TUESDAY, 4/14/15

Judy didn’t sleep well last night. Courtney was defending her dissertation for her committee. We finally get a call from her around 6:00 am. All went well, and she passed unconditionally. There’s lots of celebrating and relief on both ends of the phone. Guess we’ll be heading to the US for a graduation in May.

Today is the Grade 5 Exhibition at BISS. It’s an evening of performances and displays, representing all the work the grade 5 students have completed in the PYP (Primary Years Program). There are two performances during the day, and then a final performance this evening for the parents. Judy’s part of the program is two songs with the group. Everything goes great and the entire evening and performances are a big success. This is like a graduation for the students.

Now that we know for sure about the graduation, I start researching airfare back to the US. I did a swim session, ate lunch, and then rode to the TT park to work on the things from my lesson. I stopped at a bike shop on the way hoping to get my brakes fixed. They told me they’d have the part in 3 days.

I played a guy I’d played early in the fall. I remembered him because he hit and served with lots of crazy spins, trying to “dazzle” me. I’ve improved and he wasn’t ready for me to start hitting it back. It was fun watching the reaction when I was able to turn the tables on him a few times.

WEDNESDAY, 4/15/15

Our ayi shows up at 8:00 am, ready to work (her regular Wednesday time slot). I spend the morning at the wet market, and then swimming. After lunch, I worked some more on our flights to DFW. The remainder of the afternoon was spent working on a project for school.

The faculty members have a chance to make a video comment/statement to the BHSFIC seniors for their graduation, and mine’s being taped tomorrow. I decided to write a rap. It turned out OK. I created a music track using Garageband, and then wrote a rhyme that matched up. After I had it written, I loaded the script onto an iPad app called iPrompt Pro so it would scroll as I was recording. Next step was setting the speed and font size so the script timed out with the music. Since it was my first attempt with the teleprompter app, it took lots of trial and error.

I joined Marilyn Prettyman, Josie Francis, and Steve Scott at 5:15 for our Wednesday night world food tour.   We’re eating Korean tonight, and it’s a little earlier than usual. Everyone was told to go home immediately when school finished at 4:00 because of an impending wind/sand storm. We walked into the restaurant about 5:30. Didn’t notice much weather happening. The food was ok. I don’t think seaweed will become a regular part of diet.

Some of the Korean sauces and appetizers.

When we walked out at 7:30. There was a little more wind, and a lot of dirt in the air. It smelled like a good ‘ol sandstorm. In the 30 minutes it took us to walk to the South German bakery and make a purchase, the sky was beginning to clear and the air was freshening. When I got home, Judy began talking about that “bad storm”. Huh? I guess it blew through while we were eating in the basement restaurant.