The Dalai Lama in Amsterdam

It seems ages ago since I ordered the tickets, but yesterday the day finally arrived on which I would see the Dalai Lama again, for the 2nd time in my life. The last time was in Brussels a few years ago, and I remember praising myself lucky then to have the opportunity to see him life. After all he's not the youngest person and he has suffered from several health issues. So I was very happy indeed with this 2nd opportunity to see him and listen and learn from him.

The day started early, as we (my boyfriend and I) wanted to be in Amsterdam on time to secure a good seat. We arrived well on time and after initially going to the wrong entrance (for Tibetans only) we passed the security checks and entered the main hall. The security was meant to be really tight, but we found a big problem with it which I won't elaborate on in detail here. I don't want to give the wrong people tips!

Luckily we managed to get a really good seat with an excellent view on the stage. First we started with the lesson on patience. His Holiness the Dalai Lama guided us through chapter six of Shantideva's text "A guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life".

In the afternoon we attended the public lecture about 'The power of compassion in turbulent times'. It was quite funny that the Dalai Lama had to ask the translator what the title of the lecture was. He explained this by saying that no matter what the title of any of his lecture is, the content is always pretty much the same. The difference between the lesson in the morning and the public lecture in the afternoon was huge! The morning was more complex and really did require (some) background knowledge in Buddhist beliefs. The afternoon session was much lighter. It also included a question and answer session. One of the biggest learnings I got out of the afternoon session was that forgiveness doesn't mean that you should not help the person you're forgiving to correct the actions that led to the need to forgive them to start with. In other words, forgive, but don't forget and help the other person so (s)he won't make the same mistake again.

We also attended the evening lecture by Sogyal Rinpoche. It was the first time I met this very impressive Buddhist teacher. His lecture was also very interesting, but unfortunately by this time I was so tired that I had trouble concentrating on what he was saying. But I will definitely attend his lectures again in the future!

All in all it was a very intensive day, a great experience, and a day I will remember and cherish for a long time!

The picture below was taken when the Dalai Lama accepted an Amsterdam baseball cap and sunglasses as a gift from somebody and put them on immediately :-)

Ups and downs in these tough times

The last few days have been pretty tough... The continuing stories about how bad the crisis is and how the recession is worse than expected combined with my own current extremely uncertain job situation have really gotten to me lately.

Yes, there are still jobs to be had, but not a lot and there's a lot of competition for each interesting looking job. On top of that the pay for all of the jobs I've applied for so far is a lot less then what I've been used to and what my mortgage is based on. Selling the house is not an option either, as I would have to sell with a big loss at the moment due to the lower house prices. So not a lot to be cheerful about. Normally I'm not really prone to depression or pessimism, but the past few days have been really, really tough.

It took me 10 years to build up my life to where I am now, after returning back from the UK with next to nothing other than a huge debt, some books, CDs and my clothes. So I know I'm capable of crawling out of a shit hole and fighting for a better life. Thing is though... I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO DO THAT AGAIN. So there. I had to get that off my chest.

So today I was looking at the dreary weather outside, with rain resembling the interior of a car wash, and that didn't make me feel a whole lot better. After having a brainstorming session with my boyfriend on what we could do that would take us out of the house for a bit we decided to drive to the coast and walk on the beach for a bit. My boyfriend decided on the location: Egmond aan Zee - a town neither of us had ever been to before. When we got there, the sun came out, and even though it was windy, the wind wasn't cold. So we had a nice long walk on the beach, which we ended with drinks in a beach bar. The wind, sun, sea, beach & company really cheered me up and made me feel better. This was topped of with a good meal in one of the local restaurants, after which we had a huge ice cream before driving back home. So now I feel a whole lot better again, and ready to start the new week, with hopefully a really good job coming my way. Or a good lottery win, that would be quite allright too! :-)

Successful attack on the Dutch royal family on Queen's Day 2009

As most of you probably know, a lunatic in a Suzuki Swift killed 8 people including himself in an attack on the Dutch royal family during the Queen's Day celebrations on the 30th of April in Apeldoorn. I haven't blogged about this before, because it took some time for it all to sink in after seeing this happen live on television.

I also needed some time to think about the implications of what happened for the Dutch royals. Sure, they didn't suffer any injuries and none of them died, but I strongly believe that this has impacted them in an irrecoverable way. Just compare the pictures of Queen Beatrix at the beginning of the day - beaming, happy, glowing almost - to the pictures of her during her speech at the end of the day after the horrible event - grieving, shocked, visibly aged. I am sure that something inside her died that day. Look at the expressions of utter shock on the faces of Willem Alexander and Maxima right after the attack.

I cannot imagine that Karst Tates thought he would really kill or injure any member of the royal family by hitting the royal bus with a Suzuki Swift. If he had wanted to do real damage he would have taken a bigger car, or filled his small car with explosives. Nobody will ever know what went on in that man's sick head that made him do what he did. And even though right now royals and politicians are saying that Queen's Day will continue as it always has, I don't think it will ever be the same again. It's a day that has lost its innocence and its smile.

So was the attack on the Dutch royal family successful? Sadly... I think it was.

Twitter Apprentice

In February I wrote a blog post about my very first experiences with Twitter. I really didn't get the point of Twitter then, but decided to hang in there, and see if, with time, I would come to see what the appeal of Twitter is.

