Finishing the Weekend

Saturday

If I could go back in time, I would visit my teenage self. I would arrive right as my high school alarm began its morning cacophony, and slap myself upside the head for thinking that Georgia mornings are anything close to cold. Have I mentioned that the Dutch are calling this a “warm” winter? Anyway, my present day alarm went off at 10:00, but my butt didn’t get out of bed until at least 10:30. I didn’t have the willpower to abandon my wonderful down comforter. After giving myself series of inspiring pep talks - “you lazy waste, get out of bed” – I finally found the courage to get myself together. I’ve learned quite quickly about myself that I can handle almost any situation as long as I know my surroundings and my schedule. When those two pieces of information are missing, it sends me into a minor system shut down. So there you go, blog readers, if I have a Luke Skywalker out there, you now know the weak point in my Death Star (wow, that was a little dorky...). Anyway, my point in sharing this, is that I have just started to have a concrete schedule, so the only thing left to do was get my bearings. Bundling up in scarves and jackets, I walked down to the ‘downtown’ part of Renkum – one street of shops. Which really isn’t that different from Auburn. I haven’t gotten a ton of exercise the past week, so my legs were feeling like they needed a good stretching. I didn’t feel like cutting my walk short by actually going in the stores, so I just kept on down the road until it spat me out on I guess what the Dutch would consider their highway (not in the sense of four lanes both ways kind of highway, but two lane road where cars can go faster). As signs pointing toward Wageningen appeared, I started to regret my steady diet of Doritos over Christmas break, and began looking for a bus stop. I found one that I recognized, managed to get on the one going the wrong direction, and spent the rest of my afternoon hours on the bus. Not a particularly wild adventure, but I’m glad I got my bearings by foot, for obvious reasons and especially for my shenanigans later on that evening…

The other American teacher who I’ve mentioned before, Shawna, has kind of taken me under her wing. I’m not one to throw the “you’re such a blessing” phrase around… like really, I never use it unless I’m trying to make fun of someone. But I legitimately don’t know how to describe Shawna with any other terms. Don’t get me wrong, all of the teachers have been the warmest, most friendly people I have ever encountered. But it’s just nice to have someone who knows exactly what I’m going through and what I’m talking about. So, on Friday made plans to go for a drink on Saturday night. She had given me the name of the bar, which I had written down phonetically and thought “how off can I be? I’ll look it up later”. Thank the high heavens I also had her phone number, because what I wrote in my agenda was “Flomm Ceros” and where we were going was called the “Vlaamse Reus.” Again, so. glad. I. clarified. Shawna was particularly excited about showing me this bar because it is home to the “beer bible”, a book with pictures and descriptions of the hundred odd beers that they serve on tap.  In our clarification conversation Saturday afternoon, she invited me over for dinner with her and her husband AND told me that she had found me a bike that I can use. My American friends might not understand the significance of that, but in the Netherlands having a bike is comparable to having a car. All the buses stop running around midnight and if you’re not on that last bus home, you’re just S.O.L.

Late afternoon I hopped on the bus and headed to the city of Rhenen where Shawna was waiting for me at the bus stop. She showed me parts of Rhenen including the original city wall, which is precisely what you think it is – the wall that surrounded the city. For dinner, she cooked an Asian stir fry dish and treated me to all sorts of Dutch junk food and sweets. I might actually not be able to come back to America after eating Dutch truffles, although if I’m going for greasy: bring it on American style. The Dutch have these snacks that look like a Connect Four boards, with the consistency of a packing peanut and with a stroke of 21^st century genetically modified food genius, have made this crunchy snack taste like ham and cheese. It’s repulsive. The other snacks are better. After dinner, she introduced me to my bike and the three of us (Shawna, her husband, and myself) set off toward Wageningen and the Vlaamse Reus.

