I'm Leavin', On A Jet Plane! But I Know When I'll Be Back Again...

Hey guys! This last week there hasn’t been too much going on, just a lot of little things. To start off, I finally got the script for the Drama Club play in March so Kate and I got to cast the show! It was a little hard because it had been a few weeks since we saw them audition and, stupid me, didn’t take notes because I thought the script would only take no longer than a week to get. Anyways, we both read through it, cast it, and posted the results for everything yesterday and I handed out scripts today so they could look over them during winter break. Also dealing with Drama Club, I got exactly 20 signups for London so it has to go through the hierarchy at MKS to remove students from the list because of grades, attitude, or various other reasons. We’ll see what happens when I come back from break.
Other than that, in classes we finished up our last speeches and performances and since I only had a few days left, I had to create one-day-lessons. What I ended up doing was a day of trivia in every class that varied slightly depending on the subject, stage combat in theatre, and then a free day. I have quite a few recordings of the commercials-the last performances they did in theatre-and of the stage fights they created by the end of class when they learned combat.

Today was an interesting day at school. It was a festival called Global Village where clubs and departments in the school can organize a booth with their students to represent a different country and sell food and have games or activities from that country. The profits go to the department or club. Drama Club did Italy so we sold pizza, spaghetti and soda so it was pretty fun. We didn’t make much profit but it was fun to hang out with some of my kids socially (sort of) and also run around like a child and have it be okay haha. There was a booth next door to us that was selling the colored powder that they use on color runs. One of my students asked if it was okay to throw a little on me. Since we had run out of pizza and weren’t selling much spaghetti, I decided I would let her throw some at me for a little money. She said okay…and that began an entire afternoon of kids throwing powder on my face for some change. And I kind of had my ten minutes of fame. Well, more like 90 minutes but whatever. I think the students were surprised I was okay having powder thrown at me but it was for a good cause? Yeah, that’s it. I have been “packing” my suitcases for like 6 hours now-in other words, I’ve been cleaning my room, doing a whole bunch of laundry, packing some, doing dishes, and sitting on my butt. Like now. But it’s okay, I have 3 more hours to go before I go to the airport. And I can be ready in like 5 minutes if need be. So this is where I leave you until the start of 2016. I’ll catch ya on the flip side!

Football, Money, and Rituals...The Three Gods in Bahrain

Highlights for this week are fairly constricted: football game, getting money, the souq, and school stuff. There are a few teachers in the building-Drew and Nolan-that coach a soccer (called football here) team here at MKS. They coach a 8^th and 9^th grade girls’ football team that played their first tournament of the year. From my understanding, there aren’t just games because they have shorter game times so they play a couple teams in a short amount of time. Also, our 8^th and 9^th grade team didn’t have enough girls so they actually had to pull a few more girls up from the lower classes’ team. Anyways, their first tournament was across the street from our high school at DODS…or the U.S.’s Department of Defense School for all the military kids. I walked over after school and met up with a few other teacher friends and watched the game. It was the first time I’d been anywhere in Bahrain owned by the U.S. and I wasn’t used to being searched…it wasn’t bad or anything just abnormal. They had to check my CPR card and my information online, not to mention my book bag t
hat I bring to school and had all my stuff in. When they

Just because :)

finally let me in, they had given terrible directions as to how to get to the football field so I had to figure it out a little on my own. When I got there, the girls had already started playing but I just joined in the cheering right behind our team (we’re cheesy like that). I only knew one girl because I teach older students but it was a lot of fun just to let loose and attend a school function regardless. We ended up winning against DODS 2-1 (or 1-0, something like that) and against the French School team 4-0. Apparently, these were the first wins for Drew who coached the team last year and both coaches were surprised they won. Since all of us teachers were sitting on a concrete slab, we gave the girls a sort of high-five line after their two won games.

As for drama club and classes, I am still in the process of setting up for a school international day where different clubs and departments represent different countries with food, games, and other decorations. Drama Club has Italy. Any ideas for costumes or decorations are currently being accepted. I’ve got the leather shoes down. Other than that, classes have been going well. I also got the London sign-up sheet for another week and am now up to 17 kids but I need 3 more by Sunday afternoon *fingers crossed*. Classes are going good though. For the most part, we’re wrapping up the last unit before winter break and then I have a few days when I can just have fun with the kids and teach them random things like stage combat. I just got the money for the drama club play scripts so I just ordered them this afternoon so Kate and I can finally cast the auditioners (Ha, that’s the name of the play-The Auditioners).

I went to the souq a few times the past week to get Christmas gifts for family at home and I’ve been going with Kay, Kate and Taylor. I was also on the search for a White Elephant gift but I found one elsewhere. Last night, however, I went to the souq again with MIKE and MORGAN (made sure to name you guys :P) to watch a sort of parade that goes through the streets as part of a religious ritual per say. It’s hard to explain what they were really doing but it basically came down to listening to a prayer song/chant while also hitting themselves in the chest or back. At least, men did this. I didn’t see women doing anything though I’ve heard they do things at other times.

This is my helper at home

So for the next week, I’ll be pretty busy outside of school but school itself will be pretty simple since I have it all planned out. Tonight I’ll be going out to eat with a few people: Miah, Mohamed, Morgan, Mike, Kate and me. Friday, I’ll probably try to go to the Navy base to watch ultimate Frisbee, go to a co-workers house to make and bag popcorn, then bring all of it to a movie (Spy) that the senior class has that I was invited to. Kind of excited for that because I thought it was really funny the first time I watched it. Lastly, Saturday will be spent going to a park and going to a book club or reading the book for it. I’m sure I have more that I can’t think of but I’ll tell you all about the coming activities next week. See ya!

Puddle Jumping, Dinners, and Shiny Things

Hello!

