In Holland

Well, I am glad to say that I made it safe to Holland, and all of my luggage did too. The trip was a little more arduous than expected, it, among other things, involved a 1am phone call about a cancelled flight, being put on a standby list, and then barely making it to Newark on time. But, although I am tired beyond belief, and the internet connection is shady to say the least, I am here. I got to hug my parents and brother, and for the first time in probably two years see my mom on mother’s day. It’s been a very special day so far.

It’s funny; whenever I go back to Holland, it’s always the little things that I notice most. The fact that the lanes on the highway are so very narrow, the color of the traffic signs, and, yes, the way people dress. There seem to be a lot of men in Capri pants, and brightly colored shirts, all things which the majority of my American male friends absolutely refuse to wear. Today I also inadvertently pointed at the first yellow tag I saw, and started to exclaim that, oh my goodness, that is a Dutch car!, until I realized I was actually in the Netherlands. I also got to ride an old-style “oma” bicycle again, and almost crashed twice. Once trying to cross our gravel-covered driveway, and once while trying to use non-existant handbrakes. Dutch drivers also don’t slow down when they pass you, which was daunting to say the least. Speaking Dutch has been a challenge as well (what do you mean, you can’t say “wat is die auto doen hier?”), but all in all, it’s been great, and I’ve gotten to laugh at myself and my sudden inability to blend in a lot.

I will write more tomorrow, I need to go and spend some much-needed quality time with my family now.

To all mothers out there: happy mother’s day!

Travel Tails

I think it’s safe to say that I’m a pretty organized person. My house and office are usually tidy, and even my purse is not in too bad a shape. I will make daily to-do lists, and have yet to lose a set of keys, wallet, or even a sock (knock on wood). But whenever I have to pack for a trip, this horribly messy, chaotic and disorganized alter ego rears its head. Within minutes I manage to have the bedroom look like a bomb exploded, in spite of all the lists I made before hand. I will put a pile of clothes in my suitcase, then realize I need to get out Ziploc bags for my liquids, put them in the bathroom, and then decide I really should pack my carry-on first. Needless to say that within minutes there are piles of clothes all over the bedroom, bags are all over the floor, and the place is generally a mess. Everyone who knows me and has seen me like this, has been surprised, and to be honest, to am I. I really don’t know what happens, but I cannot seem to get my stuff together in a disciplined manner. I will misplace socks, chargers, and it’s generally best to leave me alone, since I’m usually not in the best of moods (probably because it’s so messy).

Now when it comes to packing though, I am proud to say that I am an absolute fiend. When I was a little kid, I used to watch my dad pack, and be amazed at how much stuff he could fit into his suitcase. My mother would have given up on trying to fit all of our clothes in one bag, and then my dad would show up, roll a shirt this way, push a pair of jeans that way, and still have room for an extra book for me. I decided long ago that I wanted to be like my dad, and I think I’ve gotten pretty close. I’m still not sure how he manages to roll dress shirts without wrinkling them, but when I decide that a certain amount of stuff will fit into one bag, it will. I take it as a personal insult if it doesn’t :)

So here I am, my bags are all packed, husband-dear has been instructed on when to water the plants, and I’ve put in my last call to work. And then the question always comes up: now what? I don’t leave until early tomorrow morning, am too antsy to go and do something, but obviously it’s far too early for say, bed. When I was a child, and we would go on long trips, I would get so excited, I could simply not sleep the night prior to our departure. In that respect, not a whole lot has changed. Only right now I have the added worry of not missing my flight, what on earth I am going to do on the grueling six-hour layover in Newark (I know, I know, but it was the cheapest flight, let’s all pray for wireless internet), and whether or not the strike of the luggage handlers in Amsterdam will affect me (I sure hope not, since I am usually not little Ms. Sunshine after such a long trip). A large part of me is, of course, also very excited about seeing my parents again. It’s been a long time, and I am looking forward to catching up with them. And somehow arriving at an airport and having people wait for you is such a wonderful, almost movie-like experience. I can’t wait, and let’s hope they bring dropjes!

p.s. I am planning to keep blogging during my stay in Holland (for one thing to gripe about how much I miss Georgia), but can’t make any promises, since I depend on my family’s satellite link.

