virtual diaries

Hello all,

I'm sending this post from my email account as 'Typepad' doesn't seem to be working as it should - so I hope that this works.

I'm off work at the moment with conjunctivitis. It started about a week ago now, I felt that my eye was irritated somehow when I took my contact lens out (of my left eye). That was Wednesday last week I think. I went to the doctor the same or next day, got some drops, and thought it would be OK. Then on Saturday it seemed to go downhill again. On Monday I went to work, but I had to come home after teaching my first lessons as my eye felt very uncomfortable. So I went to the doctor and he said I had conjunctivitis. Don't know where it came from or what caused it...there are a number of possible causes.

Well, it seems to be getting better now. On Monday my eye was very sore indeed. Not so bad now, but both eyes are still red (the white of the eye) and easily irritated by wind or the sun. I expect I'll be off of work for the rest of the week. Other than that, not a great deal happening. Aurelie told her boss that she wants to leave - perhaps we'll be back sometime towards October, or earlier maybe. I've had no movement on the job front. I'm spending rather a lot of time looking on the internet right now (when I should be resting my eye). In Spain there are many many jobs advertised - but in France there are none. I still haven't got to the bottom of that mystery, though I've been giving it some thought. Probably a combination of reluctance to take up English on the part of some, and also that many of the schools are large franchised ones (they kind of corner the market I guess). But I have sent my CV to them anyway - but like I said no luck yet - not sure I'd like to work for them anyway - but beggars can't be choosers, as they say. Hopefully we'll find something in the north of France so we can be close to our families.

I thought the name 'Felix' was pretty cool - but Aurelie is dead against it...so no decision yet! She prefers Jeremy, but I'm not so sure. And sorry mum, Ptolemy curries no favour with her either!

Take care all,

Ben (and Aurelie and bump)

It's a...........

Boy!!!

We went for our baby scan today, and all seems to be going just fine. As well as spotting his little bits down there, we saw him flailing his arms about, his heart beating, his legs, his head....

...and we had another little picture taken of him - here he is! He was actually sucking his thumb!

We're very happy, although Aurelie will have to wait for a while yet to buy pink clothes :-) We're now not sure about what to call him though! Some ideas so far are Jeremy, Henri and Alex. What do you think? Any other suggestions?

Still looking for work back in France, nothing happening yet. It's been raining quite a bit here recently so temperatures are a little fresher, though the humidity remains high as ever.

Sleeping a bit better, but still feel tired...might be the heat! Aurelie made lasagne tonight, which was very nice. Shes doing fine too.

Now I'm looking forward to the weekend and I want to start relaxing a bit, so that's all for now - take care everyone!

A quick hello

Just time, at 10.30 on this Sunday evening to say a quick hello. Currently listening to the cricket in the background and I'll be off to bed soon.

I went to play football this afternoon and I'm thinking of not going any more, because it's too damn hot, I'm not fit or good enough, and the other guys take it rather too seriously...my back's aching a bit at the moment - I had a massage today, it cost about 5 pounds. The fella had some seriously strong hands - it was a bit painful at times.

I shouldn't complain too much though I guess as I slept pretty well the last couple of nights - trouble is I think my position in the bed aggravated the pain. I get some degree of aching most days. I should try and do some more yoga perhaps. Felt so damn tired though recently.

Both our jobs are going OK. I think, however, we've decided to go back to France before the birth. Life here is OK, but several reasons compel us to return, which I'm sure of mentioned before. So I'm going to start looking for jobs there, and we'll see how it goes.

Back to work tomorrow, hope I can make a difference to some of the kids there. Teaching is a job that requires huge amounts of patience and understanding. I think everyone should have a go at it, to have some kind of idea what "education" entails, and see how hard it is to be a good teacher. I think I do OK, because of my character, not because of my skill or hard work as a teacher. Anyway, bed time, hoping all is well with you, dear reader.

Sleeplessness... :(

Currently experiencing an unwelcome bout of sleeplessness as I do sometimes, so fed up. Hopefully I'll pull out of it soon. Aurelie's ok, but she managed to put some muscle rub cream in her eye on Monday (she was massaging my shoulder). So all this week it's been swollen, but she went to the doctor and it's getting better now. Very tired, but Friday tomorrow and I hope I sleep better soon. This problem surely cannot be helped by all the new things I experience when moving from country to country...next time it'll be the last move (I hope).

Mmmm Steak Pie

Last time I wrote Aurelie was making a lasagne, this time round it's steak pie! It'll be ready in just a few minutes time, so I might write just a little for now.

Aurelie likes cooking for me, and I like eating it, so we're both very lucky, which is how we feel about being together generally...things aren't always perfect, but mostly very good. She also made carrot cake earlier, so I really am being spoilt today.

