Finally Settling In

Hello everyone by way of Bahrain.  I think it has been a couple of weeks since my last post and of course quite a bit has happened in the world since then.  Yes, there has been some protesting here but there has never been any violence, and life has for the most part gone on as usual.  The vibe that I have gotten from my students is that the people here really enjoy Western culture and the people but are not big fans of our government.  I have zero intentions of going political on this blog but wanted help you understand what the general mood is here.

                My classes have continued to feel like a whirlwind but things should start to slow down as I have an IB conference next weekend.  I am hoping it will give me some more specifics on what the outcome should be for the students and some direction for my lesson plans.  Oh yeah, did I mention it’s in Dubai?  Yeah that should be pretty terrible but my cross to bare. 

                One more piece of shop talk before I can get to the more adventurous aspects of the past two weeks is that basketball season started here last week.  Now we only practice twice a week and then for under two hours which is so not American!  So we won’t have a lot of time, but we have a bunch of good kids that will show up and work hard.  My coaching career has not began with flashes of John Wooden.  My greatest hurdle to this point has been the coaches insistence on speaking in Arabic to the players.  To start the first practice he gave an opening spiel and I am hearing all of this nothing and then Michael Jordan and then a bunch more of intense nothingness, but very intense.  So of course I am nodding my head like yep, uh huh, that’s what I think too, until he turns to me and says, “Do you have anything to add coach?”  My first thought was, well considering I have no clue what you said, nope.  But then I like blacked out and gave the, this is your senior year speech and prayed I didn’t double up on too much what was covered during my intense bobbleheading.  Our first two practices went well and we have our first game on Sunday already!  In order to get a little work the varsity usually plays the teachers before the first game.  Now I am by no means an NBA super star but I am like Yao Ming here, everyone is up to my shoulders.  During the game itself nothing too exciting happened but we will just that my team made up of mostly former drama stars beat a team with two of Bahrain’s National team players……..ballin!

                After feeling pretty good about our basketball skills, all new teachers headed over to the complex of the woman that recruited us to Bahrain.  This place had it all!  Bowling alley? Check. Billiards? Yup. Sauna? You know it. Outdoor pool on the top floor filled with what I am pretty sure is the only cold water in Bahrain?  Heaven. This was a great way for an old man to rest up his muscles after running around too long with boys that are too in shape. 

                The next morning brought the fish market, and I was not prepared for this.  I love seafood as much as anyone I know and Bahrain has a farmers market committed to that love.  However, it is inside and I have never smelled such distinctive smells.  All of these smells which I found to not be completely ideal after a night of refreshments.  All fish tang aside, this place was amazing!  There were so many varieties of different fish that we just had to walk around awhile to get a feel for prices and what we even wanted.  By the end we ended up with jumbo shrimp and some squid (not calamari, like whole squids).  After you have finished making you selections and paid, you take your bags to a room connected to the market, where you can find the real men.  There is a U-shaped table of guys just hacking at fish and peeling shrimp like crazy.  They are all covered in scales and skin and look like they were doing it with their eyes closed (which impressed/terrified me).  I had one kilo of shrimp which they of course peeled in like two minutes, where it would have taken me 30 for sure.  Perhaps the most potent reason to remember my market experience clings to my sandals.  After three washing it is still a very noticeable addition to the ambiance of my room.

                I apologize that there was no real rhyme or reason to this week’s blog besides keep you all abreast of what’s going on here.  I hope it finds you all well and I look forward to hearing from you.  Shukran, for reading my blog and I hope to have another blog about Dubai next week.

First Week of School

This just in, I have survived my first week of teaching in my own classroom! I had my ups and downs but I think the biggest thing I will take out the first week is that I can handle the class load that I have been given and (with some work) be pretty darn good at it.  Now at MKS students are able to change their schedules for academic reasons for the first week or two.  Since one academic reason is the teacher, I have learned you need to be a jerk the first week and have manageable small classes ;).  However my classes have swelled somewhat but the principal kept them manageable.  Another change that came about the first week is there were enough requests for my IB History 11 class that they were able to open it up.  There is good and bad with this in that I love history and will now drop one sociology class, the bad is that I now have five classes to prep for (four IB) and only one prep still.  At this point I would like to shift my whiny woe is me writing back to some more fun, upbeat and interesting topics that I imagine you checked this blog out for!

I may have mentioned it in a previous blog but I have become involved in some extracurricular activities with the school that I know will be the basis of some blogs moving forward.  Perhaps predictably I have agreed to be the men’s varsity assistant basketball coach!  I am not completely sure how the season is set up and how long a season it is, but I am super pumped to beat up on some of my students!  I have heard that our school is usually really good and went undefeated the last year we played.  I did word that last sentence right as a couple of years ago an athlete of ours started an all-out brawl and men’s sports at MKS were suspended for the rest of the year and basketball for the next!  All of that aside all of the players I have met are great kids and students and will represent our school appropriately.  I have also been told that two of our kids play with the team’s national team which is really neat. 

