Rain rain never go away.

What a weekend. All along the coastline storms were raging. Towns flooded, power out, and roads closed. So when the storm started to move inland to the desert the school freaked out. We had gotten to school and literally fifteen minutes later on a Thursday (which is the last day of a work week here) we got to send all the kids home because it was supposed to start raining. Before 9 we were back home in our pajamas! For rain! They never built a drainage system here. So when it rains. It floods. Then we were supposed to work Saturday for parent teacher conferences and because of the rain that got cancelled too!

To top off my weekend I got a flash back into the pre-women's suffrage period on my way back to Madinat Zayed on Friday.  I had gone in with my friends Amy and Justin. Watched the second Hunger Games and did some shopping. On our way home we managed to catch the last bus back home. And we were sooo excited because the entire back of this bus was wmpty. We could each have leg room and sleep! Then after settling in for a two hour nap the bus driver approached Amy and I. He told us we had to sit in the female only section at the front of the bus. After fifteen minutes of arguing with him that that should be optional seating and attempting to explain that we were with Justin he basically told us move or get off.  The fact we were forced to sit in a female only section was assinine. And while I've seen gender segregation here plenty it was always in my favor. Shorter lines. Quicker service.  Quieter waiting areas. Never being told we can't sit somewhere.  We had a good laugh though and still managed to sneak in a nap! Below is a picture outside my apartment where you can see the flooding began.

Mafi Mushkila, Mafi Mushkila

"Mafi Mushila" has become my new motto here in the Arabian Peninsula. It means "no problem" or "no worries." And if you do not quickly adapt this attitude here you will sink. For example, we are celebrating National Day as a school next week, but this week I have lost 4 different periods of class because half of the boys are pulled out to practice their dance, the girls all disappeared during English class for something else, and well we are going on a field trip with no idea of the schedule (and the trip is tomorrow). But these are common occurrences in this school and country so I have learned to throw my hands in the air and just say "Mafi Mushkila." I have learned to like this laid back attitude here. It can be frustrating when you are in the middle of teaching and half of your class disappears on a daily basis or when someone standing right next to you tells a students "sure you can eat that" right after you have said "no" to the same student. But it is much less stressful to just say Mafi Mushkila and not let things get to you. It is as almost as if saying the words remind you that in all reality it actually is not a big deal.

Well, I don't have a lot of time to write tonight. I have to get ready for the field trip and plan some lessons. Wahoo, so exciting ;)

The ramblings of my fried brain . . .

The title of this blog says it all. This entire post will be full of just my ramblings. I just turned in Quarter 1 grades this weekend and it feels amazing to know that my first quarter of teaching is done! These last two weeks have been insane work overload. But, I learned a lot from this first quarter. How to better plan, how to grade assignments, and which categories of assignments I need to have to give the students a good grade, and most importantly how to not let my students fail.

We actually are physically not allowed to fail any child at this school. So if they fail any test, paper, quiz, or project we HAVE to let them redo it as many times as it takes for them to pass. This little kink in my grading meant the last two weeks I was cramming trying to get students with low scores up. But it is over and there is no time to relax because now Quarter two has started. The rest of the time until December break is going to fly by! This weekend we are having a staff Thanksgiving meal at the school, we work on the weekend for parent teacher conferences, have a four day weekend, and have National Day celebrations (which actually take up an entire week before the actual National Day since we get that off).

The entire week before our long weekend and National Day no teaching will happen. Instead students will decorate their classrooms, create parade floats and banner, bring in an unhealthy amount of chocolate, and celebrate. I already have 5 bags of decorations that my girls have brought in and when I went to school today I saw they had put up lights all around the outside of the school spelling out "42 Years." It is crazy that this country is only 42 years old! Sometimes it is easy to forget that this country is so young.

On another note. I finally got my UAE drivers license. Of course the picture is almost as bad as my American one, but now I can rent cars here and actually legally drive (even though I've already driven several times). Many people rent cars for the whole year but I only plan on renting them after Christmas vacation so I don't have to bus it back.

