I will always choose the roller coaster over the merry-go-round

So I realize that my last post may have sounded a bit unsettling but that was how I was feeling.  Since my last post I have gotten my car back, my evaluation postponed, and received a lot of support from my faculty head to help our girls succeed on this standards-based assessment.

I recently watched the old movie from 1989 Parenthood remember with Steve Martin.  It was a fantastic trip down memory lane and I thought it hit home a little for me now that I am a parent.  Remember the kid Justin in the movie how he butts things with his head and is just silly? Well that sort of reminds me of Gavin...yeah he is the weird kid at the park, yeah he is the destructive little boy at the Valentine's Day craft party, but I love him and I know he is having a fantastic childhood and that is all that matters right?  And well let's not forget he is a toddler and they are crazy!

The whole reason I bring this up is because towards the end of the movie the Grandma talks about how she used to love riding the roller coaster.  It goes up and down and up and down.  There is an exhilarating feeling and a wonderful feeling and your stomach may get upset and you make get really scared but it  is worth it right?  She goes on to say that some people like the merry-go-round it just goes round and round and you always know what to expect.  She says but I always preferred the roller coaster myself.  Well the scene ends with Steve Martin yelling at his wife, "If she is so wise why is she getting in the neighbors car?"  which of course cracks me up as I wipe away the tears from this philosophical and home-hitting moment on the screen in my living room.  I will always choose the roller coaster over the merry-go-round.  I get so bored and restless when my life becomes too predictable.  So yes I went through a few tough weeks but I have come out the other end with a big smile and even a few lovely experiences to share with my readers.

Last week my friend Sylvia and I went to my first Emirati wedding (Sylvia goes to these every chance she gets; she is an old pro and talked me through the whole experience so I knew all the dos and don'ts). It was in   a huge wedding hall near Jabel Hafeet the mountain here in Al Ain.  The men were located outside dancing and eating in large white tents and the women were all in the wedding hall.  We had a big screen that we could view the men while they were doing a very traditional dance with sticks.  I didn't take any pictures but found some images on the Dubaiheritagewordpress.com website,  to show you what I mean.

The women were located inside a large wedding hall and they were all wearing these gorgeous dresses that some of them were quite  frankly busting out of!  They were all beautiful and it was quite the scene.  There was long red carpet that led to a run-way on stage with this beautiful throne.  On both sides of the running red carpet there were absolutely gorgeous tables set up with beautiful place settings.  There was an array of tabouli, hummus, breads, salads, and dolmas or mashi to snack on.  Lovely ladies dressed in gold came around offering fresh nectars, divine chocolates, decadent bisquits, turkish coffee, tea, perfumes, and even some traditional incense to cleanse you.  I was unable to take pictures but am providing some samples of images that describe what I saw.  

I found some similar dresses to what some of the ladies were wearing on http://www.ecplaza.net

At every social event I have been to they come around with these divine and decadent cannot describe like heaven in your mouth more expensive then gold chocolates!  

So Sylvia and I enjoy the chocolates and watch all the ladies saunter around kissing one another likely commenting on  how beautiful everyone looks.  We choose our favorite dresses and chat for a bit.  Then it is time for the main course.  Each table of 6 to 8 guests of course, naturally, gets their own goat on a platter of rice and chick peas.  Sylvia and I are sitting next to three older Emirati ladies that are wearing Abayas with the traditional burqa style. I found an example of what I mean on http://www.photoburst.net/ 

When the platter is set down I take a little bit of rice on my plate but am already quite full from all the chocolates and biscuits and appetizers.  Well these ladies toss their plates to the side.  The lady grabs the bone from the platter and  begins to vigorously shake it until the marrow splats into the center of the platter. Then all three ladies dive into the platter with their hand shoveling the food under their burqas as fast as they can with cow chewing cud sound affects.  Sylvia and I look at each other and simultaneously put our forks down to indicate we have both lost our appetites...to each culture is to their own right?  Mean while I am carefully ensuring the whole time that I don't do any double dipping-sort of a fruitless gesture at this point lol.  

