Mmm

I love Quizgalaxy.com. But this one was weird:

Nicolien -- [adjective]: Visually addictive 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Egg salad

After my last -pretty heavy- post (thanks for your comments!) it's time for something a little lighter. I thought a recipe would be in place, since M had his birthday on Wednesday and we're having a party for him tonight. I celebrated my birthday with a recipe too.
This is one of the snacks I'll be serving.

M's birthday egg salad
You will need:
- 5 hard boiled eggs
- a minced onion
- pepper, salt, curry powder
- a little ketchup (about a teaspoon)
- mayonaise
- a tablespoon of yogurt
- a tablespoon of sweet soy sauce (ketjap manis)

Boy, this recipe is easy this time. Cut eggs up and throw together with the onion. Add everything else to taste. Easy and great!

Boy/girl

Even though I sometimes consider myself a pretty experienced teacher (is that ok after 3 1/2 years?) something happened a few weeks ago that I had never seen before, and won't easily forget.

In one of my wonderful second year groups, one of the girls announced that she is no longer a girl, but wants to be a boy. She had had thoughts about becoming a boy ever since she was seven years old (she now is 14) and had made the decision to change her name and appearance.
I had already heard some gossip about this, but decided not to pay too much attention to it. After all, if it was true, her mentor would inform me. And so she did. Two weeks ago we were informed that Anna (name changed of course) was to change her name to William. The teachers were asked to call her that and pay attention to her (or his?) wish to be approached as a boy. So no more "Hurry up young lady, get your book and start to work!" but rather: "Hurry up, get your book and start to work!".

Even though this situation seems weird, I'm already used to it. The kids in her class are handling this wonderfully and this has really calmed her down. Her behavior had been going through the roof lately, right before she made her announcement. Thank goodness she's in a wonderful class (I know I already said this but I love them). Any other second year group would have picked on her horribly. Not this group. They say things like: "Hey Billy, come on!", "Look Miss M, this is my brother" (for some reason 13 year olds like refer to each other as siblings when they get along well).

Isn't this an interesting situation?

Cats

Isn't this a too cute picture of my cats?

My week

In the past week:
- the weather was awesome;

- we finalized our mortgage;
- I went from teaching 9 hours a week to teaching 12 hours (almost back at my regular 15);
- we spent the week-end to my grandpa's who lives by the North Sea, because he turned 94;
- I graded lots of papers;
- I took some more walks by the river and took some more pictures of the high water level;
- I worked in the garden for the first time this year (and how lovely it was to be outside again);
- I did lots of laundry (which was all dried outside, oh how I love the smell of air-dried clothes);
- I actually cleaned my house (hadn't been done in too long).

I'm sure you will now understand why I haven't been online much! I've been doing so many things, while trying to keep in mind that I'm still sick and need to rest. So I've also carefully scheduled nap times and reading times, which works well for me.
Spring is in the air and I love it!

Energy

My blogging frequency has gone down (again). I've been going back to work half days, and it turns out to cost a lot of energy. After teaching 3 periods I usually go home and sleep for at least an hour, sometimes two. I do love going back to work, though. All my music classes changed, because of the second semester. I have some new groups and a few that I know from last year. They're all pretty enthusiastic, and the one that I had last period on Friday topped it all. It's a second year group (eighth grade), which hasn't been my favorite year to teach so far. Usually the first years are so much easier excited and they seem to express their enjoyment more. But this group is an exception. Monday I met them on the stairs, and they said: "Miss M! Music on Friday, we can't wait!". Thursday I saw them and some said: "we're looking forward to tomorrow Miss". Well, so was I.

When they walked into my room Friday, it was like they had never left, even though the last time I taught them was in June. I gave them some info on the 2nd year curriculum, and then a boy asked: "can we sing now?". So we did some warm-ups and I taught them a song. That was all I had prepared for the day, but the period was only half over when we were done! I was able to squeeze in some glockenspiel playing too, combining what I usually do in 2 lessons, into one. That was a wonderful way to end the week and start the week-end, believe me!

Yesterday, M and I went on a bike ride. The weather was lovely and we covered 15 km (9.3 m). I was tired, but it was fun. We live close to a river, it was beautiful to see the water level. It's risen a lot because we (and Germany)'ve had so much rain lately. The trees have wet feet and it was lovely to see the sun reflect in all that water.