Suzy Homemaker

For someone who spent the last several years pretty much always on the go, it's a real surprise to discover the joys of being a homemaker. I never thought I would know what to do with myself when faced with weeks of absolute freedom, but so far it's all been amazingly good. On Monday, when everyone left for work and school, I had a brief moment of panic (what do you mean there's nowhere that I have to be right now?!), but once I realized this freedom meant I could go wherever I wanted to, and I ended up going to the mall with a neighbor, I quickly realized the joys of all this sudden freedom. So I think I've managed to find my niche pretty well. I don’t know if it will last for all three months, but so far, so good.

As usually, it's the silliest things that make me happy. Whenever I leave for work, I always worry about the million and one things that could go wrong during my absence (yes, I am the worrywart who unplugs the coffeemaker before she leaves, and double-checks the doors are locked), so it’s nice to be inside the house and find that it’s just peaceful and quiet during the day, with nothing untoward going on; no dancing furniture or poker-playing guinea pig. :)

Another thing is the fact that I now know what the house looks like at 7am on a Tuesday morning for instance. Around that time, when the sun hits the blinds in our kitchen window, the early sunlight makes the most beautiful patterns on the wall behind the stove. It's equally nice to see the afternoon sun light up the living room (and then take a nap in it on the couch – I highly recommend it).
Another little joy is the ability to sit in a quiet house with no kids, no husband, nothing that has to be done. I’m planning on finally watching some of those movies that none of them will ever watch with me, such as the behind the scenes documentary of The Sound of Music behind the scenes – a classic, albeit not according to my three male family members. I also finally get to watch the shows like American’s Next Top Model, and the DVD set of the Gilmore Girls, which especially husband-dear despises (even though he gave it to me for Christmas, I suppose that’s true love).

Now, I never thought I would be one of those moms who would drive up to school in her boxers and a t-shirt, but honestly, I’m loving it. I really enjoy that I now have the time to drive the boys to school. I love hearing stories about their friends, or answering questions about my stick-shift. Next year they won’t be in the same school anymore (for two years anyway), so I’m truly savoring this time. At the same time, I am now also home to hear their complaints about school at the end of the day, which is possibly a little less amusing. And suddenly I do find myself put in charge of thinking up an idea for a “grammar mobile”, a daunting undertaking to say the least, but again, it’s something I have barely had a chance to do this year, and thus very valuable.

The fact that I am now in charge of all the chores is a little less joyous, for sure. Today, for instance, I have to go grocery shopping. Yay. Usually hubby takes care of this (since, surprise, surprise, I’m at work), and even though I made a fairly complete list, I just know that I’m going to come home with the wrong brand of something, and make someone very unhappy; "Dad never buys this....". But I guess that is all part of earning my homemaker-stripes.

All in all, I think it’s the balance that these three months provide that makes me happy. It’s because I know that all of this will end, that I am enjoying it so very much.

Letters and symbols

Now that I get to be homemaker for a few months, I find myself on the road at times when I would otherwise be at work. And now that my mind is not distracted by worries about failing students, data that just does not seem to make sense, and other trivial concerns like if husband dear would remember to pick my suit up from the dry cleaner’s, I suddenly have a lot more time to ponder my surroundings. And you know what has been bothering me on my recent errand-missions? The traffic signs. Yep, some American traffic signs really get on my nerves.