Once again this post is late because my life is quite boring. The highlights are these: a get-together at a fancy hotel, shiny new things in my classroom, drama club auditions, and a Thanksgiving feast.

The get-together was held at a building called The Butterfly just down the road from where our apartments are. We had been told there would be some activities to do like swimming and bowling and we would also get food. So, we decided to walk there in groups and, once we got there, found out that the building’s bowling lanes, swimming pools, and movie theatre were closed to the guests for our party-pretty cool! There was about 30-40 of us that attended and the lady hosting it was really awesome. From what I understand, she used to work as the secretary for one of the owners of the building and has now retired but is still very much connected to MKS. She was also one who hired a majority of the first year teachers and I met her at the UNI Fair, but I honestly don’t remember seeing her or anything. Anyways, she gave me a few insights as to what to do with the drama club ticket rules. When I was out and about doing activities, I was bowling for like 3 hours, playing air hockey, darts, pool, and foosball for maybe a total of an hour, eating for about an hour (gotta make sure to eat all the free food I can) and then swimming in the indoor pool with about 15 other people for maybe 3.5 hours. There was quite a bit going on but the only things I did not do was go to see the movie theatre or swim in the outdoor pool—that thing was freezing.

For my classroom, there’s a revamp kinda going on right now. I now have 10 broken chairs in my room so I was told that I basically had to hide these 30 chairs (there’s one chair broken in every attached group of three) because one of the owners might walk into my room and the other owner didn’t want her to see. At least that’s what I was told. So, to “hide” these broken chairs, I pushed them all against one wall and then let the kids design the rest of the chairs in front of the stage and along the wall. I also received a desk, chair and filing cabinet which I now have in the back of the room. Not only is all of that, but the last thing some kids are doing is to work on re-designing a wall that everyone participated in. Quite a bit of the work they did was taken down but the ones that were really creative or colorful were kept up but now are being changed slightly to make them stand out even more.

Last week Kate and I had auditions for the drama club play in March. We had a majority of the turnout be from drama club-which is awesome-and a few from my classes. There were very few that showed up that I didn’t know. Now that I’ve held auditions, I have to cast…well, I can’t get the money for the script until Monday at the earliest so I get to fend off kids in the meantime. Also, signups for the London trip were last week and I got information from 4 kids but I need at least 20 to go on this trip. Since it all has to be done by the end of November, I’m holding on to the papers until the end of the day today, Sunday, and then turning it in after school. However, I highly doubt we will get at least 16 other signups in one day so it looks like the trip will not happen this year.

On Friday-the day after everyone else’s Thanksgiving-the apartment building I live in had a huge dinner where everyone cooked and/or brought something to the feast. It was an awesome meal but I missed my ham this year L There was sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, turkey, green bean casserole, candied bacon, pies, asparagus and carrots, etc. There was lots and only about half was eaten…but it was still really good to celebrate and stuff our faces even away from America. I personally made Christmas Crack, well, the Bahraini version (some ingredients aren’t in this country) but it still turned out really good and the people that did try it really liked it-most people were so stuffed from the meal they couldn’t even try. I still have a ton left but I plan on sharing with some co-workers at school as well as some of my friends from the apartment building. When I first stated that I would make Christmas Crack for the dinner, no one believed me so when there was a spreadsheet made of who was making what and I wasn’t there, I said it again. Apparently, no one thought Christmas Crack was a thing, and if it was, it wasn’t something we wanted as teachers or at a private event.

I forgot to mention earlier that there was a lot of rain here in Bahrain last week…there was like 3 days of rain and it was crazy! I thought that the world was coming to an end because there was so much rain off and on throughout the days. It ended up that total, there was probably a foot of water over the course of 3 days. What we didn’t know coming in, is that streets get flooded very easily because there is no drainage system in place…so all the water just collects in giant puddles in the roads and dirt lots. On the way to school on the 2^nd morning, we basically drove through a couple rivers. There were a few spots we managed to avoid where the water was above the curb of the road and we never flooded our engine! Some of my kids were so convinced school would be cancelled because of how much rain we were going to get but they were wrong-we had school like normal. There was just a lot less kids that showed up whether because they couldn’t or didn’t want to. Anyways, Saudi Arabia did apparently cancel school one day last week because they got way more rain than we did, maybe another foot or so from what my kids have told me.

On a side note, the guys were offended that I didn't call them by name in my last post. So, I've been hanging out with Michael, Morgan and Leon on the roof and exploring places. There. You guys happy?!? So now I’ll end it here. I’ll post once more before I leave for Christmas break on December 11^th but don’t expect to hear from me until another month after that…I’m going home for Christmas!

Sitting And Waiting for Something Magical...

Hey! Sorry this is late!

Today I am coming to you live from parent-teacher conferences. Literally. I have very little to do and 8 hours to do it. Anyways, since you last heard from me I have not done much. I put in grades and double-checked them. Then, of course, I find out the day after quarter ends that about ¼ of them are wrong because a tardy penalty didn’t save. So basically, some grades weren’t as low as they should have been. Anyways, I’ve done all I could to help that and apparently some did not save because parents are coming in with either complaints or praises when it should be the opposite. There’s not too much new again this week but I did find out that the London trip has been re-approved (had to send in the information again two weeks ago) and that I can start student signups which are actually all of next week. I also found out that a lot of the information I’ve brought to the vice principal and dean of the school-when it comes to students-is being completely backed up or handled with efficiently. Even some of the things we brought to the attention of one of the owners of the school seems to have been heard and hopefully answered soon. Outside of classes, drama club has their auditions for the play coming up next week so I think I’ll be getting pretty busy with that. Also I found out that the auditorium they are building will not be ready this year so we will have to perform in the elementary school but only for students—which is something I don’t quite understand for the play. I’m going to have to see what I can do about that.

