Four months in Singapore

Yesterday marked four months since we arrived in Singapore. Mel and I were talking this morning that it seems like ages ago that we got here. But it at the same time it feels like the time has whizzed by.

I think the biggest change has been in Matilda. She is nearly 18 months old now and is definitely not a baby anymore. She seems to be learning new words everyday and is starting to make short sentences regularly. The other day she said "I don't like it" when she was offered some food and she regularly says "I need this" when she wants something.

Walking has become important too. When we head down to a local cafe for brunch Matilda insists on walking as much as possible. It's roughly a kilometre to the cafe and she walks about halfway without too many problems. She took a tumble this morning though and scraped her knees and fingers. While we were eating she kept holding up her hand with a pained look on her face. Poor poppet:(

We seem to have more public holidays here which is nice. They try cater for all the main ethnic groups so we had a day off last month for the end of the Hajj for the Muslims. This Tuesday is a holiday for Deepvali which is a Hindu festival. We get Christmas and New Year as well. Actually we get two New Year holidays because there's 2 days off in February for Chinese New Year.  There are some others as well but I can't remember the details.

Mel and I went into town last night for dinner and to see the Deepvali lights in Little India. The bus was absolutely full! To the point where we were not stopping. I reckon we missed a third of the stops. We had dinner at a really nice Indian restaurant and then wandered around a bit. There were loads of people around and the lights looked pretty cool. The bus trip home wasn't as busy:)

School is ok. We have an inspection for our EduTrust certification. The school needs this to be allowed to take international students. Without this we would have to shut up shop. As you can imagine this is causing quite a bit of stress. Although they aren't actually interested in our teaching practice they want to interview some of the teaching staff, as well as the admin guys. Everyone was worried on Friday as that was when we would find out if we would be the "lucky ones". Thankfully I missed out but Mel is gutted because they asked to interview some of the part time staff. She's only been there a month! They also want to see another of the part timers. She only started on Monday and has had a fairly stressful start to her job!

I can't think of anything to say right now so I'll be off.

Later
TONE

In Kuala Lumpur

Middle weekend of the first term holidays. I am in KL to do some training for IB Geography. Even though it's during the holidays, I'm excited because hopefully I'll be able to cross some I's and dot some T's.

A few of us flew up to Malaysia yesterday morning. Very early morning! Got picked up at 5:20am so I was up at 4:30. Mel's sister and family are staying with us and Matilda is super excited to see her cousins Zoe & Emma. So she didn't want to go to sleep. Wouldn't be too much of a problem normally but she is sleeping in our room. I probably got to sleep around 1am!

Part of our programme involved going to visit our sister school in Putrjaya which is 30 or so km south of KL. As per usual with Air Asia, our flight left Singapore 45 mins late which threw our timing out. We didn't get as much time as we would've liked watching lessons at Purajaya. What I did see was great though. I think I have a clearer idea of where we we'll be in 2-3 years time. And that is exciting!

We got a taxi up to KL after we finished at Putrjaya. We planned to leave at 3pm and asked to have a couple of taxi there at that time. One turned up and took a couple of us to the airport. The next one didn't want to take the rest of us to KL. Too far? Not sure! Eventually we got a couple of taxis to turn up. It was interesting to see the country side. It was kind of weird seeing lots of open space instead of lots of high rise buildings.

We got to the hotel in KL around 4:30pm. As we were checking in one of the guys realised he had lost his passport! Such a pain, but he was able to get a replacement from the British Consulate which has eased his stress somewhat.

The hotel is really nice and I have a good a view of Petronas Towers from my room which is cool. In case you don't know,  these buildings used to be the tallest in the world before Taipei 101 and the new one in Dubai.

I started this post in KL but the training was very intense and I never got around to finishing. So I'm doing it now back in Singapore. As I said the IB training was intense. So much information to digest! It was really good though. There were a few other teachers in our group that are in a similar position to me - new to the IB system and actually teaching the course. It was great to swap experiences and ideas.

I was concerned about being behind in terms of how much we had covered. I'm not quite as far behind as I thought, which is good. But I am behind and we will have to catch up somehow. I do feel more confident about things now and I think I will be able to make some of the lost ground.

One of the best things about being an expat is meeting like minded people. The people in our group were really interesting. Mostly from the UK with a couple of Kiwis and Canadians thrown in, they're teaching in places like Mumbai, Shanghai, Singapore, Australia and even NZ. One of the Kiwi guys works at St Peter's College in Cambridge and had joined the NZGS just as I was leaving so it was good to catch up with him and hear how things were going back in Hamilton.

This post is taking a long time! First week of term is finished now. Mercifully, it's a short week because today is a public holiday for Hari Raya Haji which celebrates the end of the Hajj. Today is going to be a lazy day I think. I was hoping for a sleep in but Tilda decided she should wake up at 5:30 this morning. To be fair, she has a little cold so I can't really blame her. 

The first week was pretty good though tiring. Quite a bit of stuff to get through before the Christmas holidays. It's an 8 week term which is great but it creates a fair amount of pressure. I guess we'll get there though. We're not planning to go back to Australia or NZ this Christmas. Moving here and getting set up was an expensive exercise. We're not destitute or anything but catching up will take time. Mel was excited yesterday because she got her first pay since starting work:)

I can't think of anything else to say right now so I'll be off.

Ciao
Tone

On the bus

Mel's mum & dad are here a for while which is cool. Last Friday they very graciously offered to look after Matilda so Mel & I could go out. We went to a smallish school do for a bit and then headed to Holland Village for dinner. Holland Village is a popular place for drinking and eating. We had Mexican for the first time in ages. It was great:) Thanks Grandma & Granddad!

As we were siting on the bus on the way home I was looking around at the other passengers. I realised that there were 3 or 4 of them that I see regularly on my way to school. Most people tend to go to work or school at around the same time each day so it makes sense that you would see them regularly. I think this is true of every commute I have had - from the super crowded trains in Japan to driving myself in Thailand and New Zealand to my bus trip here in Singapore.

As Mel and I talked about it I started to tell her about the different people I see regularly. There are of course my colleagues who live in the same area as me. No offence but they're kind of dull because I know who they are.

The first regular I noticed was "elegant Chinese lady". She is always impeccably dressed and always looks aggrieved to be travelling on public transport. Especially when she doesn't get a seat. There's also "wannabe elegant Chinese lady". Not quite as well dressed and less aggrieved about taking the bus.

One of my favourites is "surly uni student guy". He always sits in the same seat. And alway in the aisle seat with his bag on the window seat to stop other people sitting there. Most Singaporeans are too polite to try and sit next to him. But not the middle aged ladies. They have no problems in forcing him to get up and move his bag so they can sit down. In fact, I suspect they quite enjoy it:) But not him. The look on his face is pure anger. Cracks me up every time!

