What on earth was my subconsciousness thinking?

It all began on a nice, sunny day in the middle of summer vacation. No, scratch that. It was four days ago and the rain wouldn't stop crashing down. But anyway, Peter, Arjan and me went to the pool for some swimming action. Besides it being fun, Peter had to train for a 1/8th triathlon some days after that. So it had a practical side too.

Then, Peter mentioned something about his dad also participating, but for the team-triathlon. In other words, a split thriathlon where three persons to three parts. (For those of you unfamiliar with this: Swimming, cycling, running) He wanted to run the 5 kilometers himself, and thus lacked a swimmer and a cyclist.

Cue to yesterday. Somehow I agreed to swim 500 meter in a muddy river. (See pic. It's the real thing.) Apparently I do not know how to refuse torture even if it manifests itself before my eyes.

At least I made it. And I have to admit, it was kind of fun. I didn't finish last place. So now I have officially completed an 1/24th triathlon. It's tougher than it sounds, really.

Quote: "You're all meatballs! Meatballs, I tell you! Real men don't use teams, right Peter?" -Luuk, veteran triathlete, and also my former PE teacher.

Note: Peter did indeed complete all three parts: 500 meter swimming, 20 kilometers of cycling, and 5 km of running. Thanks, but I prefer my health.

6 Kinds of people you'll meet when delivering mail.

Being naive enough to not understand that being available for work 5 days a week equals being scheduled to work for 5 days a week, I now spend way too much time delivering mail. So I got to meet all kinds of "people." And I'm listing them here, Sparklife style.

1. The Gatekeeper
This person lurks at his front door, and opens it whenever I'm about to deposit his important pieces of paper. After scaring the flap out of me, he snatches his mail out of my hand, usually paired with an "I'll take that," "That's mine, isn't it?" or just a grumpy snort. The door then slammed shut before I have a chance to say "You forgot your advertisements."
Encountered 3 times.

2. The Gardening Lady
This person behaves almost exactly like the Gatekeeper, except without the bad mood. She'll run up to you and actually asks for her mail, so that I don't have to walk the entire way to the mailbox and back. Some Gardening Ladies, however, tend to completely ignore the mailman, leading to awkward situations where I hold out my mail-hand into nothingness.
Times encountered: 5

3. The Housekeeper
This person is usually old and sits in a chair in front of the window. He/she happily waves as I pass by, and I wave back if my hands are free at the moment. Nothing much to add.
Times encountered: 10+

4. The Obnoxious Brat
This little kid is about the worst nightmare for every mail deliverer. He seems quite average at first, but shows its true nature with the most inappropriate timing:
The Brat was washing his parent's car, and everything seemed fine. Then my bike collapsed due to a strong gale, and all of my ads scattered across the ground. (which was already slightly wet due to rain). The Brat then proceeded to spray my ads with his water hose, and when I told him to stop because of obvious reasons, he continued to drench me. Oh joy. Not to mention the complete mess wet paper makes on asphalt. Ugh.
Times encountered: 1

5. The Conveniently Cute Kid
Exactly the opposite of the previous kind of person, the CCK is usually younger than the Brat. This kid thinks it's totally awesome to deliver mail, and asks me if he can maybe help me out. Godsend, I tell you. Help of any age is appreciated. Sometimes I gotta push fate a bit and ask them if they're willing to help, but everything turns out right in the end. Not to mention they actually like it and brag about it to their parents.
Times encountered: 3

6. The Genuinely Nice Person
This person will not only take his/her own mail, but also the delivery for the entire street. Also, my empty water bottle will be completely refilled, and I'm slipped a homemade cookie as departure gift. Score!
Times encountered: Zero. Hope that this person exists is the drive for many mailmen to continue with their job.

Interesting, no? And don't forget, NEVER say you're available for work 5 days a week. You WILL be taken advantage of. Big time.

Quote: "You're leaving already? Here, have a cookie." -Random pers-oh, who am I kidding.

Emergency Post

The day is July 26th.
Situation: Peter's got a new camera for his birthday. And guess what? It records in HD.
Solution: Force Erik to participate in a camera testing project without regard for his current skill level.
Summary: Peter wanted to test his camera recording skills. This video contains excessive amounts of failure. I only play the first half of the song, randomly interrupt it with Dutch interjection words, and it is below human standards.
Disclaimer: My playing is far from perfect. And by "far", I mean "lightyears". You have been warned.

Quote: "So, Erik. What do you wanna play?" -Peter

Blogging Reality.

As you know, I've got a job. "What do you do?" you might ask. Well, I'm delivering mail.
*insert obligatory Peter Post, the mailman hero reference here*
And SHEESH, how many times have I wondered already why some (read: most) people seem to lack common sense.

