Well, it’s not quite a quarter to call, but you get the idea. I found this in my closest last week:
4 quarters from Marco, taped together
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away… I was but a poor Masters student with not much money to my name. While I had had a part time job after college to save up some money, 90% of it went towards rent during my one and a half years at Rutgers.
First off, congratulations to Roger, who will be getting a promotion at work very soon. 🙂 (You rule!) Here’s hoping you’re don’t blush too much to have a mention in my blog!
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Today at work we had another all-college meeting, where faculty, administrators (me) and staff have a luncheon. We have one in mid August before the Fall semester, one in mid January before the Spring semester, and one in May for “service recognition”. This is where they honor people who have been there for 5, 10, 15, etc years, plus anyone who gets tenure, retires, or receives the coveted grant money for their projects.
When I started this job in August 2009, I had been on the job for about a week when the August meeting was held. The academic dean introduced me to the college, making the joke that since my predecessor had my job for 30 years, there was a little known stipulation in the contract that said I must hold it for 30 years as well.
Everyone including me laughed at that joke. While at the time I did not think that I would actually spend 30 years there (the likelihood of being in one place for that long wasn’t high nor is there any room for real promotion) I did expect to see myself there for around 10 years.
Well, when I leave in December it will have been 3 years and 4 months. So I wasn’t even there for 5 years (no gift for me!). Although someone else who is widely known and respected in the college was retiring after only 6 years on the job. So perhaps it is possible to make my mark in only 3 or so years.
Another thing that I was thinking about way too much during today’s luncheon was the possibility of a going-away party for me. Personally, I don’t really think I want or need one, but Marco has expressed a genuine interest in going back to campus and attending that. He will be coming to the country in December to come pick me up (and be a luggage mule!). It sounds like he wants one, so I will have to ask around to make sure one takes place (they usually do, on some scale). Maybe I can have him bring some speculaas and stroopwafels in his luggage so everyone can have a Dutch dessert…
So much to ponder. Things I never thought of 3 years ago.
The TV commercials have begun for Euro 2012, the European Football Championship held June 8th – July 1st. There are 16 teams this year, including the Netherlands. Although Marco mentioned it last week, I saw the first ESPN commercial for it yesterday. It does have a few Dutch moments in the minute long commercial, including a camera sweeping over rabid Dutch fans during a match. Of course they are all dressed in orange and waving Dutch flags.
Generally there is not much soccer/voetbal shown on TV here, except for Saturday mornings when they show the English premiere league games live. But otherwise, they don’t even really mention the American games that much. But I did enjoy the World Cup two years ago, where NBC promised to show every game live (and did). That’s better than the current NHL playoffs, where I only got to see NY Rangers games in round 1, since I don’t have NBC Sports Network (apparently it’s $21/month more for just that channel. No thanks.)
Here’s the image that Marco sent me last week, showing some toys/figures that were being sold in a Dutch store:
Celebrating a goal
Of course, not being from Europe, I didn’t recognize the classic “slide on your knees after scoring a goal” pose that they were doing until Marco pointed it out.
While Marco and Roger were visiting last month, they ordered some t-shirts to be delivered to my place. Unfortunately, those t-shirts went on back order and didn’t arrive until last week. So it became my job to get them from New York to the Netherlands. I became intimately familiar with the Post Office’s USPS.com and international rates – it’s a bit expensive.
It was not, actually, my first time mailing something internationally. The first time was in June 2007 when the Anaheim Ducks took hockey’s Stanley Cup, and Marco sweetly begged me to let him mail stuff to my parent’s house in Chicago so it could be sent onwards (by us) to the Netherlands. At that point we’d only been hanging out as friends for about 8 months, but it was still fun.
It’s back to the grind of work again. We’re smack in the middle of extended hours, which started last week. Staying open later means the students have more time to study for their finals, which started today. Most nights the library stays open until 2AM.
Street sign near the New York Public Library
This only affects my schedule slightly– but it’s enough where I don’t see Marco online as often as I would like thanks to my staying late and the time zone difference. Part of me is very surprised Marco isn’t more put off by my working late… considering I haven’t seen him much in the last week. But we just need to make it until Friday and then it’s back to some sort of normalcy.
Thanks, Marco. I’ll make it up to you somehow.
One snack I really like from the Netherlands is speculaas. I took home a box that said “Dutch spiced cookies”. They were traditionally sold around Sinterklaas (December 5) but thankfully they are now sold year round. I bought my supply from Albert Heijn. The wikipedia link mentions how they have images stamped on the front (as you can mostly see below), while the backs are flat.
