First day as a Teacher!

Wow. Overwhelmed. Anxious. And Excited. Today was my first day at work! After everything it finally hit me that I am teaching here. And I am more excited than ever now after hearing out nice it is here for us teachers. I never teach more than 26 periods a week. I have a teaching assistant. I get paid all 12 months of the year. And the kids are amazing. It is much more cushiony than any job in the states. I especially loved getting to know everyone and actually witness the overwhelming generosity of the teaching community here. If I was nervous about making friends before I am not worried about it anymore. I got very lucky to be at the school I am at with such a great principal and community that even though it is in the middle of nowhere everyone stays. There are only 15 new teachers and that is with adding an entire new grade. 15 new teachers out of a staff of over 170! That says good things about the school if everyone wants to stay.

We arrived and had a short orientations with all the returning teachers and then a tour of the school. Which is HUGE! It is actually three school campuses because each school is designed to eventually hold a male 6-12 campus, a female 6-12 campus and a mixed elementary campus. The campuses each have to have their own pools, gyms, ect. because ideally the boys and girls in the upper levels are not supposed to ever see each other. This year it is a little different because it is only 6-7 who would be separated and there are not enough students to take up each campus, and the elementary school doesn't have enough room for the grades 4 and 5. So the "male" campus is where I am at and it holds all genders grades 4-7.

The classroom setup is completely different this year than in the states because of the difficulties with having boys and girls in one building but not allowing them to see each other. So I will go to each homeroom class and teach language arts; essentially I am a roaming teacher. Then my classroom (my homeroom) has 28 girls which is actually the entire female 7th grade class will stay in my room throughout the day and their other teachers will come to them to teach them the other subjects. So the male teachers can enter the female part of the building and I can enter the male part to teach our subjects but that is it. This means that my room is my room and not my room. It will be hard to adjust to this idea of roaming around to other homerooms to teach but next year when 8th grade is added it will be set up like a normal middle school where the kids come to your classroom not the other way around.

After what seemed like a very short orientation I stayed after school and played a few hours of volleyball with new and returning teachers. One of the teachers, Vinny, then offered to drive some of us back to our hotel and even stopped at the grocery store so we can have food for the next few days. We commented that we wished we knew what our apartments would look like so he took us to his fiances apartment and she showed us what they will look like which got us very excited. He then took us all back to the hotel and bought us each a drink at the bar and sat and answered all of our million questions (and yes there are a million more after orientation than before) patiently. It got me more excited than I was before to meet the students after he started talking about them so passionately. I heard several times that the 7th grade girls that I get every day are the best class in the entire school. No one has ever had a negative thing to say about them which makes me very excited to meet all of them.

All in all my experience here is getting better and better as the days go on. I am tired of living in hotels out of suitcases, but the beautiful view here can't be beat. We see camels every day and just miles and miles of untouched sand dunes out where the hotel is. Back in town you don't get to the that natural beauty of the desert.

P.S please excuse the grammatical errors in these posts. I know I am now an English teacher and should be perfect but I am writing these very late at night and after long days so please find room to forgive me :) And I promise once I have a few consecutive hours to post photos of the hotel I am at, the previous hotel experience, and the school I will!

Goodybye to Al Raha

I woke up today with one goal. To get all my medical tests, my paperwork, and my government mandated paperwork done. The company requires all of its employees go through an extensive medical test outside of the government mandated HIV test and xrays. So after 12 hours of fasting I showed up at the ADNOC health center and got my physical; which consisted of hearing, seeing, heart, blood, x-rays, and a typical physical check up. Then we had to run to get fingerprinting for our Emirate ID which they didn't tell us about when we were there the day before. And as I've been discovering here in the middle east there is no such thing as a clear outline or communication between the various places we are required to go. So we would go to one place for a paper, then they would tell us we had to go back straight from where we were for a different form. Needless to say after 8 hours and three malls (a lot of official buildings are located near or in malls) I had turned in everything to HR and I don't need to come back to Abu Dhabi to get all of it done like many teachers will need to.

