All Things Asian. Except BBQ

Hey all! I am sitting at my desk working like I have been all week. It’s been pretty uneventful but I will fill you in on everything on my mind. I subbed 5 times from Thursday to Monday because both Drew and Kendall were gone so most of my free periods were spent dealing with other children and babysitting. From one of Kendall’s classes I got 3 students who owe me detention but Drew’s classes were pretty good. By Monday I was definitely done subbing so I told the administration’s assistant that I would not sub for at least a week. Thankfully, there’s really only one week left of school. The next week is review week when most kids don’t even come to school and then after that it’s finals!

My theatre students went to the elementary school this week to read stories for some classes there as that was their second-to-last summative grade and the last one is a fairy tale or legend performed on stage. It’s short and there’s not many lines for people to memorize-if they have to memorize. Speech and Debate students are also on that same track-they have one more debate to do for me and then I won’t even make them come in for class. I’m not telling them to skip school, just that they don’t have to come to class for me. Same for the theatre class once we’ve done our last performance.

This weekend was actually pretty full for it being a weekend. Thursday I went to jiu jitsu with Mike and then after was just a very chill night watching a movie and eating. Friday Jessica, Mike and I went to brunch at Texas BBQ and were there from 11am-5 or 6pm. It seemed like it would never really end because we were trying to get all the food and beer we could in the time period allowed. But it was a lot of fun. And kind of awkward-I saw one of my students there and she got me a drink because she “never comes to my class”. She was also a little drunk but it is not rare to see your students out and about and even at bars.

After the brunch we were going to play laser tag (after a quick nap). Mike and I were supposed to meet up with some people and then go but they all bailed for one reason or another. When we got there the lady at the counter said we had to have at least 3 people, so instead we sat down for some shisha and then made a surprise visit to Donna who lived in the area. We were only there for an hour as it was late and she had two dogs. Yesterday nothing really happened. I got to sleep in and work all morning/afternoon and then some of us decided to go to a Korean play thing that one of the students told us about. A few of my students saw the brochure that someone gave me and seemed genuinely interested in going and asked if I would. There were 6 of us teachers going to the show but since we had to split into 2 cars, we basically stayed split for the whole night. Mike and I wanted to eat at the Indian restaurant in the souq that we liked a while ago but then the others wanted to go to a Moroccan restaurant in another part of the city. 
Then, when we got to the culture hall where the show was, we got there first so we were further up in the line since they didn’t join us. Oh well, it didn’t matter. The cost was free anyways and there was still a line. We got in and were looking to see where we could sit and see if we could find a huge spot for all of us teachers and then the student that invited most of us came up behind us and said hello. He’s a really good kid and even took a picture with us afterwards but he wanted to say hi before the show even began. Anyways, as Mike and I were standing there looking and chatting with our student, the “VIP” section was opened up by one row and we got to sit four rows from the front. The other group of teachers was too late though, so they had to sit waaaaaaaaay in the back corner. The show itself, called Nanta, was actually really cool and funny. It is the longest running show for South Korea and it has been to Broadway already. They were here to help celebrate the 40^th anniversary of political relations with Bahrain. They did a lot of musical stuff with kitchen utensils and supplies like knives and cutting boards or spoons and water jugs. They told an entire story about working in a kitchen while only saying like 10 words. They were really good and it was a lot of fun and worth the wait in line.

Anyways, that’s all I’ve got for this week. Only 2 weeks of school left with kids, then one week without before I go on my next adventure! I’m not ready for summer break or anything. See ya!

THE BRITISH ARE COMING!...Oh Wait, It’s Just Bahrain Royalty

Sorry guys, it’s been busy here! Last week I was just really trying not to kill the children. Everyone seemed on edge and students were just unruly it was getting so ridiculous. Unsurprisingly, I’d say I was in a bad mood most of the week. Seniors were gone (unless they were in school for a class) but it was one of those times where everyone needed a break but the one day off certainly didn’t help. But on the plus side, I found out most of the things on my “wish list” were approved and I did get promises of things to be given as well as some money from the school to spend for my classroom. Thursday night was good though because I got done taking out all my anger and frustration in jiu jitsu and then came back to grill out. I was still in bed by 11pm haha. The week went fine but between kids being antsy and obnoxious, teachers being on edge and the school in full presentation mode, no one wanted to be there-well, much more than usual.

The weekend was hectic and busy but pretty good. Friday I went with Brandon and went shopping for stuff for my classroom. We only got some very basic stuff from the farthest stores-also ones that he knew of but few others do. After that I went to ultimate Frisbee with a bunch of people from base. They went to a different field in the Rugby Club and played there for about 2 hours. It’s a lot nicer than being on the one on base but this one also charged to get in. I was originally going to play but decided not to once I was about to go because I was just physically exhausted from everything last week so I just sat and watched. Afterwards, there was a restaurant in the club that is called Manos so we stayed there for dinner and a beer. I ordered my first steak (ribeye-but not as good as yours, Dad)) since I’ve been gone from the U.S. and also got a beer, salad, French fries and corn on the cob for less than 10BD! Which is somewhat expensive when converting to USD ($26-$27) but is pretty inexpensive compared to many nicer places here. Afterwards I just went home and went to bed. Saturday Mike 

and I planned to go to the farmer’s market again but it had moved to a very nonspecific place. So we drove to where it was and asked a security guard that was there where it was. Apparently it won’t open until December because the indoor market space for it isn’t done. Soooo…..so much for fresh food. But when we were on our way back, we figured we might as well go by the jiu jitsu center since we were one town over and drove home that way because we knew where a lot of small food stands with fruits and veggies are. We stopped at one on the way back and I got some green beans and potatoes. I’m fairly certain they are from Saudi since there was a ton of veggies and fruits in it that I didn’t see at the farmer’s market but that’s okay because they’re still pretty fresh and much cheaper.

