maandag
My gods it's been a while, sorry about this. IFA fucked up my schedule and then I couldn't get it back on track because of summit a few weeks later. Then I got sick for the majority of the past 3 weeks.
It’s been a wild past couple months.
Today I finally set up an appointment to get my BSN from gemeente Enschede - Den Haag would not tell me what happened no matter how many times I contacted them, and they suggested I pay for the extraction from Enschede. Except my US phone number stopped working and I needed to call to make an appointment.
Could I have set up an appointment online? Only if I had my DigiD account created, which I need my BSN for. 🙃
So I got a Dutch phone number. Except I couldn't get an eSIM when I ordered because my ID is a foreign card. That's fine, KPN says I can get my eSIM once I add the subscription to my account. I get the card and....
I need to receive a text code to verify the number and add the subscription to my account. But my phone doesn't have a SIM card slot and I can't receive a text. 😭
to the rescue! He tells me he has an older phone that I can use to install the SIM card to get a text messaged code on. I do, I get the text message, I successfully add the subscription to my KPN account. I go to request an eSIM...
...
Yeah it fails. Because my bank account linked to my KPN account isn't a Dutch one.
Which I need a BSN for.
🤪
All this just so I can make a phone call.
BUT IT'S DONE. Next Tuesday I get my BSN, hopefully, which solves a bunch of problems I currently have (like no more medication and no health insurance, extra taxes being taken, and finishing my 30% tax ruling application).
September was rough y'all. 🥲
dinsdag
Rhys started school this month! He's only going twice a week right now, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, as they teach him the basics of Dutch and figure out what his technical skills are - starting next month he goes full time.
He has to take the bus right now until we get bikes (and he learns how to ride), and we've been gradually having him make the trip in small chunks by himself. Today he got his connecting bus from Enschede Centraal by himself, and met my husband there after school.
It is so bizarre giving Rhys the independence of public transportation without the means to contact us, despite it being something I was doing at age 12/13 to visit friends and go to the mall. It just wasn't something he grew up with needing, we were always close to his friends, schools, and had a car to get to everything else.
He did so well today though. 😭 He's growing up so much, I don't like it. 😭😭😭
Franck secured the venue for our meetup on 7 November! 🙌🏻 He's doing so much these days that I feel awful for him picking this up but I'm also really grateful since I'm running the entirety of our Community Day (plus he speaks Dutch so it's probably easier to book things this way).
I'm going to WICCON in Haarlem next week (we're sponsoring it!) and we're trying to get some community members to join us - so I posted a message in the Dutch FB group in het Nederlands! I translated it all using Kagi Translate, asked one person dumb questions, and asked another to check if the message translates well. Here's hoping we get volunteers! 🥰
Tonight I got a toilet stool for the bathrooms because our toilets are so tall that I'm on my tippy toes when I use them and it's awful. I'm looking forward to sitting on a toilet like normal again. 😂
woensdag
I
Hate
Emails
I didn't realize how much trauma I have from Microsoft and living in email as a main form of communication until I started doing the emails for merch for Community Day. 🫠 I'm so used to solely using chat programs for work right now, and it's just so much better overall.
But we are almost done! I hope we make this easier for the next Community Day. Having a website hosts can make orders on and making sure they have coupons will probably go a long way.
Today's PHP CVEs and Root CA vulnerabilities have been very interesting to watch from the outside, and it made me grateful the worst thing I had to deal with today was email and spreadsheets. 😆
I got some compression socks to help when I travel and need to be on my feet during events. Managed to buy the perfect size for me. They're weird to wear but hey as long as they work.
donderdag
How is it Thursday already???
Oh right, because I didn't work on Monday. Really makes the week go fast lol.
Paid for the storage of our stuff from the US today...
OH YEAH OUR STUFF IS IN THE NETHERLANDS NOW
... and I'm planning out getting it all delivered next month after I get my taxes sorted finally.
It'll be about 6 months since I moved here to finally get everything sorted out. I’m so looking forward to the house feeling like ours and not like we’re just living somewhere.
Having more money to replace things again will also help. I miss my smart home. 😭
vrijdag
Today was a roller coaster at work. Lots of overly frustrating things happening while I'm absolutely overwhelmed with tasks, but the day ended fairly amusingly.
JPL/NASA reached out to tell us someone was hitting their satellite API at a ridiculous rate and we found out it's linked to a community member who's been a pain of ours on the forums for the past week or so. 😂 We didn't need to but we did outreach to the dude because the only way to privately talk to him currently is through forum DM. Otherwise we'd have to blast him publicly on the repo for his custom integration and that didn't feel right. 😆
Just an excellently amusing way to finish a particularly frustrating day.
Rhys had a wellness check today where we found out he's officially taller than me. 😭 I'm 167.6cm tall and he's 167.8cm. 😂 He's on track to be 190cm (roughly 6'4").
zaterdag en zondag
Went to the Saturday market in Enschede city center because I needed to go buy some Halloween decorations for our booth at WICCON - can’t really get them in my village lol. The pickings weren’t great, but I was able to find good enough things plus costume pieces for myself. Devil and vampire. Gonna have some fun next week.
The market is amazing, reminds me so much of the Saturday Market in Portland. THERE ARE SO MANY CHEESE STALLS. We’re gonna set up a plan and make sure we go there with intention next time.
I also spent 5ish hours working. 😭
Sunday I traveled to Den Haag to get my nails done because the salon I found in Enschede is ran by a woman who just sits and talks politics with me since I’m American. It’s not uncommon that this happens but I really don’t want my self care time taken up talks about things that bring me trauma. The owner is a fan of Trump and she finds me fascinating.
Good news is that the nail quality was so shit it was easy to just not go back… but finding a nail salon that’s ran by Asians is difficult in Enschede. I don’t trust anyone else to really do my nails now, and the salon I found in Den Haag has the nicest ladies.
Could I have gone to a city closer, like Utrecht? Yes. But I really liked the ladies at the place in Den Haag lol.
It also gave me the chance to stop at the coffeeshop (weed shop, for those who don’t know) we used to go to. While marijuana is legal in Twente, concentrate isn’t, which means we can’t buy edibles! So I bought some edibles we used to get as treats.
Might be the new monthly thing - go to Den Haag to do my nails and buy some treats. 😆
Took this chance to see how well the compression socks work, too. Virtually no swelling on the way there, which historically traveling the 3 hours between Den Haag and Enschede has resulted in swollen ankles. 👏🏻
Next week is busy: two days working, three at WICCON, finalizing merch orders for Community Day, and beta week starts. 🥲 Traveling to Haarlem and being on my feet for half the week means I really get to give the compression socks a test.
Man, getting older sucks. 🙃