back to blogging

Happy 2012! It’s been a while since I’ve blogged and I’ve got no excuse except to say that I’ve been busy! So much time has passed since my last post, I’m not really sure where to begin. Christmas was fun; I went back to be with Sal and his family who welcomed me graciously into their home and it was fun to see family and friends from my old teaching job and church. A lot of people asked me how Dubai was or Saudi Arabia and I had not even been to those places!  On a more somber note, my Grandma Kay passed away during the holidays and I miss her dearly. She was such a special, kind, and STRONG woman that I will never forget. She was a teacher, a soloist and a fashionista who enjoyed life. We shared a special obsession with butter tarts, and sour cream glazed donuts that no one can really understand. She is also the only person who really complemented me on my driving skills when I had my learners permit and after my parents couldn’t drive with me anymore after a few major fights. One fond memory for me is when she accompanied me to visit Trent University when I was visiting Universities and trying to decide where to apply. My parents had just relocated to NJ and I was a shy, overwhelmed, lost 18 year old who had no clue what to do with my life. My Grandma was there for me during those tough few years and I think I was there for her. During the visit to Trent, the tour guide was very sweet and actually asked my grandma what she planned to major in! She laughed her infamous hearty laugh and said that she wasn’t applying but I knew she was truly flattered by the question.

So now I’m back in Abu Dhabi and loving my life here. I have thrown myself into joining clubs and enjoy dragon boat racing, book clubs and am hoping to take a few cooking classes and my favorite new organic restaurant ‘Jones The Grocer’. I also am truly thankful for the friends I have made here. I spend a lot of time with 2 lovely ladies who are so funny, down to earth, generous, honest, great listeners, and most of all genuine friends. Having a great support network here is vital so it has made life wonderful.

School is going well. It has its good days and its bad days. I lost my voice a week ago from over using it in the classroom and the doctor has told me I need to keep my voice at the same level. I have a hard time with that when I witness another child punch, spit or slap another in the hallway or the classroom. What am I supposed to do? Whisper to them! Ha! As if that would work!!!! The boys really respond well to the reward system I have set up in the classroom. They have to focus and be quiet with their eyes looking at me in order to achieve points for their group. If they achieve enough points then they can use the points to play 10 minutes of basketball at the end of the day.

Today I had my first haircut in Abu Dhabi and it was a really cool experience. I went to the salon that my friend Lindsay went to and had my hair cut and styled by this nice fellow from Syria. He cut hair with FLARE! I mean the way he used the scissors, hair brush and the blowdryer was truly an art form! At one point he was flipping the hair dryer around …..tres cool!

So now its getting late and the school week starts again tomorrow. On the agenda for this week is educating the boys about brushing their teeth. The school nurse asked us to practice singing a song and present during the assembly. It should be fun! We will also learn about fractions and continue practicing the rules and routines of the classroom.

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:)

Mr.Maila wears an Abaya

As we pulled  into the school parking lot there was a sea of boys in white kandoras wheeling their backpacks behind them and all eyes were on us, the female teachers, as they stared probably wondering what we were doing there. Little did they know we were there to teach them! Let the fun begin.....
Our Head of Faculty had thought of every last detail including the etiquette of shaking hands with the male principal. Many men do not extend a hand to females as a sign of respect, in western culture it would be offensive but here it is respectful NOT to shake hands or touch a female who is not your spouse.   We waited for a signal from the principal and when he folded his hands behind his back we knew he respected us but that we wouldn't be shaking hands with him.
The school is wonderful. The staff are all male and there is one female nurse who is very sweet. On the first day we toured the school and got to attend the morning assembly which has become the highlight of my morning routine. I thoroughly enjoy the chaos just prior to the assembly. I get a kick out of watching the kids run around and toss their sandals in the air and then the student band begins to play and each student finds his place in line to begin the morning presentations, sing the UAE national anthem, exercise and recite from the Koran.
We also had the opportunity to observe a few teachers teach their classes. All are excellent teachers. The next step was to attend the staff meeting and stand up and introduce ourselves to our 50 male coworkers.......intimidating, nahhhhh! well ok maybe a teeny bit :) 
As I write this, I have been teaching 2nd grade for 2 weeks now! Oh and yes I wear an abaya to school each day ( I proudly own 4). The time has flown and I enjoy mostly every minute of it, especially when the kids faces light up when we use the puppets to model language and conversation and of course especially when their hand shoots up in air and my ears start to ring with the sound of " mister mister mister!!!" and " Mr.Mailaaaaaa" I'm not quite sure if they will ever get the Mrs. part right but it sure makes for a good giggle every day! Lord knows we surely all need to laugh a lot more each day so let them continue to call me Mr. if it means I get to smile and laugh a little each day because of it. Did I mention that one student in my class wore gloves today?! Yes gloves, he was cold.

An adventure within an adventure

Today my friend Mandy and I received our new teaching placement. We were thrilled to find out that we will be team teaching and will be The FIRST EVER female teachers in an all male school. We are both equally excited that we will be living in the city of Abu Dhabi. I hear the school is fantastic and we will be meeting with our HOF later today for coffee to find out more info. It will be an amazing, challenging, fulfilling experience which I just never imagined but am embracing with happiness and joy in my heart.
We are part of history in the making; part of the education reform includes feminizing the primary schools in AD.