Ten year anniversary

Today is the ten year anniversary of getting my high school final exam results. I remember the excitement of that day. I knew I had passed my exams beforehand, but now it was official. We all gathered at school to pick up our final marks, finding out who else had passed and who had failed. I remember having some other exciting news to share as well, as just the day before that I had gotten my very first e-mail from the Corbett family, saying I would be staying with them in Vermont in the year ahead. After months of anxiously waiting to hear where in Australia I would be placed for my high school exchange year and who would be my host family, I finally knew! It warranted my very first real update on this blog =) Which means this blog has been up and running for ten years now as well! And I know I've been away from it for quite some time again lately, but I thought I should mark the date and finally sit down to write a new blog again.

So in the past few months, a few things have happened. I've completely settled into my new place and can barely imagine anymore that I lived on 10m2 for 8.5 years. The extra space I have now and the fact that I have a separate bedroom and living room have given me more headspace somehow too. I love it =)

I also started and finished my 3-month work experience project at De Baak which I mentioned last time. The one where we were asked to help the organisation reach their goal of being energy-neutral by 2020. I learned a lot! About organisation politics, about standing your ground when you really believe in something and about myself. The career coaching that was included in the program was really good for me as well. Eventually the reactions to our idea - making people aware of their choice in energy use and nudging them towards the 'green choice' through fun, thoughtprovoking stickers above light switches and power points - were awesome at the final presentation day. They were so positive even that me and my teammate Marije are currently seeing if we can build a business model around that idea. It currently needs more depth though to be viable at other organisations too. Another thing coming out of our presentation day is we were asked to become mentors for the next group doing the same kind of work experience program, only this time at the municipality of Zeist. I'm looking forward to that, as my job at the municipality of Utrecht is becoming more and more routine, more and more just a way to pay the rent. It's the colleagues that still make it fun, still make it okay to be there 28 hours a week. I'm just not sure how much longer that will be enough...

The last big thing of the past few months has been my trip to Barcelona last month. I had 3 weeks of holidays, and since I hadn't had proper holidays or been away anywhere since Dublin last year, I was long overdue for a little getaway. Barcelona was awesome =) It was my first trip where I would be on my own the whole time - no one meeting me at the other end and no semi-organised hop on hop off bus tour waiting for me - so I was a bit nervous before I left. But as soon as I arrived in Barcelona and a friendly photographer came to my aid as I was obviously lost while trying to find my hostel, that nervousness just went away. Armed with a city map, I proceeded to explore the city on foot for the next 4.5 days. (Kim, remember how terrible I was with finding my way in Prague? You would have been so proud of my navigating skills at the end of my trip in Barcelona!) I saw a lot of Gaudi - especially La Sagrada Familia was very impressive inside - enjoyed walking aimlessly through little streets and alleyways, rested my sore and tired feet at the beach one afternoon and took in all the sights Barcelona had to offer. By the end of the 4.5 days, I had about 5 blisters on my feet, 1311 photos taken on my camera, very sore leg muscles and a happy smile on my face =) The break was just what I had needed!

Since then and inbetween it's mostly been work, friends and of course this past week also World Cup. I have three soccer pools running on (parts of) the World Cup to make it more exciting - one with my family, one at work and one with my friend Coen - and I'm ahead in only one of them. I'm still hoping I'll win them all =) And the Aussies vs. Dutchies game tonight, what can I say... The Aussies deserved at least a point and maybe even the win just from the passion and drive they played with compared to the Dutchies. We got lucky. I'm happy the Orange squad is through to the next round though!

Anyway, that's about it from me for now. I hope it won't be as long between blogs next time, but I can't promise anything. I'm thinking I might want to change a few things like making it more topical instead of 'what have I been up to' to make it more interesting for me to write (after a full day of staring at a computer screen at work, the motivation to do so after work drops quite low) and hopefully also more interesting for you to read, but I'm not quite sure how to make those changes yet. I do appreciate you all still sticking with me and my blog on its ten year anniversary, however infrequent the updates are right now =) Please know that even when you don't hear from me for quite a while, I still always think of you and wonder what all of you are up to too. Would love to hear all about it and sending you lots of love.
xx