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Blog About Me [8/52] What’s Always In My Pocket/Bag

Monday, August 5, 2013 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

On workdays, I carry a messenger bag. The zippered pockets outside are generally empty. Only the pocket on the flap holds a copy of my bus and train departure schedules both ways, just in case I need to look it up. Inside, the bag is divided in two. The back part holds my daily agenda/planner wherein I have my work schedule and other appointments, and whatever book is currently my train-book. Generally this is a thinner, easier read as I only get to read it for 15 to 20 minutes at a time so I need to be able to get in and out of it quickly. The front part holds my water bottle, my wallet, deodorant, and a little zippered bag/box thing that holds my earphones, thumb drive, locker key, a few pens, occasionally a couple tea bags and aspirin.

I also always carry my phone and keys to my house when I’m out and about. They tend to switch between being in my pockets or in my bag.

On free days, when I go places, I tend to just bring my work bag, but then without the planner, book and bag/box. And when I go light, all I bring is phone and keys with my debit card (and when necessary public transport card) in a pocket.

Posted in: Blog About Me, General Tagged: Blog Prompts, Me, Tech, Work

Party Up (Up In Here)

Sunday, July 28, 2013 by Tse Moana 1 Comment

Spiffy OutfitFriday was this party from work. And I’m not normally a party kind of person, but this time, I decided to go. Mainly because of the other people that were also going 🙂

We (being Nienke, Nico and I) decided to go “fancy dress”. Nico’d bought a suit, Nienke had a sparkly dress, and I bought new pants and a red shirt to go with the vest I already had. Accessorized it up with my pocket watch and a silver sparkly bow tie (as did Nico). Meeting point was outside work, and there would be limousines to drive all of us to the party location 😀

Turned out there were three, a Lincoln, a Chrysler and a frakkin Hummer! Of course we decided to take the Hummer 😀

The party itself was actually really good. Not at all what I had expected (I tend to end up in corners going ‘can I go home now?”).

After the obligatory waiting, and the intro talks the music started, and it was actually good. It was this DJ duo where one of em regularly played the violin with the music the other guy was doing. I’d never seen something like that before and I really enjoyed it. Plus it was good music to dance to.

I usually have a hard time not moving when I hear music, or singing along. So before I knew it, I was dancing. And that had been a while 😀 I ended up dancing along another co-worker, picked up some extra moves and had an all around great time.

Too bad we had to leave early because stupid public transport.

 

Hummer Limo

In he Limo  In he Limo Again

 

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Friends, Fun, Me, Nienke, Party, Work

Walls

Monday, October 8, 2012 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

I’ve been getting more and more restless in my house this year. I desperately want (and need) some more space, and I also really would like a place truly of myself. Or, in other words, I want to buy a house, not rent. Up until this year, I thought that would be just a dream for a couple more years, but early this year I came across a house that I really like. And it’s pretty cheap for a house, too.

So with that in mind I started doing some research, and after visiting with a mortgage person I learned that, with my income, I could actually get a pretty decent mortgage. However, that would require having a indefinite contract at work, and not a definite one. And, how convenient, I’m up for contract renewal coming January which will be either an indefinite contract, or out of a job since I’ve been working there for three years on temp contracts then. Taking into account my performance over the years, I’m generally optimistic about it, but you just never know. So I’m trying my hardest not to get over excited and wait for certainty (should be around November/December).

Luckily, as far as the house itself is considered, it’s still on the market and based on how long it’s been, it should still be there in January. So, with some luck, I really, really hope to be able to buy a house next year.
(It better work out, I’ve already spent enough time fruitlessly trying to get my brain to *not* think about the house and how I would do this, and where that could go, and how this would be perfect to do there and so on… I suck… )

Posted in: General Tagged: Home, Me, Work

The Week(s) in Review: 2012-12 & 2012-13

Tuesday, April 3, 2012 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

I’m grateful for quiet times at work that allow me to take some extra days off here and there. Not just because yay-freedom, but also because I have a lot of in-my-head things going, what with the genderprocess and all. Some extra days to deal with stuff are nice.

