Overbooked

History repeats itself every time I come back from holidays. After spending some quality time with family and friends, I return to my daily routines. This is fine, but I’ve realized I have too many routines and things to do, so there is no place for something new.

It’s like the empty your cup story. If I want to start something new, like for example my Lindy Hop course, then I have to give up something else.

After much thinking, I decided to temporarily suspend my Japanese lessons. Of course I still want to learn this fascinating language, but right I don’t have enough time to study it seriously, so every Monday I stare at the teacher without understanding what he is explaining, and feeling guilty because I didn’t review all those kanji and grammatical expressions. I hope I can retake the lessons, but right now they’ll have to wait.

On Monday there are also Karate training, so now that I’m skipping Japanese, I can attend them. Last Monday I really enjoyed the lesson, and reinforced my decision. The class starts at 20:00, so that allows me to eat at home, instead of staying late at work (JP starts at 19:00) and eating from some tupperware staring at my computer screen.

On Tuesday my Lindy Hop lessons start at 19:00, so I have to eat on the train or staring at my screen, but for one day is ok. In the train I have time to check my personal e-mail, and relax for the dance lesson. Once I arrive, I lose myself up, and concentrate on socializing and feeling the music. The classes with Katja and Hans are a lot of fun, because we rotate partners and they always make jokes about how to move. Everybody is learning, so I don’t feel bad being clumsy.

And after the class there is always room to chat with your classmates, and then to listen to some Jazz at Bebop Café, in Delft. Every two weeks there is a jam session, and yesterday there was, so I stopped by and bought me a Chouffe beer. I didn’t stay for long, only until 22:00, but it was enough to enjoy myself, and go home with a big smile on my face. It was like returning to old times, when I was studying and going out more often than I do now.

Then on Wednesday (today), I usually go to our dojo to train Karate, but today I skipped the lesson because I felt a bit tired and sick. Well, in fact, I wanted to have a rest and write this post. Otherwise I would start postponing it, and losing my motivation.

I think I’m too responsible, and I want to stick to all my appointments, even if those appointments are with myself. I already had a good training on Monday, so why force myself? Instead I relaxed a bit and tomorrow I would be able to work better and enjoy the film in Rotterdam.

That takes us to Thursday, my free day. I had a Jazz dance course on that day, but I also quit two weeks ago, because it was no fun anymore.

Oh! Wait! Actually, on Thursdays I usually go running with Agnese and Aljoscha, but since my holiday we couldn’t make it. However, we run from 18:00 to 19:00, so we could consider it a free day.

On Friday I always go to the borrel to grab some food, drink something and at around 18:30 I go to the dojo. Since 2 months (more or less) I started to teach Karate on Friday’s, because is the day with less people, and I have no much experience teaching. I really like to coach my students. It gives me confidence and there is always something to improve. Sometimes we also have free training, so everybody can practice what they want.

After the class I just go home to sleep, exhausted after a working week. Even though last Friday we had a Cooking Club session. Overbooking! :O

Saturday and Sunday are supposed to be days to relax, but I usually do my laundry on Saturday, then go to the centre to the library, or to a friend, or whatever. There is always something planned.

I think that’s all I wanted to say…

Well, I also want to travel a lot this year. I’ve been postponing my trip to Japan for years, and I think that is time to go soon. I recently watched Steve Jobs speech in Stanford and the following message impacted me:

“I could die tomorrow.”

Of course nobody wants to die, but eventually, we’ll all do. So better do want we want now, and not wait years to achieve something.

I also had a dream, and I became very anxious about not fulfiling my “life goals”. I woke up after an accident, and realized I hadn’t done any of them. I just walked a line, working day after day, attending my regular activities, without anything “special” taking place.

Defining my life goals will need another post (this one is taking too long to complete), but one of my dreams is to go to Japan, so better do it right now, before “other projects” appear in my life.

I also want to change to a more challeging job (uh oh!), but for this I need to perform some steps first (I’m so happy I bought my Time Management book! This is the first step to change your life!).

So, to go to Japan I need time, right? And, how can I “buy” time? By reducing my contract to 90% (or maybe 80%?) and working the same hours, so I can acummulate vakantie dagen (in fact, I could use those free days to study Japanese, or prepare for my trip).

The funny thing is, I realized this while talking to a friend driving back from Germany:

- I want to go to Japan.
- Why are you not going?
- Dunno, I need to plan and need time… and…
- Just go.

I couldn’t reply. She was right. I just have to go.

Thanks for that!

I would love to end this first post sharing some more pictures with you, but before I need to renew my Flickr membership.

Please be patient and enjoy this one as much as I did enjoy our bike trip to Maasluis two weeks ago:

You can also appreciate that I grew my beard. Girls here like it, so… why not?

Tot gauw!

Aachener Weihnachtsmarkt

Hi all!

Last Saturday I went to the Aachener Weihnachtsmarkt with a friend and we had a great time. We went by car and spent the whole day drinking glühwein, eating delicious food (like Reibekuchen, Bratwurst or Flammkuchen), visiting art shops, eating free printen and buying some presents for my family.

We also visited a Flohmarkt and bought some second hand games to help handicapped children. I also wanted to buy a 1000 pieces puzzle, but couldn’t decide which one to get, and had no room in my backpack anyway. Maybe next time!

Soon more pictures and a complete story will follow (or not). Right now I have a priority A to do: prepare my trip home!

Avís pels sollerics: arribaré dia 22 de desembre i estaré fins dia 9 de gener. Ja fris d’estar amb voltros! Fins aviat!

