So we made it! We are now at the American School of Warsaw, and jumping in with both feet. Our incoming class of new teachers has had quite a bit of fun getting to know each other, and we’ve had full social calendars for the first few weeks. Lots of vodka has been involved.
So there was soooo much going on – we traveled to Chicago (in the previous post), we drove out to Montana with Christy and the girls, she and Rob got married, we prepped Alea for college, and we finalized everything for our move to Poland. Couple with that the fact that our truck threw its transmission and we were without a vehicle for the last week, and you’ve got a pretty crazy period of time. Here are a few pictures from all those adventures…
Susan, Breck, and I ran over to Chicago this past weekend to see Robert and Christy and all the kids. We managed to squeeze in a day at Great America, a visit to the Field Museum, and a Cubs game, so I think we did pretty well!
Our time in Jakarta is drawing to a close, and what better way to celebrate than with a 70’s party?! The drinks flowed, the disco hustled, and – of course – the clothes got swapped.
A group of ’87 BAHS graduates got together in Jakarta yesterday to share memories, stories, and plans for the future. We’ve not seen each other in nearly 30 years (!!), and have been talking about doing this for quite some time, so it was wonderful to finally make this happen. It is a great reminder that, wherever we may be in the world, the Crusader spirit lives on!
Our school takes a week without walls-type trip every year, and so we headed out to Indonesia’s cultural center with 200 6th graders. We got to visit ancient temples, go white-water rafting, view traditional dances, and just do all sorts of fun stuff to wrap up the school year (and our time in Indonesia).
Dug up this old photo for one of those Throw Back Thursday things on Facebook. Northwestern, homecoming, must’ve been 1990? I believe this was even printed in the Sun-Times..
We are selling our family’s vehicle as we prepare to move from Jakarta. It is an automatic transmission, gas (not diesel), seats 5 comfortably with 2 additional “fold down” type seats in the back area, full AC, power windows/locks, radio/CD/cassette(!) player, and is black. When we bought it, there were 77,000km on it; the mileage after our 4 years is now 92,000km, as we live fairly near school and haven’t used it for much more than going back and forth and shopping.
Asking price is $11,000$10,000!! Pictures and info below:
Our final spring break in Indonesia, and we went to one of our favorite places for a week of diving and relaxation.
Come into the deep blue see for some diving pictures!
Alea and Breck will be your guides today…
Mom and dad just try to keep up…
Susan took most of the really cool pictures.
And Dave just tried to figure out our new camera.
Spotted ray
A school of fish – we ran into tons of “swarms” during the week.
Bright light!
Yes, this is fish butt, but I just liked these guys a lot.
Nemo says “Hi!”
A turtle and his remora friend take a break to savor the view.
Hmmm…
Chilling in the shade.
This guy almost smacked Susan in the face.
Know what that is? It is an octopus!
Octopus hanging from the rocks.
Octopus hiding in the rocks.
Octopus coming out of the rocks.
I like eels. Except as meals. And the way they feels.
Swirling in the current.
First nudi picture (don’t worry, there are plenty more).
Two shrimp.
Another nudibranch.
Another moray eel – we saw more eels of all kinds on this trip than ever before….
A little porcelain crab.
Another porcelain crab.
Pygmy seahorse – that”s our guide”s hand, so everything is ok. No great close up…
Wonder why they call these sweetlips?
Just a fun scene over an anemone.
Met up with a guy at our dive shop who gave me some tips about playing around wi…
Met up with a guy at our dive shop who gave me some tips about playing around wi…
Peek a boo.
Two cuttlefish in this picture. We saw lots of them on this trip (and Alea spells them “cuddle fish”)
Another cuttlefish.
I really like scorpionfish. There are a couple more shots in the album where they are even more hidden than this one.
Lionfish.
A turtle resting among some coral.
We were told that “baby sharks don”t count,” but I don”t care. Here are two baby sharks hiding uder a rock.
Here”s an adult swimming around.
