Judith H.:
"Sommige leerlingen zien school als een sociale activiteit, waarbij wij docenten alleen maar storen in een goed gesprek."

Christie:
"Vanuit mijn studie en zo wil ik wel geinteresseerd zijn in The Other Boleyn Girl, maar ik ben het niet."

Leonie:
"Je hoeft niet bang te zijn dat Pietje niet slaagt, dat is nou typisch een seizoensarbeider."

Onbekende wiskundeleraar:
"Leerlingen zijn te vaak en te gemakkelijk absent. Je grieperig voelen is geen excuus om thuis te blijven. Desnoods trekken ze maar een slijmspoor naar school."

Moor en Astrid
Moor: "Heb je dat nieuws nog meegekregen over Marcouch en de lijfstraffen op islamitische scholen?"
Astrid: "Nee, maar helpt het?"

Onervaren docent a.k.a. joors troelie
"Hoelaat kun je morgenochtend de toets inhalen? Of wil je soms eerst even uitslapen?"

Londinium - London - Londen - Londres

photo credits: Sitki Tarlan

“ When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.” – Samuel Johnson, English Poet, Critic and Writer (1709-1784).

“When it's three o'clock in New York, it's still 1938 in London.” - Bette Midler, American Singer and Actress, b.1945.

“Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be.” - Jane Austen, British Novelist and Writer (1775-1817).

“This melancholy London- I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air.” - William Butler Yeats quotes, Irish prose Writer, Dramatist and Poet. Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923 (1865-1939).

School's out...

And I conveniently forgot to give back my key - wink, wink. This morning I was there for the last time, witnessing all kinds of speeches - varying from highly boring to a-okay. Typically, I was not joining my adult colleagues but sitting next to one of my students, Thomas, him BTW being the only student present. He was kicked out in the end though.

So there you have it. The end of my very short-lived school career. Aaaaarggggh.

P.S. London is calling next year!!!

Food for thought

Used to think adults were much more interesting. I was so very wrong. These past few months were like living a dream. What can I say. They are an amazing bunch. We - adults - could really learn a thing or two from these youngsters.


For one thing 'my kids' are far better dancers. Also, according to themselves they smell much more pleasantly ;-). One student told me she usually sits in the back of the classroom except in my classes. Phew, sigh of relief, but why? 'Quite a number of teachers suffer from bad breath or bad body odour.' Ouch ...

That's teenagers for you. Their disarming humor, their brutal honesty. Their unconditional warmth. No hidden agendas. The holidays have yet to begin and already I miss them so very much. What have I done.

The Storm

Impetto V Jerry Ropero ft. Cozi




Living a dream
Places that I've seen
It's nothing without you

Searching my soul
Don't know if you know
I'm nothing without you

Remember when we
We were young and free
Innocent virtues

Searching my soul
Little did I know
I'm nothing without you

And the storm is calling yeah
I miss the sunlight on your face
The rain is falling yeah
Since you left without a trace

The storm is calling yeah
It's all the seasons in one day
You hear me calling
Long to feel your warm embrace.
---

To my fourth and five graders at Het Baken

From G5a to G5f and G4a, c and f

I greet thee with the deepest respect

I met most of them on Monday 3rd March. My throat dry. Hands sweaty. Slightly nauseous. I was peering into what was going to be my classroom for the next couple of months ... and thirty pairs of curious eyes staring right back at me.

What would the new teacher bring? Was I going to bite their heads off? Was I going to be overly sarcastic? Was I going to be a real pushover?

You would have to ask them. Today is probably the day I shall see most of them for the last time. Three months under their belts and their pretty teenage heads crammed with the basics of accepted English pronuncation, the unavoidable grammar. And let's not forget about the great bard from Stratford-upon-Avon. I poured my soul into them. En jullie zijn nooit verder gekomen dan dichtbij. Big group hug!

Three months that might best be described as an incredible emotional rollercoaster, one that I enjoyed tremendously and one that I will cherish and miss for sure. Our lives connected for this one brief moment. They will go on with their lives, becoming tough businessmen or women, teachers, journalists, housewives, photographers, famous actors and what have you not.

Thank you so much! I wish you all the very best life has to offer.

Love you and leave you all with this short post.

Yours,
Sharida a.k.a. Mfs

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd.

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest.

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest.

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

From William Shakespeare, the Renaissance man from Stratford-upon Avon

Shakespeare a Renaissance man?

Not according to one of our students, who claimed that Shakespeare was born in 1962. Another one said that he spoke Iambic? Oh yes, yet again two other brilliant examples we teachers came across whilst marking students's answers on their Shakespeare tests.

Stressed out ...

Whoever thought journalism was a hectic line of business, think again. Try teaching a couple of hundred teenagers the Queen's English at a secondary school.

I am in the midst of checking their work on poetry. Some answers are simply hilarious.


Mention another Elizabethan theatre in the vicinity of The Globe. Answer: Picadilly Circus. Mention some of Shakespeare's comedies. Answers: Beth Mac, the Merchant of Verona.

Yep. These are my adorable fourth-graders, only two years away from taking their A-levels. So, quite understandably I need some time out and listen to world music, from the Buddha Bar, to come to my senses.
And still, I love them to bits, including my five-graders.

Hezbollah: de Libanese kameleon

woensdag 4 juni om 20.00 uur in de levante, amsterdam

Hoe Hezbollah minder sjietisch en meer nationalistisch werd.

EEN LEZING DOOR JOSEPH ALAGHA

Begin juli 2006 ontvoerde Hezbollah twee Israëlische soldaten met het doel deze in te ruilen tegen Libanese gevangen die in Israël werden vastgehouden. Israël trok fel ten strijde tegen haar oude vijand Hezbollah in de hoop de organisatie zowel militair als politiek ongevaarlijk te maken. Israël gokte erop dat als de hele Libanese bevolking zou lijden onder de oorlog en de bombardementen, Hezbollah en haar leider Hassan Nasrallah de schuld zou krijgen en dat de bevolking zich tegen de ‘Partij van God’ zou keren.

Het liep anders. Ook toen Hezbollah zich de afgelopen maand gewelddadig roerde in de straten van Beiroet, werkte dit uiteindelijk minder nadelig uit voor de sjiietische partij dan door menigeen gedacht. In een boeiend betoog legt Hezbollah-deskundige Joseph Alagha uit hoe Hezbollah begon als een protestbeweging met een sji’itisch en militant gedachtegoed, en zich geleidelijk ontwikkelde tot een brede partij met een eigen politiek programma.

Joseph Alagha

Alagha doceert Islamic Studies aan de American University of Beirut en woonde ten tijde van de laatste oorlog in Libanon. Alagha, zelf Libanees en christen, promoveerde een half jaar voor de oorlog uitbrak op onderzoek naar Hezbollah aan de Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.

Locatie De Levante, Hobbemastraat 28, 1071 ZC Amsterdam
Datum / tijd woensdag 4 juni 2008 / van 20.00 tot 21.30 uur.
Voertaal Engels
Entree HEUR 2.00, NAK-leden gratis op vertoon van lidmaatschapkaart
Reserveren verplicht i.v.m. de beperkte ruimte.

Reserveringen & info

sharida mohamedjoesoef / 06–481 84 228 – www.nederlandsarabischekring.nl

de levante info@delevante.org / 020 - 671 5485 – www.delevante.org

Bereikbaarheid

De Levante is te bereiken via trams 2 en 5, halte Hobbemastraat, langs het Rijksmuseum tot het water (Hobbemakade), op de hoek rechts naast het Zuiderbad.