Material Girl

My first week as a semi-material analyst is over and I truly enjoyed it! Of course I haven't experienced the real job yet, as I have almost no real responsibilities, but what I did do and see seemed nice to me. The unavoidable stress won't be nice, but I will feel useful and also that is important I think.

These days have mainly consisted out of training and practicing the programs that I was taught to use. The hardest one is yet to come though, it one that looks a lot like "DOS", completely black with some necessary codes to be filled in and so on. A disaster for my unorganised old computer program eye, but I will do my best to let it make sense to me. :P

The best thing about my job so far, are without a doubt the people. Truly everybody is so nice, and sincerely so, all really helpful and laughing all day long. All have told me they liked working in this company due to the atmosphere and I surely have to agree, it is wonderful. I am part of a team consisting of 4 other persons and it's quite an international group. Our supervisor is from Greece, the data analyst is a Belgian and the two other material analysts are from Spain and the UK. All are quite young and have a great relation, which made me feel very much at ease between them. So now I just hope I will keep feeling as happy as I am now with this job. :)

On a sidenote I could mention that I after only two days applied for holidays. :P And it was approved of, so from the first until the tenth of December I will be back in my beloved Turku! :D I will fly to Sweden, so a visit to Stockholm is the first scheduled stay. Then probably the night ferry to Turku, stay there for the rest of the week and in between visit Helsinki and a few friends there. :) It's still two months away from now, but it definitely is something to look forward to for me. It will be weird though, seeing it back in a different atmosphere, without quite a few people that made it the best place on earth for several months. But some of these friends will be there, so on the other hand I will be able to relive some great moments from back then and experience other new ones. And I want snow! My skates will be going with me, so hopefully the climate will soon turn back to normal and temperatures below zero become a daily aspect of Finnish life. :P It's too warm for the time of year over here as well, but it's quite enjoyable to be honest. :P But yes, autumn should come now. Along with it some rain and opportunities to wear my newly bought winter coat. :P

Pff, seeing my Finnish snowy home back like this makes me realize again how much I miss it there. But soon I will be there again for a while, hopefully with a similar scenery. :)

Tomorrow...

That's when it will start, my new job. Imagine they fire me after one day though, quite ridiculous then to write this post. :P I don't really know what to expect from my first day, or for that matter my first week. The supervisor told me to expect a ridiculous amount of information, so I suppose he will understand if I forget half of it after one hour. Otherwise he would have said it differently, no? ;) About two weeks ago my job agency send another newly graduated language student to this company and she still is at work over there, so I suppose I will manage as well. Finally my function has been given a name, as I went to sign my first week contract this Wednesday. I will be a "Material Analyst", what a pity that I don't know anything about the materials our company sells, this being car supplies for General Motors. :P

All I hope for tomorrow is that it will remain dry outside until I reach the company. It takes about 20 minutes to reach it and I would prefer to arrive decently on my first day. Rain is scheduled for later on the day, so it should be ok. Speaking of the weather, when flying to Madrid I took following picture of the sky around us. The huge cloud at the right was the cause for our immense turbulence, as we turned towards it and took a dive straight through it. I still wonder why, as I think we could easily have avoided it, but as I said, in the end it was funny. ;)

And yes, I admit it. This stupid talk about tomorrows weather prediction was just a way to show this picture. ;) I like dramatic skies.

Mi viaje a Madrid y Burgos!

Yesterday I returned from my trip to Spain, needless to say that I had a great time! :)

With some delay due to the bad weather I landed Thursday evening in Madrid and found my way to the city centre. The flight itself had been quite "interesting" as we experienced very heavy turbulence, which was surprisingly enough really appreciated by the Spanish passengers sitting close to me. With each bump they cheered as if they were sitting in a railway, so this actually made even me feel comfortable when dropping some meters every few seconds. :P I love flying but I prefer the more steady kind of flights.

My main reason for going had of course been to see Enrique back and miraculously I succeeded in meeting him at the correct metro station. :P Finding my way is not my strongest point, at least not from the first try. This time however everything went smoothly and after some more metro rides we arrived at his flat.

Next day we left for Burgos, a reasonably small city about 250 km north of Madrid. Enrique had always been very proud of it and I have to admit that he had reason to be! To some extent it's a very typical Spanish city, referring to the type of houses and way of organization, but on other points I thought it to be unique. There is a lot of green to be found everywhere and the streets are also quite clean (not during the night however :P ). The river that runs through Burgos has been kept very natural, which I found beautiful. To me nature is vital to the beauty of a place and there were places where you would thought to have been somewhere on the countryside, rather than in the middle of a city. I especially loved the trees next to the riverside and with the cathedral on the background it made the picture complete.

