A little bit of politics

September 29, 2011

I think it’s a good time for me to introduce the discussion of American presence in the Middle East. In the case of an invasion by any country, I think that there are times in which it is necessary, and times in which it is foolish. I tend to side with the positions of the victims… what can I say? I have been raised to be compassionate. And just the same, I will ALWAYS stand by the troops, whether or not I stand by the reason behind a decision. They are men and women doing their job, and it is not their own decision (beyond initial enlistment, of course) to put themselves in danger’s way. Whatever your views of the two wars the U.S is currently fighting, I think I can safely say that our leaders need to show a great deal more discernment in how they decide to interfere in international matters.

We have watched revolution after revolution in the Middle East throughout the last six months, and they are sure to continue. It’s the prerogative of the people in those countries to have the type of government they want. I don’t think it’s our place to interfere. If we were going to pick a place to drop ourselves for the sake of “justice” and “human rights”, we should protecting the people of Burma; the people of Sudan; the children of Uganda. We should be protecting the people who have no part in the politics, and have found themselves in the middle of a nightmare. Wars are not pretty. Revolutions aren’t either. I have Syrian friends who want Syria to be able to handle their own business, without the interference of any other countries. They’ve voiced to me that they hope America stays out of it, and I tend to agree.

Now from the opposite perspective, I had the opportunity to talk to a Pakistani man last week while I was in his taxi. He has worked here for nearly a decade, and his wife and children remain in Pakistan. He sends money home for them, but doesn’t make nearly enough to bring them to Abu Dhabi to safety. We weren’t talking at first but he was listening to a news station, so I asked him what was in the news. He was listening to a news report from Washington DC, specific to the Middle East. He told me that his town is close to the Afghan-Pakistan border, and that it’s very dangerous because of the presence of the Taliban. He said he wished America would send soldiers to help protect his family and neighbors. His own country doesn’t.

He asked me why Americans have gone other places to help, but not to Pakistan. I had no answer for him, and it hurt.

Why do we insist on interfering where we are not wanted, and ignoring the people who could truly benefit from some protection?

I’ve always felt this way, but it is a much closer reality to me lately than it has been before. 

My kids are weird... read on...

September 22, 2011

Today (thankfully, after school was finished for the day) I found out that my friend David was murdered back home. I can’t even begin to describe how much I’m going to miss his laugh, and just his warm, happy presence. I never saw him without a smile on his face and pure joy in his heart. To think that he was chosen at random by a drunk man with a hunting rifle just makes me sick. My friends, my family and everyone at Simpson is grieving for David, and I wish I was with them. I think this is the first time I’ve had the thought, “I wish I was home”. I’ll miss you David. The world won’t be the same without you.

September 24, 2011

Some updates: My first class is indeed an expat class, because my Arabic co-teacher can’t understand most of them. HER class is an Arab class though, and they can’t understand me. (Which made them act like monsters on Wednesday, but whatever.) Thursday was our first day switching classes, but since school lets out early the first week, I only had my 2^nd class for like an hour before they started filtering out to go home. They were much better in class on Thursday. One of my boys in that class even brought me a few roses from his garden at home, saying, “Miss, these are for you from my mommy.” It was adorable! My “weekend friend” (he said it, not me. We really are all too busy to talk during the week) Imad called me up and the group went out to Emirates Palace to a Japanese club, and then we unsuccessfully tried to get into a few nightclubs. (One didn’t work because of the gender ratio in our group being mainly guys, and the other because Nader wasn’t in alignment with the dress code.) So we gave up and went out to eat at some Lebanese place they know. There were come pretty interesting combos involved (a wrap with beef, tomato, pickle, cheese and French fries) but it all tasted really good. LOL. It was a good distraction from the earlier events and sad news from the day. Yesterday we went to Aloft and sat at the pool all day, and then went out at night. Danced a lot, made some new friends, you know… How I do. I’m bruised from being thrown all over the pool, I have a cut on my leg from God-only-knows-what, and my toes are still numb a full 18 hours after ditching my heels for flip-flops; signs of a pretty decent weekend, if I do say so myself. Bring on the kids.