The beautiful golden ladies come out again to collect our dishes and Sylvia and I are both growing tired as it is a week night.  Some time past 10 o'clock what the whole room has been waiting for happens, the scared and beautiful 17 or 18 year old bride comes down the red carpet.  Her dress is elaborate and white covered in sequence from head to toe, it takes three ladies to keep her dress from collapsing under her feet as she takes each step.  There is a spot light as she walks so carefully towards the stage.  She comes on to the stage and walks to both sides of the stage.  Then she sits on the throne.  We walk over to greet our Emirati collegues as it is now an acceptable time to leave.  Sylvia informs me that sometimes the groom joins the bride and other times he does not.  The ladies are astounded that after attending the wedding we are going to work tomorrow!  Must be nice to take a day off to re-cooperate from a wedding...not us!  No such days off for the westerners.  They tell us that the groom will be coming so we must stay just a few more minutes.  So we sit and watch the ladies scurry to cover up their evening gowns with black Abayas and shaylas.  Then the young groom of 24 comes in to meet his bride.  They are presented to the ladies with no smiles on their faces.  They are both very nice looking.  Sylvia and I take this as an opportunity to follow the crowds out the door.

Then just a few days later all of the English teachers at my school were invited to our vice principal's house to celebrate the birth of her seventh  baby.  So my faculty head, and some of my colleagues join in on a caravan to our vice principal's home just blocks from our school.  As one of the other teachers point out you can immediately see how much money a family has from the gate that you drive through to enter their property.  There are multiple houses on the property.  I am told there is a house for the men to entertain, a house for the women to entertain and then there are the main homes for the family.  We are ushered into the house simply for entertaining female guests.  The front room is an Arabic style room with cathedral ceilings, a couch that wraps around the room.  There is a gorgeous Egyptian style rug on the floor covered with ladies sitting and enjoying an elaborate feast of traditional Arabic dishes.  We are escorted into another beautiful room with the traditional Arabic  style couches and again cathedral ceilings to sit and first have juice, chocolates, and coffee.  It is a little off-putting because it feels a little like segregation the Arabic teachers in one room and the English teachers in another.  But we are informed that Emirati culture is very specific with the tradition order of entertaining guests.  Step one we must have chocolate, nectar, and coffee.  Then the baby is passed around for us to stuff jewelery and money if we so desire.  I quickly passed the baby on because he became fussy.  He was a tiny little thing with a full head of hair.   At this point the baby is taken away and the Arabic teachers say good-bye.  We are then ushered in to the next room to eat.  We had these crepes wrapped around falafel and cream cheese that were amazing, and these little tuna wraps, then of course the goat and rice.  Ending with some cakes and these things that are a lot like donut holes that I have yet to learn the appropriate name for but will continue to refer to them as sticky balls.  So we are on our way.  

Finally last night I got to something I have wanted to do for a long time!  A safari tour!  We went through funtoursdubai.com leaving from the Mall of Emirates I got to enjoy a delicious BBQ Dinner and Folklore Show in a traditional Bedouin Camp.  The safari included Camel Rides, Henna Art, a Show, including traditional Arabic Musicians, Belly Dancers and Egyptian Tanoora Dancers. It was a lot of fun!  The dune bashing was a little more than I could ever handle again they cruise up these dunes super fast and then slide down them with sand cascading off the windows and the jeep is literally free falling. I got a little nauseous in the back seat but I wasn't too scared of rolling the drivers seemed pretty good at their jobs.  What frightened me was how close we were to the other jeeps.  Here are some images I tried to capture as I was bouncing around in the back seat.  

So after I gathered my stomach from the back of the jeep and my hands stopped shaking we moved towards the line for camel rides.  It was really just a photo opp with a short walk in a small circle.  Here I am with  a random stranger whose brother took pictures of us.  They made us ride in pairs so I had to find a buddy because Keith and Heather were riding together.  

Then we moved on to ride the quads.  This was about 30 Usds for 15 minutes so I opted out.  Then the guy running the thing felt sorry for me and made me sit and get my photo on one of the quads.  Then I got on the back with my friend Heather and she took me for a cruise. It was a lot of fun but I know I am old because I was really nervous about tipping over!  