She has a few days off in fact. We both had Friday off, and then she worked Saturday morning. Sunday off for us both, then I went back to work this morning, and she's off till Wednesday.

So last week...hmm. he school musical went pretty well, very well if you consider the rehearsals! The whole school (primary + secondary) were at the hall (it was a public hall, very big) for about 3 entire days, and the organisation of students and musical was abysmal. Basically three days of standing / sitting about.

---- dinner time ----

Dinner was great! As Aurelie herself admits however, the pastry top was kind of hard and dry. But the inside was very nice, and I washed it down with a glass of red wine. The carrot cake is also very good!

Well all is well enough with us. Like I mentioned above, the school I now work for frustrates me rather. For example, today the kids I have for English arrived 5 minutes late - all of them! I told them that this was no good  - the lesson is just 50 minutes, and by arriving late like that all class preparation is out of the window. When I talked about this with the 'boss' she understood, but she said she tells this to the other teachers but they don't listen to her! The school is so disorganised on many levels, and there are some real issues there...like the kids being disrespectful at times. I don't think there's any justification for it, even considering that the school has a more relaxed approach (at gvmt. schools kids are still hit with the cane here).

Anyway that could go on all evening...I'll try and change what I think I should, and try to accept what I can't. Hopefully I do something positive, both for the school and students. Some of the students are really nice and sweet too, that shouldn't be forgotten! Perhaps all it needs is more time...Au's job is going well - we had a French cheese and wine evening at her school on Friday - we both helped out so we got a free feast of fine French cheese...but I did wash up for about 2 hours afterwards...

Ok, that's enough, I'm very tired and I want to go and relax. But we're both doing fine, if a little hot... :)

Update number...?

Hello readers,

The delicious smell of lasagne is wafting to me from the kitchen where my wonderful girl is preparing our evening meal. It really does smell sumptuous...she says it'll be ready in about half an hour, so just time to write a few words. I'm also listening to the cricket on-line, England vs. Australia in the Ashes. It's the last day of the second test (at Lord's, the home of cricket), and England are closing in on a win - it'll be the first time in 75 years they've beaten them at Lord's. But enough about cricket; I'm sure most of you reading this are mystified by now, so I'll talk about something else...

At school, we're preparing for the annual school play, to take place on Wednesday night in a local public theatre. The whole school, more or less, is involved in some way (primary and secondary, 100 kids in each), be it acting and dancing or working backstage. We have another day of rehearsals and preparations tomorrow, before the performance the day after that. They are expecting quite a turn out, what with all the parents and everyone else. I have been given the task of working backstage, and taking props off stage between scenes. I hope I get it right - today was the first time I've seen the script!

Everything is going fine here, not many changes...Aurelie is feeling well, and...oh, dinner's ready! I'll write more another time! Mmmmmmmmm

Un petit peu de soupe

Hello to you all,

The title is "a little bit of soup" because we had a large roast chicken lunch today in what is fast becoming a tradition for us, and we've been pretty lazy otherwise today so not much need for anything more substantial. Aurelie has just asked me to point out that it's delicious (it is, our little electric oven does it nicely).

Aaanyway, thanks for your comments below. Aurelie and I really are very happy, although we still can't quite believe it! Nor can we wait - 6 months seems such a long time! But of course, it isn't really, and very soon quiet nights will be a thing off the past, along with a flat that smells nice. Because babies smell, let's be honest. Ah well,I'll get Aurelie to change the nappies, she won't mind.....Only joking babe!! Haha! I promise to do my fair share, of course.

She's getting on well, by the way, feeling less sick recently. Her belly is certainly starting to show a bit now too. Or maybe that's the chicken and nutella..? Work's going well for her too, so we're happy about that too.

I started my new job on Tuesday, and struggled a lot with sleep for the first 3 days, but back to normal now. It really is most horrible to suffer a sleepless night, and 2 or 3 in a row is terrible. When all you want to do is sleep, but you just can't get comfortable...then you just can't drop off...messes you up for a long time after too...I'm still feeling very tired. I wonder how things will turn out when the baby arrives...I think for the better, as I'll feel different somehow, I can just feel it. It will make such a change, something of greater importance to us than anything else in the past ever. And I think that sleeping will just become a case of getting it while we can! Of course, I don't have breasts either, so it won't be I who has to rise during the night...unless we put it in a bottle? I don't really know how these things work to be honest.

Well, anyway, we'll see how things go...we are both looking forward to this period in our lives immensely, we really are. So, I was writing about my job. As I may have mentioned, the school is based on the 'Multiple Intelligences' theory postulated by Howard Gardner. The theory is, basically, that we all have different types of intelligences (7 in all I believe) ranging from literary and language awareness to inter-personal intelligence.

