view of the alps from the plane leaving Milan

black licorice and interesting statues!

prociutto I managed to smuggle back! ha ha. I think Sal and his dad were impressed but they don't pronouce the 'o' in the word. Learned something new:)

Best cannoli I ever had....yum

Cappuccino's with new friend Rafel in Milan station Centrale:)

Smiles are universal:)

Reality check : smiles are universal!

This past week the surrealism I had been feeling since I began working in Abu Dhabi gave way to Reality.
It hit me hard when the deadline of completing report cards snuck up on me. I felt a bit of a struggle to complete the grading process in time. I got confused while grading since there are 5 Mohammed's and 6 abdullah's and 4 salem's split between my 2 classes. I am still working on remembering each students name. Luckily I have made giant name tags which are taped to their desks and that helps me remember them.
I had one challenging day when I was trying to solve some technical issues with the grading system and the vice principal was helping me. I was sitting sitting in his office sorting out the technical issues when he asked me "why don't you ever say good morning to me?" I nearly died of embarrassment. We had been told in orientation that we were to say good morning each and every day to our admin even when they were busy we were told to just walk into their office. The thing is sometimes the admin team are nowhere to be found! Or they are in a deep intense conversation with 5 other men.
In the end I apologized profusely explaining that I had felt very shy to interrupt him when he was speaking to others when all of the sudden I notice the corners of his mouth begin to twitch and he smiles. At that point I looked into his eyes and saw a glimmer of amusement.....he was joking!!!!! I was so relieved but still slightly embarrassed.
So in conclusion, the reports got done (thank you for coming to my rescue Chris) the classroom is now solely mine and we had a celebratory lunch buffet for a few teachers who had a baby, second wife and another who bought a new Lexus and I felt for the first time that I was right where I was supposed to be.
Ok I know you are all dying to know what the lunch buffet entailed so I will devote my next post to that. I mean who wouldn't want to hear about that? It was a lunch I will never forget. Probably because I realized how comfortable i felt, even being the only lady teacher that particular day in a room of 50 kind male teachers sitting on the floor eating with our bare hands....

picture update

Hi there, I have had a really strange week. this has been the week of ooopsies!

Anyway here are some more pictures!

Happy National Day UAE!

My two new amazing and talented friends Susan and Sarah taught me this song last week which has been stuck in my head every day. It goes like this: " I love the UAE, the UAE is my home." I mentioned the song idea to my teaching partner and we both thought it would be fun to teach the students in our classes this song. We made it into a competition between the table groups to see who could sing the loudest and it was a lot of fun:)

I don't know if I mentioned this already but we have two classes of second grade students. The first section of 25 boys comes to our classroom for English, Math, and Science for 3 periods from 7:30-9:45, then we have a 20 minute lunch break ( thats right folks a 20 minute lunch break at 9:45 a.m.) followed by 3 more periods with the other section of second grade students. We also receive a 40 minute prep period each day. The students go home at 1:05 p.m. and we stay for staff meetings and professional development. The staff at my school are so frIendly and always willing to help. Each grade has a "grade head" who is in charge of scheduling team meetings and working together to develop a lesson plan. I thrive in team planning and I love how we can collaborate and work together as a team with absolutely no BS. The refreshing thing about working with an all male staff is that there is no cattiness or gossip which I absolutely hate.

Yesterday all my furniture arrived from IKEA and I officially moved into my apartment. I felt very blessed to receive a text message from a friend yesterday morning offering to help me move out of the hotel and into my apartment. It was truly an answer to my prayers. If you know me well you would know that I am very shy about asking others to help me. I am a classic avoider and I get very anxious when I can't do everything independently. As my eleventh grade physics teacher said in a PT conference " Maila just doesnt like to bother others". Nicola, my friend from England was a wonderful help carrying some bags and helping me unpack. I usually move at a snails pace when it comes to unpacking but she helped me get my clothes all arranged nicely in the closet and even helped me make my new bed!

Afterwards, I treated her to lunch at a fun little quirky and charming restaurant right next to my building called "Shakespeares". The food was amazing and the cakes and sweets looked not too shabby either. I highly recomment the carribean salad with jerk chicken.

I was pretty much pooped out after all that and Nicola and I parted ways and agreed to meet up later. I had been looking forward to the UAE car parade since I arrived in the middle east and managed to convince Bina(a new friend from the Tdot) and Nicola to come with. After a very long cab ride and a few wrong turns, we ended up on YAS island by gate 25 at the Formula 1 Circuit to watch the national day car parade. At one point in the cab, Bina mentioned " I think we are IN the parade." we all laughed and realized we kinda were and hopped out, paid the fare and began getting sprayed with silly string and foam.

Many Emirates will decorate their cars elaborately for National day and this year being the 40th was no exception. There were cars wrapped with glitter, flags, and giant teddy bears. There was even one car with a giant flatscreen TV on the roof ! Kids were standing waving flags out the sun roof and windows of the car and there a lot of backfire. Families were picknicking on the side of the road and people were dancing in the streets. It was a lot of fun! Afterwards we went to the Park Inn Hotel on YAS to use the ladies room and when we discovered it was happy hour and the hotel had a gorgeous patio which had a million dollar view of the beach and poolside dining...we stayed and enjoyed a few drinks at the lovely Mexican bar. We will be returning soon as it is my new favorite place in AD. Sorry Holiday Inn!

It's hard to believe that I have been here for one month now. I have experienced so much that I never dreamed of. I feel like I'm learning to enjoy life again and have grown into a more confident happy individual.

My Top 12 moments in AD:

1. Singing and eating at Lebanese Flower

2. Beach day with Heather at the corniche

3. watching the National Day car parade

4. finding and feeling peace at my new church

5. Bible study at Dorian's

6. Spending Time with new friends (you know who you are!)

7. 1st day of School and getting stared at all day long!

8. Discovering Park Inn patio on Yas

9. visiting the women's union and eating my first date!

10. riding the bus for the first time!

11. seeing the rooftop pool on my building

12. Finally getting paid:)