Valentine's Day

Wow. It has been over a month since my latest entry unto this weblog. It clearly shows that I could really never be a professional writer since I clearly can't produce under pressure. I've been too busy playing teacher in Culemborg to make time to write about it. You see, as DIO's (Dutch for: Teachers In Training) we have to keep track of all, and I do mean ALL, of our progress in this hellish invention called an online Portfolio. You can't turn your head in an educational setting without having to account for it by answering a million questions, like: What was your intention? What were you thinking? What were you feeling? What were you doing? What have you learned from it? What do you intend to take with you for future settings? et cetera et cetera. This constant self-reflection is so exhausting that when I finally get home and Jochem asks me: "How was your day?" I can only mumble a mere "Fine." Having to write everything down makes the prospect of writing even more of it down in this weblog a daunting task indeed. Luckily (or at least for all of you Dutch readers), one of my fellow DIO's has just started a weblog himself called Dagboek van een DIO (Dutch for: Diary of a Teacher In Training). Check it out here; it perfectly explains why 4 HAVO students (10th graders) are impossible on Tuesday afternoon but relatively easy-going on Wednesday morning (and why we refer to them as 'a bunch of lazy asses'), why activerende didaktiek (Dutch for something like: activating didactic techniques) is not God's gift to teachers, and how we are constantly balancing euphoria with suicidal thoughts.

the story of our lives: with Daniëlle (Mathematics), Myrthe (Art History), Willard (Mathematics) and Chantal (Geography) behind the computers, yet again

Our KWC mentorgroep (Dutch for: Koningin Wilhelmina College (= our internship school) mentor group), however, is still as close as ever. There used to be 12 of us from different disciplines, but now we are one woman short because she couldn't pass up the chance to enroll in a PhD program in History. We are in fact so close that our in-school supervisor has made it her personal mission to break us apart in order to get us talking to other people. What can I say? We're quite the tight little group. Besides the obvious school-related activities we visit each other's rehearsals; we make student pastas together; we have beers at the Stairway to Heaven (including bitterballen of course, which, sorry, is a concept that simply cannot be explained in English); we have bets on corny TV shows (who the hell is that damn mole?!); and yesterday we went to StuKaFest together (Studenten Kamer Festival, which is a festival in which bands play in student dorms and students pay a small fee to see the artists up close; Willard happened to live in a dorm where Hit Me TV was performing and we all came by to witness it up close). So yay for great people to work with every day!

with fellow English teacher in training Nienke (and OH MY GOD my hair is sooooo long! perhaps I should cut it again, because this is getting out of hand...)

with Evelien (Art History), Nienke (English), Myrthe (Art History) and Ellen (Biology) during the school's charity event for Haiti, where all of us raised over €10,000!

and my favorite picture where Evelien 'casually' walks by the camera

But what I actually wanted to write about was Valentine's Day. Jochem and I usually just give each other cards on this day, but this year I bought him a kitchen machine aid thingy and he bought me a mug with hearts on it that says "Mrs." We don't have any plans all weekend (which is a first in a very long time!) so we plan to spend it cooking, eating and I somehow convinced him to join me in a matinee viewing of Valentine's Day. Unfortunately, I also have to work, but I'm hoping that the soundtrack to The Boat That Rocked will get me through it. Because yes, that movie and that soundtrack is my latest new thing. A certain musically gifted friend is probably about ready to kill me for needing a romantic comedy to enjoy music from the sixties, but what can a musically challenged person like myself do about it? What are YOUR plans for this year's commercialized display of romantic love?