With that in mind, the school has some children who, let us say, don't learn in the 'normal' way - basically they didn't get on with the traditional, memorisation learning that goes on in Asia. Most of the children aren't different however to other children...'normal', if you'll excuse the connotations. So the school try to teach children in another way, and concentrate on more than just filling their heads with facts. Basically, end result is that there seems a strange lack of discipline in the school...but of course the kids have to be respectful, and they all are. I'll write more on this later, there's too much to say.

On the first day, I was 'invited' (told) to introduce myself in front of the school (100 students)...I didn't see that one coming, I can tell you! But I got a large round of applause, which put a big smile on my face!!  Then I taught a few impromptu lessons there last week (kids were ok-ish, but rather high-spirited - which is fine, but sometimes they have to listen!!!!!!) and also visited the primary school, a 15 minute ride away,on Friday (I have to go there on Mondays and Fridays). I met the kids there too (another 100) and they're so sweet! One class even started singing for me!! It's such things you remember with a big smile a few years down the line...

So back to work tomorrow...gonna try and read more about MI, and help them develop that avenue as much as I can. Oh and another thing - Wednesday is sports morning, and I get to play football with the kids all morning! What else..there seems so much now I've started typing...but I guess your eyelids are drooping by now. We gave back the scooter to Aurelie's boss today, and so rented one again, a nice nifty little white one. Of course, we're well aware we'll need a car not too far into the future...more expense, which really tests our commitment to being here even more. I think about returning to Europe most days...but we're not for leaving just yet. I feel a certain frustration and getting to know everyone at the school, getting comfortable (a lot of effort), then giving it all up again...

Anyway, that's it! My last thing to say is that I spent almost all of yesterday reading "Endurance" by Alfred Lansing, a journalistic account of Sir Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated trip to the Antarctic circa 1914, aboard the Endurance,with his crew of 28 men. I was seized by this awesome story at once when I picked it up last week (I already knew the outline) and it didn't let go till I finished it yesterday. It is truly incredible.

So, goodnight, I'll try and post some photos next week.

A new picture for you...

Well, here is a new photo which we received yesterday.

IT'S OUR BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  AURELIE IS PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes it's true!! We in fact found out about 3 weeks ago by accident when Aurelie had a medical examination for her work permit - that was quite a surprise I can tell you! We had a scan that day, and saw our baby.

We wanted to wait a little while before telling everyone though, until we had another scan...so there you are! She is in fact 11 weeks 5 days pregnant, meaning she's due on the 16th January (all very precise, no?)

We are starting to see her belly just a little bit now - apparently the baby is about 65mm from head to bum. We've already thought of names - for a girl we like 'Libelulle' which means 'dragonfly' in French! We're not sure we'll actually be allowed to call her that though. For a boy we aren't really sure yet...any ideas? Aurelie likes 'Jeremy', but I'm not so sure. We also like 'Yoshi', but we'd never give our child the stigma of being named after a computer game dinosaur (we're a bit weird, I know).

So this is pretty big news for us obviously. At the moment, we've decided to stay here in Malaysia and give it a go. As you can imagine, these decisions aren't easy, and they are not taken lightly. But we've been doing a lot to make a life here (even if it's only really temporary) and we don't want to just give up. Plus things wouldn't necessarily be so simple going back to France...

...additionally, I had a job interview at a school here, and they've offered me a job! Looks like I'll be starting as soon as next week. It's very interesting to me, as it's a small school, and they are different to other schools in that they take a very holistic approach to education, working on 'mulitple intelligences' and developing children in more ways than solely increasing knowledge. It's full-time, but I won't be teaching all the time, I'll also be working on curriculum development and other similar areas.

Aurelie doesn't wish to just abondon her position either - it's a great opportunity for her, although she'll be taking a bit of time off soon! Her employer has been very understanding about everything, which is wonderful for us, of course. The pregnancy also explains Aurélie's adversion to the food here! Right now, we eat mostly western style food (we bought a little oven so we can make roast chicken) although I eat fried rice or tandoori chicken pretty often (cheap and delicious).

So, well, we just have to see how things go in the next couple of months...perhaps the heat will end up being too much for Au in her grossesse. But the medical services here are excellent, so there's no problem there - in fact we live opposite the hospital we go to! The baby can also have two passports! Perhaps even a third, Malaysian one?

Well, there you go...visits to see big bellied Aurelie soon or screaming baby in the new year will be most welcome!

Back to Georgetown

Hey, great, I've got a title for my post this time! Yes, indeed we are back from our little trip to Singapore. We arrived there without any problem on Tuesday morning, and managed to find our way around on the buses and metro / transit system.

