I promise I'm still breathing!

My dear blog and blog followers, I swear I’m not dead and haven’t forgotten about you. I started writing my post about the family visiting and all that jazz aaaand it’s been sitting in my drafts since last week. Whoops. The issue is that I blog all day in my head, but often when it comes time to put fingers to keyboard (that doesn’t sound nearly as eloquent as pen to paper – whomp whomp) I’m so exhausted of staring at my computer screen that I just can’t bring myself to do it. Turns out, student teaching is like 20% lessons, 10% interacting with students, and 70% preparing, reflecting, and general sitting and staring at a computer screen. But you mustn’t think that a phone call to the “whaaaa-mbulence” is necessary, for there is no other profession I’d rather be pursuing.

Right, so, we’re getting down to the wire here. With two weeks left on my visa the big question is: where the heck did my semester go? It seems like so long ago and yet, just yesterday that I was sitting on the 52 bus home, scared out of my wits at what I had gotten myself into. But I mustn’t start reflecting yet – there’s still time left. And I still have things to catch you up on. Let’s recap. I left off with American Breakfast: 

We proudly hoisted the stars and stripes for the All American Breakfast Feast. After raving for weeks about the merits of an all American breakfast, Shawna, Indira, and I finally claimed Erik's apartment for the US of A, fried up some bacon, eggs, pancakes, and blueberry muffins and showed the Dutch how breakfast is really done. Our resources were a little limited, we had to work with what we had - the Dutch make circles with their bacon, it's terribly backwards - but we managed to fix up a mighty fine samplin'.  It was no Waffle House, but really, what is?

my new german friends

Unfortunately, I had to scamper off before we were ready to serve everything up. But, priorities. The Sheridan's had landed on Dutch soil and were looking for their tour guide. I hopped on the train in Arnhem and headed toward Amsterdam. Along the way I met an incredibly friendly German bachelor party who invited me to sit with them. And as a tourist, why not? We swapped reasons for visiting the city, our various histories, and even managed to get a photo.

is this a Christmas card photo, or what? 

In Amsterdam, I met my mom and brother at their hotel. Finally having my moments to be the All American Tourist, we took a boat ride through the canals, wandered around Amsterdam, and let them get their bearings. The jetlag hit Mom hard, and Charlie even harder so after Mom and I took a quick spin down the tulip market, we turned in early. As they slept off their travels, I stayed up and finished off the first part of my PWS because my life is really fun.

The next morning we got Charlie a real Dutch pancake then took a long loop around to get to the Resistance Museum. There was a bit of a struggle to find the actual location (my navigation skills are not so great), but managed in the end. It wasn’t somewhere I would’ve gone on my own, but I’m so glad that it was on our weekend list. Telling the story of The Netherlands under German occupation during World War II, it (obviously) gave a totally un-Americanized perspective on the war. My whole life, WWII has been taught through the lens of how it affected the States, so it was really neat to see America as only a blip on the history of the whole war.

After an abridged visit there we caught the train to Ede-Wageningen, got the fam settled in their B&B and popped over to Renkum so that they could see where I live. That night and the next my American family had dinner with my Dutch family. It was quite the clash of the worlds. A It was a little odd to have such an intersection but so, so nice to see my family after being apart for so long. I won’t go into all of our adventures, since at this point I’d be recounting ancient history.

Thomas and Johan sport their Duck Dynasty
beard suckers. 

In her giant suitcase, my wonderfully gracious mother brought more American snacks than clothing with her to The Netherlands, so we spent the full week having an American sampler: chicken and waffle flavored potato chips, sweet southern spice bbq chips, tootsie pops, candy dots, wax bottles, Hershey’s, and Wonka candy galore. The American Intern: I came, I saw, I brought diabetes. It was such good fun to watch their faces turn in revile at the taste of our high fructose corn syrup laden sweets. That’s what they get for making me try Dutch licorice.

New Oreo eating expert

At home, I got to teach Janne how to properly eat an Oreo, which was quite possibly my most proud cultural exchange. Apparently, the Dutch don’t dip their cookies in milk. Not to worry though, I’m working on it.

The rest of my days have flown by in a blur of lessons and tests and reflections. My teacher no-showed for Dutch class on Monday night because she was in Brussels, but forgot to let us know – casual. Wednesday night English classes are progressing nicely.  We had parent-teacher conferences this week so Thursday night, so I got to chat with some of my student’s parents. And then this morning I got to scare the mess out of my first year class, which is always fun. After having two classes of absolute struggle to get the kids to 1. actually have the book and 2. do the reading, I was a little fed up. So, as they walked in the classroom this morning I put on my scariest, serious teacher face and told them to “put your bags away right now, get out a pen, if I catch you talking you. will. fail.” Of course, immediately they wanted to know, “will we get a mark? will we get a mark??” to which I replied “no questions, do your quiz.”  Oh, it’s so fun to make them squirm. Once they finished, gone over the answers, settled that they would not actually get a mark and got a lecture on how they needed to stop acting like little banshee monster children, I loosened up a bit. By the end of the period, they were teaching me how to say “silence” and “be quiet” in Dutch and I was working on teaching them how to “y’all” with a southern drawl. It was good fun. 

