dinner time!

Due to some broken bones and ribs my grandma was not able to prepare us a christmas dinner this year... so Dennis and I were today's cooks!! Apart from some miiiiinor flaws, it was a delicious meal, but that's my own humble opinion ofcourse hehe.

Attention: If you happen to need some gelatin leaves in the future...don't hesitate to give me a call! I've bought 300 of them yesterday, while I only needed 3... too bad no regular supermarkets were opened yesterday so I had to go to "Makro" in Breda and buy me an enormous package -which I REALLY didn't need...!!!

Santa spoiled me with a beautiful book "1001 Wonders of Nature" with pictures and info on the most fascinating places on Earth. Ohh there's still SO much to see and explore! Ohh I SO want to get out of here! * Sigh!*

Bleeeh

This is how I look...this is how I feel... I guess a little flu is entering my system. Don't want it to happen though... Can't have it to happen right now...But then, never is a good time I guess. You'll see, just when holidays are coming the girl gets sick :S

What a party! (What a mess!!)

Last night the Jan Tinbergen College held its annual gala ball in our ConfettiLounge. Guess it was a huge success! At the start of the evening Anique and I were "stationed" in the brasserie to host a reunion of JTC's former students but upstairs people went like crazy and Vivian and William were running like crazy accordingly. So Maurits asked me to go to the lounge asap. No sweat cause the little reunion was kinda boring hehe. From that moment no more time for thinking, breathing or whatever, just goooooo with the flooooooow!! Even chef Harry assisted us at the bar! My god, those little kids, their main goal was to get drunk as soon as possible and "SCORE"!!! Ahh it was really fun observing them all! Very entertaining :P Were we just like that when we were young?!? ;) It was extremely hard work but really much fun. No time to visit Natasja and Suzanne at the small bar though. It was only when the cleaning job started we finally "met"! And WHAT a cleaning job! Argh you just can't imagine the mess they left!! And you just can't imagine on what absurd places we found "bitterballen". They were like everywere!! :S You don't want to know the things we had to pick or mob from the floor. We washed it three times and you'd still stick to it... Yuck! Time flew by and we all felt like zombies walking around, except for Will who surprisingly got more and more energy!! Very annoying hehe. We still don't know what drug he took ;) Walking around dressed like Santa, making weird voices and movements, making fun of actually everything...pfff all we wanted was a drink and a bed. And we got it! Too bad this night is again only 2.5 hours long... *yawn*

Herbstmeister!!

Whoo! whoo! RBC Roosendaal entered the winter break still leading the Jupiler League thanks to a 2-0 victory over FC Den Bosch; which meant PARTY TIME last night! Although this week's match was played on a Wednesday instead of a Friday, it was a "full house" at the stadium! It was an extremely busy night and the hours passed by in just a flash! After the press conference an auction was held in the ConfettiLounge, selling paintings painted by the RBC players and staff. It was fun but a bit toooo crowded and loud in my opinion. Happy to see everyone leaving in time ;) I guess we were all a bit exhausted. It was just Vivian, Maurits, William and me hanging in for a drink afterwards, which is quite exceptional, especially on a match day! It was only then when I heard Kevin, one of our cooks, had a car crash late that night when driving home from the stadium. As far as we know at this moment he's not too seriously injured, but he did go off the talud with his car, which is total loss by now! He's just damn lucky considering what might have happened! But it was quite a shock nonetheless!

Wanna switch?!

Direct phone

I decided to get me a direct line this morning! Since the cell phone companies just keep assuming I live in Belgium (!!!) the monthly charges are just way too high to hold. January 22nd will be the day I'm getting connected to the outside world ;) with the lovely number 850892 =) Call you later, alligator!!

I'm just too good =)

Just mailed my X-mas cards! Even BEFORE Christmas!! Wow I don't think this has happened to me before! I can't guarantee the cards will arrive just in time before Christmas as well, but this is one big step in the good direction! Usually my X-mas cards get mailed way past New Year's Eve hehe...

Foggy

A foggy view from the backyard! I've seen some serious fog in San Francisco, but man, last days in Rosevalley City were pretty scary as well! Especially at night when returning home from the RBC stadium, I hit several borders of the pavement and almost drove into a parked car!!

