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Johto4953 Posts
It is September. It has been 10 months since I moved to the Netherlands (from Germany) to work for TL. As my one year anniversary here in the Netherlands comes closer, I guess it is time to look back a bit. Working for Team Liquid feels very similar to working at a startup. There are not a lot of people working at Team Liquid full time, and especially living at the HQ, you get to know some of the staffers on a very personal level. Purely on a work and living thing, being here has been a blast. I really do like the people living here with me, working with me on a daily basis. I have worked on big companies before (an experience I will probably try to avoid in the future, too much bureaucracy), and I very much enjoy working in such a smaller company again.
Working on providing the technical platform of Liquipedia (as well as some other things, but especially Liquipedia) is way more than a job for me. I had volunteered on Liquipedia ever since early 2013. I was a staffer somewhere in the middle of 2014 since some people apparently deemed me helpful, and since the end of 2015 I have the chance to go even further with what i do on Liquipedia. I have the opportunity to shape this platform that so many people visit on daily basis, that I myself use daily even beyond work. I get to work alongside the awesome staffers of Liquipedia as well as its contributors, I couldn't be happier with what I do for a living.
The Dutch people are also very nice. If you ever try to move to the Netherlands, basically everyone speaks English. And if you actually manage to find someone who doesn't speak English (which is pretty hard), they probably speak German or French. Especially German I obviously know quite well. When I go somewhere and I start speaking English, everyone just answers in English and it's not a big deal, and I think that's a great thing because it makes you feel welcomed to an extent. I still want to learn Dutch though, I probably should get onto that :x
Living abroad also has some challenges though. I was asked just recently how I felt about living far from family (or more precise I was asked how I felt living in the Netherlands, but the question kind of means the same thing to me), and I answered "It's fine" without thinking much about it. I have since thought about the question though, as it appears as a more difficult question on second thought. Most of the time I indeed do not think about it too much, but on some days, things are different. Whilst I am happy here, on some of these days I feel like I'm missing out. I left my old life behind, left friends and family back in Germany. In some ways it would probably even be correct to say I fled. Life goes on one way or another, and not talking to your friends on a daily or at least weekly basis makes it hard to maintain some of these friendships. You figure out pretty fast which friendships are the important ones in a situation like this, and which ones are not. If you only have an hour a day to maintain friendships, you will obviously spend this hour with the friendships that are most important to you.
The other part is family, which in some ways is easier, whilst it is harder in other ways. You know you will "always" have them available, but this comes at the risk of neglecting family. Family is very important for me, as it provides an anchor in life I don't have anywhere else, so I really do not want to neglect it, but at the same time I can't travel home every weekend, it is just too expensive (especially since I tend to spend my money on other things already, that are very important to me as well). Being abroad, staying connected with my family is probably the biggest challenge I face.
An especially noticeable episode (that is not exactly family, but feels like it) I will tell here. July 12th is historically a very important day for me. This date I always spent in the same way over the past 7 years, I even got myself fired from a job once because I decided that showing up for work was not important enough for me to skip this date. This year I didn't go to the anniversary. I don't remember when I made the decision, I think it was some time around April. I'm not even sure what made me decide that, I could easily have taken some days of to go, I'm not owing anyone an explanation even. It was a hard day, it feels like missing out on life. I still don't regret the decision though, in my opinion it was the right thing to do this year. It was hard to go with this, but in the end I am glad I did it. Being this far from home gave me a new perspective on a couple things, and it is for the better in my opinion, even though it is hard sometimes.
At this point, I'm honestly not quite sure where I want to go with this blog. For now I'll stay where I am, seated in the Netherlands, we will see what the future holds for me. I guess I just wanted to put into words what is in my mind these days. Going to go with some shout outs and end here I guess.
Shout outs go to salle's bad puns even though I hate them, also shout outs to everyone else who puts up with me, especially all the Liquipedia people, and a very special shout out to Falling who doesn't see this coming, might not even see this and probably doesn't know why he gets a special shout out, but I like you man  (PM me in case you are curious ^^)
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Glad you're enjoying The Netherlands. Have you visited any of their beautiful cities? Rotterdam remains my favourite, but for everyday living - I prefer The Hague. Leiden will be my go-to if I ever want to live a more quiet life, Delft is a close second.
I hope Nazgul is showing you some of Holland's foods like De Ruijter, Haring, Croquettes. I don't personally enjoy any of them, but it was fun to try once.
Also, I highly suggest their Joppiesaus Potato Chips
If you ever try to move to the Netherlands, basically everyone speaks English. And if you actually manage to find someone who doesn't speak English (which is pretty hard), they probably speak German or French. Especially German I obviously know quite well. When I go somewhere and I start speaking English, everyone just answers in English and it's not a big deal, and I think that's a great thing because it makes you feel welcomed to an extent. I still want to learn Dutch though, I probably should get onto that :x
I always felt the opposite. Whenever I move and work in a new country, I get incredibly anxious that I force others to speak my language because I couldn't learn their's (and I usually end up moving again before ever learning the language).
My other thought is that because I don't speak the language, it forces an inconvenience on everyone to either talk to or about me or talk in the language I can speak. If they forget or just revert back to their language to better articulate what they want to say - I either have the choice to remind them awkwardly or let the conversation go on without me. If I ever want to start a conversation, casual or to make appointment on the phone, I have to open with "Hello, do you speak English?" or either have them speak to me first and I have to state that I am sorry and that I do not speak X language.
At the beginning, it's not a big deal, but after ~10 years (when I was growing up in Quebec and then later on moving to Berlin, Denmark, Germany working with Koreans, Danes/Swedes, Germans, etc.) it definitely played a heavy toll and weighed a lot on me. I'm curious if you will or have ever felt similar.
I'll be relocating to The Netherlands in the coming months, hopefully we can meet up sometime.
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Johto4953 Posts
Well, since Dutch is pretty similar to German, i can understand most of it, i just can't speak it.
EDIT: When you relocate, let me know and we can have a couple beers or smth.
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Netherlands5161 Posts
I always get a little jealous when I read blogs about TL members becoming an employee at the HQ.
If you want to learn Dutch but lack some motivation just ask your co-workers and local friends to only speak Dutch outside working hours, try to talk back in Dutch and just replace whichever words you don't know yet with English ones.
Labelling every day household items (with the right article in front) can really help too.
nu.nl for news in Dutch. Or if you're into reading try a Dutch book, since you're German it shouldn't be too hard to understand.
(Many popular English books have Dutch translated versions.)
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Sweden5554 Posts
The only Dutch person in the office is Nazgul. We're all from different places. I'm from Sweden, FO is from Germany, R1CH is from the UK, and Juno is from Canada.
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Do you guys really spar like in plexa and waffles?
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I think it's possible to maintain relationships over the internet with skype and such good luck yo~
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Johto4953 Posts
On September 05 2016 13:06 hellokitty[hk] wrote:
Do you guys really spar like in plexa and waffles?
heh we'll leave that up to your imagination ^^
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Netherlands6188 Posts
Awww ^_^
Can't believe you've been there so long already! Feels like just a few weeks ago you were about to move. Damn, is that how long I've been off irc?
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Johto4953 Posts
On September 05 2016 20:17 dravernor wrote:
Awww ^_^
Can't believe you've been there so long already! Feels like just a few weeks ago you were about to move. Damn, is that how long I've been off irc?
Yeah get back there, we miss you
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TLADT24920 Posts
Nice blog. Sounds like you're having a blast at TL HQ. Can we get some pictures of the HQ? lol. While moving away is great for the new experience, it's always pretty rough from the family perspective. Maybe consider going bi-yearly in the future?
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
Ugh why would you do a 10-month blog. I was about to do my one-year blog in a week or so.
Beaten to the punch by FO-nub.
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France9034 Posts
That was a cool read.
Every day I feel like you're happy with where you are and what you do, and that's a good feeling.
I often admire people who manage to live abroad, leaving a lot behind (well, not in the sense of "abandoning"...). I think I'd have a hard time making the leap, out of... probably apprehension and uncertainty, things I don't really like. And I'm somewhat envious of those who made it, and like to hear about positive experiences.
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Really touching story, GL with life dude. Cheers.
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EPT
