The lyf so short

So yesterday was the annual teachers' excursion. Unlike excursions so far (which were a low-key visit to some nearby destination - such as a bowling alley, farm or - last year - handcar treck, with a barbecue afterwards) this one was a bigger affair, including a bus trip to the Moselle, a boat tour on the Moselle, a castle visit, and a fancy dinner. Accordingly, it was a lot more expensive than usual teachers' trips, and also taking up a lot more of the day (all of it, in fact - we left at 10am and returned at 10pm).
And a lot more frustrating.

I had weighed the pros and cons of going along for a while - teambuilding, fun with the colleagues, enrichment (TM), visiting a town I, personally, didn't know yet vs. giving away yet another otherwise free afternoon, sitting on the bus for a long time, the tourist-trap destination, and above all, the cost. I decided to go because it always looks slightly bad to skip the social events (no matter how full the work week, which this week included parent-teacher conferences) and the last ones were fairly fun. I figured I'd be able to do some work on the long bus journey (3 hours one direction) so I could maybe have some unexpected free time on the weekend. And let's face it, I've become fairly stationary and need to kick myself out of my remaining comfort zone occasionally. So along I went.

The bus trip was a horror. I did in fact correct a whole set of geography exams, but that was done while trying to ignore the increasingly drunk crowd (all colleagues) at the back of the bus (I was sitting in one of the front rows with the other boring people who were not in fact on the trip in order to get drunk before the bus had even reached the Autobahn). I don't mind people having fun. I do hate drunk crowds though, even (or especially) if I know them and all they're doing is being noisy, playing loud Ibiza-style music while singing along very badly, and trying to get everyone to participate in their schlager music karaoke. One (normally reasonably nice) colleague kept yelling that he needed a smoking break and when the bus driver ignored him, said very loudly that this was the worst bus driver he'd ever encountered.

The funny (not ha-ha funny, the other funny) thing is that when the students asked where we were going, they all nodded knowingly and expected us to get drunk (the Moselle valley is one of Germany's wine-growing regions) but when they heard that the principal was coming along, assumed that the trip would be boring because we'd have to behave. Instead, he was among the heaviest party-ers, which doubtlessly encouraged the bad behaviour.
Anyway.

The schlager music singing continued while running up the steep streets of Cochem to reach the castle in time for the guided tour (the Autobahn was crowded and we also eventually did take a smoking break so we were late), and during the guided tour, which was therefore heavily abridged. I tried to enjoy the nice aspects of it (pretty castle, lovely weather, nice panorama) but it was hard. Some colleagues were displaying signs of alcohol-induced dementia and it was hard to remain patient. Eventually there was a chance to leave the crowd (which wanted to go to a pub) and have some ice-cream and window-shopping with the other uncool colleagues who also didn't think getting drunk constituted a good time. We met the others again for the boat trip, which despite of cold temperatures and strong winds was very pretty. At that point the drinkers started to grow tired and a little more quiet but it was still embarrassing to have them around.
The fancy dinner was nice (and most people managed to behave themselves) and I managed to sleep a little on the bus trip back.

What remains is the feeling of some nice sights but a day otherwise wasted, and my opinion of about 70% of my colleagues (+ the boss) damaged. We will see if the damage is repairable.

In order to be not just a Negative Nelly, here are some pretty-ish pictures from the trip.


Inside Cochem Castle


View from the castle across the valley


View from the boat through the valley (castle included)


High-water marks on the wall of the restaurant (2003, 2018 and 2021 missing).
Name has nothing to do with the God of Thunder but ye olde spelling of Tor ("gate") instead because it's next to one of the old city gates.


This is where we had our fancy dinner (before everybody crowded in).

One month ago we had 10°C days. Now we have 35°C days. Neither is seasonal. What the fuck.

It's been... a couple of weeks. The end of the school year is always a mess up until the final conferences (tomorrow and Tuesday), and then everything suddenly grinds to a halt and we all try to just make it to the holidays (two weeks later) in one piece because technically we still have to teach the kids but they know as well as we do that nothing that happens now is relevant to their report card. Can't spend two weeks just watching movies, though...