The other person that makes me giggle is "sleeping Malay woman", who travels on the Number 170. This bus runs from Johor Baru across the causeway in Malaysia right into the CBD. It carries the day labourers and others who do most of the shitty jobs like cleaning toilets. The 170 is always full. Always! And "sleeping Malay woman" must get on early because she is always in the same seat (in front of the exit door). And she is always asleep. Not just head down, eyes closed asleep. But full on, head back, mouth open asleep. I am positive she snores.

Another funny one is "cuddly teenage couple". They sit as close as humanly possible snuggled under a jacket. The air con is always on on the buses and sometimes it gets a touch chilly (even for chubby foreigners like me). But these kids are covered in goosebumps and shivering hard out. They have their arms around each other and the girl has her head buried in the guys neck. The first time, I was surprised when they got off and I saw that they were actually separate people.

There is one woman who I find somewhat disturbing. "Religious Korean woman" sits there with some of kind prayer book in her hands. I know she's Korean because the print on the cover is Korean. She has a kind of cycle. First she opens her book and reads something. Then she looks up and starts talking under her breath. I assume she's praying. Next she moves her head from side to side like she's stretching. Then she yawns. A big wide open mouth yawn. Then she she goes through cycle again. She usually manages 2 or 3 cycles before I get off.

Good times:)

T

Nearly there!

Into the second to last week before the holidays. People are tired, grumpy and starting to get sick. I went home early last Friday. And not to go to the pub! Taught my first 2 periods then went home to bed. I felt better in the evening and on Saturday I was better again, though not 100%. Met up with a couple of blokes from work to watch the footy. I was feeling a bit sad after Collingwood lost the night before but a few sherbets and a cracking game of footy helped ease the pain a little.

I've not got much more to say at the moment so I'm going to put a few pictures in. Lazy, but there you go:)

The first one I took yesterday on the way to

school. It was raining very heavily and the amount of water on the road & in the drains was amazing. This is a drain running into another drain.

The next couple are of Tilda trying to walk around in my sandals. She tried so hard and got frustrated because she couldn't do it. Very determined little girl! Note that she has her own sandals on as well:)

The last couple are from my classroom. At the start of the year the said "what do you need for your room?" I said, "a world map. A big one!" Yesterday, after 6 weeks of waiting, I got my big world map. I had to show it off to my fellow Geography geek Nicole. Then I felt compelled to show off my whole map wall. It was deemed "impressive, but needing more NZ". So a photo of my NZ wall was necessary:) Enjoy!

Ciao,

TONE

3 Weeks to go!

So there's only 3 weeks until the end of Term 1. Everyone is pretty knackered as it's been a pretty full on term and we're all looking forward to the holidays. As I said in a previous post, the school is still sorting out systems and such. It's kind of frustrating in a way but I think this year was always going to be like this. I don't mind too much because I reckon the positives out-weigh the negatives.

Mel's mum & dad arrived on Wednesday night. Mel is happy to see them. So is Tilda as she has more people to show off to:) She is quite the chatterbox now. I think she is getting frustrated at times because she is trying so hard to communicate but isn't sure about how to get the message across. At the same time it seems that everyday she is learning new words. I suspect in a year or so that we won't be able to get a word in edgeways! She's been really chirpy over the last 3 or 4 days which is great as she had new teeth arriving which was very painful for her.

Mel's sister and family are coming to visit as well. They arrive in a couple of weeks. They're staying at hotels mostly, including the Marina Bay Sands which is very flash! Mel is looking forward to that as it'll will cool for Zoe & Emma to see Tilda. She loves them so much and gets so excited when she sees them. The girls have seen pictures of the pool at our condo and are looking forward to swimming in it:)

Mel is starting work at school in couple of weeks. She is picking up a 0.5 load of Business Studies classes. She's quite excited to be earning some money and using her brain again:) School is happy because it releases some of the senior management team from part of their teaching load and that will give them time to work on systems etc..

The process has been a bit stressful in some ways as we have had to hire a maid, or 'helper' as they're called in Singapore. We looked at childcare but it was very expensive, which is a pain. The Singaporean government are telling people they need to have more babies, but it costs too much. I spoke to a couple of the women at school and they said it's far cheaper to hire a full-time, live-in helper. We weren't that keen to have someone live in. Pretty much all apartments in condos have maid quarters - a small toilet/shower room & a very small sleeping area. We use ours as storage space so it's pretty full. Having someone live in also means that I can't get about without a shirt:)

We interviewed a few people. The first 3 came together and although they seemed nice, didn't really convince us. The following weekend we interviewed 3 more. The first was really nice and Mel & I felt comfortable with her. The second had been advertised as a "simple girl" and simple she was. I felt really bad for her because she didn't understand the directions that Mel gave her and I had to walk down the road to find her. We were just about to give up when came across her in a 7-11. We weren't confident that we could trust her to look after Matilda properly and counted her out. The third woman was nice and seemed competent but not quite as good as Lorie (the first one.

So we called Lorie and told her we were keen to hire her. And this is when the stress arose. Her previous employer wouldn't sign a form we needed. The agency wanted us to pay $600 or they'd send Lorie back to the Philippines. Lorie was very keen to work for us and would look for work elsewhere (mainly because she'd have basically 2 days a week off as opposed to usual 1 most employers allow. In the end it all worked out and Lorie is starting tomorrow.

The process was very instructive in a way. A lot of employers and all the agencies treat the domestic workers very poorly. They are treated like a commodity. In fact, one agency that Mel spoke to actually used the analogy of "buying goods". The conditions that some employer impose on their helpers are almost draconian. One day off a month, no cell phone, no contact with people outside the family. The list goes on.

I'm looking forward to the holidays. We don't have any huge plans as Blair & Rose will be here and I'm off the Malaysia for a few days over the middle weekend. There are a group of us from school going to visit our sister school in Putrajaya just outside Kuala Lumpur. They opened a few years ago and are doing quite well. They set up a 1:1 MacBook programme which has been successful. Our school is planning the same thing so we're going to see how it works. Then we have a 3 day IB training course in KL. I'm really looking forward to the course because I think it will answer some questions I have about the IB Geography course. I'm au fait with the content because geography is geography but there is lots I don't know about the nuts & bolts of teaching an IB course. After that it's a week chilling at home:)

Today I'm meeting the some of the lads from work at bar in town. Time for a few quiets and some sport without our good ladies and kids. There's some rugby on (NZ vSA) and more importantly, Collingwood are playing the Eagles in the 2nd semi-final. I think this will be a pretty tight game. Looking forward to it:) Go Pies!!

Later

TONE

Been a while!

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post. Nothing terribly exciting has happened. We have settled into something of routine which is good. Tilda has been really good in general. She did have an ear infection which took a little while to get over and is getting loads of teeth at them moment. Who knew teeth were so unpredictable?

Mel has connected with some of the other non-working wives & partners which is great for them all. Mel set up a Facebook page and they are setting up playdates and outings with each other. Being to get to know other people has relieved some of the stress for us both. It's hard to head off to work knowing that Mel is kind of bored at home. I think it's been cathartic for Mel to be able to share her frustrations with people who are going through the same kind of stuff.

