I'm a bit miffed. I am going to have to wait to start French. My course was meant to begin on Monday but was canceled due to lack of interest. I'll have to wait about two weeks now.
My big fear: Sloth. I'm afraid that not working a bajillion hours a week is going to make me soft and lazy. My plan: I'm a-gonna go to the library and bone-up on human rights whatnots and be extra prepared for my next adventure beginning this summer.
Meanwhile, I have to find something piddly to do after the holidays, before the next job and while learning french to make money. Damn these hard economic times. Guess I'll fluff up my resume, put on my smiley face and be sell able with my English skills (which fail a little more each day) and get some meaningless job that will develop the thirst in me that will egg me on to drink big from the cup of slightly-less-meaningless work.
Meanwhile I feel guilty starting part-time at the school. I suppose it's less inconvenient than if I'd stopped working at the end of my contract last week. I figure that working at the school part-time will be a good way to ween me off the myself off the little ones before I am done there. It's gonna be hard. During summer vacation I realized that it had been too long since someone played with my dangling necklace as I bent to help with a shoe or nap mat. This past week I got a big twinge, too. One of the kids (who has recently begun speaking to me exclusively in English - and HOW?!) said "Jessy mine hands are cold" stretching them out. I went to take them in my hands to feel and she said "No! Come here" and placed them on my cheeks to feel. The girl next to her quickly put her hands on my face and asked if hers were colder. Then, each of the girls who had been playing together put their hands on my face to ask who's were colder.
Then on Friday, it was one of our more rambunctious kids had his first visit to my sports class. Not only was he able to follow the rules, play with others and come up with his own games he fell on on me with a big ol' hug and said that sports are "the most fun ever!"
So, I won't be missing working in a germ-factory while taking an immunosuppresant. I won't miss being paid for 40 hours of work when, in fact, I'm putting more time and effort. I won't be missing being too tired for a social life. I will miss the kids and my colleagues, though.
Samstag, 20. September 2008
Donnerstag, 11. September 2008
Autumn
One can tell from the changing leaves on the balcony and rooftop Cannabis in Zürich, that Fall is approaching. That's right, they are a regular sight in Zürich on many buildings.
A less than usual vision is what I encountered in my neighbor's dining room this afternoon. I popped on down, all neighborly to borrow a couple of eggs to make birthday brownies and there they were, doing what I suppose is done with these popular plants when it's harvest time. Strange that I felt so uneasy, when they are so normal, right?
It doesn't smell like autumn though. Well, here in my house it just smells like brownies and pot.
A less than usual vision is what I encountered in my neighbor's dining room this afternoon. I popped on down, all neighborly to borrow a couple of eggs to make birthday brownies and there they were, doing what I suppose is done with these popular plants when it's harvest time. Strange that I felt so uneasy, when they are so normal, right?
It doesn't smell like autumn though. Well, here in my house it just smells like brownies and pot.
Mittwoch, 3. September 2008
Mark Twain once said "When the world ends, I want to be in Mississippi, because it'd be 20 years before anybody realized."
I find it strange, as a man who'd visited Switzerland, that he would choose Mississippi, instead of this good ol' monument to the passe.
The teens who follow footballer styles all look like snapshots of old high school boyfriends of my older cousins. I imagine that someone is just dieing to call them "Baffo". Perhaps even "Baffo Mondo".
I get all sad when I listen to the NPR movies podcast. I sigh deepl knowing that, unless it is a special about the Cannes film festival, I will not be able to see any of the movies which they are discussing for another 6 moths to a year!
Perhaps the most clear example, though, is "Crocs". I was listening to the NPR pop-culture podcast and had to laugh. They were discussing the financial repercussions of the dieing of this fad. The death of the Crocs fad. They discussed it as if it was already up there with slap bracelets and jellies. Meanwhile Crocs have just hit it big here in Switzerland. It is only 6 months, or so, since they are everywhere. When I say everywhere, I mean shoe shops that are far too good for them, specialty shops that sell only Crocs and Crocs accessories (those weird things that you stick in the holes) and, since this August, in the cloak room of my Kindergarten.
Being a Swiss Kindergarten, outside shoes are not allowed inside. If you are like me, you are wondering if Crocs would work better as outside shoes or "Finken" (or house shoes, which in our school range from out-right slippers to high-heel clikkety-clakkety shoes for a few). The answer is: BOTH! Over the past few weeks, more and more children have been bringing Crocs. This means that many mothers had bought new school shoes and finken for their children and were then pressured to buy yet another pair, so that that child could have Crocs.
As of this week more than %75 of our kids have at least one set of Crocs for indoor or outdoor use. Most of those children have two parirs for both uses.
I realize that as I write this, I have a hair cut that I would never wear in the US in this decade. I'm not necessarily a hypocrite, though. Try as I might, every hairdresser gives me and every third other woman, this layered 80's style. Plus, when in Rome.......
I find it strange, as a man who'd visited Switzerland, that he would choose Mississippi, instead of this good ol' monument to the passe.
The teens who follow footballer styles all look like snapshots of old high school boyfriends of my older cousins. I imagine that someone is just dieing to call them "Baffo". Perhaps even "Baffo Mondo".
I get all sad when I listen to the NPR movies podcast. I sigh deepl knowing that, unless it is a special about the Cannes film festival, I will not be able to see any of the movies which they are discussing for another 6 moths to a year!
Perhaps the most clear example, though, is "Crocs". I was listening to the NPR pop-culture podcast and had to laugh. They were discussing the financial repercussions of the dieing of this fad. The death of the Crocs fad. They discussed it as if it was already up there with slap bracelets and jellies. Meanwhile Crocs have just hit it big here in Switzerland. It is only 6 months, or so, since they are everywhere. When I say everywhere, I mean shoe shops that are far too good for them, specialty shops that sell only Crocs and Crocs accessories (those weird things that you stick in the holes) and, since this August, in the cloak room of my Kindergarten.
Being a Swiss Kindergarten, outside shoes are not allowed inside. If you are like me, you are wondering if Crocs would work better as outside shoes or "Finken" (or house shoes, which in our school range from out-right slippers to high-heel clikkety-clakkety shoes for a few). The answer is: BOTH! Over the past few weeks, more and more children have been bringing Crocs. This means that many mothers had bought new school shoes and finken for their children and were then pressured to buy yet another pair, so that that child could have Crocs.
As of this week more than %75 of our kids have at least one set of Crocs for indoor or outdoor use. Most of those children have two parirs for both uses.
I realize that as I write this, I have a hair cut that I would never wear in the US in this decade. I'm not necessarily a hypocrite, though. Try as I might, every hairdresser gives me and every third other woman, this layered 80's style. Plus, when in Rome.......
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