Spot the Difference

Take a close look at these two photos and spot the difference. It may be difficult to see, but there is one major discrepancy between the two.
These photos were taken in quick succession, so what could possibly be different? I'll tell you. In the 2nd photo, I have just paid off all my student debt. ALL of it. One click, and suddenly, I had a net-worth of zero.

It felt amazing. I was suddenly worth nothing. After years and years of owing money, going back to school, accumilating debt, in one moment I absolved all of my debt.

This all happened a few weeks ago. So, how is all this working out for me?

I am blessed to be Dutch, as it made my student lifestyle much more bearable. I have always lived minimalistically. Hell, I even became mostly vegetarian. And no, it wasn't because of some morally-superior stance that most vegetarians have; I love tearing into a piece of animal flesh as much as the next carnivore. No, I became vegetarian to save money. So, since 2004 I have been living as if I was poor, just to minimise my money-lending.

If I hadn't done this, I am positive that I would be in bigger debt than Greece. However, because I was a student, I always had a safety net. I could always borrow more money if I needed to.

But now, no longer a student, and having paid off my debt, for the first time in my life, I am actually poor. I live week by week. I take the scraps of work that are offered to me, and I dread the letter in the mail containing bills. Being poor is rough!

On the other hand, I love that I am living the romantic artistic lifestyle. I now have the opportunity to become a rags-to-riches story.

The other day, I was coming home from a day of work at the dreadfully touristy flower park of Keukenhof. There was a huge line for the buses, so I decided to use the time to write something. Sure, writing while standing isn't ideal, but I can't waste 90 minutes of my life just waiting. After a while, a girl in the line started up a conversation with me:

Her: "Are you writing a book?"
Me: "No, I'm just writing a diary."
Her: "Oh, I thought you might be a writer."
Me: "Well, I want to be, one day."
Her: "So did you come here [to the flower park] for inspiration?"
Me: "No, I came here to work. Even a writer has to eat."

So, my recent brush with authentic poorness has taught me a valuable lesson. Even a writer has to eat.

Lentils, probably.

Hopefully soon I will be able to take a new "after" photo, one where the difference won't be so hard to spot.

Yuki Puppy: A tribute When I was about 16 or 17, I had a nightmare. At the time, I was sleeping in the caravan. No, I am not a gypsy. The caravan was a basically spare bedroom and it was where I liked to sleep during the summer holidays and weekends, and it was right next to the dog house where my beloved Yuki slept. But in the dream, she was just lying there, lifeless. I woke up, terrified. I slowly went outside to check on Yuki dreading what I had just seen. I opened the kennel, and she came out wondering why the hell I was waking her up in the small hours of the morning. I held her and cried. I cried like a little bitch.

Now, not to be all manly, but I could remember and count all the times I have cried since then on my fingers. This may surprise you, not necessarily the fact that I can count to ten, but that I am such an emotionless shell of a human being. Yuki showed me at that moment, that inside my deceptively strong shell, I did have a heart.

There was another moment that confirmed this suspicion of mine. Some asshole in a 4wD vehicle came barrelling down the road that goes alongside our house. Yuki got scared, and didn't listen to me properly, and the car ended up going between us. As soon as the car passed and I saw that she was okay, I ran to Yuki with my hand ready in spanking position. But all I could do was hold her and say "don't ever scare me like that again".

Yuki died this week, as an 11-year old puppy after a bone tumor was discovered and she rapidly lost the use of her legs. Now that my nightmare has come true, I have to try to express how much I loved that ball of fur and happiness. Losing a beloved pet is something most of us all have to face too many times in our lives, and it sucks. But I won't be spouting a bunch of cliches about her being 'a part of the family', as true as that cliche may be. I truly believe that she made me who I am. Or at least, the good parts of my personality are because of her.

See, we got her Yuki when I was at the difficult early teenage years. I didn't have a licence yet, and I was slowly drifting away from my childhood friends whose interests were different and not always entirely legal. We got Yuki in November which is the start of New Zealand summer. This is relevant because I did not play basketball during summer (which would otherwise take up most of my time), and it was just before the long summer holidays. So instead of long days in front of the television and amiga 600 computer (with 1 Mega-byte!) I spent the entire summer playing with our new puppy. Being a border collie, which is the smartest breed of dog known to mankind, she learnt tricks faster than we could think of new ones to teach. We even emptied out the public library shelves on dog training, and Yuki was easily an A+ student. At some stage, I made the conscious decision to speak to her as I would anyone else, allowing her to listen carefully and pick out the words relevant to her, so it became very normal to just chat to her. She always listened to me, even if I had nothing to say, which even back then was most of the time. Yuki was of course very attentive to other people too (we even asked others to give her commands to teach this to her), but all this time I spent with Yuki in this first summer created a bond that still makes it feel like she was secretly my dog.

