AS THE LAMP FLICKERS

2010-04-16T06:30:00.002+04:00

Well we've certainly got some catching up to do, don't we? Where to begin? . . .

Let's talk school first. Last week, our main focus in 2nd grade was finalizing our preparations for our presentation of The Very Hungry Caterpillar to our school. Everything seemed to be going very smoothly each time we practiced so I had pretty high hopes that it was going to be an easy, low-key experience for all of us. But I should know by now that nothing is ever as simple as it seems in the education world. There is always a curve ball. In this case, that curve ball came in the form of 3 of my students not showing up to school that day. Now, I tried planning for this by giving the most important parts (of course, EVERY part is equally important . . .) to my boys that have great attendance so there would be a smaller chance of them not being there on our performance day. As it turned out, all 3 of these boys had a sort of leadership role in the play. Therefore, we had to do some last minute switching of parts so that, during our actual performance, I had 3 boys playing 2 roles, one of which was a part had never practiced before. All things considered, however, I thought the boys handled the last-minute changes very well and the play still went fairly smoothly. Most importantly, the boys all seemed really excited about what they had just done when we were finished, so in the end we still accomplished our primary goal which was to have fun.

The very next day, last Thursday, I was on a plane to Jordan for my ultra marathon. I had felt really good all week with my limited amount of running (I only ran about 10 miles all week to keep my legs fresh), so I was very excited to see how that would translate to my race. Part of me was a little nervous that my greatly-reduced mileage the previous 3 weeks would leave me feeling a little out of shape for the 31-mile race, but I figured the worst that would happen is that I would get really tired and have to run really slow or walk to finish the race.

On the morning of the race, they had a bus going from my hotel (our hotel was a race sponsor so a lot of people staying there were doing the race) to the meeting point. First of all, the bus was 30 minutes late. Then, when we got to the meeting point (a city park), there were literally thousands of people shouting and pushing each other around, trying to figure out which bus they were supposed to get on to take them to their starting point. You see, there were actually 4 distances being run that day--a 50 km, 42 km (marathon distance), 21 km (half marathon), and 10 km--and each one had a different starting point so that they all ended at the same place. Unfortunately, and not to my surprise, none of the buses at the park were marked with which starting point they were taking runners to. As a result, everybody was pushing each other to get on the buses, many times only to find out that that was not the bus they needed to be on. While I was a little nervous that I might miss the bus to take us to the 50 km starting point, I just sat back (a little amused I must admit) and kept my cool, waiting for someone to say in English that such-and-such bus was the one I needed to be on. After about 20 minutes of chaos, I finally heard word that somebody figured out which bus the 50 km runners needed to be on, so I followed a couple people and got on the bus without any sort of confrontation.

The race was supposed to start at 7:00 am, and our bus got us to the starting point at 6:45. It wasn't an ideal amount of time for a quick warm-up jog and a last-minute trip to the bathroom before the race, but in comparison to what I had just experienced, I figured the situation could have been much worse. With about 2 minutes to spare, I was all ready for the race to begin when an official announced that the race start would be postponed for about 10 minutes (it was actually closer to 25) due to technical difficulties with the computer system. So at 7:25 in the morning, my race began. I ran with some guys that had a good pace going for the first 10 or 12 miles, but feeling nice and relaxed up to that point, I decided to make a but of a push. Nobody really answered my challenge and so for the next 10 or 12 miles, it was just my iPod and the natural beauty of the Jordanian countryside (and the occasional marathon runner that I was passing up) that kept me company. With about 5 miles to go, I came upon hordes of people who were finishing the marathon and 1/2 marathon, and hundreds of teenagers walking the 10 km. In a way, I was kind of annoyed by all these people I was having to run through, but at a point in the race when my body was really starting to break down and cramp up, I also kind of felt like I had an audience that I didn't want to give up in front of. I struggled through the last 5 miles or so, and finished in a time of 3 hours, 47 minutes, which was 13 minutes faster than my goal time. I was really happy about that and decided to go celebrate at the beach party they had set up for all the participants. I finagled my way to the Amstel Lite tent and gulped down a few free beers, which was probably the only time all day that I felt good. Then I went and got some food, which included a Snickers bar, a banana, a bag of popcorn, and an ice cream cone. And then another Snickers bar. For the rest of the day, I just lazed about in the city of Amman.

This past week all kind of seemed like a hangover from the previous one. I didn't do any running (not that I didn't feel like going for a run on a couple of occasions) because I promised myself I wouldn't until my body felt 100% recovered from my race. I felt a bit sick all week with a sore throat and some coughing, but I feel like I'm on the mend now.

Well, I think that's all for now. Until next time,

Matt

Happy Easter!

2010-04-04T15:48:00.002+04:00

Didn't really get up to much last week so didn't feel it was worthy of a post. But I have plenty to write about this week.

This past weekend (April 2 and 3), we had our dragon boat regatta in Dubai. Our first race was at 8:30 in the morning, so we met in Abu Dhabi at 6:00 to catch our charter bus (which means I had to get up before 5--blugh). I think pretty much everybody slept on the bus ride there. Having never been in a dragon boating competition before, I didn't really know what to expect, but I figured our 2 days of racing would be pretty intense. Having been in the UAE for 8 months now, however, I DID expect things to be pretty unorganized. Turns out I was right on both accounts.

Basically, we had 3 races throughout the day on Friday (2 preliminaries and a semi-final), a mixer at a really nice hotel club Friday night so that people from the different teams could get to know each other, and 4 races throughout the day on Saturday (1 preliminary, 1 semi-final, and 2 finals). Between the really strenuous rowing, being out in the sun for 2 days straight, and the late Friday night, the weekend was really exhausting! Even still, it was also a lot of fun and now I plan on participating on the team for the remainder of my time in Abu Dhabi.

School Update: School has been going pretty smoothly the past few weeks. For English, we have focused on basic vocabulary for much of the year with phonics and reading preparation taking the backburner (figured building vocabulary to actually communicate with them was a priority). But lately we've flip-flopped so that we have spent a larger proportion of our time focusing on building reading skills and decoding words they haven't seen before. For math, we've turned our attention to addition and subtraction skills pretty intensively. My first graders can all add and most of them can subtract, so we're working on memorizing and quickly solving the basic facts for better efficiency. My 2nd graders are now adding and subtracting 2-digit numbers with mixed results, which is good progress from where we were at at the beginning of the year--learning how to count from 1 to 10 for the first 3 weeks. We have our big presentation coming up this next Wednesday, and all my students are getting pretty excited for that (and me too)!

Running Update: With my big 50k coming up next weekend, I started my taper 2 weeks ago. 2 weeks ago, I brought my mileage down to 40 and I felt like crap for most of them. This past week, I brought it down to 30 and did shorter, higher-intensity runs. By the end of the week, I was feeling pretty good. The plan is to take it easy this next week and mostly just focus on keeping my legs nice and fresh!

Happy Easter everybody! I hope you all enjoy time spent with family and friends!

Until next time,
Matt

2010-03-23T15:19:00.002+04:00

For some reason this past week seemed very busy, like one of those weeks when you always feel like you're one step behind. Thing is, I really didn't do anything this week. Go figure.

High of the week: My 1st and 2nd grade classes are currently working on a theatrical production of the story The Very Hungry Caterpillar (it's a very short play). On Wednesday, we spent a good portion our school day making props and designing our "costumes" for the play. I thought managing 30 boys working on different little projects simultaneously going to be kind of chaotic and stressful, but it was actually a lot of fun getting down on the floor with them and getting our hands dirty with markers and paint and glue.

Runner up: The beer garden we went to on Thursday night had a mechanical bull, and since I am from the midwest and apparently all people from the midwest should be awesome at riding mechanical bulls, everybody expected me to put on a big show. In actuality, I've only been on one once before so I was actually kinda nervous that I was going to be really bad. Turns out I was actually better than anybody else there (I got plenty of challenges), so maybe there is some truth to the midwest--mechanical bull connection.

Low of the week: I honestly can't think of a low for this past week at the moment. Maybe only getting 6.5 hours of sleep on Wednesday night and feeling a bit groggy on Thursday morning? Guess this week was alright.

School update: In addition to working on our play, I feel like my kids have made a lot of strides academically this week, especially in math. My 2nd graders are multiplying numbers left and right, and my 1st graders are really starting to get a good grasp on addition and subtraction. Hopefully the trend continues through the rest of the year!

Running update: Had a pretty good week this week, despite the rising temperatures (temps in the high 80s or even 90s just about every time I ran). I ended up totaling 65 miles, capping off the week with a tough 23 miler on a hot, 93-degree day (heat index was close to 100). With my big spring race approaching, I figure I'll start tapering my training this week.

Until next week,

Matt

Rejuvenation Week

2010-03-14T18:35:00.002+04:00

Though I began the week feeling quite sick, I felt like this week was a bit rejuvenating in a way. I felt a little extra motivated to work on school stuff each afternoon, I made some progress towards my summer plans, the weather was nice every day, and life in general seemed to be just a little bit better than my previous few weeks.

Speaking of progress towards summer plans, I was able to set some specific dates and make some definite travel arrangements for my travels to Ethiopia this summer! I will be there from August 9-28, and most of my time there will be spent at a running camp, training with one of the national distance running coaches while living and interacting with some of the country's top up-and-coming distance runners. Hopefully, I'll manage to pull myself away from there for a few days to do a bit of sight-seeing and exploring as well.

High point of the week: Going out and cutting loose with friends on Thursday night. I get out and about on most weekends in Abu Dhabi, but usually I keep my evening pretty tame. So we decided to make this a change-of-pace weekend and get a little crazy. It was fun.

Low point of the week: Being miserably sick last Sunday and Monday. I had a sinus infection, so I was constantly blowing my nose and I had a really bad headache. Since I hate missing school and I knew we were probably going to be observed by somebody on one of those 2 days, I went to school anyway. But it was definitely not fun.

School update: Speaking of which, we were observed on Monday by our cluster manager (guy who serves as a liaison between the schools in our area and the Education Council). Even though I was in the midst of one of the worst lessons I've given in a while (recall my massive headache), he told me he thought everything looked like it was going very well in there. Guess I'm doin all right then . . .

Running update: Skipped out on running on Sunday and Monday due to health reasons, but was still able to get in 54 miles in 4 runs during the remainder of the week. Got a little dehydrated on my Saturday long run (probably from the night before), so I decided I would go to the store and get a hydration backpack to wear on these particular occasions (especially since the temperatures are probably going to be above 90 degrees for many of my remaining Saturdays this spring). The pack holds 3 liters of water, plus there's room in the compartment for some Gatorade or juice, food, and anything else I might need for my longer runs. Now I can run even farther!

Until next week . . .
Matt

Long Week

2010-03-07T20:18:00.002+04:00

This week seemed like a really long week for some reason. That doesn't mean it was a bad week though.

Something of note is that I tried a new sport called dragon boating this week. My friend Andrew had joined a week prior and thought I might enjoy it. I didn't really know what to expect for my first time, but thought it would be more like rowing. A more accurate description would be group canoeing due to the way you paddle the boat (1 oar, to the side of the boat in a canoe-like stroke). I enjoyed the new activity as well as the people who were on the boat with me, so I think I may try becoming a full member of the team (called Abu Dhabi Mar) and take part in some races in the next few months.

High point of the week: Dinner party/game night on Friday afternoon. Jeff, Danielle, Andrew, and I went over to a friend's place, ate lots of really good food and cake, and played some fun games (including a 4 hour game of Monopoly).

Low point of the week: Having to show some tough love with my 2nd graders on Thursday afternoon. I think we were all a bit tired by the end of the week, but some of them were trying my patience a bit too much and I had to put my foot down pretty hard with a few students.

School update: As mentioned, long week. But it was a fairly productive week. We are doing a unit on plants in 2nd grade so we planted some flower seeds in cups (classic activity, always fun). The students are really excited to see the plants grow, so hopefully they won't disappoint.

Running update: Had a pretty good week of running, as knee pain wasn't as noticeable throughout the week. I got in just short of 70 miles in 5 runs, capping off my week with a 30-miler on Saturday morning. Probably the toughest run I've ever been on mentally, but it felt really good to complete it. Best of all, I wasn't limping around for the rest of the day like I usually have to after a longer run.

Until next week,

Matt

Hello Again

2010-02-28T19:31:00.002+04:00

So I know it's been a while since I've done this, and I won't make any excuses as to why I haven't. Basically I stopped feeling like it.

Now I feel like it again. But I will probably limit my postings to a brief synopsis of my week each week:

This past week was a pretty lazy week for me . Other than going to school (which I have to do anyway) and running in the afternoons, I haven't felt much like doing anything. I didn't even cook a single dinner for myself, but instead ate out every night. While this is probably just as cheap as cooking here in Abu Dhabi, I feel like it's a bad habit to get into.

High point of the week: Going out to dinner with Jeff, Danielle, and Audrey on Thursday night. We tried a new Egyptian restaurant within walking distance of our apartments. The food was pretty good (especially the felafels) and very inexpensive, and the wait staff was very friendly. Definitely a place we'll be going back to.

Low point of the week: Running through a sandstorm in 91 degree heat on Saturday afternoon. While I initially embraced the challenge that the weather conditions were providing, my lack of drinking enough water during the week quickly lead to heat exhaustion. I ended up having to walk the last 2 miles back to my apartment, where I quickly gulped down some water and passed out. Hopefully this is the last time I make that mistake.

School status: Though it was a tough week (the week before was an extremely good week, and we all know it's not possible to have 2 of those in a row), I couldn't help but feel like teaching is I should be doing with my life. I figured, If I'm having a bad week at work and I still feel like my job (and life in general) is pretty awesome, then this is probably it. But hey, who knows what I'll want to do 2 years from now, right? As they say, "The best way to make God laugh is to try to make long-term plans."

Running status: Ran 52 miles this week, taking a few days off throughout the week to rest my knee (mild tendinitis). Put more emphasis on the quality of my runs than the quantity (last week ran 78 miles, but they were all slow and easy).

Well, that's about all I have to say this week. Hopefully I'll feel like blogging next week. Haha.

