The polished boards were covered with plastic sheets and bound with tape, and the indoor bleachers were rolled back and secured. The hoops and backboards had been spirited away, and the neon home and away countdown clock was forlorn and dark. Desks and chairs were lined up in military precision down the length and breadth of the stadium court, and into this field of battle we marched, armed with laptops and grade-books, with a steely determination to negotiate this front line and emerge triumphant in 36 hours time!
Cass has weaved her way through these set two days on countless occasions, yet it was a new experience for me. The middle school's parent conferences are more like our community conferences of years gone by at Grammar, where a succession of nights after work were allocated to these meetings. We're gifted the luxury of two regular school days here, so I suppose anything after that is a bonus!
I was ensconced in my allocated section and meeting my first set of parents with student at 8.01 a.m on Thursday and we packed up our kit to depart at 4 p.m. on Friday afternoon. In between times Cass managed to see 75 sets of people for approximately 10 minutes each! As you can see from the photos up top, there were set desks for the immediate three, with a waiting bay of three straight behind these. It was a barrage of epic proportions and a truce was only called for a lunch hour and not again till the end of each day. It's exhausting, yet not really "hostilities": in fact the military analogy loses its firepower here, as the parents are almost without exception quite delightful and genuinely interested in the progress and improvement of their kids.
I was quite exhausted after just meeting 30 sets, so can hardly imagine how Cassy felt. Anyway, despite that big commitment, we were determined to get out and about just a little on the weekend, mainly to revel in the loosening grip of the heat stranglehold which has been upon the island for months. Why, we even wore light jackets on Saturday as we scootered hither and thither! After our regular shop for essentials at a variety of markets and shops, we decided that the best cinematic option for us would be something escapist, light and funny with a comfort dinner of favourite cuisine as a follow-up.
"Thor: Ragnarok" seemed to fulfill all our requirements on paper and it turned out just so. Have producers and directors invented a new genre? These latest superhero movies that combine teenager needed special effects and big sound and colour and movement, seem increasingly combined with a biting satire and a bunch of self-deprecating "in jokes". We're not sure if it's a deliberate new movement, but it's very entertaining!
We discovered our beloved "Spice Shop" was undergoing renovations and shut for a while, as we dodged and weaved among throngs of Halloween costumed families out and about in the streets and parks surrounding the theatre/restaurant district. Taiwan has really embraced this emblematic American custom and even though the kids are trick-or-treating, the mums and dads seem to be getting as much pleasure from the experience, all dressed up with few exceptions and pushing the boundaries of what might be considered respectable parent attire!
Owing to the ghoulish masses on the street at the witching hour, every eatery we checked out was bursting at the seams. In the end, we resorted to some takeaway Pizza Hut, as even our regular custom pizza joints were full and busy. It wasn't too bad in the end, although loaded with salt, and I managed to force down some leftovers for lunch the next day as well! We watched a ton of quality TV in some binge weekend viewing in the form of the latest series of "Better Call Saul": wow this is nothing other than art on screen, more visually splendid that most movies and far more subtle in exploring themes and characters....top shelf!
Photos: The upper gym, scene of the "battleground" of the great parent conferences, and a couple of shots of a busy Saturday night. I'm reading a great book sent by Gurecki in Japan: it's called "Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare" and Cass is reading "The Sellout" by Paul Beatty.
