School Break
Sarah's school is on break all week. Margo will take off Friday and Thursday afternoon, when we'll leave town for a trip to Paris on the Eurostar (the "Chunnel" train).
I've got to keep Sarah busy somehow for the other three days. I'm challenged enough keeping her busy for the two and a half hours every weekday after school before Margo comes home. This is a reversal for us. I want to be working, and Margo wants to be more involved in Sarah's schooling and playtime.
But I've come up with some activities to fill that time with Sarah. We often play football in the backyard. We used to just take turns playing goalie and forward, but now we do warmups, warmdowns, and some drills like passing and dribbling.
I'm also ashamed to say that we've been spending lots of time with our TV. It's weird, not having owned one before.
We bought a PlayStation 2. We own an auto racing game (Gran Turismo 4) that lets us race against each other. For a while we'd do ridiculous matchups, like I'd be driving a 1948 Volkswagen Beetle or a 1981 Volvo wagon and she'd be driving a BMW M3 or an Aston Martin DB5. But I'd still sometimes win because she'd lose control on corners. But now that she's getting better, so have my cars. Nowadays I usually drive a Mini Cooper S. We can also rent PS2 games from the library for a week at a time (that's one of the reasons I went with the PS2 over other consoles). We're currently borrowing Spider-man 2. I like it because there's a fully rendered New York skyline to swing around, and now that I've been there, I recognize lots more. Sarah just likes fighting bad guys.
I've also been catching up on Doctor Who episodes on DVD. Back in the States, I'd been reading in my British music mags about how the new series was so much improved, with smarter stories and special effects that don't make you laugh, but could never find them in video stores. I'm almost through watching the first series with Christopher Eccleston. Even Margo likes it now. And tonight on BBC 3 is the debut of Torchwood, a more adult spinoff.
And we sometimes watch children's television. I don't feel too guilty about that because it's quite educational and well written and produced. One of our favourites is Stupid, the adventures of King Stupid and his assistant Goober who look down on us mortals and make us do stupid things. But it's really sketch comedy for kids, and written smartly enough that adults will enjoy it too. (I also really like the way the English pronounce "stupid": it's not "stoo-pid", but "styoo-pid".)
Sarah and I also go swimming at the pool once a week (in addition to her Saturday swim class). We also occasionally go to Christchurch Park. We often visit the library; Sarah got her own library card this week.
Fortunately, for the week of school break starting tomorrow, the Suffolk Council has coordinated lots of activities for kids around town. I'm planning on taking Sarah to play football and do arts and crafts at community sports centres, plus there are kid's matinees at the Ipswich Film Society and some Halloween activities at Christchurch Mansion.
As for me ... well, the week after next, I'm planning to break out of this town. Really, in the month we've been here, there's only been two real work opportunities for a Java developer in Ipswich. One required experience with SMS messaging; the other is ongoing and I haven't heard back, but it's been weeks so I'm assuming the worst. Instead, I'll give London a try.
London is doable if I can negotiate earlier hours. If I leave by 4 or perhaps even 4.30 pm, I can make it back to Ipswich in time to pick up Sarah at 6, though I may have to use cabs daily instead of buses to get me to and from the train station. This would be a win-win-win: I'd be growing my skills; I'd earn more in London than Ipswich; I'd enjoy the train rides and the free time on them; it would be great to get to know London well; Sarah will prefer playing with other kids after school than with me; and the extra income will let us build up our savings and finance some nice trips.
I'm also really looking forward to working again. I don't take well to having too much idle time - I don't know what to do with myself. And I haven't had much opportunity to meet other people here - mostly other school mums in our neighbourhood - so it would be great to meet some mates at work.
I've got to keep Sarah busy somehow for the other three days. I'm challenged enough keeping her busy for the two and a half hours every weekday after school before Margo comes home. This is a reversal for us. I want to be working, and Margo wants to be more involved in Sarah's schooling and playtime.
But I've come up with some activities to fill that time with Sarah. We often play football in the backyard. We used to just take turns playing goalie and forward, but now we do warmups, warmdowns, and some drills like passing and dribbling.
