Talitha's Place

Looking outside, from behind my office desk…

Posted on January 6, 2012 by talith

Looking outside, from behind my office desk, I see rain.
I have been seeing quite a lot of rain lately, mainly because it has been raining a lot last couple of weeks. Amazing how the weather changes here.
We just had the driest November month ever and now we had the wettest December ever.
Last year around that time we had snow all over the place, this year it is completely dry or completely wet.

Looking outside, from behind my office desk, I see daylight.
In the morning I go to work in the dark and after a day of work I come home in the dark. I try to enjoy the daylight during the day, while looking outside and during lunch break. Despite the rain, the wind and the cold I do try to go outside to experience daylight. Sometimes I have a short walk with my colleagues, a walk around the industrial area. Not a very beautiful area, though very good to get some fresh air.

Looking outside, from behind my office desk, I see the sky.
When it rains of the wind is to strong or when I just don’t feel like walking I still try to go outside and just stand there. Some of my colleagues play some soccer, some smoke a cigarette, some just stand with me and chat a bit. I notice how clouds come and go, how rainbows appear and disappear. How the rays of sun try to shine through the clouds.

Looking outside, from behind my office desk, I see my life.
The changes in the weather are comparable with life. There are sunny days and rainy days. There are warm days and cold days. There are happy days and miserable days. There are energetics days and lousy days. There are confident days and insecure days. Though overall the days are as they are. The trick is to enjoy all days cause in every day something good happened. No matter how small or tiny, remember the good moment(s) of the day and a smile will rise.

Looking outside, from behind my office desk, I see a positive me.

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A day out of my life.. Sinterklaas.

Posted on December 4, 2011 by talith

Today we celebrated Sinterklaas. A typical Dutch fest for children. So why did I celebrate this, since I do not have children? Though my brother does have them, he and his wife have two children, just as my parents. With the seven of us we nested ourselves at my parents place.

The doorbell rang and I am sure I saw “zwarte Piet” run-away. I told my niece (3 years old) and she ran to the door. Though “zwarte Piet” was already gone. He had left loads of presents.

Sinterklaas had put pictures of us at the presents, so my niece could give us the presents.
We all received a bunch of them. Of course my niece and my nephew were spoiled the most, as how it is supposed to be.

During the past days loads of memories of the past rice up, good memories.
The days ahead of this fest that you were allowed to wrap the presents as funny as possible. The days you were allowed to have secrets for your parents, the days that they did not enter your room cause they were not allowed to see what you were making.

The big gift day arrived, and all the presents where put together. A big pile of presents, a really big pile. It always took us several hours to read the poems and unwrap the gifts. Loads of food was eaten, loads of laughs, and loads of love for each other.

Some celebrate Christmas with gifts, some celebrate Sinterklaas, some only celebrate their birthday, some don’t celebrate at all. Though for me it is not about the gifts, it is not about the food, it is not about materials stuff. To celebrate means that you are surrounded by people you like or even love.

Today was a day full of love..

Thanks dear family..

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Did I manage, yes I did,

Posted on October 23, 2011 by talith

As I wrote earlier, I signed in for both the Singelloop and the Vrouwenloop in Enschede.
I ran, I finished and I surprised myself with my running time.

The singelloop, 8.04km, was tough. I was already exhausted after 4km, though I kept running, and running. My main spirit to keep me going where loads of friends that where standing next to the parcours and supported me.
I finished in 48 mint and 08 seconds, an average speed of exact 10km/h.

Just two weeks later I ran the vrouwenloop. This time 10km. The weather was great (around 25 degrees), my parents where there and my “trainer” as well. While running I saw again quite some people I knew standing on the side, supporting me.

Again, I ran and I ran. This time two rounds of 5km, and I finished in 58 min and 08 seconds, an average speed just above the 10km/h… I was stunned!! Happy I was, and proud I am.

I did it!! While I, just 6 months ago, wondered if I would be able to run 5 mile, I now know I can and even better I ran a bit more.

