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.