Tag: work

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in the netherlands

random paperwork

* today i got to work under a snowstorm that lasted for 15 minutes. snow in april? yes, i wouldnt believe it as well but it was true. i hadn’t put my rain trousers on, so i got all soaked. at least i brought capuccino and brazilian music today.
if i can’t have the trousers dry, at least the heart is warm ( of course now there’s hardly a cloud on the sky. )

* in the office, there’s a map on the wall that i’m facing, when i’m at my computer. it shows the netherland’s national and regional gas grid, with its pipeling accross the country, transfer stations and other bits and bytes. it also shows what is called the Groningen gas veld – the biggest gas field in the netherlands- which, you might have guessed, is sitting somewhere under my butt, miles deep down in the ground. scary? well, no. by a lucky quirk of fate, this natural underground storage has enough gas in it to keep the netherlands working (and i mean factories, homes and exports) for at least another 20 years – and that’s a lot, specially if you think it has been being explored since the 70’s.

* i secretely hope they’ll take me to the control room, deep underground, one of these days. or (even more daring) to one of their drilling platforms in the northern sea. that ought to be fun (though not very likely).
meanwhile, i was invited to the company’s birthday party, more than 2 months away. (the dutch plan with their lunch with months of advance. everything must work perfectly)
no one knows where it will be, or what will be done. a well kept secret, with the promise of dinner and party afterwards. looking forward, though slightly scared.

* i read somewhere on the wikipedia quotes that “dutch is not a language, it’s a throat disease”.
i apologise to my dutch friends, but i couldn’t agree more. it hurts to speak (amazing, i can actually say a couple of things by now!) and to hear. making out a few words per phrase is a hard exercise of concentration. today they put a poster on the wall by the koffieautomat, something about a workshop by the ict department. due to the high concentration of technical words (which for me are much easier that the others), i could actually make out what it was about. another victory against the forces of evil!

* it’s been a month i’m working here now. yay to me. i survived the indifference, the unberable language wall, the age gap. i also survived the amount of new information and methods, vb code produced by a non-programmer and windows.
you gotta have a sense of humour, i’ve learned, and you definitely have to have the nerve to make a lot of questions and fuel as many conversations as you can. it doesn’t matter that everybody speaks english – most of the time it’s just too troublesome for them to bother. i can tell they have never been in my shoes.

* last sunday there was an openday in the company, and we were encouraged to bring friends and family to see a photoexhibition they have on the ground floor. it was rather nice. first of all, because i got to show part of my workplace (and i’ve always liked to peek at people’s work place) to my friends, and they got an oportunity to enter the building without having to show their id or other burocracy.
and then, by the exhibition itself. it’s about “golden oldies”, and the beauty in the 3rd age. a lot of wrinkled closeups and old madonna’s statues mixed with funny one person sequences (from waking up to ready-to-go). some rather unexpected works involving not-so-dressed grannies. :| that must have been fun to shoot.

Categories
in the netherlands

the monkey’s rock.

hello.
first of all, thanks for the support, after the previous entry. the first week has passed, despite all my internal whinning and, as usual, after a while, the changes grown on us and one learns how to deal with them. isn’t it? and besides, not all is bad.

for a bit of culture, about the physical place i work on:

The headquarters of G. in Groningen has been designed with “organic” architecture in mind. Alberts & Van Huut created a building, which they see as a “third skin”; their philosophy being that in addition to skin and clothing, buildings provide man with a further layer of protection against the elements from outside.

The organic theme can be found back in the entire building, thus giving it a human touch and therefore its soul. Even the furniture has been designed with this in mind. The building offers maximum flexibility and optimum communications. People can find each other easily, with central meeting places. The building has a heart, but at the same time takes full account of flexibility and security.

There are the high-rise office wings with their short hallways leading off the elevator shafts and stairs and the low-rise structures containing the required meeting places and all central services. The central foyer with its lofty, glazed stairwell gives the building the desired focal point.

(from here, and you can check this forum thread for more pictures, or ibn battuta’s (one of rug’s student groups) pictures from an excursion there.)

i have to be honest, i don’t like it all that much from the outside. it stands out of the normal dutch neighbourhoods too much – it’s too high, to different.

but one has to give it some credit – it is amazing.
above all, there’s a certain coherence in it. every item has at least 5 edges on it, from the outside walls to the gardens, the mirrors, the desks, the doorways, the little pole with the elevator buttons, the stairs, the cupboards doors, even the control room deep in the basement has a strange spaceship-shape… and that stairwell is quite something. it ligthens up the whole building, with it’s color blue-green color gradient.