I had my final audit in geography two weeks ago, and my final audit in English last Tuesday. Now only the exam audits & colloquium are left (in September) until I'm an actual fully licenced teacher. Seminary is in session again, which means that I have to drive all the way to Siegen again. The long drive and the long sitting on the uncomfortable seminary chairs mess with my thoracic spine and I always have a killer tension headache in the evening and most of the next day. I have to say, remote seminary truly was a blessing.

Currently, classes are actually happening in full and in situ, with all kids present. From Monday on, we'll even be allowed to take off our masks outside in the schoolyard (not inside the building, of course)!

Somewhere in between preparing for audits, just "normal" lesson prep, trying to make up fair grades from the patchy bits of contribution and the single exam we managed to write between lockdowns, and mock lesson prep for seminary, I got my second shot of the vaccine. As it was at the end of a seminary day, I suspect that the subsequent killer headache (see above) was more to blame on the drive than on Biontech. The vertigo and fatigue... might have been Biontech, or might have been the heat. Who knows. Now, at any rate, I'm just groaning at the heat. If this is June, what will August be like?

(Monsoon season, probably. We had monsoon-like rain a week or so ago, which is also Not Seasonal, but at least it filled up the cistern again...)

Two weeks to the holidays. Which will be a time to prepare for the exam colloquium, but also, one hopes, a chance to recover. (Whom am I kidding? I have so much to clean and tidy up that I won't actually get any rest. There's a new building project, too, which will mostly be done by actual craftspeople, but I will have to make room in the attic first, and that's unfortunately going to be... hard.)

This year, thanks to the inscrutable workings of the German holiday system, my federal state has its fall holidays exactly between the end of the summer holidays and the start of the Christmas holidays, with eight weeks of regular school on either side. Well, eight weeks of regular school between summer and now, at my school, which is located in a blessed little city upon a blessed little hill where, apparently, the Rona doesn't really want to go. (There have been five confirmed cases - no casualties - between March and May, and none thereafter.) In cities all around, classes or entire schools have had to go into quarantine for a couple of weeks, but B-feld (no, not the conspiracy one) has been spared so far. Who knows how it'll go after the holidays. As our principal said meaningfully when he reminded everyone to remain cautious and stick to the rules, "Winter is coming."

Winter is coming. Already, our lessons start in the dark; and when the holidays are over, even the return to regular MET won't help the fact that the sun just doesn't rise before 8:30 in our latitudes, and soon it won't rise before the first recess. (For some reason, I have a really striking memory from back in grade 8, when we had an east-facing classroom and sat translating Caesar under a spectacular sunrise. The things our brain chooses to keep!) Moreover, the end of the decade is coming, so there are even more road constructions than usual. The Powers That Be have decided that, when there are major roadworks on one of the two connecting roads between the two towns I have to pass through on my way to work, it makes total sense to block the second road for construction, too. Then one week later, another road I need to take was blocked as well. It's hard not to feel targeted personally. I can now either take one of the official detours, which of course all the trucks are taking, or I can take three little detours of my own which, in spite of being longer, still get me there faster than the truck-infested official way. (Yes, yes, I know, until they can send goods via e-mail, I shall have to share the road with trucks.)

Winter is coming. One of the cornerstones of our COVID protection concept is that the windows are open as much as possible, ideally at all times. For a variety of reasons, it isn't possible even now - my classroom faces out to the school bus stop, so by 12, when the elementary school kids start gathering there, no lessons are possible when the windows are open. It's not even that they're playing and talking - which would be distracting enough - but that they keep rubbing their noses on our classroom window, waving, talking and even throwing things inside.I, the teacher, should be able to stop this with a few stern words. I am not. They don't care. All we can do is shut the window. We don't even have curtains that we can draw shut against the distraction. We don't even have those sticky foils that you can put on the windows to darken them. Talked to the janitor and he said "Well I'll have to ask the architect about that." Yeah, putting some darkening foil on the windows definitely sounds like something that's got to be cleared with the architect. Apparently, we aren't even allowed to stick window clings or other cafts stuff to the windows, let alone foil! (The frames, on the other hand, are made of metal, so I've been considering buying a set of neodymium magnets and hanging posters from the window frames. Daylight? What daylight? Winter is coming, anyway! Or maybe I'll use fabric?)

