouk or reggaeton and dance, check my mails, type again, let's say for about 40 minutes, dance 15 minutes, type, dance, type, eat, type, watch some west coast swing videos on YouTube, type, type, type. I'm going nuts here. Tonight I'll be done with typing up the recordings of the working group that is redesigning the language courses at UC, so tomorrow I'll start at the VU and print out the transcriptions of these meetings. That will be 50 pages, single spaced. I'll spend a couple of days going through the transcriptions and see what I get out of them. I have to present something to my thesis group and my supervisor on Tuesday, so I have to get this going.

Last week I unexpectedly bumped into my stats 300 teacher. He was giving a class outside - cool, eh? - and I wouldn't have noticed him but he called my name as I passed by. It took me some time to realize that the people he was sitting with were actually his class, well, I don't think you would talk about structural equation modeling with anyone else, so it should have been clear from the very start. Realizing that this was not the right moment to start a conversation, he asked if I was up for drinks the same time next week, so I might see him tomorrow evening in Utrecht. I'll be at UC for a meeting anyway and then we will probably go to the Primus on the corner.

Qué más? Copa Cabana night at the BrazaZouk studios on Friday, which is a must. People who go there just call it Copa; it's one of the biggest salsa/zouk events in Amsterdam every month. I'm pretty sure my salsa buddies will be there. I started going to the salsa parties of a small Cuban style school during the fall, got to know the owners and some of the people there. They are great people! Most of them (at least the men) are from the ABC islands and Suriname, and they are lots of fun to be around. The two owners decided to split the school into two - one of the owners actually asked me whether I wanted to be one of his teachers, which I took as a compliment but then turned down the offer - but the people from the two schools still party together. The other owner invited me to his teachers' practice session and that was really nice, just focusing on complicated LA combos. I was also dancing with them on Koninginnenacht and Koninginnedag and I expect them to be there on Friday.

Then, I might see Sjoerd on Saturday and there is a UWC dinner planned for Sunday at UC. Both should be nice.

I really have to be productive during the days so that I can enjoy the evenings.

Transcribing...

... is a pain in the ass. It is so much of a pain that I have been delaying some serious trancribing tasks, which only makes the situation worse. I have about 70 pages (single spaced) of meeting recordings typed up and I estimate that I'll still have to spend another 90 hours typing. And this is only making my data accessible, not including analysis etc. or actually starting writing my thesis. I have to present my analysis in exactly 2 weeks. How will I do that? I've no idea. But never mind, actually, sun is shining (not right now but in general), I'm watching a movie with Gábor tonight, I'm having lunch with Rosemary on Thursday and I'll celebrate koninginnedag/nacht dancing salsa two nights in a row. I just can't be bothered to freak out about my thesis. I'll get it done anyway.

3 campus moments

1. I was here during the first really sunny day of the year. People sitting on the Quad, someone playing guitar, a young politics teacher sitting outside, surrounded by his students... Not a particularly strange moment, but a very UC like one and the first one this year. These are the best days around here.

2. Exam week evenings in Voltaire. I think I once said that Voltaire was much fuller these days than just a couple of years ago. During exam week, it's literally overflowing with the crowd. I was staying with Gábor and I wanted to use my evenings productively, so I found a place in Voltaire. As it became darker and darker outside, it appeared that a whole row of lamps didn't work inside. And what do UC students do? They bring candles!!! How absolutely adorable (and insane) it is to bring huge candles to Voltaire so that they could read their books here. I walked up to Bojan who was also studying at candlelight and asked what he was reading. He was preparing for his philosophy exam. I must say there's something romantic about reading philosophy at candlelight.

3. This morning, 10.30 am. I'm in the Dean's office in College Hall, attending the MT meeting. Loud music outside. A guy driving around a car and a semitrailer on the Quad with a huge poster: vote for Simon for UCSA Chair! and playing music. Annoying as it was, it's quite a creative campaign. It's that time of the year again. Rich, Dutch male kids running for UCSA Chair and Treasurer.