Should I now push my limits even further and motivate myself to run 16km?
For now I am not sure, yet.
I am definitely a summer runner, and since autumn has arrived my runs have stopped. Though with the knowledge and experiences of this year, I will continue to motivate myself to stay active with sports, cause I feel great!!!

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Pushing my running limits

Posted on September 2, 2011 by talith

In April this year I wrote about my experience of running the 3 Miles at the Enschede marathon event. At that time I was already very proud of myself and tried to motivate myself by writing the following final sentence:

“Maybe next year I dare to push myself even more and sign up for the 5 Miles…”

Not knowing that within a couple of weeks my mail-box got filled with e-mails about the “vrouwenloop”. A running event for women by women. A big part of the collected money will be donated to PinkRibbon.
With two aunties, the mum of one of my female friends and thousands of other women that fight breast cancer I hardly needed to motivate or push myself and signed up.
So instead of pushing myself to run the 5 miles next year, I push myself to run 10Km at the “vrouwenloop” on the 25th of September at the University of Twente.

Just after signing up for the “vrouwenloop”, I also received e-mails for the “singelloop”. A running event in Enschede where you can run a distance of…….guess……….. 5 Miles(8km)!! around the center of Enschede. This event will take place on the 11th of September. I thought this would be a nice training distance for my 10km, therefore I signed up. So in short, I will be running twice in a period of 2 weeks!!!

I am very much aware of the fact that thousands of people are runners, some are amateurs, some are pro’s. I am aware of the fact that most of them (probably all of them) will set a better time than me. However I am so proud of myself, I could have not imagined this a couple of years ago. I really started enjoying it.
It is so incredible, that I am now able to run for 1 hour and almost 15 minutes, with an average speed of 9.5km/h. Hard to imagine that only a decade ago I could not even climb up the stairs without breathing problems, that I could hardly bike to school, and could not do any sports. It shows, that health condition can change when you know how to take care of it.

People say that life is going down after 30, but for me it seems to be the opposite…

I will give my best on the 11^th of September and my very best on the 25th of September… I will run, I will finish, I will be able to do it. It is the least I can do for all those strong women out there, fighting breast cancer.

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Time

Posted on July 13, 2011 by talith

Time is a funny thing, we have no influence on it, it comes and it goes. Everyday has a fixed amount of minutes no matter what we try to do to change this. You can stay up late to make the day last longer, though the next day will always arrive.

You might recognize the moments that you were waiting for a bus that never seemed to arrive, or a traffic jam that lasted only 5 minutes but felt like 30 minutes, when you were in a hurry to get somewhere. To make the day look longer we have to do things we do not like, though this would be a miserable live.

We would love to do nice things as often as possible, though then time flies …
Doing a lot of nice things during a week makes the week look like a day and a month like a week. Within no time, months have passed and you realize that it is already July 2011. It feels like just a couple of weeks ago that I celebrated New Year. Without realizing it you fill every day with nice things, almost that many that you forget to spend some time with/at yourselves.

Recently two of my standard activities stopped for summer Holliday. Both Zumba and Theatre Mystiek. Giving me “spare time” on Monday, Wednesday, and either Friday or Saturday evening.
I expected that this would give me time to relax, to rest and time to think about new goals in my life. Unfortunately (or should I say luckily) already in the first week of the Holliday break my days got filled.
I started to practice again some Kung Fu, I decided to watch 2 Harry Potter movies, to catch up and see the final movie in the cinema, my parents visited me for a couple of days, and some friends who knew of this break made use of it by calling me to make appointments to see me, have a drink with me, go to the theatre with me ..

No matter how many days there are in a week, I manage to make plans for at least 6 out of the 7 days. Apparently this is the way I like it, I like to have things to do, I like to enjoy the days as much as possible and I accept the fact that months feel like weeks.

I hope I’m smart enough to use that one single spare day to listen to myself, to relax, to think and to look back at the other “busy” days with a smile on my face and enjoy the memories…

Time, a treasure that we cannot keep with us.

