R-e-j-e-c-t-i-o-n find out what it means to me

Wow! The past week has been quite the eye opener....like a good kick in the teeth. I think I have received more rejections for job applications in the past two weeks than I have ever received in my entire life. Granted, I have been making a point to apply only for jobs that interest me and those tend to be outside of my previous work history.

I keep telling myself that, after spending ten years on one career path, I cannot expect the same kind of success after just two weeks on a new career path. Nevertheless, I am a tightly wound ball of impatience and emotions. I want to switch out of finance compliance and audit in banking and it is really difficult to even get people to consider that most of the skills I have learned are transferable. It is not like I want to suddenly become a dolphin trainer or split atoms. I want a financial analysis, compliance, training, and/or process improvement role...preferably one that is all of the above.

Oh, yeah, and I want to work in The Hague. That last bit, the location, seems to be part of the issue. I am quickly coming to realize that working in The Hague requires fluency in Dutch. It may sound like a no-brainer, but in Amsterdam, where I worked previously, it is not always the case. Yes, I could just start looking in Amsterdam, but one of the things that I hated about my daily routine in the past was the commute. On a good day, I had a two hour round trip commute by train. On a bad day, it would take nearly four hours. By the time I got home, I had long since talked myself out of any evening activities like yoga or Dutch class.

And it is time to put my money where mouth is, so to speak, and finally learn Dutch. I am choosing to view this as the final push in the right direction. So, today, I go for an intake evaluation for an intensive intermediate language course....in New East India! Just kidding...well, sort of. That is name of the neighborhood in The Hague where the language school is. They offer a full immersion course in Spa, Belgium that is much more luxe, but it is also twelve times the price. The course will be every afternoon for three hours for two weeks and I will have five hours of homework each night. After that, I should be ready to take the first of two national fluency exams. After that, I plan to start twelve weeks of night courses to prepare to take the second fluency exam. So, the plan is to be fluent (at least by national guidelines) by the first half of 2011.

It feels good yet petrifying to have a new goal. If there is one thing I have learned about myself it is that I need a finish line for myself. I may go kicking and guilting myself every step of the way, but I need that sense of accomplishment that comes with completing all those incremental steps. What can I say? I am a born project manager.

Update after going to the language center..................

I'm in! Should I be so excited about getting into a course that I am paying to take? I think I am just relieved to finally have a place to get started with learning Dutch. It will also be nice to have a purpose and a structure to my days. I celebrated by doing something I have always meant to do. I went to one of the nicer department stores in The Hague (Bijenkorf), sat in their big picture window at their ground level cafe, and ate a ridiculously rich chocolate mousse dessert and washed it down with a cappuccino. Talk about a buzz to start the weekend off right!

Enjoy your weekend everybody!

Saturday snapshots

Here are some pictures from our Saturday in Delft and Den Haag. We really lucked out and had perfect fall weather. From top (l-r): Delftware factory - courtyard that used to double as a showroom for buyers of their building fixtures; example of tiles; inside the factory; (3rd row) View from inside Delft's Oude Kerk; lunch at the Belgian Beer cafe; fountain at Binnenhof in The Hague

Tourist at heart

I'd like to start this post with a big “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” to my dad. He turns 55 today (wink, nod)!

Today I finally got myself to the tailor. We have a great local tailor that I think fancies himself a bit of a ladies’ man, but he has the sweetest eyes and smile and patiently stumbles through Dutch with me (because he doesn’t speak a word of English). Three years ago I took in two pairs of Calvin Klein jeans that I had bought at an outlet mall on a visit to the U.S. I get SO much use out of them because they fit perfectly. I am wearing a pair right now, actually. This time I took in three pairs of jeans, two pairs of pants that my husband needed fixing (new belt loops and button), and a caramel colored leather jacket that I got for a song at JcPenney three years ago, but isn’t as fitted as I’d like it. I somehow managed to drop a few inches while travelling (probably from sweating my fanny off) and I am hoping a snugly fitting jacket and jeans will do the trick to encourage me to keep it off.

Tomorrow my husband and I are taking an American colleague of his sightseeing. I can’t tell you how much I like showing people around The Netherlands. We are taking her to Delft, the home of the famous Delftware pottery. They have a nice factory tour/museum complete with a huge gift shop of traditional Delftware (each piece hand painted and with prices that start at what most people spend on their monthly mortgage payments) and not so traditional Delftware (mass produced in China probably yet in a price range where you are comfortable using them). The town itself has a quaint town center complete with a great square full of shops and cafes with terraces great for eating lunch and people watching. The hundreds year old city hall is also in the square and is a popular place for weddings so it is highly likely we'll see a bride and groom (or several) on their big day.

