New logo NHL University/Nieuwe logo NHL Hogeschool

Summer is over and it's back to school for me again. My school made plans to move to a new location some years ago. They are going to move house in December. So my school thought, "Hey, a new location means a new start. We need a new corporate style." During the summer my school gave us a sneak preview of the new flag on the intranet. They got to be kidding me, was my first thought, because it looked so cheap.

Het nieuwe schooljaar is weer begonnen en dat vierde de Noordelijke Hogeschool Leeuwarden met een nieuw logo. We heten nu dus officieel NHL Hogeschool ... Je moet er schijnbaar voor gestudeerd hebben om tot deze prachtnaam te komen.*lichte sarcasme* En de vlag? We mochten het ding tijdens de zomervakantie al aanschouwen op mijnnhl.nl. Ik dacht eerst, "Dat menen ze niet."

The presentation of the new logo came with a boring speech.

Ze meenden het dus wel. En bij een nieuw logo hoort natuurlijk een presentatie. Mijnnhl.nl noemde het een flitsende presentatie. In studententaal dus zeer lang en saai. Dani'el trok het al na 3 minuten niet meer., de buurman zat na 5 minuten te twitteren en na een kwartier ging zijn bewustzijn op slaapmodus. Wouter en ik hadden honger, heel erg honger.

Apparently they were serious. School made a fancy exposition of the new corporate style. Our rector Willem Smink opened the exposition by cutting off some balloons.

Als voorproefje hoe de huisstijl van de NHL Hogeschool is, is er een tentoonstelling in de Tem-hal van de Tesselschadestraat. Deze werd doormiddel van een aantal ballonen los te knippen geopend door onze baas rector Willem Smink. Hij schijnt meer te bloggen dan ik. Oh ja joh? Ja.

Former logo/Oude logo

New logo/Nieuwe logo.

Ok, why does this logo reminds me of the next logo?/Waarom doet de nieuwe logo mij aan het volgende logo denken?:/

My faculty/Mijn afdeling.

Welke huissstijl vind jij het leukst? A. Die van de buurman of B. die van de spreektafel? Laat je antwoord achter en win echte NHL Hogeschool briefpapier met handtekeningen van twee docenten van het CMD.

Chowing down time with Wouter/En toen begon het snaaien met Wouter

and break dancing/en het breek dansen.

Jack Spijkerman was ook van de partij.^^

I bet the campaign of the introduction of the new corporate style cost the NHL University a big bag of money. Now I'm going to show my school a cheaper alternative. I took a balloon (with permission) and made my own photo session.

Ik durf te wedden dat de campagne voor de introductie van de nieuwe huisstijl enorm veel heeft gekost. In dit berichtje laat ik de NHL zien dat er een goedkopere alternatief mogelijk was. Mijn fotosessie met de ballon.:)

The future of the steam engine at our school is unsure. School has not enough money to move it to the new location. Here I'm paying tribute to the old lady.:)

De toekomst van de stoommachine op onze school is onzeker. De NHL heeft niet genoeg geld voor de verhuizing voor het enorme ding. Hier breng ik een ode aan haar.

On our way to the new location we passed by Stenden University, our competitor. Op weg naar de nieuwe locatie kwamen we langs Stenden Hogeschool, onze concurrentie.

Alternative slogan: Stenden University looks so small from up here (hope the bird won't kill me :/)/Alternatieve slogan: NHL Hogeschol steekt boven Stenden uit.=)

To the future/Op naar de toekomst.

Doing some arty pose/Even een artistieke foto.

Check the new site at www.nhl.nl.Anyway if I took some pictures without permission. I'm only a poor student. I can't afford a lawyer. So please don't sue me.

Bekijk de nieuwe site op www.nhl.nl.Ik kan trouwens geen advocaat betalen dus sleep mij niet voor de rechter voor het gebruiken van jullie beeldmateriaal.

Final pictures of my Paris trip 2009.

Picture source: Centre Pompidou

As always I was standing in the wrong queue at the Centre Pompidou. They didn't put a sign that the queue was for people who purchased an online ticket. Made the same mistake at the statue of liberty.-___- Back then I was standing in the queue for the stairs, I thought it was the one for the elevator. Great, I'm not fond of open stairs cause I'm afraid of hights. So we had to walk back to the end of the queue on the right.

Waiting on the wrong side

Inside the Centre Pompidou. Looking down at the people still waiting outside. Mwoahahahaha.xD

What the heck? Wait, I don't want to know.

FYI: Enterance is for free for all people under 18 and all Europeans under 25 wit ID.

Price for adults is around 12 Euros.

Hôtel du ville (city hall of Paris). I accidentally walked in a strike (at the back).:D

Point zéro (from this point all the distances from Paris were measured).

