New Baby # 2

Well I don’t know if good things come in threes or not- but at least for us this month has been a veritable treat.After our lovely holiday in the Canaries and my sweet little Piglet (see below) and buying our tickets to Santana’s concert in Juen,  I got another cutie new prezzy – a Hyundai i20 RED! Now I am really spoilt. Just hope it’s not true what the car salesman said that police stop people in red cars more. We shall see. Meantime I feel that everything is a little incongruous what with all the terrible world news from Haiti and all .It makes me feel a bit Oscar Wilde-ish decadent.

Then I feel what the hell- there are plenty of people more well off than me,right? There will always be people better and worse off than you are in this oh so consumer world Here is a pic of new baby #2

new Baby #2

Adorable isn’t it? Thinking of calling it Rudolf except that sounds a bit too Germanic. All suggestions will be seriously considered…

The school year which was plodding ponderously along seems suddenly to have speeded up ,with the Winter Bagrut upon us and the end of the first semester and the Purim holidays not far away.So can I start dreaming/planning for the summer holidays, and Japan? Of course I can !

Observed a lesson for my student Michal this week,for the first time.

I was actually very impressed with her classroom control and her rapport with the kids, despite her having to deal with multiple disruptions and even a pillar punkt in the middle of her classroom. She did pretty well and my impression was the most of the kids were actually with her and willing to participate.

Hope she sticks it out – she will be a good teacher. I again reflect on the necessity for novice teachers to have some kind of support and mentoring,without which our job is impossible, frustrating and soul-destroying to say the very least. And again I think how nice it will be to retire early… dream ,dream,dream… etc

Well this has to be a first even for me.Next week we are off to the Canary Isles, for a week,my treat to us for our Silver Wedding Anniversary.And I already have the summer trip partly planned out.The new destination is Japan ,after Ladakh got discarded for various reasons.Firstly the whole thing about how to get there and deal with the altitude worried me a bit from the health point of view.Secondly I keep hearing about people going missing in that region.And also the political thing about Israelis and a general warning against travelling in Muslim areas started getting to me. So then I thought well we have actually already been to India, so let’s go somewhere else. Of course everyone tells you that Japan is a really expensive destination, but actually the price is the same as the rest of Asia, and then when I looked into it I discovered it wasn’t as expensive as I had thought. So that was it!

Anyway, meanwhile we are flying next Friday to Gran Canaria via Madrid, and that is going to be a lot of fun.I have done all my research into the island, booked a self catering apartment in Cordial Mogan and rented a car for the week, so off we go.All I have to do now is get through the last week of school.

Of course, the worst part of the school year is yet to come- Hanuka till Pessach. But the thought that with every day my retirement is approaching is about the only thing keeping me going.We are still toying with the year in China thing, and quite honestly I really think it could be great, assuming that Dad is okay.

Here’s hoping…

Me and Winnie The Pooh

Just messing around with different tools now to learn how to modify my posts. There seem to be lots of different tools around, including google docs (try it later) , and something called odiogo recommended to me by David from classroom web2.0, which he says enables you to try text to speech in your blog. I will try that later, as soon we are going to eat, and then go to a movie!