We want a tree too...

Tonight I had the "bridgeclub-shift" with Anique, while William was being BOB - the builder all day long, setting up the lounge and all rooms for the next day to save us some time. Much appreciated! The meeting was held again at the restaurant so Will could knock himself out at the ConfettiLounge, but for us it was not fun working. It actually was A MESS! We couldn't even finish two out of the six rounds within the thirty minutes we have for each of them! We were far behind... But hey, life goes on, right?! ;) This night we had to say goodbye to our two nicest people of the group who will be playing on another level of the competition from now on. They approached the bar with a gift, it was a lovely small decorated Christmas tree they just received from "Santa". "We've got something for you", they said. Anique and I got a big smile on our faces and we were very touched. "Could you please pass this from us to William?", they continued... "We want to thank him for all the years of good care - no offense to you though". Oh well, we understand WHY they give it to HIM, but hey, are we allowed to be a BIT jealous here?! ;) *sigh* it was such a sweet little tree!! Will just had to laugh and took the damn tree home. "Can't split it in halves, right?!" He's right... (*shoot!*)

Black Fingernails, Red Wine...

This title of the Eskimo Joe song is sooo appropriate for this day! Today a rheumatism association had a Christmas dinner at the stadium. In the afternoon I welcomed the (mostly elderly people) at the entrance and helped them upstairs to the ConfettiLounge. Now here come the "black fingernails"... Just try to get a bunch of not-that-mobile-people at once in an elevator: that takes some patience and time! So I had to keep that bloody door open! Now the sensor failed multiple times and my hands and feet got smashed by the closing door more than once! Fingernails turned red > purple > blue > nearly black!! A not that good start of what turned out to become a loooooong long night! They had cocktail-"hour" for three hours (!) long before even starting to serve out butter & bread, not to mention entrées and the actual dinner! Pfff everything progressed so sloooow, even the songs of the choir were everlasting hehe. But eventually all stomachs were stuffed and almost ready to go home. =) Ohh almost forgot about the "red wine" here. A new colleague was unlucky and knocked some glasses of red wine of her tray over six people. OLD people, choir people, abundantly dressed up for "Christmas", all wearing VERY white blouses. Until then... A moment we'll never forget ;) From that moment on people were only talking about "red wine"... every table I passed I heard them whispering "red wine...". My god, no one dared to order red wine since! It was just an accident, but soooo happy it was not me spoiling the wine!!! ;)

VICTORY!!!

Last night I won Cities & Knights of Catan for the very first time EVER! Whoo it made me so proud hehe. Now that Roel and Mireille got themselves a copy of the game as well I'm the only one who can't practice at home. During play you mostly can tell from the results hehe. But last night luck was with me: I WON!!! Soekie asked me not to spread this news, but, sorry, hey I'm just too damn proud ;)

Hollye & Eric engaged to be married!!

Last night Eric proposed and Hollye said YES! So happy for them both! They just make the perfect couple! The big event will take place September 15th in Lake Tahoe, a wonderful place which unfortunately we had to skip from our "California-tour" last year so still on my "wishlist"...possibly in the year 2007?!? Would definitely be awesome!! More gorgeous pics on Hollye's blog!

Red-nosed at CMA

Today we got our Christmas tree at the Medical Archive! To get completely into the "x-mas feeling" we were walking all day with Rudolph's antlers on our head. Not really convenient as those things got stuck between the files regularly. But it was sooo nice to get such a positive response of the people passing by! People smiling, holding thumbs up or waving to us... To get people in a good mood by such a minor "detail", is such a joy, especially in a hospital where there's so much misery and bad things happening already...

A bit tired?!

Uhmm, after discussing for several minutes what date it was, we concluded it was DEFINITELY Dec 10th. While in fact is was Dec 11th. Actually at that time of the day it was already Dec 12th, but we'll ignore that fact ;) So what date did we write down? Nov 10th!! We both checked the details and signed the paper... while it was completely NONSENSE! Guess we were both a bit tired... hope I get paid though...

