#now i don't think he would appreciate it if i decided to call him Bert or Winnie or even just Gottwin

[schadenfreudich]

Really funny thing is that Lutz did in fact choose his full name so I (primarily) could randomly elongate his name. Truly living up to his middle name (god's friend)

[ye4gerismarchives]

the bachelorette chp 4, part 2: visiting bertholdt’s dad

an: so, i did finish this chapter the same night i promised to drop it but my chapters only get engagement at a certain time, so i’m dropping it rn! i don’t have a lot of questions for the boys rn but i’ll work with what i have and what i get from this chapter and will post them during my trip! link at the bottom!

tags: black, fem reader, sickly parent, mentions of d**th (but no one d*es)

tag list: @taybird

You slept over at Connie's house as planned. See, now, Connie's parents are sneaky. They intentionally made their guest room unavailable to you and forced you to sleep with Connie in his old room. Connie was completely respectful around you. He stepped out so that you could take a bath and everything and you did the same for him while he got ready. Once you were both ready, Connie wished you goodnight and turned on his side before snoring away.

The next morning, Connie's mom made you and Connie breakfast as you both got ready. The rest of his family was sleeping in, which made things easier because you know you would be chatting it up with his family.

You were supposed to meet Bertholdt's dad today. He was extremely sick and could pass any moment. You wished he was your first visit but it is what is right? You promised Bertholdt that Connie would drop you off at the hospital.

You thanked Mrs. Springer for the breakfast and asked her to say to the rest of the family for you. Connie dealt with the suitcase and waited patiently in the car. You pulled out your phone and texted Levi, asking him to tell Bertholdt that you were on his way. The older man left you on read. You weren't sure if he knew how to use a phone. Or he could be faking that too to throw you off.

Connie finally got things settled and sat with you in the car. He looks at you before starting the car. "I'll put your things together when I get to the mansion. Try to have fun with Bertholdt and make this visit worth it," Connie advises. "Thank you, Connie, I really appreciate your words."

It took you an hour to get to the hospital. You thanked Connie for dropping you off. On a normal occasion, you'd watch him drive off and continue saying bye but you couldn't waste any time today.

You reached the hospital and had to look for the lobby Bertholdt was probably in. You weren't regularly in hospitals so you were shocked to see how many floors there were for different patients. You only knew of the maternity ward.

You pulled out your phone and looked at your previous messages with Levi to find where you were supposed to go. Once you had it all figured out, you stepped into an elevator and pressed the button that would take you to Bertholdt and his dad.

When you reached the floor and left the elevator, you recognized the back of your "boyfriend's" head. He was sitting down, so you decided you'd surprise him. You crept up behind Bertholdt's seat and slowly wrapped your arms around his shoulders. He tensed up but calmed down once he recognized your hands.

"Hey, troublemaker," you greet. "Hello, y/n," Bertholdt turns his head to look up at you, "How was Connie's family?" Bertholdt could maintain a smile but his eyes didn't look happy. "They were great. Thank you for asking. Bertie...are you alright?"

You felt awful. You felt like you should have sent Bertholdt home so that he wouldn't have to do this. Not only is he probably thinking about being eliminated but he's worried about his dad too. He probably wouldn't perform as well as Connie or Jean. You would also feel like you'd have to pity him and pick him for the final part of the show. Bertholdt seemed like a guy who understands situations and will accept any outcome. Yet, you still worried about the effect of your upcoming choice.

"I'm fine. I've checked us in, so we can go see him now." Bertholdt stands up and brushes his outfit. He's wearing another sweater and dress shirt combo. He offers you his hand and you take it. Bertholdt leads you down the hospital hallway. All the doors are closed to maintain privacy.

Bertholdt gets to his father's door and is hesitant to push the door open. His free hand is wrapped around the handle but he just won't push it open. You let go of the hand he offered you and wrap your hand around his on the handle. He looks up (down???) at you with surprise. You end up helping him push the door open.

