Missing

After a months days without them, the realization that I sometimes try to deny has set in... I miss my students, or, as I prefer to acknowledge them by, my children. Don't get me wrong, it is great to be able to stay up all night, watching re-runs of drama series that used to have me glued to the tube when I was in college (ahh the nostalgia..) and reading till I doze off into dreamland (and of course waking up with aches and pains, which isn't a surprised considering I slept on my 570 pages Marian Keyes book, but of course I digress), and being able to wake up way after the sun shines into my room (failing to stir me from my slumber of course). But I do miss them...alot, all 33 of them in my class and some of those whom I don't even teach anymore but never fail to greet me with that shy and sometimes cheeky smile when they see me around school. It was good to be able to divert my attention away from certain things which could sometimes bring me down , and turn my attention instead to the boy who tried to predict if I have a boyfriend by flipping a coin, or the girl who complained to me that the boys in class are calling her 'helmet head' and 'hammer shark' because of her new (and rather hip) haircut, or the boy who loves to tell me new things that he discovered or read about and asked me questions as the class walked down for break or while we're moving from room to room. Yes, I've said it once and I'll say it once again, I miss them and love them as if they were my own (well, I feel that they are, except that I don't have to give them pocket money or make sure that they're occupied on weekends or see them grow into teenagers full of angst and cringe as they dye their follicles every shade of the rainbow). Even though I never stayed with them for more than a year, they are always in my heart (here's where the sounds of violins playing can be heard) cheesy, I know, even by my standards, but hey, it's the truth.

It happened one night...

I've always known that I can be rather clumsy at times (ok that's kind of an understatement). But I never though that that little flaw (which can sometimes be a charm) would provide me with so much adventure as it did last night. First of all let me just say that I do feel that those fresh fruit juices that come in those rather huge glass bottles is a good idea. It goes along Holland's policy of recycling and saving the earth and all that jazz. But I do know that a combination of glass bottle in hand and a dark hallway is not always a good idea. Add that to tiredness due to more than 3 hours of spins and splits and you've got yourself a perfect recipe for disaster. It wouldn't have been so bad had I remembered that at the end of that hallways stand 3 little steps but me being me, I didn't. One minute I was talking to a friend and wondering if I had missed the bus and the next, I was flying through the air (well, not really, but you get what i mean). Survival instinct kicked in and I stretched out my hand to break my fall, forgetting that I'm still holding on to that glass bottle, which contained a very delicious combination of banana and orange juice. The good news is, I did manage to break my fall and avoid slamming my face into the carpeted floor. The bad news is the glass bottle broke and glass pieces were everywhere, included in my hand, and not to mentioned that it was a waste of perfectly good juice. My dance mates came running down (by that time I have switched on the lights to avoid a further disaster, or else the scene would resemble that of those that often experienced by Happy Tree Friends). They helped me clean up the glass and well, to cut a long story short (too late? who said that?!) I was driven to the ER in Den Haag. Thank god for compulsory health insurance! My advice to anyone is to be prepared in case you do end up in the ER in the future (although not ending up there would be a much better idea). Bring a reading material, a project or a friend! Thank god I brought the latter. We ended up talking for 3 hours while one doctor after another come in to look at my wound. When I did finally get treatment, which consisted of 2 stitches and a tentinous shot, it lasted for all of 20 minutes. I guess the Dutch's philosophy of taking things easy and not rushing anything also applies to treatments at the ER. But the whole experience did have good outcome. I bonded with a fellow dance friend and it showed me the importance of health insurance, which I have been making used of a lot lately. And I promised that I'll be more careful next time...well, I'll try.

Is life ever too mundane?

When I was a kid, I used to think everyday happenings were so automatic. As if everything followed a strict schedule. I used to think the sun would rise at an appointed time without fail or that my mom would promptly arrive everyday to pick me up from play school at a particular time. Was I at a lost when I realized that the sun didn't shine one day with the clouds lazily drifting above. Was I at the brink of tears when my mom had arrived hours late.

We've become so used to things. Life becomes all too predictable. The mundane. But what I've come to discover that the mundane isn't so bland and so ordinary, after all. In the mundane, we find the out-of-the-ordinary. Try spotting a dot or even a speck in a sea of lines. Lines seem to go on forever, well in fact, they do just like the experience of the mundane but once that speck finds its way into the world of lines, it'll instantly stand out. And it is precisely because of the everyday things that we learn to distinguish and identify what's so noteworthy. It is because of the mundane that we learn to appreciate the beauty of things.

In retrospect, you'll realize something you've probably known all along, perhaps in the back of your head, that yesterday wasn't at all like today although you've done the same things, the same chores, the same errands, the same schedule. But the difference lies not in what you do but HOW you do it.


I think life can be too long a trip. Too long that it simply gets boring after a while. Same old stuff. And that's where the challenge lies, finding ways to make the trip just a little bit more fun.

The mundane. Who would've thought that because of it life becomes even the tiniest bit meaningful.

Something I had forgetten

Yesterday, I had this sudden urge to just start cleaning up (that rarely happens so I do feel that a celebration is in order) and I came across this scarp of paper with something which I had written. I can't even remember if it's an original work of mine or otherwise. But here it goes....

Down by the river

The gurgle of a stream.

The lapping of water

Interrupted my dreams.

I shuffled my feet together

To the whirring of wings

of birds in the treetops

And the distant rustling of leaves.

p.s. I don't think the poems completed....