Dental Ego

You know how some people are afraid of the dentist or otherwise really dread going there? I display quite the opposite sentiment. I mean, it's not that I actually like waking up early, biking 15 minutes in the cold and waiting for my turn, but a visit to the dentist is always a kind of weird ego boost for me. My dentist starts off by asking me whether I floss, at which I answer that since I still have braces residue in my mouth, I use toothpicks. "Very good," is what he says. After a quick scan (I'm always in and out of the dentist's office within 5 minutes, which is never enough time to read the gossip magazines in the waiting room that you would never buy yourself), he tells me, his assistant and everyone else who's listening that if all of his patients were like me he'd be out of work. He leaves me with a "Perfect!" for dessert. Not bad for an ordinary blah Tuesday morning.

5 Happy Things

I feel like myself again! It took me long enough, but happy I am once more. Most people must have noticed how unhappy I was lately. I was just so very tired, both physically and emotionally. Having worked my butt off for almost 8 years in a row really took it out of me, and what was worse, I saw no way out of my situation. I felt stuck. Drastic measures had to be taken, and I have taken them, somewhat reluctantly, but there was no way I could have gone on any longer without jeapordizing my physical and emotional health.

So Jochem and I decided NOT to get married before our world trip, which saved us thousands of euros, which in turn allows me to breathe easily for the first time in 18 months. It turns out that being in grad school, having 3 parttime jobs, plus working during weekends and in the summer is too much to ask, even from me. Also, it's not exactly fun to never be able to go shopping, go out to dinner or have a drink, let alone using a calculator every single time you buy groceries in order to stick to your weekly budget. It's been tough, people, really tough, and although not getting married soon makes me pretty sad as well, I am glad that the huge amount of pressure that came with wanting to get married has dissolved.

Not needing as much money as I thought I would, also means that I don't have to work as much as I used to. I haven't tutored any of my 3 students in 2 weeks. Last weekend I canceled on giving exam training in order to spend a long Easter weekend with my family in Almelo. And I definitely do not plan to spend July cleaning old people's houses, like I did last year. It's such a luxury to be able to do nothing for a change. I've also had a good talk with my own tutor from grad school and she's helped me to prioritize my studies. The result is that, instead of spending every waking moment documenting my teachings like I've done during the past 7 months, I only have to put a handful of additional proof on my portfolio and my graduation is a done deal. In addition, I decided to give one of my classes back to my supervisor because my students were driving me to the edge of insanity. They are 15-year-old students in a special class who receive extra lessons in physical education, and I was finally ready to admit that I was not suited to teach them a day longer. My tutor looked up my hours and it turns out that I have spent enough hours teaching younger students, which means that for the last 3 months of the school year I only have to teach my lovely 16-year-old students, who, admittedly, were a nightmare before, but whom I've grown to like very much. So, I will end the year with less than half the work and probably twice as much fun.

Besides these rather big decisions I've also triumphed in smaller ways. I had my very first 'real' job interview last week and I think it went well (I'm not sure if I'm the person that they want for the job, but I feel confident knowing that I couldn't have done any better). Jochem and I have splurged last week by eating meat during the week more than once (we only buy organic meat and fish, which is more expensive, which is why we usually only buy it in the weekend). I finally went shopping with my mother and got a bunch of really great stuff. I also had a great massage. Jochem and I went to the movies and had a drink in an Irish bar afterwards (a luxury unknown to us during the last 18 months). And: I chopped off my hair (well, I had it done, but it's SHORT y'all). And it's worked: I finally feel better.

To end this blog I would like to write about 5 things that make me happy, inspired by a couple of friends of mine who write inspiring blogs themselves, in order to focus on the good rather than the bad:



1. LEMON
I love, love, LOVE lemon!!! I love its juice and its peel. I love it in my food; splashed into my parsley and mushroom risotto, or battered into my pancakes with caramelized honey, or as a topping over my ricotta, chili and basil crostini, or in my Corona. I love the Body Shop even more than I already did for bringing out a line of sweet lemon products; I bought them all!




2. CHRIS REA - DANCING WITH STRANGERS
There are 4 songs on this 1987 album that I have played in a row constantly ever since last week. I love them! In 1991, when I had just turned 8, my father went on a 1-week trip with 6 of his friends to the Spanish Pyrenees. 2 years later one of these friends had made a 3-hour film about this trip. I still watch this film every once in a while. It's a battered and bruised old tape that's way too long and that you just know is bound to break down sooner or later, but I love it so much. I guess it reminds me of a simpler time, where I still enjoyed school, had no experience with sexual politics, didn't hate my computer and cell phone so much, and had no idea what tweets and pod-casts are (although, I must admit, I still don't really know what pod-casts are). The 4 songs that I keep playing over and over again as we speak are also in this film. The music instantly makes me smile. It works better than John Mayer, which says a lot in my case!




