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 2nd 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 11th but don’t expect to hear from me
until another month after that…I’m going home for Christmas!
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