Home school was interrupted today by the arrival of a parcel from Auntie Charlotte in Hong Kong. It's very exciting when a parcel arrives and we have to sort things out to keep everyone happy. We got a bag of chocolates each and we also got a few sachets of hot chocolate.

Edie has gone mad. She is trying to take pictures of my doll on a toy horse balloon. My Mum was our teacher today because Dad is ill and Mum didn't go to work.
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Edie is shouting in the background trying to get her horse to stand on its head. I don't believe in telling something that is not living to do something because I think it is a waste of time and it is boring. Boring, Boring and Boring.

This is the chocolate allocation for the comming months (if we demonstrate self-control), fairly divided and labelled so that everyone sticks to their own ration.

Mali, STC's resident wood-block artist, has always been one of our favourite teachers in the College. He is friendly, open-minded and loves to explore new places. Him and his friends regularly make road trips to neighbouring countries, including Laos, Vietnam and Northern Thailand. He also has a love of the Tibetan parts of Western China. What's more, Mali shares a frustration with bureaucracy [stopped him visiting Taiwan last year for an art-related trip] and enjoys a cup of real (local) coffee. His friends recently bought him this coffee-making device. He laughed over the fact that all the gadgets he had to buy to enable it's use (coffee grinder, coffee cups, coffee) came to more than double the price of the original gift. As a result of this expenditure, however, he forces himself to drink one coffee a day. Frankly, I think he does it for the process. "It's like chemistry", he said. Mali began his career as a doctor (the same as his wife) but turned his hand to art when he discovered an affinity with wood-block printing.

Our morning "coffee party" took place in Mali's art studio-cum-museum-cum-tea/coffee-house where him and his wife [pictured right] spend most of their free time. They recently bought the apartment above the studio and are currently decorating/kitting it out with Ma-designed wooden furniture and cultural artifacts from around the world - well, SE Asia mostly. They won't be moving to the new campus, despite the house there being bigger. This current den has an oasis-type charm about it and frequently has friends drop by. Today we were fortunate to be in the inner circle.

This is our Love-bird called Chirpy. She is about one month old and is very naughty. She eats bird food, cabbage, water and any nice juicy fruit. We let her out of her cage every day and if we don't she will start making a racket. Yesterday we found out that she knows how to open the cage door so we now have to clip it up with some bull-dog clips. Actually she has a mate but he is not in the picture. She is called Chirpy and her mate is called Sid-vicious or Dennis (He is a menice). We love him, especially Mum.

Yesterday Edie and I took our Barbies out side to play, we also took a friend's dog for a walk (at the same time). I put my barbie down on the grass so that I could play with the dog, but as soon as I put her down the dog ran over and grabbed my barbie in her teeth and ran off around the pond. In the end I did a running jump and landed on top of the dog with Edie close behind. My barbie endid up with five bandages and the need to wear a pair of glasses. POOR BARBIE!