One positive effect of the open windows and the incoming cold season is that I'm no longer getting into trouble with colleagues for not telling my students to hang up their jackets in the corridor. "No jackets in the classroom" is one of those unwritten etiquette rules that I don't get, don't remember, and certainly don't care to enforce. I don't see the problem. That is, I don't understand why it's supposed to be a problem, and I also genuinely don't perceive the jackets unless I specifically pay attention to them, which I usually don't, because I don't remember the rule. I have jacket blindness. There can be a full classroom of 25-29 kids, all of them huddled in their jackets or using them to cushion their chairs, and my eyes will glide right over them. When other colleagues are in the classroom with me they'll immediately spot the students in the fourth row wearing their jackets and snap at them to take them outside. Then ten minutes later one of those students will notice another student having stealthily hung their jacket over the back of their chair and rat on them, so there's another student you have to send outside to hang up their jacket. And of course, a lot of students will argue for why they want to keep their jacket or why they shouldn't have to take it outside now. It's a self-made disruption and I don't see the point in the first place. I don't feel disrespected by students in jackets. IMO, it's a completely arbitrary rule. Besides, all the jackets right next to each other on the coatrack in the corridor seems like a surefire way of spreading lice or scabies, should someone have them! Not Worth It. But most of my colleagues are adamant about the "no jackets" rule - or were. Now that we have to keep the windows open most of the time, and many students forget to bring warm pullovers (or maybe they don't have one), we have been told to permit the wearing of jackets. That's a small blessing for the students and also for the jacket-blind, like me.

Another blessing! I've only been teaching there for two and a half years, so I've only heard it twice, but the "plastic building" is finally going to be demolished! The plastic building is one of those fugly 1970s modular container buildings that were used in schools all over the country for a couple of years until the cheap materials and the asbestos in the insulation made them unuseable. Our vice principal announced it during the last conference, starting with a little story. "When I started working here in 1984, the principal said, 'Oh, and don't worry about our plastic building down there, we don't use it anymore. In fact, it's going to be demolished any day now.'" General laughter. As we all know, it's 2020 and the damned thing is still there. Some students hate it because they're not allowed to play ball because too many hard kicks have damaged parts of the already damaged building (not all of it is plastic). Other students like it because they hide behind it for their illegal smoke. The teachers all hate it because we occasionally have to round up the secret smokers behind the building, which means climbing through a sizeable bramble and stinging nettle thicket first. Also, it's taking up a lot of space on what could otherwise be another nice part of the schoolyard. It's ugly and broken and sits in the way and is vandalised regularly, which is still technically a crime even though in this case, the building really is asking for it. But of course, it's not up to the school to decide to get it demolished; this has to be decided by the district council, and the district council always put it off. But now the state has announced that it won't be paying for the sins of the 70s after this decade is over, so the district council has finally signed the permit. The construction (or, in this case, destruction) company rolled in last Monday, started and will (hopefully) manage to get all the dangerous bits dismantled during the holidays and the whole thing gone by the new year. Oremus. After that, maybe we'll actually get an outdoor seating area? The kids aren't currently allowed to sit and eat in the cafeteria because it's too small for safe distancing, so they have to pick up their lunch (in plastic bowls or paper bags) and eat outside. The last two weeks were rainy and cold, and it's not like that's likely to get better in November. I hope our principal will finally allow the kids to go back into their classrooms, for lunch at least if not for all of lunch break. As usual, a few kids who couldn't behave have so far ruined this option for everybody. But we will see. After all, winter is - I may have mentioned this before - coming.

