A week already

August 2

ONE SOLID WEEK UNDER OUR BELTS

One week has passed, yet in some ways it feels like a month and in others it seems we just arrived yesterday.  We are feeling very settled with our place, and getting so with our classrooms.  It will be like Christmas when our shipment arrives in a few weeks (hopefully a few weeks!).  I finally started to feel “ fully normal” yesterday, so I guess I did have some jet lag, despite feeling pretty good and sleeping well still.  We have been getting up earlier (6, 6:30), which is quite nice - except today we could have slept in since it’s Saturday, but Rosemary didn’t get that message…oh well.

Last night we had an all-staff (3 Brent campuses) party at the big clubhouse, complete with ample food and drink (wine and San Miguel beer), a karaoke machine and an instant photo machine.  It was a lovely time and we feel more comfortable with everyone now, and just being ourselves.  It truly is a great staff we have, the new folks included, and everyone is so friendly and helpful.  On our walk home we were discussing how lucky we feel being here.  It was so nice out, with a wonderful breeze, that we couldn’t go in the house, thus we continued walking around the loop.  We saw our Japanese friend, Sugiyama, who we learned just turned 70.  He is a cute, squat man with a bald head and always wears a green long sleeve windbreaker when doing his laps.  He told us about his name: Sugi means cedar and yama means mountain.  What a beautiful name for this wonderful person!