Twitward Grumpypants

When it comes to nicknames, I think I can give pretty much everyone a run for their money. Over the years, I have a amassed an impressive collection of nicknames, some funny, some sad, and some downright strange. To be honest, many, far too many of my nicknames are the result of my, well, lack of popularity in school. For many years, I could not stand nicknames, and not only shied away from using them, but expressly forbade anyone from even shortening my name. Well, having recently dubbed a co-worker “Twitward Grumpypants” in honor of Spongebob Squarepants, I think I can easily conclude that this is another childhood trauma I have conquered.

It really started with my family. My mom had the weirdest nicknames for me, such as “kaatje mossel”, and “krullebol”, even though I have always had the straightest hair in the world. My brother has recently taken to calling me “moppentrommel”, and when he’s being particularly goofy, “mama lou”. Now granted, this is the same man who calls his dad "Pino", but still.

Admittedly, some of my nicknames in school were interesting to say the least. And I have to say that my American and other non-Dutch peers were always a little more creative than my Dutch classmates. When I was in elementary school and wore glasses, a few mean little Dutch girls used to call me “brillejood” or “brillekoker”. Then when we moved to France, I got called “Duckie”, because I moved my feet like a duck (think Charlie Chaplin). I still do, and although no one has called me Duckie in years, my husband did just the other day point out that the way I put my feet down is the reason I overpronate when I run. In the US, my track coach called me “cloggy”, and through a long convoluted narrative involving a sweater with a thumbtack on it, I also earned to nickname “punaise”. Interestingly, that the was name I thought of when creating this blog, hence the “thumbtack” reference. However, those were some of the nicer nicknames, and I was also known as “boring” (in high school, adjectives can become nouns), “fayotte” (French for teacher’s pet), “moron”, and the ever-popular “loser”, as well as some other extremely inappropriate names I really cannot repeat here.

So for the few years following high school graduation, I was adamant about what people called me. I was Judith. Period. No Judy, Juut, or Ju, nothing of the kind. But of course, time wore away at my resolve. It started when a friend saw my brown suede jacket and decided it make me look like a “magnum ijsje met nootjes”, and my new nick (magnum ijsje) was born. Then I somehow became “jujubean” to my roommates, and my Korean roommate decided to call me “Sue-min”, because “it sounded cute and little, just like you”. After that there was simply no stopping the tide. Co-workers in Holland started to call me “tulpenstruik” (tulip bush) in reference to my last name, a week at a dude ranch earned me the name “Tinkerbell”, a nickname that was so quickly adopted by everyone, that new guests assumes “Tink” was my real name, and I now have an impressive array of Tinkerbell memorabilia. A friend in Wales started to call me “karatechicka”, and my friend Summer will call me “Princess”, especially in times of distress. Getting married also added a whole host of nicknames to my repertoire. Of course, there is the standard “honey” and “sweetie”, but my husband also got creative on me. He will call me “Mrs. Monk” when I over-worry, and “freak” when I’m being adorably weird. I'm sure my students have nicknames for me too, although they have yet to admit to that (to me anyway). Although last week, one student did have the courage to go up to a co-worker and ask where "Dr. Big-booty-Judy" was. Hmm. After my co-worker chewed her out, I told her she was lucky I wasn't around to hear that in person. I mean, I'm as cool and hip as the next person (and am ware of my booty thank you very much), but even cool and hip people have to draw the line somewhere.

So anyway, I think I’m OK with the nickname-thing now. I no longer flinch when people serenade me with “Hey Jude”, and don’t even raise an eyebrow when someone calls me a freak. That’s just my badge of honor. What’s yours?

Jan Pelleboer

Toen ik naar Georgia verhuisde, wist ik zeker dat er een ding was waar ik nooit aan zou kunnen wennen: het weer. Toen wij hier in Juni vorig jaar aankwamen was het zo onbeschrijflijk, verschrikkelijk, ongelooflijk warm dat enige twijfels over de opwarming van de aarde meteen van tafel geveegd waren, en je zeker wist dat je hier nooit, maar dan ook nooit, aan zou kunnen wennen. Maar toen ik van de week om kwart voor vijf ’s ochtends Zoe naar buiten bracht, en ik het bij een temperatuur van 60 graden Fahrenheid (zo’n 15 graden Celcius) echt ijskoud vond, bedacht ik me dat dat eigenlijk best nog wel meeviel. Een kennis wist me te vertellen dat je lichaam zich aanpast aan de buitentemperatuur, en dat je daardoor na een poosje beter tegen extreme hitte of kou kan.

