That’s a good word for today. I was up early for a 6am call with the Netherlands, which then wrapped me up in a number of things so that by the time I left here around 815 to go to the Dolphin Academy for my snorkeling session with the dolphins, I was already in a state of stress. I got there, only to discover that my turn had been at 8am and I had missed it. I will tell you, I didn’t know what to do with myself and I started crying right there in front of the poor people staffing the check in. They only do it a few times a week, six people at a time and I had missed my chance. I was devastated. Probably also because this would have been something I would have really liked to do with my mom and all that grief that she is not here to do these things with came crashing down at once.

Despite their no changes policy, I think they really didn’t know what to do with me. In an effort to get the waterworks to stop since they have saltwater enough in the dolphin lagoons, they found a spot for me Thursday morning but not for snorkeling. I can do the dolphin swim but I have to keep my head above water and you are pretty closely supervised instead of being allowed to free snorkel with the dolphins. I am not crazy, I very gratefully accepted the offer. I spent the rest of the morning wandering around the Seaquarium and watching the sea lions and hanging out in the underwater observatory communing with a 400 pound Goliath grouper named Herbie. He was pretty chill, kind of like a zen master.

From there, I walked over to the closest beach – not hard to find here in Curacao, and spent a couple of hours under a palm tree staring at the water, thinking about stuff. Until I got so worn out from the emotions and the thinking, I fell asleep. That lasted until a Swedish father and his toddler decided to play under the palm tree. I thought at first I was having Swedish dreams but no, it was an alarm clock of sorts.

I didn’t really know what to do with myself this afternoon, other than I needed to stay out of the sun. I went to the mall. It is enormous, with very few stores and even fewer people. I didn’t buy anything, just wandered it from one end to the other, collecting steps on my FitBit. Like I said, today’s been weird.

Yesterday, I was out the gate around 7am and headed west to Christoffelberg National Park. What I have been thinking is North is actually West. Which explains alot. I got lost in the park and eventually came across two young park rangers on foot who were happy to show me how to get back to the park if I would give them a ride. So I did. They explained to me how to orient myself according to the wind, which is a near constant here. The ladies at the ticket booth found it hilarious that I got lost and gave me another token to go into the mountain side of the park, which was my original intended direction. I guess I won points for picking up the park rangers. I ran into two more on the other side when I was at another crossroads. They gave me directions cheerfully.

After that, it was up the road to Boka Sheke National Park which is a sea turtle nesting place and sanctuary. Somewhat oddly, they serve iguana soup there. There were some gorgeous iguanas walking around bold as you please. I wanted to send them in the other direction of the snack bar but iguanas don’t really follow directions well. I followed the hiking trail along the ocean and over to the natural bridge. It looked easy on the map. However, I forgot to take water and it was blistering hot. And I didn’t have enough sunblock on so by the time I got back, I was sporting a second layer of sunburn. Let me take a moment to point out that in the morning I had purchased three more sunblocks and they were all in the trunk of the Kia.

Going on from there, you are basically at the top of the island, so you only have a choice to go around. I ended up at Playa Portomari, which was beautiful and charming. Including more iguanas, one who sat in the tree next to me, waiting for something. I spent a couple of hours there just reading and trying to stay in the shade. I am going back up there tomorrow, I signed up for an introductory diving class. You can’t dive within 12 hours of flying so I have to do it tomorrow. I have to work a full day tomorrow, starting at 330am local time so I figure after that, I will have earned the right to spend the afternoon at the beach.

I have a really rough time with all the stray dogs here. They are everywhere and they cross streets and roam. I hate it. It makes me think of Henry and George and how devastated I would be if something happened to them. Then it makes me angry that there are so many strays. I know I can’t take any of them home but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to find a way to solve the problem. I think this has bothered me most about being here. I realize I am coming from a perspective that dogs are pets and well loved, hell, even taxed annually with the pendant to prove it. I see these dogs, who fend for themselves and like I said, I want to solve the problem. It looks like there is one organization here that cares for them but they don’t even have a building yet Curacao Strays I did the one thing I can do and made a monthly recurring donation.