Matthew 21:12. :/

The fish ate the pope.

Took a picture of Japanese people taking a picture of me.

Yes, the pedestrian at the left didn't get fined for ignoring the red light.

At the Le pont du Carrousel bridge. The street lantern was happy to meet us.

I saw some locks attached to the bridge. They are left there by lovers promising each other on valentine's day to stay with each other forever.

Paris, je déteste (Paris, I don't like).

Sunday started with a French breakfast and doing my usual thing at hotel bedrooms. Why do you think I'm so athletic.=)

Hotel Bed jumping (http://www.bedjump.com/)

Even though I wrote bad about Paris the last time, I did have a nice time with my family. Especially when we were eating and were in the metro.=) Day 2 was a bit of a downer. The weather was bad so we did the touristy thing. At least it wasn't that mind killing like We took a stroll in the Tuileries and Carrousel gardens in front of the Louvre palace.

Musée du Louvre

On our way to the Centre Pompidou I saw a homeless lady struggling with the zipper of her sweater. I never write about my work at the soup kitchen, in the city where I study, because some people who visit the soup kitchen might read this blog and I'm not allowed to write about what visitors confide in me during my shift. But sometimes people get or ask my attention when I'm just taking a stroll in a random city. This time it was Carmen. I didn't want my mom to drag me away when I started to pay attention to this lady cause she might have gotten worried about me getting attacked. And I don't want people to see what I do for Jesus so others can't call my hypocrit.=) So I told my family to go to the Centre Pompidou and that I will catch up with them later. The converstation with Carmen started when I tried to close her jacket but the zipper was really rotten like she told me in French. I told her that I didn't want her to get a cold (it was raining and the wind was ice cold). So we talked about her past, the good and the bad things and why she doesn't trust people. I told her that someone loves her very much and she knew who I meant. I was sad to tell her I had to finish the conservation so my family wouldn't worry. I blessed her and told her that everything will be alright.

Paris, j'adore.

Two weeks ago I was in Paris with my parents and siblings. The weather was very bad as you can see in the following video. Normally I don't speak English like that. I was doing my bad French accent.

On the way to Paris the bus driver told us the city of Liège (Belgium) has a metro network but it's never been used for public transport.*Bummer*

I don't really like Paris, it's really touristy. The last time I was there some guy even molested me. My mom of course had to visit the places that make Asian women happy. The Louis Vuitton store and China town. After we put our bags in our hotel rooms we went straight to the Champs-Élysées for my mother to drool. The Parisian store doesn't trust paper money so they only accept Credit Cards and Louis Vuitton member cards. Mom forget hers so we couldn't buy her a new pet. Pitty though, mom said they were cheaper than in Germany.

My dad wanted to check the Puegot store.

Went to Sephora to get some personal care products but they didn't have the products I wanted. Still I had to make a picture of this huge bottle of J'adore eau de parfum from Dior (my signature smell). Unfortunately a woman walked by when my sister took a picture of me.

-___-

It was just insanse. The bottle can last like 30 years and the price was € 624,40.

Second destination of day 1 was China town so we took the metro to Porte d'Ivry station.

Woohoo, le metro!

Seriously. Why?

My goal was to ride the metro and to eat the famous Báhn mì (not bakmi), Vietnamese baguette. My brother just kept on telling me how he loves it since he visited China town in Paris for the first time. And I have to say, I heart it too.^^ I'm Dutch so I also heart mayonaise and guess what they contain mayonaise. Yum, yum, me so like it.=) I ate one with sliced vietnamese saucage and ham. You can get them with different kinds of meat, even vegetarian. I'm going to try to make them when I'm back in Leeuwarden.

On our way to the hotel I wondered how you should pronounce Daumesnil. I thought it was something German.xD

So my mom's manager gave us a direction to the hotel and it just said, 'Walk out the metro station and walk to the hotel.' Well, no Novotel nearby so we checked the map at the station and we couldn't figure out where it was.

Great we were lost.

I was kind of grumpy and tired of asking in French for direction so my mom found a nice man who walked us to the hotel. He showed us his house which looked like a pineapple. I thought it looked like an upside down grape hyacinth.

Eventually I took a bath and went to my parent's room to eat some snacks and watch tv together with my brother. We tried to understand what the news reader was saying in French ... never mind.-___-

I'm thinking about

An ode to The Thinker from Rodin. Paris, France. April 2009

to move my blog to Wordpress or to get my own domain name (www.thefantasticyennie.com??? xD).  Blogger keeps changing my layout. I do know how to write html but I'm not really a patient person to begin with. People keep on complaining they can't klick on my pictures to enlarge them (it's working again in this post). Or Blogger eats my pictures and spit them out on cyber space. Well, I have bigger problems to take care of. So Blogger please do something about it when you're going to maintain Blogger today.

