For the first time ever, a person refused to shake my hand today, out of religious reason. Of course I immediately noticed the Hijab, but I have lived in Rotterdam, a city with many Muslims and I had never encountered this before. It took me completely by surprise.

And I'm going to be sharing my office with her for the coming time (months? years?). I always try to be very open-minded to other people's customs, quirks, phobias and/or sensitivities, and I'm very willing to respect other people's point-of-view, but I have to admit this does make me feel a bit uncomfortable. Let's just say it'll take some getting used to. But as a friend of mine always says: if you never step out of your comfort zone, you'll never grow.

I already told my other office mate that we may want to stop doing the worst kind of jokes altogether for a while (she's worse than I am, actually), and make sure we do the rest of them in Dutch instead of English... Although you never know how fast other people can learn a new language.