This will be a quiet weekend, I’ve started the job hunt which means I spend hours hunched over my computer screen writing and re-writing and re-writing my various cover letters, trying to iron out any culturally unacceptable, American nuances. That’s one thing about applying for international jobs, a lot of the “how to get a job” tricks and tips that I’ve heard over the years, don’t necessarily apply outside of the States. The Dutch have a totally different way of reading people in the job pool, so I’ve had to sit with a myriad of teachers trying to figure out how to give my potential employers an appropriate and accurate picture of me. Lawd have mercy, it’s confusing and frustrating sometimes but I like the challenge. And let’s be real, living in a foreign country is always going to be a little confusing and frustrating sometimes, so it’s all just part of the territory.

It won’t be all work though, my cousin’s Flat Stanley came to “visit” this week so we’ll be doing some adventuring this weekend.

That’s all I have for you tonight. I’ll keep you posted on any developments, and if anybody knows a school who’s looking for an English teacher – I know an enthusiastic, motivated, skilled, anyotherpositiveresumeadjective, young teacher who happens to be looking for work this coming fall!  

pws problems

PWS- Professional Writing Sample. In general terms: my teacher thesis. In personal terms: the ever growing word document that reminds me that I am not a full-fledged teacher yet and still have student work to do. Hence my slightly prolonged absence - a girl can only look at a computer screen so long. But I'm back now and here is my week in review: 

Monday, or: that guhhh sound

I take Dutch classes on Monday nights through the International Student Organization at Wageningen. It moves really quickly and it's taught by just some willing student, but it's better than nothing. I sat next to a Polish girl and we commiserated on the pronunciations, giggling at each others struggling attempts to spit out the proper sounds. 

Tuesday, or: not so lekker licorice 

the Dutch treats 

I have the most adorable V5IB class (11th graders by American school standards). During class on Monday we got slightly off topic and they were appalled to hear that I hadn't tried the traditional Dutch licorice. So, one of my sweet students came to class loaded down with licorice, French fry and special sauce flavored potato chips, miniature Dutch pancakes, and stroopwafles for me to try. They all gathered round to watch my face turn sour as I tried the black, salty horror that is Dutch licorice and then helped me eat the potato chips and leftover candies. 

I also learned that they're a bunch of little stalkers and think that they shouldn't let me calling them adorable go to their head and that they should go find their article for class on Monday. :) 

all the cute chefs 

Living with a host mother who is in the health and nutrition industry has quite drastically changed my eating habits. Probably for the better. But this college kid has been craving her "I live on my own and I'm lazy" staple snack/meal/three times a week meal: nachos. So, the best way to fix that craving AND Americanize some Dutchies? Nacho night. 

Shawna and I put our heads together, with Ester who spent some time in Mexico, divvied up the ingredients, and scheduled our fiesta for Tuesday night. I was charged with finding cheddar cheese because, well, we all know it's the dairy product closest to my heart. You can buy cheese at the local grocery store here, but I can't imagine why you would want to when you can go to a cheese shoppe. Walls, covered in every type and taste you can imagine. I went to the one in Wageningen, which I found out later is one of the top, award winning cheese shops in the area. 

I picked out an appropriate cheddar and as the owner rang me up, another patron proceeded to quiz me about my accent - where I was from, what was I doing here, etc. All pretty normal stuff for a foreigner. It wasn't until he wanted to tell me all of his high school grades that I had to put on my polite southerner face. Because what teacher wouldn't want to know a complete strangers marks?? Especially one that looked like he graduated maybe 30 years ago. 

I quickly paid the damage, excused myself from conversation, and hopped back on the bus. 

That night, to the shock and awe of the Dutchies, we piled tortilla chips high with chicken and cheese and refried beans, and spinach, and guacamole, and sour cream then feasted until we had to loosen our belts. 

Wednesday, or: using my superpower 

I'm helping teach an English class at the same place that I take my Dutch class. It's weird to teach English as a language. With literature, I can tell my students that something is correct or not correct because I have several years of academic study in that field under my belt. But with English language, I don't always have reasons or explanations for why something is correct or incorrect, it just is because I said so. Which is a weird way to think, but compared to my students, "because it's what I say" is significant enough since I'm a native speaker. It's very odd, but I do enjoy teaching the class. I team teach with a fellow American who hails from Chicago, so hearing a really familiar accent has been a treat. 

Thursday: 

I accompanied the T3 field trip to The Hague, which is the city that houses the Dutch Parliament. The kids got to go into the Second House of Parliament and had questions prepared for some members of local parties. There were three politicians and as the students asked questions, it was fun to watch them go back and forth over controversial subjects. Don't get me wrong, the whole thing was in Dutch so I didn't actually know what was going on, but I could tell from the tones that things were getting heated. We also visited the first house, the original from the 17th century complete with the gaudy decor of the golden age (when Holland was rolling in money from trans-European trade) which was really cool. American tourists don't normally get to go into the first house, so being able to go plop myself down on their green velvet chairs and gawk at the artwork was an especially cool experience. 

Coming up next: my big, fat, American breakfast and the Sheridans take Holland. Stay tuned!