But first, I have two weeks of (theoretically) no school work, which (practically) will be used trying to tidy up and preparing for after the holidays. No rest for the teachers. And maybe I'll be able to look after the garden, which I've been forced to neglect since August? Jörg really wanted to go on another vacation AND start some major renovations (the fact that we now have two incomes is going to his head) but he ended up not booking as one option after the next turned into a high-risk zone. I'm a bit wistful - this time last year, we took the kids to London and Bristol during the fall holidays and it was fantastic - but also grateful, TBH. I just... don't want to have to go anywhere for a couple of days. Is that selfish? Maybe it is. But there's just so much to clean away and catch up with and prepare. The mere thought of going on a trip and leaving all that stuff for (yet) later is making me want to curl up and cry and threatening to start the self-loathing spiral (Why didn't I deal with this paperwork months ago? Why can't I stay on top of things for once?!?). And the long, dark tea-time of the soul hasn't even started yet.

Today, in accordance with the prophecy, we released our tenth-graders into the wild. And by "the wild", I mean either vocational training or three more years of school, but it was still epic.

Actually, it wasn't. Usually, Certificate Day is a fairly spectacular event, and we tried our hardest, but it just wasn't the same. We got permission to use the church, provided that no more than 50 people were inside at any one time, and that after each class 10, we would wipe down and disinfect every surface that had ostensibly been touched. So the service/ceremony consisted of the students of each class (~28 not-quite-adults), and the last set of teachers that had taught them (~10 adults), and the principal, and the minister. (Religious minister, not political minister. We're a Lutheran school, which is why the minister is relevant.) The parents/guardians (one per student) were permitted into the marketplace in front of the church, where a projector and screen had been prepared to transmit what was going on in the church, with their positions marked on the cobblestones so they'd know how far apart 1.5 metres are. Mandatory facemasks. Strictly no singing because singing releases more aerosols. After the ceremony, five graduates at a time were permitted to exit the church, and five parents at a time were allowed to go around the church to join their kids, who were then - separately - presented with their graduation certificate. After that, they had to clear the space to make room for the next.

To make up for the absence of most teachers (who would normally have been present) and the involvement of graduates from all four classes in the ceremony (for readings, speeches, etc.), the class teachers had prepared four video clips. To make up for the lack of singing, one of the teachers played "Fly me to the moon" on the cello, one of the guys played "Applaus" on the guitar, and one of the girls played "My heart will go on" on the piano. Reader, I nearly cried. I was never one to bawl during "My heart will go on", but I certainly was emotionally compromised during this rendition. Part of it was the unnaturally quiet atmosphere of the whole event, and part of it is, well, the strange sadness of having taught some of these students (not all of them succesfully) and now seeing them go away. Gave me enough of a headache, but they were still part of my life! And I only met them when they were already in grade 9! Much tougher for the teachers who accompanied them all the way from grade 5 to 10, of course.

Some of the graduates had dressed up for the occasion, sometimes impressively and sometimes hilariously. (One girl and her mother were already running late for the service, and then they stopped in the entrance to the marketplace and we all thought "Huh? What's going on here?" Then the girl changed from the comfortable slippers she'd been wearing into stilettoes! Another girl was wearing a strange miniskirt/split robe combination that wouldn't have looked out of place on a very fashionable wicked witch. And one wore a cocktail dress in neon green. ?!?!)

I suppose it was the best that could be done under the circumstances. At least they did get a ceremony, even if it was a weirdly subdued one.

One more week of this strange term to go for the rest of us. How things are going to be after the summer holidays? Nobody has the slightest. Right now, the political intention is "back to normal". Will that be possible after everyone from everywhere has mingled during the vacations? I cannot say.

I have managed to twist the ring finger of my right hand, which is is used in an astounding number of activities, while hauling stones. (A month ago, I smashed the tip of the ring finger of my left hand (also while hauling stones), and it's still tender and painful (and I'm still not entirely certain that the fingernail will stay where it should be), but I'm right-handed, so the new injury is more inconvenient). So I have to take a break from gardening until the joint stops acting up.

