Insomnia, Libraries, and Loose Ends

Last Workday Feelings

As yesterday marked my final day at work in 2025, my Out-of-Office notice simply stated that I would be returning in 2026, without specifying a date. It made yesterday feel like the start of a weekend, which it wasn't, but your mind tends to play tricks on you. Then, I’ll be channelling Brian.

That feeling had one benefit: I wasn't too bothered by the nighttime insomnia that affected me more than expected. By the afternoon, I was barely able to concentrate or stay awake. I had to ask to leave early, and it still took another 90 minutes to exit the office.

The Mandatory Training Dilemma

At home, I enjoyed a good lie-in, but I couldn't shake the thought of the mandatory training I had to complete before the year ended. I needed to get it done quickly before genuine holiday feelings set in. However, I must admit, I have commitments to certain social events that prevent me from leaving Manchester soon.

I planned to finish the mandatory training at the central library, which has a large reading room. The downside was that if you don't arrive early, you might not find a socket for your laptop. When I finally found a socket, it wasn't working.

Back to the Office

Soon, I was struggling, but I got halfway through the course before deciding that heading to the office would provide everything I needed to complete my tasks for the year: connectivity, lighting, comfort, familiarity, and ambience.

Colleagues were surprised to see me back, especially since I had already said goodbye most of the day before. Brian guessed I might be the last to leave, as I had arrived just before 3:00 PM. I didn’t pursue that conversation, since he could easily have asked me to leave the office before I finished.

Mission Accomplished

I completed the mandatory training on Agentic AI and scored top marks in the assessment, then did another Health and Safety course that wouldn't be due for another month. I seized the opportunity to do it now, and it was best to get it out of the way.

I can now effectively close for the year. Any activity or study from this point onward can be undertaken at leisure, without the pressure of deadlines. As Brian prognosticated, I am the last one in the office. It also means I won’t have to return until 2026. What a wonderful year it has been.

A library of society

The library

Getting a place to sit in the magnificent Amsterdam Public Library [1] is not an easy task especially when you arrive in the early afternoon.

The library offers free wireless internet access after registration; there are banks of computers on most floors with Apple iMacs and Windows PCs, a restaurant on the ground floor and the one the 7^th is a buffet restaurant of ingredients that get cooked for you after selection.

It is serious as it is social with seven floors, there is no doubt that the examinations season is round the corner, I have seen similar copies of high school examination preparation materials on desks as students swot and sometimes cram to get the best scores.

The people

Literally everyone one of them has a laptop, most of them are Apple iBooks but you can see other popular brands too. One even had an iPad and as he typed away at the screen, I thought about the luxury of fads without the feedback of clicking keys.

Everyone seemed to have one musical device of the other and the headphones were probably best suited for a recording studio, I doubt any were listening to anything classical.

Their scientific calculators are huge; it makes you wonder what new calculations have entered the curriculum since I left high school 3 decades ago.

The culture

They quite conveniently ignore library decorum especially when groups of friends band together in discussion that rarely pertains to the purpose for which they have come to the library.

Indeed social development is just as important as educational prowess, many people form their life-long networks from their teens and that matters a lot amongst the Dutch.

I have many a time lamented the fact that the Dutch with all their tolerance rarely have a social circle that extends beyond that which they formed since year dot. The ones that do in most cases have really broken free from the structure and plunge themselves into other settings by reason of having travelled and lived in other countries or also acquired for themselves foreign partners.

The annoyance

Yesterday evening there was a rather raucous group at my reading table who at one time reckoned they were being a nuisance when I looked up. However, some 20 minutes after, a particular lady who just could not keep it low got to me.

I banged my fists of the table in exasperation, reminded them they were in a library, conceded they needed to have discussions but admonished them to be considerate.

Now, I was not against their communicating but it fell completely silent and they appeared to self-censure each other when the decibel level rose and eventually they left.

The inconsiderate

Whilst I was minded to get the staff to deal with them, I felt it was important to gauge their reaction to my protest before seeking additional help.

Again, in settings like this, one is not sure if they will take kindly to being told off, some people just cannot bear to be told to exercise a modicum of civility.

In the end, not an apology was offered, not that it mattered, and the expectation of good manners will always leave me utterly disappointed.

Sources

[1] Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam

Amsterdam Public Library – Facts and Figures

Ignoring the Sabbath for church and library

Getting up for church

My church runs two services on Sunday, the early one starts at 10:15AM and the later one at 12:15PM, in the last two weeks I have woken up early enough to attend the first service but end up going for the second one instead with more than enough time to spare.

In general, my alarm which is on my mobile phone is set to wake me up at 8:10AM on Sunday morning, however, stirring up at that time is just not as easy as it sounds, after a few snooze taps which last 5 minutes, I dismiss the alarm and get out of bed, immediately preparing to go to church.