School is chugging along ok. I think I might said in earlier post that there were a lot of new staff starting this year (27!). There has been a fair bit of turmoil at the school over the last 12-18 months and there are a lot of things that aren't quite right yet. There are systems & processes that aren't properly in place. In some cases previous teachers didn't leave things when they left (e.g. schemes of work, resources) or if they were left, they were fairly half-arsed.

Probably the biggest issue is our Grade 12's (Year 13 in NZ). These guys weren't treated terribly well by some of the previous staff and so they were quite wary at the beginning of the year. More than a couple had quite the attitude going on. Unfortunately they, in some cases, are behind in their work. And by behind, I mean a term behind not just a week or two. Some will struggle to pass their IB diploma this year, which isn't fair on them. It was very instructive for me when we did a reflection activity after the first day of school. More than one student commented along the lines of "the new teachers seem to care about us", "the new teachers seem to know what they're doing" or "I'm glad they got new teachers and kept the good ones from last year". When I showed my Homeroom partner, we both felt quite sad for these kids.

There some positives though! The school roll is significantly lower than it should be. So our classes are small. The biggest class I have is my Grade 6 Humanities class with 18. I have 12 students in Grade 9 Global Perspectives and 9 in my Grade 11 Environmental Systems & Societies. My 3 senior Geography classes all have 4 or 5 students. On the whole, the students are all pretty nice kids. There a couple of special ones but they're pretty easy to deal with. We certainly don't have the behavioural issues that I saw from some kids at Fraser.

Some other positives? Because there are so many new staff, there's a good sense of camaraderie developing, which is cool. We have drinks on a Friday which is good. Very expensive though and I have to be careful not to get too carried away! This year is pretty much viewed as a transitional year so we have quite a bit of room to experiment with different things. I find that I'm able to use ICT a fair bit more and myself and the Grade 6 English teacher are planning to do some collaborative work next term which is kind of exciting. There's also lots of PD going on. I've done some IB training already and there are 6 of us flying to Malaysia in the October holidays to do some more. Tomorrow there are a group of us off to a Google Apps summit at the Singapore American Singapore.

For me one for the coolest things is the fact that I can watch 3-5 games of AFL footy every weekend. For free:) It's finals time now and my Magpies are playing the Hawks tonight. I'm pretty nervous because Hawthorn have looked good all year. Wait and see I guess:)

Anyhoo, that' it for a bit.

Ciao for now & GO PIES!!!

Monkeys!

Our apartment complex is next to a

nature reserve. There are monkeys and they sometimes come into the complex to look for food. We see them sometimes like a couple of weeks ago when we came back from shopping. There were 10-12 of them and man can they climb!

Today, we were stopped at some traffic lights on our way back from town. There must have been 30-40 monkey casually making their way along a a fence that went around a fly-over on the expressway, across the road and back in to the forest. Tilda was most excited:) Mel & I were amazed at how they were just getting about around a major road without too much stress.

BTW, the photo was taken at our complex. I wasn't quick enough to get a photo today.

Later

Two weeks in.

We have a long weekend this weekend. I think it's to celebrate the end of Ramadan. Gotta love multi-cutural inclusiveness:) The extra day off came at a good time for me. The teaching staff have been at school since the 1st of August. The kids started on the 13th. I had some training over the weekend before that, which was great but tiring - 8:30 - 4:30 for 3 days. So yesterday was the second day off for me in 2 weeks.

The training was for the International Baccalaureate Diploma course for a subject called Environmental Systems & Society. It's a really interesting subject and kind of fits the degree I did. I learned a lot! But I'm sure there was some stuff that went in one ear and out the other:) It was great to meet some other teachers from the international school circuit and talk about how stuff works in the various schools.

Monday was the first day for the kids at school. I'm the Grade 12 Homeroom teacher and I was excited to meet the kids. It was interesting. Quite a few of the 23 in Grade 12 were what I would call "too cool for school". There were 2 groups that had a bit of attitude - some Korean boys and another group of girls.

Each homeroom teacher has a support teacher. Holly and I did a couple of "get to know you" activities and watched quite carefully. We were content to let them go so we could see how interacted with each other, as well as how they responded to both of us. Suffice to say, we weren't that impressed with what we saw. In my mind I was seeing a reasonably tough year with these guys.

We had another homeroom session ion the afternoon. I had been to watch the Grade 12's in a couple of their other sessions and had spoken to some of the other teachers, as well as senior management. Although it was generally positive, there were a few negatives so I decided I was going to give them a bit of a rark up. No shouting or ranting, just a nice calm but firm talking to. Mostly I spoke about being respectful to each other, their teachers and themselves and turning up on time. You know, "the usual school stuff". And they sat still and listened quietly. Some nodded their heads, while others dropped theirs and looked embarrassed. They left very quietly at the end.

Later I spoke to the IB co-ordinator and some of the other Grade 12 teachers. Over the course of the day they had learned that they were quite a way behind where they should be and they all had a massive workload in front of them if they were to catch up and get their diplomas. Basically, they were shitting themselves!

The next day I did a reflection activity with them to see what they had to say about their first day. There were a lot of positive comments, which was great but it made Holly and I feel quite bad for these guys. They said stuff like "the teachers spoke to us like we were people", "the new teachers seemed like they cared about us" and "I'm glad we have new teachers and they've kept the good ones from last year". These kids had obviously not had much support from most of their teachers last year. I asked a couple of kids about it and the comments were along the lines of "the teacher came in, wrote some page numbers on the board, said "there's your work" and then sat at their desks playing on their computers.

Anyway, things have moved along and we're getting a picture of what the students covered (or not!) last year. In the Senior school they do the IB Diploma in Grade 11 & 12 and the IGSCE in Grade 9 & 10. As they're both 2 year courses finding out what was done last year is obviously really important. Our roll is quite small which is not ideal for the school in the long term, but it's good for us as our classes are really small which means we won't so caught up with loads of marking:)

Our apartment is taking shape and now feels much more like a home. We got a second hand lounge suite and a book shelf thingy, which look great but poor Mel had a mission getting them home. The guy she organised to help turned up and said "7th floor? No you said 2nd floor" which is bollocks because she has the text to prove it. The woman we bought it off wasn't sympathetic either. Long story short, Mel got another (more helpful!) guy to help and she had to help carry part it of down 7 floors because it wouldn't fit in the lift. Poor bugger was knackered by the time I got home and has several sizeable bruises on her arms and legs. I felt stink about not being able to help carry the stuff. But I was able to help put it together and move it around.

I've run out stuff to say for the moment so I'll be off and will try to post more this week sometime.

Ciao for now!

TONE

At School!

I've been trying to write this post for a few days now and I'm finding it really hard. So I'm just going to put a few pictures up because I can:)

The first few are of my classroom. The rooms at Nexus are huge spaces! And I'm running out of stuff to go on the walls.

The next couple are of the library at school. It's an amazing space!

