Regular readers of this blog have been used to seeing a line of archives down the left hand side dating back to November 2002, 18 months after we arrived in Taiwan and when this blog began. They’re not there anymore! I switched to a beta Blog this week (apparently it is much better, more reliable and has other features), but I was reluctant as I didn’t want to tamper with the blog which has proven to be trouble free for so many years. Looks like I was right to be wary! I saved the template of the blog and all the back posts just in case something happened, but I can’t get those archives to appear on the public version of the blog. I’m trying to get some answers from some blog friends online (!), but so far, no success. Anyway, sorry, if you enjoyed looking back at any posts, you will just have the current page of posts for the time being. When/if I can retrieve them, it will be pretty obvious: they’ll re-appear. Stop Press: Done! One of the blog community very generously pointed out that I had been using a superceded template for many years, believe it or not! I put a bit of html into the template and voila, they're back. STOP Stop press!: brand new template necessary...hope you like it. It will let me add different images, links etc if we want.
The pointyhat blog, of lesser importance to me, and really just a bit of fun, of course, as is the way with things like this where it really doesn’t matter, transferred seamlessly into the new format without a glitch. Frustrating!! Stop Press: pointyhat blog also now has a brand new look and template.
Cass and I have had a very busy week, trying to tie up lots of loose ends before shooting back home for 3 weeks at the end of this working week. We’ve had a candidate for superintendent here all week and another one arrives tomorrow. This has meant that the school has been abuzz with all sorts of special meetings and added time demands as we sort out who will be the next boss. It’s an amazing process, unlike anything we have seen back home: I don’t know if Big Al would get past the very first hurdle here! The candidates are short listed by a “search team” of interested admin, teachers and parents and brought to the school for interviews. The entire faculty and various constituency groups then have a chance to grill the candidate, including faculty, parents and students. Everyone fills in a feedback form and hopefully, that input goes a long way to deciding who the next boss will be. It’s quite a marathon: I’ll be having a meeting with the next candidate on Tuesday for an hour to talk all things ESL, after a similar meeting with the last candidate this week.
We went downtown after work early in the week and enjoyed getting out into the exciting inner city streets at night, which we don’t do often enough. There are just so many people about, all doing their individual things; meeting, shopping, browsing, chatting, drinking eating, walking, looking and a million other things…it was very exciting! We bought some Christmas presents and ordered some more, as well as a wedding present, but I won’t say too much just in case those recipients are reading! I’m going back down on the MRT on Thursday night to pick up a few items, while Cass stays home to pack her stuff. We’ve got Lily organized to look after the girls again which is great: she is reliable and trustworthy.
Our weekend was relatively subdued, but we caught a movie, Déjà vu, which was pretty good, nothing to rave about but entertaining with Denzel Washington in the lead. He always gives a very polished performance. We watched a DVD this afternoon which was a great laugh. Many of you have probably seen it, but it didn’t make the “blockbuster” cut for the cinema here, so we’ve only just watched it. “Little Miss Sunshine” with Toni Collette was just fantastic….we’re still laughing at some of the scenes! I went out and get some reasonable waves at the Pillbox today: it’s turned cold and I wore my wetsuit for the first time this winter season. It was raining and quite bleak and I wondered aloud as I sat out there by myself why on earth I had decided to go out! It wasn’t bad actually and blew a few lazy weekend cobwebs away. I spied one of the ubiquitous Taipei County chicken roasters on the way back so paused to take a couple of shots…just by the side of the road, dirty old farmers with dirty old roasters: bird flu anyone??!! I reckon they’re great! Photos: Virg portrait, the girls together and a couple of those great chicken shots.