Return to Sydney
Return to Sydney
The image at the top of this blog was photographed this afternoon in Sydney, where I am currently staying. The image at the foot of this blog shows a scene in Oman that I photographed exactly one week ago. In the period between, I have spent most of my time either working at the College in Hong Kong, or else travelling between the Middle East and Australia via home in Hong Kong. I have certainly noticed the change in weather from Dubai, where it was 45 degrees in the shade, and Sydney where it is overcast and 13 degrees as I write this blog. Perhaps the most comfortable place this week was Hong Kong, where we had crystal clear conditions and warm temperatures of 32 degrees.
My summer explorations largely ended on Monday when we returned to Hong Kong. I spent that afternoon working in my office, catching up on paperwork, a task that continued for the subsequent three days. It is probably surprising to most teachers and students that the summer ‘vacation’ is actually a very busy time. We have a conference occupying the campus at present, and this has meant some quite frantic activity. Amazingly, the enrolments for the new term have still not yet been able to be finalised, with some National Committees still negotiating problem cases, plus some difficulties being encountered by one of our current students who is having some serious troubles obtaining the necessary paperwork to return to Hong Kong for 2nd Year studies in a few weeks. While in Hong Kong, I have also had to review extensive legal feedback on some proposed new policies, prepare a report for the Board on the IB results from the May exams (which were, once again, fantastic - among our best ever and almost certainly among the best of any school in the world!), respond to an article in a Chinese language magazine in Hong Kong about educational myths, receive and review the IBO’s evaluation of the College’s recent self-review, deal with some significant scholarship issues, and so on - you know, the usual things for the Principal of an international school to deal with. More satisfyingly, though, I have been handling quite a few e-mails from my students who seem to be working extremely busily in their various home countries on Geography Extended Essays that I am supervising, as well as their major ToK essays.
However, my primary focus at the moment is Sydney, where Di, Andrew and I are visiting at the moment to catch up with our children. Our oldest daughter (Liesl) and oldest son (Phillip) both live in Sydney with their spouses, and it has been great to catch up with them after long absences. Facebook may be wonderful, but it is no substitute for being with my wonderful children! I can hardly wait until next weekend when our other son, Tim, will arrive in Sydney on weekend leave from his university studies in Queensland and our family will be together again for the first time in several years. I can hardly wait!
Sunday, 22 July 2007
The skies may have been grey and overcast, but the Sydney Opera House still looked magnificent this afternoon as I saw it while walking across the Sydney Harbour Bridge
A wild camel photographed last Sunday as we drove through western Oman from Al-Ain to Hatta in the United Arab Emirates.