Never a dull moment is to be had here in Taipei, especially in the flurry of early semester meetings, mainly of the informative type, with various constituent groups. The ubiquitous “Hopes and Dreams” conferences in the Lower School over two afternoons were followed the next night by the middle school ESL night and the next night by the lower school ESL night and the next day (all day) by the LCC. Phew! To top that all off, I ended up naming a new bar in the world’s tallest building on Friday night after all this, so it was certainly a week to remember.
The MS night was pretty good for me as I just wandered around being seen and overseeing our new teacher on grade 8 who is working out really well. She was an academic, so we were a bit worried about her kiddy skills coming in, but she’s just wonderful. My other new teacher is an older gent with loads of experience working part time in the high school and he is also very impressive. I ran the Lower School night as usual and it seemed to go really well, except for the drama of no air conditioning!! This is normally not a great problem, but with 35 degree heat and a confined space filled with 150 people, it was uncomfortable to say the least. The LCC (Learning Community Council) is a group of representatives from all areas of the school who meet semi-regularly (several times a year) to map a course for the school, write the strategic plan and make action steps for its implementation. We had a very nice lunch at a flash hotel downtown, so that helped break up a pretty full-on day.
Got a call from Josh at the end of the day, as I was on the bus coming back, informing me that if we could come up with a name for the new Diamond Tony’s bar, to be located in the world’s tallest building on the 85thy floor, we could drink free beers all night. John, Wally, Josh and Gurecki were there when I arrived and Carl joined us later on. Several names had been suggested by the boys and discarded by Tony, and he had similar distaste for my “Bijou”, Sky 85”, “Cockpit”(!) and others. Finally, he liked my suggestion of “Panorama”, with a suggestion of the panoramic view, along with a name identifiable to both foreigners and Chinese. So, we got the free German beer on tap all night! Not only did we have a great party to celebrate, but we were invited to opening night by Tony…should be a great show in early November.
In Ross’ absence, Josh has been keen to do a bit of boxing training. This has been great, as it is very hard to keep motivated if you’re doing it by yourself all the time. The only trouble is that a 44 year old body has to work a tad harder than a 28 year old one…anyway, should keep me on my toes.
We have heard from Ross and Chad and they’re both doing well in vastly different environments, the word on Coomba is also all positive. Don’t know about Bobby P…he’s always been a bit of a mystery, even when he was here!
Cass came out to the beach on Sunday and soaked up a few beams before we came home, went out to lunch at Aubergine and then watched lots of torrented Australian Idol on TV in our cool cocoon away from the fierce summer heat. Surf news and pics on pointyhat
We’re both doing very well, if being extremely busy. Photos: Girls wolf down their weekend treats, Josh and Dave at Jinshan 2 and the “free beer” boys late on Friday night!