I have a lot of shit on my mind and things aren’t all that great right now but I can still make small differences and that’s something I need to focus on. Maybe that’s the point for each of us, we all make our own small differences. I have learned some things about myself on this trip too. One being that I am unlikely to take another beach vacation by myself. I solved the practical challenges by buying spray on sunblock but this was too much time alone with my emotions. City vacations or country vacations no problem but no more beaches. Okay, that sounds just a tad entitled 😉 What I really should say is that places like this are best enjoyed with the company of people you like.

I am going to make the most of the next two days since I fly back to the cold on Thursday night. I’ll be glad to get home and hug my pets. Then it is a week to go before Christmas and all of that.

Because I sure look like one. Back from the trip to Kleine Curacao and waiting for my hair to dry before I go out and find some dinner. I don’t have high expectations because since I don’t eat seafood, I am not really experiencing flavorful food in the local restaurants. This is partly why I am still making my own dinners on vacation, not that different from home 😉

Kleine Curacao was great. We had rough seas this morning, going against the eastern current so there were alot of people “feeding the fish” as they call it when you throw up over the side. I didn’t get seasick and kind of enjoyed the wild water. When we arrived at the island, you had the choice to go to shore by zodiac or jump off the side. You can guess which one I did 🙂 It was exhilarating and would have been the perfect opportunity for a tremendous cannonball – which I only realized after I jumped. Next time, cannonball!

The water here really is that blue, like a postcard. Unfortunately, with the rain and wind today, snorkeling wasn’t great. I know there must have been fish since I watched the pair of pelicans make their dives but I didn’t see any. Instead, I gave in to swimming in the ocean and enjoying the feeling of tiny little person in the enormous world of Mother Nature. I picked up my lawn chair and parked it under the shade of the map and spent the day going back and forth between the chair and the ocean. Not a bad way to spend your day 😉 Despite my best efforts and sunblock that left me with the color of a zombie, I got a pretty good burn. I’m more than resembling a lobster. Funny how all through the day I was monitoring it and thinking “wow, you are doing a really great job not getting burned”.

I’ve got plans to explore the island tomorrow and end the day at Porto Mari beach to watch the sunset. I figure I have a full tank of gas in the sporty little Kia Picanto and since the island is pretty small, I should at least make one trip around it! It reminds me of Iceland in that there is one major road that goes around the whole island, so no matter what, you can’t really get that lost. You can get sidetracked because as I look at the map (a big colorful paper one) I think of places that I would like to stop. I’ll let you know where I ended up.

Strangely enough, the boat ride over gave me alot of time to think. I needed to stay pretty deep in my thoughts because I am a contact barfer. If I see someone else throwing up, I get the urge as well. And I did not want to feed the fish. I was thinking about other vacations, other times and other people. I was a little verklemmt as they say on Saturday Night Live. Luckily, no one noticed it behind my sunglasses 😉

During the shady moments, I finished my book and watched the hermit crabs and chameleons go about their business. It seems like a pretty carefree existence, being busy with getting food, basking in the sun and generally taking things one step at a time. I am so sure there is a lesson in there somewhere 😉

Yesterday, after spending the morning under a palapa with the local chameleons as my coworkers, I decided to explore and go towards the beach. When I first planned to take this trip, I thought I could completely disconnect and just have a week to myself. It turns out it is not that way right now because of all of the stuff going on at work, which only seems to keep escalating. Every time it looks like there is progress, there’s another weirdo situation that comes up. While I am generally good at managing things, these situations are completely beyond my control and yet I am somehow still expected to have predicted, understood and prepared a recovery plan for them. Hence having chameleons as coworkers instead of just spending the morning chilling out under the palapa hut.