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,
Matt

A Little Bit of the "Real" Abu Dhabi

2009-12-20T19:07:00.004+04:00

This weekend some of us decided to break away from the city and go exploring around the Empty Quarter (the western desert region of the emirate of Abu Dhabi). We found our way to the Liwa Oasis and ended up camping in some of the biggest sand dunes in the world for a night. Here is a map to show where we were in relation to the city of Abu Dhabi (we were pretty much right where the yellow box that says Liwa Oasis is located):

Unfortunately we weren't able to leave the city until after 4:00 on Thursday afternoon, mostly because yours truly wasn't watching the time while he was BBQing on the roof for a late lunch. Therefore, we didn't reach Liwa until after sundown. As we were driving up and down the winding road that lead through the dunes, we were completely oblivious to the natural beauty that surrounded us (it was pretty much pitch black out there). We picked what turned out to be a great spot to set up camp, about 100 feet up the side of a sand dune in a nice little flat spot. By the time we got to this spot, it was already close to 8:00 at night. Luckily we had a nice, bright lantern and used it to help us see as we set up our tent for the night. After that, we just wandered around the giant dunes in the dark for a long time, stopping frequently to lay down on the sand and stare up at the big night sky. Since there was absolutely no light pollution to interfere with our view, we could see all the constellations perfectly. This was probably the best part of the whole experience. After a few hours of exploring, we found our way back to our campsite, we munched on some snacks, threw back a few cold ones, and just talked for a few more hours.
Probably the worst part of the whole trip was trying to sleep. There were five of us crammed into 1 tent (we were too lazy to put up both tents), and only 1 of us remembered to bring a pillow. That left Jeff, Mike, and I sleeping on our backpacks (mine might as well have been a sack of bricks). The ground was not too comfortable either. Therefore, by the time the desert sun came blaring through the sides of the tent, none of us had gotten more than 3 or 4 hours of sub-par sleep.
Nonetheless, getting up wasn't too painful because, for the first time since we'd arrived in the dunes, we were able to enjoy the natural beauty of our surroundings. Here are a few pictures I took when I woke up in the morning:
Walking up the sand dune to our campsite from the car (doesn't really capture the elevation at all).

Our campsite. You can see some of the sand dunes across the road. That is our car on the right side to give you some perspective on how high we are from the road (and the dunes behind me go much, much higher!).

The 2 1/2 hour drive home through the desert was pretty rough for me because I was tired and sore and everybody else was sleeping. But the scenery was also a nice change from what I'm used to seeing so I tried to enjoy it as much as I could.
Overall, I'd say that everybody had a great time camping and I think all of us are looking forward to doing it again soon!

An Eventful Weekend

2009-12-13T18:33:00.003+04:00

This weekend is surely one I won't forget anytime soon. First, I had my 1/2 marathon in Dubai on Saturday morning. In order to do this, I had to get up at 4am to eat a quick breakfast and speed my way to Dubai for a 7am start. My race started off great, but I slowed down quite a bit toward the end and I was pretty disappointed with my overall finish. But I have to say that the course was very scenic and is definitely one I'll do again next year. Plus, after the race, I got a free massage so that helped me forget about my race a bit too.

On the way back from Dubai, all I could think about was the nice little nap I was going to take when I got home. However, right as I was pulling in, I got a call from Jeff and we decided that we should host a BBQ that afternoon. So, instead of sleeping, I ran in, took a quick shower, and then we were off to buy food and charcoal for my grill. When we got back, I pretty much had to go straight up to the roof to start the grill.

As the chicken kabobs were cooking, all I could think about was how I was going to go to bed at like 7:00 that night because I was feeling so tired. However, when my friend Hector came up to the roof, he had 3 extra tickets to the FIFA Club World Cup quarterfinal match and invited Jeff, Danielle, and me to go. It sounded like a lot of fun, so I figured I would rough it out and then go to bed when I got home.

The soccer game was a lot of fun. It was between club teams from Korea and Congo, and not only was it a close game, but the fans were going pretty crazy the whole time (especially the Congolese fans, who had a little band there and they were playing music and dancing literally non-stop the entire time). Even cooler was the fact that we got our FIRST RAIN since I've been in Abu Dhabi. I had heard there was a chance of rain that night, but I had no idea that it would rain so hard! We were all soaked through our clothes, but we didn't care because we were just so excited that something different was happening with the weather.

Feeling recharged after the game, we all decided to go to our favorite neighborhood restaurant, Al Nasr Grill, to grab some food. During dinner, we started talking about our favorite Disney movies and we decided that we had to go back and watch Aladin after dinner. By the time we got back, got changed, and watched a bunch of random video clips on YouTube first, it was already well past midnight. We decided to watch the movie anyway, and it was close to 3am by the time I went to bed.

The next day (Saturday), it was still raining and since Abu Dhabi has basically no drainage system (it would cost more than it is worth since it only rains a handful of times a year here), all the streets were partially flooded. It was not that bad to drive in, but kind of funny to watch all the local drivers (who normally throw caution to the wind when they drive) be so overly careful on the wet streets. It reminded me of what I probably looked like the first time I drove in the snow. Anyway, I went to the post office to pick up a package and deliver some more of my own. What would normally be a 5-minute ordeal back home ended up taking me well over an hour because . . . well, it's Abu Dhabi. But I didn't care because I was just relieved to get that all taken care of.

Finally, Saturday evening, Andrew and I went to return our old car and get a new one! Our 3 month lease was up and we decided that we wanted to go with a different company, so we dropped off the Chevy Optra and then picked up our new 2010 Mitsubishi Lancer. The Lancer looks pretty nice and still has the new car smell to it, and it only has about 3000 km (about 1500 miles on it). We're probably going to break her in by taking her camping down south this weekend.

To make a long story short, I had a good weekend!

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Jordan Highlights

2009-12-09T16:02:00.004+04:00

Here is kind of a highlight reel of each of my days in Jordan.

DAY 1
I awoke pretty early to catch a morning flight to Amman from Abu Dhabi. The flight there was quite enjoyable, and we arrived in Jordan with no problems. The line at immigrations to get our traveller's visa was a bit ridiculous, but we got through it and were on our way to Madaba in a taxi in no time. Madaba, a small market town about 30 minutes from the airport, was a nice, quiet place to begin our trip with. We walked around the town and took a look at some of the local shops, many of which specialized in small mosaics--a local specialty. Then we went to St. George's Church, which is famous for the centuries-old mosaic that was discovered underneath the floor there. The mosaic once served as a large, detailed map of the entire area, and includes parts of Jordan, the Dead Sea, and the West Bank region of Israel. After walking around all afternoon, we called it a day early to rest up for a big Day 2.

Inside St. George's Church.

DAY 2
We arose early to get the most out of our day. First, we traveled a short distance to Mt. Nebo, where it is said that God revealed the Promised Land to Moses. Though the haziness limited our views of the surrounding area, we thought it was pretty neat to be at the historic site.
A view of the Promised Land from Mt. Nebo.

Next, we traveled down the mountain and through the Jordan River Valley to Bethany, the place where it is said that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist. Though this area is military tension zone (it's right on the border of the West Bank), everything was very calm and peaceful there. As with Mt. Nebo, it was very cool to be at a religious and historic site such as this and it seemed to be a place that people of all religious backgrounds in our group seemed to enjoy.
The point where Jesus was baptized. (The river has migrated away from this point over the past 2000 years, but it used to be here!)

Just 30 minutes down the road from Bethany was one of the main beach areas for the Dead Sea, which was our next stop for the day. Keeping in mind that Jordan is very much a developing country and therefore the beaches shouldn't have been expected to match our sometimes very high, Western standards, I rather enjoyed our brief 3-hour stop there. The water was very calm, and like most people who come to visit the place, I just had a lot of fun floating around in the super salty water. (For those who do not know, the Dead Sea is so salty that 1) it is pretty much impossible to sink in the water, and 2) it is completely devoid of marine wildlife.) We were even able to rub this black mud dug up from the bottom of the Sea all over our skin, which, after rinsing off in the water, made our skins feel super smooth and healthy.
Me with some Dead Sea mud on me.

After we had our fill of the Dead Sea and had dried all the salty water off our skin, we moved on up through some mountains to the Ma'in Springs, where people can swim in play in these natural hot springs and waterfalls. While I had my fill of this place in no more than 30 minutes, the natural beauty of the place made it worth the detour on our way back to Madaba. After a pretty full day of events, we were pretty exhausted by the time we got home. We went out for dinner, then again hit the hay early to prepare for our next day's travels.

DAY 3
This day was mostly spent as a travel day. We spent a better part of the day on a 6-hour drive on winding, mountain roads, with stops at Wadi Mujib and Karak Castle. If it weren't for the gorgeous scenery to keep my mind off of all our drastic elevation changes, I think I may have gotten a bit of motion sickness. Nonetheless, it was a very enjoyable ride. Wadi Mujib, dubbed the "Grand Canyon of the Middle East," was simply breathtaking. And the stop at Karak Castle gave me a good warm-up for all the climbing I would be doing over the next few days.
Hanging out at Wadi Mujib.

It was mid-afternoon by the time we arrived in Wadi Musa, the city that kind of serves as base-camp for the Petra site. Not to be caught slacking off, we chose to take a mini-trip out to "Little Petra" that evening, where we got a nice sneak preview of all the cool things we would see the following day. After witnessing a nice sunset over the top of the mountains, we went to bed.
A part of "Little Petra."

DAY 4
This day, the day we went to Petra, was easily my favorite day of our trip to Jordan. Basically, Petra is an ancient city where most of the buildings are not free-standing structures, but rather carved out of the side of the mountains. Between these amazing structures and the cool mountain paths you travel on to see many of them, I had a blast! As an added bonus, for somebody who loves to climb on and explore things like I do, this place was pretty much a giant playground for me.
The Treasury at Petra. This place was not built, but rather completely carved out of the side of the mountain.

A view of some tombs from above. (You always get cooler pictures when you climb on stuff.)

Side-view of the monastery at Petra. Had to climb up 900 steps to get up this place!

We spent a good 9 hours of non-stop hiking and climbing at Petra, and I was exhausted when the day was over. Near the main entrance to Petra, there is a bar inside a cave (not unlike many of the structures we saw in Petra) which is said to be the oldest bar in the world, have served as such for nearly 2000 years. Naturally I couldn't pass up finishing my day with a fresh beer in such an establishment.

DAY 5
On this day, we took a 3 hour bus ride up to the capital city of Amman. We purposely avoided the city all week (our main goal of the trip was to get away from the big-city setting), but our curiosity about the Roman Citadel was enough to get us there for a few hours. We toured the Citadel, which at various times throughout history has served as a fort, hill-top acropolis/marketplace, and/or religious center for the area. Still experiencing some hangover from the awesomeness of Petra, it was difficult to get super excited about the Citadel on that particular day, but in hindsight I can say that it was a pretty cool little area.
Some ruins in the Citadel.

After we had gotten our fill of the city of Amman, we headed back to Madaba to rest up for the night so we could catch our morning flight back to Abu Dhabi the next day.

Though my narrative of my trip may seem a little lackluster, it was actually one of the coolest vacations I've ever been on. In fact, I've been recommending it to all my friends here in Abu Dhabi for their travels in the near future!

Good night from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Back from Jordan

2009-12-07T20:45:00.002+04:00

As many of you may well know by now, I have returned from my wonderful trip to Jordan. Unfortunately I have been pretty busy with jumping back into the workday grind the past few days, so my apologies for not having posted sooner! Also, I have had some trouble with my pictures uploading onto my computer properly but you should be glad to know that they are all there now. I am hoping to give you the full run-down of my trip, pictures included, tomorrow.

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Thankful for a Fun Thanksgiving

2009-11-27T17:54:00.002+04:00

Though it was no substitute for being home, yesterday's Thanksgiving celebrations were a great way to begin the holiday season with friends here in Abu Dhabi (as well as the beginning of our 10-day break).

To begin the festivities, some friends and I did some grilling on the rooftop of our building on Wednesday night. We sat and relaxed under the stars and enjoyed the nice Abu Dhabi weather for several hours.

Then, on Thursday morning, my friend Sorcha had people over to her apartment for a nice brunch, with pancakes, fruit salad, yogurt, good freshly-baked bread, and some mimosas. Many of the people there were heading off to various places around the world this upcoming week, so it was fun to hear everybody talk so excitedly about their vacations. Marguerite and Kerri are going to Thailand; Sorcha, Steve, and Layla are going to India; John and Lyla are going to Egypt; and Andrew and Danielle are going to Oman. Several other people are staying in the Emirates but are traveling up north to the mountains or are going to explore the desert to the west.

After a big morning meal, I had to recover quickly in order to prepare myself for a dinner feast at Erin's place. We decided to divide and conquer for dinner, so I was put in charge of green beans and corn. So I ran to the store to grab these items real quick so I could begin preparing them. About 2 hours after brunch ended, I arrived at dinner ready to eat to my heart's content. Everything smelled so good (especially the turkey and pies), and Erin had some good old-fashioned holiday music playing to get everybody in the mood. Dinner was fantastic, and Jeff and I were competing to see who could eat the most. We called it a draw after 4 heaping plates of food. While recovering from dinner and making room for pie, we popped in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and enjoyed some good ol' Chevy Chase fun. Afterwards we polished off a few pies, then all of us went home to crash.

All in all, I'd say my first Thanksgiving in Abu Dhabi was a great success. Now I'm ready to go have some fun in Jordan next week!

Good night from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Here I Am.

2009-11-24T22:50:00.000+04:00

So you've probably been wondering the past month or so, "Where is Matt? What has he been up to?"

The short answers to those questions would be, "Abu Dhabi still. Teaching mostly."

The short answer is pretty boring though. So let me fill you in on what I've been up to since the last time I've posted:

I've been to Dubai a few different times. Not to be a pessimist, but I really think that city is overrated. Other than the many awesome architectural feats on display there, it really isn't anything but a big city in the middle of the desert! The first time I went to go clubbing with some friends. We had some very high expectations, and were therefore a bit disappointed when we had but an average night out. Some people tell us we just didn't go to the right places on the right nights, but I remain skeptical. The 2nd time in Dubai, I went to the Dubai Mall which, simply put, was ridiculous. The place wasn't the biggest mall I've been to, but it was still quite large. However, what separated it from any other mall I've been to was the sheer glamour of the place. Right down to the bathrooms, just walking through the place made you feel like you had a million dollars in your pocket.

The weather has been particularly nice the past few weeks, which has made getting motivated to go running each afternoon quite easy. Each day this past week has been in the 70s or low 80s and sunny, with the exception of this past Sunday, which was (gasp!) a bit cloudy. I hear I should get used to this because that is how the weather will be for the next 5 months, with the exception of when we'll have a chance of rain once or twice this winter. I think I'll miss the snow around Christmas time, but otherwise, I think I'll live with this.

Teaching has been going smoothly, and I really love my boys. They are so eager to please me most of the time (something I'm not totally used to from my other teaching experiences), and they seem very excited to be learning a new language. I am having a blast and have felt very good about my decision to come do this for 2 years as of late.

With the Thanksgiving holiday approaching rapidly, I have begun to feel a bit homesick this week. My friends and I are having our own Thanksgiving feast here, but doing it without family for the first time will be different for sure. Looking on the bright side, I do have a vacation of my own coming up starting tomorrow. In lieu of both an Islamic religious holiday and the UAE's National Day (the equivalent of our Independence Day), we will have 10 days off of school over the next 2 weeks. During this time, I will be traveling to Jordan for 5 days. I will be sure to fill you in on that trip when I get back!

Honestly, it feels good to be back on the blog again. Hope to write again soon!