How to pursue happiness.

Two years ago I discovered I was living in a world with rules created by other people. I felt like was dead inside. For the third time I was told by someone, I (thought) I loved, the love was gone. My finances were crap. My career planning was a mess and my inner child was seriously injured. I stopped talking to people, stopped eating and stopped contacting family. And that just because a guy didn't want you anymore? Nah, I think I was already on a verge of a nervous breakdown and that was the straw that broke the camel's back (In Dutch: de druppel die de emmer deed overlopen). I can go on and on abot what I did wrong but I rather choose for the happy ending.:) How did I manage to find my inner child again? Simple, I chose happiness. Happiness is a choice. YOU are the one who allows people to talk you down. YOU are the one who allows others to treat you bad. YOU are the one who makes good but also bad decisions. But you can't always succeed. We also need to fail so we can learn from our mistakes. So we can learn when to say no to situations which can hurt us and embrace the little things we enjoy to celebrate life.^^

This is an old blogpost I once wrote on my old blog but to remind myself what my goals are I will repost it again. Normally I don't reread my posts because they might be too silly, boring or embarrassing. But to my own opinion this was one of my best posts I ever wrote because it was inspired by a man I admired for years, Professor Arnold Heertje. There are four men I really admire who are not related to me. Professor Heertje is the only one who is still alive and not celestial.XD

A while ago I went to a lecture of Professor Heertje, former economics professor at the university of Amsterdam, on his book 'Echte economie' (real economy). When I was still a puppy I read some of his articles, I admired his point of view on social economic problems in our society. So it was kind of a dream come true to meet him. He even took time to talk to me, I was in heaven for a few minutes.^^ I haven't read his book yet (cause I'm waiting till it's my turn to borrow the book at the library cause I'm a cheap bastard ^^) but we share the same passion for economics. The thing is that the economy we know it became too financial. Of course you need money to realise your dreams in life but don't see them as short term projects. Actually you should think about how your finacial plans are going to affect you grand children. I know this sounds geeky but some years ago I was saving for my kid's college fund. No, I'm not that kind of woman who desperately wants kids. If God doesn't want me to have kids that would be actually awesome. I have enough kids at school to take care of. I even wanted to save for my future pet's medical bills. Yes, that's even more insane IMO.XD

Professor Heertje said the economy shouldn't destroy our heritage and culture. At the beginning I thought the Frisians were a bunch of hill billies with a weird dialect but now I kind of love the Frisians and am proud to say I'm an import Frisian.XD I even want to learn the language (yes, it's an official language). There is a we-feeling you don't find a lot in The Netherlands, even not in the world. Ow and don't forget my other three cultures, Dutch and Vietnamese.^^

Education is the key point to our economy. You should never stop learning. He says education has become so crap because teachers aren't well educated in their subject. He picked out the second grade teacher chemistry education .... Great, I'm studying that. He said the students only have one chemistry book and 6 books about how to handle your pupils when they fall asleep (that's my joke, I kind of forgot what he said). Teachers became some kind of sex ed specialists. I'm not but my pupils think I am. Bunch of little pervs! He said teachers have burn-outs because they lost their passion in their subjects. They focus too much on maintaining discipline in the class. I never had real discipline problems in my class cause you really shouldn't piss me off cause I already silenced some kids. No I didn't kill them. I just talked to them after class. Yes, it would really be a problem if you can't maintain discipline in your class. What if you can't controle the kids? What can you achieve with your teacher's degree then? Not much. Well, he has a point their. I do have a lot of passion for my subject and if I get deaf and can't hear the children I can't always work in a lab or in business.

He also talked about greedy managers, destroying our society and economics. Managers only think about profit and negotiating behind closed doors. Professor Heertje pleads for an integrated decision-making. Involve the consumer or the product in the process to minimize future problems. He gave a solution and especially for eduction:

Overview ---> Insight ---> Courage

First overview the situation. Overview means knowing what you don't know cause things you already know you don't have to focus on at the first place. Insight, use the knowledge. Courage, feel the courage to change the situation. Even though we are in deep trouble there's still a way out. I thought this was really good. I can use this solution for my Christian life, study, love life, family life and social life. Overview, insight and courage is the same as believe, hope and love. Love is the most important of all as the corps officer once said, love will concur all. Rock on, rock on.XD

During the break I had a conversation with a college teacher. She doesn't teach at my school but she agreed with professor Heertje that the quality of the exams are bad. Because managers tell her to lower the norms for tough exams so more students pass the exams and graduate. I think schools get €10.000,- per graduated student. So you can understand why schools are lowering the norms. I think that's unfair cause I had very tough exams in the past. Well, who knows maybe we get more stupid in the future. Of course pupils can get information on the internet. Kids go well-informed into the class but does it mean they can process the information. Science is something you have learn to understand. Some need more time than the other, it's not totally hocus pocus.