The room is dark and all you can see is a frail body laying on a hospital bed. "Pops?" Bertholdt calls out. "Bert," he lets out weakly. Bertholdt takes your hand again and tugs you along to meet his dad. "Pops...I brought my...partner...from that show I'm doing."

Bertholdt's dad cracks a smile. "That girl your sharing with all those guys?" Bertholdt's face reddens. "You're making it sound weird."

"Come closer, missie. Your name is Annie, right?"

(if your name is annie, ignore this next line 💀)

"Oh, no. My name is y/n, sir," you correct him. "Ah. You look even more beautiful in person. I've been trying to watch the show but my vision's been wonky."

"That's ok, sir. It's probably best you don't watch it. It's...chaotic. I don't think you need that in your life right now," you say with a chuckle.

"I might pass before Bertie even gets a chance to propose to you but just know you have my blessing to love, take care of him and keep him in his place. Make sure he doesn't break your heart."

Your eyes water slightly. You didn't even know this man but this was so sad. You didn't want to believe he'd die before eliminations or after that but with his state, it looked like he would.

"Alright..." you managed to get out.

If Bertholdt’s dad were to pass during your engagement or marriage, that would be something you'd have to deal with. You had no idea how Bertholdt would react to the death. You did know that it would probably delay some plans. Bertholdt would try to do things to make you both happy but you would be too worried about getting him help. And if you wanted kids...that would have to wait. Bertholdt probably wouldn't want to raise kids while he's still mourning.

Mr. Hoover begins to cough uncontrollably and Bertholdt pushes you out of the way to press the nurse/doctor button. "Hey, pops, you're gonna get help, ok? Someone's coming to help you," Bertholdt reassures his father.

Based on this interaction, you knew regardless of the situation Bertholdt would protect and care for you, whether it was giving you food after a long day or jumping in front of a bullet for you.

Gosh, you really felt bad for him.

A team of nurses and a doctor rushed in and ushered you both out without allowing either of you to say goodbye. A nurse shut the door once you were both out of the room. Bertholdt stared at the closed door for a moment. You wrapped a hand around his arm and tugged on him. “Let’s go. It’s good that I met him right? Let’s go eat. I’ll get Connie to make something for us!”

apologies if this was sad 😬 looking forward to seeing y’all’s thoughts!

[tcportfoliomgj]

Wednesday, 9th of June, 2021

"There is really nothing so good for thinking, for clearing your mind, for acquiring fresh, unexpected thoughts than crossing the borders of your homeland." - Jeroen Lutters

So today is the day. Well, technically tomorrow, but I have to hand this portfolio in at 8:00, so that basically means I have to finish and hand it in tonight. Things are a little chaotic. I think I've covered most of the competencies and such, but I still need to do a part of creativity, collaboration and professional challenges. I need to do critical thinking as well (though it's already woven in some other posts too), but I'll do that in another post.

At the start of the year, we had to do a PC with our learning teams. This meant I had to do it with Nynke and Marije. We decided to focus on the ideal classroom and wanted to make a 'guide' for other teachers. I must admit, we didn't always take it that seriously and I would do things differently now. Later, Stijn joined the team and he was able to really add something to our project even though he joined near the end. Our final product was a Padlet (appendix 23), something that I would certainly change if I had to do it now. It's not bad, especially not for a first PC, but I think I would prefer to have a booklet, a neater webpage or a more brochure-like product. Still, I learned a lot from it. I did the research for it and got to practice using databanks and such.

My second PC however, is a lot better in my opinion. It's not finished yet, but I think we might continue this project next year. I worked with Joyce, Marije, Kimberly, Dominique and Eva. Ton was our coach and Bert Wienen our 'client'. But let's take it back to the beginning...

One day, the girls and I started talking about something that was said in a webinar. It was about teachers and whether or not they should also help students with personal problems. At some schools, they keep those things strictly separate. The teacher does the teaching, and everything else is done by other professionals. We found this a little shocking. Sure, teachers aren't psychologists and I don't think they should ever try to be. However, a student's personal life can affect their academic life, so shouldn't we as teachers be there for them to lend an ear and support them? We started questioning what we heard and what we already knew. Pretty soon, the idea formed to make this our PC, but we didn't really know how yet.