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Being myself

Posted on June 8, 2011 by talith

Through your entire live you change. You change in length, strength, character and in appearance. Often we change due to our growing process. Growing up surrounded with others you try to fit in a certain group of people and you adapt to fit in. This adapting often occurs automatically. It just happens. Our parents often don’t even notice the changes, cause they happen slowly.
Very familiar will be the comments you received as a kid on party’s from relatives or friends you have not seen in a while: wow, what did you grew, or wow you look so different.

Growing older we seem to reach a point that our character remains as it is, and our looks as well. The only difference is that we get older. People start noticing some wrinkles, grey hairs or other aging points. To compensate the lack of change we try to look different once in a while by changing our clothes (a change in taste) and by changing our hair due or new glasses. It is in our nature that we do not want to look the same all the time (with some rare exceptions). Why do we have the need to change? Don’t we like the way we are, do we get bored with ourselves or are we afraid that we won’t be noticed anymore?

Recently I saw, on facebook, that a friend of mine placed his photo in an image creator and tried to see how he looked as a movie actor, a singer or a movie star. After his post, loads of people had visited the webpage and tried it out themselves… including me..

Apparently we love to see how we would look like if we where blond, brown, sexy, strong, nerdy, ugly etcetera.
It is very funny to see these images, though quite often I prefer the looks of the people themselves. They do not need to change anything, because being who you are is good enough.

For myself, I do like some of the (blond) creations … though the biggest difference in looks is the chin, and I will most likely not change that part of myself.. so for now I will remain myself… with my own hair, my own nose and my own chin..

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Overcoming your fears… and learning a lesson.

Posted on May 22, 2011 by talith

Last week we had a nice outing with our direct colleagues of DEMCON. Both the Software and the Hardware department (around 20 people) joined for a nice afternoon activity and a diner in Enschede. Together with one of my hardware colleagues I arranged/choose the activity. We decided to go climbing at arque climbing center. As soon as we told the group what we were going to do we heard that some of our colleagues had a fear of heights, though they still liked to join and try to participate.

The people of arque gave us a short lesson in climbing and how to belay (belaying refers to a variety of techniques used in climbing to exert friction on a climbing rope so that a falling climber does not fall very far). Soon we were able to do some serious climbing. Starting a level 3 (the lowest and easiest level in this center). Almost half of the group seemed to be doing fine, and advanced to level 4 or even 5 climbing routes. Though some had more difficulty and stayed at level 3.

It was amazing to see that even the ones that said they had a fear of heights managed quite well. Especially when they were told that a small competition between the two departments would be arranged. It was incredible what they managed to do, they conquered their fears, they took some deep breaths and they just walk up the wall. And I say walk, because it looked almost like walking. They seemd to have no problem to climb the wall, they did not look down at any moment, and soon realized they managed to reach the top of the building, 16 meters high! Wonderful!

It helped that they did not climbed up and down the wall very often before the competition, so that they were not yet very tired. Cause others of the group had been going up and down quite some times, and this was noticeable on the end. Sore arms, legs that where tired, sweaty hands… unfortunately I was one of them and I did not manage to go up the entire green route in the 3th part of the competition. I was halfway when my legs started to shake, my hands got sweaty and I thought I was done. Though 20 guys were standing below me, shouting, screaming, and supporting me to go on. I managed to find some energy deep down in my body and climbed some meters further… but, only 2 meters away from the roof I was exhausted. My muscles where done, they could not go further and I went down again.

I will go back, soon, to climb up that green route and touch the roof… cause when those with fear of height can manage, I can manage.. I will only use a different technique. I will go up the green route directly after the warming up, ensuring that my legs and arms are not yet tired.

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Skills and hobby

Posted on May 5, 2011 by talith

A skill is the learned capacity to carry out pre-determined results often with the minimum outlay of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills. For example, in the domain of work, some general skills would include time management, teamwork and leadership, self-motivation and others, whereas domain-specific skills would be useful only for a certain job. Skill usually requires certain environmental stimuli and situations to assess the level of skill being shown and used [1].

A hobby is an activity or interest that is undertaken for pleasure, typically done during one’s leisure time [2].

