F*%k Normal

 

 

I’m afraid of normal.

The normal life.

The normal body.

The normal education.

The normal job.

The normal business.

The normal way to talk.

Dressing normal.

Eating normal.

Normal conversation.

Normal travel.

Normal strategies.

Acting normal.

Sounding normal.

Thinking normal.

The normal amount of money.

The normal speech.

The normal way to work (out).

The normal way to look.

The normal music.

I get bored with normal after a while.

It’s my normal.

Your normal is different.

I’m bored with my normal.

It’s time to mix things up.

Where am I being and acting normal in my life?

I’m afraid that when I go back to the States my life will go into normal mode. I also feel my life going into normal mode here in Amsterdam. Normal is comfortable and I haven’t been living in comfort for almost a year. Now that I have a place of my own, work that’s keeping me occupied, and a routine of working out that’s become an almost daily habit, I feel everything’s back to normal.

Boring.

I feel there’s something missing.

Living on friends couches wasn’t normal. Couchsurfing always creted something different in my life. Exhausting, yes. Adventurous, oh yeah.

So maybe my life needs more adventure. It’s my #2 value after having fun and if my values aren’t being fulfilled I can feel off-balance. Lost.

Now the question is how to incorporate adventure back into my life?

How do I make my life the opposite of normal again?

BRAINSTORM!

A Change Up

What’s my story?

I’m changing it.

I’ve decided to take a different path in my blog. Over the past year it was mostly about how I experienced the Dutch culture which I seemed to do an entertaining job at  expressing my experiences through writing. The funny thing was that my first intention of this blog was to share my thoughts and experiences of my life going through a year at Knowmads. That turned out to be tougher than I thought and I found writing about Dutch culture much easier.

Technically writing about bikes, dutch accents, and bunny shaped cheese is all part of the Knowmadic experience. I wouldn’t have been able to talk about it if I hadn’t decided to become a Knowmad. So to be fair, I didn’t veer off my intention that much.

Now that my Knowmads year is over I finally want to get down and vulnerable. To really share my story.

For now on I’m challenging myself to tell my real story. To tell the honest truth of what is happening in my life. My fear is that you will find it boring. That when I start talking about life and deeper things, my entertainment factor drops considerably. You’ll think, “she can’t write. goodbye.” My jackal will start saying, “this stuff doesn’t make any sense. Backspace, backspace, backspace.” And who actually gives a hoot and haney about my life?

What I think I’m most afraid of is the shame. The vulnerability I’m challenging myself to express and share. That the people who read this blog actually know me! I’ll see them and I’ll have to look them in the eye. Ahhhhh! That’s scary.

But I shall go forth and share my story. I will be courageous and share because there’s a part of me that knows that what’s happening with me resonates in others and that brings me comfort. Criticism and judgement will always be there but I can’t control that. As the book of Brene Brown declares, I will Dare Greatly.

*I have no idea what direction this blog will head. My only intention is to be start being honest. We’ll see what comes of it.

Preparing for 2013 part 1

 

I’ve decided to go back to creating habits for myself. Knowing that habits will make or break me, last night I wrote down the habits I want to create in my life. Turns out all of them have to do with health and fitness.

Is this a sign?

Oh, wait. There was one habit I did write down that had nothing to do with that category and that was writing! To write a minimum 2 crappy pages a day. Setting the bar low so I can feel good about myself. Stepping stones. Stepping stones.

I planned out my next 6 months of habits. Only one habit a month. Trying to do too many habits at once will make me end up with zero habits in the end. Again, another learning by failing.

I was thinking what habits do I want to have when I’m back home to the states in March. Biking in Amsterdam is already a healthy habit I picked up rather quickly when I moved here so how could I translate that when I head home? From my inspiration on the Nature Quest, I decided that I could take a walk every day no matter where I end up living. Some places back home are more dangerous than others but there’s usually always a side of the road to walk on.

So my first habit I will cultivate is walking for a 1/2 hour everyday. This I will do every day in December and we’ll see what happens from there. The intention is for me to keep this habit going through all the other months so that I continually bring on habits into my every day life. Again, we’ll see how this turns out. Practice, practice, practice.