3. TWENTSE HEIDE
I have no idea what this beatiful piece of raw nature means in English, but last weekend I spent 2 days and hour upon hour walking through my home country, and I realized how much I'd missed it. I feel like a city girl most of the time, but sometimes you have to get back home, back to nature, breathe the fresh air and enjoy the view. We have nothing like it near Utrecht. (And girls: we will have to pitch up our tents here in August to see if they still work, so prepare yourselves, minus Anna).




4. PROJECT PROVENCE
In August I will spend 3 weeks with some of the most amazing people in this world in southern France. We are going on a massive road trip, including matching t-shirts and girl rock music. The American will hopefully soon buy her ticket, which brings this amazing trip, which has been years in the making, one step closer.




5. INDIAN CHRISTMAS 2010
With the money Jochem and I saved from not getting married, we bought a bunch of plane tickets in order to buck tradition and spend the holidays on a tropical beach in Palolem, Goa. Isn't that WILD?! I can't wait...

Modern Art

This banner pretty much sums up my life at this exact moment. Courtesy of Anna Denise.

Ouch!

The inevitable has happened. After surviving the cold, snowy and icy winter on the cobbly streets of Utrecht for over two months, my bike and I fell down this morning at 7.21 AM on the Griftstraat on the way to work. A bus was taking a turn and I had to bike right in order to avoid said bus, but when I did, I hit a patch of ice hidden underneath a pile of fresh snow and fell. Hard. It didn't hurt as much as I'd imagined it to be all those times when I biked through the snow this winter, and it happened a lot faster than I expected. I quickly scanned the street for any upcoming traffic, but of course there was nothing there, it being 7 AM on a dark Tuesday morning and all. A nice sorority girl in a mini skirt asked me whether I was okay, which I was, but damn, that's a nasty way to start one's morning. The result: a big bruise on my left hip.

World Trip Update # … (where did we leave off again?!)

More news on our upcoming world trip, even though it’s been kind of quiet lately. Something that we do do every week is going downtown to see what’s on sale. We discovered last year that prices drop to an ultimate low in January and February, so we’ve been searching the stores for knock-offs for almost two months and ended up buying a lot of great stuff, like backpacks, rucksacks, camp gear and this great tent that is super small and ultra light but still houses two people in extreme weather. We also went to the Vakantiebeurs (Dutch for: Holiday Fair) and bought some small necessities like a travel pillow, travel sheets and one of those toiletry bags that has a hook so that you can hang it in any gross bathroom that you might (and will!) encounter during your travels. We also became members of Joho and received a bunch of information to browse through, so we’re basically having a lot of fun getting excited about the possibilities. We also think that we have finally chosen two possible routes from this infinite number of possibilities, but we have discovered that people’s opinion about said routes can be divided into two camps. There are those who think that if you are going on a 9-month world trip you might as well try to see as many different things as possible. This is the side that we’ve chosen. But there are also those who think it’d be better to just visit one region and really get to know it (and then there are also those who actually move away to, say, Brussels, but that’s really taking it too far). I do like the idea of really exploring one region, but how would you even choose a region from all of the great options available? I, for example, really want to go to South America, but Jochem insists on going to Australia. Compromise, anyone? Besides, I think 9 months offers you the opportunity to see more of the world than just one region, and since we really want to go on a WORLD trip, we came up with these two routes:

(1) Amsterdam – Beijing//Bangkok – Cairns//Melbourne – Christchurch//Auckland – Tahiti – Easter Island – Santiago de Chile//Lima – Guatemala City – San Francisco - Amsterdam

(2) Amsterdam – Windhoek – Amman – Mumbai – Bangkok – Cairns//Melbourne – Christchurch//Auckland –Tahiti – Easter Island – Santiago de Chile//Lima – San Francisco – Amsterdam

We’re already halfway through anticipating the whole thing.

And on a slightly different note: do you know that song called "Maybe Tomorrow" by Stereophonics (probably, since I am always at least a year behind everything)? I once saw it played during a travel show on TV and now I always have to think about our world trip when I hear it. Just like I always have to think about our Provence trip whenever I hear the soundtrack to Amélie. Perhaps this means that I only enjoy music in circumstantial settings (because it reminds me of something) and not because of its inherent quality... Can we still be friends, Kiran?

I have to go - I convinced Jochem to see Valentine's Day with me at the movies on Valentine's Day (hihi) and it starts in an hour and a half and I still need a shower...

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.