work

Yep. It's been a long break but now I think I'm back. I'd stopped largely because any free time I've had in the past few weeks was occupied either watching Dexter or playing the guitar and fooling around with drum software on my laptop. And changing jobs. Yes, that's right, I've left the ROC van Amsterdam more or less completely. I miss it. I miss my students and I miss my colleagues. I miss that it's a five minute walk from home. I will be sad not to see first hand the fruits of my labor last year, namely, the outcome of the Students Exchange Program with the college in Dublin. It was one year ago that I went to Dublin and helped to get the program up and running. Tomorrow ten students from Ireland will be arriving to work and study here in Amsterdam for two weeks. I'll miss being a part of that.

But it was time to move on and I feel I've made the right decision. The new job is more challenging and definitely affords me more intellectual stimulation. I teach English to Bachelor's Degree students now. In fact tomorrow I'll be there all day (literally from 9:00 to 9:00) both teaching and taking part in thesis defenses as an examiner. I've been handed more responsibility at this new job. Reading senior theses and assessing whether they're up to snuff and if said students should get their Bachelor's Degrees. It's tiring because it's all so new and intense. But I'll settle into it, I'm sure.

My hope ultimately is to eventually get a position teaching at the University of Amsterdam. If I keep working hard that will happen, I'm sure.

In the meantime life is about growth and change. And I guess I wouldn't have it any other way.

I had no idea

none at all

Is Holland sinking in more ways than one?

It's probably what I love most about living in The Netherlands: the Dutch are a modest people, in general. I love this. Friends and family who come visit often remark on this. First they comment on how thin and and healthy everyone in Holland seems, especially in comparison with Americans. Then they remark on the fact that there don't seem to be many homeless people, the presence of visible poverty on the street is practically nonexistent, and similarly, there are few over-the-top displays of wealth (unlike in America). This modesty, this humbleness, this nuchterheid, the Dutch down-to-earthness, is one of the best aspects of living here as a foreigner.

In Kyrgyzstan we received our salary in Kyrgyz soms and weren't lavishly overpaid for doing the same work as locals. Despite this we were eternally seen as rich foreigners. The Kyrgyz knew the whole thing was a sham. Yes, we were paid in soms, not dollars, and yes we were paid like locals, but the fact remained that we would always have access to wealth beyond their means. People mistakenly assumed that we had cooks and cleaners and drivers and didn't ever lift a finger to do anything for ourselves. I vividly remember feeling like a wealthy foreigner every day of my life in Kstan. Shopping at the open bazaar (instead of at the overpriced Soviet-era general department store) wasn't simply practical, it was a kind of a statement: I choose to shop here. Vendors were eternally surprised that we would bother. Why buy your tomatoes from me, in a kiosk outdoors where you have to wade through the mud and are expected to bargain for every item, when instead you can afford to go to the just-opened nouveau-riche supermarket aimed at rich ex-pats and get unblemished picture-perfect tomatoes swathed in plastic? Well, the answer was obvious to us - we didn't travel halfway around the globe to buy produce in exactly the same sterile manner as we had always done at home. But the locals, the Kyrgyz, didn't see it that way. They would've gone for the sterile-looking plasticine tomatoes if they could've afforded 'em. We were eccentric. And every day was a battle, trying to appear normal, trying to fit in. The locals knew all along that somehow we were just playing at being local. We would never really fit in - we were rich foreigners.

In Holland I have never felt that way. Never. I am middle class here for the most part. I am not a rich foreigner and, though I'm certainly better off than other foreigners here, I will never be rich. I've not had to work in a call-centre or clean houses for a living like a lot of disenfranchised foreigners in The Netherlands, but that's understandable because I had to do that back in the US. Instead, I am one of the middle class and have no reason to feel like I am exceptional or am somehow above everyone else. I really like that. This is largely due to the fact that in Holland lavish displays of wealth are not the norm. People don't show off. It's icky and in general the Dutch don't do it. They're not like many of their European neighbors. They don't have grandiose monuments to themselves like the Italians, the French, the Spanish, or even the British. I love this about the Dutch. They see pretentious bullshit for what it is and find it laughable.