Now, I learned to ride a bike as a child and have done it fairly frequently during Hilton Head summers, but I swear I must have looked like a one-legged toddler with vertigo during that bike ride. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. But Shawna and Hans took us racing down the Rhine river banks and through back wooded area, mind you, this is 8pm so not only is it freezing, but pitch black. There were lights on our bikes, but those only sufficed enough to reveal potholes immediately in front of you. Meanwhile, my native bike riders are chatting the whole way as if conversing on two wheels is the most natural thing to do. After thirty minutes of woodland trails and sidewalks, we finally made it to Wageningen in one piece. The “downtown” area is shaped in a circle around an old church, with lots of little hole-in-the-wall bars and restaurants. A few minutes after we arrived, we were met by another Marnix teacher, Saskia, who joined us for a few hours of swapping stories, planning future adventures, and laughing at my unrefined taste for beer. Apparently in a country with such easy access to the “best beer in the world” (Belgian beer), my taste for Bud Light in a can doesn’t quite meet their standards. Go figure.

Caitlin meets the Beer Bible

 After a few hours, Saskia decided to head home and Shawna wanted to know if we should go elsewhere. Now, admittedly, I was a little tired and a little wary of the fact that I was biking home, but when in a new place I have a fairly strict policy of saying “yes” to everything, unless it seems potentially life threatening, of course. So off we went to the pub across the circle. Threading through the crowd we started to notice that most of the patrons were considerably older and threaded our way back out. On to the next bar. There was quite a good band there and as we were listening, Shawna noticed a sign advertising that we had somehow stumbled upon a jazz festival at all of these local pubs. Tickled at our luck, we pressed on to the next location to listen to a band who takes the genre “jazz” very lightly – more of what I would call 90’s rock, but who am I to split hairs? At our final stop on the tour we found two older gentlemen playing some old school folk music. With a banjo and a harmonica narrating the scene, I could’ve been at any Alabama bar. You know, except for the scattered conversations in Dutch. Around 1:30 in the morning, we opted for some late night snacking and went to the equivalent of a McDonalds/Taco Bell, but instead of gorging ourselves on Dorito Taco Locos (man, I really have a thing for Doritos, don't I?), we enjoyed foods whose names I can’t even begin to tell you, but will describe:

a fried cheese pouch – like fried pastry dough with cheese inside it

something whose meat resembled a hot dog but spicier, with Indian ketchup (it kind of tasted like spicy barbeque sauce)

a rice nugget thing – like a chicken nugget the size of my fist, but instead of spare parts chicken inside it had flavored rice

Overall, greasy and delicious.

We decided to call it a night after that, and headed back to the bicycles. Shawna and Hans guided me back to the main road, where I put on my big girl pants, despite the voice in my head that said – what the what am I doing cycling home at 2 in the morning in a foreign country – and assured them I knew the way home. I had been told over and over throughout the week that cycling at any time of the day is completely safe and normal in Holland and figured, when in Rome…

I had seen the road from the bus window on my morning commute and knew I was going in the right direction but was soooo very glad that I had made most of that trek by foot earlier that day because there were definitely parts of the ride that if I hadn’t seen in person, I would’ve convinced myself that I was lost. As you may have guessed, I made it home in one piece.

Sunday

The morning after my midnight bike ride, I got up fairly early and went to church with my host family (just the mother and daughter). Their church services are very casual, and I was very taken aback when one woman approached the pulpit at a random part of the service to whisper something in the minister’s ear like it was no big thing. The service was in Dutch, so I didn’t get much, except for the Lord’s Prayer – but that was less because of understanding the words and more recognizing the pattern. It wasn’t until the benediction that I realized that I could understand what she was saying, for a second I thought that some miracle Pentecost-like miracle had occurred, and then realized that she was speaking in English for my benefit. Literally, just for me, she said the benediction first in English then Dutch. Naturally, I spent the remaining minutes wondering if I stick out that obviously. Turns out, the woman who had approached the pulpit during the service, was letting the minister know I was there. It was a fairly small congregation, so it wasn’t that big of a deal, but I still don’t know how I feel about that attention.

Regardless of whether or not I understood the majority of the sermon, it was still a nice service and it was nice to be with my host family for that time.

