This is the busiest time at school since I've been in Brunei. One reason for this is that I am involved in PMB oral exams. (PMB is the important exam that the students do at the end of Form 3.) For two weeks I have been going to other schools, with another examiner, and assessing the oral skills of about twenty students each afternoon. I get home at around 5 pm, which is quite late, considering I start work at 7.15. The other reason is that the Sultan is paying a visit to our school in the near future, possibly next week. My role in this is to be taking an English class in the Computer room. On his tour of the school, his majesty will drop in to see the class, shake my hand and possibly talk to some of the students. This will happen even if we are still in the middle of exams. (We are doing the "qualifying exams" now, which lead up to the PMB.) Everything else will be cancelled for the day. Only the better classes will be actually having lessons, and of course they are just pretend lessons to put on a show for the sultan. Not that he will actually see my students using the computers as they will have to remain standing until he leaves the room.
Because of this important occasion, which is probably due to the school celebrating its 50th anniversary, we had to go in last Sunday for a clean up, and we heard today that this weekend we will also be expected to turn up for more cleaning up. Actually all I had to do was go there and sign in. Nobody actually asked me to do anything. But I'd prefer to sleep in.
Although it's a busy time now, once the PMB exams start in October I'll have nothing to do at school for the rest of the year, as I only have Form 3 classes, which will be finished.
For the August holidays, we made a trip to Malaysia and Singapore. We went to Kuala Lumpur to visit A-Hing, Ipoh to visit A-Kuan and Singapore to visit A-Yin. In between we went to the Cameron Highlands and Pangkor Island. We also went to a big wedding in KL as the daughter of one of Yoong's old school friends was getting married. There were two tables of friends she has known since she was six years old so it was quite a reunion.
This was my first trip out of Borneo since we arrived here (though Yoong has been to Singapore for Jannie's daughter's wedding.) It was quite a last minute decision, due to promotional ticket prices on Air Asia, Malaysia's new no-frills airline. Tickets (from Miri) were about $40, the price of a bus ride to Kuching. It was an interesting experience. No movies, no food or drinks (though you can buy snacks if you wish), no tickets and free seating - so you don't waste time looking for seat numbers. The plane left on time and arrived early, so it was very efficient. From KL, all our travel was by buses, which are always comfortable and cheap in Malaysia. We may use Air Asia again at the end of the year (though we don't expect those prices again) and find our way back to Australia from Singapore. We will probably not go back straight away. I would like to explore this region a bit more first, and we are thinking of making a trip to Sulawesi, East Kalimantan and Flores, none of which we have been to before. It will involve some travelling by ship, using Indonesia's Pelni Line, which is apparently very good. In any case we will almost certainly be back in Melbourne early in 2003. I have been browsing through job vacancies on the internet, but not looking too hard yet. For a start most of my documents are in Melbourne, and I can't really apply for anything until I have access to them.
It is written to our friends Sandy and Peter in Bandar, rather than to family in Australia.
Hi Sandy and Peter,
Haven't heard from you for a long time. Hope you are all well. Things have quietened down a bit here, since the sultan's visit to AAC. Teachers and kids had to go in on Fridays and Sundays for clean-up and rehearsals. My role was to be teaching an English class in the computer room (using the CfBT CD ROM). All just a show of course. The kids were too excited to do any real work. He did go around the room and talk to a few of the students, who were pretty much struck dumb by his presence.
We watched the Sultan's visit later on the local news. Do you ever watch RTB news? Quite fascinating to see what counts as news in Brunei. About two thirds of it seems to consist of His Majesty shaking hands with people.
Before all that I was involved with PMB Oral exams which took up a lot of time. Now the exams are a few weeks away so I expect to be very free for most of this term.
We will be coming up to Bandar on Thursday to watch French films at the Alliance Francaise, and to attend the leavers meeting the next day at CfBT. If it's convenient, we would like to drop in to see you for a while on either Thursday or Friday afternoon. If that doesn't suit, we will be going fairly regularly for the next few weeks. We went to the BADS show "Miss Marbles" at the RBA club last Saturday - first time we've been there. Steve Rose was there and seems to have some ideas for something a bit different for the next folk night. Our group, The Belaiters, will be putting on a show (our very last!) down here sometime in November, hopefully with some guest performers, from BSB as well as locally. It would be great if you were able to make it.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Love
Raymond and Yoong