Like what’s up with the school zone signs that write the hours on which you have to observe the slower speed limit in tiny itsy-bitsy letters? If the safety of school children is that important, don’t you think they could have splurged on a slightly bigger sign where the driver doesn’t need reading glasses to make out the times when students will be near the road? Don’t get me wrong, I think school zones are a wonderful idea. Kids can be really unpredictable, and it’s great to know when to expect little darlings to run across a four-lane road right in front of your car. But why do some school districts have to make it so hard to figure out when to slow down? I can’t count the number of times I have misread a sign, slowed down, only to lose about ten years off my life when the semi behind me would honk its horn at me.
On the way to work, I drive through two school zones. One uses the tiny-writing signs. After ten months, I’ve figured out what the sign says, but for the first few months, I had a hard time remembering the afternoon times (2:15 – 3:50 is apparently not a logical time for me). I would always squint and try to read the sign when I passed it, but nine times out of ten, I would only catch the beginning or the ending time, and neither would be very helpful. Usually I would just adapt to what other drivers were doing, but since I’m one of those crazy people who just has to know, it was enough to annoy me. The second school zone I drive through has the flashing light system; if you need to slow down, a set of lights placed over the road will flash yellow. This works great, not in the least because it means that you don’t have to memorize the school calendar of each school district you drive through to know when schools are not in session and you’re merely holding up traffic. Unfortunately, none of the school zones in this county use the flashing lights. So just today, when I was running errands around two, I found myself squinting and slamming on the brakes twice. And no, I don’t need glasses.

And what about those signs that say “Caution. Low or soft shoulder”? Every time I see one of those I want to yell (and yes, sometimes I actually do): “Make up your mind!”. I mean, not to step on shoulders’ toes, but honestly, how many shoulders are both? We have a sign like that a few blocks over, and the shoulder there is not soft, it’s low. If you run off the road, you end up in a ditch. Not good, no. But then why can’t they just put up a sign that reads “Caution. Low shoulder”? Is the county trying to save us money by printing one kind of sign instead of two? It’s a mystery.

I also like the signs that read “Caution. Bridge may ice in winter”. First of all, I can’t imagine it ever freezing hard enough in middle or southern Georgia that drivers would actually spin out of control. I drove through southern German snow and black ice more times than I care to remember, trust me, I know. But, I’m willing to be magnanimous and give the traffic sign people the benefit of the doubt there. My second concern is regarding the fact that a) these signs are, again, tiny, and b) placed maybe 100 ft before the bridge in question. By the time you have figured out what the sign means, if you ever do, you could, at least according to the Georgia state government, be in a death-defying tailspin.

On a more serious note, when I first started driving in the US, one of the things that I noticed right away was the lack of symbols. European signs don’t use a lot of writing, while American signs do (“Caution. Children at play” instead of a picture of a child running, “Slow down. Road work ahead” instead of a sign of a construction worker). I always wondered how this worked for the millions of illiterate Americans. Or people whose command of English is not sufficient for them to understand a sign in a few seconds. If there is one thing I could change about driving here, it wouldn’t be the lack of roundabouts, or the speed limits, it would truly be the road signs. And not just because they annoy little old me from time to time, but because it’s about something more than that.

"Homeward" bound

Thomas Wolfe said it most aptly when he titled his last book “You can’t go home again”. Just like you can’t relive your favorite day, and make time go faster when you want it to, you just can’t leave home, come back and expect things to be the same. I believe this is especially true when you have moved overseas. I mean, it’s one thing to return to your hometown and find that your favorite restaurant has closed down, but it’s something completely different when you return to your home country to find that they have changed the currency, changed traffic rules, or that you don't know how to say something is cool in a contemporary manner. Somehow whenever I live abroad, going back to Holland has always had more of a shock effect to it than anything else. I will be going to the Netherlands for three weeks this weekend, and I’m already dreading what will have changed since my last visit.

For one thing, I seem to vaguely remember they had an election. Or maybe they did when we still lived in Germany, I’m not sure. Or maybe they’re about to have an election. Either way, I’ve lost track of the names of all the ministers, who the current ruling party is, and what on earth some of these extreme right-wing politicians have been up to. At times I’ll make time to read a Dutch online newspapers, and will be surprised to find that it really doesn’t do anything for me anymore. Sometimes I don’t understand why certain topics are hot-button issue, like with the burkini (honestly, who cares what people wear to the public pool?), or I will find myself completely disagreeing with political commentators I used to like.