The remainder of the afternoon was dedicated to Skyping my parents and working on lesson plans for the upcoming week, until that evening when my host mother came in to offer me an apple pastry thing that she was making for the rest of the family. I accepted, and spent the rest of the evening talking to her and Janne, telling Janne about American high school – how I was afraid to admit it was not just like Glee. I’ll leave you with the following thought: throughout the world, people think that the average American high school is like Glee/what they see in the movies. Yikes.

Unapologetically Behind

“It’s been a weekend, and I’m terribly sorry to keep you all waiting. Here’s what I’m going to do, I started writing Friday’s post during school on Friday and I really don’t want to go back and change the tenses, so I’m just going to hit all three days like I’m not lazy” was what I intended to do for this post when I started writing mid-afternoon. But life is not so simple as being able to sit down and write for hours on end without interruption. And let’s be real, I got the chance to hang out with my host family and as much as I want to enchant you all with my stories, my host family is a little more local so bonding with them seemed far more important. Besides, it’s currently 22:15 and although my alarm is going to go off at 6:30, I’m betting the chickens will start around 5:30. So you’re getting this weekend in installments. If anything crazy happens tomorrow, I will notify you post haste, but until then, see if you can tide yourself over with a snippet of the weekend, here we go:

Friday

One of my favorite parts about this experience is seeing how students, no matter what nationality or country or culture, are the same everywhere. As I approached Marnix this morning, eyes smarting from the brisk wind, I was met with a scene I hadn’t seen since my own days in junior high. Or rather, I should say that it hit my other senses before reaching my eyes. My ears became aware first, the distant but familiar hiss of liquid becoming aerosolized. Next the assault on my nostrils – the thick, singe-your-nose-hairs “fragrance” of middle school boys everywhere: Axe. Only after I had taken a quick trip down memory lane to the hallway outside the boy’s locker rooms at Crabapple Middle School, did I see the three boys assaulting each other with streams of spray from their body spray cans. Ah, middle school.

The day lingered on, class to class to class. I have three pages worth of pedagogical observations about that, but you’ll need to request it specially. When lunch rolled around, I made my way down the hallway to meet another English teacher, Ester, and two male students who were furiously looking over their notes and (good naturedly) ribbing each other. Marnix College does a speaking competition, I believe, every year. Any student is eligible to enter, regardless if they are part of the bilingual program or not, but they must deliver a speech, in English, on a subject of their choice. That’s it, pick a topic and wow us. As I came in, the English department was reaching the end of preliminary eliminations (all apply, they do their speech in front of their English class or a few teachers, then the students who pass that round will go before a panel of teachers, and then the ones who pass that round will go to the final “big deal” competition later this semester). So, Ester had asked me to sit with her and help with judging because well, being the sole judge is awkward. I was introduced to the boys, who I’m going to call A and B for the purpose of this story. I realize that using their names would be so much easier but I’m terrified of using a student’s name in anything but my academic research, just too much liability when dealing with minors. We went round the usual, “I’m an American, I’ve come to teach, blah, blah, blah” spiel and in the best of “what a small world”, A told me that his father lives in a village (yep, they call towns ‘villages’) south of Atlanta. Next I learned that the boys entered the completion solely to complete against one another, and apparently that’s what they do, compete against each other in everything. Ester and I took our seats, and A delivered his speech and all was well and good. Then, B took the stage, shaking like a leaf. With a mixture of the cockiness that only high school boys who are completing against their best friend and an obvious disappointment look apparent across his reddening face, he revealed that since he was simply trying to beat student A, he had prepared a speech about “Why A Should Not Participate in MarnixTalks” but, I had thrown a wrench in his plan. The first driving point of his slander campaign, revolved around student A’s American roots… which makes for awkward conversation when one of your judges just happens to be American. Whoops. Of course I laughed and told him to bring on whatever he had prepared. So with a face who’s shade of red would’ve made a tomato jealous, he proceeded to “convince” us that student A’s American roots, habits of procrastination, and lack of mustache made him a completely inadequate candidate.

For the record, student B will be advancing to the next round.

