Christina Swan

10 pm: still working, for the 14th hour running. These are busy days. Since I started my practice placement for teaching 13-year olds a week ago, life has been nothing but hectic. Trying to juggle a full-time commitment as a teacher, in addition to two jobs, is quite a tiring affair. Last week was even more tiring, as I was simultaneously trying to work out how to drive on ice, how to scrape the car both on the outside and inside, and how to get into the car when the main door doesn't open due to ice/frost/snow.

At the moment I'm training to be a teacher for people from 13-19 years old (just 13 year olds at this point in time). I'm teaching them social sciences and religious studies (based on my university background). The third day into the practice placement I was only meant to be "observing", but suddenly the Spanish teacher couldn't get into her car because of the snow, and she couldn't get to work, and so I had to step in as substitute... I enjoyed the challenge :-) and was even paid for it because it wasn't part of my teacher training but a separate thing.

Surprisingly, I am actually enjoying teaching.. and even though I've only known the class of 29 students for a little more than a week, I am already starting to care for them. It's encouraging that the other teachers say I'd be a really good teacher, because I wasn't even thinking of being a teacher... my reason for doing the course was that I was going to work with a third world aid organisation and then use my teacher training qualification to go into schools and tell them why they should care about issues concerning poverty. Now suddenly I'm being carried away because I actually enjoy teaching for the sake of teaching... yikes. Spending eternity in a school is a little frightening seeing as the only other eternity I know of - the one of my PAST, from birth till now, was also spent in lots of different schools. As the teachers I'm learning from say, however, if you work with a class of so many varied people, you are basically working with the SOCIETY- not many other jobs really involve you in society in that way (you basically work with the pupils, the parents - resourceful parents, divorced parents, foster parents etc.-, as well as psychiatric institutions, hospitals, etc etc.)

I'm off to prepare for tomorrow's Spanish class, when I've been asked to show the pupils some pictures from Bolivia and tell them about the reality there :-) I'm looking forward to that. Makes it not so bad having worked/been a teaching-student from 8 am till 10 pm and beyond..

 Christina

As U2 put it, "Nothing changes on New Year's day". Only the fact that you now write 2007 instead of 2006.

I am becoming increasingly aware of this situation, as Christmas and New Year have passed. They were a bit of a "time-out" celebration; with friends and family coming from England, Norway and the United States, and with games played, special food eaten, Christmas trees, a great cabin trip in the mountains with friends, and a time off from work and all anxieties accompanying that.

Now it's back to normality again, as Marianne and Christen, grandparents and friends have gone home, we've cleared the Christmas tree out of the house, and things resume again after the New Year. 2 jobs, 1 study. The time out period has passed...

I wonder what we will do with our time until the next time-out period comes in 12 months. The interesting thing is that, as it says in Proverbs 16:1,   "Mortals make elaborate plans, but God has the last word." It's so easy for us to plan what we will do in 1,2,3,6,12 months. And the highlights: winter break, Easter break, summer break, and then Christmas again, only to be repeated by the same the year after that. Funny how life, and the most unpredictable thing ever - the future - can seem so predictable. Reality is, however, different. The best joke you can tell God is the plans you have for your life...

Christina

Haha! Unoriginal as I am, I realise that lots of people have written similar stuff to what I wrote in my last blog. See for example Ed's latest blog entry (written before mine, sigh...), or this surprisingly truthful article in the Daily Mail, by another Brit writing about Norway. Despite occasional complaints about my country, I am still patriotic enough to link to the article here for anyone interested in the weirdness of Norway, which the writer calls "Blandinavia".

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news....

Enjoy :-)

Christina