Act 1, Scene 1: Three days in Las Vegas

First, there's the requisite 24-hour ordeal to fly from NZ to Las Vegas:
:) bought a bran muffin at the airport. Mmmmm.
:( obese man sitting next to me on the plane, who has the armrest up. I immediately put it down. Later, while I was asleep, he put it up again. I put it back down. I don't think he would have done the same thing if Curt had been sitting there instead of me. Grrrr.
:( while at LAX switching planes, am reminded how many people wear those little Bluetooth telephone earpieces. Thank goodness that trend hasn't hit NZ yet.
• Helen Mirren was in line at the security check. Also at the airport, saw that guy who plays Grissom on CSI, who ended up being on our plane. His show is filmed in Las Vegas, after all. He patiently stood for photos with fans at the Las Vegas airport while waiting for his limo driver. When I tell my students later that I saw him, they are apoplectic that I didn't have my picture taken with him.
• arrived in Las Vegas. Weather is perfect, but we're exhausted and grimy. I've found a Mrs. Fields Cookie store at the airport already. I could smell it.
:( walked from our hotel to Mandalay Bay to see our first show, Mama Mia. It's next to impossible to find the actual theater in the complex. They make you snake through the casino to get there.
:) loved Mama Mia! Perfect show to see when jet-lagged.
:( tried to buy a cup of coffee, were forced to walk through a smokey casino only to find the coffee shop overflowing with customers
:( tried again to buy coffee, were forced to walk through another smokey casino only to find the coffee shop closed
:( :( tired and frustrated and sick of being forced to walk through smokey casinos. I just want to get the hell out of there, but we keep going deeper and deeper into the maze. I finally ask a shopkeeper how to escape to some fresh air and he directs me to an emergency door that mercifully leads to the employee parking lot. Ah. Freedom.
:( :( :( I hate Las Vegas already.
:) next day, we decide to shop instead of setting foot in any casinos. Curt needs new running shoes, which are way more expensive in NZ. I need jeans. Ditto. We have some success, although ...
:( :( ... after 3 or 4 purchases in a row, my credit card is mysteriously declined. It takes us a good 24 hours hours to get this straightened out. Apparently, when we suddenly started using our (US) card after it had been lying dormant for 6 months, it triggered a security alert to make sure the card hadn't been stolen. In theory, it's a nice idea, but in this case it was complicated to un-block it. I was not happy.
? Am I being a whiner?
:( while I'm ranting, what's with all the leopard print clothes? I've been out of the country for 2 years, and didn't know it was so popular.
:( :( :( :( :( the worst part, though, is all the people handing out advertising cards for local strip shows. There are 5-10 of these people on each block, clicking and flicking their cards in an attempt to get your attention. Mostly, the cards end up all over the sidewalks which are therefore covered with porn ads 24/7. Delightful.
• am definitely whining (or as they would say in NZ, "whingeing")
:) went to the Guggenheim museum in the Venetian which was a small exhibit but contained major artists, major works. Not crowded at all. Who visits Las Vegas and goes to a museum?
:) also stopped by the Bellagio lobby to see the glass art ceiling by Dale Chihuly, a Seattle glassblower. Who visits a casino just to admire the ceiling?
:) :) went to our next show, Cirque du Soleil's homage to the Beatles called "Love." It was absolutely, fantastically, tremendously phenomenal!!! Knew all the words to all the songs, and sang along. They are so creative, using trampolines, skaters on ramps, people in and on and out of a VW Bug, blowing bubbles, suspended dancers (of course), counter-balanced ladder on a wheel with a girl on the top end, tricycle propelled by empty boots (no rider), gigantic white parachute covering the entire audience, silhouettes of the Beatles, and voice-over of them chatting in the recording studio. Way cool.
:( couldn't find our way out after the show. Why do they make it so hard to exit? Sheesh.
:) on our last day, we rented a car and drove to Hoover Dam because the dam engineer in the family wanted to see the mother of all dams. He was suitably impressed. Big turbines and intake towers and tailrace and other dam parts. Plus it was good to get out of the city.
:) on our way to the show tonight, we wandered through Caesar's Palace shopping area which was NON-SMOKING. Caesar's is my new favorite. Ate dinner at a deli there.
:) :) :) went to our last show, Spamalot. Busted our guts, laughing. Silly and funny and clever and hilarious and great. "You can't make it on Broadway without Jews" in one song, made fun of gays in another, and "There's always a song like this." Good fun.
:( one last time through the smokey casino to exit. So tired of it all. Then have to weave through all the people on the sidewalk like an obstacle course. Phew.
:) We spent 3 days here, and never gambled a cent.