Our complex is next to a nature reserve. There are monkeys. And they are not afraid to venture close to the buildings. On Sunday afternoon there were a dozen of them - mums, dads and kids. I didn't think they would climb very high but they are amazing climbers and can easily climb to the 6th floor where our apartment is!

Tomorrow is Singapore's national day which means public holiday:) Looking forward to a sleep in before we go shopping. We're off to buy a bed, a tele, an iron, a vacuum cleaner and a couple of fans. We also want to buy a sofa but I think we'll get that second hand. Hopefully that will be the end of the of the big purchases!

Anyhoo, that's it for now.

TONY

Back from Thailand

We got back from Thailand late last night. It was kind of sad to leave Khao Lak, but that was tempered by not having to fly back into winter. Yay! Again Tilda was a trooper on the plane. She's teething at the moment so she's been pretty grumpy for the last 3 or 4 days. We try to give her a bottle when we take off to help her ears adjust to the change in air pressure. Unfortunately, boarding (then sitting & waiting for the laggers) coincided with her dinner time. Mel had made the milk in preparation and Tilda could see it. And she wanted it desperately, so she had a wee meltdown. Although it seemed like ages and ages, it was only probably only 20 minutes or so of waiting. But minutes seem like hours when you have a wailing baby sitting on your knee. Eventually we got moving and we could give Tilda the bottle and she quietened down straight away. For the first time in a year, she fell asleep in my arms:)

We had a pretty good time in Thailand. I managed to pick up a tummy bug before we left (dodgy cheesecake?) which wasn't cool. Some Imodium and a bland diet helped settle it down and the last night I could finally enjoy some proper food. And happily that coincided with BBQ Buffett night at the hotel:)

The place we stayed was the Le Meridien at Khao Lak which is about 80-odd km north of Phuket. Mel and I stayed there in 2005, when we were living in Thailand. The hotel is literally on the beach, facing the Andaman Sea. It had been badly damaged in the Boxing Day Tsunami and a lot of the staff died. We were there almost a year after and if you didn't know about the the Tsunami you probably wouldn't have seen a lot evidence of it besides defoliated trees. Anyway, it was great to be back there after 7 years and see that the place hadn't changed too much, because the setting is just magnificent.

See what I mean:) The staff were all really lovely and totally enthralled by Matilda. They all wanted cuddles with her. Sometimes she was obliging and other times not so much. I think she enjoyed the attention though:)

So for 6 days all we pretty much did was swim, get massages and snooze. Despite feeling ordinary for the first 3 days or so, it was really relaxing.

That'll do for the time.

Ciao

Getting Stuff Sorted

It's a little over 2 weeks since we arrived in Singapore and it's been pretty busy. Having to find a place to live, find furniture, get our work permits sorted and open bank accounts means we haven't really done any sightseeing or super fun stuff. It's actually been a little stressful at times. But we're getting there!

Looking for an apartment has been somewhat of a trial. We looked at 20 apartments in 3 days. We put in 2 offers and after some fairly drawn out & pretty frustrating negotiations we finally signed a lease on an apartment. The landlords are an elderly couple and I suspect that the apartment is part of their retirement plan. I could see their side to a point but it was stressful right up to the last. Anyhoo, we signed the agreement and moved in on Friday morning.

The main reason we chose this place is its setting. The complex is right next to a nature reserve called Bukit Batok. It's basically second generation jungle and it's right next to us. The day we came to look at the apartment I saw monkeys in the trees and on our first morning there I saw squirrels jumping about. Very cool!

Although the hotel was fine, it was good to have Tilda in her own room as we were getting tired of having sit outside in the corridor until she went to sleep. She has continued to be a wee trooper. She's not complained very much at all and when she has it's been with good reason. The apartment has tiled floors (as is the style in warm Asian countries) and Tilda took a little while to get used to the floors. There were a few crashes and quite a few tears. By the next day she'd got it figured out a bit better. There is a koi pond next to the pool and we can see it from our living room. Tilda loves seeing the fish and starts banging on the windows in excitement:)

One of the first things we had to do was get our resident passes. I cannot believe how painless this was! We had our letters from school, passports and photos. We rocked up at 2:30pm and handed everything over. It all had to be double checked by us, then signed. Last we had to have our thumb prints taken. No ink pads here - all done on a scanner! Once we were done the lady told us our cards would be ready in four business days. So four business days later I went back and picked up our brand spanking new resident passes. No doubt I spent more time in the taxi there and back than at the office!

The next day we went to a bank to open accounts. Again this was pretty painless. I reckon it took 45 minutes to open 3 bank accounts. And they were up and running straight away, complete with debit cards with our names. I used my card 25 minutes later to buy some picture hanging stuff.

Just to continue with the whole efficiency angle, the night before we moved we went to see about getting cable tv and the internet set up. This was at 8pm. I guess it took around an hour to complete the paperwork and the guy assured me it would be good to go the next day. And so it was. The only issue was me plugging cables in the wrong places!

Our apartment is partially furnished (i.e. washing machine, dryer, old tele and few other bits & bobs). Mel spent a bit of time online and we were able to get a bunch of really good stuff pretty cheap. A sideboard, chest of drawers, coffee table (all teak) & a dining setting for about $800. We hired a guy with a van to help pick up the stuff and move into our place. It took 2-3 hours all up and it was hot! Who knew teak weighed so bloody much? I was pretty knackered after that but it was all good.

I should point out that I'm writing this in a hotel in Thailand. We flew out on Sunday for 5 nights at a place Mel & I stayed at when we lived in Thailand so we could chill out before school starts. The flight to Phuket was short. We probably spent more time in the car coming to the hotel than in the air. It's really cool to come here again after 7 years to find the hotel not changed heaps. So since Sunday afternoon, we've not done much except swim and snooze:)

I reckon that's about it for time. I'll put some photos up soonish.

Later
Tone

We're in Singapore!

So we've been in Singapore for 4 days now. It's very warm, but after the rubbish weather on the day we left, that is totally ok!

We got into Singapore late Tuesday after a pretty good flight. Tilda was really good. She only grumbled a little on the flight and even slept for around 3 hours. We were lucky that there was a spare seat next to us so we could put Tilda between us. Once she fell asleep (on my arm) we could put her in the bassinet. When we tried before she was asleep she didn't like it as it was pretty small. Again she was great as we made our way through customs etc..

The hotel we're staying at is nice. The pool is good and so is the breakfast:) The staff are really friendly and very helpful. And they love Tilda! Each morning at breakfast, the waitresses make a big fuss over her and go out of their way to walk past our table so they can say "hello". Tilda obliges with big smiles. Actually, Tilda has become quite the star. Whenever we go into a restaurant everyone fusses and says "hello". She is loving the attention!

We started looking for an apartment on Wednesday afternoon. School has arranged for two agents to helps us. Sharon and Rachel drove us around on Wednesday and Thursday afternoon. They were so helpful and understanding, especially when it came to Tilda. And she was a trooper as well. She didn't complain at all about getting in and out of the car as we looked at around 16 places. We saw some nice places. One in particular we liked and put an offer in for it but we appear to have missed out. Sharon and Rachel have been really proactive on our behalf and are in touch regularly to update us. It looks like we need to look at some more places in the next couple of days.

We went to the Ministry of Manpower (or MOM) to get our Employment Pass stuff sorted. It was pleasantly not traumatic as we had expected. I think this was due to our experiences in Japan & Thailand. In Japan you had to have everything perfect or they'd send you away. And you could only go at certain times/days. Once I went too late and even though I was in line, they closed for lunch! In Thailand, things were somewhat haphazard and it might ok or not. The woman who looked after us was really helpful and explained everything well. So by Wednesday next week we should have our passes.

This is a picture I took from the pool floor and put together using a cool app called Autostitch.

Later:)

Catching Up with Friends & Family

After several edits of our bags while we were at Mel's mum & dad's place, we managed to get our stuff to around 70kgs for the 3 of us. It meant we had to take out some stuff we wanted to take. In the end, we put a bunch of stuff in a box that Mel's mum will bring up for us or we'll collect when we return to New Zealand.

Our last little while in NZ was wet!

It rained solidly from Monday night until after midday. The little creek that runs through the farm was over flowing big time, creating a small lake and covering the road. For some reason the cows were very intrigued by all of this and most of them walked into the water up to their bellies. Then they buggered off. Weird.

The flight to Melbourne was ok, although it seemed like 1 out of 2 people had a cold and were coughing up a storm. I couldn't believe how many people didn't bother to cover their mouths when they coughed. Needless to say, Mel & I both picked up colds and have been sneezing and blowing our noses non-stop:(


Tilda was not keen to sleep at all. We put her in the bassinet, but she insisted on standing up so she could look at everyone. Especially the wee baby in the bassinet next to her. She cried a bit, but it could've been a whole heap worse. Despite being absolutely knackered, she was great while we gathered our baggage, went through customs and picked up the rental car.

We had booked a night in a motel that was reasonably close to the airport. Unfortunately, we had no idea that roadworks on the Western Ring Rd mean that ALL the left hand exits (where we needed to go!) were closed. We ended up taking the most epic detour ever. We didn't get to the motel until 11pm instead of around 9:30-10:00. The bonus was that Tilda had a good sleep in the car:) The motel was nice - clean, tidy and very quiet! Luckily we were able to give the wee girl a quick drink, change her nappy and put her to bed without too much drama.

The next day we headed up to Wahgunyah to stay with my mum & dad, with a smallish detour via Kyneton to see our friends Josh & Bri. It was great to see their new house and introduce them to Tilda, as well as pass on a present for their impending little one. The drive to mum & dad's was pretty uneventful and Tilda slept most of the way.

Over the next few days we caught up

with some friends here in Wahgunyah, as well as Tarawingee. It was great to meet Fiona & Adam's new twins and introduce Tilda to their elder daughter Chelsea. My brother Chris & his family came up to stay and Tilda was able to meet her cousin Hudson, who was born 3 months after her. Hudson was a little unsure about Tilda as she just wanted to cuddle him all the time:) By Monday morning they seemed to be firm friends, with Hudson following Tilda around the house getting into mischief! It was really cool to see the reaction from Hudson when I brought Tilda into the kitchen in the morning - he was totally excited to see her.

On the Sunday, we had lots of family come for lunch. Tilda was able to meet her grand-nana, aunts, uncles and cousins. She was terribly excited to have more kids to play with and by early evening was extremely tired. Despite a couple of protests, she went to bed and fell asleep very quickly.

It was great to see everyone as it had been 18 months or more since we had seen them. Dad cooked multiple roasts on the BBQ and lunch was awesome. It was almost like Christmas, but without the presents and hot weather. It's been really cold here since we arrived. We've basically had 5 frosts in row. Singapore looks better and better each day:)

Today is a quiet day. Time for some last minute washing and then repack the bags before we head back down to Melbourne. This time on Wednesday we'll be looking at apartments. Hopefully the searching won't be too traumatic:)

Ciao for now.

Tony

Leaving The Tron Part 2

I felt quite sad as we drove out of Hamilton yesterday. After 6 & half years, I have become quite attached to The Tron and more particularly the people I have met & worked with.

My farewell from Fraser was short & sweet, which was how I wanted it. A few people spoke and said some really nice things about me. I felt slightly embarrassed but really stoked as it's always nice to be acknowledged in front of your peers. I will miss Fraser. A lot! I worked with some outstanding educators who care deeply about the students they teach. And that makes the National's anti-teacher campaign all the more frustrating as they don't have any clue about how hard (most) teachers work and the feeling they have for the job. I always felt frustrated at the noises people made about Fraser when they found out I worked there. The conversation usually went something like this:

Them: so where do you teach, Tony?
Me: Fraser High.
Them: Ohh. Right. Umm...how is that?
Me: really good. I work with some great teachers and fantastic students.
Them: Really?

I know Fraser has a reputation and it is deserved to an extent. But every school has problem students. Many of us tend to get caught up by the trouble makers, which is kind of understandable as those students do take up a lot of our time. But it's really easy to forget about the good kids. And I worked with some amazing students at Fraser. I have no doubt that they will go on to do great things in the community and I feel really privileged to have had the opportunity to work with them.

My last post was pretty much just a list. The last week has been pretty full on and we were all knackered last night. Today has been pretty lazy:)

Our "Empty the liquor cabinet/farewell party was a great night. We had about 30 or 40 people from Mel's work and Fraser. It was awesome to have so many people come and say goodbye and share some laughs. And drink our alcohol:) It was worth it if only because we arranged to sell our car on the night, which took a huge weight off our shoulders!

On Saturday I was feeling a little shabby and it took a little while to get fired up. Mel & I went to the shipping company to discuss prices and pick up times. We had until Monday to get everything we needed/wanted into the boxes and get them sealed up. No pressure! The rest of the day was spent trying to do that, as well empty the house for the property manager's visit on Monday and get everything organised for our garage sale on Sunday morning. And we had to do that by around 5:30-6, so we could meet some friends at Speight's Ale House before the rugby.

We managed to stop work and have a quick feed before we headed off. We were able to get a park reasonably close the pub and found our friends inside. They had the Wallabies vs. Wales game on tele. Lots of cheers when Wales scored and took the lead. When the Wallabies scored again soon after I cheered & yelled a bit. Everybody was looking at me. Mel looked horrified. Then the bloke next to me said "what's that all about?". I said "Umm...I'm Australian". He looked at me and rolled his eyes and made noise that sounded like "pffft". I smirked and said "winners are grinners".

