Work is wonderful. On Friday I went with a teacher to purchase books for the library from the Malaysian Nature Society. It was fun to know I had enough money to pile up the books and add them to the library collection. The school paid for a taxi to take us to the place and we went during work hours – imagine that! The library is busy and I’ve started weeding the AV collection. We need to do lots of sorting and cleaning in the AV room.
Tomorrow ISKL is hosting 30 US colleges for a school visit. They will all be in the library so it will be a fun and busy day. I’m working on the budget for 2008-09 which is due to principals by the end of September. It seems so strange to be working on a budget for a year away when I still have this year’s budget to spend – but that is the way it is with international schools.
Some things I’m getting used to but would seem different to a newcomer. Eggs are sold in cartons of 10, not a dozen. There are many, many spices and fresh fruits and vegetable for sale and I have no idea what they are. A good cook would have fun experimenting. You have to make an effort to recycle – it’s not common in Malaysia. The school has a good recycling program and we can take our things to recycle there once a month.
This is the month of Ramadan and traffic patterns have changed a lot. All Muslims hurry to get home by 7:15 PM to break the daily fast. So traffic is very heavy from 4:30 to 7 PM. Many stores are still open in the evening so you can go shopping and there’s little traffic.
Life is settling into a routine – work, family, reading, emails, some exercise. We still need to find a church home and get involved in ministry. We’re going to babysit for Doug and Tracy each Wed. night so they can have a date night. Tonight we swam after work. Ron actually said it seemed cold. The pool of course isn’t heated and it was pleasantly cool outside.
I have hired a maid (Shirley) to help out. She’s Filipina and comes twice a week – 8 AM – noon on Tues. and Friday. I discovered that the house needed cleaning more than once a week. It is nice to have a clean house, ironing done (no dryer = no permanent press) and a meal fixed twice a week.
We have ASTRO cable so Ron watched Sunday night NFL football live this AM and tomorrow he can watch Monday night NFL live. It is at 8 AM here. We get CNN and BBC plus ESPN. These channels are quite different here – Asia and European flavor. We get little US news which seems rather nice.
I guess we’re pretty well set-up. I need to get a few more kitchen items but we have the essentials. Today my landlord paid to install ceiling fans in the master bedroom and in the guest bedroom. That’s nice has they cool better than the floor fans.
We do have space for guests. I learned at the Nature Society that Malaysia is a wonderful location for birders. There are rainforests to explore and lovely beaches. Eating one’s way through all of the varied cuisines is also a highlight for locals and tourists. So far Ron and I have tried out a Thai place, a French one, and a steak house. If you went with us you’d learn that the Thai place was at the Petronas Towers and quite formal, the French place was at Ampang point and rather noisy and not very special and the steak place is only about two blocks from our house. It’s called Susie’s Corner and has the reputation of having the best steaks in KL. It’s a covered outdoor place – that’s very local and to a visitor might seem “unsanitary” but the food is good. The fresh fruit drinks are very tasty – I had watermelon but you have many choices.
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