She was only 17..

"She" is one of my students...

I watched the news last night and let it all soak in but also minded my own business.
Until someone from school phoned when I was already lying in bed. The first thought that crossed my mind "if someone is calling at this hour something bad has happened".

And it was.

One of my students was in Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 that was shot down in Ukrain yesterday afternoon. She was on her way to her vacation address in Kuala Lumpur. Along with her mother, stepdad and stepbrother.

It is impossible to describe what I felt when I hear the news and what I am feeling today.  It feels like a deep deep hole in my hear.

This morning we took care of her classmates and took care of ourselves, the teachers. We mourned for her loss. Most of us cried, most of us hugged, both teachers and students.

And the news got even worse.

The best friend of the principal was also on that plane.

As was a friend of the daughter of a colleague.

And the training buddy of a colleague.

And the brother of a friend of one of our laboratory assistents.

It was devastating to hear this.


I mourn deeply for all of the people who were on that plane, and feel terribly sorry for all of the family members and friends left behind.

So sorry.

16 going on 17

I have this class with 22 boys and 2 girls. An almost all-boy group.

Most of my colleagues do not like this kind of groups. Too much testosterone flying around the classroom..
But I have a soft spot for these groups. I would rather have an all-boy group than an all-girl group!
They are noisy, rude, in-your-face and macho behaviour is oozing out of them.
I have a soft spot for these guys, because somewhere inside of them is still a boy, not yet a man. But they are still very basic and honest in their opinions and ideas. And that's what I love about them. They can be the biggest macho in the group, but if you talk to them face to face they are so so honest.
Big boys, I like them, not yet an adult, but really trying hard to act like one (but fail).
When they come to my class I let them let off steam, pick their position in the class hierarchy in whichever way they want and after that I start my class and carry them along through today's lessons.
For some kind of reason I am more a boys-teacher than a girls-teacher in this age group! I really haven't got a clue why it is that way.
For now I have a lovely group to have motherly feelings to and to tell stories about to my Hubby which shakes his head upon hearing my ramblings and says I am a Mother Goose.

Ik heb een klas met 22 jongens en 2 meisjes. Een bijna complete jongensklas.

Heerlijk vind ik ze. Mijn collega's zijn vaak niet zo gecharmeerd van zo'n klas...
Ook al zijn ze brutaal, ongenuanceerd, veels te macho en zo enorm een haantje aan het uithangen... Ik heb een zwakke plek voor ze.
Want ergens daar binnen zit nog een klein jongetje, nog niet helemaal volwassen, maar wel met goede ideeen voor de toekomst. Een soort van rijpend zaadje dat in een groep het hardst wil roepen,  maar dat 1 op 1 met de juf een heel serieus gesprek kan hebben.
Ik houd wel van die puberjongens, ze voelen zich al heel wat, maar ze moeten nog even, even wat volwassener worden!
Ik laat ze hun stoom afblazen en ze even hun groepspositie bepalen (dat gepaard gaat met opmerkingen over en weer en een hoop geschreeuw en geblaat) en daarna begin ik. En dan neem ik ze mee in de les.
Om een of andere reden kan ik met die jongens veel beter opschieten dan (vaak) met de meisjes. Ik weet niet hoe dat komt.
Maar voor nu geniet ik er weer van dat ik een halfjaartje een jongensklas onder mijn hoede heb en dat ik mag verkondigen hoe lief ik ze vind :) tot verzuchtingen van mijn Grote Vent die me dan weer een moederkloek noemt.

Checking, Sorting, Preparing

 De pruimeboom
          Eene vertelling

Jantje zag eens pruimen hangen,
   o! als eieren zo groot.
't Scheen, dat Jantje wou gaan plukken,
   schoon zijn vader 't hem verbood.
Hier is, zei hij, noch mijn vader,
   noch de tuinman, die het ziet:
Aan een boom, zo vol geladen,
   mist men vijf zes pruimen niet.
Maar ik wil gehoorzaam wezen,
   en niet plukken: ik loop heen.
Zou ik, om een hand vol pruimen,
   ongehoorzaam wezen? Neen.
Voord ging Jantje: maar zijn vader,
   die hem stil beluisterd had,
Kwam hem in het loopen tegen
   voor aan op het middelpad.
Kom mijn Jantje, zei de vader,
   kom mijn kleine hartedief!
Nu zal ik u pruimen plukken;
   nu heeft vader Jantje lief.
Daar op ging Papa aan 't schudden,
   Jantje raapte schielijk op;
Jantje kreeg zijn hoed vol pruimen,
   en liep heen op een galop .

(Proeve van kleine gedigten voor kinderen, 1778, Hieronymus van Alphen

This is a children's poem that is widely known in the Netherlands. For those of you who can't read it I found the English version, because this poem really needs to be included in this post.