Over the years, I tried so many things with her, including creating an agility course in our own garden, which involved hammering together some jumps and other obsticles. She learned to jump them in no time, before I learnt that I had made them much higher than competition-level jumps. I started playing competitive frisbee at school, and Yuki helped me practice my forehands. I also taught her to jump off my back before I realised that her claws had torn open the skin on my back.

But the trick I loved the most was how she knew all her toys by name. I could ask for a specific toy, and she would search the entire house, or garden, until she found it. Because of this, she had more toys than I did as a child. Every Christmas I would buy her new toys. We all bought her toys when we could - as long as it could be called something different. Of course we also taught her to put her toys "in the bin". We couldn't have a messy dog in the house. She also coincided with the purchase of my Minnolta 500 SLR camera, meaning I have a surplus of photos from these early years. I wish I had access to them right now, because she was so damn photogenic.

I also like to think that we taught Yuki manners. For example, I used to purposely leave a dog treat on the coffee table and leave the room for a few minutes.Some people call me cruel, but it was a challenge for her too. What's more, when I came back and the treat was still there, she was more happy that I was happy, than actually recieving the treat.

Yes, I was strict. I never once in her life fed her food scraps. If I dropped food, I would pick it up, which is pretty amazing when you consider that I was a moody teenager. But at some stage, I started feeling bad that perhaps I had taken away some of her doggy instincts. So, I set about teaching her the most difficult trick of all: "speak". I had play with her, chase her, let her chase me, corner her, and then wait until she started barking. Then I would say "speak" and try give her a doggy treat. Once she mastered "speak" and suddenly wished she had an inside-voice, so I had to teach her to "talk". Easy. She also had an inside voice. What a fantastic dog.

However, from the beginning I sometimes turned it around to let her play the way she wanted to. I taught her how to succees and thrive in a human world, but she taught me to act more like a dog. If she wanted to chase me, I would run away, all through our garden. I must have flatted more than a few shrubs in playing this game. I'd hide and let her weak sense of smell sniff me out. (border collies are eyesight dogs.) I remember even during that first summer when she found a grasshopper. I was there for her "first kill".

A few years later, the summer before my 16th birthday, I had my restricted liscence, which meant I could drive a car as long as there were no other people in the car. My parents abused this fact, and said I could use the car, but only if i took Yuki for a walk at the beach. Those were some of the happiest moments of my youth. And as muh as I loved driving, Yuki loved going for drives more. Warm weather, windows down, reggae music up, dog in the rearview, beach ahead... I am yet to find a happier combination of circumstances, and trust me, I have tried. So at the same time I was gaining all this freedom, I also had this awesome responsibility. I had pretty much raised Yuki. She was like a daughter to me, only she had good co-ordination and was able to catch a ball.

I loved to bring her with me whenever I could. I even brought her to school when I had to work late in the school darkroom. And of course, there is no better pick-up line that "do you want to come and walk my dog?" I still have good friends who I swear only befriended me to get close to Yuki. And I am so proud of that. They weren't even dog-people.

Unfortunately, I grew up. Yuki's name almost predicted that I would end up in Japan, which is very far away. While overseas, she was the only thing I missed. Occasionally, I would find myself in front of the dog-toy section of department stores, similar to how a raging alcoholic would miraculously end up in front of the hard-liquor. Sometimes I would buy a toy to send home. At the end of the year I didn't want to leave Japan, but Yuki was the only reason I wanted to come back. My orders to my parents on my immenent arrival was "do not bring Yuki to the airport", because I wanted a proper home-welcome. The welcome was almost worth the year away. My univiersity years were 3-month stints of this, and I would always try bring back a toy for her. It now seems so obvious to me. I have been obsessing about the concept of "home" for so long. Is it a place, is it an idea? No, it was a puppy.

In 2006, after my graduation, I had one precious half-year of quality time with Yuki. Sure, coming back to live at home for 6 months was difficult, especially since I had few friends in my hometown anymore, but Yuki made me really appreciate this time. Especially since after then, I didn't see her for 3 1/2 years.

Again, being overseas, she was the only thing I truly missed. It is difficult to skype with a dog. At any opportunity I would talk about her, show photos. I even made an entire lesson for my Japanese students with using the many videos and pictures I have of her of her. An alert student even commented that she could see how much I loved that dog.

Anyway, the rest is recent history. 3 1/2 years later, Yuki hadn't changed at all. Sure, she had a little grey hair above the eyes, but she still had that puppy-fur behind the ears, and looked up at me like an intellegent 4-year-old with her whole life ahead of her. We had a great 3 weeks together. Long walks, long drives, and we even bought some new toys of which she learnt the names within minutes. I missed the dog smell, dog slobber, and the feel of warm dog poo through a plastic bag. I knew that when I left her that she was 11 years old. But I always presumed I would see her at least one more time. One more walk. One more drive. One more "welcome home".

