"A" is for Actually Awful Attempted Alphabet Awaiting Audience Appraisal

I remember reading long ago that of all of the hundreds of books that Isaac Asimov wrote, his least favourite was his set of science ABC books. He found it maddening to have to omit vocabulary absolutely central to the topic because it happened to start with the same letter as an even more important word. "S", I recall, posed a big problem when writing his ABC's of Space. Should he pick "star", "Saturn", "satellite", "solar flares", or "space" itself? Meanwhile, other letters offered a dearth of relevant, interesting words so he had to take a concept from a doublebooked letter and pin it to the lacking letter with a lesser word. Oh, Asimov, I feel your pain!

Introducing... The Maths Club!

Maths Club has begun. There are six teams, each named for a famous mathematician:

Team Euclid, the Class V girls:

Team Gauss, some of the Class VI girls:

Team Euler, more Class VI girls:

Team Hypatia, the Class VII girls:

(with one Class VI thrown in because we have so many)

Team Ramanujan, the Class VIII girls:

Team Galois, the four boys:

To start off the year, each team was given a coded information sheet about their namesake:

[5 times 5, then minus the sum of 2 and 4] = [25 minus 6] = 19

The 19th letter of the alphabet is "S"

Therefore, the first letter of Ramanujan's first name is "S"

When all of the information was decoded, they made posters with it for display throughout the school:



It was a most successful first day!

Unfolding Buds

This week, suddenly, Trashiyangtse trees are budding and blooming! It is a remarkable example of life imitating art.

The first text we studied in Class VII English was Unfolding Bud by Naoshi Koriyama. For days we read only the first stanza:

One is amazed
By a water-lily bud
Unfolding
With each passing day,
Taking on richer color
And new dimensions.

We discussed that an unfolding bud is a versatile symbol that could symbolize many different things. It is, we decided, a good metaphor for the school year which starts off so slowly here with half days and the tedious issuance of textbooks but gradually fills to a flowery flurry of activity. It is also a good metaphor for Class VII English students who begin curled up in shyness but gradually show you who they are.

We then decided to adopt the unfolding bud as a symbol of our character improving as we mature. The students did short presentations in which they mentioned two former defects in their personality that they have worked to overcome, two aspects of their present personality that they are proud of, and two virtues they hope to develop in the future:

For example:
My name is Kendra. I am an unfolding bud.

I used to be bossy and very messy.

Now I am creative and enthusiastic.

I want to be decisive and more at peace.

In the poem itself, the unfolding bud is used as a metaphor for, tres meta, poetry. The remaining stanzas read:

One is not amazed,
At a first glance,
By a poem,
Which is as tight-closed
As a tiny bud.

Yet one is surprised
To see the poem
Gradually unfolding,
Revealing its rich inner self
As one reads it
Again
And over again.

That was certainly our experience with Unfolding Bud. The more we worked with it, the more it opened up.

Testing...Testing...1, 2, 3

Quite wisely, I think, the Bhutanese government loves assessment. As I just experienced, the Prime Minister travels the country to personally assess the development progress of every single gewog (community). As I just learned, I will sit for five 1.5 to 2 hour teacher tests over the next few weeks, one each in Math Content, Math Pedagogy, English Content, English Pedagogy, and General Knowledge. The results of that battery will be used to determine the direction of professional development programmes. And as I just photographed, all students in class five and above are given a standarized fitness test. It includes six measures of physical health and ability. They warm up with stretches:

Each student then his or her (1) height and (2) weight measured and completes a (3) timed 100 metre dash:

The Phys. Ed. instructors record (4) how many push-ups each student can do in a unit time and (5) how far each can reach down:

My favourite measure, of course, is (6) the long jump because I took these cool mid-air shots:

I think it is must be really valuable to have that much data about the health of your nation. I'll let you know how my tests go!

A-W-E-S-O-M-E [This entry goes out to Pratik]

Our school's first inter-house competition for the year was a spelling contest with an incredible amount of variety. I would describe it as a spelling bee, a spelling wasp, a spelling grasshopper, and a spelling umbrella all-in-one.

