The Dress

I bought a dress. [pause for surprise] It’s true, so compose yourself. It happened on Friday. Jochem and I were downtown to do our usual grocery shopping. I had to go to the H&M to buy the absolute cheapest new shirt to sleep in, since my usual model was beyond dirty and couldn’t possibly be worn any longer, to the point where I was ashamed to wear it front of anyone other than the boyfriend, the cats and the fish (because who wants to casually be asked why you have stains on your boobs by one’s own mother (you may wonder why I have stains on my boobs in the first place, but that’s what happens when a certain person stays in one’s pajamas all day and ends up cooking in said pajamas, which causes stains in said, white (of course), shirt, which wouldn’t be any problem in an ordinary world, but in my world means that when I try to remove said stains, it only gets worse. I don’t iron for the same reason.)). Damn, that was a long sentence. Anyway, the fact that I bought anything, let alone a dress, is pretty much a miracle, since I hate shopping. That’s right. I’m not a girly girl, I don’t like to wear make-up, and I don’t like shopping, unless, of course, it means shopping for food in small delis or shopping for camp gear for any upcoming trip. The truth is, shopping has become a luxury for me due to all the saving up for the world trip. I have a great mom who is nice enough to buy me a few pieces each season and who often gives me her hand-me-downs, but most of my clothes I’ve had for years. I have wholes in my jeans but I don’t buy new ones, but instead ask my mom to sew them up. Sometimes it can be quite frustrating, like when you, literally, have nothing to wear to an event, but at the same time I’ve gotten quite used to it. My mom says this is because I’m cheap, which is probably true, since I discovered a while ago that me working multiple jobs + Jochem working multiple jobs + us saving basically every penny = a lot of money in the bank (you know, the kind of Math I can do). So these days, anything above a few euros is a lot of money for me. I’m not an impulse buyer, but always think everything through at least three times. For example, on the same day I bought the dress, I decided not to buy a cute top that was on sale for €3,95 because, well, I already have so many tops. The dress, however, cost a fortune. That may not say much where I come from, but it was a dress from a store where I usually don’t even look inside, so go figure. We just happened to pass it on our way back from the H&M. I looked to my left, saw the dress, and had to see it up close. This is usually how I shop. It means I never have the urge to just go and buy anything, but it also means that once I have my eye on something, I almost always end up buying it, even though it’s really too expensive. But so, we went inside and looked at the dress, which looked even cuter up close, and I decided to try it on (a miracle in itself, since I absolutely detest getting changed in stores). I tried on two sizes, walked around for about 20 minutes, even let Jochem call my mom for a second opinion, and finally bought it. Now tell me: what it worth the trouble?

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?

Food Snobbery Revisited

I rest my case. Courtesy of Anna Denise. Check out her beautiful orginal here.

Holiday Season 2009

The holidays are over and 2010 is here. My two-week Christmas Break has flown by so quickly that I am reluctant to start work this Monday morning. What better way to procrastinate than to write another blog? This year the holidays seemed crazier than ever. It started with a nice and civilized dinner at the in-laws followed by a dinner party in Amsterdam. Once Jochem and I hit Almelo, though, it started to get a little bit out of hand. Imagine living in your parents' house for two weeks with your three Spanish relatives and your two cats. Imagine an oversized dinner table in what was once the living room housing sixteen Spanish or half Spanish people enjoying a seven-course meal. Imagine your sober aunt finishing all of the cava while your cousins empty every whiskey bottle in the house. Imagine opening your Christmas gift to the sound of hardcore music while your relatives holler "HEY HEY HEY" in unison. Imagine New Year's Eve as the night where you ate too much while your sober uncle is suddenly pouring down whiskey and your cousins decide to honor the ancient Twents tradition to blow up an old milk can. May 2010 bring more of such craziness to my organized life. Happy New Year!!!

Food Snobbery

I pride myself on being myself because it took a lot of time and effort to get there. As a teenager I used to be obsessed with the latest trends, until my best friend one day decided that I was not quite cool enough to remain her best friend. As so many other teenagers, I was bullied every single day at school. This lasted for about a year. When I regained my composure after that year, I had some new goals in life. One, to graduate high school ASAP so that I could flee Almelo. First to Utrecht, and eventually even farther away to Los Angeles. Second, to remain as invisible as possible during my time still left there. For several years, I was dressed in black.