The cathedral of Burgos has to be done justice I think. It is the second largest in Spain and truly amazing in my opinion. I am not a huge fan of churches, but this one was great. Especially because of it's (to me) different shape and also the inside wasn't too preposterous. Recently they cleaned the outside of the building so these days it has again it's original light colour. From the top of the hill it looks like this:

Apart from being a tourist, we also went out with Enriques friends, relaxed by taking siestas, talked loads and ATE! Spanish food belongs to the most yummie to be found if you ask me, especially the meat. Every day we went "tapear", which should mean something as going to eat tapas. All different kinds, varying from muscles, to salmon, lamb, ham, tortilla and morcilla (kind of blood sausage). Everything just as tasty so I think I must have gained some kilo's and will keep on gaining as I bought quite a few kilo's of meat myself to bring home. :P

The last day I spent on myself in Madrid as Enrique had to go to work again. The poor guy had to wake up at seven, waking me up as well of course to say goodbye. Five days were maybe a bit short, but for me it was great trip and wonderful to spend some more time with my Kike majo. :) Next time we might meet again in Finland, that should at least be the destination of my next trip. :)

But first earn money!! On Monday it will all begin, so now I will enjoy my final days of unemployment. :P

Madrid, here I come!

Wednesday night, half past ten, have I packed anything yet? Of course not! My plane to Madrid takes off tomorrow at three in the afternoon, so I figured that I could leave the packing until the morning. :) It's going to be a short trip anyway, so I won't be needing that much luggage and I took out the main stuff, this being the presents for Enrique. Belgian beers and Belgian Chocolates, very typical in many ways, but at least I am sure that he will enjoy it all.
So far I haven't really had time to pack anyway, as I spend this day buying some last minute presents, visiting a friend and right now babysitting. Tomorrow morning might be a little bit stressy, but in a way that's part of a first day of travel. I think so anyway. ;)

For those of you who haven't heard yet, Kat has a job. Indeed, one job interview was enough to convince the employer and myself that I might fit into the company. TNT, logistics and mail is where I will start working from September 25th onward, or at least officially after a six to eight week training period. What my precise function at the company is, will hopefully also become entirely clear to me in about a week, but so far I know that I will be in touch with a number of customers all over Europe, speaking both English and German. Some telephone work is required, as well as email and computer administration. I have no idea whether I will really like my job, but it seems ok for a newly graduate. The company itself employs many young people from different nationalities, like Brazilian, French, Portuguese and so on so that diversity definitely appeals to me. The interviewer made it sound nice in any case, so let's hope he spoke the truth. I will keep you informed in the time to come. :)

Now it is almost time to go home for me, go to bed and have an early rise and shine to pack everything before heading to the station to catch my train to the airport! Hasta luego y nos vemos after my return!

At work

My first real working days ever are behind me! It wasn't nearly as horrible as I used to expect during my student life, but that will most probably also have depended upon the kind of work I'd have to do. The past three days I was sort of testing out at a company that sells bottles and bags over the internet and it was my job to take care of small tasks that the real employees didn't have time for. :P It started with me calling some customers that hadn't paid their bills yet and others that had given a wrong credit card number. Naughty people that I had to reprimand in other words. :P Quite confusing from time to time, as I had to switch between Dutch, German, English and believe it or not...French! My French sucks, so I was very proud to notice that the customer actually understood what I said, even though she didn't understand what I was calling for. :P Later I had to order bags and take pictures of those for their website, which they liked to refer to as their "sacks-site"... Jeje, great sense of humour. ;) I think it worked out fine, they are now published on the site anyway. My final job during these days was to correct the German version of the bottle-website. Some American owner of the company insisted he had a better knowledge of both German and Dutch than anybody else, so with a little help from an online translator program, he created the website. Anyone who has ever tried using such a tool knows what the result might have looked like. :P All in all I really enjoyed those three days, the people I was working with were all very kind and the office itself was also truly nice to be in. In about one week I should be contacted by the job agency to hear whether they have a real job for me there of whether this was just a three-day-thingy. On Tuesday I have another job interview coming up, so there are other possibilities for me out there. :)

If none of this brings me any job though, I might have to consider taking a career in teaching. During our annual lunch with the relatives of my mothers side, this picture with my sisters glasses was taken. I think I show a lot of authority on it, perfect to control a whole classroom of annoying children that aren't interested in the beautiful language that is German...:P Such a pity that my eyes are still in a good shape, glasses would have meant my breakthrough for such a career. :D