Sydney, day 3

Curt went running this morning but I stayed in bed. I'm the lazy bum of the family. Still, we were out the door by 8:30 which is pretty good for us. There's a Lindt Chocolate store/cafe on the corner that I had my heart set on, but they didn't open until 10. What is wrong with those people??? Don't they know there's a chocoholic in town who needs her chocolate pronto? So we end up at Starbucks for the mandatory crappuccino ( a word Austin invented 10-15 years ago and is always pronounced with a high pitched parrot-like squawk "CCRRAAPuccino") for Curt while I pig out on a muffin. Then we're off to sketch the opera house. OK, I'm using the word "we" loosely. Curt will sketch while I will sit/read/etc.

While we walk, he tells me of his adventure this morning: running through the trendy/seedy neighbourhood called Kings Cross (like Capitol Hill?) and seeing a prostitute (male? female?) dressed in full gear (pink lingerie) after a presumably busy night. Hmmm.

He's found a shady bench with a great view of the opera house and gets right to work. Annoyingly, there's a little red tourist train that passes by every 15 minutes, and we get to hear the same spiel over and over "... and the design for the opera house was inspired by orange peels ..." After a couple of hours, Curt's masterpiece is finished, and the tops of his sandal-clad feet are beginning to turn red. It must be time to stop.

After a quick lunch at a sandwich kiosk (and the obligatory ice cream bar), we take an official tour of the opera house. Curt is in his element here. He gets to hear all about how many roof tiles there are, how many tonnes of reinforced concrete were used, and he especially likes the pre-cast, post-tension ribs. Don't ask.
He also seems quite taken with the story of the Danish architect, who quit halfway through the project after too many cost overruns and 14 years of delays. Apparently he refused to compromise on quality so he left. And he has never returned to see the Opera House completed! Forty years later, it appears the Australian government is attempting to patch up relations with Mr. Utzon (who is still alive), and in response his son travelled to Sydney to help with some modernisation plans. Curt admires the way Utzon stuck to his principles, and never sold out.

After the tour, we walk to the Sydney Harbour Bridge and climb another 200 steps (we already went up 200 steps in the opera house tour) to the top of the pylon for the view from the overlook. Naturally, this jaunt includes lots of information about how the bridge was built, how much steel was used, how long it took ... Look at the size of those girders! He loves this stuff.

As we head back to the hotel, we notice a crowd sitting on the grass in a park, watching a giant screen TV. You'll never guess what's on. Cricket. It's a competition between the Aussies and the Poms (English) and people are riveted to the games all week. Each game lasts 3-4 days, and there's 5 games. I swear I've been trying really hard to understand the game of cricket but it's just baffling if you ask me. I love the way they break for tea halfway through the match, though. The cricket games are broadcast on screens all over the city, and the scores are constantly updated on the ticker-tape style news display in downtown Sydney, just like the one in Times Square in New York City. But every time we passed the news ticker here, all the news was about sports: which boat was winning the yacht race (Wild Oats?), which boat had broken its mast again (New Zealand's), how badly the Aussies were beating the Poms (absolutely annihilating them), and the retirement of one of the Aussie cricket stars (bad boy Shane Warne). There really wasn't any "hard" news to report, which is actually rather comforting. One day they added a line about Gerald Ford's death, but then the news returned to yacht racing and cricket. As it should.

Christmas letter 2006

As you are unwrapping your gifts on Christmas morning, we will be celebrating our one-year anniversary of immigrating to New Zealand. As expected, it’s been a grand adventure:

We arrived last year on Christmas Day and spent the next month or so finding a place to live, buying cars (for driving on the other side of the road) and appliances (with funny-looking plugs), and job-hunting for Curt.

He quickly got a job as a hydropower engineer, which has been an easy-peasey transition from his work in the hydro industry in Oregon. He's still a dam engineer. He likes it. He visits lots of dam job sites and coordinates things with the dam contractors. Really. He also likes to ride his bike to work every day, as long as he doesn’t get a puncture. He eventually resorted to bullet-proof (Kevlar) tyres. Really.

My first job as an intermediate school teacher turned out to be a major dog’s breakfast (if you can’t imagine what this phrase might mean, you’ll find the definition in the next paragraph). For instance, one day a student got angry and chucked a chair through the window and broke it (the window, not the chair). I was absolutely gob-smacked. Well, that job was making me miserable so now I have a different job as a school librarian at a posh private high school for girls. (On a side note, I never imagined myself surrounded by 1500 females, having lived with 2 brothers, then a husband and 4 sons!) Being a librarian is everything I love - books, organising, bulletin board displays, students who want to read, no grading papers and no report cards. It's a dream job. It was a struggle to leave teaching behind, though, and I may still go back to it someday. For now, I'm loving the freedom and the time that comes with NOT being a teacher, which allows me to explore and enjoy New Zealand more.