Outside of work, I have mostly been spending my time doing whatever I want. I have up until Christmas planned day by day so I’ve been able to hangout a little bit more with random people and I quite enjoy taking time off. This past weekend I travelled with a few guys and went to the Hidd Bridge in Bahrain which gives you a very nice view of the city skyline and there was also a park we stumbled across which would be an awesome place for a night picnic. Or even just to people watch because it is a very big place where families spend their time on the weekends. We then went back to the roof of the apartment where there was a grill so we made kabobs and s’mores J
The day after, I went with the guys again to the mall to do a little bit of shopping both for clothes and apartment stuff. Shockingly, I was the one done first. While we were driving back, we decided to do a little bit of exploring and went on the bridge that crosses the ocean to Saudi Arabia. We only went to the checkpoint, which is actually closer to Bahrain then Saudi, but it was about a 15 minute drive just on the bridge. When we got to the checkpoint, we saw a McDonald’s so we stopped off to get a few pictures and explore. We couldn’t do too much, though, as the actual Saudi entrance part of the bridge was there too.
After that, nothing too much happened this past week. Last night Kay and the guys (again) went to a restaurant called Mohamed Noor’s which serves Middle Eastern food. We got the full experience of a typical meal here because not only was it cooked with their spices and ways, but we had to remove our shoes, sit on the carpeted floor, and eat with our hands…it was actually really cool! We went to the souq after eating because Kay had to pick up some Christmas presents from there. In the end, we wandered around for a couple hours and I bought two soccer jerseys for myself. And some snacks of course.

Like I said, I’m now sitting here at conferences and enjoying 8 hours of nothing but sitting on my butt. But (haha, butt but) thankfully it’s almost done. I really only had one parent come and argue about their child and one make some excuses for her daughter but I’ve come to expect that after what everyone has been saying all week. Tomorrow night there will be a party at a fancy hotel and we’ve all been invited so we shall see how that goes. Anyways, I’ve got a few things to do before I have to leave school so I will sign off! Here’s a picture of me and the sea lion, just because.

Racing in That Speedy Style

What up everyone?

So once again there hasn’t been much going on at all and I expect this post to be even shorter than the last one. I finished out last week with working and getting things ready for school--as usual--before we went go-karting for a friend’s birthday. It was really awesome because we were able to go up to 40mph on the racetrack and we all felt completely safe! We had to sign a waiver and stuff obviously but it was so worth the money we paid and for the amount of time we went (30 minutes). There was a group of about 10 of us and majority of us were just driving to have fun. Of course, my competitive-self wanted to go as fast as possible and see how many times I could pass everyone else and what my fastest time could be. After the first round, two people went to go watch us in the next round from a viewing box above—one of those people had never driven anything in her life before that day. That would be why she drove like 2mph the entire first couple laps.

Anyways, by the next round some of us had figured out how to drift the cars so we started doing that on every corner to avoid slowing down too much. This was more of a friendly competition just to have fun but it wasn’t too serious. We were also racing with some Bahrainis and they knew what they were doing so we didn’t even bother with them. At the end, we saw the results and Birthday Boy had a best lap time of 1:24.794. He was talking with his roommate about how he had the best lap time of our group. Then his roommate looked at me and says, “Weren’t you Lollipop?” (it showed our nicknames we chose, not our names). Yup. I was Lollipop. I wasn’t going to say anything but I beat Mohamed. I had a best lap time of 1:24.468. Barely beat him.

Afterwards we all went to a restaurant called Veranda’s that serves some of the biggest varieties of food at any place I know from Chinese to Homestyle Southern to Indian to Bahraini to Mexican. Awesome place. Mohamed got a fruit cake served to him and we all got a slice-which was amazing. Other than Mohamed’s birthday, the week has been a big drag. A few of us got together to watch V for Vendetta on November 6^th because we were too tired after go-karting and eating to watch it on the 5^th.

In other news…there is no other news. Classes were this week. Like every week. Grades were due. Like they’re always due. 1^st quarter ended today. That’s exciting, right? All the kids approach you asking you to give them an A. And/Or complain that they have a low grade or that you didn’t do your job right. That’s why I have a new sign going on my door J Can’t wait for conferences to be over so then I can just concentrate on teaching again.

That’s all for now, see ya on the flip side!

Can We Say the Bad Word NOW?

^My favorite quote from a movie (you'll find out soon which one). Soooooo….I’m planning on this post to be very short. There hasn’t been much to happen in the last week. The rest of school last week was uneventful. For the most part kids were good in class and the week passed without much of a hitch.

I'm on the far right,
but don't forget to look at the floor...

This weekend we held two parties in the apartments. The first one was just to hang out with friends and it was. I got to see a lot of people I feel like I haven’t seen in a while due to travelling and being busy at school. At this one we played a game similar to the game called True American on the show New Girl. It was quite challenging and really hard to remember all the rules. Ultimately, the game is Candyland but the squares to jump on are actually pieces of furniture like couches, chairs, rugs and pillows. The floor itself is lava so you can’t step on it without “losing”. Beyond that, there’s a lot of smaller games within the overall Candyland idea. The first thing you do is pick a number between 1 and 5. You look for the numbers that are the number above what you picked and just remember that anytime they move a square, you move. Starting with the youngest and going to the oldest, one at a time you must either start a quote that someone else has to finish or you can have everyone pick numbers between 1 and 5, except this time it means nothing except if you are the only number of your kind you “win” that round. There are many other pieces of the game, but overall, it really doesn’t make sense because the goal isn’t to win and I’m sure I’m confusing people already.

Glaring at others...

The other party we had was specifically a Halloween party so almost everyone dressed up. I was part of a group that dressed up as the characters from the movie Inside Out. I was Anger. Red...it's still on me...But it was a lot of fun just to hang out in someone else’s apartment for a couple hours again with everyone while in costumes this time. It wasn’t long before many people left to go out so I joined but we only ended up staying out for about an hour. We went to an Irish bar called JJ’s and played pool. After that we came back and hung out on the roof of the building but I went to bed a little bit after.