I’m happy because I finally have a new appointment date for my genderteam intake. It will take place April 23rd. This time they actually managed to refer me to the shrink so this really is it: the start of my road to fully being who I am. It’s going to be a long journey, and it’s not going to be easy, but I’m more than ready to finally get this show on the road.

I’m also happy because the Postcrossing is taking off quite nicely. All but one of my cards have been received. The only one still in transit is one to a school class in the USA. I got my first five cards, they came from the USA, Canada, Germany, Austria and Poland. The cards can be seen on my Postcrossing profile. I requested new addresses yesterday, which I will pick (and write) cards for tomorrow.

Last Friday we went out with (almost) the whole e-mail squad from work. Nico and I put the thing together, and since it was meant as a getting to know each other better thing after the team expansion from early this year, we settled on bowling and food. The evening was a grand success, a lot of fun was had.

I learned I need a lot of warm up time before I throw proper balls, and that if I want to throw a strike, I first need to drop the ball behind me so it rolls back to the people on my team.

I discovered that it is actually possible for naturally (somewhat) touchy people to be like this in a fun, non-obnoxious, non-threatening way. Normally when people, for example, hang over my shoulder to ask me something, or randomly grab my arms, I have this knee-jerk reaction to pull back and get this ‘get the fuck away from me’ vibe. I’m glad to say I did not have this then. Yay, progress!

Posted in: General, The Week in Review Tagged: Food, Gender, Postcrossing, Reflection, Sports, Transgender, Transitioning, Work

6391 Words

Saturday, March 17, 2012 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

I love how something as little as a week, week-and-a-half, off from work can restore your balance. I’m not particularly motivated (yet) to get back to work on Monday, but I’m sure that’ll come once I arrive back in the pit 😀

In the meantime, I’ve had a relaxing week. Monday I hung out with Eva, did some shopping. Eva needed a radio for the baby’s room so I took the opportunity to buy a new SD card for my camera. Afterwards we stopped for some groceries and some browsing at the Wibra. I’m a sucker for cheap/discount stores so I ended up with a bag of easter/spring inspired items to decorate the house with while I wait for spring proper to arrive.

Using the new items with the stuff from last year led me to this:

Tuesday I hung out at the Parents’ place. It had been a week and a half or so since I’d seen them, and as I usually see them at least once a week, it was overdue. It was a quiet afternoon, which is nice.

Friday evening Eva, Ingrid and Mellien came over to see me and Nienke and we went out for pancakes at the pancake restaurant in town. It was gloriously delicious (I had a ham/cheese/pineapple pancake) and we had a lot of fun talking. Afterward we went back to Nienke’s place to play Just Dance 3 on the Wii. Even Eva, despite being 37 weeks along, did a dance. The rest of us all went twice, and then we decided to do a quick round of Glee Karaoke before the other three had to go again.

Today I had lunch at the Parents’ again before returning home and finding Nienke cutting up all the trees in her yard. I didn’t really have anything better to do, and I love playing with the tree cutter so I gladly assisted her with this. Nienke’s upper arms thanked me 😀

We cut huge amounts from the conifer near her bedroom window, so to make it all fit, we had to push down on the cuttings to create more space. And to allow the lid to close…

Today I also found my very first Postcrossing card on the doormat, it came from Poland. Earlier in the week I got a message from the website that my first sent card was received. Score is now 1 for 1 and there’s four more from me underway to far away places 🙂

 

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Decoration, Eva & Jarig, Food, Friends, Games, Garden, Home, Ingrid, Mellien & Bas, Nienke, Parents, Photos, Postcrossing, Spring, Wii Games, Work

The Week in Review: 2012-10

Tuesday, March 13, 2012 by Tse Moana 2 Comments

I’m grateful for the fairly quiet times at work that enabled me to take two extra days off so my one week off turned into a glorious week and a half.

I’m happy with my new tablet (a Qware pro 3, 10″). I ordered it online last week after I’d been to the Intertoys for the 7″ version for the third time and they still didn’t have it. This one was more expensive, but the added screen real estate makes it worth it. I spent the weekend loading it up with apps and am contemplating adding a custom rom to update it to Android 4 (it has 2.3 now). And, I’m blogging from the tablet now. Which is showing me one thing very clearly: I need to get a dictionary imported here somewhere because I spend way too much time correcting myself.