This week the school has been just absolute chaos getting ready for the visit from the…well, Shaika is her title but a lot of people have been calling her princess. So when the king’s wife’s favorite daughter-in-law comes, we are all putting on this huge show: there’s banners and posters everywhere, kids preparing for their dancing show and honors presentation, buying unnecessary things that will probably never see the light of day again, and “suspending” “bad” kids for a day so they aren’t caught out of uniform or out of class………………..Yup. She’s coming to my classroom along with some newspaper/magazine photographers and some news channels-at least from what I’ve been told she is.

On Sunday, I was told I had one day to decorate my class because one of the owners would come looking at the room. I had nothing on the walls as they had said they would paint my room (which they didn’t) and I had no bookcases, closets, or a podium as they said I would. So, needless to say, I was a little frustrated and pretty annoyed. I spent all three of my now-open class periods (were senior classes) decorating the walls. Monday until Wednesday, I was still preparing for the visit at any chance I got. Any time I happened to have a free period and I didn’t sub was basically spent in my room moving things around and decorating or getting stuff for the lesson itself ready. At least until about the last hour of school Wednesday when I could finally take a step back and, you know, plan for my other classes. But on the plus side I got 3 bookcases, 2 closets and the promise of another one, a table, a podium (which was later taken away with a promise that I would get another one), and all my seats replaced…with the same chairs that will break later I’m positive. We’ll see about all the promises and the replaced seats later on, but I don’t have my hopes up. They did also give me 120BD to spend how I wanted as long as I brought back the receipts and I bought a bunch of props or pieces of clothing that most people probably wouldn’t have. I also got a bunch of books from my head of department so that I could fill up my bookcases, but they’re only on loan. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to keep one of the copies of every script she has but we’ll see on that too.

Today, the King’s wife’s favorite daughter-in-law (Shaika) came to school. Wow. That’s all I can say. Almost no students showed up because school was cancelled for the elementary school because of this visit (no real reason that I know of) and apparently one of the high school counselors decided himself that he should tell almost all the kids not to come to school. In my first block I had 3 of my 13 kids and in my second block I had 11 of 16 but most had to be there for either my 3^rd block or another teacher’s where they were in class for the Shaika to walk in on. I don’t even have a 3^rd block class so I had to create my own class so I just kept most from my class before. Anyways, it was all just a show anyways. I had lesson plan ideas shot down because they weren’t “theater-y” enough—in other words, they were expected to be holding scripts and I was directing them while my “para-teacher,” Brandon, helped people in the back. Since she was making headway long before the schedule sent out said, she ended up walking into the class while they were practicing reading the children’s books which is an actual project they will be doing Sunday and Monday. I’m really bitter about her visit, though, because when she walked in during the middle of some students reading she interrupted the entire class and everything just went silent and all my students looked at her. There were a bunch of pictures being taken the entire time when Ms. Hanan, my Vice Principal, introduced us and we shook hands before introducing Brandon and then we all stood there awkwardly so I made a comment about practicing to read for the elementary students next week. She said, “It is good to read to the little children,” and then her and the whole entourage walked out but not before taking pictures of my students sitting there (they were now too nervous to read).

Anyways, some of my kids for that fake lesson hadn’t been my kids anyways and most of them wanted to watch this huge show that was in the brand new auditorium. Students had been practicing for weeks and most hadn’t been to a single class in a week because they were practicing all day, every day. Every other class besides the ones being observed were already at the auditorium almost an hour before the Shaika arrived so she didn’t see any of the transferring happening. So we had to sneak out of my classroom and run to the building outside and get there and seated before she walked in-we were lucky and got settled like a minute or two before she walked in. The entire ceremony was just awkward and it was hard to keep a straight face. There were 4 or 5 dances from different groups and they weren’t that great nor were they synchronized. They also had some teachers read poems they wrote for the visit as well as the owner speaking, but it was all in Arabic so I didn’t understand a word of it. In the audience, the students were getting antsy and wanted out-they’d been sitting in silence for an hour 

before the Shaika even arrived and another 20-30 minutes before she got to the auditorium! Anyways, there was a video that Brandon made that was shown and it was pretty neat (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWcUVj37j0Y&feature=youtu.be you can see some of my fellow teaching peeps and students!) but otherwise, everything seemed just so over the top and fake that I am so happy it’s over. I got a lot of things I needed for my classroom because of this so it is a blessing in disguise but overall, it almost wasn’t worth it. Now that you have heard my mini-rant, I will leave you until next time!