The plumtree.
          A story

Johnny saw some fine plums hanging,
Oh! like eggs, so very large;
Johnny seemed about to pluck them,
Though against his father's charge.
Here is not, said he, my father,
Nor the gard'ner near the tree,
From those boughs so richly laden,
Five or six plums - who can see ?
But I wish to be obedient,
I'll not pluck them; off I go.
Should I for a trifling handful
Disobedient be? Oh no.
Off went Johnny; but his father,
Who had overheard his talk,
Just then forward stepped to meet him,
In the garden middle-walk.
Come, my Johnny, said his father,
Come, my little darling boy,
Now for you some plums I'll gather,
Now you are your father's joy.
Then Pa gave the tree a shaking;
Johnny stooped with laughing face,
Johnny filled his hat quite brimful,

Off then galloped in a race. 

 We had a lot of prumes as I've told you in my last post. Something had to be done with them, so I searched through my pie recipes and found one for prumepie!
Friday I baked the first one and today the second one with some tweaking of the original recipe. Today's prumepie came out gorgeous, if I may say so.

The first attempt is delicious, and tomorrow my colleagues will have a taste of the second attempt.

Yes, school is starting again!

I got my working schedule (long days....) and I was pleased with the different grades I got this year. General Sciences is still a problem, but my colleague and I really have to talk about it with people higher up.

So this weekend I started preparing. Pulling stuff together, thinking about my outfit for this year's school picture, and put all my stuff in my trusted backpack.

 
Ah, did you miss me? For seven weeks you have been hiding in the closet and now it's time to go out again and have some fun! It is filled to the brim again because I wanted to take my Biology book to school tomorrow. Heavy backpack indeed.

Also I am thinking where to go on this blog. I have been thinking for a long long time, and today I made the first steps. I mentioned it earlier I think, but today I started making swatches for a "How to Crochet" course.

There will be two courses actually. One for crochet and one for Tunisian crochet. I am excited! Will try to work on swatching for the coming weeks and soon Big Man will assist me in making pictures for photo tutorials.

The next big thing is that there will be sewing project tutorials coming. I am working like a maniac on my quilt (not tonight actually, shame on me), and after that I will start on a few little projects that I am going to share with you!

A new year, new chances, new creative goodies on the horizon!

The Past Week In Pictures

As I mentioned earlier, it was a very hectic, very busy week for me. Now, the finals are done! I am done grading. I am still a bit stressed out by it, not my regulare mood, but hopefully I can relax a bit the  next few days. Little Lady and Little Man are also working on my nerves so I really need to breathe in, breathe out.

I tried to take a picture (or more) a day to give you a view of my week!

Monday

On Mondaymorning the tits were still as busy as ever, flying around with little snacks for the chicks. Monday afternoon, after arriving home, we noticed that there were no more tits sitting on the fence, calling, no more flying to the birdhouse, nothing. They secretly flew away. It was a downer for me as I really hoped to watch the chicks make their first flight.

Tuesday

Big Man is enjoying two weeks off since he is between jobs at the moment. He went to the city and the sweet guy brought me an Interweave Crochet. It has been a year since I bought one myself, and I was pleased to see that they have updated the magazine. The pictures are fresher, the patterns itself are more modern and up-to-date and the written content has been upgraded. Top notch magazine! It came at the right moment as I really needed something to flip through to give me a bit of a break during grading.

Wednesday

I, no WE, took a day off. It was such lovely weather, Little Mans school was closed so we went to the zoo! Bliss. We only went in the morning and is was great to have the zoo almost empty. It was fun!

The afternoon we spent in the garden. Little Man decided it was time to take the side wheels of his bike, and our little daredevil can cycle almost completely on his own.

In the evening we went out for dinner. We wanted to go for a long time, since it is a nice experience for the kids. We really want them to be used to go out for dinner in a real restaurant. We went to a Greek restaurant, not particularly childfriendly. The kids behaved very good for their first time in a real restaurant. Offcourse they could not sit down for the entire meal but they entertained themselves. Little Man crouched lots of time under the table and enjoyed himself looking outside the window, Little Lady found out that if she waved and smiled other people would wave back. They also really enjoyed the food.

Thursday

The final day of grading...... I was almost done, just some scraps. You can get so enormously tired of grading. Ridiculous, but true.

Friday
 

My working spot for the entire Friday. Still not done with grading (had to wait for some colleagues to discuss how we needed to grade a class)... I spent the whole day checking grades, and putting them into the software we use.

Saturday

A whole day behind the computer plus some hooky time is not good for my tennis elbow so this weekend I gave my arm some TLC.....
I have three projects in progress so in between playing arbiter for the kids (they were extremely annoying this weekend, I really do not know why they were behaving like this) I had some hooky time, but since two out of three is done with cotton my arm is not very happy.

Just to give you a glimpse of the projects I have been working on....

Sunday
 

I made some pie to take along to a playdate for Little Man and Little Lady. We are going to visit the neighbour with her two sons tomorrow morning, let the kids play with eachother and drink coffee. And eat pie! It is a Boston cream pie. My first time making one, and it turned out nice.

From next week on I have more time to put in the blog. Finally! My head is spinning with ideas.