After school, I was invited to go back to Ester’s home with a handful of other teachers. We purchased microwavable spare ribs (not as good as Southern barbeque, but A for effort) and sat around the table in her normal-for-Netherlands, smallerthanmycollegedorm, but nonetheless cozy living room, enjoying dinner. After the guys had killed of their crate of beer, we hopped on the bus to the central part of Arnem where the group shot pool in the back of a dingy bar while Ester and I swapped travel stories – which was mostly her giving me really good advice for traveling Europe and me thinking for the thousandth time that I need to start carrying a notebook to write all this stuff down. 

Real life... kind of

I didn’t write yesterday, by the time I got around to doing it I didn’t feel like thinking anymore. In the wake of Monday’s shell shock, each day has gotten better and better. I’m learning people’s names more permanently, getting a feel for the layout of the school and surrounding area, and starting to feel more comfortable in my role as more teacher than student. All of the English/TTO teachers have been wonderful about sharing nuggets of advice and information about the ins and outs of teaching Dutch children – sometimes I feel like a bobble head I spend so much time nodding my head and making noises that indicate agreement or understanding. So, yesterday I spent the morning in the lower form. I’ve always said that I prefer high school students and that middle schoolers are the worst, but was pleasantly surprised to find that I loved working with the T1, T2, and T3 students (that would be the equivalent to honors-ish 7^th, 8^th, and 9^th grade). As the T1s worked I milled about the room, my favorite was when a girl flagged me down to come to her desk. As I crouched next to her (small ears and a loud room makes for very difficult hearing, especially for the shyer speakers) she looked me square in the face and said, “I can understand your accent good, because I watch MTV”. My first thought: “good grief, she is way too young to watch that trash”. But decided to vocalize my praise for her practicing American-English and asking what she liked to watch instead. I bounced around in the lower forms for the rest of the morning then spent the afternoon over at the upper form. Toward the end of the day I met with my coordinating teacher and we discussed plans for the coming weeks. Things are still a little up in the air (and to be honest, I still don’t really grasp the schedule) but I’ll be teaching a little bit next week in her T4 class. Monologues vs. soliloquies vs. asides on Wednesday and present perfect tense on Friday. Should be interesting.

After school, it was raining quite a bit but I needed to run to the bank, so on my way home I got off the bus in Wageningen which I believe is pronounced [vah-ne-ah], although I’m not totally certain about that. When I talk about it I just make sure to make a “vah” sound followed by a glottal slide and people seem to get what I’m talking about. All I can say for sure is that it definitely is not pronounced [wagon-in-gen]. I know that tidbit from experience. There’s a university in Wageningen and it promised to be kind of a cool area, but the rain kept me from anything more than wandering around lost for a half hour until I found the bank I was looking for. Hopefully we’ll get a day that isn’t too terribly wet so that I can explore a little bit.

As for today, another day at school. During the last block I sat in on a T3 class (9^th graders) who were reviewing for their reading test tomorrow, but for the last few minutes I got to tell the kids a little bit about the American education system and culture in the United States, then they were allowed to ask me questions. True to pubescent fifteen-year-old fashion, they were all embarrassed to ask questions in front of each other. So I told them a little bit about the accents from the North and South, and how if they ever visited the South they had to try fried pickles. It was fun to see them wrinkle up their noses at that. After class ended, a kind of good-naturedly cheeky boy asked me if there were a lot of red-necks in my area… looks like I’ll have to dig up some (school appropriate) photographs from Rodeo to show them.

