My Country

Things are somewhat different this Australia Day than it has in the past, for as you see, it snows in my new home.

However, it is apt that I discovered yesterday that I have passed the Dutch language component of the Dutch inburgering/integration process (which you may have read about in the blog entry of 20 November 2006); because I already have a job, I believe all I need to do now is pass the social aspects of the Netherlands. (I heard that I may have to watch footage of two men kissing and not be grossed out by it. Hmm...)

And while I, like many Australians, find the our national celebration of January 26 rather difficult knowing what horrors the colonists brought to Indigenous Australians, today I simply can't help but think of this beautiful land that is still my country.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of rugged mountain ranges
Of droughts and flooding rains,
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

...

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

from My Country, by Dorothea McKellar

Dormiphyta®

This natural herbal remedy makes many claims, such as promoting a fitful sleep through the night and a restful feeling upon awaking. It is especially useful for frequent travellers to take in order to prevent jet-lag. It contains ingredients such as Withania somnifera, Eschscholtzia californica, Passiflora incarnata Valeriana officinalis and Leonurus cardiaca. This last ingredient claims that once you've woken, it will stimulate the bodily processes.

I can't honestly say that it's worked for me quite how the advertising gumpf would claim.

But I can honestly say that the pills smelt dreadful, that my jaw tells me I did some serious grinding and gritting these last 3.5 hours and that I feel, this Thursday morning at 3.18am, as though I've just flown from Melbourne to Amsterdam, non-stop.

http://www.vitaminstore.nl/vitaminen/772/Dormiphyta-Slaapopwekkend-voor-gezonde-slaap!/

Anti-stimuli

If I go to bed at 12am and then wake up at 2.38am and don't go back to sleep, I'm not going to be performing at my optimum level during this last week of training for work.

I guess it also doesn't help that I have been kicking off my daily schedule with a solid hour of intensive grammar training. I have so far been unsuccessful at disguising my expression (of a stunned kangaroo trapped in an oncoming SUV's headlights) as I try to process how to explain the difference between the simple present/present progressive tenses, the closed past/open past and the four possible future tenses (just for starters). And then of course there are 6 associated highlighter colours to memorise, some really experienced colleagues to keep up with, and endless questions to ask and answer; or, in most cases, grammar teacher eye-contact to avoid.

Aside from my unfortunate grammar-deficiency, I have also been waking up in night-sweats over:

• my (fear of) ineptitude as a teacher
• whether I'm going to find the time each day to do the 20 minute Pilates DVD programme that a new colleague lent to me (as per her recommendation),
• what I might say in my wedding speech
• what are we supposed to wear to Dutch language training next week?
• hm, my knee hurts, maybe I shouldn't do that Streetdance class at gym tomorrow night
• what am I going to wear tomorrow?!
• how I mustn't forget to reschedule my piano lesson because of work
• oh, must email Erika at work about that thingie next Tuesday
• how we should brief the photographer on Saturday, and,
• how Edwin is sleeping (because my constant nocturnal thrashings / teeth gnashing and sighing / audible squeezing of my eyes shut while I try to focus on my breathing even though my mind always drifts off are sure to be keeping him awake).

So, after Edwin tickled me on the back to get me to sleep again (after staying up with me for a good hour and a half the other morning / middle of the night), he decided there's no other solution.

I'm going to have to be medicated.

The course of Dormiphyta® (don't worry, it's a homeopathic remedy!) tablets starts tonight. I really hope I have a whole night's sleep. I have the first of many dummy lessons to teach tomorrow, and another two hours of grammar training to look forward to and the wedding photography brief to write before the weekend.

Ah, the joys of an over-stimulated mind.

A kind of hush all over ...

Every day on my way to the train station, I pass a house whose front wall bears a delightful jasmine creeper crowned with myriad, too-early, yellow trumpets. Knowing that it must soon freeze, I wonder each morning what will happen to my flower friends.

From this very morning I opened my front door to a world that rests beneath a crispy, rejuvenating layer of frost. All life is slowing down, hibernating, maybe renewing, biding its time for the warmer months.

My gait slowed as I approached this house of interest, and I remarked that my jasmine plant bows its multiple heads in deference to the season that has finally come. But, far from being wilted into a soggy mess of detritus, the little yellow buds have been brittly captured by the cryogenic, awesome silence that only winter's freeze can bring.

* How Dutch I've become. Always harping on about the weather!

Wanted: English teacher, native speaker, no experience necessary

If you've been following my blog you may know that the kind people at Regina Coeli took me on sometime back in October. On Monday I finally started work. *

So far, I've had three days' training, and it's been very intensive. The coffee there is very good. So good that it may be the 3.20pm caffeine hit that's giving me insomnia, but I'm more inclined to believe it's anticipation for the next day combined with extreme nervousness about wearing the new title of "Docent Engels" (English teacher).

The highlight for me is the staff. All very intelligent, passionate, upbeat people. They all love where they work and what they do. It's such a change for me. Well, to start with, to have a job again, and also that this is a place where I believe I'll feel belonged - with people who have myriad other interests (some are artists, writers, former Pop Music History lecturers etc), who are complete grammar nerds and yet are great communicators (important to note, as the teaching is one-on-one).

More to come from me in future blogs. Meanwhile, it's back to the books, literally. I'm borrowing a fairly hefty tome from Lenise (fellow rookie at Regina Coeli), called "Learn how to teach". I have 3 and a half weeks until I start giving lessons. If you have any spare luck lying around ...

throw it my way.

* Back in August 2006 I saw a fortune teller, Master Ng, in Hong Kong on my way from Australia to the Netherlands. I asked him about how things would work out with Edwin (!) and whether I'd get a job. Master Ng said that Edwin had an oval face with a pointy chin, was very kind and liked to plan. All true. He also said that I wouldn't get a job in 2006. Then he changed his mind, said I'd get a job in October, but that the real work would start in January/February. Well, if I can find Master Ng again (if I go back to Hong Kong), I'm going to ask him which numbers to choose for the next €20,000,000 jackpot!