Finally a bit of spring in the Netherlands. And since I just today turned in my 3e report grades, the school year is 3 quarters of the way finished. I must say that the eternal lack of sun had me depressed for many a week. It was not always easy to look forward to my days of working working working. But once in the classroom things always went much better than I had feared.
Actually the teaching end of affairs continues to go extremely well. Overall my third year class presentations have been better than ever. The combination of my being a much better teacher, together with the added possibilities of our ever developing music department and with my simply being more used to my working environment, continues to yield better and better results from the students.
It’s mostly the non-teaching affairs that are the greatest cause of my current work stress.This year I traded in my contribution to the Christmas festivals for a session as the ‘sectie-voorzitter’. That’s not such a difficult job, but it just so happens that I inherit in my session our greatest debt ever. Our department is now on April 1 of the academic year 2008-2009, already €2,000 in the red for the for next school year! It’s not at all my fault of course, but I feel so responsible for everything. Coming into the section meeting that I yesterday led, I needed to be sure that I’d thought of everything possible to do in order to rectify or at least control our situation. I’m in a constant fear that I’ll somehow be accused of not doing enough to stay on top of my sectie-voorzitterschap.
We’ve decided to have another BandAvond. That’s when the many bands at school may present 1 to three songs on the stage for their friends/family and for the audiences of the other bands. A school concert dus, of the school pop groups. Five or six years, during our first such evening concert we managed to raise some good money, a little of which we’ve even managed to hang onto, thankfully, until now when it is really needed. We need something just to keep the guitars strung, and the drumsticks available, and the speakers always working. . . Hopefully the bandavond will be a suitable temporary solution to our financial woes. And we hope in the meantime to be granted more than €750 for an entire operational year. Wish me luck!!!