We headed off to the stadium and found our seats. I love going to Waikato Stadium because you get a really view from any point in the stadium. It was cool to see a couple trys scored right in front of us and Mel was quite excited by seeing SBW in the flesh. I was disappointed to see Ireland getting spanked, as I was hoping for a close game. Most of the action was up the other end in the second half, so the it got a little boring. Not too worry though, I spent most of the time looking at the score from the Collingwood vs. West Coast game in Melbourne which turned into a very tight contest. The Pies regained the lead with about 10 minutes to go. The score wouldn't update so I had no idea what was going on. I was pretty stoked when the Pies held on to win by 3 points! Also during the game I started getting texts from a mate asking about our fridge. By the end of the first half we had agreed on a price and arranged a pick up time for Sunday. This meant that we had got rid of all our big stuff. Yay!

We were up early on Sunday to get ready for the garage sale. The weather was pretty rubbish and unfortunately we didn't heaps of people coming to look, or more importantly, buy. We got to talking with one couple that came and ended up talking about our house and what we were planning to do with it. They came around again in the afternoon to have a look and were interested in buying but needed to do some calculations. Although it would been hilarious to have had a garage sale and end up selling our house, in the end they never got back to us. After the garage sale we packed up what was left into Mel's mum's car to take to the Op Shop. Then it was on to getting the house empty, which we managed to get done by about 2:00 Monday afternoon. At 2:30 we were sitting at Mel's mum's place absolutely knackered but feeling reasonably happy, if somewhat claustrophobic due to all the stuff surrounding us. Now we just needed to get the boxes for Singapore taped up and reading to be picked up by the shipping guys. The guy arrived at 5pm and by 5:30 all the boxes were gone.

It was fantastic to see Singhy, Shika and their kids on Sunday afternoon. Their wee girl Shyla it a real cutie and Tilda loved playing with their boy Ishan. It was so funny to watch them running around in circles. I haven't heard Tilda squeal & giggle so much before. Or fall on her butt:)

On Monday I took Tilda to Little Feet for her last day. After I left her there, I went back to Fraser and caught up with a few people who hadn't made it on Friday. I also managed to fit in a last cuppa with the lads at interval which was cool. I think they were happy with that. While I didn't get to tease Gordy about the footy on Saturday, I really enjoyed being able to talk about sport in general with the lads one last time. Before I picked Tilda up from childcare I went to Browsers to try and sell some books which was hard as I hate giving up books. Especially as I watched they woman sort through them and in my mind I was going "bought that here, and that one, and that one" etc. etc.. The cheque at end kind of made up for it. A little. While I was off doing this, Mel was talking to the property manager who came to take pictures of our newly empty house and discuss a rental price.

Tuesday was Tilda's last day at Space. Mel and her mum went off to that and I went to get a massage to ease the aching muscles. It helped a bit, but I was still sore. Especially in the "squat muscle" area. We also got rid of our car. It was sad to do but the money will be helpful when we start setting up our apartment in Singapore. The rest of the day/evening was spent packing our packs and trying to leave Jill's house in some sort of decent state.

Although we planned to leave Hamilton on Tuesday, we all knew that it wasn't really going to happen. We spent the morning trying finish off the packing and sorting the stuff we're leaving behind into some kind of order so Jill's house wasn't a bomb site anymore. I took one last box of stuff to the Salvation Army and went to visit my former boss who'd recently had her first baby. It was awesome to see Nance and meet her little girl Makaia who's another real cutie! When I got back we packed up the cars with as much stuff as we could fit. Both cars were filled to the gunnels!

And then we headed off to Auckland with a quick stop in Mercer to drop off some stuff we'd sold on TradeMe. Unfortunately we'd left Hamilton a little later than we planned and we ran into the back of the afternoon traffic on the North Western Motorway. It took about 30 minutes to get from the on ramp at Point Chevalier to Lincoln Road. As we stopped and started I was looking at the traffic around us. I was amazed at how many vehicles only had one person it them. No wonder there's so much traffic on the roads!

So from here. We repack our bags so that we can make the most of our baggage allowance. We'll try to sell a few more things on TradeMe. Hopefully we can take Jill out for dinner to say "thanks" for helping us so much before we all leave. I guess that's it for a bit.

Ciao:)

Leaving the Tron!

So, now we're in Auckland. Well, actually were at Mel's mum & dad's place near Kumeu. It's been busy week this one!

Wednesday - Geo field trip to Rotorua; packing/cleaning.
Thursday - Farewells at Fraser; packing/cleaning.
Friday - Empty the liquor cabinet/farewell party; no packing cleaning.
Saturday - Hungover; visit moving company, organise stuff for garage sale, moving stuff out of our house, meet friends from Auckland at pub before rugby, get stared at by punters when I cheer for the Wallabies when they score a try, go to rugby & see the All Blacks spank Ireland 60-0 (I spent most of the second half keeping an eye on the Collingwood vs. West Coast score)
Sunday - Garage sale at 8am, finish moving stuff out of our house, cleaning the house, sell fridge (thanks Matty & Liv!), finish packing boxes for Singapore, Singhy & Shika visit - meet Shyla (cutie!)& watch Tilda & Ishan run around in circles for 20 minutes, giggling their heads off:)
Monday - Tilda's last day at Little Feet, goodbyes to Fraser people who couldn't make it on Friday night, last cuppa with the lads, drop books off at Browsers, old car seats to Plunket, boxes to Singapore taped up & picked up, property manager visits.
Tuesday - Tilda's last day at Space, sell car (thanks Angela & Peter), finish packing bags.
Wednesday - Last minute packing, one more box of stuff to the op shop, visit Nance & see wee Makaia (another cutie!), load cars & head up to Auckland, get ready to sell last few things on TradeMe.

I think we're going to take it easy tomorrow as we're all pretty knackered. I'll have some more to say in the next day or two.

Later:)

Two Weeks Left!

So here we are. Two weeks before we leave NZ. Oddly enough I'm writing this at Fraser, where I'm doing some relief! Starting to run lowish on funds - not helped by a recent speed camera fine:(

Mel has finished work now, which is great for her as that lessens the stress somewhat! Our house is in a strange situation. We have emptied all the rooms into the lounge room so we can finish off our packing. This was partly to make it easier to pack, but also to at least have some of the house empty to show property managers through without having them bombarded with boxes etc. in every room. We had 3 come through yesterday. It was very interesting to see the different styles of the various companies. I think we've narrowed it down to 2.

We still have some stuff to get rid of. We need to sell our car, fridge and washing machine. We've put them on TradeMe. Lots of looks but no bids yet. If anyone needs a car, washing machine or a fridge, let me know:)

The lounge is somewhat of a mess but we're getting there. Essentially we need to condense our lives into 10 boxes (5 small, 5 large) to keep the relocation costs manageable. It's probably going to be a little more than that but we'll see. I think we're learning a valuable lesson here - if you're not using something regularly (i.e. at least once every 2 or 3 weeks) then you probably don't need it. Obviously this doesn't extend to some things - photo albums, important mementos and books:) But clothes and other stuff that's not getting used? Get rid of it!

