Work

Onward!

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I totally forgot to mention earlier that I had heard back from Webcare saying that I made it through the selection meeting and would I come for an interview. Which of course I did. That was about two weeks ago. The interview lasted about an hour. It was mostly with one of the managers, the other one was held up so was only present for the last ten minutes or so.

Monday, I got an e-mail at work saying we (all the people that went on tot interviews)  would hear before end of day whether or not we had been hired or not. That work day was one of the longest I had in quite a while but by the time I was off work, there still was no e-mail 🙁

This morning, I started really early to catch up on reporting. When I opened my mailbox, there it was. Sent the day before, about an hour after I was free. I took a breath, clicked it, and read. And it said I was hired. Fortunately there wasn’t anyone there yet except for a lonely backoffice colleague so my loudly exclaimed YES! didn’t disturb too many people 😀

There’s no clarity yet as to when I’ll transfer over there, but we’ll see. At least I’m hired. I spent the rest of the day doing reporting things and preparing for the handover of all of that back onto my managers.

After work I did a quick stop at Yantra where I acquired some scented little pillows and a copy of Le Petit Prince. Once home, I changed and headed for the gym for an hour and a half of excercise with Kim.

All Over the Place

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It wasn’t very  busy at work on Friday, so when I got there a wee bit before twelve to start my shift at noon, I figured I’d ask for leave. I had some reporting stuff to do later on, so I just asked for leave until 16:00, which I got.

Then Nienke suggested we go to the movies. So she asked for leave, and then Thomas was game for movie as well. We harassed traffic for quick answers, which we got, and off we went to the cinema. We decided on Need for Speed which was actually a pretty good movie. There was a decent plot, nice actors and very pretty (and fast) cars.
Afterward we went back to work until the end of our shifts, it was hilarious seeing everyone’s faces when we showed up again after leaving earlier 😀

hemnesSaturday we went to Ikea, really early in the morning. I got the big Hemnes cabinet along with some fabric baskets to put inside it. When we got to the kitchen part, I fell for the dishes there. I’d been bored with my regular whites anyway so I got new plates and bowls in dark purple and faded green. Also two picture frames to display some of the Paul Kidby prints I got as a Kickstarter reward. After getting home I spent the rest of the day building the bloody cabinet. By nightfall it was ready so I could put stuff in it. It will probably take a little bit of getting used too, as it’s a wee bit deeper than I anticipated/remembered. But it does already look much better than before. It’s real nice to have a proper place to spread out the altar.

This morning in Pilates class we got a new series of excercises, ouch! After lunch I removed all the winter decorations still in place and put up the spring stuff. It looks nice 🙂

Lord Erik and the Spartans in the Midwest

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march20-1Movie day with Gert yesterday. I had the whole day off, so I went to the city early in the morning to meet up with him. Did some shopping first at Xenos where I bought me two awesome tea boxes.

Afterwards we went to see 300: Rise of an Empire. It is exactly what you expect of it: lots of slaughter, lots of blood, lots of gore, lots of slow motion bits to emphasise the killing and blood, very little plot. There’s nothing in this movie that sticks with you, the characters are one dimensional made of cardboard, not even a flicker of personality to make you care even in the slightest if they might die or not.

The second movie of the day was August: Osage County. Now this is a movie I really loved. It’s a family drama themed movie where, after their father disappears and then dies, the three children come home to their family home in the midwest. This leads to secrets being unearthed, arguing and awkward moments.

march20-2Today I had a late shift so I went to the store in the morning. After getting to the register with my basket I realised I forgot my wallet at home :S Fortunately I could place my basket near the register while I biked back home to get it. So my quick shopping trip took a bit longer than expected 😀

Afterward I cleaned the litter boxes and put the dishes in the dishwasher to make room on the counter for me to cook. Then, on to work I went. Work itself was uneventful, but late in the afternoon one of my coworkers approached me with a picture. “Look!” he said. And when I did I spied a picture of him on the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones! As it turned out, HBO NL was visiting us again with the Throne (I think this was the third time total since I’ve worked there). The previous times I missed the opportunity.

This time around, I dropped everything and almost ran for it. I got lucky as the dude manning it was about to start cleaning up the shoot but he agreed to take my picture. So I grabbed the sword that was also present and sat on the Throne. For a prop used solely for this kind of photo shoot it’s remarkably solid and lifelike 😀 I was giddy with excitement, but managed to pull a serious face for the photo. The dude shot, the dude printed and I left with my shiny, shiny photo. After I left, a couple of my teammates showed up and also got lucky, but then he really left.