In the afternoon, after the Netherlands had signed off for the day, I went over to Jan Thiel beach. I enjoyed a double espresso in the shade and thought about what I wanted to do with the afternoon. I wasn’t especially motivated to do alot but I needed to collect steps for my FitBit so off it was for a long walk down the beach and into the water. The water is about 80 degrees. I spent a good couple of hours there, hiding under various bits of shade where I could find it. Even on a partly cloudy day like yesterday, the sun is really intense and apparently I am also attracting alot of insect bites. On the way back, I stopped at one of the beach tents and had a very good Mojito. Far better than the ones they make in Amsterdam. I only had one though otherwise I would have probably stayed all night. The beaches have parties that literally go on to dawn here. Especially on the weekends.

I wasn’t really in the mood for that. One of the downsides of travelling alone is that if you actually want to talk to someone or share an experience you have to approach a stranger. I noticed yesterday that I didn’t see anyone else flying solo. Usually this doesn’t bother me. This trip it kind of does. Probably because everyone here seems to be in groups. I noticed it again today when I was exploring Willemstad. If you do see a onesie, it is a man of a certain age – definitely not my target demographic!

I left early this morning for Willemstad, figuring I would get a jump on the heat. Silly really because it is pretty much the same temperature all day long. I explored the floating market, which is where all the Venezuelan merchants tie up their boats and sell their produce. I got an avocado as big a cantaloupe. No lie. I think I could make guacamole for six with it. From there across the floating pontoon bridge to the other side, Otrabanda to explore the less white side of Willemstad. Here is also where the museum of slavery was. Which I went to.

It was a tough museum. Curacao was originally a way station where slaves were brought to be tamed before being brought over to South America or to the US. The Dutch and the Portugese were the biggest traffickers in these parts in the Triangle trade. They had so many artifacts and even a display of the slave deck that you could go into. It was chilling and horrifying. I used to think that the slave market in Natchez, Mississippi was the most chilling place I had ever been but today’s exhibit was even worse. The justifications that people use to qualify their actions, trying to make them logical, are not to be believed. I expect to carry the weight of those exhibits with me for a while.

I spent the rest of the time walking around and trying to think about other things. This is probably why I stopped on a terrace and had two glasses of wine while listening to a live band. I realized that I wasn’t going to get my sightseeing groove back and decided to return to my bungalow.

Tomorrow I am going over to Kleine Curacao with a boat for a day of snorkeling around an uninhabited island. I will be surrounding by people so I am sure by tomorrow afternoon, I will be okay again with travelling on my own 😉 It is not smart to snorkel alone in the ocean which is another reason that it would be useful to travel with someone else next time.

On a lighter note today, I discovered that Curacao doesn’t have a female population with big feet. I thought I might be in luck and be able to find some shoes in size 43 but everywhere I looked, I got a very sympathetic “Sorry, madame, those are just too large”. I had fun looking at all the brightly colored clothes. It seems like there is no such thing as a fashion disaster here, all colors can be mixed with all kinds of styles. I did give in to the urge and spent $7 for a dress. I was tempted to go for this wildly lurid orange and green one – and I do mean tempted. Instead, I settled for a dusty blue that reminds me of the sky before it gets really dark. For $7, I imagine it is not going to last long enough to be handed down to my descendants but it’s fine for vacation. Covers the important parts and packs flat in your luggage.

The roosters at the farm across the way start announcing themselves to the world at around 430am. I hope they remember to do this tomorrow since I need to be at the dock by 630. Just in case, I will set my alarm. I think I managed not to get sunburned today, which was also a plus. Tomorrow, I expect that to be an uphill battle – despite my best intentions.

I am sorry that I couldn’t find my waterproof camera or my sarong before I left home. They are somewhere in a box due to the move and there was no finding them. I guess I will have to be content with keeping the pictures in my head. Which is a shame. I won’t be able to use it for the dolphin snorkel on Tuesday but I could have used it tomorrow 😦 Oh, yes, I just booked myself in for Tuesday morning snorkeling with the dolphins. I probably won’t be returning here for a while so I am going to make the most of it in terms of experiences.

This afternoon, yours truly landed at the Curacao airport. Nine and a half hours of flying from Amsterdam to land on a runway that runs right up next to the Atlantic Ocean.

Tonight, I am sitting on the porch of my little bungalow in 81 degree weather with a good breeze rustling through the palm trees next to me. I have to say, the warm weather does me good. It makes going to the airport this morning, freezing in my summer weight clothes well worth it 🙂

I don’t have alot of plans for while I am here, other than to snorkel, snorkel and maybe snorkel some more. And if that gets too boring, I might try reading a book or two or just taking long naps in the shade. If I think back to where I was in terms of being able to enjoy vacations pre move to the Netherlands, I have come a long way! I actually landed here without even having the address of where I was staying. Which almost was a problem because the battery on my phone was nearly dead. The island is only 30 km so it is kind of hard to get in serious trouble.

It seems that I have a strong magnet for planes that have a starting destination of New Delhi and then go on to Amsterdam, where I get on and then on to their final destination. That was the case today and my regular SEA-AMS trip has the same starting point, New Delhi. I wonder if this means that at some point visiting New Delhi will be in my future? I guess it depends on when the email comes in from KLM with the most amazing deals of the month. That’s how I ended up here 😉 Transportation related marketing emails seem to lure me in.

Landing in Curacao made me think of the times my Mom and I would land in Mexico, the outdoor airports. I am missing her alot this month and in part because we had that escape Christmas mindset by taking a trip to somewhere else in December. I think I might just end up snorkeling with the dolphins too. She and I did it with sea lions and it is one of my favorite memories of how unwilling to act her age she embodied.  We did alot of interesting travelling the last few years she was alive and I am so glad we did. We didn’t make it to the Galapagos but maybe I will next year.

My flight was really good. KLM makes flying fun. Or maybe I just let myself have fun. I got another of the KLM houses that you get when you travel with them. Unfortunately, they didn’t have number 85 which the one from Curacao. Maybe on the way home. I have a little collection of them now. There’s 100.

I am glad I am not staying at one of the enormous resorts. I think that would be really distracting. I would feel like I needed to do all of the activities and talk to people. I am staying in a little compound of 8 bungalows so there promises to be plenty of chill out time. There is a five hour time difference with Amsterdam so I am trying to stay awake until 11pm local time so tomorrow just begins properly. In this kind of weather, I think I could easily sit outside all night.

Judging from the photo I got earlier, the boys aren’t missing me too much since they were sitting right up next to the housesitter. They have a dog here, he looks like George but quite a bit taller and heavier. He’s a real sized dog 😉 We already became friends so I don’t have to go through complete pet withdrawal!

The song, of course. It appears on Madonna’s newest album and I have been listening to the entire album a lot lately. Let me just first get out of the way that the concert was AMAZING. I wanted to go back Sunday night as well. Super good companionship and dance partners combined with a spectacle of acrobatics, music and attitude like only Madonna can express.

I’m noticing the Rebel Heart album has an underlying theme of what happens on a personal level when you get stepped on and what happens when people try to do it to you. The fusion between the feelings and the actions. And the struggle between the two.

I have been catching quite a bit of feedback lately. Everything ranging from “you need to be more of a bitch” to “you are not aggressive enough” to “you hold too much in”. Yeah, definitely a theme. I am still wrestling with a what to do with all this feedback. I wish I could say it was only from one source but it isn’t.

Truthfully, I don’t know what to do with this at the moment. I feel like I have worked very hard to be more open, emotionally aware and far less hiding behind walls. I don’t want to undo that work because it is important part of who I am. Then I wonder if I really have tilted too far into this sort of way of working through the world. I know that I work in a highly competitive environment. I have always liked the fact that I am far more about being tenacious than being visible and trumpeting loudly. Moving here was also a welcome break from that sort of expectation. Except now it seems that while I have definitely grown in directness, I have yet to reach the level of the local population. I think by aggressive they don’t mean gladiator sports but rather more Dutch.

