So here we are in the 2009-2010 schoolyear. The sequel to our hilarious cult comedy "The Quattlebaum's go to Monkey-mountain." We're back, and we're up to our armpits in work. Yeah, just let that visual sink in for a bit.
Where do we start? We've been here almost a month now. It's gone by very quickly..and so much has happened.
Lets start with the car. Our fantastic Toyota Corolla.
Our friends and colleagues were incredibly helpful to us last year, but in all of the BIG stuff, some very vital little things were lost. Such as the fact that if you leave your car parked all summer in the driveway... you're going to have a problem when you get back. Lucky for the Q's.. there are two of us, so we each got a problem to deal with.
The first problem was that the entire interior (that's fun to say fast) was completely covered in mold. Fuzzy, green/brown mold. We have cloth seats. So our car's smell resembles that of a sweaty gym sock.
Problem #2. If you leave your car parked all summer, it might not exactly work well when you get back. We replaced the alternator, and the car still wouldn't start. The thing is though, the car seems to have a sense of humor about not working. It's tricky like that. For example, it will start just fine, then we'll drive with our new friends out to eat, or to go grocery shopping, and when we go back out to our car, it just won't start. The engine won't turn over. We now know that the battery had a bad connection, and this has been fixed (we think), but you never do know with our tricky, tricky car. It keeps us on our toes.
On a completely different note, we've met a really nice couple from the U.S. who are about our age, and don't have kids yet. They're also Christians, and their personalities mesh pretty well with ours. It's nice to have a couple to hang out with and do things with. We're really enjoying their company, and they've been extremely good sports about our crazy car.
That brings us to the actual work portion of our 'work' experience. This is where we get a bit busy.
Last year we had ample free time and decided that as 'veterans' here, we needed to become more involved. We definitely got our wish. Melissa is now in charge of coaching the lower-school swim team and I'm in charge of coordinating the lower-school student council. Which means I've been planning our yearly acquaintance party for the last two weeks, trying to get students to plan games etc for us to do. The problem with this is that this weekend there's a professional development opportunity in Manila that many of the teachers are attending..which means our party might not have as much supervision as it needs. It could prove interesting.
Overall we're very happy. Busy, but happy. I'm reminded of something my Dad says though, "If you're not living life on the edge, you're taking up too much space!"
I guess we're taking up just the right amount of space then.
I'll post some pictures of our students and Melissa in action teaching later.
Quattlebaum signing off.