Perfect opportunity to treat you to a picspam! (Not of the hurt fingers. Not worth photographing, anyway. I tend not to bruise, so you don't actually see how much it hurts.) Here's the current state of the garden, after (most of) the necessary spring cleaning and before things (hopefully) start to grow.

( The usual cut to spare your flists )

Have a nice evening!

So it turned out that my free weekday was load-bearing.

Like. I knew that it was a really pleasant day to have. Unlike the weekend, when everybody is at home and clamouring for attention and expecting things because, after all, it's the free weekend, that was a day that I had pretty much to myself, and I needed that. I knew I'd miss it once it was gone. I didn't realise how much, though.

In November, the free day turned into an additional workday, with my qualification classes at ZfSL (or "seminary") from 9:30 to 16:00, which is already a lot of time during which I have to perform the role of attentive, highly motivated, sociable and fully capable adult (even during break time, which is after all spent with the other trainees). By the luck (not) of the draw, seminary is in Siegen. Siegen is 60 km from where I live as the raven flies, but unfortuantely I cannot fly, so I have the delightful options of either taking mostly country roads through the scenic Sauerland, which is every bit as remote as it sounds, or take the highway all the way to Cologne and then take the A4 eastwards, or take the highway towards Hagen and then take the A45 eastwards. (I'm currently going for a combination of "country roads until they meet the A45 or A4" but that probably won't work in real winter.) As a result, my commute takes an hour and ten minutes at a good time, and can easily take up to two hours during rush hour. So in reality, I'm away from home (and, what's worse, have to be fully focused) for twelve hours. I'm only teaching two additional classes, but those de facto twelve hours of seminary are grinding me down. For three weeks now, I've been constantly on the verge of crying just from exhaustion, and that's without anything sad happening. (That, or laughing hysterically. At seminary last week, I had an absolutely infantile laughing flash when a colleague told us how her four-year old daughter had stood in the living-room and declared loudly, "Alexa! Spiel Rotzi Kotzi!"* Which is funny, but is it funny enough to laugh-cry and get stomach cramps? Probably not.) Seminary itself is OK in parts and really interesting in others, but it's hard work. Lots of reading, lots of group work where you can't let anyone down. It's also slightly annoying that even with all the students being cooperative, highly motivated adults, the seminary teachers' plans never fit the actual time frame - something that would cost us trainee teachers points once they start observing our actual classes! On the plus side (I suppose?) it makes me appreciate more what the students have to do: Sitting through up to eight hours of lessons where they're expected to participate and perform, on top of going through puberty and trying to have hobbies and a social life. Student is a hard job, without a question.

It's a tough time in school. There are conferences, parent-teacher talks and other additional things every other week. Although I'm still officially a part-time teacher, I still have to participate full-time in these things, and it all adds up. It's also a stressful time for the students. We're half-way between fall break and the Christmas vacation, a time full of written exams and presentations and the usual problems that come with all that. With Christmas approaching, at least a third of the kids are exuberant with expectation and at least one third are frustrated with the gap between their real life and the glamourised image of happy families and unlimited wealth in the pre-Christmas commercials. Kids at our school come from all walks of life, so there's lots of material for conflict and crises. At best, teaching them is like herding cats; on occasion, it feels like putting one fire out while someone in the back of class lights the next three. I love the teaching! But believe it or not, it's hard work. In an attempt to summon some holiday spirit in the middle of this stressful time, I've packed an advent calendar for my 6th graders (they're 25 kids, so it more or less works out) when I packed the advent calendars for my own kids. They seem to appreciate it so far; I can only hope that nobody will be upset because they're number, like, 23 instead of 5. (I let them draw lots, so it was all in the hands of Lady Luck, but still.) We're having a class Christmas party next week (another long day), and I have to admit that I'm rather relieved that the class voted against doing an English play or rehearsing some English carols for the occasion...

