Ms. Clarke’s Class,
Hello once again, everyone! Today I am writing to you from Sydney, Australia. I am here on R and R, which stands for rest and relaxation. Basically, I’m on vacation right now. I have decided that I like Australia much better than Afghanistan. While I’ve been here I’ve had the chance to go scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef and to go bungy jumping. Being able to come on vacation to Australia has been a great time, but I still miss home. I am really looking forward to coming home.
Afghanistan can be quite boring at times, but I consider this to be a very good thing. While I don’t like boredom, the kind of excitement that we would get in Afghanistan is not something I wish to have to deal with. It involves people attacking and those of us on the base having to defend ourselves. Thankfully, that hasn’t happened at all since I have been there. Some of you wanted to know about the landscape in Afghanistan. While I can see that Afghanistan would be considered pretty by some people, I personally don’t like it. I think that there is not nearly enough green in Afghanistan. Almost everything is sand and dirt there. However, I do enjoy being able to see mountains every day. The mountains almost completely surround our base, and are decent sized mountains. So while I don’t like the way it looks there, I also don’t dislike it.
Some of you also wanted to know about my job in Afghanistan. Sometimes I get to drive large armored vehicles. We take those vehicles so that we are safe. We go driving so that we can do surveying work. What this means is that we take information about the way the land looks so that we can make models of it in the computer. Then we use these models so that we can plan to put new buildings there. The part that I do most of the time is the planning for what we are going to do with the land. Since we have been there, I have drawn many buildings and other things which are then built by the construction teams. One of my big projects has been to design a helicopter landing zone. When we arrived in Afghanistan, the area where we wanted helicopters to be able to land and park was just a lot of empty land which was not suitable for helicopters. These days, there are helicopters landing, parking and taking off again on that area. And the project couldn’t have been completed without my design work. It makes me feel really good to see the end product of a project which I worked on.
It sounds like you all had a really good time on your trip to Chinatown. I’m glad that you all are finding things in school which you like. School is really important, and it should be an enjoyable experience for everyone. For those of you who are going to Julian next year, you shouldn’t worry too much about it. Moving on to the next school can be a fun and exciting experience. I know that I have always enjoyed getting to move up a grade and go to a new school. It makes school more interesting when there are all new people and places to get to know. For those of you who will still be at Longfellow next year, I will make sure that I come to the school and visit you all sometime. I hope that you all have a good summer and come back to school next year ready to start learning more good stuff.
Your Friend,
James Blount
District 97 will be holding an additional open forum in conjunction with the superintendent search to get feedback from community members regarding the characteristics and qualities they feel are important for leading the district. The forum will be held on Monday, May 17 from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in the auditorium at Beye School, which is located at 230 N. Cuyler. In addition, the district converted the paper version of the Leadership Profile Assessment form into an online survey to provide people with an additional resource for submitting feedback regarding the search. The survey can be accessed by visiting the Longfellow home page and needs to be completed by May 19.
