Elevated Renovations

Sitting at my desk at work is fascinating at the moment. The building opposite is being renovated and for now that means the insides are torn out. I think the building has about ten floors, and there is a skip hanging somewhere near the ninth floor. The building is big and black, part of the wall in the front has been torn out, and there is this red skip hanging in mid-air. It fascinates me. There are all sorts of rules about safety, and this is actually possible. I see big pieces of wood, rock and metal just missing the skip and falling down, and at times there is a huge cloud of dust. It is pretty distracting.

I finally got my cellphone today, apparently I am the last one in the company to get one. That was definitely my choice, I don’t like the things. I am sure they are very useful, and I am also sure they are addictive. We’ll see how it goes. For now I just have to work out what to do, which is hard enough.

Coaching

Yesterday I talked to my coach again for the first time in a while. I have a coach at work who helps me out once in a while. He worked on my project for even longer than me, and I’ve known him for about seven years now. He has moved on to another project, so I thought that would be the end of that coaching for me. He decided to stay my coach though, and I am really pleased about that. I guess we are alike in many ways, and I have learned a lot from him over the past seven years. I admire his dedication, his complete integrity and his determination And he is just a very nice man.

It was good to talk to him again, because he made me think about a few things. I guess that is the best thing a coach can do. I coach someone too, and I tend to be a teacher at times rather than a coach. Though I like to think differently, of course.

I also got a chance to talk to him about a situation that has been bugging me all week, and which I wasn’t all that sure about. Someone I have worked with for a long time kept on at me about something I was supposed to have done wrong, but he only heard half the story. That always gets to me, and I don’t usually know what to do about it. I talked to my coach about this, and he confirmed my ideas about handling the situation, so that was reassuring. In our organisation it isn’t always clear where responsibilities lie, but I’m glad I can still get it right. It annoys me though, that after so many years at work and reaching the position I’m in people still get to me like that. And what got to me is that I thought this man would know me better than to simply believe such a story.

Today was all about money for me. I’m reading a book on dealing with money more sensibly, and that provides a whole different set of challenges. I will try and keep track of my money for a while, writing down every cent I spend. See where it all goes. That should be an interesting exercise…

Taking Care

Another strange day. There was a presentation today I was invited to. The city awards an environmental and nature award every year, and this year it was to be presented to four organisations that have worked hard to create an inventory of the animals and plants present in the city. One organisation does birds, another one specifically swifts, another plants, and another one works in a more general way. To my mind four organisations which deserve a little credit. I know some of the people involved, all volunteers, and they are all committed to the work they do.

So I was surprised by the ceremony. The alderman who was supposed to hand out the award wasn’t there, a colleague took over. I don’t think he has all that much sympathy for these organisations because he is responsible for the city’s building programme. Animals sometimes get in the way of development. So he took about three minutes to hand out checks, read a couple of lines on each organisation, and that was it. It was pretty cynical really. I felt embarrassed to be part of this organisation.

Events like this always make me wonder if I am in the right business at all. I was also surprised by a couple of colleagues, men who work for the same company I work for, and who only thought of new legislation to protect animals and plants as a problem, and who would probably ignore it if they thought they could get away with it. One of the reasons why I like the project I work on is that we do take the environment serious, and we try to be as careful as we can. I work hard to make it possible for birds to nest on our sites wherever there is a little space.

It can be so easy sometimes to spare the environment while you are at work, it can be as easy as starting at one end of a site rather than the other, or as asking an ecologist to move animals or plants out of the way. What is wrong with working carefully and saving a few lives as you work, even if they are “just” animal lives. What is wrong with people these days.

Dreams

This morning, or last night, I had a weird dream. It was a strange mixture of fiction and memories from long ago. I usually forget my dream almost as soon as I open my eyes, but somehow my dream this morning stayed with me. I think it was my dream this morning, and I think I woke up in the middle of it, courtesy of my friendly alarm. The dream felt like the beginning of a mystery novel, so I wrote down bits of it, before it fades.

The strange thing about it was the mix. Parts of the dream were very real, and took place in my old secondary school. I couldn’t see all of it though, and it felt unfamiliar. There was a girl in my dream, but it wasn’t me. It was hard for me to concentrate on work this morning, because these images kept going through my mind and I wanted to hold on to them somehow.