Wait for it...wait for it....
yup, there I am. Far left.

This week at school I’ve already been pretty busy preparing for all the homework, examples, and projects I will give my kids. Tomorrow I will have 3 classes giving monologues and Thursday I will have two classes of students giving speeches and 1 class giving monologues. Lots of performances to grade in two days without even looking at the other stuff I will be collecting. I am pretty proud of myself, though, because I was able to memorize and perform my own monologue for the kids before they did and I also graded three different assignments in each of four classes. Next week we’ll start new things and I’m happy but also hesitant about some of them so we’ll see what happens. ALSO, I just remembered, I basically have one month to get all the planning and preparations done for the London trip. No stress there. But that’s all I really have for now and this post is already longer than I thought it would be. See ya!

When in Dubai...Be A Dubian

Hello All!
So the rest of last week was pretty boring. Kids were leaving early for vacation so I had to keep my kids busy but not give them too much work so the students who were gone would fall too far behind. We started monologues in theatre class and we wrote scary stories in my speech class that I collected. The monologues are going to be pretty easy compared to most because they are stories that actually happened to them and they are heightened emotions-saddest moment of their life, scariest moment, happiest moment, etc. Some of them just found out today that they will probably have to re-write their story for me to look off of and memorize and act at the same time by themselves on stage *GASP* It’s quite fun to see their reactions when they realize these are things that happen on a regular basis in acting. Also, they always want me to show them exactly what to do because the culture here never really requires them to be creative or do any critical thinking. But this time, instead of showing them to start off what they’re getting into, I am moving right along with them but giving snippet examples as we go along. Mostly because I wasn’t prepared either but they don’t know that. In speech we’re taking a short break from doing complicated (for them) speeches and did a little bit of impromptu speaking and now we will read scary stories. They all wrote real or fake stories and I collected them. I plan on shuffling them around so that no one knows who anyone’s is and they will practice oral interpretation-take someone else’s words/story and making them their own. With Halloween coming I thought it would be fun especially since they don’t really celebrate that here.
This past weekend was a 4-day weekend so most of us teachers went traveling. I went to Dubai again with Taylor but Mohamed and Brendon joined us this trip. It was actually really fun because it was a different feel travelling with people I wasn’t best friends with and not planning a lot in a short amount of time. On Friday, we left around 9am and got to Dubai around 11am (time change). We brought all of our bags to the hotel first and dropped them off before Brendon and Mohamed went to the Burj Khalifa (tallest building in the world) in the Dubai Mall. Since Taylor and I had already been there, we went to the Mall of the Emirates and ate and just hung out for a while. We went back to the hotel to find the guys in the hotel pool so we joined them for a bit. We had to leave after about an hour to catch a shuttle to a comedy show that we were going to. If you know Dave Chapelle, he was the headliner. It was really cool just to see a comedy show in really life. Also, I was surprised Dave was performing because he has a sort of crude humor and because he had a sort of fall-out in the past years.
When we got back to our hotel that night before the comedy show, I got to explore our hotel room a little bit. This hotel was basically a 2 bedroom apartment with a kitchen full of utensils, 2.5 bathrooms and a living room. Oh, and a balcony that went all the way around our room. It was pretty sweet. Although we never used the kitchen except to store stuff in, Having all of the things we got for a cheap price was pretty amazing. The view from the balcony was pretty awesome and we got to sit out there in the morning and enjoy the sun and wind.
The next day, Mohamed, Taylor and I went to SkiDubai and got a pass that let us ride toboggans, sleds, zorg balls, and the chairlift in the mall. It was a lot of fun to be able to do it even though I would have liked to have gone skiing and I think it would have been worth the money more so than what we did. But I still had a ton of fun in the short amount of time we were there. The toboggans and sleds were pretty full with a lot of children and their parents because even though it was a short sled/ride, that’s the best thing to do as a kid. Not to mention that it made you go the fastest and you didn’t get sick. The zorg balls were probably my favorite part just because of what it was, not the ride itself that we got. Zorg balls are basically those gigantic rubber balls you jump in the middle of and roll down the hill in. I thought this was really fun…mostly because I figured out how to slide down in them and not roll constantly and get sick like Taylor did. The hill was small so that’s why the ride wasn’t as fun, but if it had been a longer hill, I think it could have been way more fun and way more worth it.
When we left SkiDubai and got back to the hotel, we only had about 30 minutes to relax before someone came and picked us up for our desert safari. This safari was very similar to the one we did in Abu Dhabi but Taylor and I wanted to go on it again because it was really fun. As the night progressed, I did notice quite a few differences. On this one, the dune bashing was not nearly as fun nor was it as long. It was maybe 10 minutes long and he drove a little slower and more carefully so I think he was a new guy but it was still cool for the guys to experience. When we got to the tents, Mohamed had paid extra to drive an ATV and so he paid for me to do it too since I left my money in the hotel. It was pretty fun just to drive an ATV in the desert for 20-30 minutes but they were slow because they were for tourists, they were small, and we could only drive around in a circle in this blocked off area. A lot of us still drove around wherever we wanted in the blocked off area but every once in a while, they would yell at us to go around the outside. Before the dinner began, we also had a lot of things to choose from to do.
Mohamed and I stuck together for the most part since we were the only ones to do the ATVs. The next thing we did was get in line for the camel rides, but that quickly changed as Mohamed has a short attention span. Instead, we found a guy who was giving rides on his horse for 50 dirham…about $13. Granted, it was a few minute ride but I still didn’t think it was worth it and the horse looked so sad but Mohamed was all for it. Next he found a guy who let people hold and take pictures with his falcon for 10 dirham. Once again, I didn’t think it was worth it since I was at the falcon hospital in Abu Dhabi but Mohamed hadn’t been this close to a falcon yet so he went for it. There was finally a short enough line for the camels so Mohamed and I got on one (this was included in the safari). It’s quite different than riding any other animal mostly because they had to sit down so we could get on and then we were just about thrown off the front or back when they were getting up or down.