It was nice to come back and not feel super exhausted. So I went and FINALLY got to enjoy the pool and beach area with some of the other teachers. I even got to swim up to the poolside bar and have a drink! It was very refreshing and the first day here without a lot of humidity so I was finally able to get some better pictures! But this 5 star hotel vacation is at an end. Tomorrow morning they will bus us all to our campuses where we will once again be put into a hotel until our accommodations are ready. Then the exciting day that I've been waiting for comes and we report to work on Wednesday morning!!! I am sure it will mostly be orientations but regardless I am just excited to be in the school. They will give us our keys to our apartments but we are welcome to stay at the hotel free of charge until we buy the proper necessities for furnishing. My plan is to work Wed/Thur and then go into the city Friday with some teachers and buy what I need to move in Saturday. But as I am quickly learning here don't make plans. Because NOTHING and I mean nothing is concrete here in the UAE. Here everyone says "Inshallah" which means "if it is God's will" or basically saying if it is meant to happen it will.

It's been so nice today to spend time with the other teachers. Even if most of them are not at my campus it has been really fun to meet everyone and hear about all the places they come from. I will post pictures soon!

P.S This was written a day before I posted and that may happen alot while I am over here!

Ugh I even get sick here

So I planned on going sight seeing today or even just to the beach here at the hotel. But while I was out getting my hiv and xray test I developed a fever. Staying in this beautiful hotel and I haven't done much because I've gotten sick is pretty miserable.  But I know I start work on Wednesday so I have to work on being better by then. I just keep telling myself there will be plenty of time to come explore Abu Dhabi later. I have one more medical early tomorrow morning then I am ready to go!

It was interesting to experience the different lines for men and women in government buildings today though. Walking in to get my x ray and hiv test the mens sections was crowded noisy and chaotic. When we went upstairs to the women's sections it was sooo much calmer, quieter, and faster! I think the separate lines thing will work out in my favor!

Arriving in the sand pit

After over eighteen hours of flying, approximately twenty-four of travel time, two hours at immigration and looking for my luggage, and the most exhausted I have ever been I finally arrived in Abu Dhabi. They have us staying at the Al Raha Beach hotel which is closer to the airport than the city. All of us western teachers have agreed that is is by far the nicest hotel we have ever stayed in. When we first arrived at the hotel we walked into the lobby while a local wedding was going on. It was so cool to have my first Arabic experience be walking into the middle of all these people clapping and singing with the loud drums beating in the background. My room has an amazing balcony that looks out over an infinite pool and the sea/beach. The only problem is it's always so humid and muggy out that I never want to go out on the balcony. Every morning you look out your window here and the humidity is so high that you can't see anything. It looks like a dense smog covers the whole city.

I met several other teachers on my flight who worked for the public schools in the UAE for the last few years and are now coming to teach at Glenelg. They have been so great about helping me get settled in here. One of them took me and a couple to a bigger mall where he showed us which phone plans to use here in the UAE (we need one for work) and where the best places to exchange our money are. They've also been giving me some great much needed advice.

Advice #1: You shouldn't drink the water here but no one ever tells you that because they assume it is just a known fact. It's been weird to be living somewhere like Portland where they are so anti plastic water bottles to here where that is all I can drink!
Advice #2: Always check the cab before you leave (that one seemed kind of universal though).
Advice #3: There are no such things as lines here
Advice #4: You won't see many Emirate fathers out where I am moving to because most of the families out there are second or third wives.

I am really lucky that they give us four days to just rest here before we head out to our schools. I got sick while traveling and adding jet lag to that I really haven't been feeling good. So the first few days here I have just been trying to get better and overcome the jet lag. I think I've got it down somewhat. I can now sleep through most of what the night is here (daytime back home!) and only need a little power nap during the day. Below are some pictures that I've taken so far but I am going out today to do some actual sight seeing so I will take more pictures and post them soon. I have lots of down time until Tuesday! :)

The hotel view from my balcony

Some cool shaped building

The pool and deck lit up at night

Yes this is two toilets!

Where I got my phone and exchanged money. Apparently mall culture is really big here.

These are inside the glass swivel doors

Murals

Lobby of Al Raha

"All my bags are packed I'm ready to go"

So I know I am not over there yet but, I was so excited when I finished packing after about 3 different tries at it. I finally condensed my life down to 3 checked bags, 1 carry on and my small purse. Crazy right?! Ha especially since one of those bags doesn't even have clothing items but is mostly teaching supplies. All of the embassies are open again and Ramadan is now over so I am merely waiting for the plane ticket, could be any day now!