I was annoyed with the reflection essay I needed to write to finish the education track at work. I hate those sort of essays with a passion so when I finally sat down for it I spent two hours hatefully avoiding it and complaining about it ( 🙂 ) and then decided to go all the way in, over the top and all. So an hour later I had three pages with artfully inserted quotes and section headings and all that jazz.

I learned that I’d been playing my ukelele wrong (and slightly cheating here since this was actually yesterday and thus already week 11). Turns out I’d been counting my strings wrong. I started at the top (near my chest) with one and then went down, while in fact the top one is string four. So the c and d that play on the third string I was actually playing on the second. And the e, f and g that play on the second string I was playing on the third. No wonder the Frere Jacques sounded off. Got this fixed now so I’ll be spending this week getting the fingerings on the right strings under control, as well as practising the two beginner tunes on the next page: Frere Jacques and Mary Had a Little Lamb.

I discovered I still have some residual unresolved sort-of-jealous feelings about something (and yes being vague on purpose). I thought I worked through this, rationally I understand the choice, but feelings can be a bitch sometimes.

Posted in: General, The Week in Review Tagged: Music, Reflection, School, Tech, Ukelele, Work

The Week in Review: 2012-08

Monday, February 27, 2012 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

I’m grateful for the bonus we got from work, and for the support of my family and friends.

I’m happy I’m taking steps in my gender process.

I got sad with this weeks’ Glee. It was a very powerful episode and very well put together.

I learned Milo is sensitive to catnip 😀

Posted in: General, The Week in Review Tagged: Cats, Family, Feels, Friends, Gender, Glee, Milo, Transgender, TV, Work

The Week in Review: 2012-06

Monday, February 13, 2012 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

I’m grateful for singing. Singing always makes me feel good (or better when I’m down). I might not be very good at it, but I enjoy it so I don’t care what anyone else thinks 🙂

I’m happy… well, see above 😀

Being patient is hard sometimes, that can make me feel frustrated.

I learned I really like making work instructions and messing about with excel files 😀

 

Posted in: General, The Week in Review Tagged: Me, Music, Work

Another Beginning

Sunday, January 8, 2012 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

So, here we are, a week into the new year. I don’t do resolutions, I know myself well enough to know that’s pointless. I have, however, decided to pick a theme. Basically an idea, or motivator of sorts, to keep in mind and use to guide my decisions this year. Theme for this year is Just Do It (to steal from Nike). This year the idea is to be more active in my pursuits, to take action to get where I want to be.

In that light, I’ve made some related decisions in what I want to do this year, both long term things that I want to start this year, as well as things I want to accomplish. Most of the stuff I can’t, or rather won’t, talk about just yet. But I hope to provide further updates soon.

I also have some stuff that I will talk about. First of that being this blog. It took way longer than expected to fix the image issue I was having. This was mostly my own problem because I let it lie for too long while it, in the end, turned out to be a relatively simple fix. After it got fixed I did one of the photo posts I said I would and then left it again. Putting pics together for the August photo post was annoying the crap out of me, so I just sorta stopped.

To prevent shit like that from making me stop blogging again, I’m not scheduling anything anymore. No more ‘I’m going to do this on a weekly basis’ or ‘every month I’m gonna…’ or even non-committal shit like ‘I plan to regularly…’ I’m not planning anything any more in regards to the blog. I still have a lot of things in my head that I wanna post, but I’m just gonna do whatever comes up, whenever I want to. There’s already enough shit in life that you have to do, I don’t want this blog to be one of those things. After all, I have this website to have fun with and to make a record of who I am and what I like. If it becomes a chore, it’ll loose all life it has.

