Our move to Houston entered an exciting new phase on Monday when Di and I moved into our new home.  For our first week in Houston, we had been living in a Holiday Inn Express hotel on the freeway near the School because delivery of our furniture had been delayed.  It is still delayed - in fact, it has not yet left Australia - but at least we have now been given an estimated delivery date of late October.  However, our boxes of clothes and books had arrived punctually from Hong Kong.  Furthermore, we decided to buy a bed for our guest room, and when that bed was delivered on Monday, we decided that the time was ripe to move into the house and start living with the boxes that were demanding to be unpacked.

It has been an interesting exercise to get basic services connected to our new home.  Most of the utility companies insist on asking for my Social Security number, which I don’t have, and won’t have for another three weeks or so. They are willing to accept a Texas driver’s licence number as a substitute, but as you need a Social Security number before you can get a Texas driver’s licence, you probably understand the problem.  In the end, giving my passport number, or a hefty cash deposit, or most commonly both, seemed to solve the problem.

My evenings this week have been spent buying furniture and unpacking boxes, but during the day I have been meeting many of the senior administrators and Heads of Department at Awty.  This has been a wonderful experience.  In addition to being a highly competent, visionary and motivated team of professionals, they have been extraordinarily welcoming and hospitable, and it has been a real pleasure to discuss matters of educational philosophy, practice and programs with them.

Our new students came into the School for orientation meetings and testing on Thursday.  I enjoyed meeting the new students briefly during the welcome gathering on Thursday morning, and later I especially enjoyed speaking at greater length with the new parents about Awty’s philosophy of international education.  It was refreshing and energising to chat with parents who were so committed to their children’s future and their place in tomorrow’s globalised society.

Much of Friday was spent as part of the Orientation Day for new faculty and staff.  This was an interesting experience - I began the day by welcoming the new staff, speaking about my personal vision for the school’s future and direction, and then found myself sitting among the new arrivals for the rest of the day to be oriented into the important procedures and practices that are followed here at this large, very efficient, very complex school.

During this week, I did make the time one afternoon to venture outside with my camera and get some photos of the School’s beautiful campus, because I know that many of my friends, and indeed my family, want to know more about this new School that has drawn me all the way to Houston.  I have uploaded a gallery of 30 images of the campus - the link is at the end of this page.  Unfortunately, any school without its students is like an empty shell, but hopefully these images will provide a taste of better things to come.

The gallery can be seen HERE.