No matter how many times you prepare for an event like open house/parent night (and I don’t like to count how many times we’ve done it now!) it’s always a nerve-wracking experience. Cass handled her night with aplomb as usual and my ESL night seemed to be very successful. I’m off to show my face at the 3rd grade open house tonight after getting an early mark from my next installment of study. I began the first subject of my Masters in Science through the University of New York last night and although it was only 3 hours, it seemed to drag forever. I have every night this week plus 8 till 5 on Saturday, before an online component kicks in which will last another 4-6 weeks. All this for 3 credit points. One of my smart mouthed mates was wondering at my “thirst for knowledge” but I quickly corrected him to a “thirst for credit points”!
A super typhoon was lurking off the eastern coast of Taiwan over the weekend and was threatening to close the school again yesterday. Luckily, it veered to the north. Normally we wouldn’t be averse to missing another day of work, but with lessons meant to be posted on the online classroom and the looming prospect of having to do a “makeup” day in the autumn break, we really didn’t want it to hit. We were also expecting some great surf action, but it failed to materialize, leaving a sloppy, churning kind of surf, promising plenty but ultimately delivering precious little in terms of rideable waves. Ironically, just when neither Ross nor I can take advantage of it due to our course, the surf seems to be pumping today, if the murky images on the Jinshan webcam can be trusted.
I’m signed up for a weekend workshop the weekend after next again as there is another credit point on offer, so things might be pretty dull here for a while yet.
Cass and I decided to forgo a trip to the movies this weekend as there wasn’t much on offer, only “The Terminal” with Tom Hanks. I did notice that Hollywood has re-made one of my all time favorite Japanese movies starring Richard Gere this time. It’s called “Shall We Dance”, and if it is half as good as the original it will be well worth seeing.
My big news this week is that I have ordered a new tower for the computer. It is loaded with a huge hard drive (80 GB) and heaps of RAM as well as the fastest DVD burner that is currently available. I’ve borrowed some Windows XP and the latest version of Office to go on as well, so it should be just ticketiboo. I originally went down just to get a CD burner installed to cope with my new digital camera’s offerings, but was told that the tower’s antiquated specs could not support even this. Cass is pretty ambivalent about the whole deal, but I think she is glad I spent the money on the computer upgrade rather than a new iPod which I was threatening to buy through the week!!
Only a short one today as I’m tapping away here at work and have study all week, but I’d like to leave with another little teaser. We have bought tickets to a concert to be held at the soccer Hippodrome near Yuanshan MRT station (Mum and Xris and Val: just before the line goes underground a few stops from Mingde). The artist is an “oldie” and plays the piano pretty well………..any guesses? More next time!