I read a book a while ago by one of my favourite Dutch authors on the way she writes her novels. She describes the way stories find her, and she just has to work out what story this is. It’s not as easy as it sounds, but sometimes I recognise something of what she says. Like the way the story was there this morning, but it was just the start. Or maybe something in the middle. It was just so intriguing, I want to know what happens next. Last year I started another story, which got lost a little while ago. Starting point for this one was an image I had before my eyes when I was in Kirkwall, Orkney last year.

I had to catch a tram into work this morning because I didn’t get a chance to fix the flat tire on my bike over the weekend. I’m no good at fixing flats anyway, and always depend on the help of my partner. He fixed my tire before I even got home this afternoon, wonderful!

But I digress. I like cycling in the morning, the fresh air, a little exercise, not being dependent on public transport, and gradually moving from the world of work to the world of my home. But sometimes it isn’t so bad travelling by tram because you get a different perspective again. When I cycle I always feel rushed, I want to go faster, and I don’t like getting stuck behind slower traffic. I can even get pretty aggressive. Travelling by tram is more relaxing in that respect. Once I am on the tram there is nothing I can do about the pace, so I just sit back and enjoy the view. And I always see things I don’t get to see when I’m cycling.

Exam

The day of the exam. I had to go to Leiden to take it, one of those big halls that used to be there for cattle markets and are now used for all sorts of big events, concerts and fairs. I remember taking a linguistics exam there long ago, when I was a student, and I remember even further back seeing the Osmonds in concert there. Different event and atmosphere altogether. Great fun though. But maybe I’ll describe that one some other time.

I guess it was pretty much what I expected. A lot of people, I was number 407, and there were more. Lots of little wooden tables and chairs in neat rows, the same pieces of paper on all of them, small pencil and rubber. Quite a few attendants to help out the people who got a bit lost. Some people slightly nervous, a lot of smoking outside the hall and in the lobby.

We had forty minutes to do the exam, forty multiple choice questions, and had to stay in our seats the whole time. I think I needed about 25 minutes, so plenty of time to have a good look round. It was good to see so many different people there, many young people and a few older ones, I think about as many men as women, and from different ethnic backgrounds. I also recognised the hall from my earlier visits. I remembered that the setup was exactly the same for my linguistics exam, but I wasn’t sure about the concert. I think I know where the stage was, but it was dark outside then, and it looked different. It was well over 20 years ago, too.
Anyway, back to the exam itself. I took some test exams at home all this week, and I did okay. I knew what to expect and I got what I expected. Some of the questions weren’t very clear, and some were ambiguous. I had my doubts about eight of the questions, but I think I guessed most of those correctly. This was one of the strangest exams I’ve ever had to take though, for me at least.

You need the certificate to be able to open a bar or café serving alcoholic beverages, so I was wondering if that is what all those people want to do. Will we have so many more bars and pubs here in a couple of years’ time? I wonder how many people passed as well.

After the exam I went on to The Hague. I was pleasantly surprised to find a new book by one of my favourite authors, the Belgian Kristien Hemmerechts. She writes books that are sometimes hard to read because she writes about loss in a way that really hits home. For a while a couple of years ago they came too close and I couldn’t read them. It must be so gratifying to be able to write like that, to be able to move people that way.

When I got home I checked the answers to the exam on the net and it looks like I passed. I got two out of forty wrong, and you are allowed sixteen (?) mistakes. This isn’t the official result yet though, that should be available in about six weeks. It should be alright.

Now the next question is, what am I going to do with all this new spare time. Have fun, maybe….

Colours

Spent the first part of the morning with my crayons colouring in a map. Always great fun. I sometimes need to do that for a meeting, just to make sure everybody knows what we are talking about and that we are talking about the same thing. You do get some funny looks though. The map came in very useful though when I had to chair my meeting in the afternoon, and I was glad to have it there.

Went home early with a huge headache to find Luka’s new cd waiting for me there. I decided to take things easy, so I went to lie down on the couch after putting on the cd. And it was lovely. I didn’t fall asleep, but I did feel very relaxed. Very soothing record. Mainly new songs, I hadn’t heard them before, and they were a bit un-Luka. Nice though. And finally a recording of “I’ll Walk Beside You”, which he does so beautifully live.