Dutch speculaas cookies
The cookies above are sadly the last bits of cookie I have left from the rather large box I bought. However, in my opinion the trick to making this snack taste extra good is allowing them to get a bit old. Open up the plastic, and close the box again. Let them get a bit softer with age. It’s also very good with the Dutch pickwick tea!
I sort of hinted at this story in one of the comments I left earlier this week. During the early part of 2009 (while I was still studying at Rutgers in New Brunswick), Marco and Roger took their annual trip to New York City. Of course these days, they get to NYC a bit more often since they can crash at my place and not pay hotel prices.
This would also be the Spring of 2009 where they visited in February and April AND Marco came back in late June (June 25, the day Michael Jackson died). If you’re counting, that’s three trips to the States in 4 and a half months! It was a great Spring 2009, let me tell you.
The first trip, Marco was there during Valentine’s Day. It was the first time we were together for that holiday. As they arrived in the city before I came up to spend time with them, he took the occasion to visit M&M’s World in Times Square. He knew that my favorite color was blue (peanut M&M’s – yum!), so he decided to get me a light blue color and a dark blue color.
A HUGE wall of M&Ms (regular and peanut) for you to choose from. Oddly the smell of chocolate was way more overpowering in the Hershey store than it was here, but that was a much smaller store. — June 2011
The only problem was, when he went to hit the button to release some of the M&M’s, he wasn’t expecting the amount that rushed out. So the first bag was about a pound – yet he still wanted to get me some of the other color. So like any good boyfriend would do, he decided that I must get a pound in the other color as well! (And the prices in that store aren’t that forgiving, either.)
Welcome to the M&M store. It’s not Times Square without huge flashy signs! Even the police station (not pictured) has a neon sign… – June 2011
It was definitely an M&M filled Valentine’s Day…
Obviously I am on the wrong side of the ocean to be showing you pictures of Koninginnedag (Queen’s Day), but Marco took some pictures to show me what it is like. I won’t go into detail, except to say that it is the celebration of Queen Beatrix. And it’s a day where everyone loves to wear orange (well, moreso the tourists). You can read an offiical publication for the Hague’s celebrations at the website, haagsekoninginnedag.nl. When Marco sent me that link, he spent a bit of time muttering about why they were mentioning Chinatown, since it is only a street and a half, of which only half of the shops are actually Chinese!
One of the more interesting things for me is the vrijmarkt, or free market, where anyone can sell their wares. Here are some of the pictures Marco took:
Oranje! Go books! (ik wil het oranje boek)
Marco was also kind enough to give a short description of his thoughts about the holiday:
Kroepoek is one of the random snacks that I had while I was over in the Netherlands. I even brought a bag back on the last trip. Like most snacks, it boasts that it is made with zonnebloemolie (sunflower oil).
But its main ingredients are tapioca flour and… ground shrimp. But it is delicious (especially in the various flavors… this one being a more spicy flavor.)
Kroepoek, originally an Asian snack
It’s traditionally an Asian snack from Indonesia and other countries. Since the Netherlands had a foothold in this country for a long time, they took some of the Indonesian culture back to their home country.
I first had kroepoek at Marco’s mother’s house. I then asked Marco what the heck it was, and he graciously got me more at Albert Heijn. It’s definitely one of the snacks I look forward to having again.
I was talking to Marco in emails about my eye exam which I finished up today (the majority was last Saturday, but they had to check that my contacts were working correctly). He said that when I was telling him about getting my eyes dilated, he couldn’t help but think of the Simpsons episode where Mr Burns is mistaken for being an alien after he gets a vocal cord scraping, an eye dilation, and turns green due to all of the nuclear waste in Springfield.
(Thanks to various birthday and Christmas gifts over the years, I now have an up-to-date Simpsons collection. Season 1 – 14 and season 20. It’s the only real DVD series I collect. And thanks to Roger for sorting them into proper order a few weeks ago because he couldn’t take it anymore. Ha.)
As mentioned, last Saturday I went to the Palisades mall for an eye exam, new eyeglasses and a new contact lens prescription. Marco mentioned how over in Europe you usually visit an optician (who gives you your eyeglasses or contact lens prescription), but they are not trained like an optometrist (who also diagnoses and treats various eye diseases). Yet over here it is common to see an optometrist who does a pretty thorough check of your eyes every few years while they measure you for your new prescription.
