Jane's blog

If you know me well, you know I love receiving postcards and letters. It is more personal than just a short email. It makes me feel you really took the time to think of me. Unfortunately, my postbox has been rather empty for a while now. Then this concept came along. Last week I read an article in a Dutch magazine about this website postcrossing.com. It is a place where people all over the world send each other real postcards. Received post cards are registered so afterwards visible for everyone. I have just sent out my first 2 postcards to the USA and Finland and am excited about the idea that I will receive some back any time soon. Why won’t we keep one of the oldest communication mediums in alive?! Hereby, I invite you to send me a postcard yourself and you’ll receive one back for sure!

Some things can not be explained
Such as the feeling I get when seeing beautiful flowers
Sometimes they make me want to stare at them for ages
Stupid enough I do not treat myself often enough on flowers
Silly me, what am I waiting for? I think I have to go to the..
Shop right now!

-Jane-

Actually I don’t have that many girlfriends who own a website or blog. Now that I think of it, I don’t think that even one of them is maintaining one at the moment. It’s not that they are not online. They are, but they are all occupied with updating their social media websites such as Facebook or the Dutch version called Hyves.nl. The ones where you can just plug and play. Here you see a clear division in men and women. Overall, women are non-technical. Women don’t like to put much effort in technical stuff. However, the handful of women who are online at least tried to dive into this technical material and I must say some of them managed pretty well. We can do it! So what’s the reason why YOU are not present on the internet with your personal website or blog yet?

From Bride Flight (2008)
Frank: Who loves you?
Ada: You…
Frank: Who do you love?
Ada: You… I’m gonna stay with you.

The movie starts with the funeral of a certain Frank. Then we see a flashback of the first operating KLM flight to New Zealand where it all started. Bit by bit it becomes clearer who all those people at his funeral are and what their connections to each other are. One of the best Dutch productions from Holland in the last years. The fact that it was shot in New Zealand and there’s some English mixed with the Dutch language made me feel I was in a totally different world. Actually, the real reason why I loved this movie is because one of the main characters is very attractive. I’m talking about Waldemar Torenstra here. I think I’m in love baby!

Click here to see the trailer of the movie!

Today, we focused on character writing and reading in Mandarin class. My teacher showed us this movie:

For those who can’t speak a word of Mandarin, the movie explains how the characters are derived from objects (elephant = xiang / rain = xia yu / mountain = shan). Great way to get to know and more important how to remember those characters! It’s just not that hard to learn as it seems! If you like stories behind words, this is your language to learn!

Music has always intrigued me, that is… if it’s the right kind of music. There’s this music which can make me tremble inside and make me feel very real. With the right kind of music I can forget about anything else; all deadlines and stressed-workers, my sorrows and thoughts. When I was a kid my dad used to play the guitar for me. That’s the first time I got into contact with music. When I was 6 years old I started to play the wooden block flute. I guess it was a mandatory activity in kindergarten, not sure though. The teacher told my mom I had definitely some kind of talent for music. Around that age I moved down south 2.5 hour by car to a town called Maarssen where I continued to play the beautiful concert flute. This woman Berdien Stenberg was, besides the New Kids On The Block and Marky Mark & The Funcky Bunch, my idol at this age of 10. I even ended up in a harmony orchestra, but I wasn’t really motivated since I had to play one of the sub vocals. What’s the use of it if you can’t hear me? was what I thought by then, so I quitted after a while. I was never good in practicing to become better, my mom knows all about it. I only started practicing 1 hour before I had to go to my weekly class. Not a good thing. I just do things because I like them. I can do things only if I’m highly motivated. If I’m not, then better forget about it. I need to work towards a defined goal. That counts for all things in my life. Anyways, good memories… Maybe I should continue with music (guitar, piano, vocals?) .. but first… a reason why I should go for it!!

Jane

When I started my studies I didn’t quite realize what the impact of information is. Information is the core thing in business and even in our private life. If we lack information our brain is going to generate it’s own derived version of the truth. Therefore, important information needs to be communicated. It cannot be held privately. Companies are trying hard those days to structure information, which isn’t an easy thing to realize due to the complexity of restructuring business processes and the high replacement cost of legacy systems involved with it. In contrast what you learn in university, the majority is not willing to change to an improved environment. What holds them is the change in the way they work – Why would I swift part of my job to another? and Why do I need to report to this other person all of a sudden? – and the high cost of investment of all of this they have to make right now. What they don’t see is the longer they wait, the more the cost and frustration among people will rise. Good luck to those managers! Go for decision making and just DO!

Had a rough night? Here’s what you can do to easy the pain…

• Tomato juice, aspirin and a long hot shower
• Baked canaries (popular with Romans)
• Sunglasses and compassion
• A lot of cold coca cola (no light version)
• A ‘Red-Eye’: mix of whiskey, coffee, tabasco sauce, raw egg, pepper, orange juice. Yuk!
• Water, water, water!!

Hope something like this didn’t occur to you when you passed out the other night: