Life is beautiful!

Last week was again full of life! Apart from work, which I enjoy very much these days, I did a lot of interesting stuff:

Monday: 1 hour of spinning lesson and 45 minutes of strength exercies

Tuesday: DevNight at Delta-N about Windows Azure cloud application platform

Wednesday: My Russian friends Konstantin and Sergey came over. We had a great sushi meal, and then talked a lot about programming, so that they left at midnight! It was a very enjoyable eveing!

Thursday: The book club at our local library. We talked about "Het Diner" by Herman Koch. A masterly written novel with a great plot, but, in my opinion, still lacking the depth of the Russian classics. The club was led by journalist Dolf Dukker, who did it very well. His theory why this book becase a best seller, contrary to other Koch's book is that it combines the 4 essential elements of human nature: food, territory, procreation and one other that I forgot. We had a great discussion, and the time flew! The next book is "Two Caravans" in June.

Friday:  Went with Anne Sophie to the Ridvan celebratioin in The Hague. Anne Sophie mad herself at home and played with many different people. But she was dead tired when we got home.

Saturday: First a great workout, then shopping, and then I spent the whole evening playing with the kids on the playground opposite our house. And there they were: my Belarusian-Ukrainian-Jewish daughter, a Moroccan girl, a Hindustan girl, 3 Dutch kids and another boy (I'm not ever sure of his origins), all playing together having fun, oblivious of any ethnic or age differences. We played tag and charades and even danced (they asked me to bring some music, so I brought a portable radio receiver). I often take part in their games, because my daughter is still too small to play unattended. But it also creates a fine feeling of community as I'm getting to better know the people in the neighbourhood (both kids and adults).

Sunday: Cleaned and washed the car, then a spinning workout. Then off to Amsterdam to meet an old Oslo University friend from Lithuania, Sarunas, who was visiting Amsterdam for a weekend. We talked a lot (as did Anne Sophie) and enjoyed a nice lunch at the Vondel park, after which I took them to the airport. Then we went to Lena's birthday in Leiden, ate some good food, talked and played some games with our Russian-speaking friends.

And now a brief summary of my sporting stats:
- 3 home-to-work commutes
- 6 hours of fitness

Nutritious & Delicious!

I'm starting to wake up really early (about 6 a.m.), and getting a lot done. Almost every morning I make a delicious breakfast for my family, before I get off to work. Here are some of my healthy breakfast recipes, which me and Luda and Anne Sophie enjoy very much:

Blueberry Smoothie

This is my favorite breakfast. Ingredients vary slightly depending on what is available. This week's ingredients include:

- 2 bananas
- an orange
- half a mango
- 1 cup (frozen) wild blueberries
- 1 table spoon ground flax seeds
- a celery stick
- some organic (frozen) spinach and kale
- half a cup of pomegranate juice

Mix all of this in a high powered blender. Takes 15 minutes to make. Nutritious and delicious! I make this for my whole family 2 times a week. My daughter loves it and calls it "daddy's cocktail"!

Quick Banana Breakfast to Go

We love this, and it only takes 8 minutes to make! So if you're in a hurry, try this:

- 1 cup of frozen wild blueberries
- 1/2 cup of rolled oats (havermout, овсяные хлопья)
- 2 table spoons of ground walnuts
- 1 table spoon of raw sunflower seeds
- 1/3 cup of pomegranate juice
- 2 sliced bananas

Combine everything in a cereal bowl and microwave for 3 minutes. It's really delicious and very healthy. All three of us love it!




Fruit & Berry Smoothie

- 1/2 cup frozen raspberries
- 1/2 cup frozen blueberries
- 1/2 cup strawberries
- 1/2 cup pomegranate juice
- 1/2 cup soy milk
- 2 bananas
- 1 tablespoon ground flax seed

 Blend all this in a high powered blender until creamy and smooth! M-m-m ... A real feast for your palate! I was hesitating whether to add a celery stick, but decided not to.


