Me

Off With His Hair

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Yesterday I shaved my head again. My hair was getting waaaaay too long. In the afternoon we went birthdaying at my aunt’s birthday. It had been a while since I had seen them on their turf. Usually I see them when they come over here for Mom or Dad’s birthday. It was fun to see their house, which was new to me, even though they’ve lived there for quite some time now.

Today was funday 😀 That time of year again, Fire Drill! Fortunately the sun shone so it wasn’t too bad being outside for an hour or two.

Monday

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Is when I start at Webcare, woohoo!

I’m off work tomorrow, but I think I’m gonna go in briefly anyway. Webcare is located elsewhere in the building, and I do wanna say goodbye to my teammates (beyond the e-mail I sent today), leave them something tasty and such 😀

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.

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!

march20

Blog About Me [21/52] Five Favourite Foods

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Oh, I love food very much. It’s the ultimate sense experience. You see all the different colours and shapes, you smell the things, both individual items as well as their mixtures when cooking, and then, as you pick it up to eat you feel the texture! Ideally with your fingers first and then with your mouth. And as you eat, you hear the sounds the foods make as you break and cut it into pieces and eat it.

My favourites are many, but I hold the following things especially in the highest regard.

In fruits: Strawberries, Raspberries and Blackberries. Sweet with a sour tinge and the most intriguing textures. The outside seeds on the strawberries, the fuzzy hair on raspberries, the bulbousness of blackberries. Delicious!

In meat: Chicken. Especially a juicy grilled chicken fillet or breast with a lovely marinade, nom nom nom.

In vegetables: Spring and Red Onions. I like onions in general, but the tastes of these two jump out. Red onion has that spicy flavour I like and spring onion is so versatile and gentle.

In dairy: Goat Cheese and Aged Cheddar (chunks, not slices). Goat cheese is especially good with honey. I love how it breaks apart so easily in chunks and how salty it is. And when you then mix that with honey, mmm! And Cheddar just has a very special taste, and it breaks so easily.

In breads: Croissants and Toast. Croissants smell delicious and are so fluffy and light. I love them both as is or with a sweet (jam) or savoury (ham ‘n cheese) filling. Toast smells delicious in a different way and has the most satisfying crunch. And the same deliciousness with sweet and savoury toppings, especially when it’s still warm and the cheese melts.

I also love other things like Lemon Cheesecake or chocolate-caramel toffees, but since I’m limited to five and I already cheated by turning it into five categories…

Blog About Me [19/52] Five Favourite Video Games

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My most favourite video game is World of Warcraft. I’ve been playing since april 2009 when I decided to try it out with the free trial. Within two days I was hooked and bought the game. I’ve been playing ever since. Occasionally there’s a month or two I don’t play, but I always come back to it. I am a casual solo player, I don’t raid and since I do whatever I can by myself, I tackle a lot of content after it’s no longer current. Reputations, various achievements, collecting battle pets and mounts, leveling profession-alts and finding whatever quests I missed on my main character.

Another game, or game series, I love is Age of Empires. I’ve been playing that since the first one back in my teens. I love building the civilizations and I would ignore the AI enemy for as long as I could 😀 I also always used to play custom maps where I would put the enemy in a corner, build a wall of theirs around that, and then a wall of mine around that. This way, they wouldn’t attack the wall to get out, and my guys wouldn’t attack it to get in. And I had all the time to build the perfect town and civilization.

I also really like Skyrim and Fable III, they both offer endless opportunities to wander around, explore, make things, and kill things, too.

My final choice for this post is an old platform game I used to play. I had a whole collection of classic 2D side-scrolling platform games in my teens. A lot of Apogee titles (Duke Nukem, Crystal Caves, Agent something), Commander Keen (of which I can’t remember if it was Apogee) and also Hocus Pocus. That was by far my favourite of the bunch featuring amyoung wizard trying to save his realm. The graphics were smoother than with the other titles and the levels were beautiful. Hmmm, maybe I should see if I can get it to work on a Windows 8 box…

Blog About Me [18/52] What Does My Blog Name Mean

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Tse Moana is a handle I’ve had online for many, many years. When you google the name, with quotation marks, most, if not all, results are me. If you google without, you’re less lucky as both are existing words.