Speaking of Christmas vacation. . . I will be in Italy for the holidays. Since I just recently went home I couldn't afford a ticket home and this one only cost me $200 US. So, since I won't be able to spend Christmas with family I thought why not spend it where I can go to midnight mass in the Vatican. I fly into Rome and will spend 5 nights there up until Christmas. After that I am making no plans. My idea is to go to Florence, Venice, Assissi, Vernona, and I fly out of Milan.

I have really been missing home right about now. I love being here and all, but I miss the daily interactions with my friends and family, my nieces and nephews growing up, and the rain. Ha it is finally cold here though. I have to have a jacket on most days anymore, which is weird when it is 75 degrees Farenheit. Thanks for reading everyone!

A long weekend=halloween party and family dinners

Wow. I have seriously been slacking off on my blogging efforts. Since I went home I have not written at all. It seemed as if I was just swamped with work. My trip home was wonderful to be with family and see my friends. It made coming back so much more difficult knowing that it would be a while before I had that opportunity again. But, as I came back so did all the other staff and students from Eid vacation. And if you have never taught before let me tell you. Students and teachers alike are pretty much useless for a whole week after any long vacation. But, I got back in the swing of things with my first progress reports due and my classes starting their first novel soon. My girls have been especially sweet lately and we have had a chance to bond very well. They painted my hands with henna one day at lunch and wala (I swear) I had 12 girls crowded around me as I got my hands painted in the Arabic style of henna. They explained to me that the arabic style is like you'll see in my picture below. And that the Indian style is when your whole hand is covered with the henna. The day after they did my henna one of my girls, Sanna, brought in a grandmother's mask for me. The traditional dress for emirate women is an abaya and sheila. But once they become older and grandmothers they often wear these gold colored masks with the sheila like my scarf is in the picture below. They want me to wear it for national day when I will dress up in an abaya but, the woman who is an emirate supervisor advised me not to so I 1: don't get laughed at and 2: don't offend any grandmothers who come. Regardless, the gesture was sweet and it is a perfect momentum to have of my time here and the culture.

This weekend is a long weekend because of some other national holiday so we get an extra day off which is nice. Since we cannot celebrate halloween in the schools or even in public (Dubai has big parties and events but it is spendy) in this town my friends Amy and Lindsay threw a halloween party at their house. I helped them get ready for it all week and it was the most intense halloween party I have ever been to. We painted all the light bulbs red so the rooms were filled with creepy lighting. Had a huge mural painted creepily. Cobwebs everywhere, a floating hand and eyeballs in the juice. Ha needless to say it was a blast! I can't post some of the pictures here because they are harem (forbidden in this culture) and if someone from here came across my blog those people would get in trouble. The only really harem costumes were two guys dressed up like pigs with "har" and "em" on their backs. One woman dressed up like an arabic man. And one guy dressed up like lady gaga. Needless to say the pigs won the costume contest. But Amy, Lindsay and I won second place for our costumes that you can see below along with a few other costumes of some of my co workers.

The night after halloween was an awesome night. Since we have an extra day off we decided to play some ultimate frisbee and have a big dinner. I opted out of the physical activity and stayed in with my friends Stephanie and Sara to cook the meal. It felt like a family dinner when we have all 15 people home because there literally was fifteen people ha. Roasted tomato stuffed chickens. Salads galore, garlic bread, cheesy mashed potatoes. And funfetti cake and ice cream for dessert (yes everyone from UP I am still making funfetti cake on a monthly basis. Some things never change). It felt like Thanksgiving meal. And we sat and ate for four hours talking but mainly trying to solve riddles. One of the teachers has an inhuman amount of riddles and jokes stored in his head and it was a blast to see who could figure out which riddles first. Below you can see the food all laid out before we dug in :). I am sorry I haven't written in a while. But, hopefully this updates you on my life a little bit. And I will try to get better about writing on here! Now, I have a full day filled with planning and grading laid out for me that I need to get started on. Thanks for reading my blog, it means a lot to me that people back home read it.