There were actually 2 of the adults in the area, but I wasn”t able to get them both in the same frame.
Again, just a lot of fun to try to get fish pix.
This baby fish is about as big as my pinky.
A little puffer fish, hiding from me. It reminds me of a little cat sitting in a corner all curled up.
Another nudibranch – really cool!
So wiggly and fun to watch.
At the end of one of our dives, we came across this huge swarm of glass fish. I love the pictures, but am not sure they do the fascinating scene justice.
Another view of the glass fish.
This was so cool!
Just an all around fun place to be.
Mantis shrimp.
Another one, out in the open.
Oh hey – time for another Nemo shot!
A school of unicorn fish.
Big, bad, triggerfish.
Leaf scorpionfish.
Go home turtle, you”re drunk!
Funky textures.
Lionfish – love all the little horns and things.
Hi, porcupine fish!
Hi, puffer fish!
Another nudibranch – this is a kind our guides really liked and said they hadn’t ever seen before.
I actually got some video of this one crawling along the bottom.
A couple other nudis hanging out.
Nemo’s family at home.
Lion fish in full regalia mode.
A clam being illuminated by our guide”s flashlight. Gives you an idea of what things really look like deep underwater.
A very cool velvety purple nudibranch.
A close up of this one”s antennae.
A crab hanging out.
Brain coral grooves.
A pinnacle full of sea life.
Cuttle fish face.
Here”s the cuttlefish with his buddy the nudibranch in the corner.
Lobster and shrimp. Two great tastes that taste great together.
Seascape.
Turtle in a seascape.
Two little crabs in a coral.
Blue ribbon eel upset at being disturbed.
Alea and Breck explore the deep blue.
Another turtle in full resting mode. Never had seen this before, saw it twice on this trip.
“Hey dude”
Scorpionfish – a face that only a mother could love!
I really do like these guys.
These guys, though, are the real deal!
Here”s a spotted moray checking us out.
A couple of shrimp.
Totally cool colors – I dig the red and yellow together.
Another cuttlefish.
Probably my favorite nudibranch picture – and Susan is the one who took it!
Zoomed in view of the previous shot.
So this is apparently a ribbon of nudibranch eggs!
Reminds me of those little troll dolls with the funky hair.
Cow boxfish – saw these on our first ever muck dive.
Black ribbon eel.
Another first for us – an Indian Walker (aka the Devil Stinger). He’s “hiding” behind a plant.
Another scorpionfish.
Action around an anemone.
Another kind of lionfish.
Glass shrimp.
Here’s a squid guarding its bundle of eggs (the white clump on the right)
Another cool nudibranch.
Another cool ray.
Another Nemo face.
Another nudibranch.
Ninja divers Breck and Alea really did a great job, and we had an all around wonderful time. Thanks to the whole family for a great final week in the Indonesian sun and surf!
Our teams traveled to Vietnam to take part in the regional Mathcounts competition last weekend. Since I started the program at JIS and pushed for an interscholastic tournament, check out the phenomenal growth:
2012 – 18 students from 1 school, school-wide competition in Jakarta
2013 – 49 students from 5 schools, competition in Jakarta
2014 – 72 students from 8 schools, competition in Singapore
2015 – 108 students from 11 schools, competition in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)
I’d say we’ve gotten things pretty well off the ground!
Our annual MS welcome-back party was held last night, and part of the festivities included people’s pictures from the break. Teachers (and spouses) were invited to submit a picture in a number of different categories, and then everyone votes on the winners in each. I’m not sure my entries were as strong as in the past, but it was fun to match up with the different categories! All these shots are from our recent trip to Thailand…
*Update – I noted the winners in the photo caption: I had 4 photos win 1st or 2nd!!
Getting my geek on this weekend: My teaching partner and I are presenting at a Google Summit being held here. Name of our session? Forms As Reflective Tools. We have so much fun with acronyms!