September 26, 2011

My kids are weird. Seriously. Today in L, Khaled decided that he wasn’t going to listen and was distracting the other kids, so I asked him to come sit at the front next to me. He ignored me and kept distracting, and I kept calling him… “Khaled… Khaled…KHALED”. He started yelling over and over again that his name was Mario, which sent my otherwise attentive class into giggles and interruptions of “Miss, my name is Spongebob!” and “Miss, my name is Spiderman!” Determined that he wasn’t going to win, I put a chair over in the corner and told him to go sit there. Of course, he ignored me so I had to physically pick him up and put him in the chair, then direct Sarah (the class assistant) to keep an eye on him because I was not going to waste the time of the other 24 kids. He sat there for about 15 minutes while I got the class situated in the next activity, then we had a chat and I let him join. And I kid you not, when it was time to go downstairs for recess and they were lining up, Khaled cried because he didn’t get to be in the front of the line. (The person in front gets to hold the teacher’s hand.) What the heck!!!

In my other class, I have 3 boys who I generally have some trouble with, but today they were monsters. One of them was threatened with a phone call home tomorrow if he doesn’t shape up. It was SO ridiculous today that I couldn’t even help myself from laughing at the end of the day. Most of them are good though. And when we go downstairs to the basement for recess, I have 3 or 4 of my girls who would rather stand next to me than go play. It’s so cute!

Yesterday I asked the kids to bring something small from home to show the class, and that it should start with the letter ‘s’. Considering the fact that they’re 5 years old, I expected that only a few would remember. I was right! We had 4 show-and-tellers. Menah brought a picture of a strawberry in her pocket; Nusaiba brought a little plastic snake; Muhammad A. brought a little toy Smurf; and little Mohammad M. brought a soft snake toy. They were so freaking adorable standing in front of the class saying what they brought! Then the kids who forgot were kind of bummed out, but I told them that we could do this for every new letter we learned, so they will all have more chances to remember.

Side note: When Muhammad A’s mom picked him up, she asked me if we were already starting the curriculum. I told her that we hadn’t technically started, but I was introducing some things, and that Muhammad was doing a great job! (He really is a great little boy.) She was glad to hear it, and told me how excited he had been when he came home and tried to decide what to bring to class starting with ‘s’. I’m so glad! I hope I can keep up the excitement all year!

I was thinking about it today, and in the 50 kids of my two classes, I have the following: 5 boys named Muhammad (various spellings), 3 boys named Ahmed, 3 girls named Mariam (various spellings), 2 boys named Ibrahim, 3 boys named Khalifa, and 2 girls named Haya. Ay ay ay!!!

The kids in L (my mostly Arab class) are slowly getting the hang of having an English teacher around. Honestly, I’m almost positive that they all understand me but some are holding out so they can have an excuse to not listen. Because they all let me know when they’re finished doing the activity, when they want a drink of water, etc. I know now that Haya wants to chat with me about everything that she does away from school, Sheikha’s mom had a new baby yesterday, and my smiley, happy Youcef cried when we were practicing writing our names because he didn’t know how to do his. (I showed him, and promised we’d practice, and he calmed right down… Poor guy.)

I really lucked out by getting GREAT kids in my classes this year. The other teachers have mentioned that none of their kids know their letters, none can write their names, and other things like that. My kids are so smart!!! But soooo strange....

The first day!!

September 19, 2011

Great day! Miraculous even! I spent the morning in Golnoza’s class again, and we had a blast! I finished out some planning stuff for my own class, and went to the boys’ school with Seamus to turn in some banking paperwork. While we were there, I told Mr. Mahmoud that I was concerned about starting the direct deposit right away since my account would be locked until my Residency Visa was completed. So what does he do?! He walks in to Mr. Mubarak (the guy who is always so cranky) and they talk for a minute (he even made Mr. Mubarak laugh… I didn’t think it was possible), and he hands me my passport with completed, affixed visa inside!!!

(Since my entry visa is only good for 60 days, I was fully anticipating making a sketchy, less-than-fully-legal trip over the border to Oman, to get a stamp out and back into the UAE for another 60 days. It’s happened in previous years…)

So no shady trips to Oman!! I’m officially a documented Abu Dhabi resident, allowed to stay until September 2013. Yay! It also clears my biggest roadblock from going to Jordan with Sarah for the November Eid break. Fantasic!

