2nd Week of School + Desert Safari

So my 2nd week of school was vastly different than my 1st. I think the biggest difference was that I had the weekend to sit down and plan better for 2 reasons: (1) I had a much better understanding of where the kids were at academically so I could provide them with activities that were right at their level, and (2) I was much more prepared for the behaviors I would see and was able to put some thought into how I would deal with individual cases as they arose.

Overall, I think I'm going to really love my 2nd grade class. Already, I felt in total control of things with them and we were able to get a lot of things accomplished. At times, I felt comfortable joking around with them and letting them see my lighter side without feeling like they would take advantage of it. In other words, I feel like we have begun to establish a mutual respect for one another.

First grade was a bit different. I had to be extremely firm with them 100% of the time just to make it through my time with them successfully. That took a lot of energy, and to be honest, there were times when I felt like letting up because I was so exhausted with it all, but I knew that would be taking a step backward with them. By the end of the week, I felt like I had made considerable progress but also feel like I have a long way to go with them. But to think positively, I am seeing that I am going to be able to teach these boys a lot this year.

As for planning, my colleagues and I have fallen into a bit more of a groove as well. Instead of each of us doing our own thing, we have decided to split our sessions into 3 parts (since there are 3 of us) and each of us specialize in certain subjects for a few weeks at a time. So I am concentrating on math planning for the next few weeks, and I can already see that that is going to be a time saver for all of us. Some might argue that we should each plan our own lessons since we each have different teaching styles, but I feel like with as difficult as resources are to come by here, it is a little different. With the few lessons that Andrew or Christopher have planned, they have come up with some great ideas actually, and I have just added my own twists or tweaked the plans to suit my style and my kids with pretty good results. We'll hope that continues.

After a hard week, some of us thought we should treat ourselves to something really fun this weekend. So I organized an overnight desert safari with a local company and 5 of us took part in that this Friday/Saturday. First, they picked us up and drove us out of the city about 45 minutes to a camel farm. The camels there were really friendly and would come up to us so that we would pet them. One of them seemed to be particularly fond of me and kept following me around! After that, we did some dune bashing. For those of you who do not know that that is, it basically just means we hopped into an SUV and a driver drove us up and down giant sand dunes through the desert like a crazy man. There were so many times when we thought our SUV was going to flip because we were pretty much sliding down the dunes sideways, but sure enough, our driver (who was really awesome) would always turn the wheel just in time so that we would fishtail our way out of it. This was probably my favorite part of the safari.

Once we got to our camp out in the middle of nowhere, we had lots of choices: 4-wheeling, camel riding, and sandboarding (like snowboarding down big sand dunes). Of course I wanted to do all of these things, but since we were staying the night and I knew I would have plenty of time to do it all, I just tried some sandboarding before dinner. Since the sandboards were all one-size-fits-all, none of them really fit me snug enough to be able to maneuver my board very well. Consequently, whenever I got going really fast I had no way of stopping myself. Eventually I started trying some dunes that were very steep even though I knew I was going to wipe out at some point along the way, and those were the most fun for sure. The only bad part about sandboarding is that they don't have lifts in the middle of the desert so if you wanted to try the biggest and best dunes, that also meant you had to find a way to climb up them first!

The BBQ dinner they served us was very delicious. They had all sorts of kabobs for us, some curry rice, and plenty of flatbread and hummus to go around. Too bad they didn't have s'mores though! (Just kidding.)

After dinner, some of us went 4-wheeling out in the desert in the dark. I got my first glimpse of how difficult it is to maneuver a vehicle in the sand, but all the fishtailing and bumps made the driving more exciting. When I was finished with that, we figured we'd go on a short camel ride under the stars to wind down our evening. That was pretty fun too! Since we weren't quite ready to go to bed yet when the camel trek was over, some of us climbed up one of the sand dunes and laid down under the stars to contemplate the meaning of life and other such things. I could've fallen asleep right there, but figured I'd better join the rest of the group in heading back down to our camp. We slept outside with a few blankets and pillow each, and it was nice to fall asleep under the stars for the second time in about a month. The only thing I didn't like better about this than the last time (in India) was that at about 4:00 am, a rooster nearby began to crow and didn't stop until after sunrise. I'm pretty sure that rooster would not have liked to cross paths with me Saturday morning!

All in all, my 2nd week of school was pretty great and I am now ready for a 3rd after such a great weekend!

Good afternoon from Abu Dhabi,

Matt