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Week 3

2009-10-18T14:33:00.002+04:00

Week 3 of school went by faster than any school week ever has for me. I could hardly believe it when Thursday came around and it was our last day of the week already. I think most of this is due to the fact that I kept myself and my students more busy this week, and I was also busier outside of school as well.

Sunday and Monday were definitely a step backward for both my 1st and 2nd graders. By the end of the 2nd week, things felt very under control and we were able to be productive and get things done. I expected to be able to build off that success during this 3rd week, but was unpleasantly surprised by the fact that students were a little bit more wild and weren't staying as focused as I had hoped. I did my very best to not take this personally and remember that there are a lot of factors that affect children's behavior that I have no control over, so that as long as I am consistent in doing my job things should be fine in the long run. Instead of trying to overhaul my classroom management strategies because of a less-than-desirable few days (a mistake I made quite a few times last year), I stuck to what I had been doing and the rest of the week was smooth sailing.

As a whole, my 2nd graders are beginning to understand me a lot better. Not only have we established some routines, but also I have been trying to use the same body language and visual aids each time I say something. I really don't know whether they're understanding my words or my actions, but they're doing what I want them to do and acting how I want them to act and I think as long as I keep doing this, they'll keep learning the spoken communication piece of the puzzle in due time. One thing that has been a bit of a frustration for me is that in teaching math, so much depends on the students recognizing the numbers and their names. Since Arabic language users use a different set of number symbols and of course number names, we have spent a majority of time just learning the English numbers 1-20 these past few weeks. If these students had never had an English class before, I would totally understand and be okay with this. However, since they supposedly had English instruction last year and were supposed to know their numbers to 100, this has been a bit disappointing. I think the students have been getting a little frustrated by this as well, since I know they are capable of learning 2nd grade math concepts. I guess that's the name of the game in this business though.

As for my 1st graders, we made huge behavioral strides in week 3. On Wednesday and Thursday, they were just as good as my 2nd graders (something I though I wouldn't see until at least November or December to be honest), and even some of the Arabic teachers were surprised to see how under control and calm everything was going in there when they walked by. We didn't make a ton of progress academically this week--we're still hashing away at color names, numbers 1-10, and learning our ABCs--but I figure not a lot of learning can happen until things get settled down anyway.

Outside of school, I have been in full swing with my running. I ran at least 4 miles every day, even despite my football injury (keep reading), and I did it all with pain-free ankles and knees (which hasn't happened since before I left college). I was even able to run 17 miles on Friday morning, and if it weren't for the heat bearing down on me (it was 90 degrees by the time my run was over with), I feel like I could've run farther! I am excited to build off that great week and do a lot of good running in this upcoming week.

Also this past week, my flag football team had our first game on Wednesday night. I wasn't really sure what to expect as far as the pace or physicality of the games, but it turned out to be much faster and physical than I would've guessed with the team we played first. Many of them were American from what I gathered, and they were a pretty rough bunch. Though we weren't supposed to do any real blocking or tackling (because it's flag football), I was blocked from behind/pushed down twice while running my route our first time up on offense. Since we only had 1 ref, they got away with it. On defense, I figured I would take the higher road and try to make plays on the ball instead of tackle their players. At the end of their 1st possession, they had a 4th-and-goal situation. It turned out to be a pass to the guy I was covering, and I ended up diving into the air to tip the ball away from him (even though it was tempting and would've been a lot easier to just drill him as the ball was hitting his hands). I ended up breaking up the pass, but also ended up landing on the ground ribs-first, then somebody else from their team landed on top of me. I couldn't catch my breath for the rest of the game because it hurt to take in deep breaths, not to mention we only had enough players so that only 1 person didn't have to play both offense and defense to whole game. I went home and iced my ribs for a while, which helped, but I couldn't really sleep that night due to the pain. The next day, I went on a run (don't ask me why) and got a sharp pain in my ribs every time I took a step (don't ask me why I didn't stop). During that whole ordeal, I got the feeling that maybe I had a broken rib or something so I went to the hospital for an x-ray. Upon examining the images, we determined that I had no broken ribs, but probably had a few bruised ones and that most of the muscles in between the ribs were probably bruised as well. The doctor told me to take it easy for a while, at which point I laughed at her (on the inside).

Finally, there was an Middle Eastern film festival in town this past week and I was able to go see a few documentaries that I rather enjoyed. The first was called Shock Doctrine (based on a book by the same name), which was basically about how America has exploited different disasters of all kinds all around the globe over the past 50 years to implement free-market ventures that earned lots of money for American companies while completely neglecting (and sometimes even ruining) the lives of the people there. It was a little dry, but very interesting. The 2nd movie I saw was Michael Moore's new documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story, which provided a pretty humorous summary from the blue collar perspective on how our economy found itself in the state it is currently in and what it has done to the lower and working classes. I would highly recommend this film.

Good afternoon from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

2nd Week of School + Desert Safari

2009-10-11T15:02:00.002+04:00

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

First Week of School

2009-10-03T20:02:00.002+04:00

First of all, I'd like to apologize to my avid readers for the lack of posts this week. Not only was I having some troubles with the website (it decided to show everything in Arabic instead of English), and the week was too crazy for me to really want to deal with it. But . . . I seem to have everything worked out so here we go again.

All I have to say is, WOW. And I think it's worth repeating. WOW. For anybody and everybody who has ever told me I have the patience of a saint, that claim was put to the test BIG TIME this last week. Sunday was our first day of regular school, and things were definitely hectic when we got there that morning. The entire courtyard was filled with boys swinging their backpacks and throwing their sandals at each other, chasing each other around and tackling each other, and shouting at the top of their lungs. In a way, I wasn't surprised at all; what should one expect when you put 600 boys together in a small space with relatively no adult supervision? At the same time, however, those first few minutes put what I will be working with all year into perspective right away: my job this year will be to instill some structure into the lives of children who have never had any, to expect things from children that have never had anything expected of them, and to inspire children who have always had everything handed to them on a silver platter to put effort into their learning. (Upon re-reading that last sentence, I make it sound like every child at the school is like that, when in actuality there are some who seem to possess some self-control and eagerness to be there to learn.)

On Sunday, things didn't go to terribly bad. Most of the students (especially the 1st graders) seemed a bit uncomfortable and nervous around me, which in turn kept them in check for the most part. They were content to color some pictures, play some games with each other, and even learn a few of their colors and numbers. In the afternoon with my 2nd graders, the students seemed a little less focused since they weren't (and aren't still) used to being at school all day. However, I felt good about what we got accomplished together. My only real beef about the first day was that some of my kids walked in up to 2 hours late in the morning, and that we kept getting interrupted by various teachers and parents every 10 or 15 minutes.

The rest of the week seemed to get worse by the day. As the kids began to get more comfortable, they began to test me more and more. I nipped things right in the bud with my 2nd graders, establishing clear expectations and consequences right away. Some of them struggled with it all week, but some good progress was definitely made. The 1st graders, on the other hand, were something else. Since about 95% of them speak not a word of English and/or had no prior experience at school, things were a bit messy. I tried reward sheets, stickers, candy, and even getting to play soccer as a reward, but these things did not send the message of what my expectations are to everybody. What made matters worse is that there were several occasions during the week when I would be walking around during my afternoon break to find that my 1st graders had no teacher in their classroom, erasing all of the things I had been trying to teach them about staying in control and following rules at school. One Wednesday afternoon, I noticed several kids running around the courtyard when they should have been in class. After a second glance, I noticed that they were the 1st grade students I teach in the mornings. I a bout of frustration and annoyance, I quickly herded them back into the classroom, only to find that not only was there no teacher in there, but also that (1) two students had another two students on the floor kicking them, (2) at least three students were crying because they were scared or confused as to why they were being left alone, (3) a group of students were tearing the blinds off the windows (they are now completely ruined), and (4) another group of students were poking each other with pencils. There were maybe--maybe--2 students who were sitting down in their chair not doing something either hazardous themselves or others. I immediately called for help while I attempted to restore order to the room (not a peaceful or calm task on my part, to say the least), and found out that they had no teacher because the religion teacher hadn't come to school that day. The lack of concern the other teacher had for there not being another teacher covering the class or for what the boys were doing while unsupervised gave me some additional insight on what I'm dealing with this year. So, even though it was my plan period and only break of the day, I ended up staying with the students for the rest of the period to ensure that everybody in the room remained alive.

Later, I asked our English supervisor what sort of structures the school had in place for disciplining students who are acting that way, and his response was as follows: "You see, it is the nature of children--especially boys--to want to play and have fun and not do work. You will have to be patient and understand that teaching them how to behave will take some time." And that's where the advice ended. To me, that seems like half the problem right there: the other teachers expect that the students are going to act that way and accept it with a "that's just the way it is" attitude.

Still baffled by this response the following day, maybe thinking that he didn't fully understand my question, I returned to the supervisor and made it more clear that I wanted some advice for how to deal with children who are being obstinate and positive reinforcement just doesn't seem to be working for them. Without even saying a word, he pulled (I kid you not) a leather-wrapped baton-like object out of his bag and struck his desk with it. "So . . . you hit them?" I asked in disbelief.
"Yes, yes of course," he replied. "It is very common to do that. Some parents don't prefer it, but many others encourage it. Sometimes it is the only way." The matter-of-factness he spoke with was almost humorous to me, but at the same time quite disturbing.
"What if we don't want to hit our students?" I asked respectfully.
After a brief chuckle, he replied, "If you don't hit? You will go crazy!" Once again, WOW . . .

To wrap things up, my intention of this post wasn't to make it out that nothing good is happening at my school, but rather only to point out some of the cultural and structural differences I experienced over the week. Despite their lack of sense of community accountability at the school, the teachers have really warmed up to us Western newcomers, and I felt very welcomed by the few parents that I met. Also, despite the grave behavior concerns I have for my students, they are really very cute kids. And my 2nd graders have learned more English than I had hoped to teach them this first week, so I was encouraged by that.

I've just gotta keep telling myself, Great change doesn't happen over night. I've got to keep being firm and focused, but a little patience will go a long way too.

Good night from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

My Weekend

2009-09-26T22:36:00.002+04:00

This was a pretty great weekend. On Thursday night, I went to a going away party for some people who are moving out of our hotel apartments to another building where pets are allowed (they missed their dog too much). It was fun to swap stories about our first few days at school, and now I feel like my first two days were a lot more productive than I thought; most people didn't even get to (or choose to) interact with any students the first few days, so I feel a bit ahead of the game.

On Friday, Hector, Jeff, and I decided to throw a little dinner party. So we went to the store, picked out some food for our Valencian rice, then headed back. I worked out real quick, then headed over to get started with preparing the meal. The preparation/cook time lasted about 3 hours, then our guests started arriving. We sat and enjoyed the good food and company for another 3 hours, then some of us decided to have a movie night. We headed over to Graeme's house, where we learned that he has this really awesome sports package on cable. We ended up watching baseball for about an hour, and even though it was a game I had no interest in, it was nice to enjoy one of the comforts of home that I haven't been able to do since July before I got here. Then we watched Zoolander, which I also haven't seen in a long time, so that was fun. Jeff and I capped off the night by going to his place and eating some cheesecake.

Today, I went to the post office to mail about 25 letters, along with a birthday package to a certain brother of mine. That was kind of a pain, since the lady helping me didn't really know any English. Nonetheless, we were able to communicate out what I needed to be done and my mission was accomplished. Next, I headed to the Marina Mall to pick up my new suit. After I picked it up, I went to the bookstore to look at books. I ended up being in there for well over an hour checking out a bunch of different books, and I eventually bought three of them. After that, I went to Ikea, where I picked up some more things to decorate my apartment with, most notably an indoor plant for my living room. Hopefully I am a better with plants than my sister and it stays alive for more than 2 weeks. I'm pretty sure it will.

Tonight, I went to see Inglourious Basterds, which just came out here a few days ago. I thought it was a great film and it was a good way to wind down my weekend to get ready for a full week at school.

Speaking of which, I need to go to bed so I have a good, productive week!

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

First Day of School . . . Kind Of

2009-09-23T22:31:00.002+04:00

So . . . today was our official first day of school with students attending. I woke up at about 5 this morning, rearin' to get to school and meet some of the students.

By the time we arrived, some students had already arrived and were giving Christopher, Andrew, and me funny looks (which I don't blame them for doing). We walked to our office, set our things down, and then went to search out an administrator to find out what our schedules would look like and which classrooms we would be in. At this, the vice-principal chuckled for a minute, then explained that we should not worry because no actual teaching would be done today or tomorrow; rather, it was supposed to be a time for the kids to get re-aquainted with the school and socialize with friends after not seeing each other for 3 months. Though this made some sense to me, I still feel like this can be accomplished with a bit more (or a lot more) structure in place. However, I realize I can't change certain cultural traditions in a day (or probably ever), so I let this one be. Anyhow, to make the point I was trying to make, because everybody knows that nothing actually happens on the 1st day of school here, only about 1/3 of the students actually showed up.

Since we are supposed to be teaching 1st graders in the morning, and since the 1st graders (new to schooling since they don't do kindergarten here) were all shuffled into the gymnasium to watch movies all day (not a totally bad way of getting them hooked), guess what--I watched movies all morning. The Lion King. In Arabic. Twice.

The afternoon was a little better. While the other two were lounging around in the office (because presumably we weren't supposed to be doing anything according to several of the teachers), I decided I would go walk around the school and create something to do for myself. As I was walking across the courtyard, I noticed some boys from the 2nd grade classroom peeking their heads out and then running back inside. I thought I'd go check to see what they were up to, and to my surprise found that there was no teacher in the classroom! So I quickly ran back to our office (they'd been in there for 10 minutes with no teacher without causing any real trouble, what was another 30 seconds), grabbed some coloring pages and some puzzles, then went back in to supervise the teacher-less 2nd graders. Without my knowing any Arabic to speak of, along with their not knowing any English, we managed to get some coloring done in a very orderly fashion. I even got them to understand that they were to only use 1 crayon at a time, and if they needed to get another one, they had to either trade with a friend or come trade with me. Not a bad start, I thought. Then we got a bit more serious. I got some puzzles out, split them into 2 groups, and had each group work on a puzzle with each other. They were pretty timid to get up and work cooperatively with each other (something they probably don't normally do in school here), and so it took a lot of hand-gesturing and intense guidance to get the activity up and running. However, to their credit, they didn't do half bad working with each other and solving the puzzles once they got going.

At this point, Andrew and Christopher came looking for me and we did the rest of the activities through co-teaching. Since we still had quite a bit of time left, and we didn't really have any other tangible things for us to work with, I decided I would teach them some common classroom phrases in English. We spent a good solid 30 minutes on "sit down," "stand up," and "line up," all successful and all without them understanding a word of what I was saying (initially anyway). Finally, to wrap things up for the day, I wanted to see how well they knew their numbers from 1-10 in English. What I found is that they could recognize the symbols for the numbers ("1" for "one") and that they could recite the numbers in order from memory, but things got a bit screwy when I had them try to recognize the numbers out of order. Though this was a bit frustrating, it gave me some good insight into how they have been taught English before, as well as where they're at with their English-speaking skills.