September 20, 2011

Today was incredible. EASILY the happiest day I’ve had since I’ve been here (and I’ve had some good days, don’t forget). I hardly slept last night, between being so relieved about my visa, and my class coming today. I didn’t get to sleep until at least 2, and I was up at 5:30 because my mind wouldn’t let me stay in bed. I got ready to go and walked into my classroom at about 6:45 (school starts at 7:30; we had to be there at 7), and my first student arrived like 3 minutes after me. They trickled in for about half an hour, and then my room was suddenly packed. There are so many boys in my class! I had 21 of 25 kids today, and only 6 girls. And their names!!! Oh my gosh! You should see my attendance sheet. Some of these kids have like 5 names, and it goes most of the way across the page. Actually, a lot of them do. (Apparently, that means my class is more of an Arab class than an expat class.) And there are name duplicates: I have FOUR Muhammad’s!! Luckily two of them go by their middle names instead, so they are: Uraib, Shoaib, Mohammad M, and Muhammad A. The ‘A’ is for his middle name, Abdulramen… no wonder some of them can’t spell their names.

Side note: It actually is a pretty incredible thing here for a child to come into school already knowing how to write his/her name. Both Sarah and Tara have told me that they have kids in Grade 1 who can’t hold a pencil correctly, let alone write their names. I think the biggest thing we’re up against is the fact that Arabic is written right to left, but English is left to right. These kids have to learn both written languages right from the beginning, and that can be very confusing. I noticed a few kids today who write their names backwards (example: if I wrote my name ‘eitaK’). The “first” letter is capitalized correctly, and the letters are all individually correct, it’s just the wrong direction. It’s something we can definitely tackle. And it’s kind of cute. J

The kids colored or played Lego’s for a long time until I felt like we might not get more kids for the day, and then they cleaned up and sat on the listening rug so I could read a few stories. They listen so well! (And Ms. Nagat came in during story time to check on how the class was doing… perfect timing! They were freaking angels. I couldn’t have been more impressed with them.) There was only one girl who cried for a long time and one little boy who cried because the girl was crying and upset him, but they were both fine by snack time. When it was time to eat, they lined up to wash their hands and had snack (and one poor guy threw up, but hey! He made it to the bathroom, and then the assistant took him to the nurse), and then we came back to the rug. We sang a few songs, did a craft project, and introduced the letter ‘s’. (Clearly, our new curriculum doesn’t have us going in alphabetical order. Duh.) By then it was 11:00 and, for this week, that means time to go for the kids that take the bus. I had 6 go on the school bus, and then another 5 left shortly after to leave on a private bus, and parents started picking kids up from then on. (I know it seems early since school officially goes until 12:30, but they’re allowed leave after 11:00 for the first week.) The last four boys in my classroom played for a long time, and then started getting tired, laid down on the rug and got quiet. None of them fell asleep, but it was pretty funny.

Tomorrow I’m going to spend the whole day in the other classroom, with a new set of habibis, and then Thursday we will start the schedule of trading classes halfway through the morning. I hope my class tomorrow is as great as my first class! It’s almost like having two “first” days of school since we get two sets of kids, and they get two teachers. Today was amazing. 

A few firsts.

September 17, 2011

Oh man… just a few weeks in, and I’m already losing the consistency in my journaling. I’ll try to be more diligent. The rest of the week was spent finishing up my classrooms, with a few more meetings thrown here and there. As I was mainly finished with my decorating, I was pretty bored and very glad to see 2:00 pm roll around on Thursday. I had bus duty one afternoon with the 1^st graders (lining them up by bus number and taking them to their buses), and I signed my full contract again. (This one was for the school’s records. The last one had been for the Ministry of Education or the Ministry of Labor or something, and I had signed that back when I did my blood tests last weekend at Public Health.)

Side note: Apparently you do the health exam every 3 years when you work here, which is no big deal. It’s very basic. “Do you have any health or skin disorders?” No. “Are you pregnant?” No. *Stamps card*. “Please move to the next station”. Next they drew a blood sample, which in itself is really no big deal, but I was still terrified from my last blood donation experience when I fainted. It went by quickly, my card was stamped again, and I moved on to receive a chest x-ray, and then my health exam was finished. So simple!

