Ruby

Which colour would you spontaneously associate with love and vividness, passion and power? Obviously this will evoke the colour red.

Red symbolizes love, it emanates warmth and a strong sense of life. Red is also the colour of Ruby, the King of gemstones.

Ruby is also the name of the most wonderful new member of our family, my little niece, born August 6 of this summer. Unfortunately I was exactly 3715 miles (5979 km) away in Allentown Pennsylvania when this beautiful girl was born and didn’t get to see her until my return home on August 18.

You’ve never seen anything this cute and adorable!

Now she starts making all these funny noises and talking to herself. Just great! Would be neat to know what this would be in real words!!

Can’t do much about it, but will probably end up spoiling this little kid to death while she’s growing up. Can’t resist the toy-stores or kids’ clothes departments… Oh well… She’s more than worth it. Her first Christmas is coming up… Wonder what that’s going to be like!

Get ready, the flu's coming

Damn,... another night of little sleep!

Sore throat, sneezing, headache, fever blisters... Really feels likes I'm getting hit by some flu virus. OK,.. annually 5 to 20 % of all the Dutch gets the flu. And just about everyone survives.

Complications however can be severe, including pneumonia and dehydration. People with chronic medical conditions are at increased risk for deterioration of their illness.

I don't think I will be at too much risk though. It will most likely pass. Am going to work in a few minutes. Will see how well I do today.

A night at he Opera

On Friday December 9, I’m going to play the trumpet (with the other Jubal trumpets) in an Opera concert of the local Opera Choir & Orchestra. This will be in our beautiful theatre Kunstmin.

Performing at the theatre is nothing new for us, since we produced two theatre productions wit the corps in 2001 and 2003/2004. But this upcoming performance is highly unusual. Not only don’t we ever play this kind of music, but playing with a choir is totally new to us as well.
We’re the main attraction in their rendition of Verdi’s AIDA (Finale II).

Opera is not really my thing, though I appreciate the music and concept. I did see a few performances however (Don Giovanni, Il Barbierie de Siviglia, La Bohème, Carmen, Faust, Rigoletto, Die Zauberflöte).

My favourite Opera? Haha,.. that would be a building and not a stage performance: The Opéra National de Paris (Opéra Garnier)! What a magnificent building! See my photoblog for a photo and description. The facade is spectacular, but once inside you’re stunned by the beautiful interior, the Grand staircase, the impressive auditorium, the amount of gold, the Chagall painting on the ceiling…

I saw a couple of ballet performances there, from one of the balconies. Seeing the Nederlands Danstheater on that stage was an absolute highlight!

I AM AIDS,... Poetry

Something that really got stuck in my brain after having read this piece of poetry by Nomvula Magedi from South Africa.

I AM AIDS

I claim the lives of your people
I snatch their dreams, hopes and aspirations
I take away the strength of the community by destroying young men
I take away the backbone of your community by destroying young women I enter subtly, and I am powerful enough to annihilate your entire nation
I AM AIDS

I am able to do what slavery could not do,
What the holocaust could not do,
What Apartheid could not do,
What substandard housing and belittling classism could not do
I AM AIDS

I have deceived you into thinking
I am a homosexual disease
A drug addicts' disease
An inner City disease
I have deceived you to think I only affect "those" persons who do bad things:
Things much worse than YOU would ever consider doing.
I AM AIDS

The time has come for me to unleash my fury, my consuming passion,
My insurmountable power.
The time has come for me to not only affect "those" people
But, by the end of the century, I will have imparted the lives Even of those who are pristine, sanctimonious and judgemental.
I will have imparted those who worship the living God (so many claims)
But have no compassion for others.
I AM AIDS

I am no respecter of person
I accept actors, actresses, singers, pimps, prostitutes, businessmen, businesswomen,
And everyday people like you.
I am an equal opportunity destroyer; I'll take elderly people, middle-aged people,
Teenagers and even infants before they utter their first words.
I AM AIDS

Please continue to deny I exist
(Do not educate your children about me-I'll introduce myself to them)
Please continue to pretend I can't affect you (I affect only "those" people and not you)
Please continue to turn your head as I destroy present generations
I detrimentally affect generations yet unborn.
That makes it so much easier for me to kill
Those you know
Those you love
And eventually …you!!!

read Nomvula Magedi's "Another Success Story" on http://www.fieldband.org.za/nomvula.htm

http://www.stopaidsnow.nl/

Ready for the weekend

Every "last Friday of the week" is a good one! The weekend is here! With class ending at 12:30 PM one cannot complain. Another (short) day with unfinished bookreports which were due at the beginning of the week, but a day with excellent test results for those in their final year. And they can use a few good marks alright! That's for sure!

Planning a great X-mas dinner party for our complete staff shortly before the Christmas holidays. That will be a fun evening. A Caribbean Party in the middle of winter,.. can you picture that? We'll be turning the one of the greenhouses on our schoolgrounds into a (sub)tropical location and cranck up the temperature.

The place will have all the necessary ingredients: a small beach for volleyball and badminton, a swimming pool for those colleagues who cannot resist showing their six-packs and hairy chests (a diving board is still being negociated), beach chairs, a cocktail bar, BBQs, steel drums, a large buffet, beer barrels, limbo dancing, parrots, flamingos,...

This weekend will be a busy one. The fun-band I play in has four gigs tomorrow. And not just in our home town! We'll be driving all over the place. It's "Sinterklaas"-time... (Saint Nicholas). A very popular celebration for the kids!

Tonight rehearsal with the other lot. Getting ready for the new programme. Great music! Lots of horns!

Don’t they just love school?

OK,.. I know… It’s an illusion to expect kids in class to know what deadlines really are. Even knowing this date has been coming up for the last three months (the assignment was only given to them in September), they don’t seem to realize there’s more work to be done yet this semester. Should they be challenged more? Should we not be fussy about their laziness?

Should we perhaps take their excuses seriously?
“I’m very sorry sir, but the virus in our computer killed my book report.”
“My mother cleaned my room and threw away my work.”
“The dog ate it.”
“The printer was out of toner.”
“Today?”

Don’t I just love my job....

* blog (n)

A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links.

A blog is often a mixture of what is happening in a person's life and what is happening on the Web, a kind of hybrid diary/guide site, although there are as many unique types of blogs as there are people.

People maintained blogs long before the term was coined, but the trend gained momentum with the introduction of automated published systems.

And HK probably gets hooked!