Kim and Jeremy in Thailand

This has been a good week. I gave my first test this week. Computer Science 2 (the Excel class) had their test on Wednesday, and Computer Science 1 (the Word class) had their test today. I knew they were all kind of worried about it, so I brought them donut holes yesterday. That seemed to help smooth things over. The kids did better than I expected on the exam, so that was encouraging.

My leg is significantly better too. It was pretty sore early in the week, more from the bruising & swelling in my knee than from the gash. The nurses took good care of me. We changed the dressing and got a final count-13 stitches outside. It's over 3 inches long. It impressed the kids, even if I was a little embarassed.

We have heard about the disaster happening in Louisiana after the hurricane. We would love to hear from you and how it is affecting you and people you know & love. It's hard to be so far away, and all I know I heard from other people or saw on the internet. We're definitely praying for the US during this time.

Here's a satellite image from Google Earth of the area around our house and Grace International School. The altitude is approximately 12,000 feet, and the scale is marked on the map. The map also shows our route to school, although I don't usually weave between lanes as much as the wiggly line might indicate.



(click for a bigger version)

On Saturday, Sam and I (Jeremy) spent most of the day at Cornerstone Counseling Center. They had asked us to come out and take a look at their computers, but they didn't give any specifics, so we didn't really know what we were getting into. When we got there, it was pretty easy to identify the problem -- the receptionist's computer, which doubled as their file and print server, took about 10 minutes to boot, and had around 20 icons in its system tray when it was done. So, we did some major spyware removal work, and all of a sudden, it was running like the multi-gigahertz Pentium 4 that it was, rather than a 10-year old 286. We did some more cleanup work on the other staff computers, and got things running reasonably well again. We may be going back there later to set up a dedicated office server for them.

My major projects at Grace so far have involved: setting up classroom computers for the 8 elementary classrooms, setting up and administering the Windows Update Server to keep the computers here secure and happy, getting the brand-new elementary library set up, and many, many miscellaneous things. I've also enjoyed getting to know some of the students and staff through other activities, including softball, biking, badminton, and possibly floor hockey this Saturday.

Well, this weekend was not exactly what we had in mind.

Saturday was good-I went to a ladies' breakfast to plan social events for the Grace staff this year. There was a great turnout-about 25 ladies-and wonderful food. We even had waffles!

Sunday was a little more interesting. We went to church, at House Of Praise church. It's a charismatic church with an Australian pastor. It was a very good service, and afterwards we went to SoJo's. SoJo's is run by some people from one of the Baptist missions here, and they cook really good American food. I had a chicken sandwich and fries-that was a nice taste of home!

Then I thought it would be nice to go for a little bike ride before I sat down to grade my pile of papers. I had my MP3 player out, and I was just cruising along, listening to music, not paying that close of attention, when out darts a stray cat. I didn't see this cat until the last minute, and I apparently swerved much too sharply for the speed I was going, because before I knew it, my bike and I were in a heap on the pavement. It happened so fast I'm still not sure exactly what happened, but when I stood up I found a pretty banged up elbow & knee, and a huge gash in my leg. I must have caught it either on the pedal or on this piece of metal that was sticking up out of the ground. At any rate, it was a pretty nasty gash.

So I went back home and had to wake Jeremy up with, "Do you know how our health insurance works?" We had signed up about 2 weeks ago, but don't have cards yet. So after a few phone calls to figure things out, we headed off to Ram 1, which is the hospital that caters to foreigners. They stitched me up-something like 8 internal stitches & a lot of outer ones, maybe 12 or 14? I didn't count before the doctor bandaged me up. I wasn't really excited about being there-I mean, the last time I really fell off my bike I think I was 10, and I felt a little embarrassed about the whole thing.

So now I have a big bandage and quite a sore leg. Not really what I had in mind for my Sunday afternoon. At least the day ended better with a birthday party at an ice cream shop. What a crazy day!

All day, I've been surprised that it's still August. Maybe it's the lack of intense heat, maybe it's school feeling long, maybe it's just that so much has happened recently. At any rate, I think it feels like it should be early October.

School is going well. My classes are starting to get into more of a routine, and I passed back papers today, so I know that I know everyone's name!! That was exciting to me!

Our momentary excitement was taking Snowball, one of the cats we're looking after, to the vet. She apparently got into some sort of fight and lost, because she had some deep wounds on her back and neck. She now has a stylish new hairdo and a cute cone-shaped collar, and she should be fine in a few days. I wanted to explain in Thai what I thought happened, but the word for dog and horse are different only by the tone, and I was sure I would use the wrong one and tell a really bizarre story! Maybe next time.