Yes, I'm in Voltaire again. I left my Xs card in Amsterdam, which means that I'll have to ask people to let me in to Locke and Voltaire all week... I have so many thing to do, I don't know what to start with. Should I numb my head by transcribing half a dozen of meeting recordings (approximately 54 hours of work)? Or should I try coding the 64 pages of single spaced transcriptions I already have (no idea how much time this would take...)? Or should I continue looking for jobs? Should I try to find Jocelyn and Tatiana to ask some questions? I guess I should do all this. I might even do the coding outside. The weather is great. I love these days! Life is sweet.

A week at home

I haven't written anything in ages, I know... I have at least 3 unwritten posts waiting in my pocket, I should just write them one by one. Maybe this week. I only have to spend a day in Utrecht and I decided I'll spend the rest of my time transcribing recordings and applying for jobs. Yes, it's that time of the year. I soon have to start the analysis for my research and I also have to figure out my future. I'm optimistic. I think things are going to be just fine. As always.

Soooo, I spent a week at home! I was considering writing something the day before I left, just because I love the excitement, the anticipation before leaving for home. I think about what it will be like to see Jani again, I think about what I'll do during the week, I cut my hair, do my nails, pack my bag and can't wait to wake up next day. Unfortunately, the next day turned out to be very stressful. It was one of the few occasions I almost missed my flight. F.cking OV website told me to get off the train in Best and take bus 145, but the train was late and I missed the bus. Luckily, another train (a stoptrein to Eindhoven) was also late and I took that one to Eindhoven, and then I took a bus to the airport. I got to the check-in desk just in time. What a relief. The flight was okay, but - as always - the seat was very uncomfortable and I couldn't sleep. The pilot was a cool guy. The flight was slightly delayed, so he kept on talking before being allowed to take off. He explained that we were going to take off from runway nr. 22 and not because there are that many of them. Eindhoven Airport actually only has one runway. But it's called nr. 22, because it's oriented 220 degrees toward South-East. Well, I didn't know that.

I did something I don't usually do and that was switching on my phone right after landing. I immediately got a call from Jani, but I didn't want to answer it on the plane. I thought I would call him back once I was in the building. Then, I got another call. Weird, I thought. Then, a minute later, I got two messages. The first one said "don't come out". The second one said "policemen". I called him to ask what was going on... He was very vague. I didn't yet know I was going to wait for more than 5 hours at the airport. Let it suffice to say that he was detained for 4 full hours for something that was a minor offense, but he was cocky with the policeman and the guy decided to teach him a lesson. I waited with him for an hour but then they took him. Then, from 4 to 8 I was sitting in the arrivals hall, occasionally taking a walk around the place, eating a muesli bar and reading a magazine. Getting him back really was the happiest moment of the day. We got home around quarter to nine, warmed up the lunch he made for me and we had that for dinner. We were exhausted, starving and relieved.

Great start for the week that did actually end up being a very nice week. Jani had to work quite a bit and he was also very nervous about the 100th Cinetrip party coming up at the end of the week. He was finally going to play in the main hall, from the balcony above the swimming pool and he spent a week stressing out about the party, selecting and mixing music, and even burning a safety CD, just in case something went wrong on the spot. I also had a couple of things to do. I went to the tax authorities to try to find out why they were bugging me, but that wasn't too easy and I only managed to get half the story. I also started the procedure of getting my UC degree recognized in Hungary. I payed 18350 Ft to get the level approved, but I would have had to pay something like 73000 Ft to get my profession recognized. Thank God, I don't actually have a profession.

The highlights of the week were Zsuzsa's birthday party, baking cakes for Pesach with Irma (we had a pretty hard time with the first one but the second was easy as... pie), spending an afternoon with my grandparents and my brother (and realizing that someone should really get this little guy straight because he's aggressive and mean with my grandparents - what are his parents doing, seriously?), getting drunk at the dinner at my parents' place (that's because Jani and I were late and we chugged a Metaxa-Hell cocktail before leaving, but then we had to drink all the regular stuff at my parents' place), meeting up with two ex-colleagues, Emese and Laci (I haven't seen them for ages, so it was very nice to see them and catch up), being Irma's model at her make-up artist course (my skin - and my eyes especially - didn't like it too much but it was fun), dancing salsa at the Columbus ship on Friday, and the Cinetrip party, of course.

