Episode 2 of Language study

Just finished my last general English class. Tomorrow I'll roll into the TOEFL course, which is more formal and academic English practice. I'm absolutely thankful for the intensive lessons I got at Mike's class. Due to the almost private lessons (even once I was the only student!) and the high level of teaching, I made progress in vocabulary, fluency and self-confidence. Yesterday, having a nice talk with a guy in church, explaining that I'm attending a language school, he goes like: "o, what language are you studying?" Nice, it didn't cross his mind that it was English.

Ellen Degeneres

It happened last year and now again that people 've been asking if I might be THE Ellen? Last week I heard someone calling after me: hey are you Ellen? Your talkshow is great! I looked her up and she's one of the celebreties, living in South Californian and she is already in her sixties, wrinkled all over her face! Hey thanks, cool story bro!

The American dream?

Did you know that statistically most American live in debts and from paycheck to paycheck? There are no good plans to manage their money, the American kind of normal is to have no savings. People have 2 or 3 creditcards and the average household owes about $5.700 on those cards. And the debts still keep growing. In addition, loans are taking out for cars, bills, tuitions and emergencies. Study loans are huge, I hear people working 3 jobs to get meets end. I see advertisements like "Your Credit Won't Fix Itself. Get started today with a FREE credit consultation". We might be complaining about the taxes or health insurance companies in the Netherlands, but I'm sure our government is doing a way better!

Weekend-trip to LA

The 2nd of September was Labor Day, a national day off. Lotte just moved in her new apartment and she needed a duvet (a strange word for a normal Dutch thing : een dekbedhoes.) Very rarely used by American, so hardly to find! My teacher even didn't know the word or how this thing looks like;) Thanks to Ikea, also settled in the US, we found all the stuff needed. 

Volunteering at church

Although barely a member of Grace Church, I signed up for volunteering in the kids service and I already served yesterday the one- and two-year- olds. Firstly I tried a simple conversation with some toddlers, but I soon gave up -I couldn't get any sense out of their sort of English babble.:)) Therefore I decided to use my mother skills to comfort a crying girl. I hold her on my lap for over an hour, while having an interesting conversation with another volunteer, who was doing the same. Relaxed though? Afterwards we went out for pizza-lunch with a group of helpers, that was fun and a lot of English practice;) I'll be volunteering every week at the 11.00 service and 'll be joining every 9.30 service. 

Exhausted of too much fun activities;)

I have a kind of off- day today... I'm so tired.. I had a fully planned week, which was great but my body and mind cry for rest now. After my LA trip I went to school again, then to the movies ("where 'd you go Bernadette?"- I liked it a lot) and out for dinner, Thursday with some students to the Escape room and hanging out afterwards, Friday pizza with a student, Saturday Beach & Volleyball with a big group and now suffering muscle strain. In between I needed to study, not merely English but also Montessori teaching..!  I'm gonna sleep tonight for 10 hours, I promised myself. And dream Dutch, hey! 

Love and blessings

Marika or Mareike or Mariek or Maryka or other funny misspellings of my name:)