Yes... was supposed to be in Nairobi this morning - but if you've watched the news this year you'll understand that taking 18 students to Kenya was not the safest thing to do. So I'm stuck in sthlm for a little longer. Realise this is the first time I write anything in 2008... not much of an update now, just wanted to show you a horrible little piece of propaganda (or an amazing case of being able to stick you head in the sand).
If your Swedish is up to scratch then you might want to see something from the "other" side...
Swedish weather and climate centre (SWC)
if you're Swedish is not great then just look at the pictures and make appropriate noises pretending like you understand. Like the ones I make anytime there is a group of males looking at a car engine - I have no idea! Well, not entirely true. I know where the starter motor is in a 1983 Toyota Corona (two-tone brown... who remembers EVA?), and can even bash said starter motor to help start the car.
Time for school...
rich.
Friday, 15 February 2008
Wednesday, 26 December 2007
Boxing Day
Merry Christmas to you all! I hope the festive season has treated you well. I am in Melbourne and spent yesterday celebrating my grandma's 80th birthday (as well as Christmas!) with my mum's family. Nice weather, good food and great company!
I'm back in Melbourne for 2 weeks and have already seen more sunshine in 3 days than I have in the past 2 months in Stockholm. I lose all sense of time in the afternoon evening as I am used to it being dark by 3pm and it is taking me a while to get used to not having 15 things to do everyday... but I think I'll cope.
I'm about to head out for lunch and the plan is to spend the afternoon hanging out with family and friends, drink a few beers and work on the holiday thing.
Cheers!
I'm back in Melbourne for 2 weeks and have already seen more sunshine in 3 days than I have in the past 2 months in Stockholm. I lose all sense of time in the afternoon evening as I am used to it being dark by 3pm and it is taking me a while to get used to not having 15 things to do everyday... but I think I'll cope.
I'm about to head out for lunch and the plan is to spend the afternoon hanging out with family and friends, drink a few beers and work on the holiday thing.
Cheers!
Sunday, 16 December 2007
Sultan's Revenge
(Written 10 Dec, posted today!)
It’s been a long time since I logged in… and I think each of the past few posts has been accompanied by some weak promise to try to write more often… maybe I should lower expectations and then surprise when I exceed them! I am writing this offline in the air, flying my way back with my school colleagues from a 4 day conference/teambuilding trip in Istanbul. It would seem as though the Beverly Hills surroundings are not always conducive to working and/or creating that wonderful team spirit. Spirit… I now think I should have had a bit more of the liquid variety on Friday as it might have helped kill whatever nasties there were in the food I ate that night. Instead I spent the next 24 hours feeling extremely ill, unable to get out of bed for more than about 10 minutes without feeling nautious, and went about 36 hours without consuming anything more than two glasses of Sprite and one dry cracker – as you can imagine my memories of Istanbul are somewhat tainted. My quite (un)substantial energy reserves are depleted and I am still eating like a mouse, at least I have 2 weeks to build up before the Christmas extravaganza – my first in Australia for 5 years.
Autumn seems to have flown by very quickly, the dark has descended and the snow has made a couple of fleeting appearances. I was in Jönköping (town about 3 hours south of Stockholm) a few weeks ago for the Swedish Swimming Nationals (shortcourse) watching the swimmers I help coach. They all swam well and our club had an extremely successful meet – in our squad we had 6 Swedish records (all 5 men’s relays and 200 IM), 13 gold and 2 bronze. We now have 3 swimmers about to head to European Shortcourse and already have 4 pre-selected for European Longcourse in March (which will be used as Olympic selection trials). I help out 2-3 times a week most weeks, although take more sessions when Anne (coach of the Elite squad that I help) is away for training camps or comps. It’s been a great way to stay connected to elite swimming without having to do all the training! And I try as much as possible to stay out of the politics in the swimming club – sometimes it seems to be worse the smaller an organisation is?!
Beverly Hills High is going along smoothly, the courses I’ve taught before are feeling good and settled and the new ones a challenge to make sure I don’t get complacent. We have also recently confirmed that the Model European Parliament that I attended in Sofia last April will be hosted in Stockholm next year and I will be in some way involved in the organising. This will of course mean more work, but will (hopefully) be fun and definitely good experience. I will also be going up north in Sweden for 4 days at the end of January to accompany 4 students who were selected to participate in another youth parliament there (the essays they wrote meant that our school was selected) – also linked to European Union issues. And if they do well there they may be selected to travel to an international version in Czech Republic or France next year – with a teacher in tow of course! So as you can understand, teaching the spoilt darlings does have its benefits.
I hope all is well in your part of the world.
Eating slowly,
Rich.
