"It was the best of times; It was the worst of times"

Welp, it's the end of an era...an era of sweat, blood, and tears. It is 12:35 at night here in RAK, about 33 hours before I leave this sweatshop backwater camel jockey country behind for good. I'm at school, yet again, because I got them to allow facebook on my computer for the last week, having no internet at home anymore.

How can I sum up this experience?

In my time I have not blown up my cooker, destroyed my fridge, caused any floods, or been traumatized by my washing machine. As far as I know, I haven't made a single student cry. I haven't given anyone the verbal barrage they so desperately deserve (FYI - Monty, Karen, Jacquie, and Melissa, you all made the short list)...although email is a wonderful thing... I haven't made any enemies (at least not actively). I've lost about 30 pounds of good ol' American flab (but unfortunately have another 30 to go...) I have managed not to blow my top over the UAE's human rights violations (such as making NRI's do hard labor in 50C weather, teaching their sons about sex via prostitutes, or imprisoning maids unfortunate enough to get pregnant because they were raped by their sponsors)...but only because I know there are things I can do nothing about and can't think about too much because they will make me so upset I might do something illegal.

On the other hand, I haven't gone desert camping, I never saw the Empty Quarter, I have added NO new recipes to my repertoire, and my Arabic has improved only by 4 words: left, right, how much, and yes (thank you, Socrates). And I have sleepwalked through a lot of this year.

On yet another hand (I may be turning into Shiva...) I managed to avoid some of my mistakes made in Bahrain. I had friends here. I didn't buy a car. I think I might have actually improved as a teacher during this year. There were times that I felt really unsure of myself, but the last couple of units I've taught were good, and I think I'm finally starting to understand the PYP. I wanted Stephanie to be a more personable administrator - she's very different from John or Kit, although since she was let go, I've seen a much more human side to her that makes me wonder if she didn't sacrifice that warmth for the sake of being "professional", but at the end of the day, the tension I felt because I wasn't completely sure where I stood with her did keep me pushing myself to understand the curriculum and how to work with the teachers.

I'm still processing it all. I wish I'd had the internet at home this week - I've forgotten things I was going to write in here, this was never meant to be one big cumulative report. I'm sure I'll remember some of those bits and bring them up later, but for now, let me finish with yet another Wicked quote:

"Who can tell if I've been changed for the better? (I believe I have been changed for the better.) Because I knew you I have been changed for good."

Masalaam, RAK. Hallo, London!

Hard Time

I have 64 days left here. Today was one of those days that made me say, "Good riddance!" It started when our secretary told me that I couldn't hide stuff behind the display board - apparently my buckets and apron peeking out do not spell, "Professional." Well, I can understand the apron, but give me an effing break - I have to teach the KG's in their own rooms, I haven't been given a cart to move everything around on, and I don't have the time to run back and forth to my classroom between sessions, so what the hell do they want me to do? I've been about as flexible as a Chinese contortionist while they figure out exactly what they want me to do about the KG's, so I got a little peeved over a complaint this asinine. Then there's the fact that I spent the last 30 minutes of the day with 2H while their teacher was out - not that huge a deal until I realized that I'd switched today's duty with their teacher yesterday because of their field trip. And I didn't want to switch because it was the best day of the cafeteria calendar, Fajita Day, but I did it anyways, and now I needed my lunch period to finish prepping something I didn't have time for in the morning. Argh!! The logical thing would be to work a little harder and get ahead of the game so these things wouldn't phase me, but I rarely operate under the rules of logic.

An ironic thing occurred to me this morning...when I first decided against music as a profession, way back in my innocent college days, I thought I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher. I had all these talents - music and art and storytelling - and I thought that teaching kinde would be great because it would let me use them all. Yeah, well, then I volunteered in a kindergarten class, and I realized how much work it was, and how much responsibility you have for their learning, and I ran screaming into art education. Yet here I am, after five years of teaching, and not only has more of it been as a kindergarten teacher than an art teacher, but I'm about to go and do it to myself AGAIN. And I'm sort of looking forward to it. Maybe GDA warped me in more ways than I think...

and in the eyes of a jackal i say kaaaaaa-

BOOM!

I have a strange feeling of detachment about being back in RAK, about the rest of this year. More on that another day. We had the grand inquisition in for two weeks before the holidays, right? Well, it turns out it was a good, old-fashioned witch hunt in all but name. We had a meeting first thing this morning, before our PD day (teacher-inservice for my American readers), to discuss the "results" of the inquest. And it was scathing. The Mighty Inquisitor was NOT IMPRESSED, she disapproved of us in lots of different ways, but the point of the exercise was they got our principal sacked. Our much-loved, odd little Aussie principal. Don't get me wrong, folks, he's got his faults, but at the end of the day, HE is not the problem with this school (I'm going to pass on naming the problem til another day).

Anyways, there was hardly a teacher in the room that wasn't gutted. The Grand Inquisitor will be taking over as of the 15th of April (which gives me another reason to call it Evilness Day). I'll talk about this more later. I've got another caffeine headache. Apparently I picked the wrong week to quit.

