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gotta be tricky…
So, we can’t post new posts, but we can edit old ones… go figure! 
Quick update:
We have a niece!! Olivia Ann was born late Tuesday night, and went home with Dave & Meredith over the weekend. We can’t wait to meet her!
Nate & Leah had their baby girl, Kyla Noel, on Saturday afternoon. She too is healthy and home.
We’re pushing forward with preparations for Christmas. It hasn’t hit our home yet, but the drama production and concert are moving all at full steam. We’re hoping to enjoy Thanksgiving in the midst of all the busy-ness.
We’re not cruising the Yangzi, but we might be movie stars!
Our plans to take the Yangzi River trip have been postponed - hopefully not cancelled. Due to some miscommunications and a desire to save some money, we are putting off the trip until May holiday.
On the up side, we have been offered lead roles in a movie! Someone with connections to our company is putting together a film about Samuel Pollard, who worked in the Guizhou and Yunnan provinces, specifically with the Miao minority. They would fly us there and back, and all the work is to be done over the Thanksgiving break. We’re finding out more details today, and we’ll see where it leads! 
Well, that’s all the excitement for now. Have a great week!
Working at an International School
There are times when I’m reminded of my employment at an international school. There were three such examples this week.
On Monday a new student arrived at school. I found out that his Father is Scottish, but his Mom is Thai. He has been living in Vietnam, but has moved to China, where his Dad is now working for IKEA, a Swedish company.
Thursday I met with a group of men as we gave advice to a 2007 graduate of CDIS. The meaningful time was a send-off by his father, before Brownrygg heads off into work with a drama and arts group. This group and Brownrygg are both in South Africa.
Friday night the student government, which I advise, held their first major activity of the year: a halloween party called Octoba Faste. (There should be a couple accents thrown in there. It doesn’t matter where.) Planning in eastern cultures is much closer to events than in western cultures; it is difficult to buy plane tickets more than a month or two in advance. This carried over into the planning for this event, and I was nervous for the students and how it would turn out, but everything went well and it looked like people were having a good time.
The fun continues this week as Parent-Teacher conferences are on Monday and Tuesday. Talking to parents can be difficult; talking to parents who don’t speak English makes it all the more so.
Halloween Festivities, CDIS Style
The web proxies are slowly but surely being blocked… If we stop posting, trust that we’re still alive and well, we just can’t get to our site. We’ll get a update out to everyone by email soon.
Today is Book Character Day at school. I’ve not put any thought into it this year, but Dan is all decked out - suit, tie, overcoat - as Jack Ryan from the Tom Clancy novels. He looks like an FBI agent (not that I’ve ever met one personally, but based on TV shows…)
The student government is throwing a fall festival tonight - “Oktoba-faste.” Apparently that’s the sort of name that comes from a group of ESL students. We’re still not quite sure what it’s supposed to entail. Except, I bought a ticket AND have been asked to help provide treats. There was no talking my students into giving me my 10 yuan back! Ah well.
We had Bailey’s dad with us for a few days recently. It was nice to have another dog for Bailey to play with, but it became clear to us that one schnauzeur is enough for our apartment, particularly for the couches!
Well, happy autumn to you all. Good luck with the pumpkin carving!
Blocked!
Well, it happened - our website has now been blocked. This could be a temporary thing, but it’s not simply a bad internet connection; it’s been this way for a couple of days now. The fact that you’re reading this means that we still have the ability to post to the blog; we’ll have to see how much we can do with the site when we have to tunnel through to access it. (This is a normal thing; sites like wikipedia, xanga, bbc, blogspot and others are always blocked. Who says you can’t monitor the internet…)
BTW, even with limited info Sarah and I have been keeping up with the 2008 presidential mess, and the guy I’ve been watching, Mike Huckabee, seems to be moving up! See the NY Times article…
Defining Myself
I just read this post and was impressed (and a little shocked) at how much this description sounded like me. I thought you might like to read it.
In other news: it’s really hard to teach postmodernism to high schoolers.
http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/004016.html
Sophomore Class Pics
Here’s two shots of my 10th grade homeroom students, taken on our HS trip:
Takin’ it easy…
After a week at school, Sarah and I are finally relaxing: the busy weekends are over… for a while. Today we celebrated a friend’s birthday by playing Settlers of Catan; when we were done we had played three games. (I won two of them, by the way.) We’ve gotten addicted to Settlers of Catan
We recieved some good news this week: our school has been approved to be an official SAT testing site! Usually students from our school and others in the area have had to travel to Beijing or Bankok to take the test, so this will make it much more convenient for them.
Back to School
School is back to full swing again after a week away. Last Wednesday we flew to Beijing for a teacher’s conference; in addition to seeing friends from other schools and having some great conference speakers, we also partook (a funny word) in western food: Outback Steakhouse and Annie’s Italian Restaurant. Outback in Beijing is very similar to the restaurant in the States, sans the Apple goodness usually served with the ribs. China’s eatery substituted a corn and peppers thing. It was ok, but not as good as the cinnamon apples. (I am very much missing hot apple cider this fall. We can warm up apple juice and add some cinnamon, but it’s not the same as this place.)
From here we’ve got a steady pace to keep as we head towards Thanksgiving. Rehearsals for A Christmas Carol start on Wednesday; we don’t get very busy until after the International Schools of China Basketball tournament in the middle of November.
That’s all for now…
Blog update
I’m playing with some of the toys I have available to me on the blog (thanks to these guys) and made it easier to add this blog to your homepage, be it iGoogle, Yahoo, AOL or otherwise. Check out the links on the right side of the page.