As for the rest of the months, here they are. These could change and I may even start to do some of them every once in a while to get in the groove but once their month comes around I’m committed.

January: 20 push ups a day

February: Write a minimum 2 crappy pages a day

March: Meditate for 5 mins morning and night

April: 1 hour of me time a day (not sure how this one will go because it’s so vague)

May: Run 1 mile everyday

June: Turn off the internet at 9pm every night

These could all very well change but it’s always good to start with a plan and then change course along the way.

The Land of Bicycles and Chocolate Sprinkles

I have to confess that I didn’t know much about the Netherlands before I came here in January. I had been to Holland once before and that was while I was living in Germany and my host family took me to a zoo in the middle of a city. I can’t tell you the name of that city but I do remember seeing tulips, a windmill, and eating fries.

When the opportunity came for me to live in Amsterdam to go to Knowmads I knew pretty much nothing about the country, the culture, or the people. I only knew 1 Dutch person before I moved here and she was on my basketball team at George Mason University for 1 year so I didn’t get to pick her brain much about what her home country was like. What I’ve come to realize is that she is very typical Dutch. Tall, thin, light hair, and I remember her speaking funny when she spoke in her mother tongue. She also had a really weird last name that was pronounced nothing like it looked (Kooij). She told us to pronounce it like ‘koi.’

I didn’t know much about Amsterdam coming here. When I told my friends and people I worked with where I was going I heard 2 things: canals and bike paths everywhere. The other thing that stuck was that I was warned to stay off the bike paths unless I wanted to get hit by a bike.

So after 8 months of being here (wow I cannot believe I’ve been away from home this long), I’m finally starting to get the hang of this whole Dutch thing. I’ve become an absolute pro at making left hand turns on my bike. I’ve ate more french fries in these 8 months then I have in the last few years (I rarely ate fries). And I’m turning into a hagelslag lover.

What’s hagelslag?

Chocolate sprinkles. And the Dutch know their sprinkles. They have a bigger selection of sprinkles then we Americans have of peanut butters. And sprinkles aren’t for ice cream here as one would think. Nope, the sprinkles are for their bread…in the morning. Take some bread, put on a layer of butter, and then pour…keep pouring, now pour a bit more of the hagelslag on your bread until you end up with a very thick layer of sprinkles.

When I first encountered this strange procedure, I thought it was the weirdest thing. How could sprinkles on bread ever taste good? I thought about how in America we eat donuts with sprinkles but they’re never really my cup of tea (I love the boston cremes). However, my motto is “When in Rome…” so a couple of months ago I finally had my first hagelslag bread. The verdict: quite delicious.

So much in fact that the hagelslag was the main factor of me never going completely paleo when I first started the paleo lifestyle. Now it seems if there’s bread around and sprinkles it immediately has to go in my belly. I try to keep reminding myself, “moderation, moderation, moderation.” I’ve seemed to be eating more sprinkles than normal because I ended up opening the 2 packages of sprinkles I was going to send home to the family. Sorry fam, Kristin got to it first (but that’s to be expected). Here’s what you could’ve experienced it.

Variety pack

Fun surprise that they came in little boxes!

So adorable! They’re like raisin boxes.

 

 

 

Another thing I want to share with you is cold water sinks. Not sure the intention behind only having cold water available in the bathrooms. I’m assuming that whatever the intention it’s probably shared with the non-central heating here in Europe as well. Probably something to do with the environment, maybe? I don’t know. My brain doesn’t really care, it just thinks it’s silly.

Bathroom sink at Knowmads. Notice also how tiny the sink is too. Things are much bigger in America.

Living here for quite a few months has also gotten me to spot the ‘typical Dutch’ things, like the bakfiets, 3 kids and a parent on 1 bike, and the look of the people. I had no idea coming here that the Dutch were known for their good looks. Apparently it’s a land full of tall beautiful people. It took me some time but I have discovered there are 2 types of typical dutch guys. I feel that I’ve gotten quite good at spotting the Dutch in someone. If you asked me to pick the Dutch guy from a line-up I’d feel pretty confident I’d get the right guy.

