A day in the life of an egg.

Eggs intrigue, perplex and amuse me. Today I actually feel like an egg. A fried egg to be precise. I love all types of eggs; scrambled, poached, Cadbury, omelet, florentine, white, hard-boiled, benedict, one eyed Sammie, you name it -I like it. However, my least favorite egg of all time is the fried egg. I think it is a terrible disservice and insult to the egg to fry it. In fact, as weird as I am, I do not particularly trust people who eat fried eggs. I also don't trust those who don't like chocolate but that is entirely another blog entry(how can you not like chocolate???!!).
Back to the egg;the fried egg that is. While I was living in NJ, we often went to the diner on weekends for breakfast after church and ordered eggs. I had to control myself not to stand up and scream when I heard people order fried eggs. Being the polite lady my parents brought me up to be, I stayed composed as possible yet sometimes sent out silent warning messages telepathically to those dining in close proximity that they were making a terrible mistegg, I mean mistake by ordering the fried egg. Once, I even tried to eat a fried egg and it tasted like plastic.
So why do I feel like a fried egg? let me explain. I start most days with a prayer thanking God for my life, family and friends and hope for those suffering and less fortunate. I also sometimes get a little self absorbed and desperately plea to make it through another day alive at school. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy teaching, there are moments of greatness but there are so many moments that just absolutely suck all the life out of me.
 When I arrive at school each morning, I feel fresh and "whole", ready to start the day. After we enter the classroom, we usually make a "cracking" start and a lot of learning takes place. Then the afternoon class arrives and I (the egg) begin to feel the hot sizzle of the pan. It is then that I have to remember every teaching strategy I have been taught and remain as focused as possible but it sometimes proves to be too difficult. Especially after a new student who has only been in my class for 2 months runs up and hugs me and the class bursts out in laughter and we cannot get settled again. Then twenty minutes later, this same student calls me a dog and I have to ask him to leave the room. It is then that I begin to realize the freshness is gone and I have began to "fry". I try so hard but on these type of afternoons I wonder what I am doing in this place that is failing to teach its male children to respect women. Thankfully, I have some boys who do show respect but there are too many that are so rude to me and it hurts my heart.
The silver lining is that I am made of strong stuff. I know people look at me and think I am fragile but those that REALLY know me and my story understand how I am like the egg. I have a strong shell that protects me and everyday I am a little bit stronger and always continue to search for the humor in everything.
 As fried as I am this evening, I know that tomorrow, I will be whole again and focused on the fact that our class flower (an amaryllis) is about to bloom. The students are incredibly excited to see the progress this plant has made in the past week and one student even asked me to "make it open", to which I replied " We have to wait for it to open on its own".

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34

Over and out:-)
Mai x

btw-my favorite egg is poached medium well

The good, the bad, and the funny!

Sometimes you smile, sometimes you cry and the best feeling is laughing after all the tears have run out.

It's funny to me how you can have a totally awesome day and then boom you have a horrible day and it just sucks!

The good day:
A few weeks ago I had an amazing day. Well, the whole day wasn't perfect but it was as close to awesome as it can get when you teach all boys in the desert. I ALWAYS am so critical of myself that I often fail to see the good things. I had a formal observation that day and went into it without a care in the world. Everyone had rushed to sign up for their preferred observation time and of course being the slow poke I am, I got stuck with the first slot on the first day of the week......To make a long story short, it went well. I Appreciated the feedback I received and had no idea my head of faculty thought I was such a strong teacher. I feel I have struggled for so long in this competitive field of teaching, that I have failed to notice that I actually get it right sometimes. So the ultimate compliment that blew me away, was when I was asked if it would be ok if a group of other English teachers could come and observe my lesson in an effort to share best practice! I am kinda of freaked out but extremely flattered!

The bad day:
Then you have those bad days.....and here in the middle east, they are not just bad, they are BAAADD! I haven't cried at school here at all this year. I cried today! It was the last period, and we were playing' sleeping lions'. This is a game where everyone goes to sleep and another child is assigned as a tiger who walks around and tries to make the others laugh without touching the other students. Well, one student started growling while he was supposed to be 'asleep' and then basically the whole class turned into a jungle of wild animals screeching, running around, throwing pencils and howling. I turned off the lights and sternly asked the students to freeze but they ignored me. As a result, I went to get my Arabic co-teacher(we share 2 classes) and explained to him that I needed his assistance to translate immediately. He saw I was fighting back tears and he told me to go take a 10 minute break and proceeded to combine both our classes in his room. I had a good cry in the bathroom for 3 minutes but was embarrassed beyond belief when one of the cleaning staff saw me in the hall and gave me this sad look of pity. I'm not a robot, I am human, I do the damned best I can do but sometimes you get so run down from trying so hard and you just have to let it out. Luckily I recover quickly. We had a boring old meeting scheduled after school and I thanked my co-teacher for his help. When I asked  " Mr. Ali, what is the best piece of advice you can give me for managing the afternoon class?" he replied: " it's very simple......just glue a picture of me to your back!" I broke into laughter and replied " and you should NOT glue a picture of me to your back!"