It’s been a long time since I logged in… and I think each of the past few posts has been accompanied by some weak promise to try to write more often… maybe I should lower expectations and then surprise when I exceed them! I am writing this offline in the air, flying my way back with my school colleagues from a 4 day conference/teambuilding trip in Istanbul. It would seem as though the Beverly Hills surroundings are not always conducive to working and/or creating that wonderful team spirit. Spirit… I now think I should have had a bit more of the liquid variety on Friday as it might have helped kill whatever nasties there were in the food I ate that night. Instead I spent the next 24 hours feeling extremely ill, unable to get out of bed for more than about 10 minutes without feeling nautious, and went about 36 hours without consuming anything more than two glasses of Sprite and one dry cracker – as you can imagine my memories of Istanbul are somewhat tainted. My quite (un)substantial energy reserves are depleted and I am still eating like a mouse, at least I have 2 weeks to build up before the Christmas extravaganza – my first in Australia for 5 years.
Autumn seems to have flown by very quickly, the dark has descended and the snow has made a couple of fleeting appearances. I was in Jönköping (town about 3 hours south of Stockholm) a few weeks ago for the Swedish Swimming Nationals (shortcourse) watching the swimmers I help coach. They all swam well and our club had an extremely successful meet – in our squad we had 6 Swedish records (all 5 men’s relays and 200 IM), 13 gold and 2 bronze. We now have 3 swimmers about to head to European Shortcourse and already have 4 pre-selected for European Longcourse in March (which will be used as Olympic selection trials). I help out 2-3 times a week most weeks, although take more sessions when Anne (coach of the Elite squad that I help) is away for training camps or comps. It’s been a great way to stay connected to elite swimming without having to do all the training! And I try as much as possible to stay out of the politics in the swimming club – sometimes it seems to be worse the smaller an organisation is?!
Beverly Hills High is going along smoothly, the courses I’ve taught before are feeling good and settled and the new ones a challenge to make sure I don’t get complacent. We have also recently confirmed that the Model European Parliament that I attended in Sofia last April will be hosted in Stockholm next year and I will be in some way involved in the organising. This will of course mean more work, but will (hopefully) be fun and definitely good experience. I will also be going up north in Sweden for 4 days at the end of January to accompany 4 students who were selected to participate in another youth parliament there (the essays they wrote meant that our school was selected) – also linked to European Union issues. And if they do well there they may be selected to travel to an international version in Czech Republic or France next year – with a teacher in tow of course! So as you can understand, teaching the spoilt darlings does have its benefits.
I hope all is well in your part of the world.
Eating slowly,
Rich.
Saturday, 29 September 2007
London
Hello! Having a quick, lazy weekend in London. Visiting Dad for what might be the last time (he's moving to Washington DC soon), and also conincides with his birthday (Monday) - so a great reason to come here and hang out for a couple of days. To that end I won't be writing a whole lot today... you'll all just have to wait until next weekend. I did add a bunch of old photos to facebook - so hopefully you can find them there.
Enjoy,
rich.
Enjoy,
rich.
Saturday, 22 September 2007
PUT
Long time, no write... sorry about that, so many excuses... where to start:
- bathroom renovations took 3 weeks longer than they told us,
- kitchen renovations (but they took 2 days less than planned!)
- now the floors are being sanded and polished, so I'm homeless again but this is the last step! By the middle of next week I'll be able to start cleaning my new apartment and move all the furniture back in... will try to post some pics when it's all done.
- I've also started back at work and it took a while to get up to speed after my long, lazy summer holiday... life's tough.
As I have no home to sit in, I'm in one of the local cafes (usual weekend activity!) and so of course can't help but observe the funny people that are Swedes:
1. A group manage to get a table that a couple have just left. There are of course dirty dishes on the table (they're a bit slow collecting them here sometimes). So the new guests pile them up, pick them up and then look around (as if waiting for the dishes fairy to magically appear and take them... this doesn't happen), eventually they decide to place them on a small table (unoccupied!)... why not just take them to the kitchen - it's just as close!
2. The extraordinary number of couples that come in and avoid asking me if they can share the table I'm on.... Swedes don't do that!!
School has started really well, the new group of brats at Beverly Hills High is as nice as all the others and mostly tanned after a tough summer in St.Tropez, Nice and Monaco. I have a couple of new projects which are really exciting this year, including a course which involves participating in a Model United Nations held in Nairobi, Kenya. So it is off to Kenya for Rich and 18 students (good ones!) in February. I managed to choose (from those that applied for the course) students that it turns out do have a social conscience (more than supporting Sri Lanka/Vietnam/China/or which ever developing nations the world's fashion houses manufacture their clothes in). They have (on their own initiative) contacted an orphanage near Nairobi and are going to collect sponsorship for supplies they need... I was impressed and grateful that they took this step!
