*We had our first visitor out west. Our friend Sheena works and lives in Abu Dhabi, but decided to come check out what the West was like. She claims that everyone in the city has a "city attitude" and that we are lucky because we are more like a family out here in the west.
*While Sheena was here, we checked out the new nail salon (in the desert the new nail salon and the new grocery store that might sell pork and liquor in the future are sort of a big deal). The nail salon is aesthetically pleasing and the service was great. The owner of the salon even does hair, but she does not use flat irons because of the damage they cause to your hair. I appreciate her concern but straightening my hair in this heat with only a blow dryer is a waste of time, energy, and money. #teamflatiron
*In addition to the nail salon, we also decided to go to Tila Liwa which is a nice hotel in the middle of the desert. It is located in a place about 20 minutes from us called Liwa. This is where camel races occur.
*I decided to skip the Falcons game in London because of the way my Dirhams were set up. Instead I'll be going to Sri Lanka on the weekend of my birthday. Shouldn't be a bad way to bring in 32.
*Halloween is coming up and I am actually going to wear a costume. In my almost 32 years on this earth I have never worn a Halloween costume (except when they used to dress me up and have me looking like a fool for the kids at my previous place of employment).
*I taught my children to play "match." Using the vocabulary words that start with the letter of the week I taught them to play the game by using a phrase that is very common in this country, "same same." I actually hate the phrase because it's just as easy to just say "the same." However, there is something about repeating the word twice that yields to understanding. Amazing!
*I have a little boy that I think mistakes me for his nanny (we are the same skin color). Onore than one occasion he has handed me his trash or his shanta (book bag) to put up. When these actions occur, we have a staring battle, and then I simply say, "no, YOU." He then snaps back to reality and realized I am not his hired help. You sir left your nanny at home.
*We went to a couple hotels in the city one of these weekends (everything is starting to run together now). Disclaimer: parties and gatherings often happen at hotels here because alcohol really isn't sold anywhere else. Well it us but you need a license to get it and it's just complicated. I'm not sure why Rick Ross won't stay at the Intercontinental. It seemed pretty nice to me. The views from the hotel are amazing. I spent like 20 minutes in the bathroom looking out of the window at the scenery. The pictures really don't do the actual views and scenery justice (plus I stole them from Facebook because my phone was dead the entire night).
*To start our unit on community helpers, we took a trip to the hospital. Some of my children dressed in nurse and doctor costumes for the trip. The children were super cute but the trip was super immmmmmm......pointless. It lasted a total of 15 minutes. There was a five minute bus ride, five minutes of the doctor showing the children his tools, and a five minute ride back to school.
*Today I reached out to a teacher from my previous school to see if I could FaceTime her so that I could talk to a little boy that I spent a lot of time with last year because he was a bit misunderstood and always ended up kicked out of class. I talked to the little boy, who wanted to know why someone would move so far away and not even come home for their birthday. He then proceeded to tell me that he bets I would never move to Mexico because I wouldn't make it a day there. Adamsville's finest........oh how I miss them sometimes. But anyway, I was happy to hear that he liked his teacher a little bit (he's very honest with me), he only argues with another student occasionally, he stays in class this year, and made all As and Bs with the exception of the C in science because he did not do a project. It was important for me to let him know that I am absent from the school but I still have eyes on him. Plus, I talked to some of my former coworkers and saw the faces of some of the old students. It felt good to see them again. Do I want to go back? NOPE! But, I do miss them.
Well, there goes the randomness. There will be many more posts like this to follow. My head is all over the place here. I spend my weekdays cutting and pasting and trying to find ways to communicate with children that don't understand 98% of the words that come out of my mouth. The funny thing is that we still have a strong relationship. They come to me for everything and love to show me when they dress up, have something new, change their hair, etc, etc. We play charades a lot, but nevertheless we have a strong relationship. I spend the weekends trying to get out of the west, which gets tiring but is usually worth it. Last weekend I spent an entire day on the weekend here and ended up watching an entire season of Orange is the New Black. The good thing is that we do have gatherings and things here, but attending these will also be an adjustment as I have never been the "let's sit in your house even though I have my own house with the same amenities" type.
I love it!!! Keep the post coming! !!!!!
ReplyDelete