It’s usually 1 of 2 things that make me say “oh ya, they’re Dutch.” The most popular or one could say dominant in the Dutch gene pool is the skinny face. I can’t really describe what it is but I think it has something to do with the middle of their face. Here’s an example of a typical Dutch guy. This is Tom (pronounced very quickly like ringing a bell). He’s in my tribe and I didn’t ask permission to use his picture on my blog so I hope he doesn’t mind being featured.

Tom is very Dutch. It was also 8am when this picture was taken

The other very Dutch style looks nothing like Tom but I’ve been noticing the look a lot lately. If you don’t know, the Dutch have a lot of redheads. I think it’s borderline normal to be a redhead around here unlike it is back in the states and pretty much every except Ireland. So that is why the following look is also ‘typical dutch.’ This is Jord who is on the council at Knowmads. Again, I didn’t ask permission so I hope he doesn’t mind

Jord: very Dutch

The Dutch girls are a little bit harder to pick from a crowd. Their genes seemed to be a little more mixed than the men’s. But if they’re tall and skinny, you pretty much have a 95% chance that they’re Dutch.

The last thing I want to discuss is the canals and architecture which never seem to get old to me around here. I always find them beautiful and it always reminds me where I am. Never taking for granted that I get to live abroad and experience a different culture filled with weird noises, tons of bikes, and different types of sprinkles.

View from the De Ijsbreaker cafe in Amsterdam East. This is the Amstel river.

 

What Are Your Plans?

Here’s my recent post over at the Knowmads Business School blog. Thought it would help me get back in the groove of writing on my own blog. There’s so much I’ve done while I’ve been away which means lots and lots to write about

Look for more blog posts coming soon!

 

What are you going to do after Knowmads? 

The infamous question I get asked at least once a week and it started 3 months into the program (watch out Tribe 6). It’s not like I haven’t been thinking about it. I’m a very goal oriented person so knowing where I want to head is really important to me.

I actually was already trying to figure out where and what I wanted to be doing after Knowmads the first few weeks I arrived at Knowmads. That’s how much I try to map my life out and set goals.  I spent the last 6 months trying to figure out what my true passion is and how I can turn it into a business.

Turns out that trying to figure out your passion can be extremely exhausting and something quite hard to ‘figure out.’ All those reading this who just knew what their passion was from an early age consider yourself lucky and blessed. It seems like a really nice thing to just know you are going to do something in your life because that’s where your heart takes you. Do you understand how lucky you are?

So while everyone at Knowmads was out traveling throughout Europe during the 3 week holidays, I had the pleasure of spending my time here in Amsterdam because of my work. I had some homework from Tsila (our white witch) to write out 100 things I want to be, 100 things I want to do, and 100 things I want to have. I completed it and learned that what I really enjoy is adventure and sports. If you know me, that doesn’t actually come as a surprise. I’ve played sports all my life, playing basketball in college and Europe and now I’m currently obsessed with Crossfit and Bikram yoga.

The big question is how do I turn what I love to do into an innovative business that makes a contribution to the world?

Then on top of that, how do I make it happen so that I’m doing it by the time my Knowmads year ends?

Well…I had a revelation during the holidays. I had a meeting with some people who run Lev Kaupas(a shared workspace) and they asked what I was up to at the moment during the holidays. I told them I’m working on creating a paleo diet challenge app. I went into detail about how it was going to work and how there’s a need a for more gamification in creating healthy lives.

Then they asked me that infamous question; what are your plans after Knowmads?

Sigh…

I went into whole thing of, “well, that’s my problem. I’ve been trying to figure this out for the past few months blah blah blah.”

Then Ivana from Lev Kaupas enlightened me. In a nutshell she said that I seemed pretty darn passionate about my paleo challenge app so just go with that. Follow what you’re passionate about right now. It may not look like it aligns with the ideas and goals you have in your future but most likely if you follow your heart now, doors that you never saw will open and vwa-lah, you’re doing what you love.

Maybe your passion is just a glorified version of  what you love to do right now. 

Shifting my mindset that I don’t need to know what I’m doing later but just follow what I’m really interested in now will lead me to where I need to go later. It’s the art of letting go. Having faith that everything will work out*.

*As long as you’re taking steps and going after what you love now

So no more deep thinking about what I will be doing after Knowmads. Who really knows that question with doors always opening right and left  with amazing opportunities all because I belong to the Knowmads organization. For now I will just work on what I love and feel is necessary and things will just figure themselves out.

