Teacher by Day

Of course there are many disadvantages to being a teacher: the lousy pay, the heavy workload, the lack of social status ("Why do you have to study for 8 years just to become a teacher?"), the long work days, the teenagers who sometimes seem determined to bend you until you break, to name but a few. But, naturally, I would not be doing this program if there weren't also a lot of benefits to being a teacher. I get to spend all of my days thinking, talking, and breathing English language and literature. At the moment I do spend long days at school, but I hardly ever have any work to do at night or during the weekends. Gone are the days where you'd think: "I still have to write that paper on American lit. " or: "I still need to study for that Syntax final" - instead, I spent my free time watching House M.D. with Jochem. Preferably in bed, with our two cats, while eating something. Right now my life is pretty much stress-free. I don't make a lot of money with my internship, but at least I get something, which is more than most teachers in training who aren't working already can say. Some of my students can be pretty intimidating, but I find that they are slowly turning around - today, for example, a couple of students from my 'busy' class greeted me in the hallway. This may mean nothing to those not involved with spending 8 hours a day with a bunch of 16-year olds, but apparently I am just cool enough to be acknowledged, which is a big deal. I also can't get over how wonderful my colleagues are and I am very thankful for being able to work in such a pleasant, supportive, and well-knit group as ours. And the last addition that I would like to make to this list, is the fact that we have so many vacations. After only 8 weeks of work, I now have a complete week off to do as I please: watch romantic comedies, visit family and friends, and hang out in my pajamas all day while staying up all night. Life's not too shabby for me right now!!!

By the By

Explorer's Dream + India (in between China and Australia) is our latest idea. :P Is anyone getting tired of this, because I am! ;)

But what I really wanted to tell you is that yesterday Jochem and I had a 4-course dinner at Fifteen, the restaurant in Amsterdam based on Jamie Oliver's version in London, for a pre-birthday celebration. Of course Jamie Oliver is our God, and Jochem gave me the most beautiful watch from Fossil as a pre-birthday gift (though I suspect some other gift is also coming up). I had been pining for the watch for months, but of course never bought it due to all the saving. Anyway, we loved it and now I want to move in, get married and have lots of babies there! :)

This is just to say...

...that we STILL have absolutely no clue (NO CLUE!) where we are going on our world trip. We have received many responses and talked to a lot of people, but it only seems to be getting more difficult to pick a destination. For a while we were leaning towards Asia. Then we went back to South America. And now we are looking at world tickets again. We even tried to make a new list of countries that we want to see before we die, like last year, but that didn't help either. I am telling you, it is the stupidest and most spoiled problem ever! I am even considering just going to the travel agency and letting them assemble a random world ticket (of course I won't, being a control freak and all, but just to let you know how dumb it really is). Alas.

Poll

* It has been a while since I last wrote an entry on this weblog, because it has taken me some time to get used to my new routine. I spend more hours at 'school,' but have much less 'homework' than previous years. This is great, of course, it only makes me reluctant to sit behind my computer after a long day of 'work.' This week I am going camping with my 4 HAVO (i.e. 10th grade) students, but as of next week, I will try to write more often.



It is more difficult than one might think to 'plan' (I still use the term loosely) your perfect world trip. Especially when you have to decide together with someone who is completely different from you in almost every aspect, and when you want to see absolutely everything that this world has to offer. It took Jochem and me almost a year to realize that we might want to see too much during our world trip. That's when it got real difficult, because now we feel that we should make choices. Unfortunately for us, making choices means eliminating perfectly good travel spots for nothing but pragmatic reasons, so every time we get excited about one thing, we get sad about having to miss out on another thing.



We thought we had finally figured it all out when we decided to choose the East: China, Tibet, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand and India. We were thinking: cheap; less flights (so cheaper and better for the environment); and especially adventurous since we wouldn't otherwise just go to any of these countries. However, a few brief looks in a couple of Lonely Planets and Rough Guides quickly revealed that it's quite a hassle to arrange transportation in this area (at least much more of a hassle than we had anticipated during our time frame). Suddenly South America, Easter Island and Cuba started to look good: even less flights; a language we can both speak reasonably well; and less need to rush through a bunch of countries. But then we also think South America will be more expensive and less adventurous somehow.