Now, a few months later, I'm slowly getting there. I have a whole bunch of followers and am also following quite a few people myself. So where do you go to find interesting people to follow? Here are some tips:

- Use a directory, for example http://wefollow.com/ or http://www.twittergids.nl/ (for Dutch Twitter users)
- When you're following somebody, have a look at their twitter profile to see which people they are following. Perhaps they are interesting for you to follow as well
- Make sure to follow MrTweet on Twitter. He will send you tweets with suggestions for people to follow

When you start tweeting, you will find that people will start following you as well. It really helps if you fill out the short bio on your Twitter Settings, so that people with similar interests can find you.

It seems to be good netiquette to follow somebody back as a thank you for them following you. I did this diligently in the beginning, but have stopped now. Unfortunately there are a lot of people on twitter who abuse your kindness this way, whose sole interest seems to be to get as many followers as possible, but who will never really interact with you. This has probably been the one thing about twitter that has annoyed me the most.

So, when somebody follows you, check out their profile, bio & tweets before deciding to follow them back. That way you'll have at least some idea as to what that person is about and whether they are likely to interact with you or not.

I think the folks-that-just-want-thousands-of-followers-but-won't-interact issue is one of the major reasons why so many people quit using Twitter within the first month. It really is very annoying when that happens, while you genuinely want to interact with your followers and those you follow. But you play an important role in making that happen as well. Interaction involves you and at least one other person after all. So in order to interact, you will have to act as well. So tweet! And @reply to messages from the people you follow. And RT (retweet) any interesting messages you read from the people you follow. If you don't say anything, it's a bit unrealistic to expect that others will reach out to you. Unless you're a celebrity of course...

Anyway, that's it for this Twitter Blog. I'm also working on a blog about using Twitter for learning purposes, but am still researching it. In the meantime, you can find me here on Twitter if you like to interact! Happy Tweeting!

Sorry, so sorry... but we can't renew your contract...

That's what I got to hear from my boss earlier this week... not that surprising really, since even an idiot can see that there isn't enough work to keep everyone busy. And that means no income for the company, while there are still bills to pay... On top of that I'm the newest employee and the only one still on a 1-year contract and thus the easiest to 'get rid of'. But still, even if it was expected, it's not easy to hear this kind of news, nor to bring it. My manager was also visibly shaken that he had to give bad news.

My contract runs until the end of October, which gives me about 6 months to find something new. Having taken a first look at jobs in the learning consultancy / training management space I can tell you that while 6 months sounds like a lot of time, it won't be easy to find something. There simply aren't a lot of companies hiring at the moment, while the number of people looking for a job keeps increasing.

Having said that, I'm an optimist and a positive thinker and I'm convinced that things will work out. It's too bad really that becoming a professional dancer is barely an option, since I love dancing so much! I'm too old now to become a professional, and they pay isn't all that either.

So, my challenge for the next few months: finding a job that I feel just as passionate about as I do about dancing (and which will pay the mortgage!) ;-)

Dance Bootcamp

Today is the first day of what would have been our vacation... Well, it still is our vacation in that we won't be going to our regular jobs for the next 2 weeks. However, we're also not packing our bags to go on a lovely trip somewhere nice...

No, instead of all that, we have decided to invest 2 weeks of our time and energy into our own personal dance bootcamp! Now that we've reached the highest level of dancing in ballroom regionally we will have to compete against people who've been dancing at that level for many, many years. Some even on national level and not just regionally.

We have seen several other couples become demotivated and frustrated by never even making it to the demi-finals, let alone the finals, because the top couples in this class are just too hard to beat. We didn't want that to happen to us...

So we spoke to our dance trainer and agreed on a tough 2-week training schedule, with private dance classes for 2 hours every day, followed by practice sessions the rest of the day. In between we'll also be taking part in 3 dance competitions, one at the start, one in the middle, and one at the end of the two-week bootcamp.

I have no idea whether my body and feet will be able to handle this physically, but I do know that if we make it to the end, we will have made vast improvements to our dancing technique and we should be able to make it to a final round every once in a while.

Some people have called us crazy for sacrificing our vacation time for this, but we both strongly believe it's worth it. It's an investment, and it's bound to pay off!

To be continued...

Play it forward

Who doesn't know the inspiring and tears-inducing movie 'Pay it Forward' in which a little boy invents a system where you have to do 3 good things for free for other people who in return have to do the same for three other people etc.

There is now a similar concept called Play it Forward (which I first heard about on Twitter), initiated by a company called Akoha. The idea is there are cards circulating across the globe with activities on them. For example: invite a friend for coffee. You give these cards to people, who register on the akoha site that they have received the card and completed the activity. Then they pass on the card to somebody else. You can follow the progress of the cards you've received on the internet. I love the idea of this, as it is all about doing something nice for other people and I've just purchased 4 starter decks to start this game up in The Netherlands.

The idea is not really new, I already know it from bookcrossing, where you leave books you've read in public places for other people to pick up. Instructions in the book will invite finders to register that they've found the book on the internet and you can follow your books around the world. My books have made it all the way to the US, South Africa and Asia.

I hope Akoha will become just as succesful and that with a little help from our friends we can spread it across the world! Click here to find out more and/or to join!