And the Madness ends!

Yesterday was our 13th wedding anniversary. We actually celebrated a couple of weeks ago when Mel's mum was visiting. We had a really nice staycation at the Shangri La. When I was explaining to Matilda that Mel and I would be staying away for the night to celebrate our wedding anniversary, her response was "I wanna come too! I've never been to a wedding before!" I explained that it wasn't an actual wedding but celebrating the day we were married. I suggested that we go out for lunch on the actual day to celebrate. And yesterday was that day and we had lunch at one of our favourite restaurants.

And so to the "Madness". This past 18 months has been the crazy busiest time I have known. It started just before we broke up for the Christmas holidays in 2015 when Mel said "I'm going out at lunchtime but I'll be back". I though "ok, whatever. You go out for lunch every Friday". I didn't think much more about it until I was walking to class after lunch. I ran into Mel on my way and she said "we need to talk". It sounded serious and I was immediately thinking about would could be wrong. We walked into Mel's classroom and she held out something in her hand. As I got closer, I could see it was a pregnancy tester. And it was pink! I looked up and said "fuck!" We had a quick chat but class was starting so I had to go. As I walked into class, all I could hear in my mind was "Fuck! What the fuck? Holy shit!" etc.. You get the general idea. I assume this was all in my mind because no-one said "oi, stop swearing!"

Anyhow, it took a while for us to get used to the idea of another baby. The last trimester was pretty difficult for Mel (and we would find out later that she developed hernia at this time). As usual, the last few weeks of term was manicly busy and this was compounded by having to pack our gear to move out of our apartment. We didn't want to move but our landlords (who live next door) wanted their parents to move in. They were very good about it and luckily we were to take over the lease on an apartment close to school from a colleague who was leaving Singapore . The building we moved to is literally a 5 minute walk to school and, as it was built in the 1980s, is very spacious. We have two great balconies; one looking over a forested area with loads of bird life and the other looking due west so we regularly see magnificent sunsets. And the moon as well:)

Once school finished, we had to finish packing before we headed to Bali for a week or so to recharge. The original plan was to go in early July to meet up with Mel's mum & dad and her sister & family. But with Flynn due for late July those plans had to be revised and we went as soon as we could. The timing wasn't fantastic as the day after we got back was moving day! It was a nice holiday though and it was cool to watch Matilda release a turtle hatchling back into the ocean.

After moving, we started to get ourselves unpacked and sorted. It was a slowish process as Mel was struggling a bit. And of course, by the end of July our little guy was ready to put in an appearance. Mel and I headed to the hospital on the evening of 31 July. After lots of hard work from Mel, Flynn showed up around 1:50am on 1 August. We were very lucky to have Mel's mum staying with us for a few weeks, which made the transition a little easier. Especially for Matilda. Flynn's arrival meant that I missed the first couple of days at school. In some ways it was good as I didn't have to sit through dry, boring stuff. It did mean that I was a little bit behind where I wanted to be in terms of preparation. Oh well.

This year at school was busy as usual, but different because of the broken sleep for first term. It was a bit of a struggle at times but once we were home from Bali after the October holidays, Flynn settled into a nice sleep routine and Mel and I started to catch up on our missed sleep. Our trip to Bali ended up being good after a rocky start. We had booked a villa on Air BnB. When we arrived we found the place not really matching the photos. The place was tired looking and there was mould on the curtains and underneath the wall paper. The bathroom basin drained straight on to the floor which was really dangerous. The place was generally not clean and there was a wasp nest in the kitchen area. The pool was nice though and if it had been Mel & I by ourselves, we might have stayed. But with two little kids it wasn't ok.

We got in touch with the owner with no success. We had to go through AirBnB's conflict resolution process and I have to say they were really helpful and we ended getting our money back less the one night we stayed at the place. Luckily there was a decent hotel across the road so we spent two nights there before we found another villa that was more honest. The last four days were reasonably relaxing which was cool.

Although not doing as much travelling for school this year, I still got to Saigon for a very cool conference on IT in education, Hong Kong for an IB workshop and of course my trip to Bali with the Year 10 Geographers. These were all cool, but it's always hard to be away from Mel, Matilda and Flynn. We managed some family trips too, getting to Bali in October, NZ for Christmas and Penang in March.