After a while this kind of thinking drives you crazy. There are so many places that you would like to explore, and there is simply not one region in particular that you can easily opt for. The whole point of our world trip is to see the world in 9 months, and to have an adventure. So now we're thinking of just booking a standard world ticket. Kilroy Travels offers several interesting options, and these are the ones we like especially:



- = traveling by plane
// = traveling over land



"Explorers Dream"

London - Beijing // Hong Kong - Cairns (near the Great Barrier Reef in Australia) // Sydney - Christchurch // Auckland - Tahiti - Easter Island - Santiago de Chile // Lima - Quito (in Ecuador) - Madrid - London



"Cheeky Monkey"

Brussels - Madrid - Santiago de Chile // Ushuaia (at the bottom of Argentina) - Buenos Aires // Rio de Janeiro - Sydney // Cairns - Auckland - Beijing // Hong Kong - Mumbai // Delhi - Brussels



"Wonders of the World"

London - Rome - Amman (in Jordan) - Delhi - Hong Kong - Beijing - Hong Kong - New York - Cancun - Miami - Lima - Cuzco (in Peru) - Santiago de Chile - Rio de Janeiro - London


"Go West"

Amsterdam - Lima - Mexico City - Los Angeles - Honolulu - Tokyo - Bangkok - Nairobi // Kilimanjaro - Amsterdam


Jochem still has certain destinations he must see, whereas I tend to think that if you are buying a random world ticket because you can't choose, you might just as well go random all the way. Of course we can also try to assemble our own personalized world ticket.


Here is where I ask you guys for advice by means of a poll. What would YOU choose if you had to choose between the following options for your 9-month world trip:


(1) travel to Asia, Australia, New Zealand and India
(2) travel to South America, Easter Island and Cuba
(3) book "Explorers Dream"
(4) book "Cheeky Monkey"
(5) book "Wonder of the World"
(6) book "Go West"
(7) book your own personalized world ticket


Let me know, 'cause I could really use the perspective!

PC Jeans

My overall plan to save the world one tofu meal at a time has reached a new high. It all began when my mom claimed that I needed a new pair of jeans last Thursday. I said that I already had two pairs of jeans in my possession, but she, in turn, said that it does not count when both of them have holes in them that have been fixed by sewing material from yet another pair of jeans over them. I tend to think that beggars, and savers for world trips, can't be choosers when it comes to the quality of their denim, but my mother disagreed and although I'm very much the idealistic and/or naive twenty-something, who am I to refuse a new pair of jeans free of charge?

And there we go, now everyone can save the world by buying the right pair of jeans. Although it was not so much my contribution, since the jeans were a gift, I still want to tell you about them. The jeans brand is called Kuyichi. In a nutshell, Kuyichi is all about raising awareness about fashion while respecting the environment. It uses organic cotton and recycled paper, amongst other sustainable materials, supports fair trade and also has its Track & Trace and Mady-By features, which enable buyers to find out where their jeans come from. On the Kuyichi website you can insert the number that you can find on the inside of your purchased jeans. This is how I found out that my pair of jeans was designed in Haarlem, the Netherlands, manufactured in Tunisia, and produced in Malatya, Turkey (see here for details). Kuyichi jeans can be bought in the Netherlands in Amsterdam and Utrecht at Nukuhiva, Floortje Dessing's fair trade store. You can also check out the Kuyichi website. I think this is a great initiative and of course urge everyone to purchase a pair of politically correct jeans!

On a somewhat different note: yesterday Jochem and I went discount shopping and somehow managed to buy two jackets and one fleece sweater for almost no money at all. They are meant to be used during our world trip in two years. Of course that's still very far away, but we couldn't resist the urge...