And of course I have to show you the picture 😀

Behold! Lord Erik of Westeros!

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Rise and Shine

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Wednesday, Eva came by with Feije for coffee. We took a walk to the thrift store, where we found some fun things. A little while after lunch they left again and I realised I’d forgotten my hormone shot appointment… I quickly called but they couldn’t fit me in anymore. So the first opportunity were both I could and they could is next Tuesday. Ah well, I’ll survive 😀

Thursday during singing class, we were both not really in the mood for singing. So we did excercises mostly and a start in singing harmonies together. I had to go to work after, which kinda sucked. Luckily I managed to get an hour off at the end, especially since Friday was gonna be a “Big” day. ‘Cause Friday I had an Intro WFM (WorkForce Management) training in Amsterdam.

I got up at 4:30 in the morning to get ready and by 5:15 Mom showed up with the car to drive me to Groningen as the train from here to there doesn’t go that early. In Groningen I had the 6:05 train to Utrecht where I had to switch to a different train. However that train decided to speed by the station and not stop… Fortunately I’d built in extra time in my time plan so waiting half an hour for the next one wasn’t a problem. I ended up arriving at my Amsterdam station at 9:11 and hit the pavement to head for the training location where I ended up at 9:25. The training was supposed to start at 9:30 so I made it just in time 😀

Once inside, it turned out I had more than enough time, what with waiting on and meeting everyone we didn’t actually head for the class room and start until about ten or so. The training itself was a lot of fun, I learned enough to create a base for further learning in this field. I find WFM fascinating and I like doing it. As evidenced by the reporting and coordinating stuff I do at work. Unfortunately I won’t be able to do the entire course (six or seven more meetings) as I don’t have enough budget for that. I did get the syllabus, though, so I can read up on the rest.

Yesterday I had to work, too, but I spent the rest of that day and today in chill-mode to recharge my batteries 🙂 Did a lot of reading this week, finished Divergent, then started Insurgent and finished that during the train travel on Friday. Then yesterday I started Allegiant, which I finished today. They were good books, I’m looking forward to the movie.

Scooooooooones

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Spent last Sunday messing about with my bedroom and the craft room. Moved the sidetable I use as altar space to the craft room to serve as main table. It’s much better for that because it’s large and has drawers on the sides. I turned the shelf unit back on its short side so the other table that was there could be in the corner next to it. It’s gonna take me some days to get all the stuff back into all the cubbies and drawers.

While setting up the new, temporary, altar (I’ll be replacing it with a new chest of drawers soonish) I realised Athena’s been trying to get my attention the last few months. I’m noticing an abundance of owls in my consciousness and also in what I buy. While generally owls are not my thing. Late last year I bought a decorative hanger, owl. I also acquired a candle, shaped like an owl. And recently when I was in the city I bought a set of those can’t see, can’t hear, can’t speak statuettes in the form of owls. And normally I never would have bought that, but now it just spoke to me. So, you got me, lady, I’m here 🙂 Let’s see what this brings in the future. I gave her a space on my altar to begin with.

Later in the afternoon, Nienke and I did a High Tea. We made some brownies, muffins and scones, and added extra chocolate and fudge and cake and chocolate chip cookies. And tea, much tea. And jam and whipped cream. Nommmmmm. We ended up with so many left over that we brought my parents a box of tasty as well. Plus some of the soup I had made the day before.

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Monday I went to the gym, with Kim, sort of. We agreed to meet there at the same time, and then mainly did our own thing. Chatting whenever we ended up on machines next to each other. Fun thing to do, plus it gives just that extra bit of pressure and motivation while still doing your own thing.

I heard from Webcare, I’m through to the next round, which means I get to come in for an interview this Tuesday. Exciting!

Today I went over to Kim’s for tea and to check out her box of books destined for the thrift store. Had a great time chatting about everything and meeting her cats. And I came home with a rather large bag of new mind-food 😀

Paper Stuff

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I forgot if I mentioned this on here, but the Webcare department at work has job openings. They’re looking to drastically increase their size, so I applied for that. And Monday I got an e-mail from their manager asking if I could make it to the selection meeting on Tuesday. Of course! So Tuesday I went. It was 50/50 useful. They started by telling a bit about what Webcare does and who they were (the managers). Then there was a language test, which makes sense. It was a piece of cake, considering I’m currently in the emailteam. After, you had to pair up with your neighbour, chat for a few minnutes and then introduce the neighbour to the rest of the assembly. This was a rather ridiculous excercise.  The whole thing took about two hours. I’ll hear if I’m through for an interview in two weeks.