Adding to the 'madness' was my decision to start an MEd. programme through Waikato University. The course is offered through the uni's Centre for Global Studies in Education. The people in charge are former Geography teachers and the course, while not Geography focused, definitely has a geographic slant to it, which is what made it attractive to me. It started really well and I got an 'A' for my first assignment. The second half was more challenging in terms of trying to pay enough attention while still managing all the school stuff and spending time with Mel & the kids. I found it quite a struggle over the last few weeks. I got there in the end but I'm not sure about my grade:(

It was so cool to wake up this morning and not have to got to school. Both Flynn and Matilda slept well and it was around 8am when we woke up. Not a massive sleep in, but as anyone with young kids would agree, pretty nice:) We have about seven weeks off now. We'll be hitting Bali in early July to meet up with Mel's mum & dad and her sister's family. Towards the end of July we'll in Saigon for a couple nights before 6 days on the beach near Hoi An. Really looking forward to both trips, as well as just hanging out at home.

Ciao!

The End of the Year!

Tomorrow is the last day of school and I'm more than slightly amazed that we have been in Singapore for three years now. They have just whizzed by and this past six months have been the most frenetically busy I have ever known. It's been great but, wow, it has been busy!

I've done some pretty cool stuff at school this year. I lead two overseas trips. One with Year 9 to Sabah which was brilliant. It was really rewarding seeing kids responding to being out of their comfort zones so positively. We have a lot of mainland Chinese at our school and they were not impressed with sleeping in hammocks in the jungle and having to prepare their own food. But by the last day they didn't want to leave, which was pretty cool. I also took a group of kids to Bali to look at volcanoes. This was the second time I've done this trip and this year was as good as last. Kids get so much out of seeing the real life version of the stuff we talk about in class. Although this group were sort of 'too cool for school', individually they all said they had a great time and would do it again. There were other things too, but I won't bore you with that.

Early start at Changi

Jungle Camp

View from hotel at Kintamani, Bali

View from Mt Batur, Bali

Our school has grown a lot over the three years we have been here. In August 2012 we had 317 kids from Nursery to Year 13. At the end of this year we have over 800 kids and we look like hitting 900 by the time we come back in August. The growth hasn't been without its issues but we have managed to pull it off. Even though we are dead knackered and looking forward to the holidays, I am already a little bit excited about next year. Our staff is fairly stable now and that means we can organise things with more continuity. Our department work well together and we have done some really good stuff this year. Hopefully we can consolidate that and then build on it next year.

Mel is the co-ordinator of two core subjects for IGCSE and IB. This keeps her busy, and is both challenging and rewarding. She will be working full-time next year, which will be a big change for her and Matilda. I think she is keen to be working full-time, but she will miss the time with Matilda. We have been very lucky that they have that time together over the last three years. Mel and Matilda got to do lots of stuff together that wouldn't have been possible if Mel was working full-time. Matilda will also be at school for the whole day next year. This won't be such an issue as she asked if she could stay at school longer and has been doing full days for most of this term.

One of the things I really love about our school is the commitment to professional development. Mel and I both got to travel overseas for courses this year, which was awesome. Mel went to Phuket for Global Perspectives workshop and I had three days in Nanjing for a Geography workshop. We were also able to go to the annual Google Education Summit here in Singapore. I attended a workshop with the head guy for Google Geo Tech Education looking at Google Earth and Google Maps, as well as few other things which was quite geeky and cool. I also have a course in Bangkok lined up for September, which should be interesting.

Wearing daddy's hat at Melbourne Airport
the day we left for Singapore

Making 4th birthday wishes

Mel was looking at some photos yesterday, from around the time we arrived in Singapore. Matilda was still a wee baby; not long walking and just learning to talk. Tomorrow is the last day of her first year at school (she was in Nursery for half a day for most of the year). She really loves going to school which is awesome. We were looking at her report today. She has done quite well. She loves Chinese and swimming!
It has been amazing to watch Matilda develop from a wee baby into a little girl. She has an incredible imagination and makes up stories and songs about everything almost every day. She loves to draw and has done some interesting of portraits of Mel and I. She is very much the little princess that cares a lot about her clothes and shoes. But she also loves watching volcano videos and nature documentaries with her daddy. She also loves maps and flags:)

Matilda is very well travelled for a 4 year old. This year we went to Myanmar, Australia & NZ for Christmas and Perth for Easter. Myanmar was very cool and I am dead keen to go back. Christmas time is a much nicer time to visit both Australia and NZ. The weather is much better and everyone is mostly relaxed. Perth was great as we got to meet my cousin's little boys Zander and Jace and Mel and Matilda were able to spend time with her sister Rose out at Kalgoorlie. Matilda loves seeing her big cousins, Zoe and Emma.