Some Thoughts

About vegetarianism:
Spain is arguably the most difficult country (that I have been to thus far) to be a vegetarian in. Up until my holiday in Spain I generally found it very easy to not eat meat or fish, but as soon as I had been in Spain for a couple of days, all I could think about were hamburgers and tuna sandwiches. Of course I didn't cave. Although I can't begin to tell you about the numerous times that there was not a single vegetarian meal to be found in any of the restaurants that we visited, and I had to depend on tapas and side salads, most of the time we had dinner at my family's place where it was easier to accommodate to my vegetarian wishes. But it was very, VERY hard. Now that I am back in the Netherlands it has become much easier, and I definitely want to keep going through August, so that I can say that I have been a vegetarian for two months (as was expected, Jochem quit after one month and is happily eating meat and fish once more). I am not sure where to go from there. I truly think that it might be too difficult to never eat meat and fish ever again, so I will probably end up some sort of semi-vegetarian. Luckily, I now know of a lot of ways to replace meat and fish with other food. I feel perfectly comfortable eating my soy burgers during bbqs, or replacing meat and fish with veggies and nuts in pasta and risotto dishes, and I even managed to successfully prepare my signature chicken tandoori dish with tofu (although I must admit that my first attempt at this tofu tandoori was not as successful). Luckily Jochem supports me and if I am able to find a vegetarian option for an otherwise non-vegetarian dish, he will join me in my vegetarian cooking. If I really can't find a suitable replacement, I will buy real meat and fish, but only if it is organic. Since this is quite expensive for us, we will probably eat less meat and fish anyway. I will probably never have fastfood like McDonald's and 'kroket' again, but at least I won't have to say goodbye to tuna sandwiches and sushi. Sometimes I feel guilty for not pulling through completely, but then again: Jochem and I support four organizations that aid animals and the environment, we take care of the environment ourselves in our own surroundings by recycling and not wasting, we only buy products from The Body Shop because they are not tested on animals and support fair trade, we hardly eat meat and fish, and when we do, it's organic, and in my spare time I end up taking care of a bunch of kittens for three days before bringing them to the Spanish local police (a whole other story). There's only so much that a person can do without indulging in guilt forever. So I now declare myself a wannabe vegetarian!

About philosophy:
I used to hate philosophy in college and I still can't bear to read philosopher's original works, but now I'm reading Philosophy for Dummies and it's really interesting! I tend to side with Agnosticism and am now reading Bertrand Russel's "Why I Am Not A Christian."

About renovating:
Jochem and I were supposed to help out my parents for a couple of days as a means to say 'thank you for helping us get to Spain this summer.' I thought we'd be redecorating my parents' bedroom and my old bedroom, but dad had a much less pleasant job in mind. He wanted us to paint all of the wood on the outside of the house. Thinking that as long as I can paint, all is good, we set out to work, but what a painful job it was! It has been very hot and humid in the Netherlands recently, and I kept hurting myself or dripping paint all over my newly acquired, 'especially bought for the world trip,' favorite (of course) hat, until the grand finale where I accidentally poured half a bottle of paint thinner on my front body. It stopped hurting after a couple of hours, but after almost two days my skin still has a very red color. I keep putting aloe vera on it but should I be doing more? Danielle asked me whether I'd been to the hospital... Needless to say, Jochem has been doing most of the painting after that, while I stayed in and edited our pictures. But at least my parents are very happy that the painting has finally been done after ten years of procrastination, and that's what's important.

About reading:
I feel especially proud of my reading skills this summer. I don't read a whole lot during the school year because I am usually too busy reading for my studies, so in the summer I go all out and read all of the books I didn't get to read before. This summer, in just two weeks, I finished the latest two novels by my favorite author Santa Montefiore (finally!), one novel by Cecilia Samartin, one book by my American educational guru Ron Clark (which, admittedly, I had read years before), and the 735 pages of The Other Boleyn Girl (for comparison: Ulysses is also 735 pages long). In total I managed to read 1990 pages in two weeks! One quotation that I wanted to share with you from Ron Clark's book is the following: "Always make sure there are seven things in your life at all times: laughter, family, adventure, good food, challenge, change, and the quest for knowledge." I am proud to say that all seven things are in my life; how about you?

About accomplishments:
Besides feeling pretty good about having read so many books over the summer, I feel pretty good about myself overall, I think. Of course I still feel great for having finished my master thesis on time, getting good grades and being accepted into that internship. I also managed to squeeze in four extra weeks of work for some extra money to save. I cleaned out my apartment and did a whole bunch of little things that had been on my to do list for over a year. My parents' house looks great. I can't wait to start the new, and last, year of grad school. I just feel great! Time for me to indulge in this greatness at the hair salon this afternoon...



These are Chips (the red kitten) and Salsa (the black kitten). It's a long story...