Ook al had ik dit een jaar geleden niet gelooft; ik vrees toch echt dat ze gelijk heeft. De laatste weken begint het hier namelijk af te koelen (van gemiddeld veertig graden naar zo’n achtentwintig graden celcius), en ik vind het maar bar koud. Zo was het gisteren vijfentwintig graden, en liep ik in rok, laarzen, blousje met korte mouwen en blazer rond. De perfecte combinatie voor dit weer, vond ik zelf. Ik heb ook al een keer panties aangehad toen het ergens onder in de twintig graden celcius was, want ik vond dat eigenlijk best wel kon. Vorig jaar waren de dagen dat ik een winterjas aanmoest op een hand te tellen, en lachte ik de mensen die in November al een jas aanhadden hartelijk uit. Hierbij wil ik mijn welgemeende excuses aanbieden, want ik denk dat het nog een paar weken is voordat ook ik toe ben aan een jas.

Dit is wel eens heel anders geweest. Misschien is mijn geheugen niet meer wat het wat is, maar het staat mij bij dat als het in Nederland boven de 25 graden werd, mensen klaagden dat het eigenlijk niet meer te doen was, werken in pak. En raakte het kwik de dertig graden, dan liep de helft van de vakgroep in zo min mogelijk kleding, terwijl de andere helft gewoon niet meer kwam opdraven vanwege de hitte. Nu draai ik daar mijn hand niet meer voor om. Aan de andere kant kan ik me niet echt meer voorstellen dat ik met 18 graden lekker heb liggen zonnen in het park. Of dat ik met vorst op de fiets sprong zonder enige bijwerkingen zoals een hartaanval.

Het meest frappante vind ik nog wel dat mijn idee over wat warm en koud is verschilt afhankelijk van in welke temperatuurschaal ik denk. Zo klinkt 85 graden Fahrenheit als lekker weer, niet te warm, niet te koud. Daarentegen denk ik bij dezelfde temperatuur in Celcius, 27 graden, aan een dampende hitte waarbij je het beste op het strand kan liggen, omdat het elders niet uit te houden is. En 18 graden celcius klinkt als een lekkere buiten-zijn temperatuur, terwijl als ik op de radio hoor dat het 63 graden Fahrenheit wordt, dan begin ik al te mopperen dat het toch echt niet veel kouder moet worden.

Dus moet ik mijn woorden terugnemen? Uiteraard. Alweer. Ik moet toegeven dat ik ondertussen al zover ben dat ik de dag vrees waarop we besluiten om in de winter terug naar Nederland te gaan. Geef mij maar de zoele warmte van Georgia. En dat bewijst nog maar een keer dat het weer onvoorspelbaar is, maar er in feite niets zo veranderlijk is als de mens zelf.

A bit of earth

"A bit of earth. She wants a little bit of earth to plant some seeds."
Archibald Craven ~ The Secret Garden

Yesterday I sat down on the edge of our back porch, right smack in a large pile of fire ants. It was an accident, and even though Zoe tried to warn me, I didn’t realize what was going on until I felt like my bare legs were, well, on fire. How is this relevant? Well, owning a house with a large yard in a relatively unfarmiliar part of the world means that there are a lot of things pertaining to gardening that you have no idea about until they happen to you.

Yesterday, for instance, husband-dear and I had a discussion about whether the crepe myrtles were going into hibernation, or just dying. This was followed by a discussion about our sprinkling schedule. Now I’ve never had a green thumb, and a conversation about dying plants would have, a year ago, sent me to get water, fertilizer, or in the worst case, to the nursery for new plants. But it’s different here. People generally stop watering their yards right around October, and let their grass and plants go into hibernation. In other words, they let them go brown and brittle. And no, they’re not dead, because come spring your entire yard will be green and in full bloom. It’s amazing. And you have to see it to believe it. At least, that’s how it worked for me. I was convinced, for several weeks at least, that my husband had killed our grass, and that he simply didn’t want to tell me. What’s cool about this hibernation period is that you really don’t need to do anything in the yard for several months. The downside is that your yard does look, well, dead, for all that time too.