We are missing mom, as she’s back in the US for the month, but are grateful to friends here for hosting yet another spectacular Thanksgiving dinner. Dave and the kids were all excited to get dressed up for the occasion!
A friend of ours from Mumbai recently foisted one of those Facebook “challenges” on me the other day to post a black and white photo 5 days in a row.
Now, I do have to make a confession: I think black and white is kinda cheesy and a cop-out. Just let me explain.
First of all, who shoots in black and white? In the olden days, when there was only black and white film, that was one thing. But once there was color film – and especially since we now shoot digitally – why, oh why in the world would anyone choose to shoot in black and white? You can always change color to b/w in processing, but if you take a picture without the color information, you can’t get it back. So to my way of thinking, anyone who takes pictures in b/w is just being silly for whatever reason.
Secondly, I think it is a lot easier to mess around with a black and white picture, adjusting things here and there, than it is with color. You don’t have to worry about one hue being too garish or not seeing the one little stripe of really pretty pink: there are no colors! Just jack up the contrast or whatever, and voilà – you have a picture. So it seems a far lesser challenge to get a black and white photo ‘right.’
And that brings me to the third reason: ANY FREAKING PICTURE YOU PRINT IN BLACK AND WHITE AUTOMATICALLY LOOKS ARTSY!! It doesn’t have to be a good picture – just change it to black and white, blow it up real big, and hang it on the wall as a piece of Serious Art. I guarantee you people will walk up to it, hand on chin, and say “hmmmmm” like it is something by a Renaissance master.
OK – enough of that. Here are the pictures I posted with the story of each:
Here’s a black and white shot of a sleepy little eastern Montana town, taken during my journey to our Helen cabin this past summer.
We came across this old man repairing a boat in the Four Thousand Islands region of Cambodia last year. I thought the lighting was pretty cool.
From yesterday’s rainstorm, here is black and white photo #3. We had a tree blow down in the back yard, and this is a shot of the water droplets on an overturned leaf.
This is a Thanksgiving-related post for black and white photo #4. In 2008, we lived in Mumbai, and Breck and I planned to use the holiday to explore the new elevated walking path running over some local slums down to the train station. When the news broke of the terrorist attacks downtown, however, all plans changed, and we stayed at home for the next few days. We didn’t take our walk for more than another year, but during the last week of school in 2010, we finally did. This is a shot from above of some women washing clothes in the offspill from city water pipes.
You seriously are missing out if you have never attended camel races in Oman. I’d even match them up against the Indonesian Pacu Jawi event. We were way out in the middle of nowhere, and to see these animals thundering down the dry canal was something else. I love the way the one guy is holding onto his turban! We were the only non-Omanis there, and once again had a pretty special experience as a family.
Alea and I got home from school – after a mongo rain, wind and lightening storm – to find that one of the biggest trees in our yard had broken! While it fell on our roof (and reached almost to the top!), there was no damage inside or outside that we could see. Wow!!
Spent the day collaborating with local teachers, helping out with a workshop about “Applications of Mathematics in the real world.” Susan set up a whole series of activities revolving around math problem solving strategies, and I was able to lead a couple of small group sessions on gathering data and displaying/interpreting graphs.
Lots of smiles all around, and a reminder to myself that A) Susan and I are really are a pretty awesome team together and B) living around the world affords us some astoundingly unique life opportunities.
So Batik is the national fabric of Indonesia, and everyone wears it from time to time. We decided to all wear Batik this Friday, so here is a shot of a few faculty/staff on the Bali stage –
Math department dinner last night – great colleagues, super food, and a late night in the pool! Thanks to all who made it (including our principal party crasher)!
I had the chance to attend an Indonesian cow racing mud spectacle this weekend, and had quite the time. Pacu Jawi is a festival marked by, well, basically cow-surfing through flooded rice paddies. The riders typically grip the tails of two cows that are yoked together with wooden slats, and then hang on for dear life as they are stampeded through a flooded rice paddy. Outstanding stuff!!
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