The Cycle

Today may be one of the most important days of my career. I just started using “the cycle”, as Tom explains in Chapter 4 of his wonderful book Time Management for System Administrators. If you are struggling (as I am) with infinite requests and a stressful life, please take a look at it. It will change your life!

Last week I also participated in a stress-prevention workshop at my company, and I learned a lot of useful tips to improve my quality of life. Yesterday morning I took two LPIC exams, and in the afternoon I used some free time to design my own personalized “cycle”. It’s basically the same one Tom writes in his book, but I’ve added some stress related info on the schedule:

• Thought leading to stress
• Situation
• Stress level
• Reaction
• Result

I also use one extra column to write down the incident or change activity related to the item I’m working on, so I can find more info about it in TOPbeheer (our own request tracking system). Cool, eh?

The idea is to spend 10 minutes every day making a plan:

1. Create today’s schedule with items from my work calendar (I use it also for private appointments).
2. Create today’s todo list with requests from TOPbeheer, e-mails and personal stuff (yes, I also include private items on my todo list!).
3. Prioritize and reschedule. I haven’t gone through the priority system yet (that’s chapter 8), but I write an estimated time and if the total is more than the hours I should work, I move the item to another day.
4. Work the plan. Today I just went through the items I already planned yesterday, and because some appointments were cancelled, I did some extra stuff. At the end of each task I wrote down the time I spent, so afterwards I can correct my time estimation process and I also have a way to fill in my hours in LIFT.
5. Finish the day. The last item took a bit longer than expected, but I almost finished everything. I moved 3 items to tomorrow.
6. Drink an Hertog Jan and leave the office. At 5 o’clock (when you have finished work) you are allowed to drink beer with your colleagues (and for free). So why not enjoy it?
7. Repeat. Tomorrow I’ll do the same. Today I hadn’t many incidents on my todo list, but tomorrow is front office day, so I’ll work on that.

What do you think? Of course I also end up late (and tired), but I had a good feeling, like I could control the situation. I had some interruptions (via IM), but I registered incidents for each of them.

I’m happy to have a system that I can also use for my private appointments. My friends know that I always go around with different todo lists (“the scattered notes system”) or my “long list of doom” (without end and completely unrealistic). Now I can have both work and private things in one sheet of paper per day. All of them organized and together. I still have to find a better way to transport it, but for what is left of the month of December it should do.

Look, I even had time to write a post about this. Yuppie!

Thanks Miriam! Thanks Tom!

First impressions on the dance course

Hi folks!

Today I had my first dancing lesson. Let’s have some fun describing my first impressions.

Despite the wind and my crappy bike (working on it. I swear), I arrived just in time (even though I had to run the last 200m). Of course I couldn’t find room 231 alone, so I had to ask to the balie medewerker:

- Room 2-3-1?
- Upstairs, in the left corner.

I went up again and when I opened the door I was not sure whether I had entered the right room. I looked around and only saw girls in ballet clothes, but the teacher said “Jazz dance”, so it must be this one. I knew this Jazz dance course was not really about Lindy Hop, but I was not expecting this. I felt a bit strange with my normal trousers. Maybe I should have brought my tracksuit instead. Anyway, let’s remove my shoes and start the class.

Our teacher is a young girl that is studying modern dance, ballet and Jazz dance in Rotterdam. She’s quite nice and a good dancer. She started introducing herself and asking our names. There are 2 Chinese girls, one from Korea (I guess), and the rest I think they are Dutch.

Did I tell you already that I’m the only man? Eight girls and me. Amazing! Now I understand how my friends studying Biology were feeling. The truth is that I felt a bit “strange”.

We started doing some warming up exercises (that have nothing to do with what we do in a Karate class). We started right away with dance steps, moving the arms and the legs around. Oh my! I was already in trouble and we were just starting! :O

Hopefully, there was enough room and a mirror, so I could see all her movements. Well, because I’m so clumsy, I just put myself at the end, so I could see everybody. I swear I didn’t look too much at the other girls, even though you can imagine it was difficult to concentrate.

All the steps were a bit girlish, but I don’t care. What’s important is to learn to coordinate and keep the rhythm of the music, which is really wonderful. Really! We listened to all kind of Jazz music: street, modern, even some songs were a bit swing. Just that is worth the course.

Then we also practiced some turns, after which I felt quite dizzy. And afterwards we moved in pairs from the back to the front making even more difficult steps and arm movements. I did this with 2 other girls who had some compassion on me, to not let me alone feeling ridiculous. But don’t worry, we are not really “dancing” in pairs. We just practice choreography on our own. No touching.

At the end of the class we did some stretching, which was easy for me. Concentration, on the other hand, was difficult.

So, despite the fact that I couldn’t make any good movement, I had a rather good impression. The Korean girl was also nice to me. She said:

- It’s the first time you are taking dancing lessons?
- Yes. Well, I did some workshops before, but not really took lessons.
- Oh, you are very brave! Because there are only girls in here.
- Yeah! I didn’t know that… But it’ll be fine. Need to practice.

We had a little chat while dressing and then we went out. I’m looking forward to the next lesson. This is gonna be a big challenge!

Another challenge is going around Delft with my bike chain falling apart all the time. I’m getting used to it, but it’s a real pain in the ass. I’ve finally decided to buy a new bike using the company’s fietsplan, and get it insured against robbery, but now I have to decide which bike to buy. I’ve already looked at a few bike shops, but I can’t find a simple bike around 600EUR. All are fancy ones. Keuzes, keuzes…

Ok, that’s enough for today. Next time I will write about the worst book a I ever bought (I should have read those reviews before buying it).

Sleep tight!