A busy week goodbye

Phew, pretty busy week for mum before she flies back to Malaysia later on tonight. Alison and I were in for a little surprise last Tuesday when mum casually informed us that she had decided to take up a five day TESOL (Teaching English as a second language) course down at the Gold Coast to become an accredited trainer. Here she is receiving her certificate.



The decision seemed a little sudden but she's really excited about the whole prospect of teaching English to people in China and Tibet so power to her.

On Saturday we picked up the Courier Mail and scoured the engagement notices for two inches of fame. Pretty chuffed seeing my name in print like that. I've been told that in some circles the announcement itself is considered a binding commitment so I guess there's no turning back now.



Over the past three odd years I've been trying intermittently to get mum to buy an Apple computer on the promise that she'll find them considerably more intuitive that their Windows counterparts. When she first landed in Australia I brought it up once again and offered to help her adjust to the differences over her long stay with us in Australia but my proposal was promptly ignored. How typically 'parent-ish' of her to suggest getting an iBook just TWO DAYS before returning home after a TWO MONTH stay with us... *sigh*



Ah well, at least she's seems happy with the purchase. After two solid days of remedial computing instruction from yours truly I certainly hope she's absorbed enough to justify the buy. We've covered quite a bit of new ground for mum so I'm proud of her. If all of it's sunk in she should be able to

· Use bits of the iLife suite including iPhoto, iDVD and iTunes
· Import pictures from her digital camera
· Tab browsing in Safari and using BOOKMARKS
· Searching with Spotlight
· Smart folders/albums/playlists
· Burning CDs with burn folders
· Using Mail to access her Gmail account
· Use Skype and iChat for VOIP calls and IMs
· Upload pictures to Flickr and post them to her blogger account
· Tonnes of other little things I'm sure

Mum, you can use this as a study list if you like. ;)



This is actually the first time I've spent an extended period working with OSX so it was a great preview of things to come with my Mac Book Pro. I hear rumblings that there might be a three to four week delay with some orders so here's hoping that our corporate customer status lends enough weight to get mine on the short list.

As a bonus I actually received a replacement packet of green train bits too for Railroad Tycoon. Hurray for good customer service.