Things come in 3's!

3 names I go by:
1. Nuria
2. Nur
3. Nuri

3 of my favorite words and/or phrases:
1. "Stap op!" (= "Get lost!")
2. "Echt niet!" (= "No way!")
3. "Kats" and "kel" (= "very"; interchangeable nonsense words from the Twents landscape in Almelo)

3 places I have lived:
1. Utrecht, The Netherlands
2. Los Angeles, USA
3. New York, USA

3 jobs I have had in my life:
1. student assistant at Utrecht University
2. invigilator at the British Council
3. English tutor at Studiekring

3 favorite drinks:
1. Corona with lime
2. dry, white wine
3. green tea with ginger

3 favorite foods:
1. pasta
2. risotto
3. sushi

3 TV shows I watch:
1. The Office
2. Samantha Who?
3. Lipstick Jungle

3 places I have been:
1. Andalucía, Spain
2. Cinque Terre, Italy
3. Big Sur, California, USA

3 things I am looking forward to:
1. my world trip with Jochem
2. my wedding (although not anticipated anytime soon)
3. buying my first house with Jochem and putting a HUGE kitchen in it (equally not anticipated anytime soon)


(from Facebook)

¡Adios España!

The end of our two-week summer vacation is near! It went by so fast we can hardly believe it, but I think we were able to establish the usual division between spending time on nature (e.g. the Ebro Delta and the volcanic park in the Pyrenees), culture (e.g. Barcelona and Valencía) and relaxation (e.g. Penedès wine country, the beach and family). We made a lot of pictures, as always, and I hope to share them with you soon. Here is a preview of the afternoon right before Robin and Jesse took the bus back home to Almelo and my grandparents made a gazpacho and bbq lunch that contained so much garlic that we smelled like it for days!





Tomorrow Jochem and I are heading home in Jordi´s suburban car (which has only a few scratches ;)) and we will arrive on Sunday. We will spend a few days in Almelo working on my parents´ house before heading back to Utrecht on Friday. And then on Monday school starts again. Time just flies by so fast! But at least we were able to get away for a short while, so I don´t complain. Anyone traveling to Spain should definitely pay a visit to the Freixenet cava winery in Sant Sadurní d´Anoia in Penedès, the Parc Natural de la Zona Volcànica de la Garrotxa in the Pyrenees, and Valencía (but wear sensible shoes! Thanks to my being vain I now not only have an injured left foot, but also a nice pair of blisters on both feet because I decided to wear my mom´s ´pretty´ shoes in Valencía. What was I thinking putting on a pair of that tiny woman´s sandals?!). Those were definitely our favorite destinations.


As for now: ¡Hasta luego!

¡Buenos Días!

Thus far in Spain I have ...

... discovered that sleeping in a station wagon is very much like sleeping in a coffin.

... had the honor of meeting the 5 kilogram/37 cent melon.

... found out that hiking Montjuïc in Barcelona is the best way to get lost, tired and burned.

... come to hate my Reef flipflops because they caused such a serious injury to my left foot that we have had to cancel our walking trip to the Pyrenees until next week. Rainbows all the way!

... had to stop Jochem from buying absolutely everything in the Freixenet store.

... realized that walking towards the Devil´s Bridge in Tarragona in 40 degree heat at noon while the monument is under construction and I cannot use my left foot, might not be the best idea.

But other than that we have the sun, the beach, the Mediterranean Sea, an airconditioned villa, family, pets, THE patatas bravas and cava. ¡Muchos besos de España!

Spain 2009

In one week Jochem and I will be here. This is Cambrils Mediterraneo, part of Cambrils de Mar, which is a small town on the eastern coast of Spain, called the Costa Dorada. It is the place where my Spanish relatives own a small villa near this beach. We will borrow my brother's car and spend two weeks traveling through this region. We plan to see Barcelona, Tarragona, Valencía, a few small beach towns, a volcanic park in the Pyrenees, the Ebro Delta and Penedès wine country. I'm not exactly sure how to be a vegetarian in Spain (especially amongst my very much non-vegetarian Spanish family members) or how to be away from my pets for more than a few days, but I sure as hell am glad to be going abroad real soon.

These pictures were taken in the summer of 2006, when my girls and I spent the most perfect little weekend there.