Why is it that you always seem to know the skills of the people around you? We can often tell our friends that they are very good at something. That they are very good at their job, or that they are so confident. That they are very good in sports, acting, or talking in public, that they are good in organizing, planning, coaching or what-so-ever. Name it, and you know someone that is good at it.

Though how come it is way more difficult to mention a skill of your own? Rarely do you hear someone say: oh, my skill is …. Of course we do feel more confident doing one thing than the other, though to mention it a skill is a completely different situation.

I know something’s that I am capable of doing, but I am sure that there are others that are way better in it. I don’t think I have a special skill. Not having a skill does not make us any less than others, we are good people. My mom always said: “Maybe you do not stand out in one particularly thing, though you are capable of doing a lot of things on an average level”, which could also be seen as a skill….

Some people have a special or rare skill, allowing them to develop their hobby in such a way that it became their job. Wouldn’t we all love to have a job which we liked so much that we would call it a hobby? Is it truly necessary to have a special skill to establish this?

What makes something a hobby and something else a job? Receiving salary makes it a job, but perhaps if you truly like what you are doing isn’t similar to a hobby?
I do like my job, though I would not call it my hobby.

Heading to a question that I do not seem to get answered: what would be my hobby?

[1][2] wikipedia

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Koninginnedag

Posted on May 2, 2011 by talith

Queen’s day, or Koninginnedag as we call it, is a national holiday in the Netherlands. On this day we celebrate the birthday of the Queen of the Netherlands. Although it’s original the birthday of Queen Juliana (the mother of Queen Beatrix), we celebrate her birthday on 30 April. Our Queen Beatrix birthday is really on the 31th January, but the winter isn’t the time to party outside.

Queen’s Day is also a typical occasion for the world-famous Orange Craze. On this day most of the people wear orange clothing and creative orange accessories. The color orange is a ubiquitous sight, referring to the name of our royal family, the House of Orange. Everywhere in the city you’ll see orange banners, orange colored foods and drinks [1].

This year I was invited by a good friend of mine (J) on his boat, together with around 18 other people. We all joined each other either at the boats dock or near Central Station in Amsterdam. From there we headed around 13.30h to the center of Amsterdam. The first tour around the channels took around 3.5 hours, we were still in a party mood so we decided to take another tour. This time we ended in a boat traffic-jam, which was great!! Some people decided to walk, via all the boats, from one side of the channels towards the other side. Everybody was friendly, smiling and very happy!! The weather was great and the music around us made us dance!!

We closed the day with a very late dinner at J’s place and a small after party!! Being invited on the boat for this year automatically includes an invitation for next year. Apparently I know what I will be doing next year on the 30^th of April!!!

[1] Source: http://www.koninginnedagamsterdam.nl/queensday.html

Posted in Weekends, Nature and Holliday | 2 Comments

Enschede Marathon (and FitRun)

Posted on April 17, 2011 by talith

Today the day had arrived; Enschede in the spirit of running.
Everyone could sign up for different distances:

-Marathon (42km)
-½ Marathon (21km)
-CityRun (5Mijl)
-FitRun (3Mijl)
-KidsRun (1km)

There was a distance for almost every type of runner.

On the Marathon distance a new record was obtained by Stephen Kiprotich. He surprised everybody by doing this since it was never the idea he would run the entire 42km. Originally the plan was that he would just motivate the others and quit after 30km. Though his manager allowed him to continue, given his great condition, which resulted in a new record of 2.07,22 almost 2 second faster than the old record of 2009.

It was also the day that I had to run 3 Miles. Just 3 Miles? Yes, just 3 Miles.
Though for me this is a big distance. I remember the time when I wasn’t able to climb up the stairs of my own house, slept at any possible time and felt tired all the time. Knowing that I can run 3 Miles now, is for me as would be running the marathon for someone else.

Together with two lady-friends we started at 11.05h and I managed to reach the finish in 30minutes and 8 seconds. It would have been nice to stay under the 30 minutes, though I am very pleased with an average speed of 9.617km/h.