Synchronicity

Friday was one of those days when it felt like the past and the present had come full circle.

We took our students from school to the "Chinese Cultural Forum 2006" which in itself wasn't that exciting. It did give me the chance though to meet up with several old friends, including my old Chinese teacher of some 15-20 years ago. David and I had a lovely time catching up on life.

When I went back to school, one of my ex-students Michelle, who is currently doing teacher training came in to teach my class as part of her teaching rounds. It was a bizarre experience watching her teach, remembering the young kid she was, not so long ago sitting in my classroom! I wonder if David was having the same memories of me as we were standing and catching up earlier in the day!

It's not too often that we get the chance to see how we have influenced those around us. I hope I have in a small way had some influence on Michelle. And I'd like to take this opportunity to thank David for the enormous influence he's had on me. He is truly a wonderful teacher. And I hope I encourage my kids to love the study of Chinese just as he has done for me.

Talk to you soon!
Hugs
Sandy

Picturesque Scotland

One of my fave things about travelling is taking photos. It's a real joy to be able to look at them later and to be able to share them with friends.

That's what's great about digital cameras - I love having lots of photos I have taken on my computer so that I can view them as screen savers. It can make for amusing conversation starters when I have been using my lap top in class and it goes onto slideshow whilst I am talking!

So I thought I might occasionally share a pic or two.

This one is from my trip to Scotland last year. It was taken on the road to the Isle of Skye. We lost count of the number of times we stopped on the journey to take pictures. I like this one because it's slightly off centre, and because of the way the piece of land in the foreground breaks into the reflection. There's also some little tiny rocks leading out from it which break the perfection on the reflection on the lake.

Ah Scotland! You really are God's own country! There's nowhere on earth quite like it!!

Have a great day!
SB

Visitors from overseas

Hey all,

It's been a great week! We've been lucky enough to have some friends from overseas come to stay, one from Texas and one from the UK. It's been great to show them our beautiful city.

A couple of things struck me though - firstly how much we don't know about how home country or city (in my case Melbourne Australia) or how much we might have known once, but have now forgotten. For example, one of them was asking about Monotremes, as we were at Healesville Sancturary. Now somewhere back in the dim distant past I probably knew quite a bit about egg laying mammals - but really had to think about it!
The other fascinating thing is the words we use and the way we look at the world. We often think of Australia/UK and USA having fairly similar cultures. It's not that way at all!! It was amazing just how many little differences there are between us.

Doesn't that make the world an interesting place to be! So thanks to our friends for enriching us with your visit - I think we got as much from it as you guys did!!

Ciao,

SB

Where to begin?

It's always hard to know where to start with something new isn't it!

My interests are ecclectic in the extreme - so it's rather hard to say what the common thread of this blogsite will be.... guess we'll just wait and see.

Hugs

SB