Outside of school, things are going well. Maybe it’s just coincidence, but I’ve noticed that the Dutch are very musical people… well, Dutch men are very musical. Lots of humming and the occasional chorus from male teachers and Hans at random intervals. It’s quite nice. 

day two: whew

Far less intense than the day before. Due to some meetings, shifting schedules, and I suspect intuition that I was feeling a bit shell shocked, I wasn't expected to come in today until 10:00. The extra two hours were exactly what I needed. After a slow start to the morning, I got to sit in on classes with the upper level students. Despite the fact that the schedule and format and culture are totally different, there is one thing that does not change across the continents: teenagers. All day I laughed at how similar the personalities are to the students that I've interacted with at home. Complaining about homework, cutting up under their breath, it doesn't change. In between classes I met with the various teachers that I'll be working with and began discussing plans to firm up my schedule in the coming weeks and the lessons that I'll be taking over. I also met the school principal today, a kind man who graduated from the University of Florida. It was a treat to speak with not only another American, but someone who knows the South. So far everyone I've met at Marnix has been crazy nice. Obviously I didn't expect them to be mean, but it's an amazing perk nonetheless. Everyone has encouraged me to not only learn about the school but to make sure that I travel and see all of Holland - coming from a pretty work centered culture (or maybe it's just been me intensely focused on work the past few years) I've been taken aback at their insistence for exploration outside of internship. 

Also, something a little odd, that I'm sure has come from speaking with people who have a myriad of accents the past two days. The voice in my head that I read with has developed a weird hybrid Dutch-British-American English accent. Three of the teachers I've spoken to frequently are British natives and most of the rest learned English from the Brits, so they have a British twang to their English (which is a really cool thing to listen to because some words come out in a Dutch accent and some words come out in an English accent). But being around all that with very little exposure to American English has totally warped the way that I've been reading things - if this is happening after 48 hours, who knows what it'll be like come April?! 

After I finished for the day there was still plenty of daylight so I walked around the block just to see what the neighborhood was like - lot's of small, Dutch-looking houses and one very friendly postman. Then I took the long way back to the bus station and waited for the 52 to arrive. In my efforts to see more of the neighborhood, I missed the earlier bus and had to wait around a half hour for the next one so I pulled out my copy of 1984 (T6t - their name for bilingual track seniors - are reading it). While I stood reading, an older woman approached me, also to wait for the bus. She pointed to the cover and spoke a string of Dutch that went completely over my head. "I'm sorry, I only speak English" I said, cursing myself for not trying harder at learning a few phrases earlier. In very broken English she translated, saying that she believed that 1984 had come true. I laughed and nodded in agreement and didn't have anything else to say... In my head this was an entertaining moment, but now that I write it I can't really find the punch line. Oh well. The Dutch are pretty friendly when they have an excuse to be. 

The bus finally arrived and I began the long journey back, passing all the little stone houses next to pastures of sheep and cow and horses. All things that shouldn't surprise me, I've lived in Auburn, Alabama for the last three and a half years for goodness sake, but do. Probably because Renkum/Ede doesn't feel like what I know to be the countryside. The houses are clumped so closely together that it feels like it's a big city. 

When I arrived home, I thawed out for a few minutes. Apparently Holland is having a "warm" winter. Could've fooled me on that one. Temperatures are expected to drop soon though. Thank goodness for thick socks. When the feeling came back to my extremities, I set out again to walk around the block, just to get my bearings a little bit. We're surrounded mostly by other houses, but there is what appears to be like a convenience store with a weird assortment of American and Mexican looking food advertised in the window. Mostly I just noticed the ads for burritos and pizza. The quality is probably a little questionable, but in a pinch I bet it'd be good enough. 

I haven't had much time to take photographs. I feel like a fool when I whip my phone out to document what is mundane to everyone else here. I'm expecting most photo opportunities will arise in my weekend outings. But here's a couple that I managed: 

My room - the photo doesn't do justice to how large the space is;
I thought the tulips waiting on my desk were an especially
Dutch touch from my host family

The windmill I pass everyday getting to Marnix,
They really are everywhere. 