Throughout the year, we’ve tried to do some traveling around New Zealand and so far we have seen the national capital building (called the Beehive), giant kauri trees, endangered kiwi birds, stinky sulphur geysers in an active volcano area, Maori cultural performances, museums, concerts, bookstores, oodles of sheep, and tonnes of beaches. We’ve learned about ANZAC Day and Guy Fawkes Day, rugby and cricket (well … not so much about cricket). We’ve eaten pavlova (a dessert) and kumara (a sweet potato). We still manage to muck up the pronunciation of both Kiwi/English and Maori words, but we have figured out that taxes are called rates and the mailman is called a postie. We also know that wop-wops is any remote area out in the middle of nowhere, and a dog’s breakfast means a real mess. Living in a different country on the other side of the world is an exhilarating experience, constantly learning new and exciting things.

In July, we went back to visit the familiar world of Bellingham. My dad had suffered a stroke (plus 3 more since then) and I stayed for 2 weeks. For now, he’s unbelievably frail but still hanging on. My mom is a saint and is (of course) coping extraordinarily well with some assistance from hospice care, and from Austin & Nolan who both live in town and help devotedly. In addition, my brother and his family have recently moved back to Bellingham so for the most part, everything is sussed (taken care of).

While we were in Bellingham, we got to see all 4 boys and loads of old friends, which was nice. Nolan graduates from WWU in March, and he & his girlfriend will be coming to stay with us in New Zealand for 2 months. Carlin graduates from Multnomah Bible College in May and is coming out for a while. Boone started the engineering program at UW in the fall, but may change his plans and come to NZ for a while, too. That’s fine with us; we like having them around. The only one who doesn’t have immediate plans to visit is Austin, who is content in Bellingham with a good job and a long-term girlfriend.

We also bought a house in September (so we’d have room for the boys to visit) and are all moved in. We were in a small rental house before, so it feels good to be more permanently shifted; to finally unpack everything and to get sorted. (Amazingly, nothing in the container was broken when it was shipped across the ocean.) Even better, we have a real address this year so everyone can post Christmas cards to us!

Meanwhile, we found a nice church home and joined the choir and have made heaps of friends. Last weekend was our church’s big Messiah sing-along: two hundred people singing Halleluiah Chorus + soloists from the opera company + a trumpeter = a flash event. It is a little strange here to have all the Christmas music and Christmas sales going on while it's 75º out and everybody's shopping in jandals (flip-flops). But I’m not complaining.

Curt’s company closes down their entire office for 2 weeks at Christmas time, and my school will be closed for summer holiday by then, so we're flying across the ditch to Sydney Australia for a week. Christmas in Sydney will be pretty cool (actually it'll be pretty hot, but you know what I mean), especially the New Year’s Eve fireworks from the Harbour Bridge.

So while you’re toasting each other with champagne on New Year’s Eve, think of us toasting each other with champagne overlooking the Sydney Opera House. Even though we’ll actually be in Australia at the time, we’ll still be toasting our new life in New Zealand. Ultimately, it’s turned out to be a brilliant year. Cheers!

JOBS: Cheers and Tears

First for the CHEERS:
Curt got a job! It's perfectly suited for him because it's a position as a structural engineer for the hydro department of a big firm (a dam engineer). It's exactly what he did at PacifiCorp in Portland and he truly enjoyed his work there. So it was perfect to find an opening that fits so well. Of course, they're probably happy that they found a candidate that suited the job so well, too!

It was a L O N G process. He actually inquired about the position in early December before we moved, and he was finally hired on Jan 31. First, he had a pre-interview with the recruiter in charge. Then he had an initial interview with two of the bosses at the company. A few days later, he had to return for 2 hours of psychometric testing (!). It was similar to an SAT test, including reading comprehension, analogies, and math patterns & problem solving. THEN he had one more "structured" interview. Well, I guess he passed the test and the interviews because they hired him.

He'll be working for a company called Maunsell, an international firm based in Australia that does work in New Zealand, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Qatar, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam. They even do some work in Afghanistan. They do buildings, defence, power, transport, etc. Can you tell I've been reading their glossy brochure? :)

Anyway, it feels good to know he has a job. As Curt says, "It's a relief. It's nice to feel wanted. I'm looking forward to getting back in the groove again and getting my brain engaged. It'll be good to have some social contact with other people in this country." And honestly, we've both been getting pretty bored sitting around for the last 6 weeks.