And please don’t get me started on fashion. Now I’m not a big fashionista, I generally wear what I like and think looks good. But in doing so, I am limited to what is sold in stores here. And somehow that is always different enough from Dutch fashion to have me look out of style. Either the colors are off, or the pants aren’t the right cut, or the heels aren’t shaped just right. Or I’ll actually wear the old college shirt, sneakers and faded jeans that I wrote about a few weeks ago, to a public place, and really get stared at. Now come to think of it, I’m really not that I’m that crazy about Dutch fashion anyway. The skinny pants in knee-high boots that seemed to be the absolute culmination of style last summer are, in my humble opinion, an absolute no-no. At least for me. In all fairness, I should probably point out that southern fashion is a world of its own too. For instance, although I am pretty sure that the stiletto heel has died a well-deserved death in the rest of the Western world, it is still alive and kicking down in the deep south. The same applies to ruffled shirts and leotard prints. Hmm…before you all think I dress like Dolly Parton….I do (just kidding :) )

The lingo, of course, is the first thing you lose. Whenever I talk to my friends, I sometimes feel like I’m from the 1990s. I still want to say “wreed” for “cool”, instead of “gaaf”. Although I’m actually pretty sure that word is outdated now too. See, there you have it. I can’t even tell you what the new hip terms are in Dutch. Next thing you know I’ll regress even further, and say things like “bakvissen” (bobbysoxers) and “dolletjes” (gee whiz!).

I guess what I’m trying to say is the place that somewhere in my mind I still think of as a form of “home” becomes less and less so, and there is no better reminder of it than a trip…home?

Les jeux sont fait

De teerling is geworden. Jazeker, sinds gisteren is het semester officieel voorbij. Na een commencement ceremony van zo'n 2,5 uur is het eindelijk afgelopen. Omdat onze coordinator gelukkig besloten heeft geen summer courses aan te bieden, zijn we nu allemaal echt vrij. Voor de eerste vrije week heb ik al allerlei wilde plannen gemaakt; eindelijk naar de kapper, een manicure, wat hoognodige nieuwe korte broeken kopen (de laatste heb ik in 2001 gekocht meen ik) en de koelkast eindelijk eens uitschrobben (we moeten natuurlijk wel met beide benen op de grond blijven staan).

Ondanks al mijn geplan, blijft het zo heel subiet afsluiten van een schooljaar, en daarmee ook meteen van je werk (wij krijgen twee maanden in zomer niet uitbetaald), toch een heel erg vreemd gevoel. Het ene moment zit je tot over je oren in finals, papers, cijfers, en het andere moment val je overdag in slaap in je porch swing tot manlief een foto van je maakt. Een paar dagen terug had ik nog dramatische momenten met studenten, en nu heb ik alleen maar mensen om me heen die dingen zeggen als "zal ik een kopje thee voor je maken?" "wil je dat ik het bad laat vollopen?". (Ja, ik ben gezegend met werkelijk een geweldige familie die zwaar heeft meegeleeft/geleden). Ik ben in een dag van "Dr so and so" naar "Mrs so and so" en huisvrouw gegaan. Nou ja, ik moet niet helemaal overdrijven natuurlijk; er staat voor van de zomer ook het analyseren van een serie data en het schrijven van een artikel op stapel, maar toch. Ik heb voor mij gevoel weer echt ouderwets twee maanden zomervakantie!

Het zo heel bewust afsluiten van een schooljaar is iets dat we in Nederland niet zo kennen. Op de universiteit studeren mensen het hele jaar door af, en kun je wel een paar weken vrij nemen, maar dan heb je het ook wel gehad. Op het HBO hebben ze wel diploma uitreikingen, maar ook daar krijg je echt geen twee maanden vrij naderhand. Uiteraard kun je ook daar in de zomer een kanon afschieten, want de meeste medewerkers doen met het mooie weer aan "thuiswerken", maar je wordt nooit helemaal ge-released, wat hier dus wel het geval is.