Then, when I get home, of course there's still family life to maintain, because it's not the kids' fault that I'm now as busy and exhausted as their dad. And it's not Jörg's fault that things like buying groceries or doing the laundry or making dinner just plain putting the kids to bed are now an additional load on an already long list, rather than something that I can easily do on my free day or at the end of a manageable half-day. This is something we'll have to suss out anew, too.

Probably as a result of all this, my mind absolutely closes down when it comes to analytical thinking, which is awkward because I still haven't finished the fandom studies essay I've been working on since before the summer holidays. It just won't come together and it's so frustrating because I know what I'm trying to say but I don't know how to say it, and the mere thought of putting the bibliography together makes me want to cry (yet again). The only thing I want to write is TEA, because I currently know (more or less) what's happening next and also because it's currently offering the gratification of some really great comments. But even when I have the time to write (something other than tests and work sheets or assignments for seminary), I feel guilty about writing fanfic rather than the essay. I should just withdraw, but after already asking for an extension, that feels like a massive failure. I was so hoping to get a foot back in the academic door with that essay, with the long-term goal being possibly doing a PhD in Tolkien Studies (hey, if that's an actual specialisation in English Philology, I may as well use it). But whom am I kidding? I don't have the stamina for that kind of academic work if I can't even write a crappy essay.

In conclusion, I'm not a happy camper right now. I'm hoping that things will get easier with habit and that it won't be going like this for the full two years that seminary lasts. I hope my current state is just the normal adjustment to a new challenge, rather than actual burn-out. I really don't need that.

Adulting is haaard.



- - -
*Rolf Zukowski is a popular childrens' singer-songwriter in Germany. He was already hugely popular when I was a kid - my first "pop" concert was a Rolf Zukowski concert! The kid's rendering of his name as Rotzi Kotzi is doubly hilarious not just because it sounds funny, but also because Rotze is snot and Kotze is puke.

Just as I was putting dinner on the table, the phone rang, and the husband answered. Since he was being all formal, I assumed that it was one of my students' parents - I don't get called up as often as some other teachers, but it happens occasionally - but it turned out to be my old boss from my regional news magazine from hell days. Those who've been reading this journal back in 2016 remember that those days were a wild ride that ended in absurdity and anger, and that I was very much relieved to put them behind me.

Well, Darth Boss was asking, very innocently, whether I was still writing. "I saw some of your articles on that Tolkien site," he said, "you're very active there!"
"Not as much as I'd like to be," I said cheerfully, "because I've gone into teaching."
Beat.
"Oh, I didn't know you had a teaching degree," he then said.
"I don't," I said (still cheerfully), "but since I studied English philology and there's a shortage of English teachers, that was not a problem."
"I see." Another pregnant pause. "I expect it's less work than journalism."
"Not at all - it's a lot of preparation and correction and administrative stuff, especially for a beginner. But at least the schedule is fairly reliable!"
"What I was meaning to ask is, would you consider writing for us again?"
I'd known that that was coming, which was why I'd told him about my teaching job.
"Sorry, I simply don't have the time anymore."
"Yes. Hm. Well. A pity." The gruff, Darth-Boss-is-displeased voice. I'm glad I don't have to worry about it anymore.
"Thanks for thinking of me, though! Have a nice evening!"

It was extremely gratifying to be able to say that, I've got to admit. My hands were actually shaking once I put down the phone, that's how much just talking to him still stresses me out. Today was not the worst day of my teaching career, but not one of the good ones either. Definitely worth it for being able to decline his offer of freelance work (or whatever it was he had in mind) without worrying about never getting a foot in that door. I liked the work as such, but I still don't regret closing that door. (Besides, if I feel like doing journalism, there's still That Tolkien Site. Or the school news page. Or whatever, really.)

Look, I know we all like to laugh at JKR for coming up with super-subtle names like "Remus Lupin", but today I encountered a woman called Undine Wassermann in real life, which rather goes to show that Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction and Some Parents Are Like That. Undine Wassermann! What is this, some kind of Modern World AU retelling of "The Little Mermaid", in which the mermaid ends up working as a psychologist among humans?