It wasn't the best Cinetrip party ever, but it was okay. I wasn't happy that Jani had left before his friends arrived for drinks - after all, they are mainly his friends, not mine. I could see that Orsi wasn't in a very good mood, but it turned out that they had already been drinking and I mistook her drunken expression for a bad mood. Taki noted that I wasn't in a good mood. Yeah, I'm never in a good mood the evening before leaving for Amsterdam... Anyway, they stayed for an hour, when Tamás picked us up by car. Then, on the way to his place, we picked up Jani from the bath and continued the drinking at Tamás' place while Anita was preparing.

It's always fun to get a backstage pass because you can stroll around at places in the bath that are closed to the public and you can go behind the DJ booth... I spent most of the evening dabbling with Anita and I swear people must have thought we were two lesbians. I was right about Orsi not being in a good mood - she got slightly neurotic about Kincses not paying enough attention to her, but I just didn't feel responsible enough to do anything about it. It's his girlfriend; he does whatever he wants. Besides, he was just talking to Tamás. I did feel responsible enough though to keep an eye on Taki because he got horribly drunk and I didn't want him to get lost in the crowd, fall badly or drown or anything. In the meantime, I was hit on by 3 guys, a similarly drunk Spaniard, a pretty attractive and sober Swiss guy and some other dude I convinced not to jump into the pool from the first floor. (What a mad idea! Although I know that Jani has done that in the past...) I knew Emese should have come along: she would have found a dozen guys to flirt with. The Turkish area of the bath looks as if an orgy could start any moment and aside the couples kissing and stroking each other, I have, in the past, seen couples having sex in the pool. If you think about, it's pretty disgusting: a pool full of all kinds of bodily fluids and beer - but nobody is really thinking about it.

Jani finished playing at 2 and I heard myself through the speakers saying that that area of the bath was closed. We recorded that in two languages a couple of months ago to help the security guards kick people out. Kincses and Orsi left at that point, Jani was about to play in the main area, and I was stuck with a drunk Tamás and Anita. Tamás' every second word was "geci" , they kept on insulting each other and I was just too tired to be with them. I had a task anyway: to record the complete hour of Jani playing. I asked Tamás not to shout into the video camera to which the kind answer was "suck my cock", but I so didn't care. It was 3 am, I knew we weren't going to be at home before 5 and that we would have to leave to the airport at 8. Jani was doing well, he made a couple of tiny mistakes but corrected them. People liked it. He said he was so nervous he checked 5 times whether he was going to press the right buttons.

We got home at 4.45 and landed in the bed pretty much immediately. The morning was horrible. After 2 and a half hours of sleep I woke up like a zombie. We had a quick breakfast and headed toward the airport. He said he hates that I'm leaving him all the time. I said I wasn't leaving him, I was always coming back to him instead. I travelled almost 6 hours home and I felt really lonely in the evening... But this morning we spent almost 2 hours talking on Skype. It was almost like being at home with him.

An epic night

The weather is still cold but the sun is shining, the parks are full of blooming crocuses (croci?) and finally it feels as if spring was just a couple of days away. Anyway, I figured I should write a happy post today and the best material for that at the moment is the events of last Thursday. It was one of the greatest random nights I've ever had at UC.

I took a nap in the afternoon and decided to attend the lecture by McKinsey. I wasn't impressed at all by the lecture, so I just walked out after an hour, at 9. I got ready and called Gábor to ask whether I could borrow his bike to go to town. He warned me that the breaks don't work and that the locks are a bit hard to open (my god, I never fought so much to open a lock!), but it was okay in the end, and I arrived to Mariaplaats at exactly 10 pm. The party was just starting... I went up to a bartender and asked for Kevin (also an ex-UCer, he graduated a year after me, and I found out that he works at Café Maria during Paul's birthday party). We agreed we would have a drink once his shift was over. I danced till around midnight and had a couple of great dance partners, including the Greek guy I got to know the other day, Raja, who introduced me to L.A. salsa during the summer of 2007 and Anthony, a one night stand from ages ago. Anthony and I actually hardly recognized each other, he had shorter hair and different glasses (and to be honest, even if this sounds bad, I find it more difficult to recognize Black faces than Caucasian ones), and I'm obviously quite a bit slimmer now.

