It's working

So here is my trying hard to keep to a more or less weekly post on this blog.  Today's topic is the first question many people ask us: How is work?

Lea has starting teaching in earnest 2 weeks ago.  It is going very well and she is really enjoying it.  The challenges of an American college do indeed exist (a few difficult students, doing lots of class-related administration) but it far outweighs all the nice things, mainly the mostly really motivated students who are eager to have a discussion in class (about almost everything, of course).  Her colleagues have been nothing but wonderful and SMC (Santa Monica College) is by and large a place that is full of friendly people who keep it running smoothly.  Lea even got a first week recovery present from one of her colleagues and several cards as well to welcome her.

It has been very hot here, and especially not just one occasional day but almost 10 days of afternoon temperatures in the 90 F (32 C).  Because the rooms in her ecological and green building do not have air conditioning, Lea moved a few classes to grassy area outside, where the students continued to work in groups and be quite productive.  That is dedication!

Meanwhile, Dirk has been going to the beach every day.  Yes, it does have palm trees but you can only see them through the window:  The beach is the area dedicated to employees who are new or are between projects, and his assignment has been to get to know people and read up on stuff.  So his head is more or less exploding with new knowledge (Ruby, Java Spring, Vim, ..) but luckily the real beach is only a block away and a refreshing walk during lunch time is helping a lot.  Not too many problems with the heat there, although the bike ride to work (about 3 miles, 15 minutes) is long enough to require a change of shirt on arrival.

The colleagues here are also very nice, mostly very young but super friendly.  Dirk's work is basically a big room full of geeks who, thanks to pair programming, have social skills. Hooray for that!

We are close enough to the beach that to have a house without air conditioning and for most of the year, that will be fine given the evening sea breeze.  However, during the heatwave the evening just brought in more moisture and hardly any cold.  The girls didn't sleep so well and this was wearing on them (and us) quite a bit.  Luckily things have cooled down now and everybody is catching up on sleep.

Meanwhile, the girls got a hair cut:

Delphine's birthday is in a few days!  This is of course fantastic, but it also makes her miss her Dutch friends very much.  We will have no fewer than two parties for her here:  One in San Diego with her old friends; and one here in Santa Monica with her almost-there new friends.  We have been so busy we haven't even had time to buy her any real presents yet, but we have some good ideas:  I am sure that this too will be fixed last minute .  :-)