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everything is better with books
Nov. 4th, 2011 06:52 pmThe day started off a little rocky (in part because it actually started last night). Today there were interviews scheduled this morning in Tilburg for the two PhD positions in the project I'm employed on, and I'd originally said I wasn't sure if I'd be able to make it to the first two, since they were at 9:00 and 10:00, and getting down here from Amsterdam for the 9:00am one would've involved getting up at 6:30am (urk!) which is hard enough for me to do in normal situations, even harder when I'm now in the single digits away from my due date and sleep is so good (Wednesday afternoon Slinky and I napped on the couch for an hour and a half. It was really nice having some undiluted cuddle time with her, we both appreciated it), and even harder given the fact that Joel and I were going to a nursing course from 8:00pm until 10:00pm, which meant getting home around 10:30pm, and then doing some packing to make sure I had a load of things to bring down to Tilburg, and hence no real chance of an early bed time; plus, getting up at 6:30 to be down to Tilburg at 9:30 would not have made me an optimal interviewer, 'cause I'd still be half asleep!
This was unfortunate, since the first candidate being interviewed was one I was particularly interested in and had specific questions for. Somehow, when I got home around 7:00pm last night Joel managed to convince me that I should head down to Tilburg after the nursing course ended, and also that he'd head home, pack a few more things, and then head down himself. (I have kind of reached the point where I'd rather not spend the night apart from him.) So I threw together some basics (e.g., clothes), and had at least one bag of papers/books to take out to the office so my trip wasn't wholly inefficient, and after the course (which we both agreed was extremely helpful; I thought I'd read up quite a bit, but even so found almost all of what the teacher said useful, and of course Joel was not nearly as familiar with this as me, and as she said, the men simply remember different (and more!) things, which is why they are encouraged to come to the course as well) I hopped on the bus headed to Amstel, with an itinerary that would put me into Tilburg around 12:30am. Not ideal but doable.
I wasn't too worried when the train from Amstel to den Bosch was 5 minutes late, because the layover there was 13 minutes (less time to wait on the platform, I figured!), but when the train reached Geldermalsen and stopped, I started getting nervous. Sure enough, we stopped and started and went slow all the way to den Bosch, such that I missed the connection by more than 5 minutes. At this point, I was really, really peeved, and ready to call Joel, tell him, "I know it's not your fault that the trains are late, but you were the one who persuaded me to go down to Tilburg and now I'm stuck in den Bosch until 6am" because as far as I could determine this was the last connection. Thank goodness it turned out there was in fact one last train going to Tilburg half an hour later (which itself was delayed by another 10 minutes); by the time I got into Tilburg all the busses had stopped running, and the irritating things about taxis is that my taxi from Tilburg central station to our house cost more than the train ticket from Amsterdam to Tilburg. But I did get home, and was in bed and asleep by 1:30am. Oh, and I'd gotten a text about 20 min. out of Amstel from Joel saying that he just wasn't going to be able to make the last train out of Amsterdam, and so he unfortunately couldn't come down that night but would come down in the morning. :( But amazingly, I made it through all three interviews on 6.5 hours without feeling the effects too badly, but when I made it back home I then napped for 2.5 hours, which I definitely needed.
In the meantime Joel was anchoring the bookcases to the walls, going out to the hardware store, putting things away, etc. He woke me up when he needed my input on where to space the shelves on the bookcases, and then once they were in I started unpacking boxes of books.
I've noticed this before, particularly two times after our move to Amsterdam, first when our books started arriving in the mail and I could put them onto the built in shelves in the apartment, and second when we picked up a few bookcases from the trash and put them in the bedroom and I filled them, but I really get a significant mental health boost being in a room filled with filled (or partly filled) bookcases. I feel calmer, everything feels more natural and right, and it just makes me feel settled and at home. I'm sitting on the bed now and I can look over at the wall and see the partly filled shelves and go "ahhhhhhh...." The best part is since they are partly filled, I've already got space on hand for when the rest of our books from the US arrive. Makes me very happy.
Still, the new house won't really feel like home until the cats are here. I think they're going to enjoy it a lot -- the shelves, the space, the stairs, the nooks and crannies to explore. I'm really looking forward to it!
This was unfortunate, since the first candidate being interviewed was one I was particularly interested in and had specific questions for. Somehow, when I got home around 7:00pm last night Joel managed to convince me that I should head down to Tilburg after the nursing course ended, and also that he'd head home, pack a few more things, and then head down himself. (I have kind of reached the point where I'd rather not spend the night apart from him.) So I threw together some basics (e.g., clothes), and had at least one bag of papers/books to take out to the office so my trip wasn't wholly inefficient, and after the course (which we both agreed was extremely helpful; I thought I'd read up quite a bit, but even so found almost all of what the teacher said useful, and of course Joel was not nearly as familiar with this as me, and as she said, the men simply remember different (and more!) things, which is why they are encouraged to come to the course as well) I hopped on the bus headed to Amstel, with an itinerary that would put me into Tilburg around 12:30am. Not ideal but doable.
I wasn't too worried when the train from Amstel to den Bosch was 5 minutes late, because the layover there was 13 minutes (less time to wait on the platform, I figured!), but when the train reached Geldermalsen and stopped, I started getting nervous. Sure enough, we stopped and started and went slow all the way to den Bosch, such that I missed the connection by more than 5 minutes. At this point, I was really, really peeved, and ready to call Joel, tell him, "I know it's not your fault that the trains are late, but you were the one who persuaded me to go down to Tilburg and now I'm stuck in den Bosch until 6am" because as far as I could determine this was the last connection. Thank goodness it turned out there was in fact one last train going to Tilburg half an hour later (which itself was delayed by another 10 minutes); by the time I got into Tilburg all the busses had stopped running, and the irritating things about taxis is that my taxi from Tilburg central station to our house cost more than the train ticket from Amsterdam to Tilburg. But I did get home, and was in bed and asleep by 1:30am. Oh, and I'd gotten a text about 20 min. out of Amstel from Joel saying that he just wasn't going to be able to make the last train out of Amsterdam, and so he unfortunately couldn't come down that night but would come down in the morning. :( But amazingly, I made it through all three interviews on 6.5 hours without feeling the effects too badly, but when I made it back home I then napped for 2.5 hours, which I definitely needed.
In the meantime Joel was anchoring the bookcases to the walls, going out to the hardware store, putting things away, etc. He woke me up when he needed my input on where to space the shelves on the bookcases, and then once they were in I started unpacking boxes of books.
I've noticed this before, particularly two times after our move to Amsterdam, first when our books started arriving in the mail and I could put them onto the built in shelves in the apartment, and second when we picked up a few bookcases from the trash and put them in the bedroom and I filled them, but I really get a significant mental health boost being in a room filled with filled (or partly filled) bookcases. I feel calmer, everything feels more natural and right, and it just makes me feel settled and at home. I'm sitting on the bed now and I can look over at the wall and see the partly filled shelves and go "ahhhhhhh...." The best part is since they are partly filled, I've already got space on hand for when the rest of our books from the US arrive. Makes me very happy.
Still, the new house won't really feel like home until the cats are here. I think they're going to enjoy it a lot -- the shelves, the space, the stairs, the nooks and crannies to explore. I'm really looking forward to it!
