Sad Spinster by Night

Today I reread one of my previous entries titled "Teacher by Day." Everything positive that I described in that entry is still very much true. I still love my internship and probably more so every day. My studies can be quite overbearing, especially now that our practical research is coming up (eewl Statistics!), but manageable. Parttime jobs are not as easy to fit into my schedule as they once were, but I find some time here and there so that I can keep saving for all of our wild plans. Family and friends are also good. The only problem that I have right now is that my boyfriend is unbelievably busy! It's quite depressing - he gets up every day before I am awake and goes to bed each night hours after I've fallen asleep. I am lucky when I get to spend two minutes with him in between brushing my teeth and changing my clothes. When he isn't in the Hague doing his thing, he is always either working behind his computer or making calls on his cell phone. I feel for my best friend, whose boyfriend also has an iPhone and all sorts of other gadgets. Luckily Jochem doesn't have any of those, but his behavior still disturbs me. Once he asked me to edit two pages out of one of his many reports, and I almost fell asleep due to pure boredom. Of course I don't have to understand his academic ambitions all the time (which I don't). All I need to know is that he's happy doing what he's doing - I mean, he should be doing exactly what he loves to do right now. And, since I am kind of counting on him to support me and my big plans in the future so that I can continue making a pittance doing what it is I love to do, I can only complain so much. With which I'm done now. After all, after rain comes shine. Even when you live in the Netherlands.

Istanbul

On Thursday I casually said to Jochem that it might be nice to get away for a short weekend. On Friday we looked at some websites. Today we booked a plane ticket to Istanbul for the end of February. It's like I don't even recognize my responsible, unable-to-be-spontaneous, hoarder self!

A Kinder, Gentler Philosophy of Success

Anna told me about this speech by Alain de Botton today, and I recommend anyone to watch it carefully. It is truly inspiring! Check it out here.

1 + 1 = 2

And then there were two: Bicho ('Bug' in Spanish; on the left) and Manchego (same old Spanish sheep cheese; on the right). Two cats for twice as much fun!

Halloween

On Saturday, October 31 Jochem and I celebrated Halloween. This American holiday is not yet widely celebrated in the Netherlands, but we decided to make something special out of it. First, we went downtown to do some shopping. Unfortunately, the Jamie Oliver book that we wanted to buy was sold out, but hopefully it will be back in storage in a week. After that we bought a lot of food. For starters, we had Spanish ham and Italian cheese. We decided to open one of our special Cinque Terre wines after more than a year of proudly having been presented in our kitchen. We made special Halloween pasta with black spagetti, fresh spinach, pumpkin and Ricotta cheese. Jochem carved a scary face in the pumpkin that we used for our pasta and we put a candle inside. We also lit all of our other candles in the living room and we gave the cats fresh salmon for dinner. We had brownies and our favorite green tea with ginger for dessert. Since I don't like to watch scary movies, we watched a bunch of House episodes. I wish that we had had a digital camera, but since ours are both broken you'll just have to believe me: it was perfect! :)

Perfection

- = traveling by plane
// = traveling over land

Netherlands - South Africa // Kenya - United Arab Emirates - India - Thailand - Indonesia - Australia - New Zealand - Tahiti - Easter Island - Chile // Ecuador - Spain - Netherlands

Courtesy of Derek's friend Kasper at JoHo.

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!