What's made your day that little bit better?

How many hours of your life do you work? More than there's left to do other things I guess!

A bad job can mentally kill you. Ever had a job where you were counting the minutes? Like I said, the paycheck can't help you from going crazy.

AND YOU ARE STILL THINKIN ABOUT IT?!?!?

I don't agree, really!
If the paycheck really provides what you really want, then I'd do any job, no matter how boring.

I really like my job now, so I'm putting a lot of effort in it and getting a lot out of it.
I'm not paid bazillions, but I'm doing more or less OK.

In the other case, I'd ask for bazillions and simply find my satisfaction elsewhere (volunteer work, or life experiences I would otherwise never be able to afford: trips to South America, go hang gliding, buy a house in Spain. Whatever!)

Oh definitely, but it's all about balance!
If I had the means and the opportunity to do what I really want in life, I'd be ecstatic having any such job, because I'd know that real life would start when I'd get home.

Obviously I'd also not put a minute more in the job than would be required (something I'm doing with alarming regularity now!). It'd just be occupational therapy to me.

Money ALONE can't buy you happiness...but it definitely can help you towards fulfilling those dreams.
Obviously that implies you should have these dreams and ambitions in the first place.
Otherwise it'd be an empty existence indeed...

I mean really boring. Really really boring. No music, no reading, no internet, just boring work from 9.00 till 17.00.
I couldn't do it.

I think most really, really, REALLy boring jobs don't pay that well, so that's a lose-lose situation anyway.

I think the worst thing about taking a job is what do you do if you hate immediatly hate it. It's almost taking a risk when all you know about the job is what you read on a piece of paper and talked about at an interview. I wish there were 'demo' days where you could do stuff in the role for a week and then decide whether to take it or not.

Well, I've got another company getting back to me as well, and if I get the job there (I really hope I do) I'll immediatly take it. I guess this one is kind of a backup, but I don't know whether to take it if the one I want falls through.

I didn't get the one I really wanted in the end, but this other one is a shizz load of $$$. I'll book all my holiday now, accept the job, and when they question "but you said you had no holiday booked", I'll say "correct, yesterday at the interview, no holiday was booked!"

wha' d' fu....a TRIBBLE!?

Martin, you gotta be a more respectful man.

This day started of really well. The day care centre just let me know that next school year the kids can come on tuesdays! We will switch primary school but the day care centre with that school was full on tuesdays with a long waiting list as well. And since I can only teach on tuesdays I had a big problem. Now apparently they are extending the place, so there's room for more children. Phew! This means a huge worry is off my mind!


Also, last week when we came back from vacation, I got a letter from the hewe organisation. They offer all teachers a two year training for free! It's a bit complicated but the story is this: our profession is not officially recognized and has always been dependent on subsidy. So salaries haven't been that great either. The organisation has been fighting for state subsidy for a while now and last year we got an amount of money for training. (This was very good news, although we were aiming for money for salary, otherwise there will be no teachers left in the first place!). Apparently the organisation developped a special training to improve our professionalism according to the standards in primary education, so that we can ask for proportionate loan. It has always been a goal to level up our training and loan with primary school teachers and to get our job officially recognized so this is going in the right direction!

I'll probably sign up for the training of course. Now I'm qualified to teach hewe in primary school, with the two year training I had and the certificate. That training always had a follow up of three years that qualified teachers to teach in the lower classes of secundary school as well and this certificate was recognized (hbo bacherlor). This is the training they're offering right now, but in two years and for free! Yippee!!

Damn!
Congratulations! That is GREAT news!

Does that mean you will at some time be a full-time teacher at both primary and secondary schools?

(Oh, And what does HEWE stand for exactly. I know it's to do with Humanist and life philosphies and such, but I just can't figure out the acronym! )

Hewe stands for humanist ethical and world view education.

I have no idea where I will be teaching! But considering the lack of teachers maybe one day I will teach in secundary school as well. The good thing about that is that school hires you, now I work freelance not under the best conditions. Let's just hope I like that age group. It takes certain skills to work with adolescents... for now I'm more attracted to primary school. And professional education. If I add another two years of training it will be a master and then I'd be qualified to teach ethics as well in professional education, that would be so cool. But now I'm thinking at least four years ahead and I don't want to do that. I have to take one year at a time. If parents decide they don't want hewe anymore then I'm out of work and teaching practice anyway!