also, because the company can afford it, all the 17 floors are filled with sculptures, paintings and other art installations (one i particularly like, has the structure of a bed and lots of broken eggshells around it).
it’s like working inside a museum, in a way. :D

ps – from my desk, on a 7th floor office, there’s an amazing view over stadspark, with all the snow of the last week :P

ps2 – about the organic architecture style, from the wikipedia:

Theorist David Pearson proposed a list of rules towards the design of an organic architecture. It is known as the Gaia Charter for organic architecture and design. It reads:
“Let the design:
– be inspired by nature and be sustainable, healthy, conserving, and diverse.
– unfold, like an organism, from the seed within.
– exist in the “continuous present” and “begin again and again”.
– follow the flows and be flexible and adaptable.
– satisfy social, physical, and spiritual needs.
– “grow out of the site” and be unique.
– celebrate the spirit of youth, play and surprise.
– express the rhythm of music and the power of dance.”

Categories
in the netherlands

corporate me.

corporate me
hello.
after 4 interviews, all more or less positive, i can finally say i have made a decision and i took one of the jobs.
the company is mind-blowing big (the kind of place that comes in postcards, as a city landmark – and i’m not joking!).
i’m scared, i have butterflies in the stomach and i’m happy and excited. all at once.

the “family” here is pretty happy and proud and we celebrated with alheiras and batatas a murro (typically portuguese food) and fried bananas (thai style).

i even got a present! a couple of tiny little fish… so cute! we named them after a not-so-nice italian expression, and then we got our turkish oceanographic biologist in the field to check out wether we can expect babies anytime soon…
“well, it’s complicated to tell”, she explained… and then she stopped and said “hum, wait… one red and one yellow?! that’s galatasaray‘s colors! you have to separate them!” :)

Categories
in the netherlands

brieven

* no classes anymore, just interviews. the ones i did went pretty well (i was rather pessimistic in the beginning, but as it turns out, people seem to like me and my curriculum). well, two down and 3 to go, i’ll try to keep you posted about how it goes.

* yesterday benfica played (and won) against liverpool and it was a good excuse to gather the portuguese groningen gang on sally’s (and meet some nice new people as well). not much of a game though, but fun to talk in portuguese to more than one people.

* bike without brakes. again. i’m getting used (and good at it as well) to not using the hand brakes and instead, reaching the ground with my feet or efficiently dodging obstacles.

* review of my presentation on student colloquium:

Campos: vivid presentation style, lively intonation, a lot of gesturing + expressive mimics and facial expressions; good to give in-between summaries to let the audience know where they are and questions the audience need to ask themselves /you are going to answer + use of synonyms.

yay! thank you mr. simon peyton jones for the tips!
ps: people always seem to note my facial expressions… am i such an expressive person? :)

Categories
in the netherlands

white polycarbonate mishap.

01. life’s a little bit on hold, as we start studying for exams, and i pursue my job hunt. it’s not going too bad, i guess, but the anxiety of waiting for answers makes me a little bit nervous. that and waking up with drunk people fighting, wasted bodies running and screaming in spanish on the corridor, close to my door. that’s how i woke up today. i got restless, i felt like going there and making them shut up but i didn’t. i stood there in bed, paralyzed, hands on my ears, waiting for it all to end.
anyway, the good spirits in the corridor make up for the eventual dawn mess. l., one of our floor-mates, is getting married next year, in may, and we’re all invited. she’s overwhelmed with it, and i’m happy she’s happy. this stories resembles a little the "l’auberge espagnol" / "les poupées russes", doesn’t it? the wedding is in china, actually, and if all works as planned, we’ll meet in shangai in a year and a few months. great! :) i’m really looking forward to it!

02. for all of you who ever wondered if this rum i’m always talking about is any good, you can now listen to it here, via livestreaming. give it a try. me and levi lost most of our music last week, which we had on his 80gb external drive, plus some pictures (nothing we didn’t have on film or backup, so no biiiig deal), but still, it didn’t feel good. now we rely on portuguese radios and podcasts more.

03. i’m in love with freitag bags – they’re everywhere here. colorful bags, made of lorries canvas. recycled urban freeways. perfect for the bikes.

04. we had a portuguese dinner on monday (9 portuguese people in groningen – can you believe that?) filled with good food, super bock and moscatel, vinho do porto and lots humour in our own language. oh! and a mad mad idea of returning home (in portugal, that is) by bike. 2200km! maybe it was the wine working… i think we’re all crazy, but if we get the sponsors, i’m on it :D (and yes, we know about the euromillions jackpot…let’s hope that works!)

05. thanks joão, for all the steve jobs’ zen. i can never have enough. :)