Other than that, it is very important to mention that sandboarding actually worked this time. There was only one board but thankfully we were the only ones attempting it when we were on the dune. Mohamed and I were both able to make it down the slope without falling off, face planting, or getting stuck halfway down. I’d say it was pretty successful compared to the first try. Later on, there were two dancers. One was basically twirling a bunch of things on fire and lighting the gasoline on the ground. It actually looked really cool. Then there was a guy who was a professional spinner-which apparently is very prestigious here because they train for years to become a professional. He spun continuously for like 10 minutes and did different things with some props and his costume. Parts of his costume had lights on and he had two parts of his skirt thing that lit up too. Finally they served us food and in my opinion it was better than the first one. They had a little bit more variety in the food, there wasn’t so much meat kabobs this time (for Taylor’s sake, she’s a vegetarian) but the hummus was terrible this round L Afterwards, they had a belly dancer again but she wasn’t as good as the first one. Plus it seemed more like a strip club because she accepted monetary tips from the tourists as she was dancing. Overall it was shorter and a little bit worse in most cases but some stuff was pretty cool. The guys loved it though so that’s all that really mattered.
The last day in Dubai all of us went to Atlantis Waterpark. This time, Taylor and I went to go to a sea lion encounter because then it would be a bit different than the first time we went to the waterpark. We got to the building and we met a Dutch family that was going to be interacting with the sea lion with us. We went over a few safety procedures after changing into our wetsuits (which were terribly hard to get on by the way, I think I got a burn on my ankle from it). Then we went into a cold room where we met our two instructors-one for us, one for the sea lion. We walked into the pool and met Mollie the sea lion who was 21 years old. Next door were some of her babies from previous years ages 18, 14 and 8 and they just played around in their pool. First they brought us into the pool and we just got to pet Mollie and take photos—sea lions are even softer than penguins! After we pet her the first time, we began to do a couple poses with her and a lot of group petting, which helped reinforce her good behavior. Then we got to let her kiss us either on the cheek or on the lips. Of course Taylor and I chose lips because how often can people say they’ve kissed a sea lion? She did a few more tricks for us like reminding us to pick up trash and recycle bottles (the trainer threw a bottle into the water and Mollie retrieved it and dropped it into a recycling bin) and showing us how strong she was by standing on her front two flippers. By this time it had already been an hour! We had to leave and go back to the waterpark to meet up with the guys.
Taylor and I grabbed some money and ate a quick lunch before heading off to ride some slides and search for the guys. Although we never really did find them on purpose, Taylor and I had found Mohamed and Brendon on the first ride we were going on-which was actually Taylor’s favorite ride. They were just a few groups ahead of us so they just waited for us so we could all go together. It was a big water tube slide that had about a 70 or 80 degree drop of 20 feet towards the end of the ride and then a tall side that brought us back down. After that we did Poseidon’s Revenge-my favorite-where the door drops down beneath you. Brendon and I were all for it but Mohamed and Taylor were a little hesitant, however, we all went down the slide and they didn’t think it was nearly as bad as they imagined. We stayed together for the rest of the day at the waterpark for the most part. We rode a few more rides and did the Lazy River for a little more than one round of it (about 30 minutes) before getting ready to go. The boys went back to change and get their voucher for food at a café in the waterpark and Taylor went back early to change since it would take her longer than me. I got in line to ride Leap of Faith again-the one you slide down a couple stories and go through the aquarium before coming out. However, by the time I needed to go back to change I had made it only ¾ of the way through the line so I just left.
We grabbed a taxi and went to the Dubai Mall. Brendon and Mohamed went off in search of something a co-worker wanted from there and to look around while Taylor and I went to Rainforest Café and ate an entire meal. I had a voucher for two for a main course and drink there because when we were there over Eid I wrote a very negative feedback sheet and put my contact details down. The first time it took a very long time to get anything past our drinks. Whole families had come in, eaten, and left before we even got our food and they said it would only take 20 minutes. Anyways, the manager sent me an email and extended the invitation to come back for two free meals so we did. It ended up to be about a $60 meal for free so I can’t complain. That was the last stop before we went to the airport.
On Monday night a co-worker, Rhonda, was hosting a small party at her house. Her apartment building has a pool and a sauna on the roof and she said she would make chili so I figured I couldn’t lose in the situation. But, in payment, we had to bring some treats and stuff Halloween bags for her students. Mohamed and I went together so we were on the roof in the pool and sauna for about 2-3 hours before going down to her apartment to eat and help her with her Halloween bags. It was a very relaxed evening and it was good to do that the day after coming back from vacation. Anyways, I need to do some more work, as always, so I’ll catch up with you guys later.

EATING ALL THE FOODS!

Once again, nothing has really been going on around here. School was pretty normal now that QQA is gone and the hubbub surrounding that has died down. This past weekend was a three day weekend due to a religious holiday. For the most part, I just got to hang out and enjoy doing nothing-which is something I hadn’t been able to do yet. There was one day when I got to sleep until 1pm and it was awesome…then again, I spent most nights staying up watching movies or talking with people until 2 or 3am. There was also a lot of indulging that happened. With food. Many times my friends would be ordering food so I ordered with them. But it was good and I needed a complete cutoff from school.

