Friday, October 20, 2006

All dressed up and...

Today was break-up day at school for the boys. The idea was to dress in business suits and spray their hair. Here you see the results. Sadly, Torvy decided to gel his hair before spraying the colour on, so it showed up less effectively, but it's green. I don't think I need to explain what colour Björn's is!

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

How do you spell NGNGNGNG?

I have just discovered that I am expected to pay nearly double the fees of my classmates for my course at Oxford Brookes. Why? Because I'm a foreigner. I could scream!

The enquiry process leading up to my application took nearly 3 months. At no point did anyone mention this. In fact, I have an email stating in black and white that my fees would be £310 per module. On the basis of this, my employers agreed to pay half my fees. All good so far. I later saw the page on the website indicating this amount and stating that international students had to pay £590. I didn't think that applied to me. I thought that applied to people not actually resident in the UK, coming in especially to study at Oxford. I even commented on the irony of the fact that every single one of those people was coming in from a country with a weaker currency.

From the time of my enrollment, I have been asking for an invoice. A month ago, my course started and I once again asked for an invoice. Instead, on Saturday (four weeks into the course) I got a Student Payment Instruction form, indicating a per-module fee of £590. Talk about your average bolt from the blue!

I contacted the university to point out the mistake. No mistake, they tell me. That's the fee for foreign students. No amount of explaining that I have lived here for over 7 years, that I pay taxes here, that the only home I own is here, that the NHS provides me with free medical without expecting any levies because of my nationality... none of that made any difference. It matters not that I have already made a major contribution to the learning of my classmates and that I am probably the most motivated student in the class. My passport says South African. End of.

I am now down to the fact that they quoted me a fee of £310 in writing and fighting that corner tooth and nail. C'mon all you praying types - this wall needs to come down. I have seen other bureaucratic walls come down in the face of prayer (British Embassy Pretoria, 1999, just for a start!). Let's do it again.

Monday, October 09, 2006

A trip to Tanzania?

Björn and I have just been to a meeting at school for those who want to take part in a Tanzanian exchange in August 2008. They will climb Mt Kilimanjaro, spend two weeks in a Tanzanian boarding school, go on safari and finish off with two days on the beach on Zanzibar. It sounds like the growth experience of a lifetime. He is dead keen, so he didn't hear the words like: altitude sickness, malaria, diarrhoea, long-drop toilets, lecture style lessons, no textbooks.

In the two years leading up to that time, they will have to raise £100K to pay for their trip out and the Tanzanians' trip here (there is no way they can pay for themselves). This will involve both group and individual find fundraising efforts. They will attend basic Swahili lessons, although their lessons will be in English, and undergo training in hill/mountain walking. While they are there, they will carry out community work in an orphanage.

The teachers who will lead the party went over in the summer and found the conditions in the orphanage quite hard to handle - especially in respect of the way those with special needs - especially mental disabilities - are treated. They also had to watch the slaughter of a goat, which they found tough, since they expected the goat to die quickly, which it didn't.

I think the girls who go will find it even more difficult, since the girls' school is inferior to the boys' and their conditions harsher. Before they go home for the holidays, the Tanzanian girls' heads are shaven so that their parents aren't tempted to take the opportunity to marry them off instead of educating them.

Many of the "boys" at the boys' school are in their 20's, which John and I would have taken for granted, being familiar with African education, but it shocked the English, since the school system here is based on age, rather than progress. Neither of the schools has any ICT kit whatsoever, and the few textbooks they have date back to the 60's or earlier. Not all the children even have their own pens.

I'm sure it will be the experience of a lifetime, if he is able to produce the level of commitment necessary to raise the funds and acquire the skills required. It's bound to broaden him and open his eyes to his own privileged state. We will support his efforts in every way we can, but he needs to take ownership of this himself - this is is his trip, his project.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

It's official

Björn is now the tallest in the family! Today is his 15th birthday and we did the traditional measuring thing straight after the waking-him-up-with-cake thing. He is now 172.5cm tall - 1/2cm taller than his Dad. Wahey! This picture was taken at the Eastern restaurant we visited today for lunch.

He began his GCSEs in September, which will take him the next two years, whereafter he will do 6th form (A levels). He is likely to take a gap year before heading to university, although that isn't necessarily a given. We will have to see what options are available. We would like him to be able to go and spend a year abroad, working in an environment that will challenge him physically before he knuckles down to study again.

He is an intelligent, pleasant-natured boy, confident to the point of arrogance sometimes, but we guess life will teach him balance. He wants to study forensics at university one day, and, while I think he'd be bored stiff by chemistry, I think he would love ballistics.

He has a very nice physique and is inordinately proud of his "8-pack". His part time job at the greengrocery certainly helps with that - he spends a lot of time lifting and carrying. He is still doing pretty well at sport and is keen to try his hand at decathlon - I think he ought to be quite good at it, he has a good balance of tack and field skills. We have to make enquiries as to what age that starts and where he can get training - school athletics being somewhat limited.

His face has changed quite dramatically over the past two years, and his dear little button has been transformed into a more - ahem! - generously proportioned Norton nose. His jaw has also lengthened significantly. As you can see, he is wearing his hair a little on the long side - it remains to be seen how long he can put up with it, though - he gets irritated with hair in his face.

He is no longer playing the guitar, and is looking to sell his kit. He has had several girlfriends, none of whom have lasted more than a couple of weeks (I think it will take him a while to find someone to replace Chrissy - what is it about one's first love?), but is currently single. That's not to say that he isn't usually to be found in the centre of a knot of girls, though!

His teachers are, on the whole, very pleased with him. His food technology (cookery) teacher attends our church. In fact she teaches both boys, and she came over today to tell me how lovely they are to teach. That's the sort of thing parents like to hear. Of course, it's also very nice that they bring home all the results of their efforts, too. Mmmm. Last week there was a chicken and mushroom pie and, the week before that, a cheesy potato bake. Björn enjoys cooking and isn't bad at it. The trouble is that at home he gets distracted by TV, computer, PS2, etc., and tends to forget to keep an eye on the stove. At school, he can stay focused on the task at hand. When he disciplines himself, he makes some pretty decent meals.

Recently, for food tech, they had to keep a food diary for 24 hours, and Björn was judged the healthiest eater in the class. Since he is the least healthy eater in the family and, on the day in question, he had a bag of crisps and a bag of sweets (out of the ordinary for him), one wonders about the dietary habits of the rest of the class. I guess we shouldn't, though - the average Brit's poor eating habits have been big news for the past couple of years, and I find myself regularly sitting with my mouth open watching people who have to be taught what the different vegetables are called (I kid you not: "Er, is it a cabbage?).

We expect that, after two years of rapid growth, Björn should slow down a bit for a couple of years, with another spurt at 17-18. Of course, that's the average - it remains to be seen if he follows typical form.

He spends his life on msn, these days, and is a typical digital native, taking full advantage of always-on connectivity.

And that's our boy in a nutshell.