Report writing is so much easier when you have a template to work from, so this week, I’ve had to spend a fair bit of time writing my comments as I wrote them all from scratch. When you’re teaching the same grade level and similar ability and characteristics are shown by kids over the years, the natural tendency is to rely on previous reports for some inspiration. The inspiration is occasionally just that, and occasionally the opportunity to copy slabs of that comment into a new one. I decided that I’d recycled my present comments just too many times, so I set out to write individualized comments from scratch, about 1200 characters each for my 21 kids. To cut a long, and extremely boring story short, it was quite a pain, but done!
We’ve had the 2nd Ashes cricket test on here this weekend, once again, via streaming video over the internet. We seem to have ironed out all the kinks and even today, high traffic Sunday, it didn’t miss a beat. As I mentioned before, the secret is threefold: get everything possible off the hard drive, have the latest and greatest software and hardware, and lastly have a superfast connection. It’s been well worth it and I’ve just signed up for another year of 3M connection speed on the cable modem, so it should continue. Companies really reward loyalty here as I think the locals are very fickle and tend to gravitate to new operators offering very attractive looking honeymoon deals on connections. We’re paying about $280 Australian per year for uninterrupted, unlimited download and upload and speeds which are not even offered in Australia yet. I just hope they’ve got it sorted properly by the time we get home! It really is the tyranny of a small population base: while we Aussies enjoy the lifestyle, prices and services just can’t compete with these teeming masses over here in such confined spaces.
There was some talk of doing an early dash to the beach for a surf this morning, but the cam showed a big, messy slopfest out at Jinshan. The Pillbox leapt straight to mind, but I have to admit, I got cold feet almost literally at the thought. I went out to get some mouthwatering wood fired pizza takeaway last night and noted that almost overnight, as is the way in Taiwan, the temperature has dropped, the wind has begun to scythe through outer garments and it is really quite cold!
I put the Christmas tree up today (an arduous task of removing the tree from the box, fluffing the branches and plugging it in!). We really love this Christmas tree: it spins around on a base and the fibre optic threads light up and shimmy and shake and put on quite the show. I’ve been known to stare at this tree for extended periods, I’m sure it has some kind of hypnotic power! We had a great crowd here this afternoon for the cricket, including Josh, Lewy and Wal. Minus Lewy, this also makes up our boxing club at school and some combinations of the three of us have a good workout on the bag, speedball and focus pads most weekdays.
Cass “enjoyed” the annual candlelight winter wonderland dinner at school on Friday night. It’s a very strange affair, where all the middle school kids get tizzied up to the nines and eat together in the muted lights of a cafeteria quite miraculously transformed for the night. It’s not compulsory, but everyone attends…one of those types of shows.
Photos: the big gate at Toucheng and the cricket crowd, including a Mexican wave attempt! We'll be home in Merewether in less than two weeks! Hurrah!!