I've had a few people ask about taking the term off and how it's been going. If I'm honest, it's probably hurt financially, but it has been totally worthwhile. I can't believe the changes I've seen in Matilda over the last 3 months or so. Simply amazing! She's really mobile now. Walking very confidently and climbing anything she can. I suspect she's a little bit over confident, despite a couple of tumbles and crashes. Last night we set the fire alarm off when we were cooking dinner. I got a step ladder to push the button. After I got down, turned away for literally 5 seconds and turned back to see the wee girl at the top of the step ladder grinning like a mad thing!

Having not been in the classroom for nearly 3 months now, I'm actually looking forward to getting back into it. I'm really excited about starting at a new school. I'm going to miss Fraser heaps, but this is going to be a new challenge. There's a large group of new staff starting at Nexus in August and I suspect that will help create some solidarity and collegiality. I've been swapping emails with my new HoD over the last 2 weeks or so. We've been discussing textbooks etc., as well advice on house hunting. Really looking forward to it:)

That's it for now.

Today is 5 June. This time in 5 weeks we'll be in Singapore. Bloody hell! We actually leave NZ on 3 July. We're spending a week in Australia so Matilda can meet her grand-nana, aunts, uncles and her cousin Hudson who was born 3 months after her.

We still have a bit to do. This weekend we'll move next door to Mel's mum's place. We need to clean up our place so we can rent it. Moving out will make it a bit easier because we have stuff we want to take but we're still using. We've done quite a bit of packing but it's still not finished. Part of the package I get is a relocation allowance. But it won't be enough to pay for everything we want to take. Do we take less stuff or pay the extra? Tricky situation. We have to sell our car, as well as a bunch of other stuff. Time is of the essence!

Tonight we had dinner with the committee of the local branch of the New Zealand Geographical Society. I've been involved with the committee for 5 years. They presented me with a greenstone pendant. It's a fish hook which is supposed to give me protection when travelling over water, which is perfect. I was really stoked because I've wanted some greenstone ever since I first visited NZ in 2000. For some reason I've never bought anything. Mel told me tonight that you shouldn't buy it for yourself because it's bad luck and it won't have any meaning. I didn't know that but it fits nicely:)

Foggy morning near Kumeu.

Wellington St maple leaf.

I have just got my computer back from Yoobee in Hamilton (NZ) after it was repaired. Below is a post I made on the Apple Support Forums that acknowledges Apple & Yoobee. There's a lot of negativity in the world these days, so I thought I would try to add some positivity:)

Cheers
TONY


I've been having issues with the screen on my MacBook. I took it the shop I bought it from (Yoobee in NZ) and got them to look at it. They got back to me and said the display unit needed to be replaced and it would cost around NZ$800. This represents half of what I paid for the machine in the first place, so I was less than impressed.

I sat it on it for a while and then decided that, as there was no good reason for this to happen, I shouldn't have to pay even though the computer was out of warranty. I went back to Yoobee and spoke to them. They put me on to the Apple Customer Service people in Australia. After explaining the issue I was referred to an Apple Customer Relations guy called Steven in Singapore.

We had some back and forth. Basically he said the machine was out of warranty, therefore I would have to pay. I said that wasn't really good enough. He came back to me and offered to pay the labour costs. While that was nice, again I said it wasn't satisfactory and pointed out that in NZ the Consumer Guarantees Act states that customers can expect a "reasonable amount of service" from appliances & electrical goods. I also pointed out that Ministry of Education in NZ has a laptop scheme for teachers and they replace the computers every three years. The last thing I said to Steven was that I understood that the warranty had lapsed but the issues wasn't caused by anything I had done, and that I felt strongly that Apple should bear the cost of repairs.

The next day, Steven called and told me that Apple had decided to provide an exemption and would carry the cost of the repairs. I was stoked and am typing this on my computer having got it back from Yoobee this morning. I was expecting the turn around to be in the order of 7-10 working day, so I am really impressed that the turn around was only 5 days. Yay! Thanks Apple & Yoobee. Much appreciated:)

Tony

Storm on the way at Muriwai Beach

Autumn willow

Maple tree on Brookfield

Feeling kind of bummed out today. I was all set to go to Rotorua for a Geography field trip today - grandma set to babysit, bus snacks bought, camera battery all charged - but unfortunately a severe weather warning for the Bay of Plenty put paid to that. Rainfall of 80-120mm and thunderstorms were forecast for today. As most of our work was to be done outside, we didn't fancy dealing with sixty-odd wet, cold & grumpy Year 11's, so we postponed the trip until another time.

Instead of going to Rotorua and having a go on the Luge, I got to go to the dentist. Yay! No major problems, which is good but the I'm looking at a couple of crowns in the next year or two. The dentist was really nice and explained everything very clearly. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I'm moving to Singapore soon and I'll be able to get top quality dental work done for much cheaper than here in NZ.

I'm really enjoying being at home with my girl. Tilda's so funny at times. It's really cool to be able to watch her develop. She's taken a few uncertain steps on her own and is really, really chatty. I don't understand most of what she says but it obviously means something to her. She is able to say some words like daddy, mama, dolly and is also able to make little sentences. Whenever we get her up or take her outside she points and says "wosset?" (what's that?), "lookit det" (look at that) and "whoset?" (who's that?). Note the Kiwi accent:)

The packing and sorting continues, albeit quite slowly. I took two bags of clothes and two bags of books and magazines to the Salvation Army on Monday, which was cool. We've got a bunch of boxes and we're sorting out our books. I have four boxes - books to keep and take to Singapore, books to keep at Mel's parents place (x2) and books to sell or give away. I feel gutted about giving books away! I've also put a bunch of clothes I won't need until we arrive in Singapore in a box and was quite chuffed about how empty the wardrobe looked. Then Mel said, "ooh! I can put my clothes in your wardrobe". All good though because it means she won't have to go into Tilda's room to get her clothes.

I'm sure there was something else I was going to write but I can't for the life of me remember what it was. Can't have been too important. So I'll be off now.

Later:)

News #2

So, no posts for ages and then two in one day! On a roll I guess:)

Since being offered the job in Singapore, which is at a school called Nexus International School Singapore, a few more things have happened. Firstly, Mel has returned to work after a year off on maternity leave. I think she was mostly happy to go back to work to see (most of) her colleagues, as well as having the opportunity to let her brain get back into work mode. Obviously she misses being home with Matilda, but due to various goings on before leaving last year, I think Mel needed to find some sort of closure at work. Also, she makes more than I do:)

Since Mel has gone back to work, I have taken Term 2 off as unpaid leave to look after Matilda. I am really grateful for this opportunity and so thankful that my principal acquiesced to my request. I'm fairly sure that it was done reluctantly, which I think is a compliment as it means I'm valued and it's always nice to know you're valued by the people in charge:) And while I am officially on leave, I will still be doing a bit of work at school to help out around our faculty. I thought this was important as 2 other people were going on leave as well. Also, I could do with the money from doing a little bit relief here and there as I didn't really save enough before I finished. Oops!