At the end of the day, the kids all rushed off to the buses, and all of the students and most of the teachers were out of there within 10 minutes of the bell ringing.

All in all, I'd say the day was most interesting and a great first experience with working with students who could not speak any English. We'll see how the rest of the year goes!

Good night from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Eid Mubarak!

2009-09-22T00:09:00.002+04:00

At the end of the month of Ramadan (the past few days), there is a 3 day holiday called Eid, at which time everybody basically goes nuts about not having to fast during the day any more, amongst other things. For us non-Muslims, this has basically been a time for us to celebrate not having to conceal the fact that we were eating and drinking during daylight hours any more. What a relief for everybody involved!

To catch everybody up to speed on things, I have kind of been a bum for the past few days that we've had off. On Saturday, I went to the Abu Dhabi public beach with some friends. The place was actually very nice and clean, and there weren't that many people there so we had our own little plot of sand to enjoy. We had heard that there was a little barrier reef not but 20 yards from the beach, so a few of us came prepared with some goggles to go scope it out. Turns out that this little barrier reef happens to be home to lots of tropical fish, and we even some a couple of sea turtles swimming around right beneath us!

On Sunday, I slept in, then headed off to the Marina Mall to scope out all of the Eid sales that were going on. I ended up buying some more professional attire, as well as some odds and ends to spice up my apartment a bit more. Also, I spent about 5 hours pulling some resources together and started creating some activities for my students and I to do during the first 3 or 4 days of school. Not surprisingly, I really enjoyed getting things together for the start of school and got really excited about the upcoming school year, and, in a good sort of way, my job has begun to consume my energy and my thoughts.

Today, I went to the Abu Dhabi Mall to eat lunch with Jeff and do a bit more shopping. I was a bit shopped out by this point so I didn't really buy anything, but it was nice to walk around and see everybody at the mall in such a great mood. (I can't stress enough how much different the atmosphere is around here when people allow themselves to follow "regular" eating schedules again).

Another, less positive (but more realistic) difference I noticed today was on my run along the Corniche this afternoon. Now that people aren't rushing off to eat all evening after fasting all day, the Corniche was really, really crowded with people, to the point where I could hardly get a good run in (it felt more like I was completing an obstacle course than anything). During Ramadan, there would be times when I would run for minutes at a time without passing another person, and I think that kind of spoiled me and gave me false conceptions about how much space I will have to run here. Regardless, the Corniche was still beautiful at dusk, and I don't really blame all the people for wanting to be out there to enjoy it!

Finally, this has been my last night off before school starts. I didn't really do anything too crazy because I'm trying to create a somewhat regular sleep schedule for myself. However, I did find time to go downstairs and relax with some friends and talk about things non-school-related (possibly the last time that happens for a really long time).

Now I'm off to bed, so good night from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

My First Week at School

2009-09-17T20:43:00.002+04:00

This was my first week at Al Bahya Elementary School for Boys, and what a week it was!

As I mentioned in my last post, on Sunday we got lost on the way there and it ended up taking us 2 hours to get there. Luckily, we didn't really get lost the rest of the week and so now it only takes about 35 minutes to get there. Unfortunately, with the traffic coming back into Abu Dhabi in the afternoons, it takes a little over an hour on the return trip.

Overall, everybody seems very laid back and friendly, though for the first 2 days nobody really went out of their way to make us feel welcome and accepted into their community. By Tuesday, I realized I needed to take more initiative and make a greater effort to show interest in them versus trying to get them to take an interest in me. Over the past few days (Wednesday and Thursday), many more of them have come up to me and my English-teaching colleagues and we ended up all having some really great conversations.

One of the things I like most about the school is that the teachers all come from such a variety of backgrounds. Since Emiratis (people native to the UAE) don't partake in "lowly jobs" such as teaching (most of them really don't work at all but rather are pretty much given a free ride on life via oil money, but that topic is for another day), all of the teachers are expatriates from neighboring countries in the Middle East. So far, I have enjoyed getting to know teachers from Oman, Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Tunisia, and Lebanon, and I'm sure other nationalities are represented at our school as well.

Another thing I like about our school is the actual layout of the building. Basically, the building is a giant 2-story square: there is a very big courtyard in the middle, with all classrooms facing out to it. There is a soccer field set up in the courtyard, which I think is pretty cool.

One thing I don't like about the school is that none of the teachers were really doing any work all week. With a 3-day holiday coming up next week, our next day at school will be the first day students arrive. And yet, we still have no idea which classrooms we will be in, nor have we seen any sort of concrete schedule or class lists. Everybody here is just used to that and says that the first few weeks are for everybody to figure out what is going on, so I will try my best not to get to stressed out about it.

Since we were required to be at the school every day this week, and since there was no organized work to be done, I spent some time on my own trying to figure out how I can utilize the (very limited) resources available to me to start delivering the curriculum in some capacity. I also spent some time collaborating with my fellow English teachers on how we are going to get through the first few weeks since our kids will probably not know a single word of English.

Upon re-reading what I have written so far, it may sound like I did not enjoy my first week at my school. In all honesty, I though it was a great to get my feet wet with something so different than what I am used to and finally find out where I will be spending a great chunk of my time over the next 2 years.

Since it is the weekend here, I am going to go relax with some of my friends now.

Good night from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

My Week in India, Pt. 2

2009-09-14T21:45:00.004+04:00

DAY 5, Monday, 7 September 2009

I left off with our relaxing night in Jaipur. The next morning, our driver drove us up another mountain nearby to see the Jaigarh Fort, which due to it's (scenic) mountain location has never been conquered in battle. We walked around the fort for several hours to see the nice architecture, gardens, and the world's largest cannon located there.

Me standing on a bridge at the Jaigarh Fort.

World's largest cannon, complete with a tacky tin-roofed housing.

After we got our fill of the fort, we headed back down the mountain to see the Jal Mahal, literally meaning "water palace" due to the fact that it sits in the middle of a lake. Pretty cool.
Me trying to take a tacky picture. Didn't work. But that's the Jal Mahal.

Next, we went to see a textiles factory where traditional Indian clothing, blankets, scarves, etc. are made. After watching some things being made, I decided I would try on some Indian paijamas (traditional clothes, not sleepwear) and really liked the way they fit. So I had some tailored for me and now I own some. Unfortunately, I did not buy a turban. That night, we went in to get Ayurvedic treatments. This basically consisted of receiving a light massage with oil to help relax me, improve the flow of my circulation, and clear my mind. It was very nice.
After our treatments, we felt very calm and decided it would be best to go to bed early.

DAY 6, Tuesday, 8 September 2009

We slept in a bit and, feeling quite refreshed, headed for the holy city of Pushkar, a much smaller and less congested place than anywhere we had been yet. When we got to our hotel there, we ate a good lunch, changed out of our riding-in-the-car clothes, and went to set up a camel desert safari. We found out that one of the packages included a night's stay out in the desert, and even though nobody else really seemed interested in doing this, I thought it would be a great opportunity and signed right up for it. Then we did a bit of walking around Pushkar to have a look at all the temples there. We also were were pretty excited to see the holy lake there, but were a bit disappointed to find out that the thing had dried up during the dry season. Oh well. We finished our day by trying an Israeli restaurant in town, which served up some great food.

DAY 7, Wednesday, 9 September 2009

This day was by far the most memorable of the days we spent in India. We started it off by waking up at 5:00 am in order to be able to hike up the mountain to see the sun rise over the city from above. We got a bit lost in the city, and since it was 5:00 in the morning, there weren't really any people to ask for help. However, thanks to Andrew and I's superior masculine navigation skills, we found the foot of the path up to the top of the mountain. When still at the bottom, Andrew was foolish enough to challenge me to a race up to the top. Though the guide book said it takes an hour or more to climb to the top, Andrew made it in 25 minutes, and I made it in 20 (funny how pride speeds things up). We got up there just as the sun was rising over the top of the mountains opposite us, and the views from up there were simply breathtaking (or maybe we were just out of breath). We stayed up there for 2 hours, basking in the glory of being on top of a mountain and enjoying the company of some very funny monkeys. We even got a chance to meet some locals and talk to them for a while.
The sun rising over the mountains and Pushkar.

Some monkeys sitting on a tree hanging over the edge of a cliff, overlooking the valley down below.

Making some new friends at the top of the mountain.

After a much more slow-paced walk back down the mountain, we headed back to our hotel to take a much-needed nap. We woke up, ate lunch, walked around and did a bit of shopping (the candy store was the only thing that piqued my interest), then got ready for our camel safari. I was so excited! We walked over to the place, got on our camels, and headed out of town into the desert. Not surprisingly, the desert in India was still pretty dirty and smelly, but it was still fun.
Me on my camel. I'm not mad at all, so I don't know why I look like that.

Sunset in the desert.

After about 2 hours of riding around, we stopped at the dinner/camp-site and chilled for a bit while the guides made a traditional Indian dinner. We ate, then Andrew and the Danielles headed back into town in the dark while I hung out with one of the guides for a while. He was really nice, and asked me all sorts of questions about living in the U.S. and American politics. My favorite one: "How did Bush get re-elected for a 2nd term? Nobody even likes him." Haha.
Finally I got really tired and he handed me a blanket to sleep on. I will never forget looking up at the stars in the Indian night sky right before I fell asleep, thinking about all the different things that had to happen in my life over the past few years to got me to that single moment. Needless to say, I had a huge smile on my face.

DAY 8, Thursday, 10 September 2009

I woke up in the morning with sand in my mouth, wondering how many bugs had crawled on me while I was sleeping. Still, I had a pleasant view of another sunrise to look at and I was happy.
First thing I saw when I woke up.

After breakfast, I got back on my camel and rode back into town. I went back to sleep for a bit longer, then we got ready to take a taxi to nearby Ajmer, where we caught a train back to Delhi. Though the train ride was 6 hours long, nothing really that exciting happened. We all read/took naps pretty much the whole way. When we got back to Delhi, it was nighttime so we found a hostel to stay in for the night. We were pretty much exhausted by this point, so we all went to bed early.

DAY 9, Friday, 11 September 2009

This day pretty much consisted of us going to the airport, flying back to Dubai (thankfully with no emergency landings in Pakistan), catching a bus from Dubai to Abu Dhabi, and telling the same stories over and over to all of our friends.

This concludes my narrative of my trip to India.

In other news, we began "meetings" at our own schools yesterday. We got lost on the way to ours because nobody actually bothered to look at a map before we left, so it took us 2 hours to get there (with a nice trip out into the middle of the desert along the way). Our principal and all the teachers seemed friendly enough, though everything seemed to be pretty disorganized (imagine that). But we kept our chins up and tried to make the most of the situation.

Well, I'm tired, so good night from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

My Week in India, Pt. 1

2009-09-13T15:11:00.007+04:00

As many of you know by now, I just got back from spending a week in India. While it would be impossible to fully share with you what I experienced there (especially through a blog), I will try to hit the highlights as well as I can:

DAY 1, Thursday, 3 September 2009

First thing in the morning, Andrew, Danielle, and I caught a taxi to the Abu Dhabi bus terminal, where we then got on a bus headed for Dubai. The bus ride lasted for about 2 hours and I got a good nap on the way there. Once in Dubai, we caught another taxi to the Dubai International Airport. As are most things in Dubai, this was the most grand airport I've ever seen. Our flight left at 3:45, and everything seemed to be going very smoothly. The service on Emirates Airlines was top notch, as our every whim was tended to from the moment we stepped on the plane (mostly in the form of all-you-can-eat food and drink).
Part of Dubai from the air.

Once we began to approach our destination of Delhi, India, we hit some very violent storms and our plane was getting tossed around a lot. After we were kept in a holding pattern around Delhi for nearly an hour, the pilot came on and said we would be unable to land in Delhi at the moment and since we were running short on fuel we needed to make an emergency landing somewhere. All the airports nearby in India were apparently very congested, so we had to make our emergency landing in Pakistan. Everybody on the plane was a bit nervous, as it was very obvious that we were not very welcome at their airport. We refueled as quickly as possible and got back up in the air. Once again, the pilot came on and announced that due to weather conditions in India, we would be heading back to Dubai. So, six hours after we left Dubai, we landed back in Dubai around midnight. The people from customer service announced to us that we would be placed on a flight back to Delhi that left at 4:45 am. We went to our gate and tried to get a bit of sleep on the floor of the airport for a few hours.

DAY 2, Friday, 4 September 2009

Without much sleep, we boarded the plane headed back to Delhi, India at about 4:00 am. I was extremely grumpy due to the fact that I had been traveling for nearly 24 hours and hadn't even made it out of the United Arab Emirates yet. Nonetheless, I tried to think positively as we flew back to Delhi. We landed in India at about 8:30 am (their time). By the time we went through customs and exchanged our currency, it was about 9:30 am. We went out to grab a taxi and headed to our first hostel. Immediately, I realized that traffic in Delhi was a complete nightmare, as there were rickshaws, aut0-rickshaws, cars, motorcycles, bikes, and even some people traveling on horse carts all trying to share to same roads, most of which did not have any lines on them. Also, many of the major intersections did not have traffic lights, so most of the time there was traffic crossing from all directions at the same time. Never have I seen such chaos, yet we didn't see a single accident. Our taxi took us to the end of a very dirty, run-down street and we were left to try to find our hostel on our own. As soon as we stepped out of our taxi, we were instant targets for beggars and people trying to get us to go to their hotels and hostels, as well as shopkeepers and men selling random things from their street carts. The ground was still very muddy from the previous nights storms, and the whole street reeked of human waste. After walking around for about 2 hours and getting pointed in every which direction, we finally found our hostel. We all chilled out for a while, took showers, and then decided to go explore the city of Delhi. First we found a travel agent there, and we set up a loose agenda of what we wanted to do and where we wanted to go for the six days we had left in India. Then we got on the subway and headed across town to get away from the run-down part of town we were in. The problem was that no matter where we went in the city, there were tons of homeless beggars, filthy overcrowded streets, and a terrible smell. At one point, we came across a baby (maybe 9 months old) that was tied to a brick on the side of the street, playing in a puddle of urine; the mother must have been out begging nearby while the brick served as baby-sitter. I couldn't help but start crying, and quickly suggested that we leave the area immediately.
One of the least busy streets we saw in Delhi.

After a bit more walking around, we concluded that Delhi was the craziest, most congested, most depressing city we ever hoped to find ourselves in and went back to our hostel. Though we hadn't really eaten a proper meal all day, none of us had any sort of appetite. Since a driver was going to come pick us up and take us to Agra the next day at 7:00 am, we went to bed early.