 

Something else I think I haven’t mentioned here yet is Milo. Milo is my new cat, whom I got from the shelter on October 22. He’s a young boy of almost two (in March) and he’s almost the complete opposite of Monkey. He’s playful, and active and a bit of a talker. Monkey only makes a noise when he really wants to go outside and I don’t respond fast enough. Milo opens his mouth a lot more, and when he does the most adorable little shriek comes out. It’s almost like a friggin’ baby bird going meeeeep! The shelter named him Bo, which is stupid, so I renamed him. But, in keeping with tradition I kept (most of) his shelter name as part of his name.

So, without further ado, meet Milo Beauregard Gibbs:

My cat

Monkey and Milo are getting along pretty well. Milo wants to play with Monk but he’s not really into that. They do chase each other around (in mostly good fun), though. This usually starts with Milo approaching Monkey to sniff at him or invite him to play and then Monkey does this hissy fit kinda thing where he yowls a bit and waves his paw around. Milo the backs off a bit and seconds later they’ll be chasing each other around the house.

He also loves feather teasers, so much so, even, that the one I had is almost dead already. So I bought three new ones right away to get a bit of a supply. And today the laser pointer I ordered came in. Tried it on him, he went insane for it 😀

In comparison, Monkey ignored it and pointedly reminded me that he knows I’m the one controlling the toys so he’s not gonna waste his energy on that, thank you very much. (related sidenote: Monkey has very expressive eyes).

Tomorrow Milo gets to go outside for the first time since I got him. I kept him inside a little longer than I normally would because of New Year’s and the fireworks and such. I hope he likes it, he tends to still be a little skittish with loud noises or big/tall objects/people although he’s progressed heaps in that since he came. The first week he would hide under the bed every time I walked through the house. He still runs when he gets spooked, but now he almost right away comes back out from wherever he runs to, to check out what happened.

In short, he’s a cool cat 😀

 

Other stuff… eh… Work is going well I guess. I applied for a trainer/coach position within my department, got through the initial interview with flying colors and got to do an assessment. I felt pretty good about that, the tests were easy and the talk with the counselor about work and ambitions and what type of person I was went well too, at least I thought so. The role play situation went less well. Both because I hate role play situations, and because I found the set-up they had for it not relevant to what actually goes on at my job. All in all, I had a good feeling about it.

The result came in a week later, and I got a negative result. They thought I would not be suitable for the position because, in a nut shell, I ‘m not social enough, and that’s not fixable… Right. I was fuming for two days. There’s a core of truth in the report. Yes, I am an introvert, I told him so, but that does not mean I’m antisocial, it just means that interaction with people costs energy (versus giving me energy). I know this of myself so I take precautions. This is the reason I don’t work on Wednesdays so I have a day in the middle to recharge. Also, social interaction has been difficult for me in the past. I used to be more shy but this is something I’ve learned to overcome for a large part. Especially since I started working at my current job I’ve learned so much about interacting with people and have grown so much in that regard.

So, back to the report, I felt as if it were a snap shop of me three years ago, give or take. I discussed it with my supervisor and some other people later on, and they all were surprised by it. They saw the core of truth that was in there, but the extent of it…

Regardless of that, though, the assessment is final so it meant I was out of the application procedure. So I’m still doing what I did before, and that’s not a bad thing either. I love writing so the e-mail and letter thing is a good job for me to have. I’m doing a lot of letters these days, more so than e-mail, and I’m really enjoying that. However, I will be looking for opportunities to move forward or at least expand my skill set. For the moment still preferably within the same company.

 

I think this is more than long enough for a first blog of 2012. I hope to do a post to catch up on my booklist and 101 list. Booklist definitely because I failed my target so very much I think it might be the lowest in years. The 101 list… Meh, I think it needs revising first. I’m having second thoughts on a lot of the goals and I think the sheer amount of them, even keeping in mind the long time one has for it (1001 days) it might be too many things for a person with an attention span like mine.

Posted in: General Tagged: 101 in 1001, Animals, Books, Cats, Holidays, Introvert, Me, Milo, Monkey, New Year's, Random, Reflection, Site, Work

July

Monday, August 1, 2011 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

Right, in July I bought a pool 😀 A 276×169 cm blow-up pool (with electric pump ’cause I’m not insane enough to blow it up myself or with a handpump).

