Feeling good, despite having only 5 hours sleep. I forced myself to go
for a walk. This morning, it was out through the village of
Lakarsantri, and back through the back of the golf course. Everything
was (relatively) fresh and green. There are a lot of kids around at
5.30am, because the local schools have a semester break. They are out
on their bikes (those fortunate enough to have them) or playing soccer
(therfore, mainly boys).

We had a very enjoyable evening at The Rocks restaurant to celebrate
Australia Day. About 24 of us sang the National Anthem, as well as a
few other traditional songs, such as “Khe Sanh”. As usual, the food was
great, and ridiculously cheap, and the owners had followed our advice
about having plenty of cold beer.

Helen and I were a bit late, because we had also scheduled a meeting at
school, for prospective parents. Hardly anyone showed, but we,
apparently, enrolled a couple of kids out of it. We certainly have to
look at different ways to get the punters through the door.

Today is the last day of Open House, the week for trying to attract new
families. We had “Literacy Day” yesterday, which was okay. Most of the
kids made the effort to dress up as a book character, but, in future,
the language teachers need to do some lead-up stuff in class. The
Science Fair earlier in the week was pretty good, and the Year 8’s did
their short play, based on “A Christmas Carol”, a couple of times.

Walking around classes this morning was an affirming experience, with
virtually all classes operating really well. I think I’m making a
difference.