And then there are the new and odd bugs you have to get used to. A few plants in our front yard are suffering from a scary-looking fungus I have never heard of. And yes, I have sprayed, but so far, it’s to no effect. And unfortunately, we don’t have real frosts to kill problems like that. So I'm guessing we'll be buying two new plants come spring. Then we have the omnipresent roaches (of course), the afore-mentioned fire ants, and a host of other bugs, from spiders to those creepy-crawlers that curl up when you touch them. And the other day I heard at the vet clinic that several people have spotted rattlesnakes (or some kind of poisonous snake) in our neighborhood. Lovely. But you know what, Americans don’t mess around when it comes to getting rid of pests. Got fire ants? Just dust some of this powder in the area, and they will be dead within minutes. And they are. Only you, your kids, and your pets are not allowed near the area for a number of hours, and if it does get on your skin, you need to rinse and call your doctor right away. Okay. And rattlesnakes aren’t a problem either. If you live out far enough, you just buy a gun and get rid of them yourselves. And if you do live in a built-up area, you call animal control, and they will do it for you. It’s definitely practical.

And then of course, the soil is different, the grass is different, and the plants are different. You’re, at least down here, only allowed to water your yard on set days due to water restrictions, and then you have to make sure you water at the right time. Apparently if you turn on your sprinklers too late in the day, the water on the grass will cause it to burn in the sun, while if you turn them on too early in the evening, well, I don’t remember. The sprinkler-man (a.k.a the love of my life) has it down to a science anyway.

The seasons are different too. We’re not allowed to plant our trees until the end of October (when fall “really” starts), and there is no problem with planting vegetables say in April. They’ll be up and full-grown in the summer. It’s amazing. And contrary to everything people do in their yards down here, I will be planting some tulips come spring time. I can't wait.

Inspiration, imagination, perspiration

I know that the tradition of using and creating positive quotes and slogans for every situation is catching on in the Netherlands as well, but to me it will always remain a typical American tradition. It seems like here you can’t pass by an office without seeing at least three inspirational quotes plastered to doors and walls. And even though I appreciate the positive attitude, sometimes my Dutch crankiness takes over. That’s when the blatant happiness and over-zealous “we can do it!” attitude makes me want to run for cover. And sometimes I can’t help but wonder if the makers really were such Sesame-street-sunny-day-Barney-I-love-everybody-zealots, or if they were really thinking something else. On days like that, I can waste precious time away by thinking up alternative meanings to all the hippie-love around me.

“In order to fly we have to have resistance” Even though we all know you are really kidding yourself, and there really is no way to make this work, we think it’s great that you just wasting energy trying and believing.

“Don’t stop believing.” Sure, but know when you gotta stop. Please. Or better yet, keep believing, but just start working on something else. For goodness’ sake.

“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” Caveat: try and limit your enthusiasm to really achievable things. Please. And lay off the caffeine while you’re being enthusiastic. I’m only peeling you off the ceiling once.

“All great thoughts and all great deeds have a ridiculous beginning”. However, not all ridiculous thoughts warrant exploration. And just because you have on ridiculous idea after another, does not mean you are a great thinker.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge”. Absolutely. If you don’t study and fail my class, you’re still really smart as long as you have a wild imagination. Employers are dying for kids who know nothing about the broadcasting industry, but who know how to imagine themselves as successful producers.

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” The future really belongs to those who work hard, study their butt off, and watch you believe in the beauty of those dreams of yours.

“Failure teaches success”. Failure teaches you that sometimes you have simply reached your limit, and you need to stop. And other times, you need to get and try again. And again. And again. Until it hurts.

I don’t mean to sound like a bitter old biddy, but sometimes I worry that all these positive platitudes do nothing to instill a sense of realism in our youth, or anyone else for that matter. In spite of that, though, I don’t like the Dutch Calvinist attitude that “you can’t do it and you never will” anymore than the next person. I appreciate the American tendency to be more upbeat about life. But I’m not sure about surrounding our, at times, struggling students, with empty words that don’t really reflect real life. I worry that all these empty words take away from what it’s really about: that you work really hard, don’t always succeed, and have a hard time even when you do.
And if you’re looking for truly inspirational quotes, please check out this, far more realistic website.

Volunteer, volunteered, voluntold

There are some things about a job that are the same regardless of where you live. Most jobs want you to be on time, cover up various body parts, and do what you’re told to. And then all the jobs I’ve had require you to engage in the somewhat irksome and annual task of listing your goals and objectives for the upcoming year. Just when you think they’ve forgotten you this year, the dreaded e-mail pops up in your inbox, requesting you to list your teaching, research, and professional goals.

It’s not that I don’t have any goals. I do. And I probably have too many. The problem is that I never quite know how to word them in a way that will make them measurable by the end of the year. I mean “I want to survive teaching six classes and one independent study without losing my mind” can hardly be passed off as a goal. You’re supposed to put things like “To create a significant improvement in my ability to stimulate my students’ critical thinking”. The worrisome part is that all teaching goals are measured using student questionnaires which are administered right after midterms, when half your students think you are the devil incarnate anyway. So much for a reliable measure.