Now I am sure that there are few of you who are surprised to hear that I am going to be helping out with coaching, but why would I stop there?  Just to make sure I am in over my head I have accepted a position as the IB CAS coordinator.  CAS in the IB program makes sure that students are well rounded and involved outside of the classroom.  Each student is required to have 50 hours of activity (sports) 50 of creative (drama/art) and 50 of service.  I will have a couple of my colleagues track the students’ progress, log their hours, and help setting up service projects (there should be some exciting activities to follow in this moving forward).  The IB students here are so fun to work with and will do a lot of good in a lot of communities, more to come on this as I get deeper into it.

Finally I want to share a first for me that may not even be specific to the Bahrain but it rocked my world.  Now if you are not aware I like to keep my hair pretty high and tight (unless I sporting the Mohawk) and up until about two weeks ago did so with the help of my amazing girlfriend.  After being here for a couple of weeks I was starting to look a little homely and needed some help.  On Friday, an elder statesman in the school invited me to his barber yesterday and it rocked my facial hair off!  After my typical number two clippers all over I was happy and ready to get up but Joe told me that it wasn’t over yet.  Next the barber trimmed up my beard and gave me an old fashion single blade shave (that’s a first for me!).  For icing on the cake he used a warm wet towel to clean my face and hair; then gave me a scalp, neck, and back message!  Needless to say I might be needing a haircut after a particularly long day at work.

It only cost as much as a haircut in the States!

Another week came and went and I continue to miss everyone at home, but have definitely been reminded why I needed to go on this trip.  It took my 28 years to make the first huge leap of my life to grow as a person.  Now within one week I have taken on tasks previously out of character and experienced a haircut that has made me hungry to see what other simple pleasures are out there to be discovered.  I hope this blog finds every healthy and happy and I will try to leave you with some piece of Arabic that I pick up.  Inshallah, was easy to pick up from the students after the first homework assignment was given and means (God willing).  So I miss you all and will write again next week, inshallah J.  

First Week and Day of School

            We last left off with mystery and uncertainty on my journey.  Start off blog number two I want to assure everyone that I am still here and unpacked my bags the next morning.  Getting some sort of stability in knowing where I was going to stay and that it was nice, clean, and safe gave me the excitement back that I got onto the plane with.  I was also nervous to meet my roommate here, but after talking to him for five minutes and finding out he had just graduated from UMM I knew we would get along just fine (He even watches the same cartoons as me, yup, we’re cool).

 To start my first day in Bahrain the school’s welcoming committee had some events planned for us.  Our first stop was to see the King’s camels.  Now when I say camels I don’t mean one or two, which to me is a lot of camels, I mean hundreds!  I guess he gets them as gifts but come on people he six hundred, what is so special about the next one?  I did not realize how huge they were though, and nasty.  I saw some ugly camels with the attitude to match, but I suppose the “Kings” camels get a little spoiled. 

After the camels we went to one of the many shopping malls here.  There are a lot of the same stores as in the U.S. with signs that read in both English and Arabic.  I was able to get a cell phone here that looks like it’s from 1999, but it’s cheap and allows me to contact other teachers.  I also forgot how often you have to charge those puppies, one time in a week and it still had two bars! 

We ended our tours by going to the souk, which is like a super market in alleys.  This was crazy busy with people and naturally I sweat……a lot.  But they had every knock off item a tourist could dream of.  Some of the fun local stuff they had were different herbs and spices as well as a number of really good, inexpensive tailors.  At some point I would like to get a dress shirt made there and have something embroidered.   Since the school has stopped showing us around I have been less adventurous about town largely in part because it is always so hot!  I have started to sweat less but it still isn’t pretty. The locals say that in a month or so it should cool off and make getting around a lot easier.

As may have gathered from the title of the post we have also started school today at Modern Knowledge School.  I teach sociology, IB History, 11^th grade IB Theory of Knowledge, and 12^th grade T.o.K.  I spent a good part of my first week here in a panic as I wasn’t even sure what IB meant except the students were going to be very smart and the curriculum was going to be rigorous.  After finally settling in and learning more about the program I have come to be excited about the opportunity.  I recently found out that the school is even going to fly me to Dubai this month for a weekend to get certified!  World’s tallest building and indoor skiing here I come! 

The school itself is older and my classroom, like most, is snug.  I do have all technology minus a Smartboard though and a really strong A/C  J.  With my A/C cranked and classroom set up, the students finally came today.  I was of course a little nervous at first but it didn’t take long to get into the swing of things.  The class periods are set up in block fashion that you have four ninety minute periods on alternating A and B days.  I had been used to forty-five minute periods so planning for the extra time on the first day was a trick.  The students here like to test your limits and the administrators had told us to be prepared not to do much the first day, they were right.  Some families were still on holiday, lots of student’s haven’t bought their books, and almost all students showed up with nothing but their schedule, a pen, and a smile (which is good because the latter is a course requirement of mine).  After period four I was super tired of talking but not fatigued in general which I think is a good thing since I didn’t get a prep today but will get one tomorrow. So not only did I survive my first day but I felt like it was a good day and look forward to doing it again tomorrow.

I don’t think there is anything else to cover that I haven’t or cannot later.  I do remember saying I will add pictures and it is my goal to buy a new cord by the end of the week.  I’ll just some up the week by saying that although there may be cultural differences around the world, kids are kids, and teaching is teaching, and I love both of them.  Thanks everyone who left comments last week and I look forward to reading from you all perhaps even more then you do from me!