On Friday morning we went to brunch at a place called Saffrons. They have some really good Arabic and Bahraini breakfasts that are pretty cheap and feed three or four people. Between 9 of us, we ordered 4 breakfasts and I don’t think anyone completely finished off the food. I still have no idea what we ate even though it’s the second time I’ve had it but I think it’s really good. I also ordered orange juice with my meal and it was really good because it is freshly squeezed on the spot. We thought about walking around for a while because the restaurant was in the middle of the Manama Souq. However, it was midday and therefore very hot and humid so we just left. Most people came back to the apartments and took naps or started working. I had to nap because I was so full and stayed up late. Later on some people went to the Souq but I just stayed behind to get ahead at work.

On Sunday after school I went to a coffee shop with some friends and ended up working for quite a few hours. Like 5.5 hours. Oops. It’s not that I put off anything or didn’t do anything I needed to do over the weekend I just had so much thrown on me all of a sudden that I had to sit for so long. I wish we got paid for work outside of school. I’m pretty sure all teachers would love that. And we’d all be millionaires by the end of our lives.

Anyways last night it was Caroline’s birthday-she was one of the teachers here when I first got to Bahrain and showed us around the first week. We went to Senor Pacos again, the same place we went to the first week of school. It was really fun because I drove so I could slightly remember the trip but not nearly enough to know where to go without help because we went there right when we got here. I had lots of food and listened to lots of music and got to hang out with people that I don’t usually hang out with. My car ended up leaving at 9:30pm to go back home because we still had school today but I know a few people stayed for longer and some even went to sing karaoke afterwards. I got home and I was already falling asleep on my couch.

This coming weekend is another long weekend. We have a half day of school on Thursday and professional development to fill in until the end of the day and then we have Sunday and Monday off. For this quick break I decided to go to Dubai again with one of the same girls from the last trip, Taylor, along with two newbies-Mohamed and Brendan. I had a voucher to use with FlyDubai that expires in a year so I was able to pay for all of us but 18BD so I feel like that was a good deal. We are planning to go to Atlantis Waterpark again but this time, Taylor and I will spend about two hours in another area where we will meet and get to interact with a sea lion. Meanwhile the two boys will stay in the big area that we’ve already been to. So this time I will narrow down my choices as to which ones to do and make sure to go on my favorite rides but I think I can do it in about half a day. While the boys are going to the Dubai Mall and the Burj Khalil, Taylor and I will go to SkiDubai in the Mall of the Emirates and will ski for a couple hours. Taylor has never skied before so she will need to take a lesson with a ski instructor for an hour and I will just pay to ski for two hours. This is assuming I can pass their basic skills test, but I’m certain I’ll be fine because I’m in the Middle East where hardly anyone has seen snow before. Plus I’ve skied a couple times in Iowa and spent a week skiing around Lake Tahoe this past Christmas with my aunt, uncle, and cousin. (Thanks again for bringing me along with you and teaching me how to actually ski Ted, Teresa, and Teddy-you guys had to be very patient and I appreciate it J) We are also all planning on going on a desert safari. It’ll be similar to what we did in Abu Dhabi with a few differences-ATVing is included in the price and the dune bashing is supposed to be longer. Maybe I’ll try the sandboarding again if I have the energy. And I’ll for sure ride a camel there.

I was talking with some fellow teachers and I’ve realized that I haven’t said many nice things about the school since I’ve been here. Despite the resources that I do not have, like any other teaching job, it is the kids that I enjoy. I love getting to work with them day in and day out and they are what makes me come to work every day. Granted, there are days when we struggle and when we don’t want to deal with each other but we come to class again two days later and it’s all a new beginning. I do love this job and the kids make me love it.

Eating My Feelings and Cha-Chaing With Style

Salama! (Hello)
So once again, this week has been pretty uneventful. In fact, I was really focused on school and preparation for the week. This week there was an accreditation group that came in to survey the schools on every level. They went to observe the majority of classes in action over the course of 3 days and then gave us a rating at the end. We were told not to expect them to come in until the 2^nd day at least and that I probably shouldn’t expect them because only two of my classes were English. We were told that we had to show off the best of what we do and make everything highly interactive and fun to watch as well as have good classroom management. I was told they really only wanted to see the “major” departments of English, Math, Science and Arabic and see about the efficiency of the school for tardies and absences as well as for interactive lessons. Of course, they came into my class the first block of the first day they were there. It was a work day in Speech; they were working on their speeches. Awkward. The lady that came in walked in about 20 minutes late and then sat there for about an hour and took notes. I was already walking around and answering kids’ questions about their speech and the outline so it wasn’t too bad, but she missed the beginning when I gave them instruction and she left early at the end so she missed the announcements I had for them. She only talked to me to ask about what grade levels were in class and which class it was at the time. She ignored me for the rest of the time it seemed like and she looked at the things on my walls and made notes about it. She also walked around the class and asked students what they were doing, why it was a mixed class, and looked over their shoulder to see that they were actually on task. Overall, it was just more of a headache to have them there and also pretty pointless. From the little I have heard from their review, they said they saw the same problems that the teachers have been complaining about all year like attendance. The rating scale is from best to worst: Outstanding-Good-Satisfactory-Unsatisfactory. We got ranked as a Satisfactory, so basically we’re barely average. We got ranked Good last time. Welcome to MKS. The only good thing about them being there was that stuff got done, like I got a whiteboard installed the day before the accreditation arrived. Still missing a garbage can, but I have a whiteboard. (Update: I just got a garbage can today!)

After QQA (the accreditation team) left, the entire school was really dreadful because of the rating and we all believed we deserved better. A lot of the teachers, from what I’ve heard, will be hardly teaching for the next month just because of the rating. At the end of the week, most of the first and second year teachers went to brunch at the Four Seasons. It was a very formal event and we all had to dress up in suits and dresses just to eat so much that we couldn’t fit into them anymore. I started off Friday morning by waking up about 3 hours before we would leave and took like an hour to fully wake up. I then spent the next hour actually getting ready and making myself look like a girl (believe me, that’s hard to do with all the girls I was going with) before going to my neighbors’ room and joining everyone for some coffee with Bailey’s before going to brunch.

