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 8th and 9th 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 8th
and 9th 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
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| 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.
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| 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!
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!