Moving along now… We went out with the group Thursday night, and I tried out a church Friday morning. It’s pretty close to my school, and I’m sure that when the weather cools down, I could walk there. There were probably 200 people in the English service I went to, with one right before, and about a zillion services throughout the week in other languages. It was a nice service, but I don’t know if it’ll be my regular church or not. It was very traditional, with hymns and a Bible-lesson sermon. Aside from missing my friends and family, yesterday was the first time I’ve been truly homesick for something: I miss the Stirring. I hope I can find something a little more contemporary, but if not, I’ll continue on at this church and supplement with the weekly Stirring podcast.

I went with Tracy to the boys’ school to get a letter from the Business Office Manager to the bank saying that we can open accounts even though our visas are pending. He had some people in his office, so we sat in the waiting room for a while. After about 20 minutes had passed, and 10 people had gone in (seeming to interrupt the work he was doing with the other people) he asked if we needed him. When we told him what we needed, he was like, “Why you not come in then?!” It’s a different attitude than home. If 10 different people had interrupted a business manager in a meeting at home, he’d be irritated. It’s normal here. Well, lesson learned. If we had known, we wouldn’t have waited so long, and would’ve made it to the bank before they closed. (The banks here have seriously the most ridiculous hours… They close at 12:30 on Saturdays, and at 1:30 the rest of the week. I don’t even know if they’re open on Fridays.) We missed the bank by like 5 minutes!!

Tracy wanted to go down to Zayed Sport City (not too far from our place) to watch the Ireland v. Australia World Cup Rugby match, so went down there to eat lunch and watch the game in the Clubhouse. My first rugby match! Let me tell you… it’s very confusing, but pretty interesting. Tracy’s going to teach me about rugby, and I’m going to teach her about American football. W00t! Now I just need to find a place that shows NFL games, and we’re set.

The first school week at Al Nahda

September 11, 2011

Interesting couple of days…

Today marked the first day of school for grades 1-12. In my department (and my building), that means 12 classes with 20-30 six-year olds. In the UAE, kindergarten is not compulsory so some of these kids had never been to school, while others have been here for a year or two already. We all have to report at 7 a.m. this week (and I assume next week as well, when OUR students start). There are lists of the teachers without students this week, and we’re divided into groups assigned duties at different times in different classes. The morning duties involve signing kids in and getting their nametags, entertaining while the classroom teachers greet parents, etc. Afternoon duties are things like writing bus numbers on kids’ hands before the end of the day, lining them up to go out, etc. I’m not on any of these lists and when I asked Mrs. Nagat about it yesterday, she said to work on my classroom and that I would be called to fill in as needed.

When I arrived at 7 for check-in, one of the secretaries handed me a slip of paper that detailed when and where I would be needed for the day: Grade 1, Class Q, 9:30-11:30. When I got there to relieve Tracy, there was a little girl sobbing in the corner, and the rest of the class was pretty much just playing. Hamda (the little girl) had been crying for about an hour and a half when I got there, and continued for another half hour. She wouldn’t color, she wouldn’t go sing songs or read stories with the class (all of whom were being VERY well entertained by the classroom assistant). She wanted to go home… It was heart breaking. So I tried for a while to calm her down while the assistant had the class controlled, but she could only get them to sing so many songs before something else needed to happen. We got them playing and coloring, and Hamda finally came around. At some point, we had them clean up and come sit on the carpet in the front of the class, and I taught them Simon Says. (Way over their heads, by the way. It was hilarious.) We took turns being Simon, and then we read some books, and then another teacher came in to take my place. They were so cute!! Hamda gave me a big hug while I was sitting talking to some of the little girls, and climbed up into my lap to sit with me. They asked me if I was there teacher and when I said no, they asked what I was teaching. One little girl thought I said I was teaching Grade 2 rather than KG2, and very decisively told me that she wanted to go to my class next year for Grade 2. So I told her that I was teaching KG2 downstairs, and she said, “Ok! Then I will go down there next year to be in your class!” It was precious!

I have to admit, I was starting to freak out about being a teacher. I keep asking myself, “What the heck are you thinking?! You don’t know the first thing about being a teacher!” But today helped resolve that. I CAN keep 25 5-year olds busy and happy. I CAN maintain control and get them to listen to me without yelling. I CAN be a teacher!

