Thomas journals

From 201010 Saudi scenes It is ironic that this land of cheap gasoline has so much group transport -- buses. From 201010 Saudi scenes Our housing compound has a Toyota-Coaster bus that takes some to/from school (we usually go earlier and return later, on a similar bus that the school provides). Driver Yahya takes residents on the 90-minute trip down to the Big City shopping every Thursday morning. The above picture shows our group one Thursday, usually going to Ikea or the new Lulu's Hypermarket , or the Dhahran Mall. Coleman rides a different bus every day to and from school -- usually 100 minutes there, 80 minutes back.  His bus is evidently an old tourist bus, usually comfortable but a bit dusty.  The air-conditioning usually works too well.  I've ridden it with him several times, to attend business meetings at the district office. From 201010 Saudi scenes There he is, at 5:45am every morning, at the start of the bus run. Fortunately only about 20 stu...

Sometimes we get some simple pleasures: the coffee provided in the teachers lounge is pretty good, considering it's a large percolator. And every couple of weeks, Barbara S. drives up from the district office (well, actually, of course, she doesn't drive herself, but you get the idea) to help with testing and advice with learning-support. She makes it her duty to bring us a stack of Krispy Kreme donuts. Imagine. Fresh Krispy Kreme donuts. Hard to resist, especially at coffee break time -- most classes have a break between 10 and 10:20. A few weeks ago we went down to the big city (remember, the tri-cities area of Dammam/ Khobar/ Dhahran) and drove past the fast-food shrine. Notice the starry icon of CarlsJr (california) merged with Hardee's (their label here). Note also the pickup truck in the foreground with the omnipresent Saudi Aramco logo. From 201010 Saudi scenes

Cole and I went to the dentist yesterday - very good by Western standards. Excellent facility, equipment, treatment, office workers spoke English and knew all about our international medical insurance requirements. I was admonished for letting my scheduled cleanings go so long ( 18 months), but luckily, no cavities or permanent damage. I was too embarrassed to explain that we had no insurance in the US last year; hence the long time between cleanings.Why was I embarrassed? Was it a reflection on my country - the land of plenty - that didn't have enough jobs for its citizens and certainly not affordable healthcare for all? Afterwards, we went to the Al-Rashid mega mall and stopped at a familiar diner for lunch - Johnny Rocket's. I had happy memories of eating at this chain while visiting my parents in California. Why it the first place that  allowed me to use a "Senior Citizen Discount" at age 55! We entered the diner and were amazed at the interior - identical down ...

    Jubail School is part of the International Schools Group district. We are also member schools in the Near East South Asia council of overseas schools. (Note that Woodstock is also a member of NESA) NESA schools cooperate to develop ways of continuing education even when a school's population must be evacuated. Online learning can continue. We scheduled three Virtual School days in October to rehearse: students stayed home, teachers came to school, and education continued.     Our district arranged a contract with a company in the U.S. to host our online coursework, using Moodle -- I implemented Moodle at Woodstock in 2007, as a local help for teachers and students.  Unfortunately the first day online was a disaster, with impossibly-long response times.  Perhaps the U.S. company was not prepared for 3000 users to login at 1am on Sunday morning (yes, the work-week in Arabia is Saturday-to-Wednesday!). The second and third days went f...

From 201010 Saudi scenes Coleman sits on the couch in our living room, with his new macBookpro and our pillows from India and our new lamps and shades from Ikea. From 201010 Saudi scenes Then a fancy dinner, with lampchops from New Zealand, via the new Lulu's Hypermarket and Barb's careful broiling. From 201010 Saudi scenes

From 201010 Saudi scenes One of the nice aspects of living in the same community with colleagues is the ability to do some professional development informally -- I invited our 3 neighbors to come by to test out the new online course management system (Moodle) to help prepare for upcoming Virtual School Days. Here we are, gathered around our dining room table, all with laptops looking at http://vs.isg.edu.sa/

From 201009 Saudi scenes In the town of Rahima, near the central fish market, is a street we call Chicken Street. Literally fifteen shops in a row (you see the middle 5 pictured above) sell chicken. In our standard idea of economics, this appears to be inefficient and unprofitable -- we feel that if the poulterers all dispersed to different parts of the town, they could corner a local market as the closest convenient shop, and also reduce the likelihood of customers taking their business elsewhere. So why do they all locate in one central place, and thus struggle mightily to compete, perhaps reducing their profits and by the way forcing chicken customers to travel all the way downtown? I think the main reason is that customers prefer the open-market scheme, where they can compare goods from different sellers in an open environment analogous to the nearby old-fashioned fish market. A lone market can be attractive when the goods are indistinguishable commodities -- in a U.S. supe...