At the end I went to professor Heertje. I said, "This is not a joke but I'm studying teacher's education chemistry second grade but have a lot of passion for my subject." He asked me if I had good teachers at my school. I don't agree with my teachers a lot but they know a lot about their subject and yes, I see their eyes twinkle when they talk about their subject so there's nothing wrong with the teachers. I never said I won't do my first grade in teaching but I was planning to do that for fun when I'm in my 40ies cause I want to focus on children with learning disabilities and maybe want to teach at a school with kids with mental problems. I like to do games with my cousin Ilja. She's mentally disabled and she gets epileptic attacks sometimes so I know how to act in those situations. I've worked a lot with kids with an ADHD and dyslexia. You need a lot of patient but I really love to work with those kids cause everyone thinks those kids are stupid and have no future. It really makes me angry when I hear people say that. I like to motivate these kind of kids. And I really makes me smile when I see these kids get more self esteem and smile. I really want to become a good teacher.=)

Reisverslag Japan 2006 deel 1?

Ik wil weer eens aan mijn wekelijkse blogverplichting houden maar ik zal het niet over Parijs gaan hebben want ik heb geen zin in foto's en video's uploaden. Mijn naam is lui, vet lui.

Maar ik was op zoek naar wat foto's en vond deze inleiding van een reisverslag over Japan op de puter van mijn broer. Tijdens de zomer van 2006 ben ik met mijn broer en zus naar Tokio geweest. Ik werd gedwongen door mijn ouders. Ik heb totaal niks met Japan. Alleen dat ik ooit twee keer voor de lol een cursus Japans heb gevolgd en dat ik op een blauwe maandag had ingeschreven voor de opleiding Japankunde aan Erasums Universiteit in Rotterdam. Ik zal dit keer voor het eerst een guest blogger gebruiken, ook weet deze van niks.
Ik ben helemaal niet een shopaholic, vreetzak en aansteller zoals hij het beschreef. Als hij wankele darmen en 4 keer per maand een lekkende baarmoeder had dan piepte hij anders.*monster-modus* Maar ja, ik zal het maar niet tegen hem zeggen want anders denkt die dat ik in zijn bestanden snuffel.

Ik ga samen met mijn 2 zussen (Kiu en Yen) naar Tokio, Japan. Kiu, mijn oudste zus, is een Japan-/anime freak. Mijn andere zus Yen gaat mee voor shoppen en het eten in Japan.

Ik wil het, ik wil het want ik ben koopverslaafd.-___- Kiddy land in Tokio, Japan 2006.

Soms drink ik ook gewoon. Ueno Zoo in Tokio, Japan 2006.

Ik ben meegegaan als bodyguard en ben ook een anime fan.

Mijn oudste zus heeft de reis voor ons geboekt via het internet, waarna je een e-ticket ontvangt. Dit is voor het sneller inchecken bij de luchthaven. Ook heeft ze de planning een week van te voren gemaakt. Of dit een perfecte reis wordt, weet ik niet, want we kunnen elkaar flink irriteren.

Mijn zus aan het irriteren. Mijn specialiteit of course. Ueno Zoo.

Kiu kan snel ziek/misselijk worden en Yen is ook heel vaak ziek/pijntjes. Maar ja we zijn volwassenen, dus we komen er wel uit.

Ik ga vooral ook mee op vakantie omdat ik bijna 5 of 6 jaar niet meer echt op vakantie ben gegaan. Als laatst volgens mij was het in 2000, ben wezen kamperen met mijn oom, tante en neefjes in Duitsland. Dit is niet mijn eerste vliegreis. Ik ben eerder in Amerika, Vietnam en Hong Kong geweest. Persoonlijk moet ik me wel schamen, want de reis is door mijn ouders betaald (gesponsord noem ik het, over 30 jaar afbetalen).

Oh ja, alle 3 kennen we geen Japans, sommige symbolen/woorden komen overeen met het Chinees. Maar we moeten het vooral met Engels overleven. En de Japanners zijn net zoals de Fransen, ze zijn niet al te goed in het Engels. Dus deze reis wordt het handen en voeten werk.

Misschien zal hij ooit wat meer schrijven in de toekomst. Ik hoop eigenlijk dat Riefje ook wat gaat schrijven in mijn bloggie want die is ook zo reisverslaafd en ze doet zich saaier voor dan dat ze is. Don't judge an accountant for her calculator.;)