On the new job side of things a lot has been going on. Contracts to peruse & sign; forms to fill out; documents to scan and send to HR etc. etc.. It's all good though, as my work permit has been approved "in principle", which means I have more paperwork to do once we get to Singapore. It also means we've been able to book our flights to Singapore. We're leaving NZ on 3 July for Melbourne. We're spending a week in Australia so Matilda can meet her cousins, aunts, uncles and grand-nana. Hopefully we can catch up with some friends as well.

We arrive in Singapore on 10 July and have a week or so in hotel while we look for an apartment. Hopefully this won't be too traumatic as we have friends in Singapore to help us out. Because we're arriving in Singapore a bit earlier than we need to we're going to head up to Thailand for a week on the beach after we have found an apartment and before I have to start work in August. This is one of the main reasons we wanted to go to Singapore. It's such a good place to travel from. Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam are all less than 2 hours away and it's close to Japan and Hong Kong where we have friends to visit. Mel and I have talked a lot about how much we want to go back to Japan for a visit. I can't believe it's almost 10 years since we left!

Between now and when we leave, we have a fair bit of stuff to do. We've decided to rent our house for the time being so we need to clean it out. And we have a lot of stuff, although Mel has been able to get rid of quite a bit already. I think our biggest thing is books. We have lots of books. Lots and lots of books. A lot we will put in boxes and leave with Mel's mum & dad (thanks Jill & Warren!). Some we'll get rid of but it's so hard to get rid of books! We'll take a few with us - mainly ones we've bought at Browsers on Victoria St and haven't read yet. I found 2 yesterday that were bought at least a year ago, and probably more like 2 years ago!

I went through my wardrobe last week and filled a garbage bag with clothes. I was feeling proud of my ruthlessness before I realised there was a whole bunch more clothes in the back of the wardrobe. I must remember to maintain the ruthlessness:)

I guess that's it for the moment. I'm not sure when I'll be motivated enough to write again but I'm hoping this will a regular happening. Well, semi-regular. Maybe:)

News!

Hullo Blogosphere. Long time no see:)
Anyhoo, a fair bit's been going on since the last proper post. Mel & I always planned on going back overseas from NZ. We only planned on being in NZ for around 3-4 years before getting back into the international scene, with somewhere in Asia being our preferred destination.

Back in 2008 we visited friends in Singapore on the way to and from Siem Reap in Cambodia. After spending some time in Singapore we felt that it was a place we could definitely live in. It had the organisation of Japan with the weather of Thailand. I started to look at job sites like the TES to see what Geography teaching jobs were available in international schools. I didn't apply for any as we were going through a round of IVF, which would ultimately be unsuccessful.

After dealing with the unsuccessful attempt Mel & I decided we would try again in 2009 as the NZ government will fund 2 attempts at IVF and we thought we may as well take advantage of that. Due to some miscommunication with the fertility clinic they booked us in after we had planned and booked a holiday to Tonga. After much discussion we decided that we would try again (this time with definite dates!) in 2010. This gave us time to prepare properly, as well as have a holiday in Samoa in July before we tried again. The second time around was successful and our lives have been totally enriched with arrival of Matilda in May last year.This experience added a couple of extra years to our stay in NZ, but it was totally worth it!

Once Matilda arrived I could start looking for a job overseas in earnest. I had an interview with the Ministry of Education in Singapore in 2011. This was successful and I was offered a position to start in March of 2012 with details of the package to follow soon. Two months, several emails and 3 or 4 phone calls later, I still hadn't heard anything definitive from the ministry. Eventually they come up with an offer that was mediocre at best. While I was dealing with the Ministry, I was actively looking elsewhere.

International schools usually begin advertising jobs for the coming academic year in October/November, so as 2011 wound down I was eagerly checking TES and a couple of other websites for jobs. Lots were appearing - Hong Kong, Thailand, Viet Nam, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Qatar, the UAE, Oman, China, Singapore and even the Seychelles! I guess I applied for about 30 or more jobs. I was quite discouraging not to hear from a lot of places (I actually think it's really rude!) and by the time school finished I was feeling pretty down about my chances of finding a job for the 2012/13 academic year. It got to the point where I was happy to receive rejection emails just because they were acknowledging me!

Mel & I took Matilda to Perth for Christmas. Mel's sister and her family had moved to WA in 2011 for work so we were going to catch up with them. Mel's mum & dad were also coming over and my mum and dad were going to be there as this would be Matilda's first Christmas. During the three weeks we were there, I continued searching for jobs and applying for the ones I felt I had a good chance of getting. We arrived back in NZ in early January with what I thought were some some good prospects.

The first week or so of January involved more applications for jobs in Thailand, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Malaysia and Qatar. Qatar & Hong Kong said "thanks but no thanks" (nice of them to reply though!); Thailand said "jobs already filled"; Vietnam was silent. Malaysia however, was different. I had actually scored an interview! This was exciting and plans were made for an interview via Skype in the afternoon of our first day back at school. Although I was excited, I was also a little worried as I expected I would be pretty knackered after the first day and I was concerned that I may not be at my sharpest.

The interview went really well and I thought I was in with a good show of getting this job as I had been in touch with a former colleague of Mel's who worked there. The principal is a Kiwi and he was keen to hire people with NZ experience. Alas, I missed out on the job. This was pretty depressing. Especially as I had just missed out on another job in the Seychelles which would have been really cool.

About a week later a received an email from the principal of the school in Malaysia. He had recently been appointed principal of a sister school in Singapore. The Head of Humanities had passed my name on to him as she knew the Singapore school was looking for new teachers. "Would I be interested in a job in Singapore?" Hell yes! was my reply. Another Skype interview was quickly organized and I was starting to get nervous. The interview was the most intense I have ever had! It went for fully one and half hours and the guy hammered me. I was absolutely knackered when we finished. I had no idea how I'd done. I would have to wait.

Meanwhile life was still going on. We had an overnight field trip to Taupo and Whakapapa for Year 12 Geography to run. It was a good trip, although the weather was a bit rubbish on the second day and we had bus troubles which complicated things a little. The kids were great (as usual) and as we ate lunch at Burger King in Turangi I was feeling tired but happy. As we were going to be running a bit late on the way home, I was texting school and Mel to let them know. While I was at it, I thought I'd check my email. There was one from the principal who had interviewed me. I clicked on it with a sense of trepidation - was it going to be positive or negative? The message was short but to the point "I have now received references and they confirm my opinion. I'd love to have you on our team." I was relieved to say the least. And then excited! We were going to Singapore!

I think that'll do for now. I will have more to say next time.

Untitled

Perth Skyline from the ferry on the way to the Zoo

New Camera

So it's been a year since I last posted something here! Very poor from me, but 2011 was a busy year - new baby daughter, new role at work! Anyhoo, I was fortunate enough to be able to purchase a new camera just before Christmas - a Pentax K5. I'm so impressed with it! Here are some images I captured on holiday in Perth in Decemebr 2011.