I believe this is when my lack of interest in trends started, and it has really taken off during the last couple of years. What's left is me, a person who, I believe, is truly herself. This manifests itself in a number of ways. For example: I don't like fashion. I wear reasonable clothes that are comfortable and practical. I like to dress up in natural colors like black, white, brown and blue. I have never understood those women who like lacy underwear (it itches!) or stiletto heels - I mean, they're uncomfortable, excuciatingly painful, and cold because so much of your foot is exposed to the unmerciful Dutch weather. When will you EVER wear them?! At parties? When you have to spend hours standing on them? No, thank you. I wear flip flops in summer, sneakers in the spring and fall, and high boots with thick socks in winter. Ergo: I am never influenced by what some rich designers that I don't know have decided is 'in' this season.

Nor do I care about reviews about the latest things to watch, listen to or adore. I listen to John Mayer (why does everyone hate John Mayer?), I watch Bride Wars three times in one week and I still like to watch reruns of Dawson's Creek. Why, you may ask. Because they're comfortable. They literally comfort me because I know what I can expect, and that gives me solace in a cruel world. I used to watch, what I refer to as, politically correct movies, like Hotel Rwanda. It left me deeply depressed with the world. Even though I still think it's important to know what's going on in the world, I have stopped watching such movies because they make me feel terrible about things I cannot change. And who has the energy to keep up with the reviews? I have some really intelligent friends but I always wonder how they have the energy to watch this movie, download that CD, look up that website. They always seem to know everything about everyone and it makes me feel so not-up-to-date. Then again, I can barely muster the strength to update my Facebook account every week. Twitter is lost on me.

I also don't care about gossip. Why do other people care? So Britney Spears has a new boyfriend whom she takes to the park with her kids - SO WHAT?! Why is that necessary information, or even entertaining? I must say, though, that my dislike of the currect media circus sometimes goes too far. For years I have been telling myself to watch the news more often, and I just don't. I really think I should. But I don't. Sometimes I get into it and I watch the news for two days in a row, but then I stop again. It's not that I don't want to see the news (even though it's usually depressing) or that I don't find it interesting, but when it's 8 PM and my boyfriend and I finally finished making dinner and crash onto the couch with a beer and a glass of wine, I'd much rather watch a predicatable episode of Bones than the news. And God, what hassle are newspapers! They're too big and they leave smelly black stains on your fingers. I'll pass, thanks.

Anyway, so this is me. Someone who is herself despite what other people think: someone who wears, watches, listens to and reads whatever she wants without adhering to social standards. Or at least so I thought till now.

It turns out that I have one weakness in this protective harness. I think I am a food snob. I am one of those annoying, self-righteous, Jamie Oliver-reading snobs who now tells other people what good food really is. I never go to fast food restaurants anymore (late night drunken aftermaths not included), because, let's face it, that food is crap. Supermarkets are the enemy, with their over-priced, bad quality production food. Local, organic food is the only food worth eating, so I buy most of my supplies at local vegetable and fruit suppliers and organic butchers. Only free-range eggs come into my house. If this means charging my friends more money because I insist on cooking organic food only, I will just do it. I also preach to other people about the holiness of organic food (mostly to my family, since they can't really disown me in any way). Whenever I cook some of the recipes that I used to cook before, I feel like a cheater, because only the recipes from one of Jamie Oliver's books is really worth cooking. Also, diet products are the work of the devil. People are so obsessed with being thin these days that these Frankenstein producers remove everything that is to like about a product, replace it with chemicals, and call it diet. Seriously, what's the point in eating something like a low fat brownie?! It tastes like crap! If you're really worried about your health (health, not weight) you'd be much wiser to eat less brownies, but when you do eat a brownie, please get a decent one filled with real chocolate and real butter. It makes the sin that much more pleasurable. With the exception of diet Coke (which I like because it's watery) I only eat REAL food.

Plus, every celebration is immersed in food. Every major holiday is celebrated by cooking food for other people. Tomorrow I will cook a six-course meal for eleven (!) colleagues. At Jochem's family I will cook Italian crostini and a Jamie Oliver (of course) salad. At my family I will cook risotto. Is it my birthday? Let's cook Thai curry! Is it our anniversary? Let's go to Fifteen in Amsterdam! Do we have some money left to spare? Let's go to the Italian store and buy truffel at €10 per 10 grams.

Of course I love food. But I've also noticed that everybody loves the person doing the cooking. And... we've come full circle.

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! :)