And it's a REAL relief that I don't have to invest (much? any?) time into that particularly delightful pastime because today I got the news that one of the other English teachers is on extended sick leave and I'll have to take over half his lessons (grade 8).
So it's seriously good to have one less thing on my plate in my so-called spare time. I'm hearing bad things about this particular grade 8...

After the usual three days of celebrations, I'm getting a breather, which I'll use to finally update again.

The lead-up to the holidays was intense. It always is, but this year it felt worse. At home, I managed to make an Advent wreath and bake one batch of gingerbread as December began, but that was about it. Trying to start every week in a quiet, festive way with my students failed spectacularly, because they took my invitation to listen to Christmas music, munch some cookies and generally wake up until 8 am (classes at my school start at 7:35! I ask you!) as an invitation to play tag, use the cookie plates as frisbees, or throw their water-bottles at their co-students' heads. So that was scrapped, and we ended up doing business as usual, which was not much better but at least I didn't provide them with ammunition. :P

With school finally over, we tried to cram some more Advent stuff into the last weekend. We drove to Cologne for some shopping. I got a new winter jacket out of it, since the zipper on my old jacket had broken the other week. (I currently seem to have Bad Zipper Energies because three zippers in three different garments broke in the past month.) The kids enjoyed the big shops with their escalators, but went completely bonkers as soon as there was no escalator or elevator to ride. The busy streets of pre-Christmas Cologne are not a good place to play hide-and-seek! Eventually we went home without visiting even a single Weihnachtsmarkt. It just would have been endless griping and fighting. We wanted to subject neither us nor other people to that.

We made some more gingerbread at home, though.



We also went to our uphill neighbour to select our tree. As usual, he berated me for coming so late, because he thinks you only get a beautiful tree if you call dibs as early as October. As usual, we found a perfectly lovely tree. As our living-room isn't particularly large and not particularly high-ceilinged either, we don't need a big tree, and there's generally always some nice small trees left. We were accompanied by Felix' new friend Nico, whose mother has moved into the empty flat down in the old mill, so there's finally a kid his age living in the immediate neighbourhood. And he shares Felix' passion for toy trains, too! The boys played hide-and-seek in the uphill neighbour's fir plantation, which is the perfect place for hide-and-seeking. Unfortunately Nico couldn't help decorate the tree because I wasn't done cleaning the living room yet.

Which was probably for the better because I found the head of Sir Bercilak in the attic (which I made for the scenic reading of SGGK at Ring*Con 2007) while looking for our tree ornaments, and couldn't resist goofing around with it a bit. I know the Green Knight only actually arrives at New Year's but I couldn't wait.



I'm a fully responsible adult human being, I swear. LET'S PLAY A LITTLE CHRISTMAS GAME!

Ahem.

We did end up with a properly decorated tree though.



Christmas Eve itself was nice. I was still busy cleaning things so I sent Jörg to church with the children, where they apparently misbehaved as much as ever, but that gave me one and a half hours of interruption-free tidying-and-cleaning time. Jörg whined a bit but why do I always have to drag the kids to church? And they're just as restless when I'm with them. He just doesn't notice it because he doesn't feel like he's responsible. Besides, most of his tidying-and-cleaning time went into putting up his old Carrera slot car race track in the attic. While the race track admittedly entertained him, his brother and the kids very much, it was otherwise not particularly helpful in terms of Christmas preparations. (He did clean the bathroom though, and offered to clean the second bathroom as well, though he hasn't come around to that yet.) By the time my parents arrived, our living and dining room combo was mostly presentable. We lit my lovingly assembled Advent wreath for the first time this Advent season. Oh well. XD



We dined on Raclette, as usual, and then Felix played us two carols on the piano! He had practiced them in secret at my parents' place so that was a very cute surprise. He also did a great job in distributing all the presents underneath the tree. It turned out that my parents had packed the wrong box of presents (which contained the gifts for the extended family visit on Dec 26, rather than the gifts for our kids) so there were not nearly as (overwhelmingly) many presents as there usually are. My parents were angry with themselves, but Jörg and I agreed that it was actually much better that way, since the individual presents that they did get were appreciated much more. I'd already agreed with my aunt that we'd hand them their presents from her family after Christmas, so they don't get lost under heaps of other things. They got further presents on Christmas Day at my mother-in-law's, and their presents from my parents yesterday. Spaced out like that, it worked a lot better.
They're also going to get a bunk bed from Jörg and me... once the transport company delivers it. (Tomorrow, I hope?)

