Hold on Magnolia to that great highway moon…

July-December 2008

To summarize four-five months in one post is not easy. I tried to summarize three in the past post and that was easier, but that was because it was quite strong emotions and feelings during that time. From the end of July and onwards things started looking quite good, but I was still a bit curious to what a move to Amsterdam would mean. Almost half a year into living in Amsterdam it is pretty much what I'd expected - interesting and quite fun but you don't really feel at home in this city. Not as much as I'd like at least.

I don't know if anyone really feels at home here in Amsterdam. Of course it's full of annoying tourists and ex-pats, but the Dutch people that live here are in a lot of cases people who's moved in here from the "countryside" to be closer  to work, but once they get kids they'll move out again, to be replaced by either ex-pats or boers from the countryside.

I'm quite comfortable in the apartment here, but I really don't feel at home in the city. At least I'm not getting lost all the time like I used to. But its not like Den Haag. I couldn't say exactly what I'm missing from that city, but in general the atmosphere is completely different than here in Amsterdam. If I would have a five year plan á la Stalinist Soviet, then living in Amsterdam is definitively not part of the final stage.

This fall went incredibly fast and it might also be the busiest period of my life so far. Not so strange perhaps considering I moved into an apartment that didn't even have floor or painted walls and started at a new job, my first real job if you will. First job where I have an unlimited contract and which isn't some call centre kind of job.

It's a very interesting job, extremely fast paced and no two days are quite the same actually. I also feel pretty lucky to be able to work in an environment where a big majority of the computers run Linux. A gross estimate is that out of perhaps 200 machines at work, only 50 run Windows in some way. Maintaining Linux systems are so extremely different than Windows. Windows problems only causes annoyance in most cases, the only good thing you get out of solving a Windows problem is perhaps a user that appreciates you fixing it. Linux is completely different. Either you can solve it from just typing a few commands on your own workstation, which of course is über cool and not to speak of user friendly, or you really have to think of a good solution, and in most cases there are more than one solution that can be figured out in a bunch of different ways, which also makes it more interesting and challenging.

I've also gotten quite interested in networking since starting at the new job, and working to get a Cisco certification is probably a very good plan for the future. But I've also got some other ideas of what I want to do when I grow up :)

As usual I went home to Sweden at the end of December, this time during Christmas instead of new years. Christmas in Sweden didn't really turn out the way we'd all though, to put it mildly.. I'm still struggling to understand the possible repercussions it could mean, that is if it is like we all fear. The result of this might change a lot of things in the near future... Now im going to try to get some sleep, something which has been increasingly difficult since Christmas.