Total Ego Crash

I experienced all highs and lows yesterday... high on my work life, and low... like... on the muddy slippery asphalt in the middle of an intersection low!

It is a little weird to write about work on the internet, so I keep it to a miniumum.  Anyone ever hear of the term dooced?  Well I don't want to be dooced!  And I think HR wouldn't be too thrilled with too much public info.  Check out the original dooce here.  She's hilarious.

Now that I wrote my disclaimer I will write about work anyway.  I had a group meeting with a bunch of NGOs yesterday that I was nervous about, since I was the only person there from my organization and I was to lead the meeting.  But it went great!  I get such a rush from talking to people, talking about our work, and answering questions, it truly is a favorite part of my job.  (shhh, big ego coming in... I think I am pretty good at it too).

So there I am, biking home, with a huge smile on my face and my heart & head swelling a little bit still from my adrenaline rush from the meeting.  It's raining hard and my cute shoes and dry clean only skirt are getting a bit of a soak but I don't care because I had a great afternoon and hey! it rains sometimes in Amsterdam.  I confess, I don't quite understand all biking road rules here yet - I think I know the rules but no one seems to follow them, so I am the nerd waiting for a red light while people zoom past me.  On the occasions that I do venture into the illegal I always seem to get in trouble.  Well, I got into big trouble yesterday!

I have to cross a big intersection and turn left, so I stop at the sign and wait for the light to change.  I'm thinking, "I love my job!  And check me out - all knowledgeable on traffic rules on the bike, isn't this awesome?"  Green light comes on, and all the cars stop so that the bikers can cross.  I go, I bike, I start turning left.  It's a huge intersection and the dotted line for me to follow seems a little unreasonable to me, surely it'd be ok if I take just the turn a little sharper and cross quicker that way?    THEN.   My front wheel gets caught in the sunken tram track in the road (EVERY TOURIST/ROOKIE'S MISTAKE! ARGH!) and I can see it happening in slow motion, I completely crash to the ground.  I am talking laptop and papers all over the road, my bike ten feet away from me, and me crashing and scraping my entire left side on the asphalt.   In Dutch we have a word for this: afgang. It means a totally embarrassing and totally visible something happening to you.  Well, this was major afgang.  I am in a huge intersection and I am sure everyone is thinking "what an idiot!".   Hopefully they weren't also thinking "I think I saw her undies". 

I stand up, gather my things as quickly as I can.  My skirt is muddy and I am bleeding from my knees and ankles.  I try to gather whatever dignity I have left and ignore the shooting pain on my butt cheeks.  As I try to get back on my bike two girls on a TANDEM (double bike, completely difficult to navigate! but of course they do it gracefully) glide up to me and stop to help me up.  After showing some serious concern they try to make me feel better by saying "hey, everyone in this town falls off their bike at least once".

My butt hurts so bad that I am having a hard time sitting down.  I had to bike all the way home standing up, and am perched rather awkwardly on my work chair right now.  And I have a two hour train ride to Belgium this evening!  Doh! 

I went home and nursed my wounds... but also my poor ego!  I hate making the typical mistake.  But I will be more careful biking in the rain next time, and around those damn tram tracks!   

Comments

[caitlin]

so, don't worry SO much about the problem. it's not SO obviously bad.

[Ali G]

ouch... i hate bikes. after years of traumatic memories from a paper route (imagine how much of a mess a spill can make when all you're carrying is a load of sunday papers) and getting hit by a bike while walking to work in nyc, i basically run in the other direction when i see one (or jump behind heron, which he thinks is funny - the bastard). i prob wouldn't do well in amsterdam. but i would get lots of exercise - all that jumping...

[Andre]

Its a shame nobody got a picture of you so you could post it! I'd pay some good money for that!

[Ali G]

you really need to post more often. i need more reasons to procrastinate.