Another possible project is not confirmed yet, it will possibly mean a lot of extra work for me but would be lots of fun... I'll let you know if it happens.
As for the title of this post: "PUT", no not "PUT another prawn on the barbie", in fact it is "Permanent Uppehållstillstånd" - Permanent residency... I'm here to stay and now they can't kick me out! I got the letter yesterday so the only thing left is to get it stamped into my passport. Until now I've had to apply for a new work permit every year which, despite being relatively straight forward, has always been a cause of slight worry.
I will leave it here for now, but should hopefully update more regularly than the last 2 months!
take care,
rich.
- bathroom renovations took 3 weeks longer than they told us,
- kitchen renovations (but they took 2 days less than planned!)
- now the floors are being sanded and polished, so I'm homeless again but this is the last step! By the middle of next week I'll be able to start cleaning my new apartment and move all the furniture back in... will try to post some pics when it's all done.
- I've also started back at work and it took a while to get up to speed after my long, lazy summer holiday... life's tough.
As I have no home to sit in, I'm in one of the local cafes (usual weekend activity!) and so of course can't help but observe the funny people that are Swedes:
1. A group manage to get a table that a couple have just left. There are of course dirty dishes on the table (they're a bit slow collecting them here sometimes). So the new guests pile them up, pick them up and then look around (as if waiting for the dishes fairy to magically appear and take them... this doesn't happen), eventually they decide to place them on a small table (unoccupied!)... why not just take them to the kitchen - it's just as close!
2. The extraordinary number of couples that come in and avoid asking me if they can share the table I'm on.... Swedes don't do that!!
School has started really well, the new group of brats at Beverly Hills High is as nice as all the others and mostly tanned after a tough summer in St.Tropez, Nice and Monaco. I have a couple of new projects which are really exciting this year, including a course which involves participating in a Model United Nations held in Nairobi, Kenya. So it is off to Kenya for Rich and 18 students (good ones!) in February. I managed to choose (from those that applied for the course) students that it turns out do have a social conscience (more than supporting Sri Lanka/Vietnam/China/or which ever developing nations the world's fashion houses manufacture their clothes in). They have (on their own initiative) contacted an orphanage near Nairobi and are going to collect sponsorship for supplies they need... I was impressed and grateful that they took this step!
Another possible project is not confirmed yet, it will possibly mean a lot of extra work for me but would be lots of fun... I'll let you know if it happens.
As for the title of this post: "PUT", no not "PUT another prawn on the barbie", in fact it is "Permanent Uppehållstillstånd" - Permanent residency... I'm here to stay and now they can't kick me out! I got the letter yesterday so the only thing left is to get it stamped into my passport. Until now I've had to apply for a new work permit every year which, despite being relatively straight forward, has always been a cause of slight worry.
I will leave it here for now, but should hopefully update more regularly than the last 2 months!
take care,
rich.
Sunday, 22 July 2007
bathroom complete!
Ahhh... yes... you thought it would never happen, well I thought it might never happen, but 2 weeks after they said it would be ready my shower room and the WC are finally completed. And they look great! I have also paid a deposit on the new kitchen I am going to have installed in sept/oct - so by the end of the year I will be showing off my new bach pad in style and seeing if we can't work on that bach status at the same time.
I head off tomorrow for Nationals which are on the west coast, after that I am going to have an extra week on that side of the country hanging out with some friends - eating drinking and relaxing. You know the deal.
A few pics here for you to peruse... have a few more on facebook - for those that have succumb to that dreaded time waster!
Any of you in Stockholm at the end of August? I'm celebrating getting a bit wiser and more mature on 25 aug... let me know if you're nearby.
rich.
I head off tomorrow for Nationals which are on the west coast, after that I am going to have an extra week on that side of the country hanging out with some friends - eating drinking and relaxing. You know the deal.
 |
| Finnhamn 07 |
A few pics here for you to peruse... have a few more on facebook - for those that have succumb to that dreaded time waster!
Any of you in Stockholm at the end of August? I'm celebrating getting a bit wiser and more mature on 25 aug... let me know if you're nearby.
rich.
Tuesday, 17 July 2007
summer in stockholm
I've been decidedly slack with my writing... which can be interpreted as me enjoying my summer holidays and not spending nearly as much time near a computer. I have had a very busy social schedule - 2 weddings since my week in Lisbon and a visitor from Melbourne. The first was a couple from the swimming club here in Stockholm who met 117 years ago on a training camp and have been together ever since - a lovely ceremony followed by an Italian inspired dinner (delicious!) and a party that lasted until dawn. I lasted until about 2 minutes after the couple retired for the evening... can't leave before them!