DAY 3, Saturday, 5 September 2009

Our driver was waiting for us promptly at 7:00 and we headed out of town towards Agra. It took us nearly 2 hours just to get out of Delhi, and even though we were not considered to be in a city for most of the 6-hour drive, there were people with their carts, cows, goats, etc. lining the road all the way there. At that point, India just seemed to be an endless expanse of people in all directions. About half way to Agra, we stopped off at a Hindu temple.
Hindu temple on the way to Agra.

There was a man there who was kind enough to show us around and explain some of the different things we saw. Then we were back on the road. Still behind on our sleep, we all slept most of the way. When we arrived in Agra, we first stopped at a site called Akbar's Tomb, a large monument and temple where an emperor was buried.
Part of Akbar's Tomb.

We then went to our hotel, freshened up a bit, then headed out for some food and to see the Red Fort. The fort was really cool, and it was here that I had my first of many monkey encounters. Also from the fort, we got our first glimpse of the Taj Mahal. After wandering around the city for a while longer, we headed back to our hotel for some sleep.
Me with part of the Red Fort in the background.

View of the Taj Mahal from the Red Fort.

DAY 4, Sunday, 6 September 2009

We woke up at 5:00 am to go to the Taj Mahal early. We heard this was the best time to see it, not only because there would be far fewer tourists then than there would be later in the day, but also because the lighting of the sunrise on the building was supposed to be superb. We got to the site around 6:00 am, then walked around for about 2 1/2 hours. The whole place, especially the mausoleum, was truly amazing.
Me supporting my favorite baseball team in front of the Taj Mahal.

After returning back to our hotel briefly, our driver picked us up and we began heading toward the city of Jaipur. This entailed another 6-hour car drive, which was pleasantly interrupted by our visit to a "ghost town" (basically a city that seemed pretty in tact but was currently unoccupied). It was cool to walk around it and imagine what life there used to be like.
Part of the "ghost town." Where is King Louie?

When we were just outside of Jaipur, our driver took us to this place called nicknamed the Monkey Temple. We immediately saw why, as the place was completely infested with monkeys. We walked up this path leading to the top of the mountain there, and all the monkeys followed us up to the top. (To be honest, the whole thing was a bit creepy, like a scene out of a Stephen King story).
Monkeys following us. Cool, but creepy.

Once we got to the top of the mountain, there was another small temple, from which we could see the whole city of Jaipur. It was pretty cool.
Andrew and I heading back down the mountain.

Finally, we drove into the city of Jaipur, where we decided to take a much-deserved night off. We ate dinner and listened to some local music on our hotel's rooftop restaurant . . .

I will tell more about the 2nd half of our trip tomorrow. Right now, I'm getting ready to go put on my Chiefs jersey and eat dinner with some friends. (By the way, I also just ordered NFL Network Team Pass, so I can watch all the Chiefs games on my computer--only a day after they play for real. Whoo!)

Good afternoon from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Leasing a Car and Getting Ready for Vacation

2009-09-03T01:49:00.004+04:00

Today was a fairly busy day for me. First thing this morning, Andrew and I traveled all around the city pricing out car leases. After visiting about 7 different businesses, we decided that Budget had the best deal for our situation. So we went back there, filled out some paper work, and chose the kind of car we wanted. We ultimately decided on a Nissan Tiida, which we though is small enough to maneuver the tight traffic here in the city but spacious enough for our 4-person carpool that we have set up to go to school and back each day this year. To lease such a car will cost us 1900 dhs per month, or approximately $520 per month. Since we will be splitting this cost between the two of us (plus getting some compensation from our fellow car-poolers), this operation will only cost me the equivalent of about $250 per month. Not bad.

On the way back from getting that all done, I received a call from the Indian Empost office with news that my passport was ready to pick up. So this evening, I headed over to the Empost building, picked up my passport which now sports a travel visa to India, then headed for the mall to pick up a few things.

Tonight, Andrew, Danielle, Danielle, and I booked our flights to India. We will be leaving from Dubai early tomorrow afternoon and will be arriving in Delhi in the evening. We will be returning on the 11th of September. We don't really have a set plan as of right now, but tentatively we have agreed that we would like to hit up Agra (home of the Taj Mahal), Jaipur, Pushkar, and Varanasi. We will hopefully be doing a lot of overnight traveling on trains so that we can maximize the amount of things we can do during the day.

For obvious reasons, this will be my last post until I return to Abu Dhabi. Expect a nice long post with lots of pictures then!

Good night from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Last Day of ADEC Meetings!

2009-09-01T21:52:00.002+04:00

Today was the last day that I had to go to a meeting hosted by the Abu Dhabi Education Council. I now have nearly 2 weeks off, of course during which time I am going to be traveling to Dubai and then on to India. Woo! After that point, all teachers must report directly to their principals at their own schools in order to prep for the upcoming school year.

Following my meeting today, I was feeling pretty tired so I laid down for a nice little nap and ended up sleeping for 3 1/2 hours. I felt pretty bad that I wasted such a big portion of my day so I decided to make up for it by being super productive: First, I started a new load of laundry, as well as folded my freshly dry laundry. Second, I washed some dishes that had been building up in my sink. Third, I ran over to the dry cleaners to pick up my clothes there. Next, I tidied up my living room a bit. Finally, I went to the gym to get a workout in before dinner.

For dinner, we went to Ponderosa Steakhouse (haha) for a "family dinner." Our family consists of Jeff, Kate, Erin, and I, and we have such a family dinner about once or twice a week. Now you're probably wondering why we call ourselves a family. First of all, we are all pretty close and tend to keep an eye on each other the way a family member would. But mostly, it's because we were out to eat at Darbar (an Indian restaurant nearby) a few weeks ago, and only men can sit in the front of the restaurant while women and families must sit in the back. So, Jeff and I (being gentlemen) decided that we wouldn't make the girls eat in the back by themselves and therefore dubbed ourselves a family.

Well, I am off to a movie night!

Good night from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Getting My Indian Tourist Visa

2009-09-01T00:42:00.002+04:00

In order to travel to India, one must obtain a tourist visa. So first thing this morning, I caught a taxi to the Indian Empost building here in Abu Dhabi to get that taken care of. First off, I've got to say that everybody there was EXTEMELY nice. They were so excited (almost a bit giddy) that I was going to India. Second, this was probably the least difficulty I have had with getting paperwork processed . . . ever. I just filled out a form in about 2 minutes, gave it to them along with my passport (of which they made a copy) and some passport-sized photos of myself, and then they told me I could have a tourist visa! The only downside to getting a tourist visa for India is that it cost me 315 dhs ($100), but oh well. Now I'm going to India.

Then I went to a meeting about the importance of using hands-on activities to engage learners in the classroom . . . during which there were NO hands-on activities. Once again, the so-called experts here failed to use the best practice that they so strongly and persistently preach to us. To make matters worse, one of the people in charge was eating in the back of the room while waiting their turn to present, which was extremely insensitive to the Muslims in the room (recall: eating in public during Ramadan can be punishable by imprisonment). People never cease to amaze me.

When I got home from my meeting, I was feeling like eating breakfast even though it was really lunchtime. So I got out my steak and made a steak, egg, and cheese (with a few mushrooms for good measure) breakfast burrito using some Arabic flatbread as my tortilla. It was pretty awesome.

Then I played Audrey's violin for about 3 hours again. Haha. I am such a nerd.

This afternoon, I did some running inside since it was about 110 degrees outside. I went down to the bottom of my stairwell and ran back up to the top. It was exactly 20 flights of stairs. I was amazed by how I could feel the increase in heat/humidity as I ran up--by the time I got to the top, I might as well have been outside! Anyhow, I did this 4 times and my legs were burning so bad by the end (on my last time up, my legs gave out involuntarily and I had to crawl up the last to flights of stairs)! Good workout for sure.

To celebrate getting our first paychecks today (even though they shorted us but don't get me started on that), some of us went to a place called the Lebonese Flower which is supposedly the most popular Lebonese restaurant in town. We ordered some hummus, baba ganoush, felafels, and salads for appetizers, and we got the big assorted meat platter to share for our meal. The tray of meat they brought us was epic in size, and all 8 of us stuffing ourselves could not finish it. All the food was VERY tasty, and I'm pretty sure Lebanese food is my new favorite kind of food.

Tonight, I hung out with Audrey for awhile. She let me try on the new rollerblades she bought, and I skated around the hotel for awhile. Then I gave her violin back to her so that I will do something social tomorrow afternoon. :)

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Rest Day, Kind Of

2009-08-31T00:04:00.002+04:00

After a long day in the sun yesterday, I figured I better take it easy today. After sleeping in, I got up and began writing some letters to people back home (former students and ex-coworkers). Then I played my friend Audrey's violin for about 3 hours. It was pretty nice to sit down and really work through some pieces I haven't played in a long time. Maybe I'll have to give a little concert sometime.

This afternoon, I got on the computer and was doing a little bit of research on different running/triathlon/aquathlon races I could participate in over the next year. I have pretty much made up my mind that I am going to participate in the Dubai Marathon in January, and there are several 1/2 marathons I could do leading up to it. I also noticed that aquathlons (any combination of swimming and running) are much more popular here than back in the States. I saw several on the schedule that were a 2 mile run/short swim/2 mile run, and there is one that is an 800m swim, followed by a 5k run. I think that would be a great way to mix up my long-distance running, and I think I'd probably do okay in an event like that with my swimming background.

After doing all that research, I felt really excited about working out. So I kind of threw my "day off" mindset out the window and decided to go to the gym to workout for a while. I came back to rest for a bit (and to wait for the outside temperature to drop), then went for a good hard 6.5 mile run along the Corniche.

Finally, after working out, I felt more productive, so I wrote a few more letters, went to take care of some things I need in order to get my travel visa to India, and took my clothes to the dry cleaners.

After today, I totally feel re-charged for my big 2-day work week . :)

Good night from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Road Trip to Al Ain

2009-08-30T00:14:00.007+04:00

I know I haven't written anything in the past few days, but in all honesty, I haven't really done much other than take it easy with my friends and try to to get over my sinus infection.

That is, until today . . .

We were sitting around last night and I got the notion that we should get out off the island for a bit. So after a little brainstorming, we decided we would take a little road trip to a city about 2 hours southeast of Abu Dhabi called Al Ain.

So this morning, Jeff, Danielle, Danielle, and I got up and took a taxi to the bus station. Tickets to Al Ain were only 10 dirhams (roughly $3), and we only had to wait about 15 minutes for the bus to leave. Here is a picture of what is essentially my back yard here in Abu Dhabi (you can see Abu Dhabi Mall and some surrounding hotels) . . .

Before leaving the island, our bus passed the Sheihk Zayed Grand Mosque . . .

Once off the island, the scenery changed quite dramatically from big city to miles and miles of this . . .

There were some really huge sand dunes, which made me remember how much I'd like to try my luck and sandboarding (like snowboarding, but on sand dunes).

After a pretty uneventful 2-hour bus ride, we finally arrived in the city of Al Ain. There were a few things that I noticed right away about the city that made it seem a lot different than Abu Dhabi: (1) there was a LOT more green space throughout Al Ain, and (2) everything and everyone seemed much more laid-back in contrast to the fast-paced hustle bustle I've grown accustomed to in Abu Dhabi.

As we approached the Town Centre area of the city, I noticed the clock fountain they have instead of a clock tower . . .

After we got our bearings straight, we decided the first thing we wanted to do was go to the camel market. Apparently, if we were at market at 8:00 am, we could have seen hundreds of men buying and trading camels (along with some goats). At 12:00 noon, however, the place was much less busy, as there were only a handful of prospective buyers and a few tourists like us there. I had a few people ask me if I was able to ride any of the camels, and the answer to that is no. However, the owners had some fun teasing us about touching the camels. I got to pet some of them, and one in particular really seemed to like it because it kept leaning its head over and rubbing it against my hand.

One of the highlights of the day was watching some camel owners trying to break one of his younger camels. He had a rope tied around the camel's neck like a leash, and he was trying to lead the camel around this open area. But the camel apparently didn't like that very much, because it was jumping up and down, bucking it's hind legs much like a rodeo horse would. I was watching this for a minute, then turned away to look at some of the other camels. However, about a minute later, I hear all of these men screaming. I looked back over and the wild camel had gotten away and was running around loose all over the market. There were about 5 men chasing it around, and the camel kept looking back at them like it was having a grand old time playing this little game. Eventually, the men caught up with the camel and roped it back in . . .

After standing out in the sun looking at camels for about 45 minutes, we were all ready to sneak ourselves some lunch and water. (Recall that it is not allowed to eat or drink in public during daylight during the month of Ramadan.) So we went to the mall, where we had to secretly eat our lunches in the stalls of the bathrooms. What an experience that was . . .

After our less than desirable bathroom picnics, we were ready to head to the Al Ain National Museum. Here, we were able to read a lot about the history of the United Arab Emirates and what it was like here before oil was struck in the 1950s. In a lot of ways, the culture was still very primitive up to that point. I saw some pictures of the island of Abu Dhabi in the 1960s and 70s, and the island was still pretty much all sand with some buildings scattered throughout--nothing like the island today, which is covered by hundreds and hundreds of skyscrapers and many more being built as I write this. Here is a view of the front of the museum . . .

And a model of a typical home setting in Abu Dhabi prior to the striking of oil . . .

After walking around all the exhibits in the museum, we decided to go to the Al Ain Oasis, which was like a big forest of date trees with paved paths to walk through it on. Probably the best of this was all the nice shade. We walked around for about an hour, and Jeff and I were able to pick some dates right off the trees to eat.

Finally, we got tired of walking around outside in the 105 degree weather without being able to drink any water, so we called it a day. We went back to the Al Ain bus station, got our 10 dirham tickets back to Abu Dhabi, and headed home. Here is a mosque I saw on the way home . . .

Overall, today was a fun day!

Just a side note: Since we will have about 10 days off coming up in the next few weeks, some of us have tentatively planned on making a trip over to India for a bit (Mumbai is only 2 1/2 hours from Abu Dhabi by plane). I'll keep you posted as these plans develop further.

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Being Sick

2009-08-25T00:45:00.002+04:00

I came down with a pretty nasty sinus infection on Sunday. I woke up and had one of the worst head aches I have ever had, and my face felt like it was going to explode with all the pressure coming from my sinuses. I was also coughing and sneezing a lot too.

So when 8:30 came and I had to meet Jeff, Andrew, and Graeme downstairs to go to our meeting, you can imagine how much I did NOT want to go. But being that I'm stubborn and don't like to miss things like that, I pushed through it and survived through one of their boring meetings (barely though).

