Quizzical Exercise

After a long gap between quizzes, we are (in honour of Dad's visit going to the Dhow and A. quiz tonight at the Jumierah Baech Hotel)for the first time since we went in the early Summer with E.'s brother (whose assistance took us to the dizzy hights of third - a result that I am no anticipating tonight...). Wish us luck.

HP sourced

Well I finally fnished the last of the HP adventures last night. I am not quite sure why it took me so long to get around to reading it since it was published around 7 years ago and I seem to recall reading the other ones pretty soon after they came out. It may have been because of the lack of time as it was published in the Summer of 2007 and life was pretty busy in HK around then with V. around a year old and I do recall my reading dropping off whilst I was in HK. In any event, I did enjoy the book. JK Rowling is a good writer and can carry a very good plot. I thought that the echoes of the second world war and the interweaving of the story lines from different generations was clever and whilst complicated, the story line did not really falter. I can certainly understand why the HP series was so incredibly popular. I will now need to see the last 3/4 films!

RAKing up the miles

Very pleasant trip to RAK over the weekend with the family and Dad who arrived on Thursday (traffic appalling around Dxb - in fact the traffic has been really bad everywhere in Dubai since everyone got back from holiday in September - probably a subject for a separate post). We stayed at the W.aldforf Ast.oria which we visited at the beginning of the year. This time the weather was fine and we managed to spend both days on the beach. Due to a flood we were moved to rooms at the side of the hotel which had the largest balconies I have ever seen in hotel. In fact the hotel itself had a remarkable number of empty "space" areas - in the corridors etc. which suggested that the architect was not particulaly concerned with utilisation of living areas - the three domes which were a distinguishing feature were also rather cathedral-like so the whole impression was one of vast areas of carpet and emptiness. Must have cost a fortune to build.

The food was excellent (although quite expensive). Howevever, every one returned relaxed and ready for the week ahead.

All about V.

Having talked about the (potential) genesis of V's name I thought that I would do a more general post on how she is getting along. She is as much a force of nature as she ever was although perhaps a little more restrained in her approach to life although still takes no prisoners if she is upset. She has settled in well at her new school and has been doing very well both academically and also in the sporting environment. She is an avid reader (we have had a couple of major discussions about why she is not allowed to read HP Half Blood Prince during my current HP-fest) and is taking after her brother in the speed that she demolishes books. She is very happy in her own company although she and A (mainly) get on very well together - whether in relation to their shared obsession with Minecraft or playing together generally. She seems to be a little reserved at school and does not have any particalr "best" friends and at home (if not reading or playing minecraft) she is happy enough in her own little world dancing around the room day dreaming. Unfortunately the cricket at Safa Park has now stopped as at the end of June this year (possibly because of the canal related works)as she and A used to really enjoy this on a Saturday morning and we still have the various cricket balls that they both won on occasions dotted around the house. She does athletics, cookery and netball as her after school activities and seems to enjoy them all (she is certainly someone who goes a little stir crazy if she does is not running around and burning off some energy). She still prefers pasta, gravy, pork and rice as her main food groups although does not say no to prawn and lobster. She is very tall for her age which stands her in good stead for the competitive sports and she enjoys singing and dancing (she and her cousin N did a great video to Katy Perry's Roar during the Summer). She is very engaging when she is in the mood and currenlty has aspirations to be an author. She still belongs to the nevery explain never apologise school of diplomacy when things are not going her way but generally she is a very engaging and loving daughter and we cold not ask for more.

What's in a name

The desire to post a blog every day in November has not exactly disappeared but it is struggling against other demands including a further trip to Abu Dhabi (yesterday) and also , finally, finally, getting through the HP series so that I started the final book (which I have not previously read) last night. The Half Blood Prince was interesting (apart from the actualy plot) in that it gave me a clue as to where E. got the name for our daughter from. V. has quite an unusual name althouh it is less unusual today than it was 8 years ago when E. first suggested it and I have always wondered where the inspiration came from. E. could not remember but I did notice that there is a V. (albeit with a tiny part) in the Half Blood Prince and I also see that it was published the Summer before V. was born and I know for a fact that E. read it (she does not disagree that this might have prompted - albeit unconciously - her to suggest the name) so I have put 2 and 2 together!

