Working on a Saturday?! Not our usual style but Cass and I both spent a whole day on Saturday, proctoring, invigilating, sorting and grading 124 admissions entrance tests (x4!). The school gets an increasingly large number of kids applying each semester and these kids need to be screened to assess what services they need. This traditionally lies within the auspices of the ESL department and I have done this myself on a school day in the past few years. It was moved to Saturday, with the promise of a day’s pay this year and after advertising the position in my department, no one came forward, so Cass thought she might as well do it, get the cash and buy something with it. I thought that was a great idea but as the numbers grew and grew, it was obvious we needed a second venue and therefore, a second person. So, I joined her and we worked out a good system and got about ½ the papers marked as well. We can get a little secretarial help with the “tick and flick” stuff, but my colleagues will have the most unpleasant task of grading the rest, in the middle of their own testing and marking times.
Whew! So much school stuff…it’s terrible. We’re really in the silly season here with tests, reports and lots of crazy parties coming up. There is a stack of people leaving and there is at least one party, usually two, to go to each weekend between now and the end of the year. I went out briefly on Friday evening for an informal get-together, but from now till June 6 we are fully booked…it’s quite a ridiculous social whirl! Chad’s sendoff is next Friday, followed by a great succession of shows, culminating in the Ross sendoff on June 3.
We ate a tasty lunch at a restaurant called “Spice Garden” on Saturday, in between proctoring and marking. It is advertised as having new Asian cuisine and it combined all sorts of foods, which one might not normally have together, but which were surprisingly tasty. How about Pannacotta with pureed pumpkin in the middle? Delicious!
Sunday saw our traditional long breakfast with proper coffee, raisin toast and Herald clippings (thanks Mum!), then a trip to the 7/11 to buy the paper to try to see if I could find the cinema website. We wanted to go to see Mission Impossible 3 and, knowing it would be packed, I wanted to book online and get our favourite seats. The site had disappeared! Turns out the cinema has been re-badged as “Miramar” and we looked up the new site, booked online and then were whisked to our favourite seats as usual. As Cass and I remarked to each other: “Surely, we won’t go backwards?!” referring to the tech help we are used to receiving from online booking et al. I mean seriously, having to buy a newspaper to find out when the movie is on…
We did go the movie and found it to be an excellent roller coaster of exciting action scenes and great hi tech gadgets. Lunch at one of our favourite Japanese curry houses, “Aubergine” was an entrée to home with the footy on the TV between Roosters and Bulldogs and online scores from Newcastle where the Knights seem to have sneaked over the line against Brisbane.
Surf is very flat, check pointyhat if you’re interested in the details: we’re getting a lot more comments lately which is quite entertaining and we’ve just passed our 1st anniversary. It is occasionally a bit of a pain to keep going, but takes very little time and is quite good fun. We’ve been going over a year now, which really spins me out…only seems like yesterday that we came up with the idea.No pictures today: that’s what happens when you’re locked inside all weekend! A “file” pic of the world’s tallest building: Taipei’s own 101 and the mighty Knights!