Teaching

Working with teenagers is what I like to do, and what I'm good at. Sometimes it totally frustrates me, though. Like last night.

There's this extracurricular activity that another teacher and I lead. We've done it for a few years now, and some of the girls involved in it have become friends. Well, I don't know if that is the right word, because there's a twelve year age difference between us and obviously we don't confide in them. They do confide in us, though. Last night one of the girls told my colleague something that broke my heart. She told her that she had a problem involving auto-mutilation, and even showed her arm.

I thought I knew this girl. I thought she was a happy, bouncy teenager whose only problems could be what time to get home after a party or what clothes to wear. But I was wrong.

There's nothing I can do for this girl. I don't even teach at her building. Thank goodness she told my colleague that she had been talking to the school's counselor, so she is getting help. But I feel slightly powerless. Sure, I can pray for her and be nice to her. But somehow that doesn't feel like it's enough.

Getting attached to your students is a good thing, but it also has its downside...

Roosters Goodbye

The four white chickens you see here are roosters. The two brown ones are hens. All of them were hatched October 29. The roosters eat a lot, poop a lot, fight and aren't very productive. That is why I gave three of them away to our uncle, who promised to return one (deep-frozen). One is allowed to stay and rule over the hen house (as long as he isn't too noisy, like Tandoori was). Some people say this is cruel, but I guess that's the way farm life can be...

Sew busy

When we bought our trailer I realised that it would take some effort to turn this little world of 1981 brown and green in a housey environment that I would feel comfortable in. And since I received a sewing machine as a wedding present, I decided to sew new covers for the cushions.

So I counted, measured, went to Ikea to buy many metres of fabric, washed and ironed that fabric and started to sew.


Lots of hours in the past six months were spent working with my new best friend. Today I achieved my goal: I finished the last one. That means that I covered sixteen cushions. I did feel very housewify! And this, my friends, was the very last one. Now all I have to do is use the scraps to make a tablecloth and maybe two pillow covers. But none of that will take as much time as those huge cushions, or even worse, the corner cushions (look closely in the first picture and you will see one).
M laid new carpet and vinyl in the trailer (I'll show you a picture later) so it's starting to look more and more like home. Which is good, because we'll probably have to live in it for at least a year. So it might as well be as comfortable as possible!

Lucky again!

Wow, I'm still so lucky! Lots of really good things are happening right now. I already bragged about my upcoming vacation, so I won't do that again. But now I'm lucky at work, too.
Our school has had a new concierge for a while now. This man is very attentive, and thinks along with everyone in the building. He saw me racing around with the tv/dvd-set a lot, and he also noticed that the distance between the room where the tv-set is located and my classroom is pretty far. Not only is it far, but I have to cross two thresholds with the cart, so it's slightly dangerous to move the set.
The other day he asked me to step into his office. He showed me a brand new tv/dvd-set with an awesomely big and flat tv, and asked me if I would like to have it for my classroom!
Well, of course I did...

So now I'll never have to worry if the tv is available anymore, and anytime I want to use the tv or dvd for highly educational purposes, I can!

To ski or not to ski

When there's a big remodeling planned, you need a lot of money. That's why we decided to skip our annual skiing trip this year. After all, when we move into the trailer, we'll feel like we're on vacation anyway (hopefully) and while we work on the house we will get just as much physical exercise. Besides, spring nights can be chilly, so we can feel just like we're in the mountains, while we sleep under our plastic roof....

Something changed, however.

My uncle called and told us that his daughter won't be going on the trip. And because it's already paid for, would I like to go? My M can't take any days off, but I'll have carnaval vacation so I'll be off school already, anyway. We talked about it, and now I'm going to go on the skiing trip, after all!
I never expected to be going to Italy twice within six weeks, but I am. I'm so lucky!! (And I have a wonderful uncle, for taking me, and a wonderful husband, for letting me go!)

When in Rome...

... there was no opportunity to blog. But it was beautiful!
We spent 4 days in Rome, between Christmas and New Year's. We saw all the sights (well, all the major sights, anyway) and had lots of fun with two of our best friends. It was really cool. This was our third city trip with them (Barcelona and Copenhagen were previous) but it just keeps getting more fun, it seems like.

I don't feel like writing much, but I did want to share one of the best pictures with you.
And of course, wish all of you a wonderful 2008!