The Martin's Blog

Helen – This was a productive day!!  Well, almost !!  We had a 10:00 appointment with the former Secretary to the Minister of Education and Higher Education (Ari) and also a member of the Fulbright Commission.  He had just stepped down from his Ministry position so we were going to meet him at his home.  The Fulbright driver picked us up at 9:20 and not knowing that he recently resigned and took us to the Ministry of Education.  Thank heavens we left early because we corrected him, he double checked and said ok we still have time.  He was unfamiliar with the section of town where we were going and we finally arrived at 11:30 with Tom giving him directions from the map.  We even called the Fulbright office but the man who set up the appointment was in India for 5 days so they couldn’t help us.  Anyway, he had also invited the Director of Education (Physical Education and Sport) and his assistant.  The meeting lasted two hours with a light lunch and it was decided that Tom would help them review the structure of organizing a national PE Association and that he and I would present a work shop sometime in April before we leave.  The ride home was 25 minutes!!!

Back in the Fulbright office Tom received an email in the afternoon inviting him to attend and give a presentation at a Fulbright conference in Jaipur, India (northern India) in mid-March.  The commission will cover Tom’s expenses but we will have to pay for me.  Can life get any more confusing or interesting???  The four page registration form and abstract was due on the 22^nd.  Problem – the next two days were the weekend and Monday and Tuesday were holidays.  That meant that if he was going to go, he had to do it immediately!  It took him three hours on the ancient computer but he got it done!  It was good to get back to the house, relax watch the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne and go to bed early.