Note to self...

Take more photos!
I have been very guilty of living in the moment recently.  Which in itself is not a bad thing at all.  However, it does make for dull blogging.

cute cat photo just because...

 So, last Sunday Lindsey (one of the other art teachers and the wonderful organiser of the wonder wall) and I went to the mural and did some tidying up.  After a few crazy community painting days, there were some things that needed fixing and we needed to get some background colours in.  We literally painted sky and hills for 3 or so hours.  If I ever do a project like this again I think I'd be sure to paint those things in before sketching out the rest as it was fiddly!  But it made a huge difference and we are once again moving forward.
Here's a before taken after the last community day:

And here's an after taken on Sunday:

The wall is getting so big now that it's nearly impossible to photograph the whole thing.  This is just one section up one end. 

Here's a panorama of the whole wall all the way down to the very end where you can't even see it properly:

 This week when we painted with the kids (and a some other teachers came along) we really had to divide and conquer because there are just so many sections that need work.

It really is a "slowly but surely, bit by bit" kind of thing.  See if you can spot any differences between the first photo and these two....

I suspect there may be some more Sunday painting days just to keep it on schedule and under control.

 Ok, so one of my highlights at school this week was watching class after class of my KG1 boys particularly, but some girls dancing to this.  HYSTERICAL.  In their unit they are doing on music and movement the 9 classes are being divided up to dance to different songs...it's a real mix from "Frozen", to Katy Perry's Roar, to a bit of Bollywood, Hip Hop and some slower ones. This week I got the playlist and played it on the promethean board while they were playing with playdough.  The idea was that they had to think about how the music made them feel like playing with the playdough, but often they just wanted to get up and dance, and that was fine too.  And fun, and really really funny! And I wish I had taken some photos, but I don't think I would have been able to capture it.

My sewing CCA is coming along so well and the girls are so excited by what they're making.  Ella has Rugby training that day, so she can't come, but participates at home and got way ahead and mostly finished hers.  She's still adding hair bit by bit.  She loves taking her out with her (this is us on the way home from school on Wednesday).  I have to get some photos next week of their progress.

 And I don't want to harp on about the weather, but I'm already over the haze this week, and it's only been topping around 80PSI, rather than the 400 it got to last year when we were, thankfully, in America.

 This photo was taken in the taxi on the way to work (we're taxi-ing now because of Kit being on crutches).  That big red sun glare is the sun through the haze.  It's exactly like when there are bushfires in Australia.  The air smells like smoke, it is thick and heavy.  You can taste it.  By the end of the day my eyes are stinging, my throat scratchy.  I've felt so exhausted this week, with headaches, dizziness and feeling just off.  I woke up last night coughing like I'd been in a smokey bar.  I hate it.  It's earlier this year because it is just so dry.  7 days of rain since January 1st.  The school is mostly open, so the small of it is everywhere throughout the school.  Yesterday it looked like this when we were walking to the MRT after being outside mural painting for 2 hours.

Look how dry the ground is!  This is the tropics people! It's supposed to be lush and green.  Ok, enough ranting...for now.

 And I'll leave you with the biggest blister I've ever seen...this is Matt's heel nearly a week after he went for his big Sunday morning hike with new shoes on (that'll learn him!).  If you are squeamish, look away...