Cursed

William and I survived the bridgeclub-meeting once again ;) We started both a bit out of temper, but when the hours passed by our good humour came back and we ended up singing the Freggle-song hehe. ;) The people were again pretty friendly. Okay, there are some reeeaaal pain in the @$€$, but there will always be some I guess... Nonetheless, we still feel cursed! We just can't close the door and leave at a reasonable time! Whenever we think we can be ready quite early (relatively early...like 2AM) we just can't manage to do so. No matter HOW early the people leave, it just seems we're cursed to stay! It might somewhat have to do with the fact that we were at the "brasserie" tonight and not at the ConfettiLounge, which gives a lot of extra work like laying the tables for lunch/dinner. But whatever the reason is, it kinda sucks hehe. Every week the same story...around 2AM William points towards the clock and shouts out : "We're cursed!!" It does feel that way. Just as we feel cursed that every monday night it appears to be RAINING!! Or when we cross "De Schuiven", the stop-sign ALWAYS turns from green to RED!! Why?? There's no traffic at that time of night!! That is so strange, at night really every single stop-sign I pass automatically turns green when approaching, but when we approach this one... We just have to laugh everytime...we're cursed...

Piccies!

Thought I'd post some piccies of the RBC Roosendaal Stadium here. Just to give you an impression of the building where I'm spending many nights lately ;) Main entrance of the stadium Entrance of "Brasserie Le Royal"- our restaurant If you look very good, you could see Vivianne - our restaurant supervisor. Gosh I need to find me some better pictures hehe. View from the kitchen - with Arjan in it ;) Anique at the Supporterscafé Players' Home - so glad I didn't have to wear THAT last time hehe ConfettiLounge (main bar) ConfettiLounge: Empty!!! ConfettiLounge (small bar) Jordy, "boxmuts" Charlotte and William in Business Unit 4/5 Maurits - our BIG BOSS! =) Press Room Well that's only a small part of the stadium, but I guess it might give you some impression ;)

Back in Cyberspace! =)

Woohoo I'm just too good! ;) After quite a lot of bungling in the damaged registry, I finally got my precious laptop to work again!! It took me a lot of sweating and swearing, but I did it! So proud of myself! =) I almost gave up earlier today, when nothing just seemed to start working. Then I decided to give my old pc a shot, but THAT was a disappointment!! That bloody thing was soooooo slow! It took about half an hour to get online, almost 5 mins to refresh a page :S It's total memory is 1.97 GB...how did I ever manage to work with THAT?! So...that motivated me to keep working on the laptop. Successfully!! So happy! So let me update you on last week now. Scroll back time! ;)

Marc-Marie Huijbregts

Tonight I saw MM's latest show "Opdat ik niet vergeet". It was a very impressive show. I'd never heard him SING before -->> goosebumps!! My god, what a voice! You wouldn't expect that when you hear him talk! ;) The lights were not switched off so MM could interact with the public easily. So he did. A lot! I won't go into too much detail, since some of you will still visit the show, but just let me say it was a well-spent night out! =)

PC CRASH!!!! :'(

Ahhh I really don't like this. No e-mail, msn, skype, internet, radio, DVD, ... for a few days now! My computer is my (almost) everything!! So sorry I haven't been able to reply mails this week. I'll try to get my old PC working tonight so I can catch up with you all! =) It DID have some issues if I remember it correctly ( haven't used the old-fashioned thing for 4 years now...) but we'll see what it can still do...

I'm out!

So sad... I'm not in the final selection for the EMC job. I did have such a hunch after the interview last monday. It felt like they didn't really listen to what I said. Like I was talking to a brickstone wall. It was not a nice feeling. So time to start thinking about "plan B" now... very quickly! WHAT DO I WANT NOW?!? I hope time will learn fast...

OUCH!

Thought I had the morning off... Slept till 11AM and then found out I had to be at the hospital at 8AM. Ouch...

What's wrong here?!

This was such a strange night!! It was actually FUN working tonight! That just can't be! Monday nights are usually the worst nights of the week... The people were NICE tonight! Yes yes they were!! Wil and I even got a "Sinterklaas" present, compliments and huge tips!! Wooow are they sick or what?!? No complaints, just nice people!! =) Hope it will stay that way hehe. We'll see next week... *fingers crossed*! ;)

Sinterklaas 2006

Cool Slideshows

*SIGH* drunk people can be such a pain in the @$$...

Ziggezagge Ziggezagge RBC!!

