And the winner is...

Surabaya, Indonesia.

Surabaya is the capital city of East Java and the 2nd largest city in Indonesia. It is known as the "City of Heroes" because of it's importance during the Indonesian National Revolution from the Netherlands in 1945.

We are really excited about this opportunity for a variety of reasons... here are some of the perks to life in Indonesia:

• Rob will get to work in a 1-1 laptop integration program. (All students in grades 6-12 get a school laptop to use in their wireless school.)
• Angela will get to teach grade 2 or 3.
• Xavier and Anouk will spend 1/2 of their PE classes in the school's Olympic-size swimming pool.
• The school facility is new, modern, and spacious.
• We'll get a house with a garden, grass, and trees (maybe even a house with a pool!).
• The kids can get a dog.
• We'll be a 50 minute flight from Bali.

Surabaya will be a great place for our family. There's a nice work hard, play hard attitude at the school and this is a welcome change for all of us. We will be in a culturally stimulating environment living on one of Indonesia's 17,500 islands. Yes, we'll remain in a Muslim country, but we'll be living in a place that's also been inspired by Indian culture as well as the Buddhist and Hindu religions. We'll have the opportunity to see fabulous new art, culture, landscapes, and animal life: volcanoes, rain forests, orangutans, tigers, and Komodo dragons, just to name a few.

We're considering a Spring Break trip out there to scope, begin our orientation, and help the kids begin our transition. We shall see what the purse strings can swing!

We're very excited and hope you'll come to visit!

What I did at school today

Dear Family,
Today at school was the best day because I got to watch 2 videos called "Moppie and Annie." They are characters to teach kids about the computer. They taught the whole class adding and subtracting. They even teach us about spelling and details. They are computer geniuses. Today at Arabic class, I had a new kid from my class come in and join us. Her name is Jenna. She wasn't in AFL last week. She even was so good at Arabic but she had a very hard time getting stickers like Harry, Renee, Maguire, Pavlo, and me! She is the fastest learner in our class. Every time I come back from Arabic we are always late for recess. At Religion class, me and Maguire got two and three happy faces because we were doing so good that we can earn a GOTCHA pencil. At Religion class we were learning about Japan and we made the information into a very genius book. But now we are learning about Mexico. I had the best lunch ever because I had a turkey sandwich. Today in math we learned about 1/2 and then we matched the 1/2. Ms. Mariam told us to make 1/2 homework for our parents and I did. For inquiry class we studied the community helpers. But we studied about two communities: Africa and Kuwait. After we did inquiry, it was time for closing circle and I always copy Harry, but today, I forgot what he said so I didn't copy him today. When we came outside to go home, Maria was already there to pick us up. Maria brought me 2 chocolate cookies, bananas, and nectarines but don't tell my mama and papa. Anouk had the banana and Harry had the nectarine. I just ate my cookie. We like to share our snack.
Love,

Xavier

I went to school today and I played. I played with puppets in Ms. Maha's classroom when I was done with my work. I traced only a helicopter picture during art. And trees. Then, I said, "Good Morning Moo" and then we did calendar. Moo is a stuffed animal doneky that lives in our classroom. Moo is fun because he has eyes and special ears that bend. After we did the calendar, we did groups. I am in the green group and I started with my tire. Ms. Eva (my teacher) told me to draw a tire because she told us to. Then we had lunch and a cucumber sandwich. It was the best sandwich ever. After I ate my sandwich and the cupcake that Maria made me. It was full of bananas and apples. It was yummy. Then our class did "I Wonder." That means we ask questions about things that move. I asked the question about a buggy. My teacher said that a buggy goes from place to place. And then we did center time. I played in the music center. I put on headphones and I listened to music. I heard the song, "It Must be Santa." Then there was Arabic class with Ms. Nina. I am on the letter that makes the "h" sound like "Hamad." After Arabic I had recess and I played with my friends, Sheka and Leia. We played monsters and it was fun, not scary. Then we read a story. After the story we went home. After school I was playing on the playground a big boy hit me on the head. Maria told him to "STOP!!!!" She said, "Don't climb on the roof of the house or I'll tell Mrs. Angela." And then the boy went to the big playground. We played with Harry after school. He's in Xavier's class. Harry will come over to our house on Tuesday. The End.

Love,
Anouk

Interview Jitters

Nobody likes an interview. It's not a skill we practice very often. Actually, it's only really a skill that we use when we're in need of a new job, so I hypothesize that that is part of the problem with interviews. You're jittery because you want to shine and you need a job! So it's kind of a "no duh" that Rob had this look on his face before we had our initial Skype interview with our first prospect. Once the "phone" rang and we were head-to-head with our interview, I began to think that this whole Skype thing was the way to go. It was cool to come home from work, change your bottoms from tights and skirts to jeans and slippers, and then sit comfortably in the security of your own home to conduct, what could amount to be, one of the biggest changes in your life--a job interview.

Anyway... I don't want to talk too much about it here, this is kind of the public domain and all, but I'll tell you--Rob and I are excited. We are thrilled, not only to have the first interview under our belt, but we are even more ecstatic to know they want to conduct 2nd interviews with us.

Wish us luck. With the Bangkok fair complete, our job pool (we search based on Tech Teacher positions available) leaves us only 11 schools in 8 different countries: Oman, China (Shanghai and Beijing), Israel, Morocco, Indonesia (Bali and Suribaya), Jordan, Qatar, and Vietnam.

Anything sound interesting to you?