I'm also ashamed to say that we've been spending lots of time with our TV. It's weird, not having owned one before.
We bought a PlayStation 2. We own an auto racing game (Gran Turismo 4) that lets us race against each other. For a while we'd do ridiculous matchups, like I'd be driving a 1948 Volkswagen Beetle or a 1981 Volvo wagon and she'd be driving a BMW M3 or an Aston Martin DB5. But I'd still sometimes win because she'd lose control on corners. But now that she's getting better, so have my cars. Nowadays I usually drive a Mini Cooper S. We can also rent PS2 games from the library for a week at a time (that's one of the reasons I went with the PS2 over other consoles). We're currently borrowing Spider-man 2. I like it because there's a fully rendered New York skyline to swing around, and now that I've been there, I recognize lots more. Sarah just likes fighting bad guys.
I've also been catching up on Doctor Who episodes on DVD. Back in the States, I'd been reading in my British music mags about how the new series was so much improved, with smarter stories and special effects that don't make you laugh, but could never find them in video stores. I'm almost through watching the first series with Christopher Eccleston. Even Margo likes it now. And tonight on BBC 3 is the debut of Torchwood, a more adult spinoff.
And we sometimes watch children's television. I don't feel too guilty about that because it's quite educational and well written and produced. One of our favourites is Stupid, the adventures of King Stupid and his assistant Goober who look down on us mortals and make us do stupid things. But it's really sketch comedy for kids, and written smartly enough that adults will enjoy it too. (I also really like the way the English pronounce "stupid": it's not "stoo-pid", but "styoo-pid".)
Sarah and I also go swimming at the pool once a week (in addition to her Saturday swim class). We also occasionally go to Christchurch Park. We often visit the library; Sarah got her own library card this week.
Fortunately, for the week of school break starting tomorrow, the Suffolk Council has coordinated lots of activities for kids around town. I'm planning on taking Sarah to play football and do arts and crafts at community sports centres, plus there are kid's matinees at the Ipswich Film Society and some Halloween activities at Christchurch Mansion.
As for me ... well, the week after next, I'm planning to break out of this town. Really, in the month we've been here, there's only been two real work opportunities for a Java developer in Ipswich. One required experience with SMS messaging; the other is ongoing and I haven't heard back, but it's been weeks so I'm assuming the worst. Instead, I'll give London a try.
London is doable if I can negotiate earlier hours. If I leave by 4 or perhaps even 4.30 pm, I can make it back to Ipswich in time to pick up Sarah at 6, though I may have to use cabs daily instead of buses to get me to and from the train station. This would be a win-win-win: I'd be growing my skills; I'd earn more in London than Ipswich; I'd enjoy the train rides and the free time on them; it would be great to get to know London well; Sarah will prefer playing with other kids after school than with me; and the extra income will let us build up our savings and finance some nice trips.
I'm also really looking forward to working again. I don't take well to having too much idle time - I don't know what to do with myself. And I haven't had much opportunity to meet other people here - mostly other school mums in our neighbourhood - so it would be great to meet some mates at work.
posted by Michael Nelson at 1:58 am
1 Comments:
i was just browsing brenda's new blog when i came across your "uk" blog - so you've jumped ship to england?! i guess i haven't talked with you since gary's funeral, which was march of 2005, so i guess lot's of things can happen in a year and a half :). so i haven't gone through your entire blog to figure out why you guys made the move overseas, but it sounds like the whole family is liking it. so how are the java jobs over there? i'm still working over here at ACS in portland (*sigh*), but with all the turnover, i'm getting more senior by the week!
on the family side of things (the most important), analiz and alison are growing like weeds. analiz is now in kindergarten, and she towers over the other kids in the class :). and alison is starting get up there too, and she's only 2 1/2! plus, she's our bilingual child, which is really evident when she describes things in english and spanish. kelly and i just celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary in august, and we're weathering the string of 5 family birthday's we're having in october. Analiz turns 6 next month - wow, she's going to be 6! And sarah's going to be 6 right after that!
well, gotta go, but i hope you all are having a great time over there, and now i'll have another great blog read!
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