Bruce Doig:
CLASS OF 1981
North Delta Secondary High SchoolClass of 1981
Delta, BC
Vanier High SchoolClass of 1996
Donnelly, AB
University of Victoria - EducationClass of 1992
Victoria, BC
Reynolds High SchoolClass of 1980
Victoria, BC
Cloverdale Elementary SchoolClass of 1975
Victoria, BC
Bruce's Story
Life
After grad I moved around for about 3 1/2 years. I then moved back to BC and attended Camosun and UVIC. I met a wonderful lady, got married, moved to Halifax with her so she could do her masters, then finished my two degrees at UVIC. If someone had told me I would become a teacher I would have howled! Since then we have had two children, a daughter 17 and son 14, and lived in Nanaimo, Peace River, Abbotsford and Kuwait in the Middle East. I taught computers, and from 1998 to 2000 was the middle school computer teacher at the American School of Kuwait.
The Middle East was very different and I now appreciate Canada a LOT more. We returned to Canada in June of 2000 and now live in Yellowknife, NT. Will we be here long? Who knows??? Drop me a line - I love getting email.
In the latest update, July 2003, we now live south of London, England and are working here for a year while our children go to school. At the end of the year we have decided to return to Yellowknife for the time being - or at least until wanderlust overtakes us once more!
Well, it is now 2005. We returned to Yellowknife, but are in the process (a looong process) of moving to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I guess footloose should be my middle name!
Well, here it is 2006, and we are enjoying the sun and warmth in Riyadh. Different, but nice, and the travel opportunities are amazing. We have to make good use of the time as the kids are getting older and will start flying the nest in a few years...where does the time go?
March 2007 now and we have made the decision to stay in Riyadh another year. My school made me an offer I couldn't refuse, so here we be. Not sure how many more years after we will be here - I plan on starting my Master's next summer. Just found a one year program with two sessions in Switzerland for a month each summer and the rest online, so it sounds very interesting. Made it to Jordan and India this year, and then made it back in the summer to Yellowknife, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Victoria, and Nanaimo.
Currently we are planning trips to Bahrain in September, Egypt in October, and Malaysia in December/January. Bring it on! I highly recommend all three places. Hopefully I will post some photos soon - hopefully! Meanwhile, Dawn and I have decided to sign on at our jobs here in Riyadh for a third year. Yeah, life is strange, but right now Saudi is an interesting place to be and we do love our jobs. Hope to see some of you back in Canada this coming summer though!
Another year passes, March 2008 (turning into an annual rite!), and we re-signed for our third year here in Saudi! Life continues to be good. Our daughter graduates this year, our son is in grade eight, but, as I am sure with others, the bitter with the sweet, my mother's cancer has returned. Bad news, but not unexpected. I am sure we are all at the stage in our life where things like this start to happen, if they haven't already.
Well, fast forward eight months and the more things change the more they stay the same. I started my master's this summer at the U of A in an awesome program where I actually knew some of the students. Way strange and cool! Then I returned to Saudi for year 3. It has been good so far, the only problem being that we couldn't go to New Zealand and Hong Kong for a month because our flight out of Riyadh to Hong Kong was waitlisted. Our son got confirmed, but we weren't about to send him off to Hong Kong if we weren't confirmed too.
It worked out well though. We cancelled that trip and then found out my mom's cancer has returned, this time in her bones. So, we changed plans yet again and are off to Canada for our first West Coast christmas in ten years. It will be nice to spend time with family and make new memories. Then it will be back to work on the masters (almost finished my third and fourth course).
We had a great Christmas on the coast during one of the snowiest and coldest holiday seasons on record. Our son, Colin, had wished for snow,so he got his wish! As for us, we had a great time with family - it was our first Christmas out on the coast in over ten years and well worth going back for.
I am now working on courses 5 and 6 of my Masters and finish them in April before heading to the U of A in July or two more courses in three wee...Expand for more
ks. We are back in Saudi until at least June, 2010, and with the global recession striking it is a good place to be.
Where did the time go? Sorry I missed the 30th, but hey, 40 won't take long judging by how fast time seems to have sped up! Still in Saudi, but now teaching at university. Looking at possibly making a move...tune in to the next update to see. It is easier to do now that our youngest has flown the sandbox and is at our alma mater, UVIC.
Another year, more changes. Our son is now attending our alma mater, UVIC, while our daughter decides what to do with her life...I am sure more than just us are in THAT boat! Hard to believe this summer marks 7 years in Saudi Arabia. It will be our last partial summer as we are on the move again to country #5 - Mongolia, where I will be teaching middle and high school in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Never thought we'd end up there! Hope all is well with all of my former classmates!
Well, we have just started our second year in Mongolia. It is a raw rough and ready kind of place that still has a lot of growing pains ahead of it. Enjoying life at our school as Dawn has now switched into teaching too. We went to Japan and Korea this March and spent the summer in Europe visiting with friends we made in Saudi and having Dawn finish her certification process for EAL. Staying put in UB this fall, but back to Canada for the first Christmas on the west coast since 2008. It will be nice. Then off for a bit of a break in Hawaii before returning to Mongolia to finish year two. Hope all is well with everybody else in the world!
Fast forward two years and life continues apace. We are now on year 4 in Mongolia. My school has expanded and I am now setting up a 5-room design suite with woodwork, CAD-CAM, 3d printing, plastics, food technology, CNC cutting, and more. It is an exciting time for me! Plus we also added in a 25 meter six lane pool, so once that opens I can get back in the water regularly :-) On the flip side, we've also managed to do a monster tour of the US visiting friends and relatives and seeing 5 concerts. Our fave was probably Coldplay in Chicago - it was a cross between a rave and a concert with an amazing wrist band light show RFID' to the music. This year will see us visiting friends in Shanghai (and Shanghai Disney, so we will have been to every Disney in the world once more) plus visiting friends in Australia, a possible trip to the Orangutan refuge in Malaysia, and then next summer a major check off our bucket list - Macchu Piccu and the Galapagos in South America. Hope that all is well with everybody else reading this!
Well, Galapagos was too hard to get to, but spent a month touring Peru, where we hiked four days into Machu Picchu over the Inca Trail before heading to Bolivia and the Salar des Uyuni (amazing salt flats in the south of Bolivia) and on to Rio de Janiero and Iguazu Falls in Argentina. Back in Mongolia for year 5, we signed up to see what other teaching jobs were out there and found that there was a strong demand for our skills in many different places. We weren't INTENDING to move, but after interviewing with five schools, we accepted an offer in Yaoundé, Cameroon, where we will be moving in August. Hard to believe that we will be living on our fourth continent and living in our sixth country. Who knew? Dawn will be K - 12 ELL Coordinator and I will be 1/2 time MYP Design, part of the IB curriculum, and 1/2 time tech integration, working with the tech director and the teaching staff to integrate technology into the curriculum. Exciting times! I hope all is well with my classmates as another year unfolds in their lives.
Again, what a difference a couple of years make. I am still in Yaoundé at ASOY, but am now gr 6-12 vice-principal, tech director, and IB DP Coordinator (grade 11 and 12 IB diploma). It keeps me busy. Here for at least one more year and then we'll see where the wind and opportunity leads. Haven't lived in South America (and too old for Australia now...)
Fast forward and it's 2022. Where does the time go? Now living in Khartoum, Sudan, where I am the K-12 Principal at Khartoum American School. Thrilled to be taking on new challenges and be given new professional and personal growth opportunities.
Stay tuned!
Take care everybody!
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