The next wedding was a kiwi, Paul, and a swede, Sara, that I had worked with at my first school here in Stockholm (the one with the crazy owner, more principals than I can count and a turnover that would make a revolving door cringe). I had the honour of being the toastmaster for the wedding - which meant keeping the whole show running... only forgot one thing (Sara said she's forgiven me!) and everybody seemed to have a great night. A very international flavour to the whole event - Sweden, NZ, UK, Australia, Norway were all represented, which was then followed by a couple of nights out in the archipeligo with some of Paul and Sara's families, me and Kate D (visiting from Melbourne). Although not the finest weather we had a great time and managed to get a couple of swims in (more like jump in, jump out really).
Kate was here for 8 days and experienced the usual Swedish summer of sunshine and rain. We spent a lot of time walking around Stockholm and even made it out to the archipeligo again last weekend. There we visited Anne and Leif, Anne is the coach of the elite squad at Neptun Swimming Club (I'm the assistant coach!), and Anne and I had to have a very important planning meeting:
The wine glasses are purely for show!
Any comments regarding the likeness of me and the monkey will be rudely rebuked.
Not sure if you've heard that all the water pipes for all the bathrooms are being replaced in my apartment building? Like all good builders they are behind schedule ("due to unforseen circumstances" - you hear that phrase so often you think they should just add an extra 25% to any schedule automatically). It is almost over now, it is all tiled and they just have to fit the basins and lights... they have said they'll finish tomorrow, so I hope they keep to that. That would give me just enough time to clean and wash everything before I head to off to Swedish Swimming Nationals next Monday. I'm there to help out with the elite group, and to hopefully swim the 50 free on the last day - it has been giving me motivation to do my knee rehab more consistently, as has the challenge from one of the girls in the club... although she is a world record holder so it's not as easy as it sounds!
Along with the water pipes saga, the other point of frustration this summer has been the annual quest to update my visa. Which involves sending forms backwards and forwards to 2 different administrative bodies... I'm still waiting on the first! The lovely lady that is looking after my papers at the moment has a wonderful job where she only needs to answer the phone between 10am and 11am... amazingly service minded the "public servants", and now she is probably on summer holidays for a month! When do they do any work??!! I'm sure it will all work out, just frustrating while it is all in someone else's hands. Other than that summer has been very relaxing so far, and should continue that way for another 3 weeks!
relaxing,
rich.
The next wedding was a kiwi, Paul, and a swede, Sara, that I had worked with at my first school here in Stockholm (the one with the crazy owner, more principals than I can count and a turnover that would make a revolving door cringe). I had the honour of being the toastmaster for the wedding - which meant keeping the whole show running... only forgot one thing (Sara said she's forgiven me!) and everybody seemed to have a great night. A very international flavour to the whole event - Sweden, NZ, UK, Australia, Norway were all represented, which was then followed by a couple of nights out in the archipeligo with some of Paul and Sara's families, me and Kate D (visiting from Melbourne). Although not the finest weather we had a great time and managed to get a couple of swims in (more like jump in, jump out really).
Kate was here for 8 days and experienced the usual Swedish summer of sunshine and rain. We spent a lot of time walking around Stockholm and even made it out to the archipeligo again last weekend. There we visited Anne and Leif, Anne is the coach of the elite squad at Neptun Swimming Club (I'm the assistant coach!), and Anne and I had to have a very important planning meeting:
The wine glasses are purely for show!Any comments regarding the likeness of me and the monkey will be rudely rebuked.
Not sure if you've heard that all the water pipes for all the bathrooms are being replaced in my apartment building? Like all good builders they are behind schedule ("due to unforseen circumstances" - you hear that phrase so often you think they should just add an extra 25% to any schedule automatically). It is almost over now, it is all tiled and they just have to fit the basins and lights... they have said they'll finish tomorrow, so I hope they keep to that. That would give me just enough time to clean and wash everything before I head to off to Swedish Swimming Nationals next Monday. I'm there to help out with the elite group, and to hopefully swim the 50 free on the last day - it has been giving me motivation to do my knee rehab more consistently, as has the challenge from one of the girls in the club... although she is a world record holder so it's not as easy as it sounds!
Along with the water pipes saga, the other point of frustration this summer has been the annual quest to update my visa. Which involves sending forms backwards and forwards to 2 different administrative bodies... I'm still waiting on the first! The lovely lady that is looking after my papers at the moment has a wonderful job where she only needs to answer the phone between 10am and 11am... amazingly service minded the "public servants", and now she is probably on summer holidays for a month! When do they do any work??!! I'm sure it will all work out, just frustrating while it is all in someone else's hands. Other than that summer has been very relaxing so far, and should continue that way for another 3 weeks!
relaxing,
rich.
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