The whole family

Brothers

Dad

My dad celebrated his 60th birthday last Sunday and the whole family was at home to have dinner. My 2 brothers with their girlfriends and Joao's newborn son. I had to say that it ws a nice meeting and we had a lot of fun. As Redmer and Ingrid live in Eindhoven and Joao and Diasy in Rotterdam, we don't have a fmaily gathering that often, so it was good to have all around. Downside: I got teased that I was the oldest and the only one without a girlfriend, not living together and not a daddy already.

It was strange to see my mother and father behaving like a grandmother and -father. It made me laugh a lot as I totally didn't expected it and I don't know that childisch side of them. It was fun though and I can only say that we have a nice family.

Boring me

Well, more than 2 months and no post on my blog. I got some criticism on that already from some friends, but quite frankl I wasn't in the mood to write.

I read an article last week about blogging and the fact that most blogs die after an average life of 3 to 5 months. At least my blog survived that period and is still alive, although not as active as it used to be. Not only did I stop writing for quite a while, but I stopped reading blogs as well. I haven't read HotTamale's blog, Tabletray's blog and others in months. Not a clue why, but it suddenly didn't appeal to me anymore. It's not only the reading and writing of blogs, but also he playing computergames, watching TV etc. Things I used to do at night all more or less stopped. I go to bed early now. I know: frightening, but true. I guess I'm getting old, very old...

Summer

Summer means field hockey camps in the US since 2 years. This year I am going again and it will probably be a blast again! I am so looking forward to spend some time there again, not only because the pay is so good, but also because the coaching is a lot of fun and the girls are just crazy.

My schedule will be:

• 30 June - 2 July = Middlebury, VT
• 4 - 7 July = Springfield, MA
• 10 - 13 July = Stowe, VT
• 14 - 19 July = Blairstown, NJ
• 22 - 25 July = Fairfield, CT
• 29 July - 2 August = Sauk Valley, MI

I will fly to NYC the 29th, so in 3 weeks, and will fly back the 6th of August. This means that I have a couple of days left in NYC to visit some friends and have some fun!

The Xplore-project from the EIDP wasn't accepted by the nationl youth agency, so I will have the rest of August free. Will work a bit, have to go to Slovakia to visit Jana and have Aida's wedding In Tirana the beginning of September. I also have to go to David's birthday (since he was on mine as well) in Copenhagen on the 1st of September. All in all quite a busy summer and not even a real holiday for me! :-)

Seminar in Vilnius

The 7-day seminar "Free Your Mind, Feel The Media" was organized by VIKC, the public organization of the faculty of Economics of Vilnius University in Lithuania. Main goal of the project was to find out the influence media has on society. A group of 30 students from Lithuania, Poland, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands tried to find this out by attending lectures, visiting local media and doing some research.
Among the highlights of the program were a public research project in a trolleybus, a lecture from a well-known Lithuanian press-photographer, a visit to the Vilnius Television tower and a project at a student newspaper and radiostation. For the Dutch delegation a Queensday reception at the Dutch embassy also formed part of the program.
Next to the official part of the program there was also a lot of room for getting to know the other participants and the city of Vilnius. It was remarkable to see how quick 30 individuals from different countries and cultures got to know eachother and became good friends. Maybe the Vilnius nightlife might have contributed to this?
The week was ended with a visit to the castle of Trakai on the Lithuanian countryside. A nice end of an interesting project-week in which the participants got to know a lot about the media, but moreover: got to know eachother!

Coloured gate in Moldova

My family

The Hague

I spend this weekend in The Hague visiting a friend. It was nice and we had a great time. Took one of the last trains on Friday evening and came back this morning before my match. On Saturday we went to Amsterdam to do some shopping and I bought a new pair of jeans. To be honest: I didn't have any pairs of jeans left and I wanted to buy a pair for some time already, but was just never in the mood, or had someone to go with me. My friend told me that I immediately looked more though and handsome, so must be a nice pair of jeans! (For the price I bought them: they have to be!) After shopping, we had a drink and went to the movies. Saw "The Good Shepperd", which is a good movie, but you have to like the theme and stand the duration. Overall a wonderful weekend and very enjoyable. Not at least by the company! :-)

Today's match

My team had a match against Studs 4 today. They are ranked 2nd and my team 1st, so it was a thrilled. It was an away match as well, which caused for even more nerves. We had 2 points more than they had, so we could afford a draw, but a victory would give so much relief. We did win this afternoon. A battle it was. Lots of elbows, shoulder charges and hacking (= all mostly done by them, not kidding), so it wasn't a beautiful match, but it was thrilling and exciting. We won with 2-3 and I even scored my first goal of the season! A lucky one, I admit, but you have to have a bit of luck to stand exactly there where the ball bounces of the goalie. Was a nice, slow push between his legs into the goal. Nice. :-) We are pretty confident to become champs this season and promote to the top league next year. Only a couple of matches left!

Nelly Furtado

Last week I went to a concert of Nelly Furtado in Amsterdam together with a friend, Florijan, and we had a blast. I didn't know all the songs from her new album, but she also sang Fly Like a Bird and others, so it wasn't all new and strange. It was a superb concert and the after party was amazing as well. What more can I say? Nelly, marry me!! :-)

DNA Test

Dynamic Director

My Personal Dna Report

For example, if Confidence is at 80, that means that 80% of people entered lower values for confidence questions than you did.
Openness 96
Extroversion 96
Authoritarianism 94
Earthy 94

Projects

The Institute is going well. One had a representative at a networking seminar last week in Georgia, I will go with 5 others to Vilnius end of April, we are preparing a 3-week trip to the Balkans for 20 people and busy with a lot more. The interest for the Vilnius seminar was overwhelming: only 5 spots and 20 applications. Too bad I have to disappoint so many, but better luck next time, as many more seminars will come.

Clothing

Can someone tell me why a law student dresses up in sneakers, jeans, white socks and a white T-shirt when he has an exam? If he was a history student or a philosopher, OK, I would accept and wouldn't expect else. But a freaking law student? Get a life and dress up! Idiot...

Uncle

Leander is becoming an uncle! Joao (my brother for the ones who don't know him) is becoming a father. He has a girlfriend in Zoetermeer and will become a dad within 2 or 3 weeks. He didn't dare to tell my family earlier, as he thought we would become angry or something, so he only just dared. He will get a boy and he baby will be named Jayden. My mother is extremely looking forward to a black baby and walking with it, but my dad got a heart attack when he heard that he would become a grandfather already! :-)

Away

From Monday on, I will be away for a while and hopefully be back the 23rd. Nothing serious, not at all, but I won't be online that much and probably won't update too much either.

Big Brother

EIDP update

Last Friday we finally opened a bank account in Nijmegen, as we all had to come together and sign for it. Now we are really up and running! This Wednesday, we handed in 3 proposals to the National Youth Council to organize seminars/study-trips to Georgia, Kaliningrad and Armenia. A rather impressive line-up I would say! Lets hope all proposals get approved.

Dentist

One of my friends is a dental-student. She asked me to be a test subject once and since I go to her once a year for my annual check-up. My regular dentist only lives 30min by train, but she lives little over 2 hrs by train: I must be crazy. :-) I visited last Friday again and besides my check-up, she found it appropriate to remove 4 (!!) of my molars/wisdom teeth. Two had already been removed a long time ago, 2 normal still remained and I had 2 extra ones. Not everyone gets these strange ones, way to the back, so I felt a little special. Now I wish I wasn't that special as it really hurts... A week has passed, but I still need some aspirin to keep the pain away. Hope it's over soon.