So, this means that I have been gravitating to music lately that has lots of unapologetic bravado and maybe even a little dose of “fake it ’til you make it”. It is definitely pushing what I feel comfortable with for myself. I have no problem being an advocate for someone else and being fierce. And I am always encouraging others to ask for help and be aware of their strengths and have confidence in them. Uh, right, now I need to a little more of that for myself or I need to find myself a tough love coach to help me through it. I wonder if R’s old therapist has any extra room on his client schedule? 😉

Tomorrow I leave for a tropical island. It is only for a week but I am going to make the most of the 87 degree weather. I’m torn between deciding if I should try to learn dolphin training and go on a snorkel day trip or if I should be more frugal and do one or the other? I think I will make a decision when I get there, based on local input and the weather. I am only out of the Netherlands for 7 days in total so I need to maximize the chill out time 🙂

Of course, I am trying not to let the pets know I am leaving tomorrow yet George still had three seizures in a row this morning. I know, how does he know this stuff is going to happen?? The last one was a big one and I am starting to wonder if his medication isn’t able to control them as easily anymore. I hope not because I really don’t want to put him on something with more side effects. I can’t even say it was the banjo playing because I was making coffee when it happened.

By tomorrow, I will be saying “hello” from the beach 😉

Of course, I mean Madonna! Yesterday an email came with the final schedule and the funny disclaimer that said:

De tournee van Madonna is inmiddels begonnen met positieve reacties. Madonna heeft echter af en toe de gewoonte om niet op tijd te beginnen maar gelukkig doet ze wel altijd haar volledige show. Het kan zijn dat ze in Nederland ook wat later het podium op gaat en het concert niet voor 23.00 uur eindigt.

Which translates to: the tour of Madonna has started with positive reviews. Madonna really does have the habit of not starting on time but luckily she always performs her full show. It is possible that in the Netherlands that she will take the stage later and the concert may not end by 11pm.

So refreshingly practical 🙂 Basically, this tells me that we have plenty of time to have dinner before the concert and as long as we show up somewhere before the scheduled time that she is supposed to take the stage, we will be okay.

I am looking forward to going, especially since I have never seen her live. However, before then I still have to work. Tomorrow I have to go to Groningen for a customer meeting which means I will swing by Marum on the way back. Which means I am taking a break right now from working on my presentation. Sometimes, I need to do something else. I am going to go take the recycling out in a few minutes if writing doesn’t produce some fresh ideas 😉

Friday night I went to a banjo themed Wild West musical titled Bad Men From Bodie in Amsterdam Noord. I think I appreciated it more than most because it was over the top Americana. Sort of like a cheesy Western come to life. They will be giving it again later this month in one of the big theatres in the Centrum. I will be going again, I am trying to decide if I want to go on first Christmas day or second.

I missed the Thanksgiving dinner because I was at Homework Help too long. By the time I was finished Thursday, it had already been going on for 30 minutes. And you can’t just walk into a dinner 45 minutes late that is only two hours long. I came home and ate pea soup instead. Maybe next year 🙂

Saturday afternoon, Marianne and I spent a leisurely several hours at the Food Festival. Again long tables, good conversation and fun food options. Unfortunately, she had to go off to choir practice or we would have stayed there much longer!

Sunday, the weather was really terrible. Storm level winds and rain. Tram tracks were flooded. Despite the weather, I went to learn to salsa. Hahaha, that was fun and silly. Of course, you are supposed to count during it too, which is the exact opposite of what I am supposed to be doing with my banjo playing. I have a long way to go before I will dance salsa in public 😉 but I did learn three different steps and how to combine them!

Okay, this is not working to give me new ideas, time to take a walk around the block!

singing along to Mary Lambert. I had to think about that line for a minute and decide if I did agree with it. Which meant I had to dig further into thinking about what my secrets might be and what would bother me about them being in the open? Then I realized pretty quickly that while thankfully I am not walking around talking about every single thought and emotion I have, I don’t really keep much buried anymore. Sometimes, I have to work a little harder to discover what it is and that can take a while. I wouldn’t classify that as secrets rather as unknown.

