JOB
Finally moved out of Steenland (but also away from chocolates!). Since Sep 2003 I joined BTC Europe. It is a computer company with HQ in Taiwan. They have an office in Holland, which happened to be in the same place I live (Capelle a/d Ijssel, just East of Rotterdam). I have been to job interviews everywhere - Hong Kong, London, Belgium... and I ended up with a company which is 7 minutes away from home (both biking and driving will take the same time, because on bike lanes I there are tunnels which are shortcuts and I don't have to stop for traffic lights!).
What I do now is quite different from what I did in the last few years. At the moment I am material/logistic planner for OEM business, and my customer is HP Europe. So when you see the keyboards and mouses in a HP PC set in the shop, chances are, they are from BTC.
In 2004, I am looking forward to taking on more commercial tasks at work, and become the Account Manager for HP in Europe for BTC. It seems to be promissing and a good opportunity for me. I am quite happy with this job. :-)
Besides work, I am still living in the same flat. Most of the time with Koen and my sister Kitty... oh yes and a new member is Minet the cat. It all started when one day I came up with this idea of "borrowing" 1 of the 3 cats Koen's Mum has, for a few weeks to see if we are capable and suitable in taking on the responsibility of having a cat at home (don't want to get a kitten home and find out after a month we are not ready for having a cat!). It turns out Minet is enjoying her stay very much...
These days Koen is brewing beer at home. Result is getting better and better. :-) Kitty is writing up her thesis while having a part time job in Eastman.
Christmas we stayed in NL while my parents went back to Hong Kong. On Boxing Day me and Koen flew over to London to see Karen. We stayed her flat (with new bathroom and kitchen this year!) We rent a car and drove West to Bath, then to Exmoor (national park in South-West England. It was nice and we did some hiking. On the way back to London we dropped by Cheddar - yes that's where Cheddar cheese were made!! But we didn't get to see any cheese! (it's 31-Dec so most shops were closed). We visited the gorge and caves there instead.
New year's eve we had a nice dinner party at Karen's.
We are planning to visit Hong Kong and other parts of China (Beijing a must) later this year. Probably in April. First of course I need to get my work on track, plan everything in advance, and most important of all, train up a back up in my office or else I won't be able to take long holidays!