After our ride around the track a few times on the quads we headed down to the main festivities where two lines had formed; one for female and one for male to get food.  We got our plate of food and sat down to watch the entertainment.  There were some tourists that plopped down from a country somewhere near Poland and Russia that is slipping my mind right now.  They spoke no English but introduced themselves and shared their remy martin cognac with us which warmed my mouth, throat, and belly!

Then Heather and I were off to get Henna done.  This is the first time I have gotten Henna done.  The young girl was from India and she did a beautiful job so quickly, I was impressed!

We finished the evening in the Shisha tents where I smoked Shisha for the first time, just to say I have done it.  I tried apple and grape, I preferred the grape as the apple seemed a little more potent.  Then we were off to the buses to head back to the mall of Emirates.  I sat next to a young lady from somewhere in the UK that has just taken a job as a teacher (I had a good laugh because she said she is just looking for a low stress job that pays well) and lives in Al Ain.

So my life in the UAE remains a roller coaster of times when I am missing home and consistency and things that make sense to me to times where I feel like I am on a lovely ride that I would have been crazy to have ever passed up.  I am again thankful for this opportunity and grateful for my experiences thus so far on my journey in the middle east.  

Superwoman...

I have to be honest at times living overseas becomes a bit too much and I have moments of weakness where all I think about is hopping on the next plane home.  I do not thing that is uncommon for most of us here.  All changes leave us conflicting as we grow older and make significant life changes.  When I went off to college and moved only an hour and a half's drive from my hometown I remember having these moments.  The first  time I crashed my car away from home or got the flu my first instinct was to think, "I need my mommy."  I remember this sinking feeling of being in something unfamiliar and wishing so much that my mom was there.

Then I graduated from college and did something obscene!  I drove 24 hours and planted my roots in New Mexico all the way from Iowa.  New Mexico was so different!  I went through a whole new kind of shock.  There was stop and go traffic, drunk bums in my yard on Christmas, crack heads asking me for money in the grocery store, and people were even speaking Spanish all around me.  I adapted and I even made a life for myself in New Mexico at times thinking I wanted to scurry home to the familiar and it all seemed to work out.

Well in hindsight with both instances the times that I felt like I needed my mom or wanted to run home with my tail between my legs are when my job became too stressful, or it seemed like my health was poor and my car had problems or I got in a car accident or had a bad break-up from a boyfriend.  All the usual need your mommy kind of things, right?

Now I am 33 years old and I have to say it is not so much my mommy I feel like I need these days.  I  do miss my mom don't get me wrong but what I am realizing is that I miss the comfort in understanding how things work at home.  The consistency of living in the same country for 32 years of my life and knowing what to expect in certain social situations, emergency situations, and even professional situations.  These moments of certainty are fleeting living in a completely different country and when I have these moments of heartache, failure, frustration that come with living I feel at odds with this fleeting feeling of unfamiliarity and my instinct is to jump on a plane and fly home;  I won't act on this because my mom taught me not to quit so I won't quit and my practical side makes a mental list of pros and cons of my new life here all the time and in the long run the pros out weigh the cons and I know that this is a great experience across the board.

Let me take a moment to evaluate why I am feeling so at odds with my soul in a sense.  The end of February I was blessed with the sandbox sinus infection which left me feeling wiped out paired with my thyroid levels being a little off which equated to scrapping my diet and becoming super exhausted all the time stuffing my face with as much chocolate and cheese as I could grab.  So I imagine this didn't help me in the long run.  I was frustrated because I wasn't getting better and spent two weekends in a row lying in bed trying to get better so I could work during the week.  Due to the lengthy process of getting sick days off I feel like it is just easier to go to work sick then to deal with going to the emergency room and then going to get your sick note stamped and now the expectation that this is all entered into the computer or your wages are docked which is just too confusing for my head to get around when I am sick.

Well then the 100 days of school was coming upon us and we decided that we wanted to throw a huge educational fair with games revolved around the theme of 100.  It was really fantastic and our girls really enjoyed it and we really impressed our Arabic staff with the quality of organization that we put into it.  It was well worth the effort but it was time consuming!  We spent days after school staying until 4 or 5 o'clock arguing over details, organizing, and setting up for this thing.  The day finally came last week and we were all wiped!