Now I really, really want my kids to come to school. It was exhausting (since I didn’t sleep well, and didn’t have time for coffee), but I felt like the time I spent in the classroom with those kids was a renewal of my spirit. I will sleep happy tonight. J

September 12, 2011

I AM THE CONQUERER OF THE OVEN!!!!!!! Well… actually I just made some cookies. But they were delicious! And not burnt! Granted, they were a little doughy, but that can be attributed more to my impatience than to a problem with the oven.

The only other notable part of my day was when I almost flooded my bathroom. Yeah… that was wonderful. See, there is an access to the tub/shower drain in the bathroom floor. Incidentally, completely pulling the plug to drain the bathtub will make that drain overflow. Who would’ve guessed? I’m just glad I was paying attention for once and caught it before the whole tub drained out on my floor. (That would’ve made for a fun cleanup, since I’m still sans mop right now.)

For worse, for better.

September 6, 2011

Today was awful. The stuff in the early morning wasn’t so bad… we met in our smaller divisions (so for me, the “English” teachers of the KG department… I use quotes because there are three of us out of 9 or 10 that don’t speak Arabic.) One of the teachers was pretty combative with Caroline (our curriculum coordinator) about the new curriculum, and about basically anything she could think of. I found out later from Caroline that that particular teacher is the former coordinator, whom Caroline has replaced. (Lucky Caroline, right?) Then we had a meeting with Ms. Amy, which was basically a short seminar about ADEC (Abu Dhabi Education Council) and their standards for accreditation. Not bad. After that, the day went all to hell. We came back, and our classroom assignments were posted. First of all, let me just tell you this very important piece of the story: until now, the kindergarteners have spent half the morning in one classroom with an English teacher, and the other half in the class next door with an Arabic teacher. So each teacher has their own classroom, and essentially two sets of 25 kindergarteners. Great! But noooooo…. This year, they have the teachers switching rooms at the half instead of the kids. Basically, it means I have to decorate half of one classroom in English materials, and half of the next classroom in English, while my Arabic-speaking counterpart decorates the other halves. I DON’T HAVE TWO OF EVERYTHING FOR DECORATING. I have one poster for shapes, one for letters, one for numbers, one for colors, etc. I don’t know what to do! So we’re basically going to BEG Ms. Amy tomorrow to let us do it the old way. In addition to that, my Arabic co-teacher hardly speaks any English, and I don’t speak any Arabic. She speaks well enough to figure out how we’re splitting up our bulletin boards. That’s it. When I tried to tell her that my A/C was broken, she thought I was saying that I didn’t know how to turn the lights on. Ay ay ay. Then when I told admin about my A/C, they said someone would come to fix it at 1:30. Well, it was way too hot in there for me to do anything, so I went up to my flat, had a little cry and a short nap, ate lunch and went back down at 2:30; still no A/C. I stayed this time, because at some point I really DO need to decorate, but it was hot. I gave up for the day around 4, because I needed to go wash up a little. A few of us received calls that we needed to go over to the admin office at the boys’ school for something, and that the bus would pick us up at 4:30. So we went, and walked around trying to find out where we were supposed to go. Finally, we found the right office and asked for the guy that our secretary told us we needed, and were directed (pretty harshly, I might add) over to a receptionist. We told her what we knew, and the only thing she told us was that a bus is picking us up on Saturday morning to go have our lab work/ medical check-ups done. But we already knew this!! OUR secretary told us this!! And the mean guy actually WAS the person that we had been told to talk to, but he apparently didn’t want to talk to us. So we left. What a waste of time. After that Tracy, Pietra and I went over to Mushrif Mall because we needed a few groceries, and we needed to do some browsing to calm our nerves. Tracy talked to the boys’ teacher from Ireland, and convinced him to come down and meet us at the mall, so I met him. He’s a cool dude. Seamus (shay-muss) is his name-us. Hahaha. Yep, well that’s about it for the fantastic day I had. Pshh… man it was rough. Tomorrow HAS to be better.

Side note: trying to cook for one is SUCH a pain.