Kevin and I had our drinks and we chatted for about half an hour. Then I went back dancing and he went back to his colleagues. The party ended at 2, and I was lucky enough to have a partner who was able to chacha, which was the last dance of the night. (Few people dance chacha, so playing chacha music is a good way to clear the dance floor and indicate that the party is going to end.) Then, I met Kevin again, which was very convenient because 1) some freaky Indian guy was chasing me and 2) he was able to open the lock much faster than I would have been able to. I biked back to campus. I'm sure I've already said this at one point, but I love biking through Utrecht at night!

I went to the bar because David (I was staying at his place again) said he was going to be there and he had the Xs card that opened his unit. But since there were four ex and present BarCos (David, Natasha /ex HR Manager/, Ted /present Inventory Manager/ and I ) in the bar, we just started chatting, drinking and swinging the lamps. Some first year guy was hitting on Natasha and we were gigglish enough to be entertained by his advances. Natasha and the first year guy left and Eric, a friend of David's and ex UCSA Board Treasurer, joined us instead. For about an hour, David and Eric argued about why ex UCSA cannot swing the lamps and why ex Barco can, and in the heat of the debate Eric and I had a glass of beer thrown at us. Well, he was the target but I was sitting next to him. We ate tons of Doritos covered in Tabasco. By the time the chief (Ted) closed - and that was already around 5 o'clock in the morning - there were only five people in the bar: Ted, Andrea (the bartender), David, Eric and I.

As we left the bar, Eric asked whether anyone had eggs in their unit and since Andrea did, we went to her unit in the tower. The guy made a pretty good omelette with pepper, cheese and salami. We had that as a morning snack, and we also opened a bottle of wine, which we slowly finished by 7 am. Of course, we had a very random conversation in the meantime (mostly about pussies, as far as I remember). We thought that it was too late to go to bed - and Andrea had class at 8.45 anyway - so we went to DH for breakfast. We were the first ones. We even had to wait for DH to open. We sat there for more than an hour - mostly talking, we hardly ate anything - watching the hall fill up with people. By then, we were completely exhausted, of course, but that state of mind calls for deeper topics of discussion, such as love or what we want to do with our lives.

At 9, I picked up my things from David's room and left. I knew that if I stayed there, I would have slept through the whole day. I slept through half of the day anyway, but at least in my own bed instead of on a couch. It took me one and a half hours to get home. It was pure torture trying to fight falling asleep on the bus and the train (I didn't sit down in the metro to reduce the risk) and eventually I did fall asleep on the train, but I woke up at Bijlmer Arena, fortunately. When I got home, I just undressed, got in my bed and fell asleep immediately. And I slept and slept for ever and ever... Well, till the phone rang at 3 pm.

I love these random nights when everything starts out so plain and then you end up with a random bunch of people in a random unit and stay awake till the next day starts... So UC.

Nothing, really

I'm sitting in Voltaire and it's almost completely empty, but only because it's dinner time. When did UC start to admit so many nerds that Voltaire is always full?

My supervisor forgot to bring a voice recorder with her to the VU - which she had promised that she would do. So, I couldn't record the two overlapping meetings today.

I'm Dutchifying my attitude toward the NS (Dutch Railways). I don't like them. I could have taken the train from Amsterdam Zuid at 11.08 and no trains came till 11.28... I almost missed my first meeting of the day.

I'm tired. I feel numb. It's good that I have people around. I'm staying at David's (the Dutch one) place tonight and tomorrow, but I'll probably also see the other Dávid (Hungarian) tonight because he asked me whether he could talk to me about his relationship. I'm glad to do so, but I don't feel competent at all to give advice... At this particular moment I feel as if I knew nothing about relationships.

Two good news though: 1) Irma is probably going to come and visit me and 2) I don't have to censor myself anymore. So, a long, uncensored version of the previous post is coming up at one point (in the next two weeks, maybe). I need to get my head straight.

