Homesickness

Some odd reason has had me incredibly homesick this past week.

I hardly ever miss South Africa, save for my mom and brother, his wife and daughter.

But I wish I could just be there for a while.

Just taste the slower pace of life, the smells of life at home.

 

 

This week's stress at work was too much.

In the Netherlands, we have something called 'taakbelasting' which is basically a reflection of how many hours you (get paid to do) work.

I have a taakbelasting of 50%, meaning that I have a contract to work 50% of a full working week (which is 20 of the 40 hours a full week's work entails).

But being in the educational sector, you must know that you work in your free time - a lot.

This first quarter though, my taakbelasting is already well over my allotted 50%, and I'm working more hours than I'm supposed to.

This is what got me into my burn-out last year.

Sigh.

 

I begrudgingly sat marking the 80-something papers last night.

Every year I vow to do things differently at work, but every year, just before the summer holidays, I'm so knackered that anything of importance just floats in and out of my mind again, nary any recognition of repercussions.

Things I like about my job at the moment are the holidays and my salary.

Doesn't bode well, methinks.

I still have the rest of the marking to do, and then lessons to prepare.

 

The kids are happy, but the husband and I both miss something significant in our lives.

A different pace of life, more peace, more freedom.

It's that difficult toss-up:   Do we keep living this life to give the boys a solid, comforting basis, or do we move to warmer climes and slower times so we can live too?

 

Some days you just need your mother.