We worked on the basics first, like making a group contract (appendix 24) in which we decided on some rules concerning our behaviour, et cetera. Then through Ton, we got in contact with Bert Wienen, as we needed a 'client' for our professional challenge. I've mentioned Bert before, because of his research. I was a bit apprehensive about working with him, because of what he had written and of what he had said in a lecture, but I did want to give it a chance. Together with Ton, we had a brainstorming session. We decided that we could definitely work with Bert, but that we didn't have to focus on labels and diagnoses. We wanted to keep it more general than that because being an involved teacher that coaches also means you want to help everyone with personal problems, not just the ones who are labelled with a certain 'problem'.

We started talking to Bert and quickly came to the conclusion that we already know a lot about what teachers think, but that it's just as important to know what students think. Eventually, we decided that we would conduct preliminary research to help Bert with his research. We wanted to interview students of different ages and focus on student voice. Perception isn't always the same as reality, but it does show us how people experience reality. In fact, the perceptions of students form their views of education and influence their behaviour (Quaglia & Corso, 2017). Because it was preliminary research, we didn't have to worry about all the technicalities. This way, Bert really gave us the opportunity to focus on the interviews.

We made a design canvas (appendix 25) together and started preparing the student interviews. We wrote a project plan (appendix 26), with me taking the lead since I had already had a semester of Project Management when I studied Global Project & Change Management. We also created an interview guideline (appendix 27). This way, we can draw a conclusion from open conversations because in every conversation we have recurring questions. Kimberly and Dominique conducted the interviews on VO, while Joyce did it on PO. We are currently in the process of transcribing all the interviews and we haven't really decided what our final product will be, but we will after the portfolio deadline. We think the conclusion will be that not all students need a teacher to take on a coaching role, but they often do appreciate it. The close proximity of a safe haven isn't the most important, but the knowledge of there being one (Stevens & Bors, 2013, p. 77). We also plan on continuing with this PC next year. Hopefully, we'll be able to take the next steps in our research.

I would say our PC has gone pretty smoothly so far. We communicate quite well and are very honest with each other. We created a space in Microsoft Teams so we could easily share files and work in documents together. Setting up a team collaboration environment can be encouraging and makes it easy to work on a project together (Horine, 2017). We decided that we'd use Whatsapp for daily interactions. Face to face would've been an ideal way to communicate, but because of the pandemic, this was a bit hard. Near the end of the academic year, we were able to work on campus and talk face to face, which made things a lot easier. We used Teams video calls when we weren't able to meet on campus and also to organise meetings with Bert. We'd email him whenever we needed to update him on the project.

I would definitely describe our project group as a 'high-performing team', as Horine (2017) calls it. He says that high-performing teams have a core set of traits. The first trait is clarity. Teams need to know where they are going, what they are going and how they are doing it. I think we had a very clear plan and stuck to it quite well. High-performing teams also show commitment. As a group, we all felt very responsible for this project and wanted to go the extra mile, we were definitely invested and willing to put in the time. According to Horine (2017), the team should also be professional. The members take responsibility and do the assigned work. I think that we, as a team, did handle things professionally. Of course, we would joke here and there, but when we had to get down to business we were always able to get into that mindset. Then there is synergy, the fourth trade. I think this took a while for us, but after some weeks we really started to understand what worked well and who could do what. We started to really use our talents and performed really well as a team. Lastly, there is trust. Trust is of course earned over time, but I think we got to a good level of trust quite quickly. We were honest and open, this way we were able to discuss minor problems and easily work through them. All in all, I think we did really well as a team, and I'm quite proud of us and of our work. I definitely think we showed some courage because interviewing students about a topic like this isn't easy. We focussed on a very relevant topic however and we were very persistent. Sometimes things took a while to move forward, but we never gave up. Something we could improve on might be our focus on a final product, taking more risks and being more self-aware so we could use our talents a little more than we already did.