September 7, 2011

Well I wasn’t sure how today was going to turn out after yesterday, but it actually went pretty well. (In most ways anyway.) Our meeting with Ms. Amy finalized the fact that we will be teaching in two classrooms, and then we had a seminar with the Learning Coordinator (I don’t actually remember her title. She’s a psychologist, not a curriculum developer, but apparently she does both here? Hmm…) She seems kind of uppity, and I don’t think I’m the only one with that opinion. While that was going on, Caroline was meeting with Ms. Nagat (our Vice Principal) and the Arabic Coordinator to decide on how to standardize our classrooms as far as decorating and materials. When we finished our seminar, we were informed that the English teachers would have the big wall of bulletin boards in each class (with 5 boards), while the Arabic teachers would have the small walls (with 3 boards). So in each class I need to have boards with colors, shapes, numbers, phonics, and the weekly theme. Ten boards total, to the Arabic teachers’ six. Whatever, I’m good at displays so it should be no problem… It gives me an excuse to shop, right? One of the older Arabic teachers came into my classroom to chat while I was decorating. She has family in California. And when my Arabic co-teacher came in and started speaking to me in Arabic, she could tell I didn’t understand and said that once school started she was going to start giving me Arabic lessons, which is going to help me a LOT with my co-teacher. It was almost like a revolving door of teachers into my class today, looking at my stuff, asking where I got it, and telling me how much they loved it. (To quote, my classroom is “so bright and happy looking”.) J Then! Another Arabic teacher (who is about 8 months pregnant, and adorable) came into my class and told me that she has a child in KG2 this year, and that she went to Ms. Nagat to specifically request that her daughter be in my class because she likes me and has a good feeling about me.

You have no idea what an encouragement that was, especially after yesterday!

There have been some rough patches starting up and getting used to how differently things are managed here, but I also have SO many reasons to be thankful that I can’t help but forget how much the other things frustrate me. 

Week 2... kind of. Maybe week 1.5

August 29, 2011

Last night, Tracy and I made our first trip out in town without Tara. We did pretty well, if I do say so myself. J We didn’t get lost either direction, we got dinner and free Wi-Fi in a café in the mall, and we knocked some things off of our ‘needs’ list: kitchen stuff, classroom stuff, etc. I was pretty proud of us.

Today we had a ‘tour of Abu Dhabi’ given by Tara at Ms. Amy’s request. We basically rode around town in the school’s bus, and Tara showed us where the hospital was, the bus station to Dubai, all the malls, and a good bookstore for teacher’s supplies. (I am already pretty well outfitted for teacher’s supplies. Thank you Dollar Tree!) I got my phone working finally; now I just have to remember my number. I’ve got it written on a sticky note on the back of my phone. Ha! All of the new teachers at the girls’ school went. There are 4 from South Africa (3 older women, and 1 closer to my age), a women from Dallas and a woman from Canada who look like they’re both somewhere in their 40s, Caroline from North Carolina (who flew in the same night as me), a woman from Michigan, and then Tracy and myself. Tara said there are a lot of new teachers at the boys’ school too, but that it’s basically two different schools and she’s never met a teacher from the boys’ school. Eh, well. No big deal.

We had all afternoon to rest and relax, and then Tara, Tracy and I went to Cooper’s, which is a pretty chill hangout bar. I don’t know what I would compare it to in Redding. We ate dinner and hung out, and Tara invited some of her friends. (She knows a pretty big group of people through her boyfriend.) So a bunch of people showed up. Hussein, Imad, Jamil, Wafi, and Nader are all Lebanese guys, friends of Sam-er. (All engineers and bankers, and freaking HILARIOUS, by the way.) Then there were a few people who are working at the NYU Abu Dhabi campus; Neil from Iowa, a girl from Irvine (yes! Someone who knows where Redding is!), and Brit guy named Liam. Also somewhere in the mix, Brittany showed up, and she used to be a teacher at Al Nahda but is teaching elsewhere this year. She’s a cute little Canadian girl, and she’s super funny. We made a good time of it, for sure.