Woot! Woot! RBC did it again! Not a single "home" match lost since I started working there! Let's keep it that way, please! Pretty good for our working spirit hehe! RBC still leading the Jupiler League! =) It was a nice match against Dordrecht despite some questionable calls from the arbiter, of which Robert M. did not approve AT ALL. In his press conference he didn't hesitate to mention it BIG TIME. Ha! Good on him!

Henk Vos celebrating his 3-1 and so receiving his "yellow card"...

Furthermore it was a night with a lot of things going wrong, or just not as planned... To start with there were a LOT of sick people, me included, actually almost everyone included hehe. I wasn't really in the mood for working, but since almost everyone was feeling quite miserable, we made the best of it and we ended up having lots of fun and feeling much better! Well, we literally sweated all our illness out of our system hehe. My god, so many people that night! It's been the most busy night so far! I was lucky (I thought) to be "stationed" in the ConfettiLounge that night, which is somewhat smaller and more quite than the main lounge but then the icing machine got stuck. We ran out of glasses. We got no supply of draft beer. People went CRAZY!! My oh my, they began to get hostile! No kidding! Just at the right time I was asked to assist in the "Players' Home" and I went down as fast as I could hehe. The RBC players left relatively early and when we kicked out their friends and family as well and (after A LOT of intensive cleaning-what a mess!) headed back upstairs, people had calmed down finally. Pheew! After setting up business units 6/7, cleaning bars, kitchens & restaurant, a good beer and some hot fried snacks!! we called it a day at 4.30am to be back at the stadium again at 9am. Yay what a lovely weekend ;) That morning we all looked like zombies hehe. When the kids walked in (it was a "Sinterklaas" celebration for children) we thought we were about to die! Screaming, crying, running... of course a lot of broken glasses, fighting children, blood and bruises, and more screaming and crying... It was fun. Afterwards, we were exhausted. We did some cleaning and that was it. We did not even set up the lounge for monday!! We just left hehe. :P The end of a pretty hectic week. Besides some "regular" presentations and receptions (and the *#%@$ monday bridge-club ofcourse) something special this week was the "Business Culinair" night last wednesday. A lot of delicious haute cuisine snacks and good wines presented by various companies. Many overdressed people. All RBC players present. Robert Maaskant singing (!) with the band. Too many drunk people. Hostile and unreasonable. No kidding, Maurits had to hide from them! Now THAT is just too weird! Monday night we will deal with unreasonable people again. As EVERY monday night... My my my ...how low can one go?! This monday I will be working with Natasja who gets more easily upset by them than William. So that can be a pretty entertaining night again ;)

BSUR

Tonight I managed to get off from work to visit a show ("BSUR"/"Be as you are") of the dutch comedian Jan Jaap van der Wal. Inspired by a trip through six developing countries in order to make a tv-documentary for the Liliane Fonds ( for which he refused to receive any money- unlike many outrageous well-paid dutch celebrities!!), this show was among its results. Hard humour, sincere indignation, cynicism, and a healthy ability to relativise. It was a good, honest show!! And, I know some of you will like this for sure, Jan Jaap "attacked" Marco Borsato's "fake-ness" BIG TIME, opposing it to the "pure-ness" of REM's Michael Stipe...

*hey baby, are we losing touch?!*

It was a lovely night out! Maurits wasn't too happy with me not working hehe (he called about a 15 mins before I left if I wouldn't consider working after all that night, but hey, I didn't ask a night off FOR NO REASON huh?!? so pity him HA!...) I finally got a chance to meet Maaike's boyfriend Thijs, who turned out to be a very nice guy (although I didn't DARE to question that, Maaike!!). So good on you, girl!! Looking forward to meeting you again hopefully some time soon!! =)

Ode to my washing machine...

I LOVE YOU!, my new fabulous washing machine!!!

I feel happy, MIGHTY HAPPY---------------life's not crappy, it's H A P P Y toniiiiight!!!

Yay! I'm so happy happy HAPPY!! =) I just received a letter that I'm selected for the job interview at the University Medical Center in Rotterdam on december 4th! Yeah, I KNOW I'm not the only one, but just so happy I'm through the first selection! I'm still IN!! WOOHOO! So happy, did I already tell you I'm happy?!