The Daily Grind

This morning was pretty much the same as yesterday morning, with the exception that our bus left without about 12 (out of 23) of us. We were supposed to come down for the bus at 8:00, which we did, but apparently since we were not actually ON the bus at 8:00, we were late. It is funny that we have waited for nearly an hour for our busdriver to get to our hotel, but he would not wait even 1 extra minute for us. Oh well. We caught a taxi and got there about 15 seconds after the bus did anyway.

The meetings this morning were fairly boring, so I won't go into much detail about those. After lunch, some parents from Abu Dhabi came to discuss what they would like to see from us as new teachers in Abu Dhabi. As we are really here to serve them and their children, I thought it was great to actually get input from these people.

For our last hour, we split back up into small groups and discussed in a bit more depth what our role will be in the Abu Dhabi schools and how we will mesh with the "native" teachers. Unfortunately, our facilitator was being very vague and wishy-washy and so currently I still am not exactly sure what my role will be. But I guess since my principal and colleagues will be unique and have their own set of expectations (as each school does), I suppose I will have to wait and see for myself anyway.

After an unusually long bus ride home (our bus driver took a major detour at one point, I think because somebody cut him off before he could get over), some of the guys decided to go join a gym near our hotel and work out for a bit. The gym is about a 3 minute walk from our hotel, and while by no means is it fancy, it's got everything I need to get back into decent shape: treadmills, bikes, rowing machines, free weights, and all the typical weight machines. I just got a 1 month membership just in case I decide I don't like it or if I find something better in the next few weeks.

After running about 3 miles on treadmill and lifting some weights, I felt a lot better. It has been about 3 weeks since I've had a chance to really work out (and they've been a little bit stressful), so I was starting to have a lot of energy pent up inside of me.

When we got back from the gym, Jeff, Andrew, Graem, and I walked to the mall to grab some food and hang out at the pool hall for a while. At an Arabic restaurant in the food court, I got some lamb kabobs and flat bread, which was pretty good for food court food.

On the way back from the mall, I stopped off at the hypermarket to grab some random household items and groceries.

At the end of the day, I look back and think that this is probably what a typical day in my life will look like for the next month or so (at least). While it was pretty exhausting, it was also pretty fun.

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt