Day 1: Hitting the ground running

I'm pleased to tell you that the first day of my week of blogging dangerously was a success! I decided to go to the "Politieke Cafe" - a monthly event organized in Utrecht by the youth division of my political party. Basically, they rent a room in a bar, serve beer and a speaker gives a talk on some kind of current subject.

My night almost failed to launch because I got lost trying the find the bar - even though it's quite near my house. (BTW, I live in a very nice neighborhood so I'm not literally blogging dangerously.) I arrived late, but the atmosphere was pretty casual so it was OK.

The speaker was the head of some kind of urban renewal foundation who talked about the challenges cities will face in the years to come. All in all, it was a very grim talk. He said that seventy percent of minors in both Amsterdam and Rotterdam don't have a 'start kwalificatie' which, I gather, means they're not well situated to achieve financial idependence, e.g., they have substandard education, have a psychological or physical condition, already have a child, etc.

This was a little bit awkward as he was addressing a group of young people who are, in fact, well situated to achieve financial independence (and probably a good deal more than that).

I would have felt more depressed by his talk, but I was distracted by his dreadful powerpoint. I edit powerpoints for my work, and this one made all the usual mistakes plus a few I had never seen before.

The best part of the night, however, came after the lecture. The chair of the youth division's next conference invited us over to his house next Monday for a pre-discussion of one of the policy statements to be reviewed at the conference. I approached him to express my interest in attending and request a copy of said statement. This led to a wide-ranging discussion with several people on how much of your personal life to share with your colleagues, whether the Hague is like Washington, DC, if Facebook could possibly get any more awesome than it is, etc. One guy shared that he had attended the university which produced about one-third of my department, but that he'd transferred after a year because he found the curriculum to be too easy. Interesting.

I got to hand out a few business cards (which, to me, is the ultimate sign of a succesful evening) and made some new contacts. So tonight's interesting and unusual event will, hopefully, lead to more such events for me in the future. And, of course, that is really what this week is all about.