Fun in Australia

Hilary and Mark had two weeks of a great time in the beautiful Great Barrier Reef area and in Byron Beach where Hilary has lived and worked the past six months. Mark will be back in the cold winter of Canada in a few days time. Hilary will meet up with a friend in Bali for a few weeks and then will decide afterwards what her next steps and destination will be. Living the life!

Seneca and MSF Canada

Once a year the "Globe & Mail" - one of the main newspapers in Canada - puts out a special edition on "top employers". This year Seneca is again listed in it, as well as MSF Canada, the organization I helped to get off the ground during the 1990-1992 period. Nice to see....

Bro & Sis down under

Mark made it safely to Brisbane in Australia reunited for a few weeks with his sister Hilary. One of Mark's friends also traveled to Australia to join the fun.

Travel SR and travel JR

I flew back yesterday on a big bird from Jakarta via Hong Kong to Toronto (SR) and today I put our son Mark (JR) on a plane via Shanghai to Brisbane. Mark will spend two weeks with his sister Hilary down under in Australia......

Back in Jakarta

First time I was in Indonesia (as a back-pack traveler) it was 1983. This weekend it is my second visit, 34 years later. Seneca has been invited by the PEDP (Polytechnic Education Development Program) to take part in a series of leadership development training sessions. The PEDP is financed by the Indonesian government (with a loan from the Asia Development Bank) and Global Affairs Canada. This weekend we work with 25 leaders in the HE sector in Indonesia.

Very little time with this first activity; we arrived on Saturday to give the workshop on Sunday and Monday and fly back to Toronto again on Monday night. But it will likely result in further training activities both here in Indonesia as well as in Toronto during the coming two years.

Unique Christmas tree

In our office the students decorated our seasonal tree in a very creative way today. At our front desk we have students work from the Middle East, India, Senegal, Brazil, Vietnam and China. They did a neat job decorating our office reception area.

A very interesting book I just read during several international flights. Good "food for thought"...

Panama & World Cup 2018

Today was the big FIFA event of selecting the teams for the group phase of the World Cup 2018 in Russia (soccer for our North American friends; football for the rest of the world). I happened to be today in Panama City for a meeting at the Canadian Embassy and in the reception area of the large office building where the Embassy is located they had this big screen televising live the event. The team of Panama ended up in Group G together with Belgium (very talented team at the moment), Tunis and England. However, qualifying for this tournament for the people in Panama is almost already as much pride as for other soccer countries winning it. My dear Holland team did not qualify this time and instead the country that beat them for 2nd place - Sweden - will play world champion Germany (amazing strong team again), Mexico (which this time easily qualified) and Korea (which is always a fierce competitor in this tournament). It promises to be a great event from June 15 to July 15 in 2018. The Panamanians are ready for it! As they are for Christmas in the hot & humid climate...