Day 96

A quieter day, but perhaps that was due to the children all feeling under the weather. We are moving again! Going from the 4th floor to the 10th floor. Alas we couldn't get to the top floor, so we still have an unknown living above us. But for a three bedroom apartment, I'm pretty sure there's only a single Kazakhstani guy up there. Will be interesting to hear how much noise comes through now that there will be someone living above us. At least we don't have to move far and so the packing should be a bit easier.

The weather is slowly warming up, but not sure how long it will last. Finally got the last bits of my conference trip paperwork signed and submitted. I keep finding new and interesting aspects of my work. In going to South Korea, there is a daily limit on how much the university will allowed to be covered for a hotel and daily living allowance. They've worked everything out to the tiniest minutiae for when I will be in Kazakhstani airspace and receive a lesser allowance. I can just about understand why they do it like this in order to limit any possible embezzlement, but in my mind it really only serves to show a lack of trust in the expatriate academic staff and an inability to hold them accountable should any individual abuse their position. Someone even sent through a request for thoughts as to why it is difficult to conduct research at NU. The list I sent back was 3 pages long. I seriously doubt that anyone will take it seriously enough to do anything about it, which is somewhat disheartening. But as I said before, we're allocated a slot and should we accept that slot, then we stay in that slot until contract end. Trying to enjoy work and continue progressing research takes a lot of creativity. I'm not sure how much I can endure. Plus I still haven't heard about my research trip abroad, which looks to be impossible now for this year.

Ali is considering developing her own curricula for Rebakah and Matthias or whether it is best to just buy someone else's. I think I could go for something like that and put in some really fun lessons. Two hours of sci-fi movies, an hour of building Lego with Matthias, guitar music lessons with the girls, followed by three hours of cooking and a bike ride for sports.

Ray