Introducing the Moving Mood Meter

I just want to try something here. Since my attitude towards the move to Amsterdam keeps changing all the time, I thought it would be cool to keep track of that. It's just a rough approximation of how I'm feeling at that moment on a scale from 1 - 100. I call it the Moving Mood Meter, or Triple M (or M3, or M&M&M, the possibilities are endless!).

Triple M Score: 65 out of 100

P.S. Of course, I might tire of this in the future, which means I may or may not continue to do this until September 1^st.

Emotions are your closest companions.

No matter where you are, in the best and in the worst of times, they are always there with you.

They also require a lot of attention.

Treat them well, and they will repay you tenfold.
Fail to acknowledge them however, and they will make your life a living nightmare.


See this as my way of making amends...

Valentine's Day...

... sucks when you're feeling lonely.


But it does wonders for your inspiration...

I’m feeling really unmotivated at work lately. One of the main reasons is that I don’t have the feeling that the company really cares whether and how many people actually make the move to Amsterdam. There have hardly been any attempts to boost morale at all, so I’m a bit disappointed. I was pretty enthusiastic in the beginning, but now I feel a bit down about the whole thing. I do feel appreciation from the people in the department, it’s just that the organization and HR have done so little in my opinion during the whole process.

Also, due to the reorganization, I’ve taken some extra tasks, and I think the workload is starting to get to me. I just feel so apathetic at the moment, which is lethal for your job satisfaction. I just feel like taking 3 weeks off and not thinking about work at all.

Combine that with my non-existent love life, and I’m feeling a little blue and restless lately. I guess I can only fool myself for so long that I don’t need anyone. But I have no idea at all what to do about it. It sounds so easy when other people say it: Just go for it, so what if you get rejected? But it’s just all so unnatural for me.

Maybe the whole problem is that I only feel urge to say how I feel when I really, really, really like a person. But by then, every rejection I get feels like a dagger in my heart, and it affects not just the way I think about love, but also my whole life as well. And then it gets even harder next time to say how I feel, and as a result the next rejection hurts even more. And so on. After a few of those, I just got cynical I guess, and start to believe that it’s not worth all the pain and frustration. Maybe I just need therapy. I’m becoming 30 this year, and I’ve never been with anyone before in my life. I don’t think that’s normal.

Oh well, it probably sounds worse than it is. It’s not like I’m depressed or anything. I’m still pretty happy. But like I said before, I’m trying to be more open about my feelings, and this is for me still the easiest way to do that. Who knows, maybe it will actually help to get these feelings off my chest, instead of cropping them up within myself.

The Inner War Saga

Apart from a shameless attempt to boost the number of posts, I also intended the previous two posts as a sort of introduction for this one.

However, I hadn’t really decided beforehand on the approach for this article. I was playing with the idea of using fantasy metaphors to describe my “dark” and “light” sides without any explanation beforehand. Something like this, only better worked out:

For years, the dark forces have oppressed the lands of Danteoria, while the light forces were too weak and too disorganized to oppose the dark forces. However, rather than give up, the light forces laid in hiding, building up their strength while waiting for the right moment to fight back. A few years ago, that moment finally arrived, and against all odds, the light forces were actually able to hold their own against the dark forces, and were even able to regain most of the territories. Once again, the people of Danteoria feel hope that one day the dark forces will be defeated.

Of course, this is incredibly nerdy, no matter how much of a nerd I still feel like sometimes :-). And I was afraid people will get confused if I just start writing like that. But still, I like the idea too much to abandon it altogether, so I decided to do this explanation thing as well.

However, despite regaining some key territories like Labouria and Socialia, the capital of Amouria is still in enemy hands. But all attempts to date to regain control have failed miserably, and the light forces suffered heavy losses as a result. The leaders are now discussing whether it is wiser to leave Amouria to the enemy. Most other territories are firmly under Light control, and they are confident that the enemy does not have the necessary troops to regain them. However, if they keep expending too much energy towards regaining Amouria, these other territories will come under heavy pressure. Maybe the time has come to propose some sort of peace, awkward though it may be.

If this was a real (real in this case meaning imaginary of course) story, then the protagonist will object against making peace with the dark forces, while in the end triumphing against all odds. Of course, it will take at least three books to accomplish that (somehow it’s not really fantasy when it’s not at least a trilogy), so the road is long and hard.

But since this is a fake (fake in this case meaning real - I hope you’re still with me :-)) story, I’m not sure it will necessarily end that way. I hope the protagonist in me is strong enough. It’s just that I feel that it’s not really worth the trouble anymore. I’ve really tried my best, and it’s far from enough, so why bother? Still, I haven’t entirely given up hope yet, guess that part of me refuses to go away. So who knows, maybe it will still work out in the end like above (though I wonder on which book I am in that case).

P.S. I apologize if this was a bit too weird for your tastes, but I was just experimenting. It’s not something I would do again, I think it loses its coolness(?) after you’ve done it once. And please don't mind the bad writing, I was too lazy to edit the whole story.