Today mom stopped by for tea and brought my package (which gets deliverd to the Parents cause they’re home more often). Added to the letter paper that arrived yesterday, I’m all set for reading and writing. The letter paper and the notepads come from Zartbesaitet, a lovely German shop with all kinds of paper products in this and related designs. The books (Where’d You Go Bernadette, Sorcery & Cecelia and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society) are what we’re reading in the LEP book club. I plan to start in Where’d You Go Bernadette tomorrow as I have the day off.

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Achievement Unlocked: Succesfully Avoided (3) Excercise Demons

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Managed to skip going to the gym for the entire week, bad me. On Monday I skipped because I realised I didn’t really like the one half of the class I was going to, and to just do the other half isn’t long enough. Plus the instructor always manages to guilt trip me into staying for that second half anyway and I don’t like that. Tuesday I skipped because there’s too much time between getting home from work and going to the gym. By the time I have to go get ready, I’ve settled in and really don’t want to go anymore. Today I slept in and missed Pilates, which is a shame because I do like it.

Wednesday I went over to Gert to, couple months late, exchange birthday prezzies. I got him the NL variant of Ticket to Ride and he got me Machiavelli. We played Ticket to Ride a couple times and then watched some Doctor Who and Attack on Titan. I’d never seen that before but I really like it. Was also nice to just hang out and chat and stuff. Usually we go to the movies and then there’s less catching up time 😀

At work the buzz is that the workflow they took is coming back in week 8, so yay!

Yesterday and today I played a lot of Warcraft. Decided to try out my solo abilities on Cataclysm Dungeons. I face roll Burning Crusade stuff, but never really tried soloing Wrath instances since I was guilded back then and did all that with them. Managed to do Stonecore, Voretx Pinnacle, Blackrock Caverns and Grim Batol, all on normal. It wasn’t face roll easy, but it was very well doable. I wonder once I get some more Timeless Isle pieces, if I can try my hand at heroic versions. I need that to finally get my Ramkahen rep to exalted. I want my camel 😀

I also finished Cycle of Hatred earlier this week, good book.

And, I finally managed to write three letters to some people in my pen pal group, yay me. I’ll be mailing them out tomorrow, together with the traveling notebook.

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Grand Adventures

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Had a check-up at the hopsital this morning to test hormone levels and such. Check up was a breeze. Bit of small talk with the doctor about how I was (splendid!) and did I have any questions (nope). Then it was on to the Needle Folk to take a couple vials of blood. Results in two weeks.

Then went to the mall with mom. Bought a book about Groningen between 1780 and 1850. Then we picked up Nienke after her exam and headed for the Hema for breakfast. Then we went to Ikea to look for new sofas.

We sat on many and finally decided to go for Ektorp after all. I decided we should get two three-seaters, since our living room is so huge, as well as the comfy chair that goes with it. I also bought a night stand and a chest of drawers for my socks and stuff like that.

With that being done, we headed for the check out and made an appointment for delivery of all the stuff. We got lucky, they could come and deliver the next morning! Afterwards we headed back home. I took a little nap and then got ready for the team outing. We went for dinner at Pappa Joe, then bowling. I had a great time, and even managed a couple strikes and spares. After our time was up, we headed out to go drink some more. I tagged along, but since that is really not my thing, I left pretty soon after together with two other colleagues. Halfway to the station I realised… I had no key. Nienke had a key. I contemplated going back, but figured I could stop by the Parent’s place and get their key, it wasn’t that late. So I went on towards home, and stopped at the Parents. Where I spent 40 minutes ringing the bell and calling them before mom woke up… She hadn’t heard anything. It turned out Dad had, but thought it was the phone and doorbell of the neighbours……….

After all that time I was rather pissed and freezing so I took the key and went along home to go to bed. Only to get up fairly early the next day because…

Sofa delivery day!

