Dear Friends !

Setting up a personal home page on the World Wide Web is not ‘easy peasy’… There is always the danger of degenerating the brief story of the figure pictured in the photograph into hagiography, writing so admiringly about him that it is not realistic. Taking a close look at and analysing some well-known people’s sites on the World Wide Web has often awakened in me some critical feelings. Yes, ‘a ravishing sight in her or his digital photo album’, ‘you look a knockout!’. But deep down in my heart, I always hope ‘beauty is only skin deep’…
To put it plainly, the man you are viewing on this page, is Jan Pennings, an average, English secondary school teacher, who also enjoys conversing with you in German…

Personal information:
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I was born in the middle of the previous century, and to tell you the truth, I still have not discovered where my roots lie… Tienen, Lommel, Beringen, Sint-Truiden, Leuven, Heusden-Zolder, London, Berlin, Paris, Prague, Vienna, Los Angeles, Kansas, Chicago, Washington, Las Vegas, San Diego, New York, San Jose, Philadelphia and more recently Santa Cruz, CA are spots on the globe where I spent or spend my (holi)days. ‘You are a wandering jew, my dear’, my companion in life always tells me when I feel lonely and homesick… She has been my wife for more than 25 years, and we still have a deeply rooted love for each other. Simone is a production manager and an expert in signmaking, in particular emergency, evacuation and publicity ‘signage’. Her favourite tools are a computer and a computerised signmaking robot or plotter.
I am married with two children, Tom and Björn. Tom, who is 28, is an engineer and working as a computer programmer for Borland Corp. in Scotts Valley, CA. He has been living in Santa Cruz for six years now. Björn is 26 and ‘carving,’ his way in the computer world too… He is  working for the Belgian Railway Copmany.
I am a secondary school teacher at the Sint-Franciscuscollege in Heusden-Zolder, Limburg. The name of the school has changed a few times throughout the 30 years, I have taught English and German there, and so have the names of the many hundreds of students I have come to know…
Since 10 years I have also been responsible for co-ordinating foreign language teaching and implementing ICT in the foreign language instruction. For 25 years I have been organising educational language trips in England and Germany, since 7 years enlarged to ‘subject-exceeding’ study trips.
My hobbies vary greatly: reading, digital photography, computer sound recording, film, (classical and popular) music, producing radio programmes (for local radio stations 'Radio Ostend' in Ostend, Radio 'Formula 1' in Heusden-Zolder and Radio 'VRTO' in Hasselt) swimming, cycling, and more than anything else, ‘meeting people’ usually after a full day’s work, late in the evening or in the small hours of a new day…
‘Try to put into perspective any difficult situation in life, enjoy deeply all human company, and seize the gift of each day’ make up the triptych of our look on life.