Puppies and Plays and...Pain?!?

Hello All!

So again, I don’t have too many fun things to tell you unfortunately. But to start with, last Saturday I went to a co-worker’s house, Donna, and spent most of the day there. She fed us and let us swim in her pool and the beach she has in her backyard. We also got to play with two adorable dogs because one was hers and one she was dogsitting. We also played Frisbee and Cards Against Humanity. One of my other co-workers who came had a few friends that came from Saudi Arabia but they had to leave at a certain time so after that, there was video games. In school last week, my two projects for the rest of the year in theatre classes have been approved and I can work with the elementary school. Although it’ll be hell to combine classes and get what I want, I’m sure it will run smoothly the day of. Also last week, it was seniors last week at school but they even got to leave Tuesday. They were told that unless they had a project or presentation to do, they could not come to school. Reason being, they were literally ruining the school-both destroying it physically with graffiti and ruining the walls and floors and because they didn’t attend classes and/or disrupted classes. However, it was still pretty unnecessary because all they really need to do at this school is learn how to discipline. At least in the middle school they have detentions or they refuse to let students play sport games until their attitude or grades improve.

Anyways, I’m still working on stuff for school and dragging kids along with me because they’re already checked out for the year. Since seniors are done now I had to do everyone’s final which is a debate in Speech/Debate class and a performance in front of an actual audience for theatre class. I’ve tried to start planning for next year but I’m a little behind because of other things for school this year, but I’ll get there eventually. This weekend, we also had a 3 day weekend. So on Thursday night after jiu jitsu Mike, Jessica, and I went to The Jungle Book in the mall’s movie theatre. After that, Jess and I went straight to bed because we actually felt really tired. That night or early the next morning, most people left to go to Dubai or Doha but I had decided to stay here in order to get more work done and have a relaxing weekend. The next day we literally spent all day at Coral Bay, which is a sort of resort that had a pool,

beachfront, restaurant, and a swim-up bar. For the first part of the morning, we spent our time in the ocean on a floaty that Kay bought and then after that was spent going back and forth between napping/tanning on the lounge chairs and cooling off in the water. Jessica and I got quite crispy. When we were there last week, Kay got burned, Jessica had put on sunscreen and only got a little red where she missed spraying, and nothing happened to me even with no sunscreen. This weekend it was reversed. Again I did not use sunscreen and Jess this time did not either and we both fried but Kay was just a little burned. We’re not quite sure what the difference was between last weekend and this weekend.

Yesterday morning, we joined with Kate and went to a farmer’s market that takes place in a garden-yes, an actual garden with trees and grass and flowers! It’s not quite the same as ones that I’m used to but it was still really cool. Lots of vegetables but hardly any fruit but we did buy a lot of food to snack on and make with our meals this week. When we were buying snacks at the concession area, I even saw one of my graduating seniors who said hello. Of course, I was on vacation mode and just said, “Whoa!” when he called me Ms. Lally. A few hours later, we went and got some massages done at Coral Bay as well. Kate and Kay did the usual Swedish massage but Jess and I decided to do a combination massage which is a mix between Swedish and Thai. So basically, it’s a little bit more deep tissue and stretches you quite a bit as well since the main goal of a Thai massage is to increase your flexibility. It was very good but I doubt I will ever get a Thai massage done-but I could also be saying that because I’m still burnt. Later on, Kay and I went to the training center where I do jiu jitsu because they were 

doing upgrades (I didn’t quite know what that meant either). Basically I showed up in regular clothes holding my belt and soon found out I was supposed to wear my entire gi but no one had said that to me. Well, they happened to have an extra for me and then we went through this entire ceremony-type thing that I didn’t understand but followed along. Basically, everyone that had been training consistently for 3 months got an upgrade-a stripe on a patch of their belt (for me, I have a white belt with a black patch so it was a white stripe on the black). They called your name and you went up, shook the owner’s hand, he put the stripe (which was a small piece of athletic tape) on your belt and you went to sit down. That was it. Beyond that, there were 3 or 4 people who moved up a belt so that was cool to see that. The guy sitting next to me explained that you have to train for almost a year at one belt level before you go to the next, but even then you have to pass a test. After that part of the ceremony ended, we did a beating. Literally. This part someone also had to explain but what I know now is this: this is a sort of ritual for this training facility that when you move up a belt, you take off the coat of your gi at this ceremony and everyone makes a tunnel for you. Everyone else removes their belt and as you walk or run through, they whip you with their belts on your back. This might not sound that great or that bad, but you can run as fast as you can through it but there was about 60 people there making this tunnel…

This morning, Jessica and I went to Saffron’s, the place with the typical Bahraini breakfast. We quite enjoyed it even though we had to wait almost an hour to be seated. But we also did see a few other MKS teachers walking in and out of that area. Afterwards, Jess and I walked around the souq for a while looking for things that she wants to get before going home. I thought about getting a few things here and there but nothing seemed good enough to bring home for anyone yet so I just held off. Anyways, now we’re sitting in our apartment and I need to get working before we go to a movie on base tonight with Kay. So, I will leave you guys with that! See ya!