Day One

Status report: I'm a little overwhelmed, but good.
Lots of new things thrown at me all at one time, but that's just the nature of the beast. I started this morning at the delightful before dawn hour of 6:30 so that I could catch the 7:12 bus into Ede. A very alert 45 minute bus ride later, I made my way out of the station and toward Marnix so that I could meet with my first cooperating teacher. She greeted me in the main hallway of the upper form building and began introducing me to all the faculty in sight. It was a whirlwind of names and faces and handshakes as she showed me the Janitor's office (or what we would call the main office) and the teacher's room for the upper school, then whisked across the street to be introduced to some more names and faces in the lower school. My cheeks were just starting to grow sore from the smiling and "nice to meet you's" as the first bell rang. I sat in on five classes, mostly students in grades 2 and 3 (the Dutch equivalent of 7th and 8th grade), one period of 6IB, all of which were the TTO (bilingual) students except for one period with regular 2. All of the teachers are very engaging and friendly, they've been happy to accommodate for my Auburn requirements which has been nice. We've just started scratching the surface of what I'll be doing, but from the sound of it they're prepared to let me take the reins pretty quickly. Also, they all speak impeccable English which is a miracle in itself because I sound like a fool when I try to imitate Dutch pronunciation.
I am also very fortunate because Marnix recently added an American teacher to the staff who teaches social studies. It was nice to hear a familiar accent, even though it's only been forty-eight hours. She's been especially great with warning me about the nuances of Dutch culture coming from an American perspective and helped me get my OV-chipkaart (like a Dutch oyster card) set up. I hate that this barely scratches the surface of what my day entailed, but my eyes are drooping and I can tell that my writing isn't terribly engaging I think it's best to sign off for tonight. I'll write in more detail later on.

Arrival

I lied a little bit about keeping the blog updated with pre-departure trip information. Whoops. I touched down in Amsterdam today at noon, about an hour before schedule (praise the Lord). The previous day, having awoken at six in the morning for an 11 pm flight, was spent packing and panicking and repacking and panicking and repacking until I had finally condensed my luggage to a manageable size. Mom convinced me to see a movie later in the afternoon to kill the sluggish hours until it was time to go to the airport. Finally, finally, at 7:30 (a mere 13+ hours of waiting later) time to leave for the airport. Quick drive through downtown and into the new international terminal. Security was a breeze - despite the agony of waiting all day, that is a major perk of flying red-eye. Aboard the airbus, right on time, I made my way down the aisles cursing my bulky backpack and scouting out the local talent in hopes of a normal seat mate. No such luck. He may have been a first time flier, or tweaking on crystal meth. Either way, homeboy spent all of pre-departure twitching around in his seat and having absurdly animated reactions to the text messages he received. Occasionally he would audibly suck on his gums, making a truly delightful smacking noise, perhaps to pull the last succulent meth crumbles (does meth crumble? I'm not really sure, probably should have done my research...) from between his teeth. His piece de resistance was the panic attack that occurred as the plane started to pull onto the tarmac. Frantically scratching and scrambling about his person, all I could hear was a slew of profanities whispered in an accent known only to those born and raised in the deep south. After watching the mounting distress for a minute, I asked if he was alright.
"Lost my sleepin' pills"
"Oh no," I replied and made a half effort to glance around our seat until his hand plunged under himself and with a look of sheer relief he pulled forth a packet of little blue pills.
"Want some sleepin' pills?" he offered as the plane reached a 45 degree angle.
Now, my mother always taught me never to take candy from strangers but she never said anything about "sleepin' pills" so I said "Heck yes, someone give me a whiskey to wash these bad boys down!"

Obviously, I'm joking. I politely declined and went back to my book as my new friend popped all four pills with the gusto of a fat kid who has spotted a box of Ho-Ho's.

The rest of the flight was fairly uneventful, save for a spot of turbulence about halfway through. It was actually the first time I have ever been scared for my life on an airplane. We might as well have been on a roller coaster for the way that wind whipped us around. But the pilot was able and Jesus on our side and we made it through just fine.

We arrived in Amsterdam to a bustling airport, filled with signs written in English, thank goodness. I breezed my way through customs, collected my bags, and called my host family to let them know that I would be on the 13:30 train to Ede. As the train took me farther from the busy streets of Amsterdam, the fields grew larger and greener, the farm animals more plentiful (including a whole field just covered in chickens, which I was disappointed to only get a glimpse of), and, of course, the windmills larger and larger. Save for the smallest of panic attacks when we reached Uricht (I wasn't sure if I was supposed to switch trains and couldn't read any of the instructional signs inside the train car so I decided not to move) the ride to Ede was smooth and uneventful. Upon my arrival to the train station, I was greeted by part of my host family - the father, Hans, the son, Lennart, and the daughter, Janne (pronounced 'Jenna'). After stowing my belongings in their car, they showed me Marnix College, the school where I will be teaching.