There were rounds in English and in Dzongka. There were Rapid Fire rounds of incredible pace. There were Meaning rounds in which participants spelled whatever word they reasoned was the best match for a provided definition. There were just-for-fun Anyone can Answer rounds to involve the audience. There was a Read and Remember round in which a representative from each team had one minute to read a particular page from a textbook and another in which to write down as many words from it as she could. And as extra source of variety, five different staff members took turns playing quizmaster. Each brought their own big personality to bear on the contest:

 My favourite thing about the contest, though, was how many spectators brought pen and paper to play along:

When all of the results were tabulated, Druk House won the day! I'll keep a score going through the year so you can root for your favourite house.

Auspicious Days in Yangtse Town: How I Met The Prime Minister

As much as I love the quiet of small town living, and I love it with all of my heart, there is something undeniably energizing and human about squeezing through colourful crowds. For the past few days it has been busy enough in my small town to do just that because two remarkable events, one spiritual and one secular, happened at once...

As I mentioned in an earlier entry, it is believed that a dakini princess was buried of her own accord under Chorten Cora to meditate forever for the benefit of all sentient beings. She screamed for fifteen days before expiring into eternity. Dakpa pilgrims from her home region in India come here for fifteen days every year to circumambulate the stupa and remember her sacrifice. The fifteenth day, yesterday, is called Namgang Cora, and it is the day that the Bhutanese themselves celebrate. Many travelers from throughout the East come to make rounds and to receive a blessing from a senior lama. A huge cloth painted with the image of Guru Rinpoche is displayed for the occasion. You can see the back of it in this picture:

And the back of it is all we got to see. We dilly dallied on our way down and arrived just in time to miss the once-in-a-year opportunity. We watched the monks take it down:

As the crowds circled the Chorten, the most devote spun every prayer wheel:

So that was the spiritual event, and it drew a crowd quite on its own. This shot of the town in evening shows the hive of tiny tent shops set up for the occasion:

The secular event was the arrival of Prime Minister Jigme Y. Thinley and a large delegation of other ministers to complete the dzongkhog's exhaustive mid-term review. I was teaching when his convoy came to town. A support staff member burst in my classroom, which is a bit set apart from the rest of campus, and urged me to hurry up the hill and catch a car. He explained that the entire staff had, at the last moment, been invited to attend the PM's arrival speech. I quickly borrowed a rachu (the red sash that is added to a woman's national dress for important events) from one of the students.

A whisk away and a few moments later, I watched the Prime Minister rise to a podium. He was speaking in Dzongkha and all I understood was that his jokes made people belly laugh. After general remarks, he picked people out of the crowd for short individual conversations. His first words in English were directed at me. "Now you're not Bhutanese, are you? Where are you from?"

I stood, "Canada, sir".

"Oh indeed. One of Miss Nancy's teachers! What part of Canada?"

"Nova Scotia."

"What part of Nova Scotia?"

"Antigonish."

"Did we meet when I was there for the third International GNH conference?"

"I'm afraid not."

Our conversation went on for a few more sentences but all I remember is how at home he made me feel. He is a true gentleman. Here's his picture, but just from the Internet; I did not have my camera at the reception:

Out of kindness to me and the two Japanese in the audience, the Prime Minister scattered English portions throughout his main speech. He said beautiful things. He reminded us that "the richest man in the world is he who, whatever his economic situation, feels content. The poorest man is the person who, though he might be a billionaire, is filled with desire and cannot appreciate what he has." I have a hard time imagining a Canadian politician including that thought as a foreword to financial facts. Like I've written before, values have value here.

I saw black-necked cranes for the second time since I've been in Bhutan when exactly three of them flew over head during a passionate part of the Prime Minister's speech. This is interesting because exactly three black-necked cranes is the symbol of his party. In my life these days, coincidences with symbolic significance are just too common for comfort. But I digress; I'll save that for the memoir.

Miss Nancy, Executive Director of the BCF, arrived in Yangtse with the Prime Minister's convoy. She stayed two nights in our home and we were very happy to have her. Here she is with my wonderful Principal:

With Nancy in town and so many other reasons to celebrate, William and I decided we were making cheese momos! We took what we learned preparing tea momos with Dawa Dema and combined it with our copious experience eating cheese momos in restaurants. We came up with a recipe, assembled the ingredients, and then just went for it:

 

The results, even if they weren't quite momos, were delicious! We were so pleased that we invited Dawa Dema and Jimmie over to try them. The accompanying aperatif was a great bottle of wine given to us by Mr. Mark. My tongue was a bunny ballerina.

It was quite a couple of days in Trashiyangtse! I am so honoured to be in this place and meeting these people. I am so lucky.