PictureOssians choice of art to draw.
Ossian went on a field trip the other day. I signed up to follow them and keep track of a group of 4 kids.

It´s a nice museum and I think the kids liked it too. They where supposed to draw a drawing of one of the paintings/sculptures at the museum. At first all the kids on the groups went for the same piece but after a while they change their minds and started to choose a painting or a sculpture more of their liking.

More pics at the link "read more" down below.


 
Last week there was a Swim Meet at UNIS. All grade 2-3 competed for points to their home´s. Ossian´s home is Tigers. He did good and won one of  his races and so did also two of his Swedish friends in Tiger house. Way to go!

It was special this day because Kaye was there. I think she enjoyed this as much as I did. Hope so anyway. We had to take Ossi from the meet earlier to pick up Ruben and go to the airport. Singapore was next stop for us.

I wonder how the competitions went
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Ossian on his way to win his race. He is really good at backstroke.
 
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For a couple of days we have had a little boy who have done his homework without us nagging to get him to do it. He has done it so well that we asked him to stop. Actually, we have been nagging at him to stop, or at least go up to his room and shut the door when doing the homework.

Is this a bad thing, you may wonder? If you ask me, yes. When it comes to practicing the recorder it can just be to much to cope with. When you have had a recorder approximately 2 meters from your ears for 1 hour playing "When the saints" (not allways correct) it can eventually become too much. Please do not tell Ruben I wrote this...

By the way, is´nt he cute. I have probably been anoying Ruben (revenge) as much as he annoyed me with his recorder. I´m practicing to take photos with my new toy. A speedlight flash and a homemade beauty dish. So much fun. What do you think of the result to the left?

 
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This Saturday Ruben and his new friends at Saturday basketball at UNIS played a game against a team from another school (nobody told me which school). The kids performed so good and they won by 9 to 2 points. I think Rubens contribution was 4 points. Given this was his first basketball game ever he did really good. I´m so proud of him.

I took a whole bunch of pictures and on the link "Read more" you can find them.


 
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Finaly! The boys got into Saturday Soccer and Saturday Basketball at UNIS. It´s a great programme with parents training the children. It´s open for the entire community in Ha Noi so it´s just not for UNIS attending children and parents.

During the day it´s not only the kids that is training. Adults have bootcamp training or other physical exercises at campus. Kids and adults from UNIS school are also selling hot dogs, snacks and drinks.


See more pics by clicking the link "read more" to the right.


 
You probably wonder why I´m so late wishing you happy new year. Well, in Viet Nam is Tết celebration (New year) in accordance with the luna calendar and it accurs on the first day of the first month of the Lunar calendar (around late January or early February).

Ha Noi has been crazy for a long time now because of Tết. Everybody is going around buying stuff to give to family and friends. The traffic is horrific. A motobike ride that normally takes 15 minutes, takes another 1 hour (during rush hour). This is the most important holiday/festival in Viet Nam and everything will shut down for a couple of days. We have had to buy all the essentials, like food, before the holiday. Its not like Sweden when you can go to the supermarket on new years eve untill 9 pm.

Today was the last day in school before the leave. There where celebrations and all the parents was invited. The kids performed a play, sang songs and danced. There was also a dragondance performence by the kids and later on there was proffesionals doing the same. I´m so impressed that the teachers get the kids to perform like that. So different from Swedish schools.
Click on the link "read more"  to the right to see more pics.

 
Yesterday Ruben and all of the 3 graders performed a play called "What´s in your mind". I could not miss this for anything in the world so I went even though I am sick. Panadol does the trick for a while. I´m glad i went. It was so good. The kids were so talented. I am so impressed that the teachers get the kids to perform the songs with such passion. There were probably many proud parents with wet shiny eyes in the audience.

Se also Ruben and his class performing Ace of Base´s "I Saw The Sign" on Rubens page.



 
11-11-11. A day that occurs once in a lifetime. A special day for special events. At UNIS they celebrated with a charity event - Walk-A-Thon. The kids did laps on the field track and for every lap they did their sponsors had to donate a predetermined amount of money. The money will go to Blue Dragon Children´s Foundation.

Please visit: http://www.streetkidsinvietnam.com
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Blue Dragon came to visit the event.
Want to see more pics? Just click on the link "read more" to the right.

 
Today was track events. 400 meters for grade 1-5. The kids competed for points to their "houses". Ruben and Ossian belongs to Tigers. Its just like Gryffindor, Hufflepuff etc. The kids love it. They really tryed to do their very best.

Ossian fell at the start and ended up last but after 250 meters he was in the lead. A remarkable achievement. Finaly his energy ran out and he came in second.
Ruben had also a bad start. He was caught up in some kind of "running jam" and did not come up to speed. After 200 meters he had caught up with most of the guys but that was not enought. He ended up in 5th place.

The boys did really good and I am so proud of them. When they got home Ruben told me that he wants to start training running with me.
 
Can you find Ossian?