Skipping ahead, when we got to the Four Seasons, we had to find our way to the right area and then had to wait about 10 minutes before we could start eating. We were sitting in the lobby feeling all fancy and getting stared at by some of the other brunchers and hotel guests. We were all very hungry when they finally let us down the stairs to sit down and begin our meal. They sat us down at one really long table (there was 24 of us) and poured us a glass of champagne, pina colada, and stilled or sparkling water. We started going through the kitchen where all the food was but a lot of us had to walk around completely before deciding what we wanted first. There was a lot to choose from-anything from sushi to cheese and crackers to chocolate fondue to stir fry to scallops to prime rib to fresh honey to soups. There was so much to choose from that we stayed the whole four hours we were allowed to stay for just to sit and digest everything so we could get up and eat more food. It was such amazing food and the drinks were even better but I paid about $100 so I don’t think I will do it again unless it’s cheaper. We rarely do these brunches but it was a lot of fun to just sit and chat with everyone because I don’t see many of them anymore with all of us being constantly busy. While everyone was chatting and drinking/eating, there were a few of us who decided to be funny and take the worst pictures we could and it ended up being my highlight for the day.
At the end when we couldn’t eat or drink anymore, a few of us went out onto the patio they had to watch the sunset. I went out simply to enjoy the weather and the view. It’s becoming cooler in Bahrain so it’s actually bearable to be outside for more than 10 minutes now and the Four Seasons was right along a bay and also had one of those pools that goes right up to the water. We obviously didn’t get into the water but it was nice to be standing along the edge after such a long afternoon of being dressed up and eating. There was a bouncy house over the shallow part of the pool and some of the group decided it would be fun to get in. That quickly ended when someone fell over the side and into the pool in her dress. After that, I came back with a few people and just relaxed the rest of the night in the apartments watching movies and TV shows but a lot of people did go out. We, however, were party poopers and too tired.

Monday night I went to a senior dinner with a few other teachers. There were select few that could attend as not many teach seniors and this was strictly a dance and dinner for seniors. Kate and I decided that we should dress up again because even though the invite said semi-formal, we had heard that students will look like Arabian princes and princesses. So we had a few friends come do our hair and my friend/hairstylist/makeup artist, Maris, obviously did everything. I was lazy and I didn’t want to do it again ;) We got to the dinner and there were few seniors there but we found a few of our students and said hi to them and everything. They were all impressed at how dressed up and fancy we looked but they looked very beautiful and handsome too. Not nearly like the princes and princesses we were led to believe they would be, but it was still cool to see them outside of a school uniform and with their friends and all dressed up. Except for the three boys who wore shorts...

Anyways, the conference hall was decorated with black lights and glow sticks because of their Glow theme. It was really cool until people started losing their phones or glasses or anything because then all the lights came on until someone found whatever was missing. And you couldn’t really see the food in the dark. That was a problem. The food descriptions/names sounded good though? No, I did not take any pictures as I would have felt awkward asking my students to take photos with me and I would have felt rude but it was really cool to see all the different styles. Think of this dinner/dance as like a high school homecoming in America. Yes, you dressed up in dresses or button-up shirts but they were more conservative because of the culture. Few dresses were shorter than the knees and even fewer showed bare shoulders. I thought it was even more interesting to see how girls wore a hijab to cover their head and still dress up and make it look fancy. Occasionally you would see a girl or guy in full-out robes to fully cover themselves or to stay traditional but overall, it was awesome. Not just the clothes either, just in general. A teacher I sat beside and talked to for the first time, Jude, and I would make comments to one another about how different everything was like the dancing-guys danced in one area and girls danced in another area, the type of dancing-usually some sort of terrible line dance in which no one was doing the same thing even during the Cha Cha Slide where it tells you exactly what to do, and the girls walking in high heels-which was obviously rare to happen outside of fancy dinners like that. We danced only to the Cha Cha Slide and showed off our awesome dance skills.

We were technically there to chaperone, but we left before most of the kids and I went to bed right when I got back as school was still the next day. Tonight we went out to eat for dinner because it was a fellow teacher, Ben’s, birthday today so we went to the restaurant of his choice. Other than that, nothing else has really happened so I’m going to sign off and do some work before bed.  On a side note, this post included some pictures of my last vacation that I just got a hold of. The one to the upper left has to do with my failure at sand boarding--it's my last attempt to ride it like a sled before I gave up on it. Good night!

Spending All The Money (But Not Really)

HEY GUYS!

So I just got back from a week-long vacation at school for Eid (religious holiday). A group of us went, 5 Ks and 1 T: Kendall, Katie, Kate, Kay, Kim and Taylor. We went to Dubai for 3 days and Abu Dhabi for 3 days. We missed a day of school since the holiday days changed a couple days before we left but it didn’t seem to be a huge deal since barely any kids were at school and many teachers left too. Anyways, the first few days in Dubai were spent doing quite a few tourist-y things like going to Atlantis waterpart, going to the Dubai Mall and Mall of Emirates, and going into the Burj. But first let me go into detail. We left last Monday night and got into Dubai around 8pm and spent like an hour searching for a hostel that no cab driver knows the address of because it’s so tiny and unknown. Not only that, but apparently the address they give narrows the search down to what we would call (in Iowa) residential area the size of about 10 or 15 acres or like 10 square city blocks. Not helpful at all. Eventually, both cab drivers (a group of 6 of us had to split between 2 cabs) found the place we were supposed to be after wanting to just kick us on the side of some road. We got there about 9pm and waited for the other group before about half of us went in search of food. The hostel was basically a bedroom with enough bunk beds for 6 people that shared a communal bathroom and an open shower with three other rooms of various numbers of beds. It was actually really interesting in a creepy sort of way because we didn’t know anyone else and the door didn’t have a key or lock. I swear to God nothing was stolen and nothing bad happened.