Here was my corner, the art corner (never again so exhausting after 300 girls!)

Here are some of the girls working in my corner

Here are a few other corners we had.  There was also a relay race and a race to 100...

Here is a picture of me and one of my classes...they all have on necklaces we made that week and crowns!

So while all of this is going on I am not saving any energy for my husband and son when I get home.  I am exhausted and cannot seem to shake this evil sinus infection.  We are eating fast food almost every night (which I think may be the leading cause to depression lol).  We have stopped our evening walks around the complex or to the park.  I have stopped cooking and playing with play-doh with Gavin every night.  We aren't lying in bed reading Sandra Boyton books and things seem to be taking an ugly turn for me.

Then my car dies on the way to school on one of the busiest round abouts in the city.  I stand there waiting for the tow truck to come (thankfully I knew I had road side assistance with my insurance company).  A police officer comes along and he speaks little to know English.  I stand there with him trying not to burst into tears while I wait for the tow truck driver.  He asks me, "Car no run?"  I shake my head telling him it won't run and assuring him that the tow truck driver is on his way and isn't far.  He walks away and makes some calls and comes back asking again trying to make sure he states it very clear, "Car-no-run?"  This scenario repeat itself again and again as time drags to a stop and we wait for the alleged tow truck driver to get here.  Finally after he asks me,"Car no run," for the millionth time I proceed to rein-act the sounds my car made as it died.  Then I  demonstrate for him the sound of an engine attempting to turn over with no success.  He seems pleased with my performance and thankfully does not ask me again, "car no run?"

Now the tow truck driver comes and of course he speaks no English and apparently the insurance company gave  him no information on where I would like the car delivered (why would they?).  So after I find a million different ways to explain that the car needs to go to Dubai to the dealership and I plan to grab a taxi and do I have to pay for the extra kilometers?  Mafi Inglisi...no English...I try calling my faculty head who speaks Arabic, the policemen calls his friend who speaks broken English and then I do what of done to begin with and call the insurance company to translate.  After a few phone calls and another half an hour I am in a taxi on the way to school.

What is wrong with my car?   My brand new used car?  Well it was the radiator and then apparently due to my negligence it became a cracked head gasket.  However only the day before had I noticed the cars gauge was reading hot when the air conditioning was running (not when it was off!).  So I took the car to get the oil changed at the Adnoc lube.  All fluids were checked and topped off and I was told coolant levels were fine!  I was also shown my black sludge oil which indicated to me that the oil was not changed before the car was sold to me...go figure?!  So now I have been with out my car for going on two weeks now and have had to rent a car and am still not sure if my warranty will cover this and honestly (although now I am being told they will do everything they can to try and get this covered under the warranty).   I am trying to tell myself my car will be ready when it is ready and if I have to pay out of pocket then that is what credit cards are for, right?  It will all work out right?  But you can see  how it sort of feels like things are piling up and I might want to hop on a plane these days?  I will reiterate now it becomes a positive affirmation, I can do this, I can work through this, life only gives us what we can handle right?

Now the 100 days of school party is over and my car is being worked on so breath right?  Wrong now my faculty head comes in with a copy of an observation she did when I was sick and had given an assessment; not actually delivering a lesson.   Until now she has showered me with positive feedback.  Not today!  On this day she piles it on, three paragraphs summarizing my failures at this particular juncture.  I haven't provided my students with an objective for the assessment (a multiplication chart isn't that self explanatory?).  I haven't provided clear expectations for what the students should do when they complete the assessment (I try to encourage them to free read but  they just weren't listening).  Finally, I do not have enough time on task and I need to ensure I am consistently implementing my behavior stop light. I can give you a list of justifications for all of these things but the reality was it was just a bad  day, I was sick, and I wasn't prepared for an observation and we all have bad days.  It just kind of hits me in the gut because I am already asking myself am I good teacher (Do not see Waiting for Superman because ever since I keep asking myself if I am a charismatic enough teacher;  I mean I didn't teach my kids the times table with a song did I?)?

