Finally Spring.

It has been a long winter. I have been sick since around Christmastime. We haven't seen much sun and it has been cold. Even though I stayed home from school on Wednesday because I was too sick, my energy is starting to return as the temperatures have come up and the sun has finally begun to show its face. This happened a month later than usual.

In Michigan, there is usually snow on the ground, so even a cloudy day (there are less) has more light. The sun is not quite so low in the sky, and the air is crisp. Things are much more depressing here, but we made it through. The last week of school went ok - I missed the Thursday at Tweetalig where the MacBook Airs were given out to teachers because I had to be at PRO - and now we are working on some projects and getting the house ready (we actually have the energy!) before our two weeks in France. We are leaving around dinnertime.

After a year of gathering tools and materials on and off, we have finally put together a few picture frames. We got a bunch of frames from a second hand shop and cut the mat board ourselves. It really looks like it was done at a professional gallery. I will put up some pictures once more are finished...it is a really fun project. We also cleaned all the mold out of the bathroom yesterday and will paint it today. Coming back to a fresh, clean bathroom will be quite nice. Lots to do; time to get started.

The House Boat

This week at school was difficult just because I was nursing a cold. I am getting used to juggling all the changes and two totally different systems. I have an incredibly challenging schedule compared to most of my colleagues, but I still seem to work less than many of them. I guess I have become quite efficient.

At the new school, I am part of a group that is steering the implementation of MacBook Air's that are coming in the fall. Each new student is required to buy one. There is a lot that needs to be prepared before we, as a school, are ready to use them. It is fun thinking through the problems and solutions. Also nice to have the experience at PRO to draw on.

The weather has changed for the better, and as such, our little patch of grass in the back yard needed some trimming. Last year, our trimmer broke, so we looked online for a new one. We found a few options and finally got a reply from one seller. Yesterday we biked over to pick it up and arrived at some industrial complex - no residential places to be seen anywhere. So Naomi called him up and the guy explained that he lived on a house boat.

We walked toward the water and he showed us the trimmer which was just what we were looking for. We talked a bit about how it was to live on a boat (his looked not like a boat but like a floating house) and he mentioned that he liked it but he didn't like the lack of control over where his house was 'moored' or the surrounding developments. He gave us a quick look inside his place and it was really amazing. High ceilings, wood floors, huge windows looking out over a little harbor, decks stretching over the water, and even a basement. We would have loved to live there. The housing in general here turns me off - super expensive, very small, connected in rows, and under water - so this would be a perfect solution!

When I got home I checked to see what the options were and realized, without much surprise, that the options were incredibly expensive. For what is basically a floating mobile home, equivalent in size and quality to what you would find in a dated, Stateside trailer park begging for a tornado, you pay around 150,000 Euros. Who buys this?? I did find a really nice one around the corner from our current house for close to 300k, but that was a bit out of our league. The one I got really excited about is shown in the link, but Naomi was less than thrilled. I don't know why it is so inexpensive, but she is right there is probably a good reason...

http://www.woonbotenmakelaar.nl/koop/gouda/amandi-0.html

For the Last Time

Hopefully this is the last time I will report being sick for the season. It has been a bit ridiculous. Finally I have a cough that is a bit more productive than usual, so I must be getting rid of a sickly winter. The weather is finally warming up, a month too late. I think my health will begin to improve after I get over this latest cold.

I didn't call in sick at school because teaching has become rather easy. The system I developed for keeping track of behavior problems and giving grades for work attitude is working amazingly well. There is a ton of structure now in my lessons at WolfertPRO, and the kids respond like a dream. I don't need to raise my voice and can take care of other work that needs to be done during the lessons. This means that where I would have called in sick before, now I can come to school because it is not so draining. It has taken me almost two years to figure this out, and now it is time to move on to a different job with new challenges, but I suppose that is how life works.

Speaking of the new job, it was a hectic couple days. Monday was the funeral of a colleague, so we missed an hour that I thought we had - this caught be by surprise. The whole school gathered along the driveway, everyone holding a white rose, and as the funeral procession drove by the roses made their way to the top of the hearse. It was a nice touch. Many people left early that day, and as such, my bike got locked away so I had to walk home.

The next day was filled with problems. The room I was scheduled for had a dysfunctional projector, so I found another room for a couple hours. Then I had to fill in for someone who was sick downstairs, and when I came back upstairs the room I was in had a computer that wouldn't work, so I switched back to the old one. This lesson was a difficult one anyway - I had two days packed into one because of the cancellations from Monday, now we were reduced in time, without a beamer, and my coach was observing all of this. I suppose it was good that she saw a really chaotic lesson. I made it through and felt a sense of accomplishment at the end, but it wasn't much fun.

Naomi goes to Amsterdam for her Dad's birthday today. She found him a really nice present in our attic - a magazine from around the year he was born with an article about the neighborhood where he grew up! He will love it. We are really looking forward to reading all the other magazines from that time period that she found up there. Speaking of Amsterdam, the Rijksmuseum, considered now the best in the world, just opened up after about 10 years of restoration. We will have to go soon...just not today.

Back in Action

We had a nice time visiting Naomi's mom and grandma although some of their health issues are rather troubling. On Easter night, it is a Dutch tradition to light up huge bonfires. We got to visit a couple and that was nice. The first one had music that was way too loud so we didn't even get close enough to be in the spark zone before heading to the next one. I haven't seen bonfires that big before...nice tradition.

Easter Fires in Goor.

There were, of course, some changes at school this week. I showed up at my new school and set up the classroom for my lessons. Then I realized the projector wasn't turning on. When I set off to find someone who might be able to fix it, I knew something was strange, but it took me a couple minutes to put my finger on it. No students! All the staff were there, but the building was strangely quiet. As it turns out, a teacher/counselor of 30-40 years, the 'conscience' of the school, had died, so the first couple hours were free. Tomorrow will be the same.

At WolfertPRO there were plenty of schedule changes as well, but I managed to finish what I wanted to finish. Yesterday the sun came out for a change, so we got a few things downtown (I lost my sunglasses so we had to find new ones) and then I went over to a friend's house. He and his wife will soon be moving to Hong Kong, so we had a lot to talk about. I am a bit bummed that my only real friend here will be leaving though...