However, there were also some creative journeys and processes this year that didn't go that well at all. An example of this is the documentary we had to make for Art Based Learning. I wanted to do this alone and my first idea was to make a satirical documentary on the Dutch pluriform society. However, I was very behind on a lot of the work and I tend to be a little impulsive and sporadic. At one point I changed my topic to menstruation because I thought it would be cool to take a taboo topic and turn it into an awesome documentary. But it wasn't easy. I'm not the most structured person, and I easily get stuck during projects because of the simple step by step process. When I think I'm stuck or can't do something, I just block all my motivation to keep going and sometimes give up quite easily. It's not unusual for people with ADHD to struggle with going through a process (Regelink, 2020). Eventually, I was so behind on all the assignments that I decided to admit that I was struggling. I think it's important to not see it as giving up. Admitting that you need help or aren't very good at something can be very hard. Bart very kindly took me under his wings and asked me to join his documentary. He was doing it on a very personal topic but needed someone to conduct research to support his work. I quite like doing research so I was very happy with the job. I found him some news articles and went through government reports for him, highlighting all the relevant information. I will say, I still very much see it as Bart's documentary. Also because he is telling a personal story. I only helped him with the research for it.

I think the beautiful thing about Bart's documentary is that he opens up to all of us to simply tell his own story. His story is not representative of all adopted kids in the world of course, but he also doesn't try to do that. He just tells his own story, while also being aware of the other perspectives out there. The documentary shows multiple sides of a very complex and heavy subject and Bart is respectful of all sides too. His documentary gives to stuff to think about. What's good or bad isn't decided, things just are the way they are, with all the experiences that come with it. He gives you space to just let it all wash over you, you can think about it, take a little while and then form your own opinion. Bart's experience with adoption is not related to the government reports on adoption, but because he still involves it in his documentary you can see that the topic is way bigger than just Bart's story. And still, it's his documentary, his story. It's storytelling in such a beautiful and cool way. Everyone can learn and grow from it.

Another assignment that didn't go too well was the final paper for VMT3 (a history course I took for 'vakinhoudelijke onderwijseenheid'). The course itself went really well. Bas, our lecturer, uses the SALT method, where you basically have an assessment every week instead of at the end of a course. This way, you keep up with the theory learned. Most students start cramming right before an exam, but all that knowledge is very easily lost because of the forgetting curve. Students cram but they never get back to it (Van der Meijden, 2021). I did really well during the weekly oral assessments. I thoroughly enjoy history and I loved Bas' lectures, but VMT3 was only worth 4 EC's, so we had to end it with a final assignment to get to the 5 EC's that we needed. Bas gave us two options, we could either write about the SALT method or write a guide to revolution, using the French Revolution as your example. I chose the latter but my planning wasn't very good. Bas even gave me an extra week, but I wasn't able to finish it. I decided to let it go and hand in my unfinished work (appendix 28) because I had to move on. I'm not very proud of it, especially because I know I can do better and really wanted to do better. We haven't gotten our feedback yet, but Bas did tell us that we passed the oral assessments. I think for me this all adds to my learning journey, some (creative) processes go really well, some not so well. But it shows me that I need to work on my planning skills and my self-discipline.

Still, I think I did fairly well this year, and it also shows in the feedback I've received. A lot of student in TC1 wanted to give each other feedback so we decided it would be a good idea to create a platform where we could do this. I made a Padlet (appendix 29) for our year where we all could give each other feedback if we wanted to. Some students didn't really feel the need to join in this, but some really enjoyed the Padlet and found it quite helpful. I definitely enjoyed reading the feedback people wrote for me.

All in all, I think we've all grown a lot this year. With our creative process, our ability to communicate and collaborate, and just as humans in general. I'm proud of us.

🎵 Riptide - Vance Joy