Image and Identity

Borrowing the terms Image and Identity from my Marketing Teacher: Identity: what you are as a person (sex, occupation, civil status, other status) according to yourself, Image: the way people see you as a person. The ideal situation is of course when Image matches the Identity.

This week I attended a seminar about this. During this event, there was an inevitable session to analyze the difference between Identity and Image. Guess what? 4 colleagues from other department who followed the session in my group were surprised to discover new things about me (yes, this is the reason to hold such session or I was just being very honest..). My image in their eyes was: humble, happy & polite while I am proud to be direct & assertive (I'd come a long way to reach this). I found it intriguing that my Image didn't match my Identity, so there's something left to guess about me.

What about you? How do people see your Image and what is your Identity? This without being JaIm of course :-D.

Dutch ban on sex with animals

Dutch Minister of Justice Ernst Hirsch Ballin informed the Tweede Kamer (Dutch Parliament) today that Sex with Animals would be banned officially starting from January 1 2009. For those who understand Dutch, click here for more information.

I thought that this was forbidden but no, till end of the year Sex with Animals is not a crime as long as the animal in this case doesn't experience pain. What kind of regulation is this current one anyway? It is ok when the animal doesn't get hurt but hey, how can we analyze this? If you are Anglingdarma (a king from Javanese legend who speaks and understands languange of all animals) I can imagine it is a piece of cake, you could just ask the poor animal.

What kind of people prefer to have sex with animals than with humans anyway? Sick people I think or people who turn to be beast.

This short post ends here.

Reunion Online

I don't know whether this is a coincidence but people from my junior and senior high school have been adding each other in Facebook the last two weeks. You all know how it goes, news spreads really fast.

So, there is a group created for my graduating year. I joined this, to my surprise there is a girl (ok, perhaps a bit exaggerating, we are now 36 years old), a person, who attended my wedding party back then in 1995, uninvited! She did this while she never invited me to her parties!!!! I only knew her from the dancegroup, PKC.

Wedding parties at that time (at least wedding parties of my fellow students/classmates) were an onofficial reunion. So, there I was, busy taking best wishes from my guests (for Indonesian standards, my wedding was quite intimate), then she came up. I told her bluntly in front of other ex classmates, that she was not invited (as I only invited 16 people I really knew from my SMA-time).

Call it childish reaction, I don't care, never did actually, even if my guests saw me as a bridezilla back then.Now I wonder, does she still do this? Uninvited coming to a party while she only invites her own inner circle to her own parties.

Prinsjesdag 2008

Every third Tuesday of September Dutch governement presents the (concept) budget and the financial plan for the coming year (in Indonesia is comparable with RAPBN). The Queen read the plan in front of the whole cabinet & her royal family yesterday. It is a Dutch royalty show every year with loyal fans. Even the ministers are keen to be part of this tradition, as the female ministers are obliged to wear a hat, so on this matter Prinsjesdag is comparable with The Ascott race in England.

Queen Beatrix and her son Willem-Alexander en his Argentinian wife, Maxima arrived in a golden chariot at the Binnenhof (Dutch Parliament's building, in the middle of city center of The Hague). Other son of Beatrix, Friso and his wife, Beatrix's sister Margriet and her husband arrived after them, also in a chariot but an open one.

As a foreigner living here, I find it rather fascinating, partly because of my job and my private situation as a tax payer. I mean, when I lived in Indonesia, I was never ever interested in the RAPBN cause I kept being sceptical, nothing would change whatsoever! But here, due to the economy crisis in the USA, the Minister of Finance (or is it Minister of Treasury), decided not to apply the raising of VAT (taxes) with 1% as planned before. As a working mother I also profit from the regulation concerning childcare costs and so on and so on....The day after, today, the opposition parties revised this budget concept & showed how they would have planned it.

Hereby, the impressions through the pics I found in http://www.nu.nl/, some of the pics are from ANP.

Red carpet laid on the Binnenhof (parliament's building in the Hague)

The ride in the golden chariot through The Hague city center.

The wave to the folks at the Nordeinde Palace's balcony

This last pic reminds me of the middle age when prince and princess would wave just to satisfy to curiosity of ordinary people.

Fundraising Time

The fundraising time has just begun. Yesterday, G came home with a booklet of coupons from Jantje Beton. She must sell 10 coupons à € 1,50. Her opa and oma bought one coupon. The rest must be sold out within 14 days. As I wrote above, the fundraising has begun, so there is not much chance left for G to sell out all 8 coupons left these days as other children in the neighbourhood have to sell them too. She asked me to help her by selling these at my & her dad's office, poor G, she needs to reach her target :-(.

Starting in September, the time of Collecte (Dutch for Fundraising) begins. The form of this vary, you can buy coupons from Jantje Beton and Kinderpostzegels or donate money in the box for other organisations. Around 5 or 6 o'clock in the evening (most people are at home for dinner as the Dutches eat their dinner quite early), my homebell would ring ca. 3 à 4 times with children (some with their mom or dad) in front of the door carrying a collecting box. I will do the same thing with G this week end (hoping that then the peak of children collecting money would decrease, I expect that my neighbours would give more :-D).

In connecting with my previous post, there are several causes here in NL which raise the Funds annually by collecting money door to door, such as KWF Kanker Bestrijding (with news of the day, ex cancer patient, Lance Armstrong will ride his 8th Tour de France next year!), Astmafonds, Kinderpostzegels to name a few. These organisations are so well-known, people recognize the logo immediately which is positive. KWF and Astmafonds have adults vollunteers to collect money, Kinderpostzegels and Jantje Beton ask children of Secondary Schools to do the fundraising. This is arranged by the board of the school itself.

Till the next two weeks I need to keep my wallet filled with enough cash (€ 1,- coins) to support these causes.