But I can deal with all those things. Sure, I will complain and gripe about it, but I know what needs to be done. I’ve learned to write “To submit an article to..” as opposed to “To publish an article in…”, since you never know when your nemesis is one of your reviewers.

No, what struck me about the list of goals and objectives this year is that it included a new header “service”. Slightly alarmed, I asked a co-worker about its meaning, and it seems that we’re supposed to “give back to the community”now too. I thought educating unwilling mini-adults for a paltry salary was a service in itself, but I was wrong. The administration has decided we have to volunteer in the community, and thus create goals to that effect. So next to conducting research and teaching, we now have to develop goals like “coordinate the national turn off your TV week for the local schools”. At first, I thought I was all set. I volunteer on base, in several different capacities, but I quickly found out that the rules state you have to “give back” under your professional title. So I can’t be Mrs. A when I’m serving the community, I have to be Dr. R. So that rules out all the work I do on base.

But that is not the most interesting part. No. That would be when I heard that this service thing is not something we’re supposed to do during working hours. Nope. No talking to kids about media use during school hours. All volunteering has to be done outside of work. After all, work is meant for, well work.

Right. I won’t go into how hard I work. I also won’t talk about how many hours I put in each week, or the incredible bureaucracy I have to put with. All I have to say, and you can call me selfish if you want to, is that if I don’t get paid to do it, I don’t do goals and objectives. Volunteering is great. It’s very important, and I love doing it. But I’ll do it on my own terms thank you very much.

After not receiving a lot of sympathy from my co-workers on this matter, I talked to my husbad, hoping to find an ally there. Instead, the love of my life tried to convince me that American employers simply expect a higher level of commitment from their employees nowadays. In the Air Force, being “voluntold” to do something is apparently very common, especially once you’ve reached a certain rank. But you know, I can understand that. You join the military, they pretty much own you. They not only pay you, they feed, clothe, educate, and house you. So I figure that means they can pretty much tell you what to do when. I, on the other hand, just get a paycheck. I refuse to believe that Americans have this burning desire to spend their precious time off working (for free!). They may work harder than their European counterparts, but they’re still human.
After listening to my little rant, husband-dear sighed, and gave me the look he reserves especially for me “Maybe you just need to play the game.”

Yeah, no. I do play the game plenty. I stick to the dress code, I don’t call people by their first name, I fill out the same form ten times without complaining, and I go out of my way to accommodate our students than ever before. But it ends here. I will not spend my precious time off doing something to keep my employer happy. I will find a way around this. So bring it on I say!

Different eyes

I don’t think I have to explain why having friends and family over from overseas is generally a lot of fun. There’s the catching up, the ability to speak Dutch, the feeling that you’re hanging out with someone who knows you longer than pretty much everyone else in your life down here, and all the goodies that they always bring along for you. But what I never really realized until this week is that another added bonus of having people over from out of town is that you find yourself looking at your own home through different eyes. Suddenly, all those things that you no longer give a second thought to, become new, and out of the ordinary.

It has been a long time, for instance, that I have given any thought to the size of the parking spaces in the US. My car here is bigger than the car I had in Germany, so maybe that’s why I don’t notice that the spaces here are large enough to accommodate a small boat. But when I picked up my friend from the airport this week (who was here on her first visit to the US), the first thing she said when we walked out of the terminal and into the parking structure was “Wow, it’s huge!”. I first found myself looking around for a ridiculously large SUV, like the Nissan Armada or something, and when I only saw small compact cars and a few empty spaces, I had to ask her what on earth she was talking about. When she told me she was amazed by the size of the parking spaces, my first response was to deny that there was any difference between European and American parking spaces. My friend then quite smartly asked me how many times I usually had to back out and turn in to get the car to fit in between the lines. When I responded I could usually just turn in in one go, it all came back to me. Parking your car anywhere in Europe does involve a backing out, turning the car a little more, backing out again, finding yourself almost scraping up against the car next to you, carefully turning, pulling in again, finding you’re still unable to get out of your car, backing out again, turning your wheels a hair more, and on. And on. And on. So I guess my friend was right, and I had forgotten that the spaces in Europe are so small that parking a car is actually something you have to learn.