Censored

Last week I lost a friend. Maybe I mistook him for a friend, maybe he wasn't even one. But I've known him for 6 years, we were in love for a while (or from time to time, a bit), he stood by me in hard times, he wrote the most beautiful things to me when Joram and I broke up, he always had something smart to say about the guys I was going out with, he was one of the few who solved the identity of the person I was in love with in AC, I listened to his issues with his girlfriend, his work, everything... He was one of the few people whom I could talk with for 2 hours straight on the phone about anything and everything, without any awkwardness. The first time he ever called me we spent one and a half hours talking on the phone - and we had only met once before. He was also one of the few people I found so attractive that I had to restrain myself from jumping on him whenever I saw him in person. That didn't happen too often (I haven't seen him for almost 2 years) and we had long radio silences, but he was part of my life for 6 years.

I had suspected that what happened recently would happen eventually, but I imagined to find out about it differently. And here is where the censorship comes in because I can't say what happened. The point is not what happened anyway, but that he didn't let me know. We've been friends for 6 years and he didn't tell me this, something we've been discussing for years... I can't conceive it.

It's hard to find the right words to express how upset I was. I had to call a friend who knew our whole history. Then another one. I felt betrayed. I felt the need to do something. Talk. Write a post about the whole story from the beginning till the end. But I can't. Not even without names. He would be in major trouble if the truth came out and it would take a second to identify him... I hate the fact that I have to censor myself, especially for someone else, especially if that someone did not show the faintest appreciation of our friendship.

Anyway, I hope he'll be happy and that he won't regret his decisions. I also hope this post is not too revealing. RecogMe, you'll be missed, even if you sometimes act like a stupid, infantile idiot. May the force be with you.

Alone again

These five days flew by so quickly... When I got home this afternoon, the flat felt very empty. We were in a rush in the morning, so when I got home, our tea was still on the table. Now I'm drinking it alone.

I thought that we were going to have issues with the narrow bed I have. I was completely wrong. We slept like babies every single night except last night but that was because of the anxiety of him leaving. I can never sleep well before traveling. Nor can he, it seems. I don't remember the last time I slept as much as during these 5 days. 10 hours per day was a minimum. Plus the naps.

I wish he could have stayed a bit longer. Does distance make the heart grow fonder? According to Zsuzsa, the secret of happiness lies in having the distance equivalent to the width of the Atlantic Ocean between lovers. I'd rather decrease that distance to 0...

So, today, I took Jani to Eindhoven. I love that he cries at the airport every time we say good-bye. I really do. Now it's another month till we see each other again. Till then, we'll just Skype religiously, like we usually do.

Oh, sweet procrastination...

Sometimes it just feels nice to do nothing. Watch an episode of The L Word, watch dozens of YouTube videos of Tatiana and Jordan dancing west coast swing (I might have to dedicate a whole post to this one), read a short story of Roald Dahl, write facebook messages to friends, feed my virtual fish, water the plants, cut my fringe etc. But I've got the feeling that I've been taking this let's not do anything thing a bit too far in the past couple of days. And I have a reason for that. I've been procrastinating to avoid writing a motivation letter.

There's a short (a couple of days long) training programme I would like to take part in, the deadline to submit the applications is slowly approaching and it's not that I didn't have any ideas about what to write, but I just couldn't get myself to write it. So, I started it today but I still have to finish it. Then, I'll have to touch up my CV. (See, the beauty of this post is that I am procrastinating right now...)

I hate that I need some pressure to work. It's good that I'll have to go to Utrecht tomorrow and that Jani is coming in 3 days (yes, yes, yes, finally!) because this gives me little time to do the things I need to do: write the motivation letter, rewrite the CV, deal with the yeti-legs (it's not that bad, actually...) and to clean this place completely. See, Jani is very neat. No dust, not a single hair on the floor (haha, that's quite easy to maintain when he's alone) everything is where it's supposed to be and every dish has to be washed up right after being used. Well, my attitude is slightly different toward these things - and he knows this very well - but I'll clean anyway because I don't want to start these couple of days with "how can you live in such dirt?" and because I know that he would feel much more comfortable in an absolutely neat and clean apartment. So, let's make him happy. It's actually not supposed to take that long because if on a 10 point scale where 1 is completely clean and 10 is "fuck, you're a pig", I'm now somewhere around 4. Kind of... "nicely casual".