The first day in Dubai we went to Atlantis Waterpark which is, from what all of my students told me, something I had to do for at least one day. I’ll admit, it was a lot of fun and there was lots of rides to choose from. There were two sections to the park; one part had a mix of regular waterslides and watercraft slides and the other section just had waterslides. And of course a lazy river that went through the whole park that Kay, the oldest of us ladies, spent the whole day on (no joke, she got off for maybe 20 minutes). For the most part, 5 of us stayed together the whole day and went at least once on every ride. The very first one we went on was actually one of the best rides but we didn’t have time to go on it again. It was one that sent you down two or three stories at a 70 degree angle, go through the aquarium in the tube before being thrown out of the end about 20 feet. Oh yeah, did I mention that they had a shark and fish tank aquarium that was free and some rides went through? Well, anyways my other favorite waterslide was one I went on 3 times, once with four other girls and twice by myself. (Dad, you might remember this one from TV) It is one where you have to climb the stairs up about 8 floors-maybe more-then climb into a tube where you’re actually standing up crossing your legs and arms with your hands on the opposite shoulder. There is an automated voice that counts down from three before the floor you’re standing on drops and you are sent pretty much straight down until there’s a curve that brings you to the bottom and tops a whole lot more water on you. So fun!

Apparently I was the only one who really liked it. We had to leave at 5 pm to go to the Dubai Mall where Kendall was. She signed up to go scuba diving in the aquarium in the middle of the mall (because obviously every mall should just come with one). It was kinda cool because we watched the end of her dive and saw all the fishes and sharks she was swimming with.

The next day, our last day in Dubai, was spent in the Mall of the Emirates where we all got to meet and pet/kiss real penguins! Yes, that happened. We first met one king penguin who did a few tricks and played with us a little bit. We got to take a few pictures with her too before being sent to another area where we met two more penguins that were emperor penguins. One was named McFatty (and was being grumpy half the time) and the other was named Squeaky. We got to pet and take photos with all of them and then the last ones we even got to kiss on the head. Taylor was really excited about everything because she absolutely loves penguins. After we finished with the penguins, we went to the Burj Khalil which is the tallest building in the world. We went up to the observation deck which was only about halfway up and got to see most, if not all, of Dubai. It was really cool just to be in the tallest building but there wasn’t anything terribly interesting to see except that we saw where we had been standing, watching a water fountain set to music the night before.

The next day was just mostly spent travelling to Abu Dhabi via bus and checking in to our hotel. Less than an hour after we checked in, a jeep came to pick us up and we went on a desert safari. It included camel rides, henna, dune bashing, BBQ, and sand boarding. It was probably my favorite thing we did all week. What I have found out is that henna done in 30 seconds is not the greatest but pretty cool regardless, camel rides are not as comfortable or easy as horse rides, dune bashing is my new favorite sport, sand boarding just doesn’t work (I might have moved a foot in 10 minutes trying), and a BBQ in the middle of the desert is fun to watch when cooking but not always the best tasting. We got picked up a little before 4 and didn’t get back until almost 10 so it was well worth it.

The next day, everyone except Taylor went to Ferrariworld, which is a theme park in Abu Dhabi. It was lots of fun to just walk around and ride everything they had. There were some things I wanted to do but I would have had to pay for it so I wasn’t going to do it. The first thing we did when we got there was jump on Formula Rossi, the fastest roller coaster in the world. No brags there. The first time we went on, they give you goggles to wear and make sure you leave everything at the platform. Going on it, my hair became so tangled and knotted it took the rest of the day to get it untangled. Also my goggles flew off after the first few seconds. Oops. There’s no way I could have gotten a video of it even if I did sneak my camera on. Sorry dad. The next time we went on it, Kendall and I sat in the front and I made sure my hair was in a ponytail and that my goggles would stay on-which they did thankfully. But it was also really funny because my cheeks literally flapped in the wind and Kendall drooled out of the side of her mouth. It was so much fun being in the front though! We couldn’t go on it again though because the line was really long after that. The picture on the side is of me after I got off the second time…

The next day was a little bit more relaxing because we had originally planned to go to the beach, but it was abnormally hot and humid in Abu Dhabi so there was no way we would survive 5 hours outside like we were planning. So instead we went to go see the Abu Dhabi Grand Mosque which was actually really big and really cool. I don’t know what to say about it besides that. And that I wish I had that much money to make my dream house. That night we also went to a couple street markets that are called/spelled souk in the United Emirates but souq in Bahrain. Anyways, in Bahrain the biggest one is mostly along a few streets but the two we went to in Abu Dhabi were in a bigger building but had a variety of shops inside. There’s a lot of stuff you can find in there from restaurants to hand painted kitchenware to stuffed animals to apartment decorations like Persian rugs to clothing. I loved walking around the hallways just to see what they all had but I also can’t wait to explore the souq here in Bahrain again when it gets cooler outside.

On the last day we were on vacation, we spent most of the day getting from Abu Dhabi to Dubai where we flew out to come back to Bahrain. But before we left Abu Dhabi, we went to the Abu Dhabi Falcon Hospital which I’ve heard was the favorite part of the city for a lot of people. When we got there, we ended up going on a tour that lasted a little over two hours in which they explained the differences in falcons that we would see and that are in the Middle East and the goals/purpose of the hospital. We then went into the area where they actually treated falcons for broken bones and feathers or when they get sick. We got to watch a minor surgery where they attached part of a wing to a falcon that broke some feathers and then also let us hold two real falcons that were on the big and small ends of the falcon size. It was really cool! They also showed us a few owls that they house at the hospital and the place where falcons are held when they molt. Overall, it was really cool!

Anyways, I’d say that’s about it for me. I have lots of work to do yet in the next few days after being off for a week so I better get to it!