I don't usually go to the doctor (I haven't been in about 2 years), but after feeling more miserable than I have felt in a really long time and hearing about 20 people tell me how terrible I looked, I figured it was time to buck up and go. Luckily, there is a doctor's office about a 3-minute walk away from our hotel. I walked in, they asked me for my insurance card (which they had given to us at the end of last week, thank goodness), then they told me a doctor would be right with me. Less than 20 minutes later, I had seen the doctor, was diagnosed with a sinus infection, and received my medicine from the pharmacy (conveniently attached to the doctor's office). I walked home, took my medicine, then took a nap.

Two hours later, I woke up feeling like a completely different person. My headaches and sinus pressure were mostly gone, and my nose wasn't as runny either. I was really glad I went to the doctor, to say the least!

Sunday evening, I ate downstairs with Jeff. He had cooked some chicken fajitas, which were pretty good. We talked for a while, then he, Danielle, and I walked over to the mall to check out some of the Ramadan sales that are going on. We also went upstairs to the sports store to price out some pool, ping-pong, air hockey, and fooz-ball tables to fill up the big empty space I have in my living room. I think the pool table was the nicest option, but also the most expensive so we'll have to just wait and see about that.

This morning, I woke up feeling pretty much like my normal self. We went to a pretty boring meeting about using technology in our classroom. The presentation would be fine, except for the guy began by saying, "I know that this won't really apply to a majority of you who are in government schools, but I'll go ahead and give the information for those of you who are lucky enough to have computers and internet in your classroom." I'm not a professional on public speaking by any means, but I'm pretty sure that the one thing you should never do while giving a presentation is to tell 1/2 the room that what you are about to say is pointless for them to hear.

After a frustrating 2 hours of doodling pictures and passing notes back and forth with the people around me, err . . . I mean, listening intently to a great presentation about computers and technology, a few of us headed over to the Marina Mall to get a few things from Ikea. I ended up getting some tupper wear and a giant 8 ft x 5 ft canvas print of a photo of New York City to hang on my wall in my living room. It looks pretty cool and adds a lot of life to my living room.

This afternoon, I went to the Co-Op to buy a few groceries, as well as a printer. It turns out that you have to buy USB cables for the printer separately, but by the time I realized this the store was already closed. So I didn't get to try out the printer yet, but it seems like it will work pretty nicely.

Finally, tonight I stayed in and cooked some chicken alfredo pasta and watched a movie with a friend. It was nice to just sit back and relax by staying in for the evening.

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Some Photos

2009-08-22T21:43:00.005+04:00

I know it is not a lot, but here are just a few photos of my new apartment. I always forget to take my camera when I go places, usually because I am running behind and have to rush out the door quickly so people don't have to wait for me any longer.

This is the door to my apartment . . .

This is my hallway (kitchen is the first door on the left, living room is straight back) . . .

This is my living room (curtains lead out to the balcony). . .

And another view of my living room . . .

The view from my balcony mostly consists of this mosque and a very busy street . . .

And finally my bedroom . . .

I will try to start taking more pictures!

Today we went to the gym for a few hours (I am gonna be sore tomorrow!), went grocery shopping, then went out for some Indian food.

My fasting is going well so far, although I decided I would cheat a bit and drink water so I don't die in this heat/humidity. I got a bit hungry around lunch time, but I didn't really feel hungry again until it was dinner time. For Ramadan, even if you are "fasting," you are allowed to eat after the sun goes down only, so that is why I ate dinner.

I am feeling a bit tired and I think I am getting sick as well, so I'll be heading off to bed now.

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

A Good End to the Week

2009-08-21T20:59:00.005+04:00

After a short 4-day work week with relatively brief meetings each day, the weekend came very quickly.

Wednesday after work, my friend Audrey called me up to see if I wanted to ice skating. We ended up going with some other people I hadn't really met yet (Hector, Antonio, Margarite, and Serica) to a place called Zayed Sports City at the other end of town. The ice skating rink was really big, and everything was really fancy and nice (pretty much like everything in Abu Dhabi is). I wasn't expecting the locals to be very good at ice skating, considering that we are in a desert, but almost everybody there was really good! There were a bunch of guys zooming around, doing jumps and twists and all sorts of other crazy stuff. I had a good time meeting new teacher friends from near and far. Antonio actually was from St. Louis, so I finally met somebody else from the midwest. Hector is actually from Colombia, South America, and Serica is from Ireland.

After ice skating, we went back to our hotel to eat dinner together. I was in charge of making the appetizer so I cooked up some pita fajitas (basically a grilled steak, tomatoes, lettuce, green peppers and onions on rolled up into a piece of flat bread. Everybody thought they were really good, so I was pretty proud of myself. Hector (with a little assistance from me) made the main dish, which was a type of spaghetti dish that had beef, olives, and mushrooms in it. It was very delicious!

On Wednesday night, we (being the same people from above) went to a club called the Oceans Club at one of the hotels in town. Since it was ladies night, the place was pretty much packed from wall to wall with people (and this place wasn't small either). We pushed our way through everybody and met up with Jeff and Graeme. I also met a guy named John, who is from southern England, and he was hilarious. He and I decided that we are going to take turns hosting a weekly guys poker night. After chatting for a while as well as a bit of dancing, we called it a night.

On Thursday, we had a short seminar about the holy month of Ramadan. It was pretty interesting, and I think I am going to try to fast during the month as the Muslims do, both out of respect for their tradition as well as for the cultural experience. Then some of us went to the beach for a bit and I ended up just taking a nap there for most of the time.

On Thursday night, one of the teachers staying at my hotel hosted a little party, so some of us went to get to meet some of the other teachers. Everybody I've met here so far has been really cool and I am excited to have the chance to work (and practically live) with them for the next 2 years!

Today, I slept in, then went to watch a movie with a friend. I met up with Jeff and Danielle to go eat dinner at an Egyptian restaurant, where I got this really spicy sausage dish called Khoshkhash (and of course hummus and flat bread).

Right now, I'm actually a few minutes late for a movie night so I better get going!

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Taking It Easy

2009-08-18T21:47:00.003+04:00

I feel like the past few weeks have been CRAZY! After Saturday, I decided that I really need to take the next few weeks easy and make sure I spend some of my time relaxing instead of being on the go all the time.

So, Sunday I really didn't do much of anything. We had a brief meeting in the morning, but then I used the afternoon to take a bit of a nap before hitting the gym with the guys. For dinner, I finished up my chicken spaghetti I made last week. Finally I went to the mall to enjoy some me time shopping for some new clothes.

This morning, we had a really pointless meeting. It was shorter than the amount of time it took us to get there and back in the taxis, and all the information was old news. We are starting to get the feeling that the Education Council is just having us go to all these meetings to justify our getting paid, because I haven't really found much of it to be very beneficial. Oh well. Life could be worse, right?

This afternoon, I went to the bakery to get some fresh flat bread so that I can make steak pitas tomorrow. Then Jeff and I went for a run to the Corniche and back, followed by a quick gym workout. I'm finding that working out everyday has really helped me feel more energized (it always does, so I don't know why I feel that surprised), and I feel like I'm getting into pretty decent shape. So . . . go me.

This evening, my phone stopped working so I tried to get that taken care of at the mall, but they pretty much sent me on a wild goose chase that resulted in 2 hours lost and a still-broken phone. But I think I finally got it sorted out where I need to go, so I'll do that tomorrow as well.

Finally, some of us decided we needed to go searching for a new restaurant to eat at. We ended up at a place called Al Qasr, an Arabic restaurant. They had really good hummus, and their kabobs were pretty awesome. Also, I tried the fresh strawberry juice that they made right there, and it was really good. The best part was that all of this was very inexpensive. I believe I may have found my new favorite restaurant.

My own internet will be fully up and running tomorrow, so hopefully I will be able to put some pictures up then.

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

The 2 Week Point

2009-08-16T00:07:00.002+04:00

Somebody told me when I arrived here that I would get homesick once I'd been here for about 2 weeks. I have officially been in Abu Dhabi for 2 weeks today, and while I don't feel like I'm totally home sick by any means, I did find myself thinking about home quite a bit more today than I have at any other point since I've been here.

Of all the things I miss, these are the ones that stuck out in my mind the most today (in no particular order):

1. Cooking with my sister: I bought some pasta at the store the other day to make spaghetti (comfort food), and since eating out is starting to get expensive, I decided I needed to make my own dinner tonight. The whole time I was cooking, I kept remembering all the fun times I've had cooking pasta (and other things, but mostly pasta) with my sister this summer.

2. Watching the Chiefs with my brother: I was able to call my brother Chris today, which was great. I can't remember how, but somehow it was brought up that the Chiefs have their 1st pre-season game tonight. Not only am I going to miss watching them play (even if they lose, I love watching), but watching the games with Chris was always the best. I can't wait until I get to do that again.

3. Being a swim coach: It's just a habit of mine that whenever I see somebody swim, I immediately start making a list of things that they could fix in my head. Well, today at the pool, I saw some kids who have obviously participated on a swim team at some point because they were swimming all the different strokes and telling each other "Take your mark . . . " and what not before they would push off the wall. Their mom was trying to give them some pointers with very little success, and the coach in me just couldn't resist so I went up and asked her if they were on a swim team anywhere. She told me how they had just started swimming that spring for a team just outside of London, and I told her about how I am a swim coach. To make a long story short, I had the opportunity to give the kids some pointers on their strokes. Doing so just made me realize how much I miss all of my swimmers back home in KC. :(

4. My nephew: There was no one moment that made me miss Tyler today, but I found myself talking about him 3 or 4 different times with various people throughout the day. I was getting his picture out of my wallet to show them and everything. I'm a proud uncle, what can I say?

To be honest, I love it here in Abu Dhabi, as well as all the wonderful people I have met thus far, and I don't want to go home anytime soon. But if you'll allow me to be a bit cliche, I will say that distance and time definitely do make a person realize which parts of their life they treasure the most.

Good night from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Thursday is the New Friday

2009-08-14T17:06:00.002+04:00

In the UAE (along with all other predominantly Muslim countries), the work week is Sunday through Thursday. And yesterday, being Thursday, felt every bit like a Friday from back home.

We had our last day of orientation with the Abu Dhabi Education Council, which was nice. I actually left for most of the day to go with all the other people who haven't done their medical and police checks yet. My medical check = not fun. First of all, when we got there, they told us all to take a number at this machine. My number: 492. The number they were calling at the time: 356. So after waiting for about 90 minutes, they finally called me. They had me fill out this form (that had a bunch of typos on the English side), and they told me I would need to do a blood test and an X-ray. So they led me back to this hallway, where about 30 other people were waiting to do a blood test as well. So after waiting for another 3o minutes, it was finally my turn. I was a little worried before, but when I got up to the little room where they took our blood, I could see that they were using clean needles and everything looked super sanitary so that was a relief. Also the nurse was extremely nice. However, she did a horrible job at actually taking my blood sample. First she started out with my left arm: She jabbed the needle into my arm, dug around for a vein for about 2 or 3 minutes (I'm not even exaggerating), then finally made the observation "I can't really seem to find a vein, maybe we should try the other arm . . ." Gosh. Ya think? So she then (a bit more gently) put the needle in my right arm, and began looking for a vein there. Just when I thought it was going to be a repeat of my left arm, she finally found the spot and took my blood. Needless to say, I hope I don't need to go get any more blood taken while I'm here!

For the X-ray, I had to get back in line in this waiting room with about 15 other men. They told us we needed to have our shirts off to be ready for the X-ray, so I had to stand in line shirtless with a bunch of other shirtless guys for about 5 minutes. Pretty awkward, I know. Then, when it was time for me to go get my X-ray, I realized that they didn't have any lead vest-thingies to wear. But I guess a little X-ray radiation to all of one's vital organs never hurts, right?

After we finally got to leave the wretched medical center, we headed over to the police headquarters. Once again we had to draw a number and wait, but this time it was a much shorter wait. I got called up to this huge, scary guy's desk, where he asked me some basic questions about where I was from and who my employer was and what not, then he sent me to wait in a chair to get my fingerprints taken. The guy at the fingerprinting station must have been having a very bad day, because he was extremely impatient and rude. He would put my fingers on the machine and roll it really quickly, and most of the time the print wouldn't register on the machine the first time. Each time that happened, he kind of scowled at me like it was somehow my fault. The teacher in me wanted to tell him that "haste makes waste," but luckily, the rational person in me kept my mouth shut.

When we returned to our meetings, they were on their lunch break. Then, we had our final meeting, where basically all of the people in charge just told us how awesome we are and how excited they are to see us get in our schools and begin working with the other teachers and our students. Before we left, they gave us a nice little gift, which included a leather note pad, a pen, and a USB memory stick thingy (I can't remember what they're called, but you know what I mean).

From meetings, a few of us went to a new mall, the Khalidiya Mall, to go to a place called LuLu's Market. We had heard they have the freshest groceries in town. When we got there, I noticed an athletic apparel store, so I went in there to get some clothes for working out in. Then I joined the group in LuLu's to get some grocery shopping done. I got some steaks and chicken, along with some fruits, vegetables, and fresh flat bread from the bakery.

After we got back to our hotel, Jeff and I went for a run to the Corniche and back (about 2 miles). Normally that would be nothing to me, but since the temperature was roughly 105 degrees with 95% humidity, it was a bit rough. By the time we were done, we both were drenched in sweat and looked a lot more like we had gone for a swim than a run. Good times.

For dinner, about 10 of us decided to go to a British pub called The Captain's Arm. I got a steak sandwich and fries, which were okay. My British friend Graeme thought it was really good, but I told him I'm used to the best in Kansas City. After dinner, we met some other people who are living at our hotel and we all had what Graeme calls a "proper pint."

After talking for a while, I invited everybody over to play some Wii. So about 15 of us walked back to my apartment to hang out. We ended up taking turns playing from 10:30 until about 2 in the morning, and everyone had a lot of fun. We all decided that "Wii at Matt's" should be a regular occurrence. Also, in talking with one of the girls that just arrived here on Wednesday, I found out that she just started learning to play the violin last year. I told her I play the violin, and so now I'm probably going to be giving her violin lessons. Ha.

Finally, Jeff, Adam, and I decided that we were a bit hungry so we decided we would walk around and try to find a restaurant that was open. At about 2:30, we found KFC (which apparently is open to 4 am here). I was amazed at how packed the place was that late, but I guess people stay up a lot later here than what I'm used to. We ate some good ol' fashioned fried chicken and biscuits, and ended up back at our hotel about 3:00. Good times.

Today, I was able to sleep in until about noon, which felt good. Jeff, Erin, Kate, and I walked over to the beach and hung out there for a few hours. Then we went to the mall to grab some lunch at Mugg and Bean. I had this dish called "Deep Sea Pie," which I guess was their own twist on shepherd's pie that substitutes beef with salmon and what I'm guessing was a random assortment of other seafood. It was pretty good.

This afternoon, I cleaned all the dirty dishes we used last night and tried to tidy up my apartment a little bit while watching a movie. Tonight I'm going out to eat for some girl's birthday party. Should be a good time.

