hello pezz, today's report:
I attended the first parents’ meeting held by Coconut’s future school. She will start in transition class (year before primary one) this September. We will have to get school uniforms and accessories per specification, sign on for school bus service, and get loaded up on books and such.
The administrators and teachers of the school seem top class, having managed top primary/secondary schools and attended the usual top universities around the world.
The curriculum includes the usual Chinese and English languages, mathematics, arts, martial arts, moral / civic education, and technology (multimedia / PC), and the less than usual, such as building tents to withstand arctic conditions, designing robots for a rescue mission in a simulated avalanche and creating environmentally friendly houses for people in tropical zones.
My wife volunteered to be one of two point persons of the PTA for the class and I, being a food hobbyist, reviewed the lunch menu of the first month. For each school day, the menu identifies the grub by national flag, ranging from Japanese ginger pork, Caribbean rotti, Moroccan chicken, Lancashire hotpot, Indian Masala, and such. The food is catered and each day has a Chinese and a western selection.
The first 3 years education is to be 30% English and 70% Chinese by spoken and written languages for all non-language subjects, and flips around for the subsequent years.
The school is fundamentally a Chinese school, splicing together an International Baccalaureate program with the finer cultural elements of the middle kingdom. Interestingly, 20% of the students are from non-Chinese families.
The school has a school song, but understandably it speaks of learning, togetherness, sharing pain, being brave, sunshine after rain, and welcome everyday.
I understand the sentiment.
I guess I will have to illuminate Coconut on the finer points of Unreal Tournament Last Person Standing Death Match, such as chaos is a gift, crisis partner, volatility friend, lonely path right way, and survive to fight another day.
I must make sure the Coconut’s first computer can handle UnReal III, and she understand the physics of lobbing grenades, jumping in anti-grav boots, as well as mastering the lingo, as in “made in his image, destroyed in his name”.
speaking of last warrior standing, my take of the market is that its true worth will continue to crater over the next ten years, green shoots will get stumped on, gold will dominate and rise above the general carnage, and offer redemption to the worthy faithful.
iow, be careful, and repent while repenting is not yet fashionable.

cheers, tj
p.s. i am at cash 26% (15% usd/hkd, 10% cad, 1% chf) au/pt 35% (9% pt) - just other flavors of cash equity 12% (gold, energy, special situation, srs) r.estate 27% |