First Day of Teaching

Today was my first day of teaching a BTech refrigeration class at Cape Peninsula University of Technology. To introduce the subject, I showed some pictures of refrigeration systems at ERPM. To my surprise, none of my students had been down in a South African mine.

Mark is getting excited about swimming tryouts on Thursday and Friday morning (8 AM to 10 AM). The only possible practice session is Wednesday morning at 7 AM. Despite the early hour, he says he wants to attend. The process is this: tryouts on Thursday and Friday. If times are good enough, students participate in an interhouse meeting (Mark is in "yellow" house) next week. Students with the best times at the interhouse meet are invited to be on the "A" swim team for the school. As we understand it, the "A" team is a travel team. It seems like a lot of pressure on the young students. We'll see how it goes.

Tracy investigated other daycare options for Catherine only to find that most créches are really only "half-day-care." The children are picked up by 1 PM. Not what we want. We'll have to do more thinking about this.

On the administrative front, I still have no email access at CPUT. And, our bank account is stuck on "non-resident" status. I went to the Stellenbosch branch of Standard Bank late this afternoon (4:30), well after closing time (3:30), to sign yet another form. Not surprisingly, the form asked for information that the bank already knows (my passport number, address in South Africa, arrival date, expected departure date, place of employment). Anyway, I dutifully completed the form and was told that it would be faxed to Cape Town. I now expect our account to move to "resident" status tomorrow.

Betty asked a question about the solitary figure in the header image for our blog. The answer can be found here.

--Matt