It probably sounds a bit strange, but I really enjoy not only showing people around, but I also like the planning that goes into it. The prospect of visitors coming opens up a whole new perspective for me. I like to take long walks around The Hague to get some exercise and I can't help, but take more notice of the architecture or pay closer attention to what restaurants would be both fun for people watching and a good fit for whomever is coming for a visit. I also like to think about what streets would be most quintessentially Dutch to take a stroll along.

Delft's center is about as tradition as a Dutch city can get and yet it still has a modern charm about it that makes it one of the most sought after places to live and raise a family. I don't know the restaurants at all, but I do remember seeing a Belgian beer cafe on a prior visit and wanting to stop through. I know, it isn't typical Dutch food, but outside of taking someone to a pancake restaurant or sandwich cafe, there really aren't that many restaurants serving traditional Dutch food and there are many reasons for that. Namely that traditional food is pretty tasteless and that most Dutch people would much rather eat Indonesian or Chinese food. Belgian food (and beer), on the other hand, is wonderful! It still has some elements, french fries and beef, for instance, that are recognizable to Americans and the food is usually seasoned and prepared to perfection. They also have a wide variety of beers to choose from which I am guessing will be much more up our guest's (a Wisconsinite) alley.

Oh, and last, but not least...I like visitors because it gives me an excuse to serve Dutch chocolate and baked goods. I bought chocolate covered kruidnoten and am making a cinnamon apple cake. Don't gasp. It is from a mix. Contrary to the popular American saying, there are few things more Dutch than apple pie.

Back to basics

Well, hello there! It has been too long. I don't have any good excuses so please just accept my apologies. I have written several posts lately, but am not quite ready to put them out there. I guess I am still just processing it all.

My husband and I had dinner with two of our closest friends here in The Netherlands and one made the comment that, before she knew it, it was as if their three month long trip touring Italy had never happened. I find myself feeling the same way...and I have been home less than two weeks.

And then I will have these completely random flashbacks or space out and my mind will wander to a cooking class in Chiang Mai or the tailor's shop in Hoi An. Today it wandered to Phonm Penh, Cambodia. I was riding my bike home from Bikram yoga. (Yes, I have gone back...more on that later.) It is just the strangest feeling to have images of the busy Phonm Penh streets rolling through my mind as my eyes see a group of five preteen Muslim children playing and flirting on the sidewalk just down from my street or I move out of the way of our local mechanic backing a car out of his tiny repair garage. The smells briefly come back to my noise and the heat even momentarily flushes my body. It is like being awake during a dream. I love it. And I commit myself today to trying to hold on to that and cherish it as long as it continues to happen.

The pictures posted above are moments caught in Phonm Penh. The hundreds of ceramics clung perilously to wires and hooks at a stall in the local market. The slums were a ghastly reminder just around the corner from our school of just how far Cambodia still needs to go. And the fruit which I have already forgotten the name of was actually pretty delicious. I finally got the nerve up to try it in Indonesia when another guest explained what it all was to me and how it should taste. My favorite has to be lizard skin fruit. That is the fruit in the first picture. It all reminds me that there are more kinds of food and people and families and lifestyles out there than anyone can imagine...and some of them are pretty sweet.

Today I had my first interview. Sitting there with a finance headhunter, it was all a bit too much to take seriously. We walked through my career history, breezing over my 'holiday' abroad. I want to stop him and point out that I did most of that trip on my own. It is something I am very proud of and still quite can't believe.

If I have to answer what I got out of it all, I guess I could say that, today, sitting in that interview, it gave me a cool, quiet confidence like I have never had in an interview. I was always one of those people that wants to put my best face forward and treated the interview like a performance. I said what I knew they wanted to hear. There were a few times where I had to consciously not do that, but the nervousness was gone. I could, with a straight face and conviction not only talk about myself, but also say that it was really important to me to work for a socially responsible company.

And, for the first time in a job interview, I told someone that I want to work for a micro financing institution and, if that is not possible for a non or for profit company that takes social responsibility seriously and has stayed committed even when it isn't convenient. There were a few things I didn't say or didn't quite say correctly, but I know that's okay. I am pretty sure he felt the same way. Don't we all? So that, today, those are the things my trip has given me.