It wasn't the way it played out. Within three weeks of the first signs of trouble, the bone tumor was too much to handle. It is cruel and unfair, but I can't complain. I got more than my fair share. She taught me so much, she let me be myself, and it was just unfortunate that 'myself' was not in the same town and country as her. The last week has been so difficult, knowing that my puppy is sick, and I can't do anything about it. I went to the beach last week, and I felt like there was no point. What is the point in walking without a dog? Why else come to a beach? The last time I saw Yuki just a few months ago, she was disappointed she couldn't come in the car with us. It cut me up thinking about this as I began the long journey back to Holland. On the plane with the in-flight entertainment, I came across the Jack Johnson song "Go On", which seemed perfect for the occasion. I listened to it so many times on the flight, on the verge of tears.

The tears never came... Until the nightmare, finally, came true.

I am sorry for leaving you. I miss you. I love you. And I am who I am because of you.


Thank you to everyone who has been even but a small part of Yuki's life. And to those who haven't but still know me, I assure you, you have Yuki to thank.

Ah Ruben Day 2010

My birthday has always been a special day (although unfortuantely often not for myself). It is the first day of the Star Signs, it is the autumnal or vernal equinox (depending on which hemisphere I happen to be) so it marks the beginning of a new season, on several occasions it has even been 25 hours long due to daylight savings (summer/winter time), and it is even a public holiday in Japan. This year, however, was even more special. It was A-Ruben celebration day.

For those not in the know, Aruba is a country which sounds like a place where Captain Jack Sparrow liked to frequent. It is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and yes, that is a real Kingdom, hence the link to Wikipedia. So, my birtday was also the Aruban Independance day celebrations. Ruben, Aruban... Coincidence? I don't believe in coincidences.

Okay, it is probably a coincidence, but I'll add this to the list of why my birthday is awesome.

Open Application

Life as a graduate is rough, especially in times of depression. Luckily, the Leiden University provided an arbeidsmarktcongres, which ,I think has something to do with strawberries, for the Geesteswetenschappen, which I think has something to do with ghost ships. I asked around, and I found out that it was also a job market where recent graduands and graduands-to-be can inform about which fast-food restaurants they should apply at.

In principle, I am against any type of event which is advertised as a good place to "network" or "interface", because, let's face it, people who interface and network are douche-bags. It is just for people who want to make "talking to people", and "trying to get people to like me" sound important and business-like. But at this phase in my life, washing dishes when I am lucky enough to be given dishes to wash, I had to go to the job market, because if I didn't it would have been good ammunition for that guilty voice in my head.

So I signed up, costing me five Euro. However, I more than earned that 5 Euro back just in terms of pens. Why is it that at these type of events, everybody wants to give you a pen? ("People who have a pen look employable!"). There were also three D-list Dutch celebrities who came to speak to us, which would be like the hairdresser for Cher's stylist giving a speech on how to be successful. Amazingly, I who knows no Dutch celebrities, had seen one of them on TV before. I remembereed her because she was weird.

Let's face it, she wasn't speaking to us to give beauty tips.

They were actually great speakers, although there was no actual useful information, since all three of them had such crazy and incidental career paths that it's not followable. But it was nice to listen to three success stories to help soothe my unemployable miserableness. Thanks! You made me feel a lot better. There was also lunch included, and there was extra left over because there were only about 50 people out of the 5400 targeted students who came, so good feelings all-round.

The afternoon had a few more speakers, one of which was about translation agencies in Holland. Now, I don't want to be mean, because I really appreciated such an excellent opportunity to recieve a big lunch, but I have a bone to pick with the event. Below is the image from the website.
Now, there might not be a lot of career opportunity in Holland for me as a translator because my written Dutch is probably at the level of a 9 year-old, but I think I found a niche: an English ant-fucker. Dutch people are proud to have a high level of English especially compared to other countries, but it is still a 2nd language. They wrote this slogan in English probably to try and be cool, but if they had employed someone like me, they would see that they are, in fact, not cool at all.

First off, "upto"? Really? I sincerely hope that by omitting a space they were trying to make fun of Chinese people's poor English, even as ironic as this might be.

Secondly... This is an incorrect usage of "up to". It is only ever used in common English in a question format, or in vague situations ("I was up to no good"). Let me give you a conversation format of what the above fortune cookie appears to be saying:

A: "What are you up to?"
B: "Not much, just a job with talent"
A: "Oh, you have a job already? Never mind."

Moreover, the job appears to have talent, upstaging the candidate. Burn!

Although the entire day and the speeches were conducted in Dutch, there was a link to a page for "foreign students". Since I used to be an English teacher, I took out my virtual red pen and made some corrections. With just a few changes (per line), this paragraph actually starts to resemble authentic English.

So once the depression is over, if any people need an English ant fucker, I should be able to find some time between doing dishes.