Now for the TEARS:
I started my job on Feb 2nd for two days of staff meetings and team planning. My head is spinning. There is so much new information to take in (and I miss a few words here and there, because of the accent) that I get overwhelmed. Contrary to the title above, I haven't actually cried ... yet. But I'm pretty darn close at times.

I debated whether to discuss my problems in this blog. Obviously, I'd prefer to tell you about all the things that are going right. But it only seems fair to include the frustrations so you will have a more complete picture. Besides, I like to vent occasionally. Prepare for a little whining.

Basically, I'll be teaching 29 13-year olds and I'm in charge of teaching reading (good,) writing (good), social studies (good), and maths (not as good, although at least there is a textbook I can use for this). Yes, it's called maths here, not math. I guess since it's short for mathematics, it makes certain sense. In addition to the subjects I teach, my students go see other teachers twice a week for PE, art, music, home ec, tech, and science (really good!). I also fill in for the librarian for 2 periods and teach computers for 2 periods to fill out my schedule.

It sounds doable, but somehow I feel like I'm drowning. All these new concepts and new processes and new lingo that I'm trying to comprehend haven't jelled in my brain yet, like jello when you first mix it up and it hasn't set. It will take a while for all these new ideas to solidify. Meanwhile, my head is full of mush and I'm not used to that.

Here's a small example of the kind of problems I have in understanding everything that is being said: The students work in exercise books, not loose-leaf paper in a binder. Their supply list says to bring a 1B5 for maths and three 2B8s for literacy and a 3A1 for spelling. Huh? I went to the stationary store tonight to find out what these things are. Anyway, these kinds of things pop up in every minute or two so I'm always a few steps behind because of these huge gaps in background knowledge. It sure gives me empathy for recent immigrant children who are not only learning a new language, but struggling with a new culture all day!

The other two problems are concerning my classroom:
1. My room is totally empty and unsupplied.
This classroom wasn't used last year, so there was no stapler or pencils or construction paper or anything. (I went shopping tonight and spent my allotted $40, which didn't go far) There wasn't even any desks for the kids, but they found some old, wooden, broken, cracked, graffitied desks for my students to use until newly purchased desks arrive ... in a month or two. The chairs are moulded plastic chairs like patio chairs. There's no file cabinet or tables or counters. There's an old teacher desk with 2 drawers.

2. The container full of our belongings – including 40 boxes of my classroom stuff, bookshelves, etc. – hasn't arrived yet. So I don't have the files full of all my lessons and ideas. I feel crippled without those. I don't have my huge collection of young adult novels (and the school library isn't open yet) so my students can't start silent reading yet. I have no posters on the wall. Those of you who know how much time I spend fixing up my classroom and making it welcoming for the first day will know how disappointing it is for me to have to welcome students to a bare room with depressing old desks. Ugh.

I guess I could compare it to going camping and all you have is the tent. No matches. No pots. No food. No toilet paper. No sleeping bag. No hatchet. Just a tent.

All right, that's enough woe-is-me. Let's talk about some good aspects now:
• They provided a laptop. (OK, so I lied about the tent being empty. There's a laptop in there.)
• There's a huge walk-in closet. (Eventually I will have lots of stuff to put in there)
• I only have 29 kids.
• There's a twenty minute break in the morning for tea. And there's an hour for lunch.
• The room has whiteboards and carpeting (my classroom in Portland had chalkboards and linoleum)
• I won't have to score papers and assign point values for everything. (Instead, I write descriptive grade reports twice a year telling their level and what they need to work on)
• Everyone says my name correctly because here, Megan is always pronounced MEE-gan.
• I won't be bored any more.
• Nobody chews gum. :)

Now I will end with 2 funny stories about accents:
• When filling in for the librarian, I will be seeing the students from Room 2 and Room 6. The Deputy Principal tells me that Room 2 is "Lunn's" class and Room 6 is "Dorn's" class. Later, I figured out that he said Lyn and Dawn, not Lunn and Dorn. Oops. I'll get the hang of this accent eventually.
• At the opening assembly on the first day of school, each teacher reads their class list outloud to announce which kids are in which class. The principal recommended that everyone practice pronouncing the names on their list. However, they quickly assigned a different teacher to read my list at the assembly because I can't even pronounce the white kids' names "right" let alone the Maori names like Rangitawhiti Arama. :)

Well, now you know how I'm feeling on the 2nd day of my job. :(
I'm sure when I write again about my job in month or so, things will be better. :)