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.