Okay, I guess it's time to get back to my motivation letter :)

A good idea

Couchsurfing I.

When I realized that I wanted to do my fieldwork at UC, what I saw as the main issue (apart from convincing the Dean that this is a good idea) was where I would live. I have to keep my room in Amsterdam because I have a one-year contract and regardless of whether I live there or not, I must pay for my studio for a full year. So, I can't afford to rent another room in Utrecht because I'm already spending 500 euros a month on rent and even with the scholarship, another rent would be just too much. I have the option of commuting back and forth between Amsterdam and Utrecht every day, but without an OV card (a public transport pass) that's also at least 250 euros a month. (I could get a reduction card but with the prospect of a job - which means that I can apply for stufi, which means that I can get an OV card - I don't really feel like buying one just yet.) Another option would be to sublet my studio - which I'm not allowed to do, of course, although lots of people told me that this is what everybody does - but then I'd face the difficulty of finding student accomodation in Utrecht, which is almost impossible if you're not on the waiting list. And this is how I ended up with the idea of couchsurfing.

I started on campus at David's place 2 weeks ago (that was only one night because there wasn't much happening) and I spent the last week at Dávid, Lynn and Jens' place last week. They moved into a very cool apartment quite close to the Janskerkhof not too long ago. Their apartment has a large living room/dining room, a bedroom upstairs, a small loungish area next to the bedroom, a study, a roof terrace (so cool!), a nice bathroom and a fully equipped kitchen. I liked everything about the place except the usual narrow Dutch stairs and that there was no heating in the kitchen. Dávid sleeps in the living room (on a big double bed) and so did I - on a couch, which was reasonably comfortable.

The great thing about staying with friends is that you can actually catch up with them in person, cook together, eat together, watch movies, go out... It was a really nice week. Dávid and I cooked paprikás krumpli, Lynn and I had tea all the time, we had mangos and watched lots of Two and a Half Men. Saturday, they had a housewarming party, and I went to Amsterdam Friday evening so that I could do my laundry before returning for the party with my bag filled with clean clothes for the next week. The party was great although it was only a group of about 10 people. After two glasses of wine, I went for the tequila with Dávid and we both had 8 shots, I think. Obviously, we were quite merry :) Around 2.30, we decided that it was time to go out, so Dávid, Jens, a friend of his and I went out to the Havana, where we had to bribe the security guard to get in, and danced till the place closed, which was after 4 am. I didn't feel drunk till we got there, but as soon as we started dancing, I realized that 8 shots might have been a bit too much. Apparently, I managed to smash my head into Jens' lips somehow, so when he asked the next day whether I remembered, the pain in my forehead was explained. (No, I did not remember.)

The next day was the most chilled day ever. I woke up with a completely clear head at around 10 and had eggs for breakfast with the whole group that stayed over. I was fairly surprised at the lack of a hangover. Well, it was still to come... We watched 5 episodes of Two and a Half Men, just to get started. Then, we watched V for Vendetta. Then, since that movie has references to The Count of Monte Cristo, we watched that too. During the day, it became quite clear that I wouldn't go out to the Winkel van Sinkel to dance salsa, like I originally planned, because every sudden move felt quite torturing. So, a bit later, Dávid and I decided to make pancakes for the four of us. Then, just because we haven't been lazy enough the whole day, we watched Slumdog Millionaire in the evening. One thing is sure: it's much nicer to be lazy in the company of others than alone.

Things I came across

I was sitting on the train from Utrecht to Amsterdam last night and I opened the Spits that was lying around. The Spits is a daily paper, quite similar to the Metro and definitely not of better quality, but good enough to read through a couple of pages during your trip. I found a page that was full of Valentine's day wishes. I think the idea was that you could use the Jamin website to write a message to your loved one, it would get published in the Spits and the most creative message would get a price. This is where I found the following:

"Lieve sous, na 8 jaar samen zijn. Een kindje, en een koophuis verder, wordt het tijd voor de volgende stap... Dus bij deze: wil je met me trouwen..."

