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Tropical climates

Don't get me wrong, living in a tropical climate has distinct advantages. However there are some notable disadvantages:
  • The weather is always warm, so you plan a barbeque - inevitably it will choose that day to rain
  • Ants think that they can live in or on anything you own. Currently there is an ant colony residing under the keys of the laptop.
  • Stuff goes off really quickly. Bananas are rotten by the time you've got them home from the market (almost).

Some of the best things about living here are:

  • You can leave the house in the morning knowing that whatever you are wearing will still keep you at a reasonable temperature at midnight. The temperature never changes.
  • You can keep potted orchids with very little care, the humidity does all the work for you.
  • You can go for a swim at any time of the day or night.
  • You never get cold toes (apart from when you wear sandals to the office and they get frozen by the sub-zero air-conditioning).

All in all, life is good. We had a group of friends round yesterday for a barbeque (it didn't rain - despite black clouds and rumbles of thunder). They all had kids who were happy to play in our pool for 4 hours solid! So we had a very civilized evening by the pool supping wine and champagne. Very nice.

Paul is working pretty long hours, but it seems that as long as he can bake something or do some gardening at the weekend, he can stay relatively stress free.

PGCE

It's almost time for me to start applying to do a PGCE, it looks like I'll be applying to Cambridge with a view to having Paul commute into London. It's only for a year, so I guess it won't be too bad, and I guess he can always stay with friends if there's going to be a train strike or something.

I'm still really enjoying teaching English; sadly though, all of the kids that I've been teaching for the past two months left the school on Friday to go back to Korea. Oh well, I'm sure the next lot of students will be just as much fun.

Alpha

Alpha is going well. It's great to be leading a group again. We have a really interesting mix of people and there doesn't seem to be too much of a cultural problem for us. I guess we have been in Singapore for almost a year now!!

One of our guests is a confirmed 'Darwinist', much as I was three and a half years ago. So, I'm reading Lee Strobel's 'Case for a creator', it's a fascinating book. Very scientific in content, but it's written in a very engaging tone.

Bookclub

I'm starting a bookclub with Alex, Marienne, Chris and Elizabeth. Our first read will be 'We need to talk about Kevin'. It will be good to get back into a bookclub again, it's a great chance for the girls to get together and chat too.

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