There have been a lot of updates lately, which will probably be the exception, not the rule ordinarily. This one is not so much a commentary on life but serves more to describe some of the images you’ll be seeing from Day 3…and I know you’ll be interested in some of them!
I found the pool. Not only is the pool…unique, but it hasn’t been cleaned since last summer. So for nearly a year the cover has been on, creating a greenhouse for all kinds of fungi, algae, and God knows what else to grow. The pictures you’ll see reflect this. Amazingly, the pool has since been drained AND cleaned. We are expecting it to be half filled by tomorrow. No diving.
Today was Alex’s birthday. Alex is from San Paolo, Brazil and he is now 18. We started the celebration last night at a local watering hole, the Bella Vista. The party continued this morning at our meeting with a card, balloons, a cake and, of course, a song. The girls were very busy last night! Alex was quite delighted at everything (as you’ll see), and he was especially amused at Dan (the lead CDE counselor, from Tokyo, U.S., Lugano…the list goes on but he lives here now) for joining the girls in leaving their lip prints on the card. This too you’ll see.
I got some great pictures from breakfast. Betsy is in charge of our particular summer program, CDE. All the other people in the pictures are counselors.
Belvedere is the main building we operate out of. My dorm building is Balmelli if I remember correctly. The decorated doors you see are the result of an excellent job by the arts and crafts people getting things ready for tomorrow.
It was a bit cooler today, but still very humid, although I just took a shower and right now it seems pleasant. We had some light thunderstorms earlier today which was kind of exciting. All is going well overall. The kids arrive tomorrow, which will be a very hectic, crazy day. The official plan is to pretty much wing it. For the most part I feel pretty confident, but occasionally I get the feeling like I’m in over my head. I think most of that will go away though once the kids arrive. Right now there is a lot of speculation and uncertainty about a lot of things, especially ESL. Right now I am assigned five students and we have no idea what their level of English is until they take the diagnostic test on Saturday. In the meantime, I’m trying to plan a lesson that will fill up an entire hour, but I don’t know what level to base it on!
Today I spent some time in the office helping them with some computer work. I get the feeling there will be lots of more that in my future, which is of course just fine with me.
We are going to the circus on Saturday, which should be interesting. I will write more about that and the upcoming schedule in the next installment, after the kids arrive. I want to let people know when my downtime is in the event anyone wants to call (although Meghan typically drags me to the bars during those times).
That’s all for now. Enjoy the pictures and keep in touch!