I was quite confused. Is he really proposing in the Spits, on a page that has about 90 Valentine's day wishes on it and 3 ads of Jamin? Are they going to frame this or what?! Strange...

Another thing I came across lately is a blog of a Hungarian girl. She's a PhD student in sociology and she wanted to study the clients of prostitutes. She figured that since it was too expensive to pay prostitutes to get the data for her (and wouldn't have too much control over her data) and since she actually likes having sex with strangers, she would become a prostitute herself for about 14-16 weeks. She advertises herself in some paper, satisfies her clients (she's doing anything including anal and oral sex, using strap-ons on men, having sex with couples etc.) and instead of accepting money, she asks them to fill out a questionnaire. Obviously, one person can only see her once and no one can find her through her blog. So, essentially, it's a surprise when people find out that they don't have to pay and no one can contact her for a free fuck.

Her blog is about her experiences and the outcomes of her research. She describes the people who came to see her, what they asked her to do and what she learnt from the questionnaire. It's quite interesting :) It's not a sex blog per se, but includes quite some detail on sex, and the most interesting part is, of course, why people come to see her. Her blog is titled "Répamese, avagy egy majdnem kurva naplója" (Carrot tales: the diary of an almost-whore) and you can find it here, if you're interested: lurva.blog.hu. It's in Hungarian, but if you don't speak this lovely language, I'm sure Google Translate will give you an idea of the content.

When life happens...

I find facebook more and more freaky. It's not actually facebook, but my friends, but I learn these things through facebook, so let me blame facebook.

It all started with Anne-Thora, my co-year from AC, getting married. Her wedding pictures appeared online all of a sudden. Then, my ex-roommate, Ingvill had a baby. Then, Catherine, a housemate from AC got married. Then, I looked at one of the status updates in my news feed and the last name of a friend of mine looked weird. I was quite sure she was used to be called Breanna Skinner. Well, she got married, too. Another status update today, another weird last name: a girl from my Psycholinguistics class at UC got married too.

What's going on, people!? Aren't we too young for these things? Babies and marriage...

I met Misi during the break for a hot chocolate (we had been going out for approximately a year before I left for AC). He told me about a former classmate of his - whom I also knew because we were in the same year in the same high school - who had a baby some time ago. I think by now the little boy must be at least a year old. So, apparently, the guy has been trying to convince everybody around him that they should have children because it's such a wonderful thing. Then, at New Year's Eve, he was drunk and he started explaining how horrible it is actually, how he hates the whole thing and that he hasn't planned his life like this... Now, THIS SUCKS.

I talked about this with a friend of mine and he said that he was really approaching the age (33) where only very few of his friends were not married. He found it scary. So do I. Maybe I'll get used to people getting married around me. After all, it was also strange when I first sat next to Irma and Sali driving a car. But I got used to it. Now, I'm driving a car, too. This shouldn't be too different.

It's just life happening.

Het is mistig. Will I finally be learning Dutch?

This was the first sentence that came to mind when I opened the curtains this morning. "It's foggy." There's a whitish, opaque colour to the air and when I went to the AH, I could almost feel the tiny, levitating water droplets hitting my face. And why in Dutch? I don't know. I talked to David on the phone before leaving his room and he said that he wanted to say goodbye so I decided to hang out in his room before leaving campus. I started reading my Dutch wordbook. If you are Hungarian, you are probably familiar with the "Kezdők angol/holland/francia (etc.) nyelvkönyve" series, well, I have the Dutch edition of that. If you're not familiar with it, you have to imagine it as a comic book, with (usually funny) pictures on all pages and with words written next to them. It contains more than 2000 words and expressions and I'm a great fan of it because I find that the illustrations really help me remember the words. The cover gives a good idea of what's inside:

David thought it would be a good idea to ask me to translate a couple of English words to Dutch and he was impressed by the number of random words I knew and I was embarrassed by the number of words I did not know... My Dutch is something I will be working on this semester. I decided that I needed something apart from fieldwork, which is basically going to meetings, talking to people and typing up my notes. Later during the deskwork period I will have a lot more things to do and especially to write. But till then, learning Dutch seems like a good idea to me. After all, I've been here for 3,5 years, and sure, I can do my groceries in Dutch, ask for directions, I bought my bike from a guy that didn't speak English, I understood the old lady who asked me to help her get the pudding from the shelf, I can have a basic conversation about dancing, but I wish I could express myself better. If only for the next half a year, then for the next half a year. Just for my own satisfaction.

