Stuff is Happening

After a long week of snail's pace movement on almost everything, we are finally getting somewhere:

1) School: And the winner is... Westwood International School - by a nose. We were very impressed with Thornhill. It was a beautiful school with all kinds of neat activities. Hope liked the younger kids' playground, and Eden liked that the Thornhill swim coach is currently coaching the Botswana swim team at the Olympics. We also liked that it had a pretty balanced ratio of local kids to international kids.

However... Westwood is equally as lovely, and also has two swimming pools and strong swimming program (minus the Olympic coach). It does not have as high a ratio of local kids, but it has students from 46 countries (!), and the biggest draw was the IB (International Baccaulareate) curriculum that extends from High School all the way down to Reception (kindergarten). International schools all over the world follow this curriculum; I added a link for the IB organization below so you can check it out. That put Westwood over the top for us (Amy and Ted). For Eden, I think it was that the teacher she met reminded her of her beloved 4th grade teacher Mrs. D., and Hope decided that the Westwood playground was even better than that at Thornhill.

School will start on September 9th. It goes from 7:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m., mostly due to the heat. There are then lots of optional after school activities each day. Hope will do the 3rd term of kindergarten and then start Year 1 in January. Eden will do the 3rd term of 5th grade and then start Year 6 in January. This is jumping ahead a bit, but this is where Thornhill also would have placed them based on the assessments they completed there, so we are comfortable with it. Ted and I both still want to ensure that the kids have lots of interaction with local kids as well, so will look for some weekend activities or programs to ensure that this happens.

2) Work: I have a class to teach, with a time and a place and everything. The class is EFH 648: Counseling Across the Lifespan. It is basically like it sounds - it will cover development during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, and then discuss the counseling needs and appropriate interventions for each stage. I have taught similar content, but not in this form, so there will be some prep work. It will be Thursday evenings from 5:00 - 8:00 - which is basically the schedule I am used to. As for the HIV/AIDS center, my first project is to undertake an evaluation of the current prevention and intervention programming on campus. They want to know how effective it is, how students perceive it, and what other services students are looking for. Should be a good project.

3) Housing: We are in our flat!! It is not the fanciest place, but it feels good to have a home. We are all enjoying it, and finding it refreshing to be in a place with less stuff and living a simpler life, if at least for a while. Example: Today Eden hung up the throw rugs on the clothesline and beat them with a broom to clean them. She had a blast. We also have a back yard and a front courtyard that Ted and the girls have taken on as their first big projects. We will post some before & after pictures for you.

I haven't mentioned much about Trey yet... He seems to be having the hardest time adjusting to the time and the lifestyle changes, but he seems to be eating and sleeping better since we have been in the flat. He has developed quite an attitude. He will approach the girls and then hit them or pull their hair, and then walk away, talking in this scary Darth Vader voice, saying "I just hurt Hope and Eden!" and grin. It is a bit disturbing. However, as I said, he seems to be coming back around. We have gotten several recommendations for good preschools, which we will look into next. I fear if he doesn't get some socialization soon, we could be in for a long year...

That is about it for now. We will post some pics of the house and such as soon as I figure out how.

Editorial note: In the interest of avoiding blogosphere plaguerism, I should say that all the cool little gadgets I am adding, like the time counter and the weather girl are ideas I copied directly from my dear friend Carla's blog. I will post a link to her blog below so you can see the original..