In fact, Singapore is a pretty small place, and it is very well run and organised. It is also an incredibly clean city - there is virtually zero rubbish, and it doesn't smell at all, despite its tropical climate! No doubt its size allows things to be tightly managed, as well as threats of fines for nearly everything (don't chew chewing gum!). We both quite liked it actually, a welcome break from the chaos of Georgetown. It's rather weird, to have this 'oasis' of a very safe and highly developed country, where everyone speaks English, sandwiched between Malaysia and the even poorer Indonesia.

On Wednesday, we took the train from Singapore to KL - it took about 8 hours! Not particularly pleasant as it was so slow, and kept stopping for long periods. Also the air-conditioning made us freeze. Never mind. So then, we stayed in KL for a little while, picked up our huge heavy suitcase and got a bus back here on Thursday.

And today is our one year anniversary! One year since we decided to be together. We just had a lovely dinner at a nice restaurant to celebrate. And now she is doing a little bit of preparation for her first class at the Alliance Française tomorrow, and she tells me she's almost finished. I'm going to go with her, because I'm allowed to have free French classes! :) Not with her, but a different teacher. Au's going to be teaching the beginners, et moi, je ne suis pas debutante!

Next week, I have a couple of interviews lined up too (teaching at private secondary schools), so hopefully something will happen there. And now, it's bedtime - I'll try and post some more photos tomorrow after class! :)

Hello!

Hello dear friends and family, My apologies for not getting on here sooner. So what's been happening? Well Aurelie and I are still on 'holiday' - she doesn't start work until Saturday, and I'm still looking for work. I have two interviews sort of arranged for the coming days, so I'm hopeful something will happen soon on that front. I played football again on Sunday, a little better than the previous 2 times. It helped that I found a school playing field a little way from here that I can get on to, where I can run around and kick a football. An autonomous training regime, you might call it. And today, I went down to the botanical gardens and ran past the monkeys.

Tomorrow morning, we have to get up bright and early because we're going to Singapore to renew our tourist visas. The plane leaves from the airport at 8.50, so we've arranged to have a taxi pick us up here at 6.30 am. Then we stay there till the afternoon of the following day, when we catch the train to KL. Stay there one night (to get our large suitcase), then travel back here on Thursday. I'm going to try and enjoy the trip as much as possible, despite its functional nature.

Aurelie and I are both rather preoccupied with the cost of the trip, and our imagination of a hot concrete jungle. But I'll try and be positive about the experience, and help Aurelie to be so too. I hear the hotel (YMCA actually) has a large pool though, so I'm looking forward to that. There seem to be 3 YMCAs in Singapore, in fact, all new, gleaming and very expensive - weird...

Well, it was my intention to post some photos this evening...but again time has flown. We have lots of time at the moment, but there always seems to be something to gobble it up. For example, I just read a book entitled 'A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian', and I enjoyed it a lot. Also, posting photos does take a lot of time - I have to select the best ones, then resize them, then upload them. Anyway, no whinging Ben! I enjoy doing it in fact...it's just one of those things that seems to be unappealing until you actually sit down to do it, but I always have had a lazy streak.

Let me try one...

 

OK, that didn't take too long. So the pictures start a long way back, in KL afterwe got back from a month on the beach. Aurelie is holding a worrying looking fruit called Rambutan which is in fact of course delicious and a bit of a national pride here, much like chips in the UK. They are similar in taste to Lychees, but smoother and richer.

On the next one, you can see what it looks like inside.

And here is a close-up of the wonderfully shaped and coloured fruit.

So,we then left KL for the rather cooler climes of the Cameron Highlands. This is a photo of a mock-tudor building, quite common around the region. This was in a botanical research station near to the main town.

Next we have a waterfall, located half an hours trek away through the jungle.

Here, Aurelie gave me her best smile (guess she was a bit pissed off at all the walking...)

Next day, we hired a motorbike to see the area with greater ease, and because I found it exciting. The bike is a Honda EX-5, with a semi-automatic gearbox (no clutch). They are absolutely everywhere here in Malaysia, easily the most popular bike.

First stop was the 'BOH' tea plantation. Here is a nice view...

Then, here is me and her together, at the tea plantation tea house. And the tea was really good! In fact I buy the same brand here. We were on a kind of over-hanging balcony, with splendid views of the whole plantation.

Then, here is a great photo (I think) of my girl.

And here's one more for tonight...and then I'd better go to bed. Aurelie smiling at me making a fool of myself probably. We were in the tea factory, on their tour. Pretty interesting in fact, especially if you like tea!

OK - a couple more! I'm enjoying myself...here are some girls, obviously not posing for me, but I couldn't resist!

So I have a few more from the Cam. Highlands, but I'll post those next time. I thought you might like to see me again, so here I am feeding a monkey at the botanical gardens here. I'm the one on the left, before you ask! :-D

Ok, good night all, more in a few days upon our return from Singapore!