This plan might be slightly compromised by an opportunity that came along. I was contacted by a company that is looking for a translator who would work on translating video games to Hungarian. Sounds like fun, I said and sent them my CV. We'll see whether they get back to me... They are located in Utrecht, which is convenient, considering that I'll spend most of my time there anyway, but I have no idea how much time their translators need to spend on translating per week or whether they want their translators to do their jobs in the office or at home, for example.

Message from the field

I'm finally in the field! It's a bit strange to be in the field instead of a lab or in front of the computer, but I'll get used to it. My final research proposal was accepted Tuesday afternoon and I was already attending an MT (Management Team) meeting the very same morning. It's so difficult not to say anything during a meeting! You have ideas that you'd like to share and you just can't say a word... Then, I went to the CC (College Council) meeting yesterday and I had the same frustrations, spiced with the fact that I knew the answers to some of their questions because they were discussed in the MT meeting the day before. Knowledge is frustrating when you can't share it with others. Today, I'll go to the H4 meeting (the Heads of Departments plus the Director of Education) and it will be exactly the same - I'll know everything they don't and I won't be able to allowed to say anything. It's exciting.

Being back feels nice, even though I still have to arrange a desk, a way to use the internet (since I don't have a solis-ID anymore) and get an Xs card. I had to wait for like 10 minutes in front of Voltaire for someone to come by and let me in. Then, I had to ask a friend to sign me in on a computer. I hope to get rid of these inconveniences soon. I slept at David's place (not the Hungarian one, but a Dutch ex-BarCo) in a huge double bed while he slept in his girlfriend's room. We had a very nice evening, catching up, doing groceries for the evening, taking part in his unit dinner, having a couple of drinks and spending some time in the bar. I'm still looking for a room for tonight and then I'll be heading back to Amsterdam for the weekend.

Once in a while...

... things work out in a way that makes your life easier. This is one of those days. When the deus ex machina says "okay... okay... let's give you some time".

Yesterday, I spent the whole afternoon/evening/night with rewriting my proposal. I e-mailed Sietse, who's The Authority on statistics (at least among friends) and he wrote very smart things and ways to do the analysis, which all pushed me in the direction of not wanting to do quantitative research. I'll spare you the description of why (for those interested it's all about assumptions and number of data points and control over my data). So, I was back where I started from. Trying to find a way to solve the issue in an interpretive way.

Yanow - very interesting woman, one of our COM teachers - said that when you have a writers' block, you should write a letter: "Dear Grandma..." Instead of that, I chatted with Sietse on GTalk and while trying to explain my problems, the solution appeared out of the blue. There it was, a question still about meeting practices but with a different focus, and much easier to analyze my data!

I spent the rest of the evening writing. And writing. Since Sietse also had a paper to write, we "met" every two hours online to discuss how far in the process of writing we are. At one point he said that it's like sitting in Locke or Voltaire, and really, it was like sitting in Voltaire, walking up to someone to chat for a couple of minutes to relax before continuing your work. It was fun :) I called it a day at 1:55 and decided to get up at 7:50, so that I would have an hour to make adjustments to the piece before the deadline.

I woke up at 7:45 (before my morning alarm!), took an hour to finish the piece, uploaded it to BlackBoard and started writing my next paper, which I have to hand in and present tomorrow. And this is where something good happened. Originally, I should have gone to a CC meeting in Utrecht tonight and an MT meeting tomorrow morning, which means that by now, I'd pretty much have to be done with everything. And then, an e-mail came from Jos, the Chair of the CC. The meeting is going to be on Wednesday!

Oh yes, I said, and jumped into bed immediately, slept another 3 hours, wrote this post, now I'm going to go to the AH to get some food, cook something nice and then, I'll have all the time in the world this evening to write my review paper and prepare my presentation, sipping tea and listening to music :)