The name stems from a movie or show I saw as a kid. It was a New Zealand thing. Or at least, it took place in New Zealand. It was a story about a Māori girl named Moana, which means ocean, or sea. I don’t much remember about the plot, but she had a grandfather or some other elder of her tribe. They lived in a traditional setting. If I remember it correctly, the girl rebelled against the cultural teachings her grandfather was trying to give her. Until in the end she learned they were good and there was meaning in her name. The ocean, and that she was named after it, turned out to be quite important. It made such an impression on me, that I remembered the name. Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to find the movie or show again.

Anyway, fast forward a few years and we have internet and I register for things and I needed a handle. And it just popped into my head, except I remembered the name, wrongly, as Tse Moana. So I used that, and kept using it up until today. I later learned that “Tse” is not actually a Māori word, so that could not have been part of her name, but it’s still part of mine and makes mine unique 🙂

I still hope one day to find this show or movie, but so far… 🙁

The subtitle is a quote I saw on a t-shirt once years ago and is one two that I really like as a motto/explanation-of-me thing. The other is: “If the sky is the limit, then what is space?” I have this as the title of my Tumblr.

Blog About Me [17/52] My Most Proud Moment

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Hmm, tricky. If I have to pick a specific moment, I think I would go with getting my university Bachelor’s degree. I’m partial to intellect and intelligence, so achievements of the mind are quite meaningful to me.

However, I’m also proud of my continuous efforts in gaining Milo’s trust, and proud of Milo himself <3 He was such a scaredy cat, literally, when I got him. Running off at loud noises, weird shapes, unexpected things. Skittish to be approached and not often found near me. But now, two years later, he’s around me all the time. Whenever he can he will follow me around. If I lay down, he comes to sit on  my chest and knead my belly. When I am in a room, most often he will be there, too. He no longer runs off when weird things happen, and if he does, he immediately turns around to check if it was worth running away from. And, he allows touch at so many more spots than before.

 

Blog About Me [16/52] Personality tests

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Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Now, this isn’t really a very valid personality test. It has been discredited on a number of occasions (see this article from The Guardian for a comprehensive overview), but it is still one of the most ubiquitous tests out there. As long as you keep in mind that it doesn’t really describe personality traits, but more how you cognitively process stuff, and that the MBTI deals in absolutes instead of the shades of grey in real life, it can still give a few pointers about how you do things.

My type is INTP/J. Depending on test I sometimes get P, sometimes J for the last one. The letters stand for Introverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, Perceiving/Judging. Put these things together, and it mostly fits 🙂

INTP: Seek to develop logical explanations for everything that interests them. Theoretical and abstract, interested more in ideas than in social interaction. Quiet, contained, flexible, and adaptable. Have unusual ability to focus in depth to solve problems in their area of interest. Skeptical, sometimes critical, always analytical.

INTJ: Have original minds and great drive for implementing their ideas and achieving their goals. Quickly see patterns in external events and develop long-range explanatory perspectives. When committed, organize a job and carry it through. Skeptical and independent, have high standards of competence and performance – for themselves and others.

 

Big Five Personality test (OCEAN)

This one I’ve done at work once, but I forgot what I scored then. Probably something similar. This tests five scaled parameters, being Openness to experiences/intellect, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. I generally score very high on Openness, low middle on Conscientiousness, low on Extraversion, middle on Agreeableness and low on Neuroticism.

This mainly means that I’m very open minded, curious and tend to be a creative thinker, who isn’t very organized and an be unreliable sometimes (deadlines and stuff), while being introverted and a bit reserved. Middling on Agreeableness means I’m neither very forgiving and good-natured, nor very unforgiving and harsh, but *ta-da* somewhere in the middle. Lastly, the Neuroticism score indicates I’m very relaxed and calm and don’t stress out about stuff.

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.