Archives
Just how easy it is to forget the myriad of blessings we’re surrounded with. I merely arrived home from an odd job of cleaning dorm rooms, only to realize that I got paid more for 7 hours of work than most people in my home country after a whole week of full-time labor. The catch? There isn’t one.It wasn’t even hard, let alone mundane or dull. “How is this even possible?” –… Read More
“What are you doing tomorrow?”– Taking a banana for a walk with you. Plain and honest, just like the Dutch culture requires and expects.When you send a message like that, you’re likely to cause bewilderment.Confusion comes before excitement. Why is that? It is certainly not a regular idea among humans. You can easily spend a lifetime without ever coming across such a sentence, let alone actually do it the next day. I… Read More
People will call you crazy for almost anything these days. Not because you are mentally ill, but because it’s the easiest thing to say. Just try it and you’ll see. Do something that’s outside the comfort zone of other people, and you’re suddenly “insane”.Dare to go against their beliefs, and you’ll soon be rewarded with the title “lunatic”.Do anything out of ordinary, and you’ll be labeled as the “madman” of society. No… Read More
24 years of age. The thought of “soon you’ll be closer to 30 than to 20” began to creep up on me.Not like it changes anything.Your dreams, friends and qualities remain the same. It’s only the calendar that shifts.Besides, you never know what the next day might bring in your way. My birthday was actually on the 18th, but the party was scheduled for today.There was only one issue with this, is… Read More
What does it mean to belong? According to the definition, there are many options. You can belong to a country, a city or a house.You can belong to your family, your friends or co-workers.You can belong to a community, a cult or a religion. The amount of things we can connect to is exhaustingly long.So how come some of us can still feel alone, lost or without a home? If the World… Read More
The current population of the Netherlands is around 17.4 million people, but the amount of bikes in the country exceed 22.5 million – that is, 1.3 bicycle / person. And today, I finally got my first! If you manage to survive 1,5 years without the most important possession in this place, you’re officially Bear Grylls.How did I do it?I simply borrowed it in times of need. In fact, one time I even… Read More
Another day, another dollar. As the world is being taken over by corona, not many of us can afford to pass up opportunities to get some extra income. Even if it’s not within our expertise and we don’t make a bank, having a few extra bucks never harmed a wallet. Today I agreed to do some gardening for one of the most successful [self-made] businessmen of the Netherlands. I get paid to… Read More
“You can do contests with this material…and win.”That’s what the senior Toastmaster/Public Speaker told me after I finished my speech. I don’t remember the last time I was this hyped for a project I needed to finish.For this performance, I decided to apply the feedback from the previous one, so instead of memorizing, I was going to improvise it. There were bullet points of course, but the weight of the endless chain… Read More
Today I hit one of the biggest milestones of the year: I gave a speech in Dutch; my third language. Ever since I was a kid, standing in front of a crowd of 20+ people wasn’t really a problem for me. I was always “the class clown” in school, and I really enjoyed it. Every single time when there was an opportunity to present myself, I took it. It was a chance… Read More
Waking up early can be a wonderful thing, except when you barely had time to sleep.Luckily a song from Burna Boy can make any ass shake. No matter the day, it’ll move that booty out of the sheets. It was 6 am, and we were about to go for an early morning swim. When we arrived to de Waal beach, the idea of a quick workout became very tempting. Since many of… Read More
“I may or may not have fallen asleep”The one sentence everyone wants to hear 20 minutes before a date. For these things, it comes in handy to have a few friends who can be late with literal days – you end up getting pretty fortified against only a few minutes. Luckily, I’ve been well-trained on this field.Though they still miss out on the opportunity to throw in a sassy “might be late… Read More
“He is smiling!” – One of the Ladies from the group stares at me.I was lifting the massage bed over the balcony to help my neighbor after a heart surgery.“Oh, jij doet massage? Nou kom maar!” – All of them starts laughing [“Oh, you can massage? Come come!”] And I did. After finishing the treatment, I packed everything in and went straight to the other side of the street. You’ve never heard… Read More
Most of us can remember the time and place when we experienced something very special or unique.An example will probably pop up in your mind just by reading this.Let it be falling in Love, getting a Job, or having our first Kiss; we treasure that memory as long as we Live. Some of these moments were a coincidence, occurred by luck or perhaps they were destined by fate.Others are the fruit of… Read More
“If I’m ever going to write about this day, you bet it’s gonna start with how you’re always late” It’s 3 o’ clock, Friday.I’m sitting on the couch, meditating. Preparing for the upcoming hours mentally.The house is clean, I went through the whole place and erased every little trace of our “Man cave”.A box full of snacks was waiting in the kitchen, filled with delicious grapes, almonds, cashews and blueberries.I loaded the… Read More
How do you strengthen a friendship?You probably have a few solid ideas already.Order pizza and watch a movie, get drunk and go out on a Friday evening, support them when they need it, continuous honesty and reliability, a surprise or a gift, cooking a delicious meal; or offering an open ear to listen to their great news or difficulties. If we really care about our buddies, none of these should be challenging.But… Read More
What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word “Home”? Is it the place where you were born, where you spent your childhood?Is it the country, the culture, the people around you?Or is it the house where you keep your clothes, eat breakfast and have a shower? We all have our own definition, but all of us has one thing in common:That’s where our heart belongs. My… Read More
A lot of people told me that it’s not going to be easy. “Dutch people are cold and distant – they might be tolerant, but that does not equal acceptance. You can try as much as you want, but getting friends will always be the difficult part. Integration is hard, even if you learn their moedertaal1, you’ll still be a foreigner in their eyes.”This was the kind of “encouragement” I got when… Read More
How can you LOVE and HATE something at the same time? This problem occurs quite often throughout our lives.Let it be the person we love, a habit we want to get rid of, or a harmful hobby we enjoy.You know you shouldn’t eat that entire box of ice cream you just bought, but it still ends up in your stomach.You know the new episodes of your favorite show are 10/10 ones, so… Read More
Poor walls.I’ve been talking to them for 2 hours now. 540 words. No more, no less – and my job was to remember all of them.After practicing the act over 30 keer1, I felt quite confident.The speech was clear and fluent – but a good public speaker doesn’t leave anything to chance, so I repeated it another 20 times and made sure that nothing would ruin the performance. I was very excited… Read More
Clark Kent is a rookie compared to him. Even though we barely knew each other for 5 minutes, he offered an entire day to show me things.“What’s the catch?” – I wondered, baffled by the amount of friendliness.There was none, whatsoever. Such generosity came from within. It started with a trip towards our “rival” city: Nijmegen; Arnhem’s Nemesis. The route should’ve taken 1 hour by cycling, but the headwind was stronger than… Read More
Road to a New Life 