But I fear that this may be changing. I can't help but worry that the youth of today aspire to silly displays of self-important materialism. I base this judgment largely on the fact that most of the 17-year-olds I know have a cell phone. Not only that it has to be a Blackberry or an Iphone. They also seem to need to reinvent themselves every week or so with new clothes, new accessories, and new bling. Most of the 16 - 24 year-olds that I know are my students. If you ask most of them what they aspire to, what they'd like to become, the answer would be, in one word, "rich." This scares me. They don't seem to share the same down-to-earth kind of Calvnistic fear of over-abundance that their parents and grandparents had. The young adults I meet aim to be as flashy and over-the-top as possible and don't see anything wrong with superficial displays of wealth. Bling is cool.

Does this mark a society in decline? Am I just getting old and crotchety? Or am I meeting the wrong 17-year-olds?

witches and goblins

or rather Darth Vader, Batman and Alex doing something strange with his hands. Found a carveable pumpkin at the Albert Heijn, miracle of miracles! Though the tradition seems to have originated in Ireland, thus a whole lot closer to Nederland than the US, strangely no one here seems to carve pumpkins. The Dutch, or at least the Albert Heijn, seem to be catching on though.

Happy Birthday to Me! more wisdom from Dr. Seuss

unstoppable

I don't know if I spelled that right, quite likely not, but the fact is that whether or not I can properly spell the silly word, I am unstoppable. Tonight I spoke for over an hour in Dutch to the parents of my first year students, answering their questions (pittig!) and trying to allay their fears about their kids. They're good people, most all of them and they will come to no harm. I am having very mixed feelings about moving toward the HvA. There is magic in the MBO teaching.

But I digress.

I then, in dire need of ear-damaging noise and adventure, made my way to Utrecht, by train and bicycle, to witness the deafening wall of sound that is the UK's Part Chimp. My ears are still ringing. Success, in other words...

But then most importantly I got to do something so very Dutch, something I've never done before...ride on the back of a bike while someone else pedals, ya know, side-saddle, and it was both exhilerating and extremely nerve-wracking. Success, in other words....

The Answer

Normally, apparently, the music. I thought so. You hear the music and you start humming something over or under it and then words come and before you know it you've written a song. That's how it worked tonight anyway. AND I AM SO PROUD! We wrote a song and, though it still needs a definite ending, it has structure and sounds cool and the lyrics are weird enough to satisfy me. Yes! I can't believe I finally helped write a song, I collaborated and it worked! I didn't think it would. I mean, at one point the bass player and guitarist (shall I give them names? I suppose I should ask them first if I can quote them here) were looking at me very expectantly, claiming that they couldn't give the song structure until I came up with some words. And I was terrified. It just played into all my horror of not being good enough, not being a real musician, all the doubts I had while playing with Kuru. And I never had to face up to them because everyone else always had lots of ideas and knew exactly what they wanted. This, tonight, was really the first time that other musicians have looked to me to add a crucial component to the music. I've always kinda just felt like filler, you know, a cool accent, but not essentially a part of the music. And that all changed tonight. And I am so grateful for being given a chance to take part, no judgements, no expectations, just "your part is needed here." Wow. It just gets better and better.

So what comes first? The music? Or the lyrics?

punk rock is the easiest place to hide

and yet I fought the urge to hide and tried to come out of myself a little bit. Make music. Face them and let it out and not worry about how it might sound. hiding behind the noise is easier and more fun and more liberating. If it weren't for the echo and the bass all the way up and treble all the way down and the digital delay and the pounding of the drums I would probably never let my voice out of it's box. But now and then I do and screw it, because it feels good and who cares

My Face

I sincerely dislike Facebook. It leaves me no room to express myself as I see fit. I have tried creating MySpace pages and in my opinion they just suck. I have no friends and no patience for accumulating them. Blogger is where it's at. Always has been. Why are so many people so stupid?