I awoke yesterday and then again today to an unusual sight. The ground outisde our hotel is wet. Yes, rain I presume. Or precipitation of some sort. I haven't seen it rain and apparently it has only rained 2 or 3 times in the last year. But the prayer gound was glistening. I haven't been here long enough to call it amazing but I'm sure in time it will be.
I've had progress and my son now has a residency visa. Once I have it stamped at immigration (yes, another stamp with a huge cost) then he can go and get his medical card and start the process for his ID card. So a major step forward.
There has been no word on our accomodation yet. There are four of the original group left in the hotel, everyone else has been placed in their appartments and have been busy moving. The hotel is very quiet and I miss the company at breakfast. As it is currently a two week spring break I imagine we'll be here in the hotel for that as the staff have gone on break also. Besides, I don't want to hassle them as those that have received horrible appartments. They are putting us mostly into furnished appartments of teachers who have left as the lease is already paid on them until the end of the school year. Once the lease if up we've been told we will be able to choose where we want to be. All my close friends got unfurnished places so they've been busy organising to get furniture delivered. I've spent more time in furniture shops in the last few weeks than I've ever done in my life.
I'm staying here in Abu Dhabi for the break due to having to renew my passport. I had less than six months left on it when I arrrived in the UAE so couldn't travel anyway. It seems to be quicker to get a new passport issued in London so I've sent it off there. Consequently I can't travel on my old one now so need to wait. I've arranged to have it sent to the NZ Embassy here in Abu Dhabi. I've also got myself a PO Box so I can get mail sent to me here.
We've beeen out looking for schools for my 16 year old son. We've been to two so far. It's a major mission to get into a school here with many full. It was a major to organise to have time off work to do this as most of the schools are way out of town. Also the school year doesn't correspond with the southern hemisphere one, neither does the programme and exams. He will have to sit exams to see what year level he will fit into. At one school they have half the number of places in year 12 as students so you have to get an A to get into the year 12 academic classes. When I asked the Principal what happens to the other 60 kids, his response was, "I tell them to find another school."
We were lucky to visit that school twice as I had been told repeatedly that we wouldn't get into it. It is a long way out of town from where I work and as I'm not sure where we'll be living the travel would be slow due to the volume of traffic.
The second school is one block from where we're staying now. It has the most amazing architecture and we were very impressed. The facilities are the best I've seen in a school with small class sizes. 6th formers have their own common room with direct access to a mezzanine floor in the library for their use. They also have a strong sport programme especially in rugby. The negative is that their fees are out of my league. The school itself was very welcoming with the rugby coach making an effort to come over and talk to us then the Principal himself arrived to invite us to have a chat after our tour. Which we did. Within an hour or so he'd phoned back to Nelson to get a reference and was waiting to phone Blenheim. He was interested when I mentioned that there'd been a sport scholarship previously and he said they have one. So we're hoping that this school comes through. Class placing and subject choices will be based on testing after the spring break. As both schools run a British system you only choose 4 core subjects to take in Year 12.
I'm trying to update my blog with some modern technology as my skills at computing seem to have gone out the window. However, I couldn't even download a video yesterday so will have to stick with photos until I master my new iphone and the programmes on this PC. Watch this space.
I've had progress and my son now has a residency visa. Once I have it stamped at immigration (yes, another stamp with a huge cost) then he can go and get his medical card and start the process for his ID card. So a major step forward.
There has been no word on our accomodation yet. There are four of the original group left in the hotel, everyone else has been placed in their appartments and have been busy moving. The hotel is very quiet and I miss the company at breakfast. As it is currently a two week spring break I imagine we'll be here in the hotel for that as the staff have gone on break also. Besides, I don't want to hassle them as those that have received horrible appartments. They are putting us mostly into furnished appartments of teachers who have left as the lease is already paid on them until the end of the school year. Once the lease if up we've been told we will be able to choose where we want to be. All my close friends got unfurnished places so they've been busy organising to get furniture delivered. I've spent more time in furniture shops in the last few weeks than I've ever done in my life.
I'm staying here in Abu Dhabi for the break due to having to renew my passport. I had less than six months left on it when I arrrived in the UAE so couldn't travel anyway. It seems to be quicker to get a new passport issued in London so I've sent it off there. Consequently I can't travel on my old one now so need to wait. I've arranged to have it sent to the NZ Embassy here in Abu Dhabi. I've also got myself a PO Box so I can get mail sent to me here.
We've beeen out looking for schools for my 16 year old son. We've been to two so far. It's a major mission to get into a school here with many full. It was a major to organise to have time off work to do this as most of the schools are way out of town. Also the school year doesn't correspond with the southern hemisphere one, neither does the programme and exams. He will have to sit exams to see what year level he will fit into. At one school they have half the number of places in year 12 as students so you have to get an A to get into the year 12 academic classes. When I asked the Principal what happens to the other 60 kids, his response was, "I tell them to find another school."
We were lucky to visit that school twice as I had been told repeatedly that we wouldn't get into it. It is a long way out of town from where I work and as I'm not sure where we'll be living the travel would be slow due to the volume of traffic.
The second school is one block from where we're staying now. It has the most amazing architecture and we were very impressed. The facilities are the best I've seen in a school with small class sizes. 6th formers have their own common room with direct access to a mezzanine floor in the library for their use. They also have a strong sport programme especially in rugby. The negative is that their fees are out of my league. The school itself was very welcoming with the rugby coach making an effort to come over and talk to us then the Principal himself arrived to invite us to have a chat after our tour. Which we did. Within an hour or so he'd phoned back to Nelson to get a reference and was waiting to phone Blenheim. He was interested when I mentioned that there'd been a sport scholarship previously and he said they have one. So we're hoping that this school comes through. Class placing and subject choices will be based on testing after the spring break. As both schools run a British system you only choose 4 core subjects to take in Year 12.
I'm trying to update my blog with some modern technology as my skills at computing seem to have gone out the window. However, I couldn't even download a video yesterday so will have to stick with photos until I master my new iphone and the programmes on this PC. Watch this space.
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