Entering the homestretch

Yes we are approaching the endgame here, as I try to figure out how to spend the last little bit of Activity Fund money (the agency alleges that it is use-or-lose, which I find hard to believe), and as with all endings this one is tinged with relief but also regret and pre-nostalgia (I think that was a Tom Lehrer coinage): there are aspects of this place and even this group that I am going to miss. 

Of course there are the obvious things, like the many many different ways in which the Opera House is on my list of the World's Coolest Buildings (this photo was taken on a warm evening when Amelie and I spontaneously decided to take in a Symphony concert in the big hall, and as I waited for her on the esplanade from the ferry terminal I was again struck by how casually wonderful this place is.  The sound was great by the way, even from where we were, up in a side area back of the orchestra where we could spy on the percussion section as they busied themselves with the Rachmaninoff 4th Piano Concerto and Tchaikowsky's Manfred.  Very cool.

   

But to the left here is another of the things I may find myself missing: Sydneysiders take their coffee pretty seriously, and even the little shop on the corner at the top of our street, which treated me to this casual masterpiece, seems to take pride in serving damned good stuff that looks great too.  Sure this "large flat white" (which is the size of a regular cap) costs 4 bucks easy, but hey, I'll support this barista artist in a heartbeat.  On the other hand, the patisserie a little further up the street has pretty good-looking croissants for sale, but I haven't had any yet--not for $5.50 to eat in, $4.80 to take away!

My ducklings are supposedly hard at work on their end of term projects--Friday is the last day of class, and they have to be out of their apartments and homestays on Saturday, and this picture here shows a recent class session where I had the groups of three reading and commenting on each others' draft reports using a web form I developed for my Business and Tech Writing classes back home.  I was able to wangle a computer classroom at Australian Catholic Uni, and was able to adapt my patented routine to the unfamiliar surroundings (a PC lab instead of Macs, a class that had been meeting in conventional classrooms all term, etc).  They did great after a slightly slow start, and I was able to give each group the other groups' comments anonymously within a couple of hours of the finish of the class, thanks to this cool method.

Here's a shot that shows what Alex has been up to, besides driving us slightly crazy.  Mostly on his own accord he volunteered for the Jazz Band at Mosman High--this required him taking the initiative since we had only asked that he attend regular band, and he had to ask the jazz band guy to join late.  His trombone section mates are both female as you see, and he actually learned a lot of music in a hurry.   This gig he was playing at deserves a full post of its own, but you can google the Schools Spectacular and find out about the biggest variety show in the universe.

Mosman's jazz band didn't make the main show, but they were selected to provide entertainment in the foyer both before the show and during intermission.  In this area of the hall they probably had an audience of several hundred, maybe more, and they were a LOT better than most of what we have heard back in Berkeley.

They fill this giant auditorium for two shows--in the area of 10,000 spectators--and the quality of the numbers is stunning.  Some of these kids go on to win "Australia's Got Talent" and then come back to help guest-host, and from the look of it the dancers and drum corps spent half a year rehearsing.  Then the full show is broadcast on New Years Eve, which makes for some odd moments where the emcee asked us to count down and yell "Happy New Year" as if we mean it!  Am and I were able to sneak into the matinee by tagging along ("we're with the band"), watching from the side but surrounded by literally hundreds of chorus kids and so on.  The level of professionalism was ridiculously high, and though one wondered whether the thing had to go on for three hours, Amelie and I had a whole lot of those dropped-jaw moments as the best high schoolers from all over New South Wales did their thing.

That night late he volunteered that he wished that kids at home didn't talk back to teachers so much, because, in his unprompted words, "we get so much more done in band here, because Mr Hardy doesn't let anyone waste any time."  Wow.