After navigating back to the train station, we drove to their home in Renkum. A beautiful little house with a garden out back. My room is at the rear of the house and is slightly disconnected from the rest of the living quarters but, one wall is covered entirely with windows where I can overlook the garden and the family's chicken coop. I've spent the afternoon unpacking, getting my act together for internship, and fighting jet lag. Tomorrow I will begin my internship with Marnix College and be introduced to all the teachers. It's exciting times all around!
 

Eastward Bound: Again!

This little fish is back!
Just detailing day-to-day student life got a little dry, hence my long hiatus. Plus I pretty well eat, sleep, and breathe school. While I'm sure you all are dying to know about my most recent discoveries into the world of Paradise Lost or know what the English Club is up to this month, well, I'm betting you don't.

My return to the bloggersphere is due to a most exciting letter I received about a month ago. This spring I will be boarding the plane once again. This time, destination: Ede, Netherlands.

Over the summer I applied to the Consortium of Overseas Teaching (COST) program, offered by Kent State (Auburn is a cooperating school through their program) and after many months of nail biting, I got a placement. Let me elaborate: as an English/Language Arts Education major (a major that will henceforth be referred to only as English Ed because typing out the real name is obnoxious), my last semester of school is a teaching internship where I will be in a classroom full time, observing and teaching. Essentially a real teacher, but with a safety net. I can't even tell you how I stumbled upon Auburn's affiliation with the  COST program, but last fall, I decided to go for it. After months of editing personal statements - for the record I almost never edit or revise anything so having seventeen drafts of a piece of writing was quite the new experience for me - I submitted my application. I was able to rank my top four countries that I wanted to be placed in - Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, or Greece. More of a horizontal ranking, I didn't care where I was going just as long as I was going. Then I just sat back and waited (which looked far more like anxious pacing and barely concealed crazy while explaining to people that I, in fact, did not know what I was doing the next semester, did not have a lease for spring, and would just figure it out when I got there).
Two other COST students got their placements before me, so needless to say, my crazy eyes were at full force by the end of September until:
Standing in line, waiting for my coffee with two fellow survivors of the previous semester's History of the English Language. Briefly checking my phone, I notice a new email in my inbox. Expecting one of the usual eighty million pieces of spam (dang it freshman Caitlin, you do not need to sign up at every email list on War Eagle Day!) I open my email.
Voice shrill and eyes about to pop out of my head: "Jordan, my letter, my letter." and after a few moments, every head turned as I jumped up and down, backpack still on, shrieking "I'm going to the Netherlands, I get to leave!!!" Sorry I'm not sorry, Starbucks.

There's the condensed version. In the meantime, research has been done, placement coordinator has been contacted, paperwork has been started. I'll be teaching at Marnix College, which is a bilingual school for 6th-12th grade, from January 14th through April 4th, and my coordinator is working on finding me a host family to stay with. People have been coming out of the woodwork with helpful tips and contacts for me in Amsterdam - something that has been much appreciated.
Others have offered...less... helpful advice. For instance, my coordinator warned me that I may want to kick my coffee habit because "The coffee is very different at Marnix". Which is probably a good idea regardless, given that without caffeine I am a monster and that really does not make for a great first impression. After sharing with peers that I am working on kicking the habit over Christmas break, no less than three people have suggested that I bring a kurieg with me in my suitcase.... helpful.
I shouldn't roll my eyes, honestly one day they'll probably get stuck. :)

I'm going to try to keep this blog updated with any news and eventually will turn it into my travel blog. For now it's just paperwork and tying up loose ends here at Auburn. T-minus two months until my biggest adventure yet, finishing up school work should be a breeze, right?

C.Sher