I got a much too big present (again) - a food dehydrator that I've been secretly lusting after for several years! - but fortunately, this year I was forewarned. They had sneakily addressed it to the mother-in-law for transport, but as it happened, she wasn't at home when the postman delivered it. So I took the HUGE parcel in her stead, and because the packaging said EXCALIBUR in extremely unsubtle letters, I sort of figured out what was going on. Jörg was sad that his surprise had been spoiled, but I was rather grateful for it. Last year's massive gift of a greenhouse caught me completely on the wrong foot, and I'm glad that I had some time to mentally compose myself for another massive expensive gift in a year of money struggles and a mutual agreement to "not give each other anything much". Jörg says it's only fair because he invests a lot of money in his hobbies (brewery and shooting) all year round, which is true, but it still feels disproportional.

On Christmas Day, we had a reasonably calm day at home. Jörg and his brother drove to Dinslaken to pick up their aunt, and in the evening we feasted over at the mother-in-law's. Julian got some LEGO and Felix got an "easy electronics" starter kit that he enjoyed thoroughly. Yesterday was the least pleasant part of the celebrations. For one, it was with my father's side of the family, who are just... well, they're all lovely people, but we just don't have much in common, and it's always a bit tough to keep a conversation going without either a) loosing them intellectually or b) getting into an argument. Then, we were sitting and eating all damn day long. So Jörg and I decided to go for a little walk around the neighbourhood (even Felix wanted to come along! But none of the others), which was extremely necessary, but unfortunately I took a wrong step while being distracted by Things That Have Changed and sprained my ankle. Now it's swollen and stings like hell. Argh. It was nice to see one of my cousins again. I know I keep saying that, but it's so weird to meet these cousins every couple of years and see how they've grown! In my mind, he's still very much the five-year-old who accompanied my parents and grown-up me on holidays, and for whom I simultaneously read and translated Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix because the book hadn't yet appeared in German and he wanted to know how the story went on! Now he came driving in his own car, with a girlfriend on the passenger seat, and can read English books all by himself. He's preparing for his black belt testing (in Judo) and recently enrolled in university, studying biology and history to become -- a teacher. He's a grown-up! I'm getting old! XD

And now we're at home. Leftover Day! Yay! I should be tidying up upstairs, but I also need to prepare my classes for next year - I'm planning to try a different working mode with my fifth-graders, which requires a lot of advance preparations but will (hopefully?) put more focus on cooperative learning and group projects finished (to some extent) at their own paces, so perhaaaps it'll make everyday classroom life easier. (Once they learn using indoor voices and not throwing water bottles, at least.) The ninth-graders will be doing a three-week internship in January, so I won't be seeing much of them, but I'll probably have to do a lot of subbing during that time. Someone is always sick! I'll also have to restructure my geography curriculum. I've taken a lot of time for teaching orientation and map-reading because I feel these things are important, and because I only see that class once per week and a lot of Wednesdays happened to be off days this term, I haven't even started on the second main theme for this term. Term ends on January 25th, by which time they should be familiar with the rural/urban dichotomy and the corresponding economic, ecologic and logistic phenomena.

But I felt compelled to post on DW first. After all, I always complain that nobody updates their DW these days. *ahem*

I hope all of you who celebrated something had lovely and enjoyable holidays, and all those who didn't celebrate anything didn't get too much festive crap stuffed down their throats! Here, have some weird woodland alien fairy angels to finish this mess of a post!



Happy Rauhnächte!