My BBB-class earlier this week was a true joy for painful muscles. It was obvious that I wasn't used to doing such exercises, as I towards the end of the class really couldn't follow the high tempo and make the correct moves and turns. Good that I had positioned myself at the far back of the class, that way not too many people could see me struggle. :P Today my gym card expired, so I will have to find my way back to the swimming pool. Maybe I could take a real subscription to the gym when I start earning some money, but for now this seems impossible. I got truly shocked when I found out how much you had to pay as a non-member for participating in one class. It was 17,5 Euro, just for one hour! You would receive a refund if you decided to go on with it for six more months, otherwise it really was that price for one turn. Horrible I think, because like that it is impossible to make people want to try out some sports and make them do some exercise. My first gym experience was in Finland, where you had to pay 2 Euro for one turn and there the result was that even relatively lazy people as me would do some sports. Only for these horrendous fees I would boycott Belgian gyms. :P

Freedom...or not

Some days have passed since I ended my summer job and so far I haven't had much time to get bored. On Saturday a street party took place in our neighbourhood. As a child I always had the feeling I knew the people that lived close by pretty well, but nowadays the truth seemed a lot more different. I for example met up with a girl I had been to school with for 12 years and who lives in my street. I hadn't seen her in five years. Of course, she's not a close friend or anything, but for all I knew she had moved out years ago. So if only for this fact I do think it's nice such events are organized these days in my neighbourhood. A toast was needed, my sister and I thought. :P



On Sunday I started with my days of gym. The first day was just to introduce myself to the place and see what it had to offer. I also had in mind that I would be going there each of the following days, so complete stiffness was not what I needed. Some running, rowing, cycling, ab-exercises and muscle train machines were the main goals that day. Yesterday however I had time for a class and the one that was given on the hour that fitted me best, was "fatburning". I do not claim I should loose any fat, but it definitely was a tiring class, which made me sweat as never before. Still no painful muscles though, so tonight a class of figure training is scheduled! Also known as BBB, which in English could stand for 'Breasts, butt and belly'. :P Whether I will be able to visit the gym also in the days to come, will however depend on other matters...

Being graduated and not having plans for further studies, time has come to find a real job. So yesterday a friend and I visited about every job agency in Antwerp, telling them what kind of work we were interested in, and more importantly, what sort of stuff we didn't want to do. For me this mainly includes call centers and helpdesks, which unfortunately is the only kind of job I so far have gotten offers for. About five minutes ago however, I was contacted by one agency that found me a job opening where they needed someone with English and German language skills. Tomorrow they want me to come and try out for a day, so in a way this might already mean the end of my so called holidays. :S I do hope it's a nice job, even for just one day. The hours seem to be long though and it's located not really close to where I live. Not by bike anyway, by car it would be ok. ;) I'll see what happens tomorrow, it's not sure they think I am the perfect person for the job and on the other hand it's not sure that I think this is the perfect job for me. :P

Done!

Summer job is over! All my avid readers (hm hm) will maybe have noticed that this doesn't agree with my last post, but apparently the job agency was wrong in telling me I would have to work on Monday as well. So, pity for my finances, but yay for myself. :P This morning I set out to myself to make it a memorable last day at work and I indeed managed to not get bored, not get annoyed with co-workers and not make any more cuts in either my hands or stomach. :P I also decided I wanted to try out other positions in the storage area so today I worked at the conveyor band! At that spot all the boxes that go to the separate pharmacies pass by and the people next to it have to read a list and throw in the correct amount of different medicines. Yep, very craving job indeed. ;) I liked for a while, it was a distraction from my eternal box opening and box transporting, so it was nice. :) Until late afternoon that is, as at that point the entire band got jammed and I had a full hour of panic and stress to get rid of all the boxes that were piling up in front of me, waiting for their medicines. :P All in all it were an ok four weeks, but I am definitely not going to miss the work. :)

The first thing I did when I reached home today, was to try and clean my hands! After washing them twice, taking a shower and using two kinds of scrubs, they still felt rough, like real working hands probably. ;) Some norwegian hand cream hopefully will do the job, as I want my soft and chubby hands back. :P

Yesterday I surprised myself (and others) and went to the gym to pay for my ten days of exhaustion. They started yesterday, but I believe I get enough exercise at my work. ;) So from tomorrow onwards I will try to visit it each day and do at least something physical, apart from taking a regular sauna...