Last week, while sorting out old boxes, I found the application letter I sent to the university in Rome five years ago. There was only one spot available for exchange students of my home university in Amsterdam, and when rereading my letter now, one thing got very clear. It was simply not an option for my younger self that I wouldn’t get it.
Determined, curious, very open, eager to learn and slightly impatient, I read. Although this is still true, at this point completely different words would come to my mind first
The letter opens almost immediately with “how my friends would describe me”. Determined, curious, very open, eager to learn and slightly impatient, I read. Although this is still true, at this point completely different words would come to my mind first. Creative, sensitive, loyal, communicative, passionate (a terrible cliché, I know, but still), proud… The personality description in the letter, however, makes sense after years of walking around at an economic university where ratio was the highest good and a mathematical equation would always be valued higher than an emotion-based insight. You were hopelessly out of step with your peer students if you didn’t attend as much in-house days at the big accounting firms and banks as you could, to assure a jump start of your career. So that’s exactly what I did.
On Tuesday evening I returned home from my year in Rome, and on Wednesday morning I got accepted in a graduate programme for so-called ‘high potentials’ at one of the largest banks of the Netherlands
I couldn’t be happier when I finally got the answer. I got in! A fantastic year at one of Italy’s most prestigious business universities followed, which would also be my last year as a student. Very soon, my high ambitions and drive would pay off. On Tuesday evening I returned home from my year in Rome, and on Wednesday morning I got accepted in a graduate programme for so-called ‘high potentials’ at one of the largest banks of the Netherlands. In those three years that I worked as a banker analysing countless financial statements, it became clearer and clearer that this was not what I really wanted to do. Several times, dear colleagues made comments that I was actually kind of fluttering through the days like a butterfly. It was simply as if I had never really landed in the corporate banking world. I wanted to be busy organising instead of analysing, writing instead of calculating, and presenting instead of reasoning. Then one day, a wonderful opportunity presented itself, so the butterfly could do nothing else but to fly towards it at full speed.
Right away, I realised that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, after all it had taken more than forty years for Eurovision to return to the Netherlands. For weeks I kept thinking about what I would put in the application letter
It was a rainy afternoon in Rome in November last year, when I came across a message in the media announcing that the organisation of the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 was looking for Delegation Hosts for all participating Song Contest countries. Right away, I realised that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, after all it had taken more than forty years for Eurovision to return to the Netherlands. For weeks I kept thinking about what I would put in the application letter to then finally send it on a Friday afternoon – just a few hours before the deadline – sitting on a small couch in a Neapolitan airbnb apartment with bad Wi-Fi, while my sister was already in a taxi on her way from the airport to spend a joyful weekend together. The following Monday, I already received an email back: I had made it to the next round! This time, the assignment was to shoot a short video of a minute-and-a-half in which you would pitch why you would be the perfect Delegation Host. Once again, it was only a couple of hours before the deadline when I sent in my video (which lasted two and a half minutes, but I just couldn’t talk any faster), while downstairs there was a birthday party going on which was actually my own.
Because of the deafening noise produced by the bus driving on the uneven cobble stones Roman streets are made off, and the fact that Italian people speaking on the phone while riding the bus are one of the loudest things on earth, I didn’t understand a word of what was being said on the other end of the line. “Sorry, who is this?” I shouted with a slight irritation in my voice
After one final selection round, for which I briefly got back to the Netherlands in February, I received a phone call on a Friday morning while I was standing in a Roman bus packed with people, back then the most normal thing in the world but now almost impossible to imagine. For some time now, I had been receiving phone calls from annoying salespeople, who had apparently changed their strategy and didn’t call people anonymously anymore, so when I saw a Dutch phone number that I didn’t recognise, I answered the phone somewhat snappy. Because of the deafening noise produced by the bus driving on the uneven cobble stones Roman streets are made off, and the fact that Italian people speaking on the phone while riding the bus are one of the loudest things on earth, I didn’t understand a word of what was being said on the other end of the line. “Sorry, who is this?” I shouted with a slight irritation in my voice until suddenly I catch the last words of a phrase: “…of the Dutch broadcaster organisation”. Only a few seconds later, my answer was a loud YES to the question if I, together with a partner – they were not allowed yet to reveal to me who that would be – wanted to be Delegation Host for Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest. The theme this year? Open Up!
That Sunday night, the eighth of March, together with everyone involved we used champagne to toast on the official opening of what would probably become one of the most exciting adventures of our lives
Not even two weeks later, on Thursday the 5th of March, I got on a plane to the Netherlands for a Eurovision training that weekend. Even more exciting was the fact that I would finally find out who would be the other half of our duo. That Sunday night, the eighth of March, together with everyone involved we used champagne to toast on the official opening of what would probably become one of the most exciting adventures of our lives. The fact that we were asked several times that evening whether my colleague Delegation Host of Italy and I already knew each other before that day and whether we had been friends for longer, tells all about how well we got along from the very first minute.
Despite the fact that in these crazy corona times I haven’t been thinking about ‘what would have been’ at all, I couldn’t help thinking about Eurovision last Saturday
By now, it has of course long been known that the 65th Eurovision Song Contest – with Rotterdam as the proud host city for participants from more than forty European countries (as well as Israel and Australia) – was cancelled this year due to the corona crisis. This past weekend our great adventure would undoubtedly have come to a spectacular end after weeks in which we would have been barely sleeping. Despite the fact that in these crazy corona times I haven’t been thinking about ‘what would have been’ at all, I couldn’t help thinking about Eurovision last Saturday. Not in the least because an alternative Eurovision show was aired in which they finally announced that the world’s biggest music event is still going to take place in Rotterdam next year. And an important detail: the theme remains Open Up.
While writing this blog I’ve become curious and I’ve texted my friends. How would they describe me now, five years after I sent that letter to the university in Rome?
Open Up. Those two little words kept resonating with me because they so accurately describe what I’ve been doing over the past years. Open Up for career paths deviating completely from traditional banking, Open Up for a new culture and a new language, Open Up for building friendships with people who come from a totally different world than I do. Open Up in the way a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. But have I changed? While writing this blog I’ve become curious and I’ve texted my friends. How would they describe me now, five years after I sent that letter to the university in Rome? They quickly reply with a whole lot of characteristics: sensitive, enthusiastic, creative, open-minded, expressive, energetic, bold and ambitious. Perhaps not exactly the most apt character traits for a banker, but as a host for a bustling Italian artist delegation on a European million-dollar feast that is no less than hysterical at times, they would have served me very well. If you’d ask me, it’s bound to be the best Eurovision ever next year. I can’t wait. Open Up!