Enjoy these recipes and let me know what kind of delicious and healthy food you make!

What a Week!

This past week has been great in many respects, including social life, sports and work! Here is a brief summary of the events:

• Starting from Saturday, April 7, we made 4 visits to friends and got one visit ourselves:
• Hedda's birthday at Hedda & Jasper's place was really "gezellig" (nice). Anne Sophie didn't want to leave at 9:30 pm :) She was talking to everybody and reading books with different people!
• Sunday April 8 we went to Yura, Lena & Vadim for the Easter dinner! Vadim got to use my car to practice his driving skills! Anne Sophie couldn't wait for Vadim to get back and she played all evening until 11 pm.
• Monday, me and Anne Sophie went to Yura, Lena and Vadim to play more games and for Vadim to practice some more driving.
• On Thursday after work, Delta-N (my employer) arranged for an info evening and delicious meal at Flamengo's, on the beach of Kijkduin.
• On Friday we had a friend over from Leiden.
• Saturday and Sunday was the museum weekend, so we went to Naturalis, a science museum in Leiden, with Anne Sophie's school friend Yanna, and the next day to the Museon in The Hague with Yanna's sister Paula. Both museums were great fun, with lots of kids activities, but also a lot of interesting information and exhibits for adults. In the Museon, there were also workshops about plants and planting your own flowers and vegetables!



From What a Week!

• We spent the Sunday evening with Marty and Peter, parents of Yanna and Paula. We had a superb dinner and great conversation, while the three girls were having a great time playing together.
• Sports:
• 1 bike commute to work
• 5h 15min of fitness!
• Work: I am currently working on a very interesting project, developing a web service for a customer. I am employing some innovative technologies and writing a lot of unit tests, which I enjoy very much!

Bezieling and inspiration at the Philosophy Cafe

Last week's Philosophy Cafe evening at De Vrije Ruimte (the school that Anne Sophie goes to) was about exploring the concept of "bezieling", a Dutch word meaning something like inspiration, enthusiasm, drive, being on fire, and may well be literally translated into a non-existing English word "ensoulment", the root of the word being "ziel" or soul. Being the only non-native speaker of Dutch in the room, I had difficulty with understanding and feeling the exact meaning and context of this concept. Eventually, I settled with the closest I could come to in my native Russian: "воодушевление" (душа meaning soul).

We divided into two groups based on whether we wanted to think about "bezielen" (inspiring others) or "bezield worden" (getting inspired). As usual, the Philosophy Cafe is at least just as much about a question at hand as about how we approach the question. The method we used this time was 1) to come up with a few concrete examples of how we inspired someone or got inspired ourselves, then 2) choose one such example, 3) let the person describe the situation in as much detail as possible and explain exactly how the concept was manifested in their example, 4) ask clarifying questions about the situation, 5) try to put ourselves into the situation, and from there 6) ponder whether we felt that the situation had to do with the concept in question (bezieling) and explain why.

After 30-40 minutes, the groups joined together again to exchange ideas. Interestingly, the first group (to which I belonged) approached the subject from an individualistic perspective, while the other group was talking about getting inspired in community and solidarity with others. We were invited to think about our criteria for bezieling, resulting in something like: (let someone) discover new things from within, insight, enthusiasm, long-lasting effect, source of energy, being deeply moved, connectedness, joy, etc.

After a break, we proceeded towards attempting at a definition of bezieling, using a number of techniques:

1. keeping to a concrete example and putting ourselves into a situation (see above)
2. thinking of common idioms, proverbs, ideas having to do with the concept at hand
3. identifying what we include in and exclude from our definition
4. exploring whether our definition is necessary and sufficient

Eventually, I came up with the following definition: burning desire to do, make, practice and excel at something. Some other definitions given in the group included: "from standstill to motion", "intense drive leading to remarkable action", etc.

All in all, as always, it was a very enjoyable and thought provoking evening in a good company of special people. Bezield and inspired, I stayed for another half hour or so, talking, listening, sharing ...