Good afternoon from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

More Meetings + Some Fun

2009-08-12T23:52:00.002+04:00

So for the past few days, things have been pretty much the same: Wake up early, go to meetings all day, then find something fun to do in the evenings.

Yesterday, about 6 of us went to the Marina mall after meetings, where we spent about 3 hours at Ikea. I got most of the kitchen/household items I've been missing, but mostly just had fun goofing around with all of the weird and interesting stuff they have there. After that, the guys and I hit up the gym to get (more) buff.

For dinner, we went to an Indian restaurant, where I felt adventurous and tried some squid and biyirani rice. I was expecting something pretty exotic, so when the squid came out pretty much whole, I wasn't really that surprised. It was pretty spicy and pretty delicious.

After that, we headed over to Chi Chi's to grab a much deserved margarita. We ended up staying there until 1 in the morning sharing stories.

This morning, 7:30 came awfully early but I managed to stay nice and chipper through all of my meetings. Go me.

After meetings, we headed to the mall to go . . . where else, Ikea! I didn't really need anything but it was fun to just chill out in the nice air-conditioned mall. We also ended up going to a place called Carrefour (pretty much like Wal-mart). I got some laundry detergent so I can actually clean my clothes, and Jeff and I got a football to throw around when we go to the beach.

Speaking of which . . . Jeff, Erin, and I went to the beach this evening. We felt like we had worn out our welcome at the Meridien hotel for a while, so we decided to sneak into the Beach Rotana, a five-star hotel near the mall. This place is ridiculously nice on the inside, and also pretty nice on the beach side too. They had 2 swimming pools, one with palm trees coming out of it. Pretty cool.

We swam around for a bit in the pools, then we went to the beach where Jeff and I played some good old-fashioned catch with the football. Then we went back to the pools to watch the sunset.

Afterward, we went to the mall to grab dinner in the food court. I had my first Abu Dhabi McDonalds experience, at which I tried the McArabia sandwich. It was basically a slice of flatbread with some lettuce, tomato, and 2 beef (well, "beef") patties on it.

Tonight, the 2nd wave of teachers arrived at the hotel so we felt like it would be nice for them to have some of us who have been here a week to greet them (in English) and help them get their suitcases up to their rooms, things we wish we would've had when we first got here.

After that, Jeff, Andrew, Erin, and Kate came up to my place to get our Wii on. We played about 6 games of Wii tennis before we all decided it was time to get some rest.

Tommorow is our last day of meetings with everybody, and from here on out any meetings I have will be at my school at the southeast end of town with just the other people who will be working there. I'm not sure how many people will be at my school, but I know that Andrew will actually be teaching there with me so that should be fun.

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

The Daily Grind

2009-08-10T23:18:00.003+04:00

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

Work Day #1

2009-08-09T21:33:00.002+04:00

After getting an unexpected wakeup call at 6:30 this morning (my alarm was set for 7:15), I decided since I was already up that I should go try to find a local bakery to eat at. I found a place around the corner that was serving chocolate croissants for 3 dirhams (roughly 75 cents) each, so I ordered a couple of those. They were quite delicious, making the early wake-up worth it.

At 8:00, we caught the bus to the school where our meetings were at. When we got their, the Minister of Education (comparable to the U.S. Secretary of Education) was there to greet us. They gave us a big packet of resources and a travel guide to the city of Abu Dhabi, as well as an agenda for the day.

First, the Minister of Education and some of his staff spoke to us about the educational history in Abu Dhabi and the UAE in general, and also about which direction they are hoping education to go in the next 10 years or so.

Next, some principals from various schools in Abu Dhabi spoke to us about the school system infrastructure, and how there are various private-public charter schools in the area as well as government-run public schools. From what I have heard, I will be teaching in a government school, and rumor has it that some of the class sizes in these particular schools can reach 35 students or more. Seems a little daunting, but we'll see what happens.

After a short tea/coffee break, we returned to listen to a man who owns a business called Embrace Arabia. Basically his job is to travel all over the world and give seminars regarding the Arabian culture to people who, like us, will be doing some sort of work in an Arab nation. He was a great speaker and pretty funny, but his presentation was just too long (nearly 2 hours) for me to sit still. Apparently I was not the only one who was getting restless.

They served us a quick lunch, then it was back to more meetings. We split up into groups of 6 or 7 for some Q & A time with some school administrators. They further explained the school system from a more Western point of view (the 2 facilitators from my group were both Canadians). They also gave us some insight into the curriculum we will be using and also warned us about the lack of materials the schools give their teachers. Since I handmade most of the classroom decorations, resources, and school work I had for my students last year anyway, this was not that big of a deal to me, but it was pretty bad news for some who were under the impression that we would be provided all of those things.

For our final meeting of the day, we had some teachers who have been in our shoes for the last 2 years give us their perspective on coming from abroad to teach in Abu Dhabi. It seems as though they were much less prepared for their teaching jobs over here than we have been, so it made me feel a bit grateful that so much information has been given to us about what to expect before we got over here.

After this last meeting was over with, just a little past 3, we took the bus back to our hotel. When we got back, we decided it would be a good idea to grab some ice cream since it was so hot, so about 8 of us walked over to the mall and went to Coldstone. I got some coffee ice ceam with chocolate chips, and when I tipped them, they started singing a very goofy song that I think was supposed to be a spin-off of Mary Had a Little Lamb. By the end of it, I almost regretted giving them the tip, but they were all grins so I guess it was worth it.

After ice cream, we walked down to the supermarket, where I grabbed some steaks and chicken for my grill, as well as some fresh veggies and some spices. My friends Kate, Erin, and I went back up to my apartment to make dinner. I grilled the chicken, Erin was in charge of the baked potatos, and Kate really didn't do much of anything except for go down and get some butter and salt when we realized we didn't want to eat our potatos plain. I thought it was pretty fun starting up my charcoal grill right in the middle of the city, 15 stories up. Once we got things started, we played some tennis and bowling on the Wii. They were pretty awful (not that I'm great). I was trying to let them win and I still won. But it was fun anyway.

Dinner took a while, mostly because the chicken took forever over the charcoal grill. But we eventually got to eat and I'd say it was pretty delicious. Since they more well-travelled than me, I asked them about some good places to go for trips. I think as of right now, my top 3 places I want to go on my long weekends are (in no particular order):

1) Egypt (I've always been fascinated by the history and pyramids and such, and it's only about three hours away so I pretty much have to go)

2) Turkey (I've heard nothing but great things about Istanbul especially, and I know the girls aren't bad looking there either) :)

3) Greece (who doesn't want to go there?)

Well, it is time for me to start thinking about going to bed and getting well-rested for another long day tomorrow.

Good night from Abu-Dhabi,

Matt

A Productive and Satisfying Day

2009-08-08T23:01:00.003+04:00

From the moment I woke up, I just had a feeling that today was going to be a good day.

First of all, I woke up with the desire to clean my place up (which hardly ever happens), so before I even showered or anything I got right to tidying things up around my apartment. Then I headed over to the mall to grab some coffee and get some household shopping done. I ended up going to the hypermart (similar to our Walmarts) and getting kitchen utensils, some supplies to make my own Turkish coffee, and a grill. I think I am now basically set as far as having things to cook with, now I just need to go to the grocery store to buy some things to cook!

When I got back from the mall, I got started on putting my grill together. I don't have any tools, so getting some of the screws in all the way was a bit of a challenge. However, I am now the proud owner of a functional grill and I have already had about a dozen people ask if I was planning on having a 15th-floor BBQ anytime soon. I'm thinking next weekend I will have my cohort of teachers over for some beef and lamb kabobs, along with some sweet Wii action.

Just as I was finishing cleaning up after my grill-putting-together and putting all my kitchen utensils away, Jeff called and asked me if I wanted to go bowling. He and I had met this local girl at one of our meetings last week, and so she invited us to go with her and her sister. We met up with them at the Marina Mall and had fun hearing about their perspective on the city and what kinds of things they recommended we do for fun. After we bowled a game, we walked around the mall for a while and grabbed some coffee.

After a while, we had to get back to our hotel because the owner of our hotel invited us all to eat at his 5-star Lebonese restaraunt tonight. I was expecting pretty good food, but when we got there, we were all amazed at how far they had gone out of their way to treat us like royalty. The entire table was filled with food (more than we could ever have finished), and all of it tasted great. We were really appreciative of all the food they gave us, and then we found out that that had only been the appetizer. They then brought out several different kinds of meat, all of which were delicious (I had chicken, lamb, beef sausages, and veal). Every time our plates started to get empty, they would come by and offer us more. Also, they would never let my wine glass get empty before they would swing by and top it off again. I don't think I've ever felt so tended to in my life!

After our main course was served, a belly dancer came out and performed for us. She did a variety of different dances for us, then had some people come up and dance with her in front of everybody. Of course, she picked me to come up there and I shimeyed with her for a few minutes. Not my cup of tea, but I couldn't be the one to disappoint a crowd!

At the end of dinner, the owner of the restaurant informed us that not only would this extravant meal be on him tonight, but also that we are welcome to such treatment once a month so long as we continue living in his hotel. Believe you me, I am not moving anywhere anytime soon . . .

Finally, we came back to our hotel. Some people came up to my apartment to see the grill, then we wished each other a good night's sleep. We have to meet at 7:30 in the morning to catch the bus for our full day of meetings tomorrow. Ugh.

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Getting Settled In

2009-08-07T19:21:00.002+04:00

Yesterday was a good day. I woke up at about 7:00, got some coffee downstairs in the cafe, then had to catch our bus to go to the Hilton for some more meetings. When we got there, they had free breakfast and coffee waiting for us, which was awesome.

The 1st meeting was pretty dramatic due to the fact that several people were pretty unhappy about not getting the roughly $6000 furniture allowance we were supposed to get since our apartments are already furnished. I don't really care since my furniture is pretty nice and now I don't have to spend a whole lot of time picking out and arranging new furniture. There was also a group of people that are living in a different hotel and think ours is better, so they threw quite a fit about that. At this meeting, we also found out that our internet and utilities will be paid for by the hotel, so now the only expenses I will have while I am here are my phone bill and food.

After the 1st meeting, they provided us with lunch (and more coffee) while they were getting things ready for the 2nd meeting. At this meeting, we met some of the administrators from the Abu Dhabi Education Council (essentially, our bosses). Of the four that we met, one was American, one was Canadian, one was Scottish, and one was Australian. They mostly just introduced themselves to us, gave us a few practical pointers about living here in Abu Dhabi, and then gave us a preview of all the different curriculum and professional development seminars we will be attending next week.

Since we are going to be "working" for 8+ hours each day next week, we decided that we should do something fun after our meetings. So we went back, changed into our swim suits real quick, then left to go to the beach/spa. We sat on the beach and swam in the ocean for a few hours, then we went inside to sit in the steam room and hot tubs for a little bit.

For dinner, one of the girls had organized a birthday dinner for one of the other girls at a Mexican restaurant. The food was pretty good, but it was funny because they put BBQ sauce on a lot of their dishes. Now I'm curious to know how much we back in the US "misinterpret" other cultures foods and make it likeable for us.

Finally, some of us went out to a place called Trader Vic's, where they were playing live music. We all danced for a while then headed back to our hotel.

Today, we didn't have anything planned for the day since Friday is the holy day here and therefore the 1st day of the weekend. I didn't set my alarm clock and I ended up sleeping in until 11 o'clock. It was great.

Shortly after I woke up, I could hear the super-long special holy day prayers that are played over the loudspeakers at the mosque. This lasted for about 30 or so minutes.

After getting ready, I wandered downstairs to the internet cafe (since our internet still hasn't been connected properly) and ran into my friend Andrew. After a bit, we decided to head over to the Marina Mall to do some exploring/shopping. We got a cab, and we headed through town to the marina. On the way, we saw lots of cool buildings, including the royal palace.

At the mall, we grabbed lunch. I got Sbarro (Italian food), and once again they had a unique Italian dish I had never seen before: rice with meatballs. After lunch, we headed to Ikea to look at home furnishings. I didn't really buy much since I wasn't totally sure about what I did and did not need for my apartment, but it was nice to get some ideas for some things. I had never been in an Ikea, but Andrew said that it was almost exactly the same as the one he goes to in Toronto.

On the 5 minute drive back to our hotel, we probably saw 9 or 10 Porsches and lots of other really fancy cars (mind you, brand new BMWs and VWs are very average here). You can get a pretty good idea of how wealthy (or not) the people in a particular place are by the kinds of cars you see. It is pretty obvious that this is one of the wealthiest places on earth.

This afternoon, I used the day off as a chance to relax and get a few things done. I finished unpacking all of my things. I also rearranged some of my furniture in my apartment the way I want it. Then I played Wii Golf for a bit.

Overall, I'd say I am feeling a lot more settled in and comfortable here in Abu Dhabi now.

Blah Day

2009-08-05T20:24:00.002+04:00

So I woke up this morning when the prayer siren went off at 4:40, and I couldn't go back to bed afterward. Not the best start.

We were supposed to get our health/police checks today. But when the time came for us to all meet down in the lobby, I found out that they had somehow forgotten to bring my residency visa (they had everybody elses). So I had to stay here by myself while everybody else went and got theirs done. I have to do mine tomorrow now, and hopefully I don't have to go by myself!

While everybody else was getting that done, I did a little shopping. I walked to the phone company's office to get a phone, but since you have to have your passport AND your residency visa to get a phone plan, I couldn't get one. But while I was there, I found out that most people just get pre-paid plans here anyway, so I walked to the mall and got this phone there. I haven't really tried calling or texting anybody with it yet, but it seems pretty cool.

After that, I had some time to kill before the time the other people were supposed to get back. So I walked around the mall, ended up in an electronics store, and bought a Wii. It came with Wii Sports, but I also got Mario Kart, Mario Party, and Punchout.

After that, I went back to my apartment and got my phone all set up. Then I set up my Wii and played it for a few minutes. I suspected that my group was going to get back soon, so I stopped and went downstairs. But they were running way behind so I had to wait for a bit.

By the time they got back, I had laid down to take a quick nap. Turns out my cat nap actually lasted 5 hours. Haha. By the time I was up, I had pretty much missed out on anything fun that I could have done today. So I went and grabbed a quick bite to eat for dinner, and that is pretty much all I did today.

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Our First Orientation Day

2009-08-04T20:48:00.002+04:00

Wow. What a long day.

Today I was awakened at about 7:30 when my phone started ringing. It was my friend Jeff. Jeff had an allergic reaction to some food he ate last night. Jeff needed to go to the hospital. Matt was tired. Matt had no idea how to get to the hospital. But Matt took Jeff to the hospital anyway.

When we got to the hospital, we found the emergency room. They took him right in since he was about to pass out, and the nurse and I helped him get onto the bed. They kept bombarding me with questions about his insurance, phone number, address, and so on (all in very broken English, mind you). I had to explain that we just arrived here 2 days ago and I met Jeff after we got here, and that basically I knew nothing about anything! But we were able to communicate the necessary information eventually, and since Jeff was passed out by then, I had to sign my consent for them to care for him. Yikes.