Sunset over the Irrawaddy River

Shwezigon Temple, Bagan

Tilda singing to the Buddha

Sunrise ballons over Bagan

Big Umbrellas

With tomorrow being the last of school, we now have 7 weeks holiday. Yeah! We went to NZ and Australia this time last year and while it was good to catch up with friends and family, the weather is shit. Mel and I vowed we would never visit at that time of year again, unless it was absolutely, positively unavoidable! To bring things back into balance we will be heading for Thailand and Bali this year. We're heading up to Bangkok late next week for a few days. We are taking our helper, Lorie, with us so she can visit her son who teaches English there. In the last week of June, we are hitting Bali with Mel's sister and parents. It is Rose's birthday and good chance for Tilda to hang out with her big cousins for a while. I am going to Java for a couple days to visit some of the ancient Hindu/Buddhist temples near Yogyakarta and take geeky photos. In the last week before school we are spending a few days at a flash resort to make sure we are fully rested and relaxed!

I guess that's it for the moment. Being on holidays means I should be able to post again soon. But I probably won't:)

Ciao!

Two Years in Singapore (actually it's 2.5 years now!)

2 July 2014
We arrived in New Zealand yesterday morning. Apparently, so did winter! After one of the warmest Junes on record, we arrived to strong winds, lots of rain and the occasional sunny break. The temperature was about 12 degrees. A big change from the humid 30 degrees we left in Singapore. We had been preparing Matilda for winter by talking about it for the last two or three weeks. When we got out of the airport, she asked "where is the winter?" :) Something of coincidence is that today marks exactly 2 years since we left New Zealand for Singapore.

In some ways I find it amazing that 2 years has passed so quickly. A fair bit has happened in that time.

23 November 2014
Again I've been having trouble finishing off my blog posts, as you can see. From starting this post in the 3rd week of our 'summer' holidays, it is now four weeks until our Christmas holidays! This year has started off really well. Our roll has grown significantly and is now approaching 750. With the growth in numbers has come an injection of new staff which has been really positive. Quite few of them came from another school here in Singapore, where they weren't treated particularly well by management. They all seem pretty happy at ours:)

We've done some traveling over the last six months. We took my mum and dad to Cambodia in April which was really cool for them. Then in July we hit NZ and Australia for 2 weeks each. We caught up with a lot of family and friends in both places which dulled the cold somewhat. Although it was very chilly in Australia, with several frosts while we were at mum and dad's place. On the the third or fourth night we were there, Mel said me as we go into bed, "I am so sick of having so many blankets on!" :) Since being back in Singapore, Mel and I have both been able to do training courses overseas. Mel had three days in Phuket in September and I was in Nanjing for 5 days at the end of September. I love that our principal encourages us to do lots of external professional learning.

It was great to get back to Singapore and officially move into our new apartment. We didn't want to leave The Hillside as we really liked it, but our landlords decided to put our rent up by $100 a month despite the market slowing right down to the point where several neighbours were given reductions by their landlords. A bit silly really because as far as I know the place is still empty nearly five months later.

Our new place is great. We have a ground floor apartment with a patio front and back. Which means we can have a bbq! Also, we are much closer to school, which is great for Tilda as she started nursery this year. I can literally ride my bike home in 5 minutes! The pool is also very nice and we have a water slide.

Christmas will see us back in Australia for a couple of weeks and then Mel & Tilda will head to NZ to see her mum and dad, as well as Rose and her girls. They are excited about that. I'l be hanging out in Melbourne for a bit to catch some cricket and catch up with some people.

That'll do it for the moment. Hopefully I can post more soon(ish)!

T

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!!!

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