So today (now August 30^th) is the end of Ramadan, so it’s the Eid holiday. Everybody has it off, and all of the government offices are closed for the rest of the week. The next Eid is in November, and we’ll have a week off of school for it. Sarah has invited me to go with her and some friends to Jordan to see Petra, which would be pretty sick, but I’m feeling pretty broke right now so we’ll see. Once I start getting paid it’ll be fine, but from what Tara has said, it’s pretty expensive to get settled and started up here, just like anywhere else. I need to get Internet set up, and a washer (I’m going to buy Sarah’s since she’s moving to a different place), a microwave, and a lot of basic things that kitchens should have (spices, random utensils, etc.) I would like to start decorating, my camera bit the dust the 2^nd day I was here, and I need to get a good phone service set up (this phone is good for now, but it’s no long-term method of communication) but those fall last on my list. I’m currently down to about 25 dirhams, which can get me a cab ride to the mall to visit an ATM. Haha. The cash goes fast when you, number one: have very little of it to start with, two: account for taxis, and three: have very little idea of what things should cost here. I’ve got another 4 weeks before I start getting paid, so I’m putting on my ‘I’m broke, so I’m going to be boring’ face and dealing with it. Realistically, my flat-mate should be showing up this week, and I can’t be the only one footing the bill for the things we need in here, so it’ll get better.

This city is definitely not what I expected it to be. It’s crazy humid when I expected it to be dry and desert-like, and some of the older buildings definitely look it, but for every dumpy building there are 5 gorgeous buildings with incredible architecture. I thought that the call to prayer 5 times a day would be weird, even annoying, but it’s actually kind of beautiful. There’s no shortage of places to people-watch, and this place is a serious melting pot of different types of people. Everyone is so friendly, and people don’t hesitate to help you out when they can tell you look confused. I guess that in a place that caters to expats, you would get that. I just expected it to be much harder to adjust. Granted, I’m less than a week in, but I still feel like I’m doing pretty well so far. I haven’t cried hysterically yet; that’s my adjustment gauge. I will, and I know it. But today I’m good.

Side note- Between Ramadan and sweating from the humidity, I’ve dropped a pants size. What’s up! Haha. Now THAT’S a diet plan.

September 1, 2011

Oh my goodness. So much for the ‘I’m broke so I’m going to be boring’ face. Tuesday, I text Tracy to see if she wants to do something, right when our new guy friends called and invited us to go to a pool with them. So duh, we went. It was such a blast! These guys are SO funny, and they really take care of us and make sure we don’t need anything. So we chilled poolside with everybody for the past 2 days, and then last night everybody met up at Eight, a nightclub. There IS a nightlife here! Sarah said that there are a few clubs out on Yas Island too, and there’s a really great one out on the Formula 1 racetrack. And let me tell you; these boys can dance me right under the table. Incredible. I hardly even feel like I’ve left the US. (Aside from the minor sandstorm we had yesterday.) A lot of people in the States asked me if I was ready to become a 2^nd class citizen, and it’s really not like that here. We’re treated just as well, if not better, than a lot of people. I really wasn’t sure about coming here, but I’m really glad I did. This isn’t something I could get anywhere else.

PS. The guys are slowly teaching us Arabic. “Ya la” is “let’s go”, and “habibi” (“habibti” for girls) is a pet name, like “my dear”, “my love”, or “my darling”. And everybody is habibi. The boys call it to each other to mean “brother”. I’ve been called habibti more times this week than I can count.

September 3, 2011

I’ve lazed around most of the day today. We went with Tara yesterday to Neil’s pool, and holy smokes! NYU has put up all of their students and staff into a huge hotel, and I don’t know how the student housing is, but Neil’s studio apartment is on the 22^nd floor and it’s pretty nice. And the pool on the 45^th floor rooftop is incredible. The view is amazing! That’s about it for the last few days. I’ve gone to bed super early the last two nights, and I still don’t have a roommate. And we start work tomorrow, sort of. We have an early meeting in the morning, and then we get to start decorating our classrooms!! Yay!

September 5, 2011

Well so much for starting on my class yesterday. We had a quick meeting, filled out a form, and went home. Another short meeting this morning over at the big girl’s school with ALL of the girls’ teachers, and a quick one in our department, where the Grade 1 teachers got their class assignments and keys. I guess we get ours tomorrow, which is really no big deal since we don’t have students until the 20^th. (KG1 starts the 18^th, and KG2 starts the 20^th.) BUT, I got a whole roll of contact paper, and started covering (“laminating”) my posters and letters and borders so that I can be ready to just put them up tomorrow. I keep seeing people come in with their kids for late registration, or to pick up books and uniforms… oh my gosh!! Those kids are SO cute! I can’t wait to meet my kids. I can’t wait, I can’t wait, I can’t wait!!!