And I know I talk a lot about how nice people are down here, but my expectations as far as customer service go have apparently also increased exponentially since we moved. I give no thought to people wishing me a “great day”, asking me if I need help in a store, and generally just being nice. My friend, on the other hand, felt like she was making friends left and right; “Everybody here likes me!”. People would hear her accent, ask her where she was from, what she did for a living, how she liked it here, and my friend just blossomed under all the kindness showered on her. Apparently no one in Holland ever asks what she does for a living, even when they see her lugging a 6 ft tall harp down stairs and into elevators. And when they do, and she tells them she is a musician, the general response she gets is not the all-American “that’s so cool!”, but the more practical, “And you can make enough money with that to support yourself?”. I had forgotten how much the general kindness, whether it’s genuine or not, can make you feel better.

And then of course there’s all the daily things we take for granted: the back porch, the sprawling cotton fields, stores that are open all the time, free public restrooms, and, believe it or not, the low price of gas. My friend adored the sunny weather, the wide, open roads, and the variety of “exotic” animals (mainly squashed on the side of the road, but if you have never seen an armadillo or a possum before, even a dead one can be impressive).

Sometimes I get so caught up in the struggles of daily life that I forget that I am fortunate to live in a place where people are nice, and life is far more convenient than it is in Holland. It’s nice when all that is brought back to you, so that when things are not going as smoothly as you would like, you can tell yourself that at least you don’t have to squeeze into a tiny parking space, deal with rude salespeople, and get rained on at least three times a week.

What's in a name?

I’ll be honest here, when it comes to naming children, I’ve always had a preference for more traditional, or perhaps old-fashioned, names. And preferably names that work in multiple languages. Names like Matthew, Daniel, Sarah, Julie, Nicholas (Nick), and Madeleine. Since no one made me boss of all baby names, I obviously have no control over what everyone else names their children, and you know, if you like your kids’ names, I’m probably cool with them. I like a lot of names, and I’m not trying to argue here that everyone should name their children after biblical characters, or saints, or both. It’s just that sometimes I can’t help but wonder if half the world has lost its head with the names they are bestowing upon their offspring.

I mean, let’s just look at the names of the current Republican Vice-Presidential nominee: Willow, Bristol, Trig, and Track. We have a tree, a town in Wales, the abbreviation of “trigger”, and an oval circle of Astroturf used for running. Now, don’t get me wrong, anyone can name their kids what they want, but I can’t help but wonder at some of the choices parents make. Sure, if you’re really rich, or really famous (or both) you can probably get away with naming your children after towns (Paris, Lourdes), characters in Disney movies (Tiger Lily), Colleges (Emerson), and acid trips gone wrong (Dweezil, Moon Unit). After all, your children will a) never have to work a day in their lives, and so won’t face the embarrassment of having to wear a name tag with the name like Sage Moonblood on it, and b) will be popular by default, and so will never be picked on for having a name like Little Pixie.

I also wonder about the need to be cute and creative. I mean, let’s consider the Cacee and Calee drama. The mother (one of the two Ca’s) whose daughter (the other Ca) disappeared. Why would you call your daughter a name so similar to yours, it rhymes? I can guarantee you that I would be the relative who would always get the two names confused. And what on earth is wrong with spelling it like most people do: Kaylee (or Kailee, I’ll give you that one)?

And while we’re on the topic of spelling, it would be so nice if parents kept their kids’ future teachers and the concept of “class rosters” in mind when deciding how to spell their children’s names. I can’t tell you how many times I have made a fool of myself because I would have no clue how to pronounce someone’s name. Knarquamya, for instance, is pronounced “nar-kee-ma”. Right. I should have seen that one coming. And while “Tanika” is pronounced “Ta-nee-ka”, “Tamika” is pronounced “Ta-my-ka”. If we’re going to make up names, can we at least stick to some sort of pronunciation guide? Another notion that fascinates me is the tendency to replace vowels like “a” and “e” with wilder looking vowel combinations like “y” or “ai”. Why call your child “Jasmine” when “Jazzmayn” (pronounced the same way) looks so much cooler?
And since when did apostrophes become the norm? I know that when I was in elementary school, I thought those names looked absolutely cool. You know, inventions like Ne’Chelle and No’elani. But that was also the time when I I wished horses could talk, and I used to imagine that little pixies lives in my doll house. Again, I don’t care what people call their babes, but I can’t help but wonder how a name like that would look on a resume, or a sixty-year old grandmother.

OK, so possibly I’m just getting old and grumpy. I’m sure my grandmother could think of a hundred better ways to name her grandchildren too. Maybe I just need to swing with the times, and get over it already. So no more naming children after great-aunt Elizabeth, or great-grandpapa Gerardus. Maybe we should reconsider our naming strategy. So if we have another baby, what do you all think:“Le’novo” for a boy, and “Okaloosa” for a girl?