Globalization: I've got three more students now. One's moved here from Japan, she speaks Spanish, Japanese, and English (Mom's Mexican, Dad's Japanese). She's five years old and knows where/what the equator is too. The second one's from the States, by way of Jakarta. He's a smart kid, but has a hard time with games.....had a thirty minute crying fit today because he was losing at Candy Land...still, he knows a lot about animals, and he's moved more in his five years than many people move in their entire lives. The third student is also from the States, by way of Russia. Both his parents speak Russian at home, but he speaks English too.
I love the diversity of my students. I'm going to learn so much from them! And they're such bright kids...I'm really not used to "typical" kids. I'm a special ed. teacher by training. These "normal" kids seem totally brilliant to me.
Speaking of kids....Happy Birthday Katie!!!! A few days late, but it's not my fault, Blogger wouldn't let me sign in yesterday. Katie is my niece. She turned 1 on the 12th. It breaks my heart that I won't make it to her first birthday party. Hopefully I'll be able to see her at some point this year. At least she's got squeaky shoes to remind her and her mother of me!! (squeaky shoes are all the rage in S'pore for the 1-2yr old set, they squeak with every step, and I sent a pair to Katie).
Overall, things are going pretty well for us now. I'm happier now that I'm employed.

Interesting cultural tidbit. In Japanese, adding "yo" to the end of the sentence means "I assure you" -- it adds emphasis to the sentence. Just like in Detroit!

I've been running the SETI@home screensaver on my computers for years. This is the distributed program that borrows your spare computer cycles to look for signals of extraterrestrial life. You see, they have a lot more data, collected from the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, than they have computers to analyze it all. So volunteers like myself run this screensaver program which does all the number crunching on my computers when I'm not using them.

Now, they're going to point the Arecibo telescope back at some of the most promising signals (none are very likely to be ones my computers discovered, but you never know), to see if there's anything there. Exciting stuff. I think the chances are slim of any kind of discovery, especially at this early stage, but what an extraordinary thing it would be if it happened. In the words of Frank Black,

Give me one little blip
And I'll totally flip
Say it's nothing but sky
And I will be one lonely guy

My friends are back from their yearly snowboard trip, which I missed this year for the first time in six years. In previous years we hit

1998: Summit county, Colorado (Copper Mountain, Arapahoe Basin, Breckenridge...)

1999: Jackson Hole, Wyoming (side trip to Yellowstone)

2000: Summit county again, plus Vale

2001: Whistler/Blackcomb, by way of Vancouver (where I broke a bone in my hand on the second day)

2002: Lake Tahoe (a complete circuit)
A friend and I would try to outdo each other every year. This year he did a faceplant from twelve feet up on some blue ice and ended up splitting open his lip and bleeding from both nostrils. That would've been hard to outdo.

It was so much fun. I was on a beach in Thailand, and I still have regrets.

I'm still alive. Sorry for the lack of updates on my part. I've been rather busy with work/school. I told myself last time I quit teaching that I would never teach again, and I've been remembering why.....Teaching is exhausting. There's so much to plan for, so many details...you're never done. But, so far, this experience has been more rewarding than either of the two years I taught before. Probably in large part because I'm not teaching "special ed", but
"regular" kindergarten. Actually, so far, my students are great, relatively easy going and very bright. I've only got two right now, but five more are scheduled to come in this month and we expect to grow to at least 15-20 before the end of the school year.
The school is great too. It's so diverse. I've only taught in predominantly black inner city schools before, so this is a real switch. I love the make-up of the school. There are student's from all over the world attending there. I keep thinking what an extraordinary experience it is for these students to have such a diverse group of classmates and friends. They really are very privileged in the best sense. And the teaching staff is diverse as well, several are from Australia, and several are from Singapore, but there are only two people on the kindergarten staff from North America (me and a Canadian). The differences in cultures are fascinating. I'm going to learn so much from my students and the other staff members.
And now for something completely different......Thailand was great. We saw a puffer fish when we were snorkeling which was very exciting for me. The trip was very relaxing at a time when I was very stressed out. It was also nice to spend some quality time with Mark. We're both so busy with our respective jobs these days that it was really good to spend some time together away from home/work. Ko Samui was shockingly built up though. This shouldn't have surprised me, because there are direct flights there from Singapore and if there are direct flights then you should expect a highly developed tourist infrastructure. But they had Starbucks and Pizza Hut. And as much as I like Starbucks here in S'pore, I don't want to see it on vacation in supposedly pristine beach towns. Still, Ko Samui was very nice, and very easy which was what we wanted.
I have a week off in April for Spring Break. Hopefully we'll be able to go somewhere a little more off the beaten path then. Maybe the Maldives or Perhentian Islands

Back from Thailand. Not sure why we came back, but we're back.

Not a bad way to spend a weekend. The snorkel/kayak trip was fantastic, though the water was a little cloudy due to an algae bloom or something. Saw giant clams, crabs, sea cucumbers, parrotfish, and a puffer fish. We also spotted some birds that looked like snowy egrets, except that they were black; Marjorie didn't appreciate my suggestion that we call them "negrets". That night we had an amazing dinner at Samui Seafood; I had the hot and spicy white snapper, which was outstanding, and Marjorie had the sweet and sour red snapper, which was jaw-dropping.

The hotel for our package deal was fabulous (except for dozen or so mosquitos in our room when we first arrived -- and this is a malaria and dengue fever zone). We had Thai massages side-by-side out by the pool this morning, which was vera vera nice. It was pretty much the masseuses' whole body (hands, feet, elbows, knees) versus ours, and we never stood a chance.

Much relaxed, we went out for some last minute shopping. While we were loading up on DVDs of questionable origin, a drama was playing itself out across the street; a motorcycle-slash-street vendor cooking station caught fire. We could see flames licking at the gas tank and the cooker's propane tank, so we high-tailed it out of there. Luckily they were able to extinguish it without much fanfare.

Favorite restaurant name spotted on Ko Samui: Cow Pat Poo.