Maar het houden van een commencement, en daarmee afsluiten van een semester, als ook de studie van honderden studenten is iets waar ze in Nederland nog wat van zouden kunnen leren. In Nederland krijgt een student die zijn of haar doctoraal of master haalt een individuele uitreiking van de begeleider. Het is daarmee heel persoonlijk, en echt een mooie afsluiter van een studie van 4-5 jaar, maar het mist toch een beetje het gevoel dat je echt iets bijzonders bereikt hebt. Het blijft toch altijd een beetje "understated", helemaal als je bedenkt dat de begeleiders in kwestie vaak nog net een oud tweed jasje op een versleten spijkerbroek weten te gooien. Daar weten ze hier in de VS wel raad mee.
Hier heeft elke school, tot soms de kleuterschool toe, een commencement, met de nodige "pomp en circumstance". Alhoewel ik zelf het nut van vijf-jarigen, die nog zeker twaalf jaar naar school moeten, in cap and gown niet zo zie, is de commencement op de universiteit toch wel heel bijzonder. Alle faculty (wetenschappelijke medewerkers) moeten in hun academic robes komen opdraven, wat echt een prachtig gezicht is. Elke robe ziet er weer anders uit, afhankelijk van het diploma en het instituut waaraan de persoon is afgestudeerd. Zo is mijn robe zwart, heeft blauwe fluwelen panelen, en een oranje met rode capouchon. Maar een collega van mij heeft een paarse met witte robe, met zwarte panelen. Ook de studenten moeten in academic regalia verschijnen, en hebben natuurlijk allemaal een capouchon in de kleuren van de school. De "procession" (het binnenlopen van de faculty en de afstuderende studenten) gebeurt natuurljjk op de muziek van "pomp and circumstance" (en ik beloof, er komt een dag dat ik niet meteen aan de woorden van "Land of Hope and Glory" van Vera Lynn moet denken), uitgevoerd door het universiteits orkest. Er worden officiele toespraken gegeven, muziekstukken ten gehore gebracht, en natuurlijk krijgt student zijn of haar diploma uitgereikt. Dan volgt uiteraard het beroemde "You can now move your tassles from right to left. Congratulations class of 2008". En dan is het echt volbracht, voor de student, en de faculty. Voor de laatst keer in een hele lange tijd reed ik mijn lange rit naar huis. Mijn travelmug staat achterin de kast, en mijn werkkleding is klaar om naar de stomerij gebracht te worden. I'm free at last!

Under pressure

I distinctly remember writing about the south as a calm, laid-black kind of place. Well, I think I may revise or adjust that opinion to reflect the lives of my students at the end of the semester.
I never thought I would see a 22-year old cry because they got a C in a class. Or hear a student beg for extra assignments so they could push their grade from a B to an A. Or see a student completely lose it, and yell and cuss over a D. But unfortunately, I have seen it all, and all just in the short span of a few days.

I have always known, thanks to several years of first-hand experience, that American students are under a lot more pressure than their European counterparts. And this is not just because the semesters in the US are a lot shorter. While in Europe, students seem to be mainly concerned with doing the bare minimum, American students have to worry about the honor roll, the dean’s list, GPAs, SATs, GREs, regents’ tests, and building a resume filled with useful extracurricular activities.
This enormous amount of pressure can get overwhelming for both students and instructors. Each student has their own story, some have to graduate or “walk” this semester, and thus have to pass all their classes, others need to maintain a certain GPA for their scholarship, others want to please their parents, and still others simply want to get that A. Some manage to achieve all these things, but some don’t, and that’s when the pressure becomes almost too much. I have lost count of how many students have sat in my office this week, distraught and disappointed, or upset and defiant, pleading for just one more chance, something which, in most cases, was simply impossible.
And this is when all those southern niceties finally disappear. It’s as though when things really matter, and crunch time is here, these platitudes only stand in the way of success. There are no more “how are you’s”, no more roundabout ways of asking what you want. Students will barge in, slam your door shut, and usually start with something like “Why did you give a(n) B/C/D/F”. There are no more sweet smiles and platitudes; instead there is raw emotion (albeit behind a closed door). Students don’t bother hiding behind politeness or making false promises to please you; they finally give it to you as they see it. At times all this emotion can get a little overwhelming. But all in all it helps to put an actual face on people who are usually too nice and too good to be true. And as I tell all my students, I wish they had been this adamant at the beginning of the semester, when it still could have made a difference. And you know what? I think some of them may have actually caught on to what I was saying.

So in spite of the pressure cooker that is these last few days of school, and in spite of the fact that I will breathe a big sigh of relief when all of this craziness is over, it is somehow, also very refreshing.