Up for firsts but doing seconds

Last week, though the weather was dreadfully cold and inclement, I was already at the tram stop when I realised I hadn’t pocketed my wallet and had to return, so I took the opportunity of missing the rushed attempt to catch the first service to relax and have breakfast then plan for the second service instead – I probably was amongst the first to arrive primarily for the second service.

This week, I was already dressed up and ready to leave for the first service then decided it was better to have breakfast and plan for an early arrival at the second service, it also allowed me to take my morning pills at home rather than at church.

In fact, I am thinking of moving my pill hours from the awkward eleventh and twenty-third hour of the day to something more reasonable around the 10th and 22nd or the 9th and 21st – ideally, the last option is probably the best time, consideration of the 8th and 20th is a possibility too – I have to work on the logistics of the pill times.

The library is full

After church, I planned on spending a few hours at the Amsterdam Public Library [1], a 7-storey expansive edifice with reading tables, 600 computers split between Apple Macs and PCs, free wireless access upon registration, a number of theatres with performances, cafes, restaurants and all sorts of areas for many kinds of activities.

I usually take a place on the 5th floor which is quiet and secluded enough whilst offering the opportunity to study or do some work and even talk on the phone.

Arriving at a few minutes to four in the afternoon, the library seemed to be completely full, none of those seeming secluded places were available, I walked most of the floors to no avail, on a second run of the floors, I found a space on a communal table to do some work.

The serious youth of Amsterdam

I should have reckoned that with the mild sunny weather people would come out to play, but again, it was not like people were out to play but to read and study, the examination times for the universities, colleges and the like must be quite near.

One would be taken aback realising for once that there is indeed a serious side to Amsterdam youth and their education, it is unlikely that many of these people were out clubbing on Saturday night doing everything to excess and nursing hangovers on Sunday.

What church?

In the same vein, I do not think many of the attendees, who were not in hijabs and all those ostentatious turbans, warps and religious or cultural coverings had gone to church in this supposedly Christian country.

The Sabbath does not get observed anymore, from what I could see of the library this afternoon, very few were here with their kids running about and this could easily have been a weekday with work as usual.

If anything, the people of Amsterdam do come out to read and study, the library provides a great atmosphere to get things done, I wish them all good luck with their examinations – it is quite gratifying to see this, really it is.

Sources

[1] Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam – Public Library Amsterdam

The presidential library lends out colouring book

The damage of laughter

If my computer desk stool were not a strait jacket contraption that keeps me from overreacting to things I read in the news, I would have brought myself into greater harm than any triage team would have been able to deal with, all from fits of uncontrollable laughter and involuntary spasms.

George W. Bush is proposing a presidential library at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas to be built after his term and many would wonder what it would contain.

Generally, a presidential library would contain the bequest of presidential papers, documents, archives, records and other unclassified information pertaining to a president’s term of office from the time of Herbert Hoover.

Much to read or plenty to colour?

In the case of George W. Bush, being a two-term president along with all the world defining events encapsulated in chapters that would be emblazoned from the twin towers collapsing upon themselves in a hail of dust through the chants of USA, onto the Mission Accomplished “Hot Gun” stunt into Mess-O-Potamia and the kindling of World War III in the Middle East, there must be a lot for any researcher to leaf through long after we have all turned to dust.

Some dons in the university have been raising hackles, they do not want the academic purity of their esteemed institution to be tarnished with such a presidential legacy, and it is unlikely that any other university would be leaping into the fray for consideration.

Wherever that library gets built and stocked, be it in the cowboy corral of the Crawford ranch or some other Wild West memorial where you are welcomed with a Texan twang delivered by a Dubbiyew look-a-like in a 10-Gallon hat, it is unlikely that there would be much to read or research.

Many would leave knowing that all the pages were large blocks of blanking, blacking or blotting out all text that the only thing we would make out would be 2 or 3-letter prepositions or words strung together as “on - by - and - to - who” leaving the every researcher the liberty to fill in the blanks with imagination beyond what this administration has ever dared to think up.

Shush! It is a secret

The reason being, in 2001, the president signed an executive order restricting access to presidential records in library archives, the cult of secrecy that pervades this administration would make a freemasonry look like an open beach on a summer holiday and this ghoulish tendency is expected to live beyond this regime.

The amazing thing about the way humanity and history works is that whatever has been done ever and has been witnessed to by more than one person, even if they are all sworn to secrecy on a blood oath, light eventually gets shone on that pact and through the ingenuity of the seeker of knowledge the truth does get revealed.

History will not be rewritten

Concealing the evidence in those archives with an executive order might keep us from seeing some facts about the workings of the Bush administration, but it would not change the lasting legacy of this regime, neither can it change the course of how history would be written and how this regime would be judged and probably quite harshly eventually.

Knowing that the Bush administration already has form, we can deduce that if a visit to the library does not require taking along your wax crayons rather than notepad, we would know that one of the things this regime did was cart $12 Billion cash weighing 360 tonnes into a war zone – how is that for a trailer introducing the George W. Bush Presidential Library?

References

The trailer

The US sent pallets of cash into Iraq