Dear Common Senseless People,

I have an announcement to make, and it is about your own houses. One small part of it: the mailbox. There are people who got it placed juust right, according to the regulations, but sadly, they seem to be the minority. There are tons of you who have placed their mailbox 10cm from the ground. If I may ask, what is the point of that? You should know it's annoying. ANNOYING.
Also, there are you people with those fancy springs built in their mailbox. Well, dear recipients, I have a question for you too. Are you trying to bite my fingers off? "What's the big deal," you might wonder with your two available arms. Well, those things really are death-traps. Believe it.
Lastly there's the case of people not getting addresses right. Forgive me, I erred. I meant computers not getting addresses right. I've been doing this for five days now, and each and every day included one or more retour mails to [classified information]. Incredible.

Try and keep up to the world,
-Erik.

It's really too bad that people around my age are so underrated. I mean, I go to university. Want to know what the first thing they asked me when I applied was? "Can you ride a bicycle?" Come ON, how do you think I even got here? Sheesh. Oh well, it seems the majority of people think that making sense is overrated, and I'm not one of them.

See what I did there, Hanini?

Quote: "We've been busy for 2 hours and 40 minutes. Let's make it 2 and a half hours, okay? I'm sure they don't mind." -[classified information], postman instructor.
"Um, what?" Me, on the previous quote. Note: I get paid per hour.

Thirty Seconds to Independence

...And in the end everything worked out. The end.

Hm? 'kay, let me start again.

So I finally got a job! I'll be delivering mail in some outside district of Heerenveen... the phone lady was surprised I knew about it. While this means I'll have to get busy, it also means I won't have to go to Sweden this year... Actually my family left two days ago.

It's kind of sad that the only jobs for us 19-year olds do not require any skill at all. It's too bad my application at the library was rejected and too many people applied at the university... At least I'll be doing something there. But alas, I'll be stuck with mail. At least it's better than flipping cheese. And it's outside.

So, about being all alone here. It's... kind of fun. I get to decide everything myself and don't get interrupted by less important things like dinner, since I'm timing that myself now. Great. Also I can play the piano without being shhh'd at because someone wants to watch le tour de france.
I'll have to whip up my own food now, though. If anyone's got some cool recipes, lemme know!

Quote: "Pachelbel's always following me!" -Rob Paravonian, comedian.

Now that that's over with...

Ah, the joys of soccer. As mentioned before, I'm not really into watching anything sports-related on TV. Anyway, the WC seems to be over and we lost, and I don't care a bit. Here's hoping that everyone will quickly forget it, so I won't be confronted with unnecessary whining anymore.

And face it, Spain got a well-deserved victory. Yeah, even I know what happened, and face it, every other soccer player would probably do the same thing, because of the huge amount of idiot DNA they possess. But really, what the vector did drive Nigel de Jong to display his karate skills mid-game?

On a slightly happer note, Paul the Octopus seems to have been right after all. Wait... This shouldn't happen. I wonder how many people believe that the octopus is some kind of divine being. It just shows again how stupid people can be. It's good marketing for its aquarium, though.

Quote: "Soo zetta slow!" -Sho Minamimoto

Blogging my situation: Cheese and more cheese.

There are different kinds of people: The people who do everything with their heart and soul poured into it, and the kind that doesn't like much, but excel at the things they actually are enthusiastic about. Unfortunately, I'm one of the latter. I've had no problems with it so far, but all good things must come to an end.

As I told you earlier, I have to find a job. The problem is, I don't like working. The government sponsors me because I go to college, so I´m not short on funds either. I don´t spend it on drinks/shopping/going out anyway. So why am I actually trying?
When I don't get a job this summer, I have to join my parents/brothers and go with them to Sweden for 3/4 weeks. Now I can hear you thinking "Why is that punishment? Sweden is beautiful and I want to go there." I wholeheartedly agree with you there, but the reason I don't want this is that I want to try to be independent for once. Since I've never been home alone for 3/4 weeks I want to find out if I can survive. As preparation, I guess.

"Now where is the cheese? Erik, you promised me cheese and I stuck with this because I want it".

Yes, cheese. As some of you maybe know, I was substituting for a friend today at his job. He works in a cheese factory for minimum wage, and since it was only for one day, I agreed... since I'm such a generous person (modest, too!). I have to say, the work was awesome. And by "work", I mean "mindless repetition". And by "awesome," I mean "awful". Not to mention incredibly boring.

To come back to the first point, I'd like to find a job I'm enthusiastic about, if those even exist. That makes time pass quicker, and me less bored.

PROS of being a "production assistant" in a cheese factory:
-I got to work with friends of my friend, which I vaguely knew
-Cheese. Actually, way too much cheese. Why isn't this a CON?
-Breaks. As with every job I experienced so far. I really looked forward to them.
-I got to ride a forklift. It's funny.

CONS
-The Polish coworker yelled at man and cheese alike
-THE BOREDOM resulting from mindless repetition
-Cheese is quite heavy, and I had to carry quite a few around
-Standing all day made my feet/legs/body hurt.

So, maybe I'm unreasonable, but I really want a job I like, even if I don't know something. *sighs*

Quote: *incomprehensible gibberish* -Eddie the Polish Coworker, on cheese. Probably.