Also, per July I got a regular contract at work (versus via a temp agency), so that’s a nice change.

I bought a new collage photo frame, ordered prints of a bunch of 2010 photos and used them to fill said frame, as well as the photo curtainy-thing I have on my loo door.

Picked the Sims 3 back up after almost two years. Brought on by Nienke and I building an imaginary mansion where we would live I decided to try and build it in the Sims. It’s 2/3 finished and looking pretty good. I’ve identified some problem areas so will probably rebuild in a while.

I Went out for pizza with Eva at Napoli. As per usual, the pizza was great, the seating rather cramped. We sat next to each other for most of the meal since there was no space to sit on the other side of the table. On itself not a problem, but it’s nice to be able to look at the person you’re talking to. After we had mostly finished our pizza the people on the table next to ours left, so I could switch places and we hung around for a while longer chatting eye-to-eye.

When we left, Eva suggested we go for ice cream, so went across the street to get a McFlurry at the McDonalds there. They still had their outside seating there, so we lounged on that while enjoying the icey-chocolatey-caramely goodness of McFlurry-with-mixed-in-candybar.

Talked some more about life, the universe and everything from small talk to future plans. When eventually the McD’s personnel started putting the tables and such back inside we stuck around until we were the only table left 😀

We then slowly made our way back to the train station, walking along the water and the pretty trees that look the best in evening light. Once back at the train station we were thirsty and hit the Burger King for a coke to finish in that last half hour before my train would leave. Some fifteen minutes later, mid-sentence, Eva spotted Mellien, so we called her over to wait for the train with us. After some more chatting, we parted ways: Eva returning home, and Mellien and I headed for the train to our respective homes.

On the 19th I went to the hair dresser. I walked in with the remnants of my Spike-blond hair, and came out with a purple mohawk.

The 24th saw me and Nienke go to a Derek Ogilvie show. Both of us have been wanting to for while now. We’re intrigued but sceptical, so going to a show gave us a chance to see beyond what he shows on camera. Fortunately, he’s quite like on TV during his shows. He’s quite hyper while he’s communicating, making jokes with the audience and such to bridge the moments where the spirits are talking to him and he has no message to give yet. There’s a very energetic and relaxed vibe coming from him. It’s obvious from watching him that he believes fully. I remain sceptic. I’d love to believe this is real, but there were just a tad too many things that can be attributed to cold reading techniques*. In the end, though, the five or so people that got a reading, I think it did help them. And I’d go again if he comes back to Groningen.

*I know it’s the primary cause of death, but it’s funny to notice how many spirits die of heart disease. And how many women have had miscarriages, even one the woman in question didn’t know about… And when he starts to call out the confirmation things it’s a lot of pains here, pains there. Most of these are pretty generic, back pain, pain in leg, stomach/bowelpain. The things he mentions, though, after he found the person the spirit wants to talk to… there’s really specific stuff in there.

Starbucks on Groningen Central Station is opening August 5th and they we’re doing a trial run last week to train the staff. You could go in and order whatever you wanted for free. I had a lovely White Mocha. I’ll be ordering from them more in the future (although not too often, that shit’s expensive).

I also got my first batch of GetGlue stickers. GetGlue is a website where you can check in to various things that you’re doing/watching/listening to/reading etc.. While mostly focused on Media, it also has topics so you can conceivably check in on anything.

By checking in, and liking things, you earn virtual stickers. Once you have enough stickers (minimum of 20), you can have them sent to you, via mail, for free. My first batch took about 5 or 6 weeks to arrive I think. So far I’m enjoying it a lot. I check in to what I actually watch (I check in to TV or movies mostly) and have that posted on Twitter and Facebook. And besides that I actively hunt stickers, checking into and liking things for the sake of getting a sticker, even if I’m not actually watching that at the moment. I think I’ve collected close to 300 stickers now. Too bad they only send 20 at a time, and you can only request a new batch once a month…

Posted in: General Tagged: Appearance, Eating Out, Eva & Jarig, Food, Friends, Games, MartiniPlaza, Napoli, Nienke, PC Games, Spirituality, Theater, TV, Water, Webfun, Work
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