Also, I made a Facebook page to accompany this blog: Facebook page of "Zomaar een dag"
I will post news flashes, my rss feed, quick bits and pieces that I find interesting about crocheting, kids, ordinary days and stuff about recipes for lactose intolerant people over there. Hope to see you over here and over there!

Finals week..

These are the things that kept me occupied for the last three days..... Tests, tests, tests.... I've been grading like a maniac. Last friday, 6 classes of mine made their final test for biology and general sciences. I was there for one class, and they were working so hard! You could see them thinkthinkthink over the questions, chewing on their pens and getting red cheeks.
I took 5 classes with me to grade at home, one has spent the weekend in the vault at school.

I am amazed at myself, of the 5 I took home, I graded all of them. Every single one of them. I was hoping for 4 out of 5, but thanks to Big Man and the kids I managed to do them all. I am So Happy. So Relieved!

No crocheting for  me for the next days, unfortunately. Tomorrow I will receive another two envelopes with tests, and with the one in the vault, I will take three home.

So bare with me. No posts from me I think. I do got lots of subjects swirling around in my head to use for this blog, but right now, work has taken my life. Another week, and then I will have my life back!

Botanical Garden

A botanical garden is a controlled and staffed institution for the maintenance of a living collection of plants under scientific management for purposes of education and research, together with such libraries, herbaria, laboratories, and museums as are essential to its particular undertakings. Each botanical garden naturally develops its own special fields of interests depending on its personnel, location, extent, available funds, and the terms of its charter. It may include greenhouses, test grounds, an herbarium, an arboretum, and other departments. It maintains a scientific as well as a plant-growing staff, and publication is one of its major modes of expression. - Wikipedia

We have two botanical gardens at our school of which we are very proud. When I came to work at my school, we had nothing. It was just two green areas, nothing was done with it. A former colleague started working on both areas and started our lovely botanical gardens. Both are used for lessons in biology. It is lovely to go outside with the kids and do something with nature. Be outside, look at the plants, look at the animals, because these are all city kids. They have absolutely no experience. They scream at the sight of a bumble bee and think is it a stinging bee for example.

This is thebotanical garden at our main building

It has areas to create some ecological features/areas such as forestry and sand areas. They were created to teach students about ecosystems. It also has a tiny pond in which for about three years now we had gelatinous egg masses put down by frogs! It is fun to see the tiny tadpoles grow up. Unfortunately, we had a grey heron (Ardea cinerea) visiting the pond and eating most of the tiny frogs this year. My students are always amazed as they watch the common pond skater (Gerris lacustris), and are in awe that it can walk on water. There are also lots of black tailed skimmer dragonflies (Orthetrum cancellatum) humming above the pond and last time I went out with a class, the kids were shocked to find out how dragonflies have intercourse.

At the other building we have a botanical garden in which not ecology is the most important thing, but letting students plant seeds and learning to take care of the garden.

It is in full bloom and it is such a marvellous sight. And the funny thing is, they did not do a thing with the garden this year! A good example of letting nature take its course. I went down to look at all these marvelous flowers. The following pictures are a quick look at the different flowers.

Two different types of cornflower (Centaurea cyanus). It is said if a young man wears a cornflower that fades too quickly, his love will fade quickly as well.

Chamomile (Matricaria chamomilla ), which smells just lovely...

Violets (Viola Tricolor), I just love the colours! They come back every year if they survive.

Three different types of poppies (Papaver somniferum). I was surprised to see these three different colours all together in the garden. I only knew the red type of poppy. Poppies mostly have been associated with death, sleep and peace throughout history. Mostly because of the opium poppy and its intoxicating effect, but nowadays there is an annual Remembrance day in the UK (november 11th), and on these days (yes multiple) people in the UK wear a poppy on the breast. Watch the BBC in November!

Bright yellow flower, I have absolutely no idea what kind. But I love that you can see the tiny raindrops on the leaves. Yes, there was a bit of a drizzle when I took pictures, you clearly do not need sunshine to get beautiful snapshots!

And I just love love love this picture. A butt of a bumblebee. He just would not sit still. Can you blame him with the enormous amount of snacks in this lovely garden?

School's out. Almost.

It is nearing the end of the year. Time has flown! During those last few weeks everyone gets a bit emotional and thinks about the year at school that is almost at an end. You look at your kids and think "O my, they have grown!" Grown physically and mentally. I have made new friendships, renewsed contact with students from previous years and ofcourse some do not care if they see me at all anytime again during their school career. Boys that started being shorter than me, end the year with being longer than me.
You hear all the stories about their romances, their gossiping, the importance of their make-up (and hair ofcourse), how stupid other boys/girls are, and you hear their insecurities, obsessions, and what makes their heart beat faster. Sometimes they even tell you their secrets. I am glad I can be there for them if they need to pour out their heart.

For now, I just have piles of papers and tests to grade. I have one normal week left, and after that there is finals week and grade meetings (rapportvergaderingen, hoe vertaal je dat?). A very stressfull time, but I will manage.
I noticed my other "teacher" blog post was very well read, so I ask you, those of you who read my posts: any teachers out there experiencing those sentimental last few weeks as I do?