Since we had an orientation later today that I needed to be at if at all possible, I called our employer to tell them about our little situation. It took about 20 minutes to get the right phone number since the person at the front desk didn't know very much English either, but eventually I got ahold of them and they gave me permission to leave the hospital so I could go get ready for the meeting. I was a little nervous leaving Jeff there by himself, but they said they would have somebody check in on him if necessary.

There's nothing like making an emergency room visit to break the ice in a new city . . .

But anyway, I took a cab back to our hotel and got ready to go to our meeting, which was at a hotel conference center across town. We were told to be downstairs in the lobby at 11:00 to catch the bus. I was down there at 11:00 sharp. The bus rolled in at about 11:50. Kind of frustrating, but I am learning quickly that timeframes in Abu Dhabi are very casual and that nothing ever happens on time. In a way, this is kind of a relief, because usually I have difficulties with being on time too.

We all got on the bus and drove across town. This was the first time I'd seen most of the city in daylight, and I have to say that the city is very beautiful. There is a ton of construction going on right now, but there are also a lot of fountains and cool-looking buildings.

When we got to the Hilton (which was gorgeous by the way), they led us up to this big conference room. They were serving sandwiches, chicken, and an assortment of other things, as well as juice and coffee. I was pretty tired but wanted to stay awake during the presentation so I had 4 cups of coffee. It was amazing.

The presentation started after a while (about 15 minutes late, of course), and the HR director of the Abu Dhabi Education Council talked to us for a while about a variety of different things. I will try to summarize this presentation as best as I can:

1. We will not moving out of this hotel anytime this year. Since there are apparently no apartments available in the entire city (I think there are actually waiting lists for most places, which is crazy), we will just stay put where we're at. This part is okay with me, since my hotel room is pretty much an furnished apartment anyway. What is not okay with me is that because our places are already furnished, they probably won't give us the $6000 they told us we'd get for buying furniture and what not. We all threw a big fit about this since it was in our contracts, and I believe there is a petition in the works regarding this matter. We'll see.

(The nice thing about living in a hotel is that they still clean my apartment every day for free. I got back this afternoon and my bed was made, they had cleaned my dishes, and they had folded some of my clothes that I had thrown on the floor. I'm pretty sure this is going to spoil me. Forever.)

(The second nice thing about this is that basically the entire hotel will be occupied by the teachers who I will be working with in Abu Dhabi. It'll be 70 teachers living in one building!)

2. We have to complete a physical and police check tomorrow. Since I don't have any contagious diseases and I'm not pregnant outside of wedlock, I'm pretty sure I'll be ok. We'll see though.

3. We got our phone SIM cards that treat international calls as local calls, which is great. Now all I need to do is go buy a phone, and I'll be in business. The calling-my-family-from-Abu-Dhabi business.

4. They are setting up bank accounts for us and we will be able to access those in the next few days. Since they are not paying us until the end of the month, there was nothing really that exciting about this . . .

5. We'll have our next orientation meeting, at which we will find out who will be working at which schools, next week sometime.

After we got back from the meeting, we showed some girls who are going to be living at another hotel our rooms. They liked ours way better than theirs, and now they want to switch to our hotel. They're pretty cool, so I wouldn't mind if they switched either.

We all went to dinner at the mall this evening. I got Greek food. I can't remember the name of the dish I had, but it was good!

Then we walked around the mall some more, but we were all getting tired so we we went back to our hotel/new home after about 15 minutes. We are hoping to make tomorrow another "sneaky spa day." That would be nice after today.

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

My 1st Full Day

2009-08-03T19:52:00.003+04:00

After our long flight over here, they decided to give us the day off today before we get down to business. I'd say I took advantage of the opportunity.

This morning, I went down to the coffee shop in our hotel to try some Arabian-style coffee. It was definitely a bit stronger than what I'm used to but it also had a good flavor to it. I will have to go get an ibrik and coffee grinder so I can start making my own coffee.

After that, I met up with my friends Chris, Jeff, and Andrew to go to the mall to exchange my U.S. dollars for dirhams (the currency they use here). We walked around the mall for a while, just to see what kind of stores they have. There were a ton of jewelry and watch stores but otherwise it looked like an American mall. For lunch we decided to stay in our comfort zones and ate at a Subway, which was also pretty much the same. Finally, we went down to the grocery store to get some snacks to munch on. I got some "French cheese" flavored Lays potato chips, some flat bread, and water and juice.

This afternoon Jeff, Andrew, and I decided we wanted to go to the beach. When we got to the ocean front, we asked this man at the hotel how to get to the beach. He pointed us towards their hotel's private beach, and they also had a health spa back there as well. We hung out on the beach for awhile, then went and sat in this steam room that smelled like mints (and made us smell minty too). Then we started talking to these (cute) German girls in the hot tub and found out they teachers too (just visiting for their summer vacation though). They also informed us that they had to pay $30 to be at the spa for the day, so I guess you could say we accidently snuck in. Oh well.

For dinner we went to a Lebanese bakery. We had flat bread and hummus for an appetizer, then for my meal I got a flatbread that had meat and cheese baked into it. It was pretty tasty, and really inexpensive too! I think I am going to like the food here!

Sorry I didn't get pictures up, my internet service was not functional again today so I had to use the hotels computers. But don't worry, I'm trying to take lots of pictures to share!

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Arriving in Abu Dhabi

2009-08-02T23:28:00.002+04:00

Well after nearly 24 hours of airports/airplane, I finally arrived at the Abu Dhabi International Airport at about 7:30 Abu Dhabi time. I got my bags, went through customs, then went outside to catch the bus to our hotel. It was so hot and humid outside, even after sundown that peoples' glasses were fogging up! Also, it's been really windy here the last 3 days, which means this place has been sandstorm central, which means visibility and air quality aren't the greatest.

On the way to our hotel, which is in downtown Abu Dhabi, we passed lots of cool buildings including the mosque in the picture above. It is more huge and magnificent in real life than it looks in the picture.

When we got to our hotel, we had to wait awhile because they had to make a copy of all of our passport pictures (I think for security reasons). My room is on the 15th floor here and though not the nicest hotel room I've ever had, it is probably the biggest. It has a kitchen, a big living room, a pretty big bedroom, then of course a bathroom. I have a balcony off of the living room, which gives a decent view of the surrounding neighborhood. I took pictures of all this stuff, so I will put them up tomorrow (hopefully) when I am using my own computer and not this hotel's slow computer.

Look for more details tomorrow when I'm not feeling so tired and cranky. :)

Goodnight from Abu Dhabi,

Matt

Lasts

2009-08-01T09:41:00.002+04:00

Whenever you knowingly experience the "last" of something, even the most ordinary things suddenly seem extraordinary.

Take this couch I'm sitting on right now. I don't know when or even if I'll sit on this couch again. I bought it 4 years ago from my neighbors before they moved to Minnesota. I don't remember that there was anything that really stood out to me about the couch, other than the price tag: it's a plain beige couch that's good (not great) for sitting on, and they were practically giving it away because they just didn't have a need for it any more. So for the last 3 years of college, it became a reliable fixture in my living room--it was always there, and therefore I always used it when I needed a place to sit. Not a single day has passed in the last 4 years when I have put any more thought into this couch than that.

But tonight, being perhaps the last time I will ever sit on this couch, I have recalled some of the memorable life events I've experienced while sitting on it. I realize now, this isn't just a couch. Though there were probably hundreds or even thousands of couches that were made just like it, they aren't just couches either--not once they left the furniture store. From that moment on, rather, a unique story begins to be embedded within each one. And just like a photo album or diary or video tape does, each couch alone has the ability (when coupled with a night like tonight at least) to trigger dozens of memories that might otherwise have been forgotten.

And the couch isn't the only thing that has morphed from mediocre to magnificent tonight. The the sound of crickets, which I've always thought to be a little annoying, has suddenly become music to my ears on my last night here. I don't know if they have crickets in Abu Dhabi or not, but even so, I won't be able to hear their monotonous melody in the big city. And night time just won't be the same without them.

I'm also going to miss those wretched flower pots sitting out on my deck. My sister ambitiously decided to start a small "garden" this summer, to add a bit of life to our deck I suppose. For a while--about 10 days--it really was something. The blossoming flowers brought a lot of color and a nice aroma out there. But Andrea, being Andrea, seemed to forget that, much like all other living things, a flower doesn't stop needing food and water once it becomes fully grown. So our little garden turned into a plant cemetary (may they rest in peace), reminding all who went out there of death and darkness. And though they've been dead for nearly 2 months now, because somebody still hasn't bothered to remove them, I realize tonight that I wouldn't have it any other way.

I could go on and on with a list of other things that I might not see ever again, or at least for a really long time. But I'm getting tired now and I need to get a good night's sleep before my big day of traveling tomorrow (later today really). Even though this will not be the last goodnight I ever say to the Kansas City night sky, the changes that I am about to experience in my life just became very, very real for the first time.

PROLOGUE -- Part 2

2009-07-30T07:11:00.003+04:00

If I remember correctly, I left off telling about my interviews and getting hired to teach in Abu Dhabi. That was at the beginning of April, 2009. Following that high point, you can imagine how difficult it was for me to stay focused on my current teaching job in Columbia! Nonetheless, I had an amazing group of kids, and they deserved my best efforts for the last two months of school. To keep my excitement for my Abu Dhabi assignment under control, I decided to make learning about my soon-to-be home a collaborative effort. We learned about the cultural differences, the new language (Arabic), the geography of the region, etc. together and it was a lot of fun.

As chaotic and stressful as the end of the school was in terms of preparing to leave for Abu Dhabi, this summer was equally dull. I would go 2 or 3 weeks at a time without hearing any sort of updates on my specific placement, what sort of travel arrangements would be made for my departure, and so on. And the only real job I had to do in regards to preparing for all of this was to get some documents certified and authenticated by the local, state, and national government (a process that is a complete pain in the butt, might I add). At this very moment, I am still waiting to receive my documents from the U.S Department of State--when I should have received them well over a week ago. (I'm sure this situation will add some last-minute nail-biting excitement, which of course I love.)

And that pretty much brings me up to the present. Lately my life has been dedicated to doing 2 things I really don't like to do: (1) Saying goodbyes, and (2) Packing.

I have never been good at saying goodbyes. I get really sentimental about stuff like that under normal circumstances, so having to think, "Man, this will probably be the last time I see this person for at least 2 years" every time I go somewhere has been really hard on me. Always one to see my glass as being half full, however, I've learned that leaving a person for an extended period of time makes you truly appreciate how important they are to you; therefore I've come to realize over the last week or so just how many people there are that I feel blessed to have in my life. (Plus I'm cheating and have snuck in several 2nd "last goodbyes" to make myself feel better.)

As far as packing goes . . . well, don't get me started on packing. I hate having to attach value to everything I own and deciding if it's absolutely necessary for me to bring overseas with me. As far as I'm concerned, everything I have--from clothes to photos to drawings/cards my students/swimmers have given to me over the years to novelty items such as my coconut bra--is meaningful to me in some way. Unfortunately, clothes win, seeing that most people would probably prefer me to wear them in Abu Dhabi and, therefore, a lot of the other things are going to be left behind.

In summary, there is a lot to look forward to in the upcoming years of my life. I will make friends and memories that will last me a lifetime, that is to be sure. But in the midst of all the glamor and excitement I have felt recently, I have also been reminded that I have a lot of great things going for me right here at home.

Good night.

Matt

PROLOGUE

2009-07-29T10:44:00.004+04:00

I'm sitting here on my living room floor in the 2-bedroom apartment I share with my sister in Kansas City. The humming of the refrigerator and a meek light bending around the corner from my bedroom are all that keep me company. I have a multitude of thoughts swirling through my head right now, the two weighing most heavily on my mind being: (1) It is 2 in the morning . . . why am I still awake? and (2) In 4 days, I will be half way around the world, far away from everything and everybody I've ever known.

I suppose that my keeping this journal (or diary or memoir or whatever you'd like to think of it as) is in direct response to both of these dilemmas. Let me explain . . .

First of all, I've always been somewhat of a sleep-procrastinator. Ever since I can remember I have been. There are some people out there who look forward to going to bed at night. But not me. I dread it. But it's not that I don't enjoy sleeping (there's nothing quite like the feeling of getting a good night's sleep), but rather that I enjoy being awake much, much more. Therefore it's my typical habit to find any number of excuses to stay awake as long as possible until I get too bored to carry on, or, what is often times the case, I simply get too tired to keep my eyes open any longer. Keeping a journal addresses this issue in the sense that I can spend my procrastination time doing something that gives me a sense of productivity, unlike the feeling I get after spending it on Facebook or aimlessly perusing the internet.

Second, I'll be in Abu Dhabi in 4 days, there for 2 years to teach English, math, and science to primary school students. I could be wrong, but I think this is what one might call a "once in a lifetime opportunity." Therefore, keeping a record of all my experiences over the course of this trip is important to me.

Third, and what is probably of greatest interest to most of the people who will be reading this (not that my sleep-procrastination issues aren't interesting, right?), is that keeping this journal will give me the opportunity to communicate my experiences and my day-to-day well-being to people back home.

So . . . now on to the interesting stuff. For those of you who don't know, this process of me going to Abu Dhabi began several months ago in March of 2009. I was two-thirds of the way through my first year as a teacher, teaching 2nd grade at a school in Columbia called Derby Ridge Elementary. I became bored one night after school when I remembered that one of my co-workers had mentioned something about his teaching experiences in Taiwan earlier in the day. Therefore I got on the internet and just started browsing different websites that gave information about teaching overseas, with no real interest in doing anything of the sort at the moment. One thing led to another, however, and before I knew it I was on the website for a company called Teach Away, filling out an application. I had no real expectations of ever hearing back from this company, but, like I said, I was bored so why not?

Well, a few days later, I received a phone call from a representative from Teach Away, who wanted to know if I'd ever considered teaching in the Middle East. Caught of guard by the phone call in general, and even more so by this question, I quickly scrambled for the quickest answer I could think of: "Yes, I'd love to!" Oops. To tell the truth, up to that point I had never spent more than 5 seconds thinking about what the real answer to that question might have been. And maybe things were better that way. Over the next few days, I began to educate myself over this Abu Dhabi place, and found that it was in fact a very fascinating place and that I did indeed want to be considered for a teaching position there.

What happened after that was a whirlwind of events. Within 2 weeks of the initial phone call, I had completed 2 phone interviews, flew to Chicago for a live interview, and had been offered and signed a contract to teach in Abu Dhabi for 2 years. Whew! Talk about stressful!

(At this time, I've reached that point where I simply can't keep my eyes open any longer. So look forward to "PROLOGUE -- Part 2" in the near future. Good night!)