Last night I went to the Girl Geek meetup and in addition to all the tech geek topics, we went deep into neural science, conditioning and definitions of feminism. I enjoyed it, 12 or so women, all geeky and all passionate about various topics. I thought that I would only stay for an hour or so but I ended up staying three.

So, if you are of the American variety of the species, Happy Thanksgiving 🙂 I hope that your time with family and friends is filled with laughter, kindness and a healthy sense of renewal. Of course, if the Black Friday madness is your thing, then I wish you lots of success with that 😉

My mom always used to buy roasted turkey from PCC on Thanksgiving for the pets. She would slice it up very finely and they would get on their plates. I remember that my dragon cat, Mikha, would go nuts for the turkey whereas Lientje thinks turkey is gross. She still does, if the wet food the cats get is turkey, Lientje walks away. It was the one time a year you could safely approach Mikha if you weren’t one of the very few people she tolerated.

As for us, Mom and I would do everything but the turkey. I miss her stuffing. I can’t get the exact flavors no matter how hard I try. I think that also has something to do with getting sidetracked while I am making it – I suddenly start thinking of more things to add. Whereas Mom had strict rules about not adding too many things. We would go to the movies around 4pm, precisely when the rest of the world was sitting down to dinner. Then we would eat afterwards while the rest of the world was at the movies, in a food coma, or later heading to the malls.

I get a lot of my contrary tendencies from my mom. It doesn’t help that my dad is not exactly Mr. Conformity either. In my DNA, I have a doublescoop of Do It Your Own Way 😉 Well, actually we all do in varying degrees of intensity.

The weather has gotten pretty cold and on the bike, you need mittens. You might remember that I had a collection of my mom’s Bartell’s mittens. Well, I still have them. With the move, they just happen to be buried in a box somewhere. Yesterday, I needed to take the train to the Hague for a customer meeting and I could not find a pair that matched either my coat or each other, so I followed in my mom’s footsteps and wore two mismatching ones. The important thing was to keep my hands warm. I did remove them before walking into the building 😉

Okay, back to work. Later today off to homework help where I plan to learn some more Dutch and dig up my rusty knowledge of area and circumference formulas 🙂

Okay, it has stopped for all of five minutes. I know this because I can hear it coming down on the skylights. It is not decreasing in volume. We’ve reached a standoff, the boys absolutely do not want to go outside and I do not want them to go potty in the house. So, that means when the rain lets up just a smidgen, I have to push them outside and say very sternly “Go Potty Quick” and George just looks at me from outside and shivers and drops his head down like he’s the most mistreated dog in the world. If this rain keeps up, I might give up on unpacking and learn to build us a boat of sorts…

Yesterday, I nearly missed my banjo lesson because I got sidetracked by family tree hints. It turns out that my mother’s cousin died the same day she did. I thought that was so strange. I thought I was reading it wrong. My oma was one of six children. This was the child of her oldest brother. I just got sidetracked again, adding new bits to the family tree. Thanks again, Laura, for getting me hooked 😉

I did make it to banjo in the nick of time. It was a good lesson, despite the fact that I still can’t get “Oh, Susannah”quite right. She’s a tricky dame. I am going to try another approach, stop counting the notes in the bars and simply play them. However, it is easier said than done. Especially since certain bars are repeated so then I am really counting the notes. Which doesn’t make for the most effective playing.

I went to the office today and turns out, everyone else decided to Skype in. Tomorrow I am off to The Hague for a presentation. I am taking the train instead of driving. I think it is much better for Astrid to stay tucked into a warm garage instead of going out in the freezing rain and cold. And to combat the weather, we’ve discovered a new winter drink – a bit of Frangelico in hot chocolate – yum, yum.