I have faith that come February I will be traveling in some direction which I know I will love.

Do you know your passion? Are you enjoying your passion everyday? Have you always known that’s what you were going to do with your life? Do you have an exercise for figuring out your passion? Would love to hear it in the comments.

Jason Silva

Have you heard of this guy, Jason Silva?

Check out his website and the video on radical openness.

I found him via a TED tweet and think the dude is awesome.

The guy is filled with energy and he makes me want to go out and do cool things. He’s so inspiring to me that I sent him an email yesterday to come and speak at a WTF lecture at Knowmads if he’s ever in Europe.

Cool news in my inbox this morning from him! He’s going to be in Europe in September and wants to see if we can coordinate something.

Get’s my wheels thinking about who else is up to cool stuff that I should invite to Knowmads to learn something from. I’m realizing this Knowmads thing gives me some great bait to reel in awesome people to hang out with us

Who has other suggestions? I’m up for the challenge.

Randomness Around Amsterdam

I’ve been finding a lot of interesting things here in Amsterdam. Most of the time I wish I had my camera with me so I could document. Finally, after many failed attempts of trying to take pictures without an iPhone or camera, I actually have succeeded at bringing my camera with me to most places and whipping it out at the moment I think, “picture moment!”

Here are a few of the random things I have come across while either biking or walking here in Amsterdam.

First up is dance performance on the canals. This practice was taking place on Keizergracht right around the corner from my apt. I stopped because I heard fun music playing and then realized people were about to put on a show on the canal. They even had bleachers set up for the audience.

When I stopped, a woman and her baby on a bike also stopped to gawk. We got to talking and she told me about the gay pride parade that happens on Prinsengracht on the water. She said it’s really a site to see with fun music, crazy decorated boats, and of course lots of dancing. Definitely looking forward to this parade which happens sometime in August or September. Must look it up or ask around for the exact date. Though I know I won’t miss it since the parade starts practically right outside my door. Yay! Gay Pride parades!

DJ booth on a boat

Dancing on the canals

 

Next up is a statue I saw near Olympic Stadium on my way back from Amsterdamse Bos (the Amsterdam Forest). I laughed biking by it and then had to turn around because I could not miss this opportunity for such a great picture. Plus, there’s a very slim chance I’d ever bike all the way down there again pass this woman.

I am not sure what the reasoning is for this statue at a water station of all places but there has to be a story behind it. She looks like she’s saying, “Bring us more rain. We welcome you to Amsterdam.” This MUST be the reason the weather is so crappy here and it’s been pouring down raining every single  friggin’ day for the past week. Let’s get rid of her now!

I like that she’s sporting braids but she needs to be doing a sun dance.

What is she doing here?

Anna from Tribe 5 was my house guest last week and we went on some walks in the Jordaan. We found these fellas enjoying their dinners on the bench. I thought it was the cutest thing. 5 boys squeezing on to one bench. Adorable. Thought about getting one of their email addresses so I could send them the pictures I took of them then couldn’t find the motivation to ask. So now it’s here and a very slim possibility that one of the guys pops onto this blog and notices it’s him with his 4 friends. Would be pretty cool if that actually happened. Livin’ in possibility

Perfect boy band picture

What I’ve noticed about Amsterdam is that the graffiti is more than just cuss words, vulgar sayings, and announcing your love for someone. People go out of their way to paint some inspiring words on the walls. For instance this one because of the obvious reason that I’m a girl who has muscles and I also love when someone breaks a stereotype. Finding out someone doesn’t fit a stereotype is such a nice surprise.

Then there’s this piece of art which is probably someone’s proclamation of love but they did it in an original way. I appreciate that. Adorable again.

None* of your business

I found the poster above on my way to working out one day. Thought it was clever and hilarious. Personally I’m not a fan of hairy armpits but if that’s your cup of tea I won’t judge you for it. I love the message and I think it needs repeating all over the western world. I also love that they didn’t proof read. Oh, those feminists.

That’s all the random pictures for now. I am getting serious in being consciously aware of taking pictures of anything that strikes me as odd or something you wouldn’t necessarily find in America. Look out for similar posts in the future.