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.