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That is indeed ten packages. The  two big ones are the sofas, the smaller big one is the chair. The three on top are the sofa and chair covers. The long one on the floor is Nienke’s new Billy and the two flat ones below that, the doors for said Billy. Finally, the bigger flat one below the doors is my chest with drawers. Of course I know that Ikea is king of modular furniture and that this would also apply to sofas. But somehow I hadn’t actually thought of the fact that I would be getting lots of boxes instead of ready furniture 😀

Nienke hadn’t come home until the early morning and was still very hung over when the sofas came. So I just left her be and started building, while occasionally sending her a photo. I started with the chair, on the premise that it’s the smallest piece so probably the easiest. And that it was, indeed. The back and the seating are attached so they just folded open. Then it was only a matter of putting some screws in to attach the arms to the frame and the feet to the bottom. Then all it needed was its cover, and done. Monkey approved 😀

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The sofas had the same process, but it took a little longer because of size. Monkey approved of this, also.

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We stuffed the old sofas in the garage and then I spent the rest of the evening building the chest of drawers while re-watching Star Trek: Into Darkness. Then today I skipped Pilates, and built the night stand after which I hit relax mode for the rest of the day to finish Last of the Guardians.

Floored

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At work “they” took my beloved workflow away from me. I’ve been coordinating a particular flow for about two years now, together with someone else (am on my fourth ‘someone else’). I like it not because it lets me do more things and show more of what I can do, I also like it because it’s an every day from 9 to 11 thing. Therefore, I have to start at 9 as well. Which gives me a very nice, and predictable schedule. But now, they took the workflow away to another department to see if they can do it instead of us. This all as part of cost reduction and making sure we all have as little ‘unproductive’ hours as possible. It’ll be for four weeks at first, so we’ll see how that goes. I’m not convinced yet the other department can actually handle it.

Today I laid the new floor in my bedroom. It’s sooo pretty. It’s this one, Pure Pine, from HandyFloor although in reality it’s a bit more greyish than the image. Which only makes it prettier 😀

Pricy flooring, but since my bedroom is small (about 8,5 square meters) the cost is doable. It’s a pvc laminate floor, which just clicks to each other like regular laminate flooring. But you can just score it with a knife and then break it. No need for sawing when you reach a wall.

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In practice, it is indeed fairly easy to break, as long as you’re just breaking off the ends and not trying anything lengthwise, as that requires more work and armstrength. All in all, it went well. Except I ended up being about 2 pieces short, while having ordered enough. By that time it was already too late to do anything, so I called it a day.

Blog About Me [15/52] Timeline Of My Day

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Typical work day goes like this:

7:20 – Alarm goes off. I hit snooze.

7:30 – Alarm goes off, again. I hit snooze again. At this point I usually grab the phone (which is my alarm) and check e-mail, Facebook, Reddit for a wee bit while trying to actually wake up.

7:40 – Alarm goes off, again. I turn it off and finally get out of bed to get dressed and all that.

8:00 – I go downstairs. I eat some breakfast if I have easy stuff at hand. Otherwise it’s a glass of milk, or maybe one of those tiny yoghurt drinks. I feed the cats if Nienke hasn’t gotten up before me and did it. I fill my water bottle and put it in my work bag. For the rest it’s always ready to go.

8:10 – I leave the house, grab my bike and head for the train station.

8:18ish – Depending on how fast I ride, I arrive a the train station around this time. I put my bike away and walk up to the platform.

8:23 – My train comes, we leave for the city.

8:40ish – The train arrives at the city’s main train station. I get out and walk to work.

8:45ish – I get to work and go upstairs to my floor.

8:48ish – Made it to my floor, I pick a desk and turn on the computer.

8:50ish – Check in on the computer.

9:00 – Work starts. Generally I start with two hours of paper work.

11:00 – Break!

11:15 – Break over. Generally, this is when I start a call shift.

12:45 – Time for lunch. I often go to the built in cafeteria for some soup and stuff.

13:15 – Lunch over. Generally, this is when my e-mail or other non-voice stuff shift starts.

15:15 – Another break.

15:30 – Buckling down for the last two hours of the day.

17:30 – Time to check out and shut things down and head for the station again.

17:52 – My train goes.

18:10ish – We arrive back in my town. I head for my bike and go home.

18:25ish – Back home. Time to drop my stuff and feed the cats if Nienke hasn’t done it yet.

18:45ish – The evening starts 😀 Figuring out what to eat, maybe do some chores, relax, play a game, read a book, watch some TV or a movie, make stuff.

12:00-12:30ish – Time for bed.