Then we find out that grade 3 has a standards bases assessment coming up in March and we get a copy of the test to begin preparing our students for.  The test we are told will make up 20 % of their grades!  Are you kidding me?  A child can actually be held back in the third grade due to their performance on a standards based test.  I pour myself over these tests really beating myself up and wondering again teaching....am I good at it or do I do this profession justice or is this my calling?  Math is predominately word problems rather then calculations.  The science is  written in very scientific language.  The English test is pretty easy and I know I have prepared them for this.  But I feel like a big jerk hindering my girls because I decided to modify science and instead of using a  word like dissolve I have said, "goes away," or instead of observe I have said, "look" because in my heart  I think like a special education teacher.  I want them to get the concept and I want them to feel successful.  Have I hindered my girls because we don't drill vocabulary in science or even math.  In math my girls do not know things like, "how many all together" or "sum of" or "number placement (they can tell you what place the one is in but will be very confused with the terminology on the exam."   So again I feel like a failure!  So more cheese and chocolate and now I make a trip to Spinney's Liquor because Mrs. Leah grade 3 teacher needs some wine in her house again.

Don't get me wrong I have managed to create a very strong support system here and after collapsing in tears my good friend Sylvia from South Africa took me to starbucks and turned my tears into giggles.   My friend Carrie from my school reminded me how we all struggle with these same fleeting thoughts.  We come over here to the UAE to teach, with high hopes of turning these girls into grade level standard performers and instead they can carry on a very simple conversation in English and they are beginning to read and maybe even tell you why they like a book.  These moments when a girl comes to me and says in very broken English what she predicts will happen in a book and how she smiles when she is right and then when she tells me why she likes the book I know I am doing something.  I am teaching my girls to love literature in a country where the average citizen reads two pages of literature a year (according to The National).  Unfortunately these are not the results that my employer wants.  They want more and that can feel defeating at times.

Now add to this now prevailing feeling of failure and apparent spring fever in my girls which means they are as Sylvia  might say, "out of their trees," or even, "all over the show."  I am finding it really hard to handle them lately and am very concerned with my upcoming observation because the principal expects their behavior to be perfect when she observes.  Spring break is just two weeks away and I can see it over the horizon but unfortunately that means mapping booklets must once again be completed.  Which means for me 46 booklets, one for each girl, with 14 pages of standards to high light and decipher whether I believe they have completed such feats as "uses descriptive and/or  figurative language to support a point of view," or "model and describe equal groups of arrays and find their totals," or "Group materials according to whether they are solids, liquids, or gases," and did I mention this is all written in size 8 font.  Then once these are finished (only takes about 45 minutes per girl...that is all) then we get to enter the same information in a different format into the computer (which can be minimized to about 20 minutes per girl).  All of this while in the back of my mind we have to make sure our classroom will meet our employers standards because we  are expecting a visit from a group of cluster managers and administrators to evaluate our school and spend two days at our school looking through our assessment binders, our mapping booklets, lesson plans, and curriculum maps.  So no stress right?

So if you ask me at this moment if I love my job, love this experience, am I happy I might not want to answer because honestly I feel like this kind of pressure is what can lead to nervous breakdowns.  I am trying to chill out relax and not take everything so serious and trying to have the attitude that I can do this and it will make me a better teacher and all of that.  And when my girls bring me flowers and tell me they love me and draw me pictures and grin from ear to ear from an activity we are doing in the classroom it all feels right.  A night at the movies giggling with my husband about some of things that make me laugh so much in this country.  I need that.  Writing a blog and putting it all out there, maybe therapeutic.  Maybe I simply need some validity that I am strong and I am prevailing over some pretty challenging  weeks past and coming.  I need a reminder sometimes that teachers, we really are superwomen (and men) all around the globe and isn't about the summers off.

I want to end this blog on a little more positive note.  I am going to get through the next two weeks and I am going to come out on the other end feeling empowered and after spring break I will be refreshed and ready to get through the last trimester successful and I will come back next year knowing so much more and I just know things will be running a bit smoother with this reform and my job will get easier and I will start to know what to expect on some level and I know things will get easier.  After all I get to hop on a plane in just two weeks and go to Greece and see a good friend from college.

Michael has started taking classes online and they are going well and I am really proud of him.  Gavin is going to start nursery school soon which will be really good for everyone and he can socialize with other two year olds and three year olds which will be good for him too.