(pre) University Challenges

While Dubai is well served with schools, one of the great challenges is trying to get your child into a secondary school/college of your choice. In general terms, key decisions have to be made at the time you put your kids into primary school as the most popular secondary schools - JC, DESC, DBS, etc (all the major schools in Dubai seem to be known by acronyms) - use related primary schools as "feeders" ie children at DESS have priority for entrance at DESC although they all still have to do an entrance exam. If there is no spaces available at the time you want to put your kids into primary you either have to move your child from the school that you have been able to get into at a later date if a space becomes available at the "feeder" school for your preferred secondary or you take your chances that there are spaces left after the feeder school pupils, siblings etc. (all of whom are usually higher up the priority pecking order) have had taken up their places in Year 7 of the target secondary school. In the case of the popular schools (all of the above-mentioned) this is easier said than done given the pressure on places (there is one selective school - Dubai College - which does not have a feeder school but again pressure on places is intense and as there is no sibling priority either there is obviously a risk of families with more than one child ending up with different school runs and non-matching holiday timetables).

When we arrived in the desert finding schools with places for two children in separate years was extremely challenging and in the end we had very few options. As it turned out we were very fortunate as the school where we secured places worked very well for us. However, although the owners (GEMS) had a recently opened a secondary school for which it was a feeder, we were a little concerned about sending A. to it - mainly because of the size of the secondary (something like 4,000 pupils once at full capacity) so we had to take our chances through the entrance exams for are preffered schools which basically started in October last year (with DESC) and lasted until the New Year. It was quite interesting to compare the testing process with the 11+ in some parts of the UK. My Sister's daughter had taken her 11+ at the beginning of Year 6 and there were some similarities between the types of 11+ questione she was being asked and the questions in A.'s entrance tests - quite a lot of non-verbal reasoning and "qualatitive" testing as well as some of the more traditional English and Maths based comprehensions. Moreover, the entrance applications for all the schools were fairly complex affairs (requiring examples of their academic and sporting success and details of the child's personality) so the whole application process was very stressful. Fortunatley A. came through it all with his usual aplomb and seems to have settled into his secondary schoolwell. Having been able to move V. to the "feeder" school to the college A. is now at, hopefully the next time we have to do this will be considerably less stressful!

Quizzical looks

I think I have previously written (possibly on my old blog http://taitamtales.blogspot.ae)about pub quizzes. We used to do them very regulaly here - Fibber Maghees and the Dhow and Anchor at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel being particular favourites. However, due to the gradual reduction in availability of fellow quizzes mainly as a consequence of people moving back to the UK (most notably G and A, R and V), Quiz nights have been few and far between over the last 12 months or so (athough hopefuly with Dad's arrival on Thursday that might change for a bit). In any event, E and I unexpectedly had a chance to go to the annual school quiz night last Thursday (at DOSC - which made three visits in less than a week having hardly set foot in the place for almost the whole of the nearly 5 years we have lived here). It was very well organised - a large number of participants, excellent food (the butter chicken was particuallay good) and pretty challenging questions. The other members of our team (mainly mates of E from the shool run) were very good so I managed to avoid embarassing myself too much and was very pleased to have been able to name the makers of the album Random Access Memories (Daft Punk since you ask although goodness knows where I dredged that up from as I cannot claim a great deal of knowlege of their ouevre) and whilst we did not come first (or indeed in the top three) we did not come last. All in all a really good Dubai evening as it was very pleasant to be able to sit outside on a balmy (if a little breezy)evening after the heat of the Summer.