Which causes do you believe in?

Last week I attended an event about organisations in the city I live. I was there to inform people who were interested in Integration Act in the Netherlands.

A lady passed by. She asked me to support a petition against animal testing by setting my signature on a list. I politely refused this. I am against animal testing but some groups could be real fanatic in defending their ideas, and this lady's organisation (after seeing some brochures she brought with her) was, according to my humble opinion, one of those.

What made me refuse to support the petition was the thought to undermine human life in order to save animals. I can't follow this idea. I take this for example: a parliament member of the Dutch Green Party, Wijnand Duyvendak. This following information is quoted from Wikipedia English version(for my own convenience, so I don't have to translate it in English, my sincere excuses for this) 'In 2008, Duyvendak published his book Klimaatactivist in de politiek. In this book, he described his run-ins with the law, including his 1984 jailing. He also mentioned how, in 1985, he admitted having stolen documents on nuclear power plants during a burglary on the Dutch ministry of economic affairs. The fall-out was severe, prompting calls for his resignation, especially after media reported that the burglary had led to threats of violence against civil servants. My own notebased on what I read from other sources: Duyvendak also published the addresses of the government's officials in this project and encouraged fellow activists to disturd these officials' life at that time. Previously, Duyvendak always denied such involvement but he subsequently announced his resignation from the Tweede Kamer (Dutch Parliament) on August 14, 2008. His resignation became effective on September 2, 2008'.

Let me put it this way, I am against animal testing, yes animals have rights too. Me don't like fur, don't even find it beautiful. I understand that animal testing is not only about raising animals for its fur, it is beyond that but if there is a need to test some experiences on animals in the name of science, for a better life I'll opt for this, no doubt.

I do believe in other causes though, such as Accessible Education for Everyone and Nature Preservation for our children's children.

Which causes do you believe in?

Every now and then....

I will post an entry. I promised in my previous post I will keep you posted about this week. Here is the summary of the week, G is sick, she coughs the whole day and night, I am also sick but too koppig (stubborn) to stay at home due to an important campaign I have to arrange which is planned by the end of this month.

Now I have an impression that I kind of overrate my ability to consistently maintaining this blog. I've been exhausted when I got home. Please give me some more time to get use to this rythm of living a life I want to live (ssssttt, I am not complaining, aren't I?). I'd really love to leave some comments at the blogs of everybody's who's on my blogroll but haven't got enough time to do so. I plan to introduce a blogging schedule to myself, for example every wednesday and in the week end.

OK, now the interesting part of the week. My class is cut in a half! When I started studying in 2006 there were 12 students, but now, exactly at the half of the period there are only 6 of us left. The subjects are attractive ones though. For the time being, I will enjoy the readings, researching & presenting the projects which I'm in.

Dutch endless struggle against water

For those of you who have never heard of this, one third of the Dutch Soil is below sea level. As an uncle of mine who's pilot once told me, he found it very special everytime he landed at Schiphol due to Dutch official's greeting "Welcome to Amsterdam at 10 m below sea level' when his plane approached this Dutch international airport.

The blue marked areas are below sea level.


Underneath, you see more detailed map of The Netherlands. The Dutch big cities ('s-Gravenhage below Amsterdam is Den Haag or The Hague) are actually built 'under sea level'. I live in Arnhem, nearby German border (far right, in the middle), safely high and dry according to the map below :-).

Let me begin by explaining the country's name itself, The Netherlands as Neder=low Land=Land, the Low Lands, Les Pays-Bas. This explains the spelling of it in plural form with The before).

The worst flood The Dutches had ever experienced took place in 1953 in the Zeeland Province (South of NL). The threat of such flood is still potent, that's why Dutch Government installed this Delta Commission directly after 1953's disaster. At 3 September 2008 a national Delta Commission presented its plan to protect NL from floods & dike breaks. Those who are really interested in this can look here for detailed information. This ambitious plan will cost Dutch government starting from the year 2010 to 2050 € 1,3 billion till € 1,9 billion annually.

The Dutches had begun in early years in their battle against flood. I found a report that North Sea Canal was built in 1865. Water Engineering is one of Dutch successful export product. Major Dutch Engineering and Dredging companies have built/are building mega projects all over the world such as the Islands Palm Jumeira and the World in Dubai (Ballast Ham Dredging), new dike lines in New Orleans, USA (Boskalis, Royal Haskoning & Arcadis).

Let's hope that Delta Commission will succeed in its plan, otherwise there's a risk that my children's children will have to experience the big flood.

A Minute Maid

Tomorrow, my lessons at school will start again, it will be my third academic year which I expect to be more and more complicated and it will cost me much time to have those projects done on time. For me, this means organising, delegating & blood, sweat & much tears to manage a household, raising my little G combined with busy times at work & countless pages to read.

Man, I wish that I had Rasem (my parent's maid) here. Having a maid is quite a luxury in NL. With the beginning of the Ramadan, I couldn't help but think of her. Why? because after the third week of Ramadan, she would have a holiday, Pulang Kampung, to Jati Lawang, Purwokerto, usually for 3 weeks. In her absence I had to do most things by myself (I said most things, although I knew to limit it by only keeping my own bedroom clean & ironing my own clothes, that's all!).

But hey, I've managed well since I came here 13 years ago. You can say I have come a long way all right. From a spoiled girl I have turned into a mother, a minute Maid and a not really Domestic Goddess who really loveeee to cook (cooking works therapeutic for me) but actually not that Domestic at home. According to my humble opinion: a little mess at home is not really a problem, it is a sign that real people live in it!

Surely I will keep you posted about this week. Meanwhile, I wish you all who are fasting good luck. Cherish your maid(s) and let them know you are satisfied with them as their boss so they would come back to you after the Lebaran :-D.