I’m going to the Thanksgiving dinner at the American Book Center on Thursday. I have to bring a starter or a dessert to share. I am probably just going to buy something since I’ll be going from homework help directly to dinner. They have a veggie main dish. I think I am mostly going because it is a little lonely here on American holidays. And hey, if the food and company are not good, I can jump on my bike and go home. Or go in search of hot chocolate and Frangelico 😉

the attempt to build the temporary closet that I found on Groupon about six weeks ago. I started to try it today, figuring I could whittle down several boxes full of clothes once it was finished. On a sidenote, you only borrow moving boxes here, you have to give them back. On Thursday they came for the first 40 but I still have a few more to go! Anyway, I am relatively handy with IKEA so I figured Groupon furniture could hardly be more difficult. Except it is. I have a single sheet diagram which is not very clear. More importantly, there are several parts missing. I imagine I have put them in other boxes just to get them out of the way. Which is frustrating and a perfect example of why this living out of boxes was getting old.

Irritating. I went to part of the living room that is my office and starting working there instead. It is amazing how many notebooks I have. Yet somehow I am always looking for paper. Well, I won’t need to do that anytime soon since I can now see them. As for my clothes? Well, sometime this week, probably on a day I go to the office, I will stop at IKEA and get a closet of sorts. Not a permanent one but one big enough to hold my clothes so I can get more boxes in the pile to be returned.

Pretty chilly today, under 40. The boys are wearing their vests when we go on walks. I figure if it is cold enough for me to need two layers then they could probably use one too. Henry appreciates this and has told me that he wishes Columbia would make their Omni Heat jackets for dogs.

I practiced my banjo. Tomorrow is Monday which means I start the week off right, with a banjo lesson. I am making the effort to practice more often so that eventually I can play music with other musicians instead of only dancing and singing along.

This year has flown by. In a little less than three weeks, I am off to Curacao for a week. I am excited for warm weather, snorkeling and living in a 50 sq meter beach bungalow. Most of all, I am looking forward to doing nothing and letting my batteries recharge before the holidays. I don’t have plans for this year, at least let me say I am not expecting any guests. However, the period through Christmas through mid January remains hard.  Hence filling up the emotional strength batteries in Curacao – well, that and the really good price of tickets 😉

who has purchased the new Adele album today. I have to say, she was smart not to make it available for streaming purposes. I just paid my 11.99 to be able to download it. Her very powerful voice fits my mood today. And she seems to charm the pets as well, since Moortje is lying directly behind the speakers and the dogs are in their basket, tucked around each other like bookends.

I had a great time at homework help yesterday. I learned a few things about the Dutch language and was reminded of formulas for calculating area and circumference. I plan to do it again. Tomorrow, I’ll be teaching some teenagers to begin coding in Amsterdam Noord. I was a little nervous before I went, knowing my language limitations. It was a relief to discover that children are alike the world over, they all love one on one attention!

Bit of a difficult moment at work today. With the current dynamic, I am working much harder on keeping my thoughts internal. This morning I had a particularly difficult set of meetings and the worst part was that I didn’t feel I could respond with my thoughts so I just gradually withdrew further and further so that by the time two hours had passed, I didn’t even feel like I was in the room anymore. I chose to head home after that so I could get some work done without worrying about dynamics and politics. I spend a lot of time working with organizations and talking to them about building trust and change and yet somehow, in my own organization that’s not really present.

At any rate, I will take the weekend to do some thinking about what I want and where I will achieve it. From there, I will have to make some decisions.

I am grateful that I have things to do that empower me all over again. Yesterday’s homework session was one of those things. I think I am going to skip most of the things I had planned to do outside the house this weekend. There are plenty of things to distract me from unpacking and I think I will be wise, acknowledge them and resume doing what I need to do. I am starting to get a little irritated with the residual boxes. Right now I am in the danger zone. I have enough unpacked that I could keep going as I am and leave the rest in boxes for the next few years 😉

That’s right, it is Thanksgiving next week. That’s probably also accounting for a little bit of why I am feeling slightly out of sorts which if I look deeply enough, I realize the out of sorts comes from feeling lonely. I think I am missing having a family at this moment. Not that I don’t have an extended one, I know. I am just far away from everyone.

Enough, I am going to go learn some more Minecraft code for tomorrow 🙂