You Turn the Screws

I don't really suffer from stress...I'm more of a carrier...but now I'm stressed. Sheikh Rattlen Roll wants to know that we are spending his money wisely, so he has called in the Grand Inquisition - an audit team led by this harpy who last time she came around got the old principal sacked.

I bet she eats art teachers for breakfast.

Anyways, my stress level over this visit has been mounting throughout the last month. That sick day I took last week? It wasn't a total sick day...I actually went in for a couple of hours because my head of school had a brainwave about my schedule and I was supposed to discuss it with her. This is the person responsible for pulling me out of the KG classes after three months, and who, a month later, informed me that I needed a certain number of contact hours in my schedule...a number I was no longer achieving because I was no longer teaching KG and didn't want to take any more time away from the classroom teachers. And this individual told me pretty much point blank that if I didn't make up the hours and the auditors wanted to know why they needed a lower primary art teacher, she would have to concede that they didn't. Well, my Head's brainwave was this: I'm going to be teaching KG again. Both year groups. Every week.

Ayayay.

So in addition to trying to get my classroom sorted out and my schedule sorted out I've been trying to figure out what the hell I'm going to do with them and trying to make it look good enough so that if the Harpy stops in while I'm teaching, she goes, "Oooh! Aaah!" And I have not been entirely sure that was going to happen. So I went in today - a SATURDAY, for the second week in a row, what is to become of me??? - to try and figure things out. And this is what I came up with:

I'm going to do something that looks cool. F*ck the PYP. The Harpy doesn't give a rat's ass about PYP.

Not that I actually feel much better. I've still got the Sunday Night Panic in a pretty bad way, and am hoping Socrates will actually follow through and go on a walk with me tonight, because I need my mind taken off this. He did a pretty good job of talking me down before I left the school. Here's something that I sometimes forget - there are two kinds of people in the world: those that blame themselves, and those that blame others. He reminded me of this by telling me to turn it back on my Head if my teaching is brought into question, and tell the Harpy that I have been messed around quite a bit in the last couple of months. See, I am one of those that always blames themselves. I feel like I have yet to become comfortable with the PYP, and I am not satisfied with the work my students have done this year. I like to have control, I like things to look good, and I have had to give up a large portion of my control because the PYP is supposed to be student-driven. Meh. But there are other factors that go into the equation, and that's something I need to remember.

More to the point, as my friend Poonam has pointed out, "It is in Lord's hands." I need to have a little more faith here. It would not be the end of the world if RAKESS decided my services were no longer needed. It is a great big world out there, and if I can't get a job with an international school, I can always get a job teaching English, or I can go back to the states, and in a couple of years, I'd have the experience I'd need to move up to a DODDS school. Whatever happens in the next two weeks, I know that my Heavenly Father will take care of me.

There she goes....

It's 4 p.m. in RAK (Ras Al Khaimah), and I'm at an internet cafe not TOO terribly far from the a.p.t. I actually wrote a nice, inaugural blog during one of my bored moments, but that's on my laptop, which I'm not willing to cart around in 50 degree heat, especially now that Ramadan's on, and my go-to WiFi connection, Coffee and Cream, won't be opening til after sunset. So you're getting this piece of crap instead. Suck it up.

Since this is the inaugural post, I should probably begin by giving you the lowdown on life here. RAK's the northernmost emirate (governing structure...kinda comparable to a state or province), and...hmmm, can the term backwater be used? Maybe not quite in its purest form, but I'll use it anyways. There are lots of new buildings without power, more than one mall operating at half occupancy, with another, BIGGER one in the works (both things fallout from the economic crisis, to my understanding), rubble - from what, I don't know - and at least a couple of dusty back alleys without lights. I know because when I decided to seek out food last night, I ended up meandering down a couple of them.

On the other hand, there are really quite lovely things here, too. I live in a building called the Sunrise. Or Mairaid. I'm not sure why it has two names, but I like calling it the Sunrise. It's pretty much going to be party central for the teachers at RAKESS this year, I think, because a ton of us and what seems like most of the British curriculum teachers live there. It's also - HALLELUJAH! - a ten minute's walk from the beach (which I will not be swimming at because...okay, it does still very occasionally suck to be a white woman), and the beautiful Hilton beach resort, which I'll be joining. I have my own apartment, which is probably three times the size of my place in Korea, so there's still a fairly good chance I may lose things. I've dedicated one of my rooms as my belly dance studio, cleared out most of the furniture and bought two ten-dollar mirrors (so far) for it. We had an introduction activity today at RAKESS, and my partner mentioned that I had an exotic habit, and that I was looking for other people who might be interested in belly dancing, which is not entirely true - if you know me, you know I'm more than happy to go it on my own, no matter what "it" may be. But three other ladies came up to me throughout the rest of the day and said that they had also danced, or were interested in dancing, and after experiencing what it was like to be part of a community of dancers, in Omaha, and at the end of my time in Seoul, I'm actually excited about creating one here in RAK. Dubai, eat your heart out!

I got to go to church on Friday, and that was good. I was a little worried about being assigned to the Sharjah ward. I had been told that there were lots of singles in Dubai, and as nice as married people are, they don't make what you would call, "Ideal Partners in Crime." They have families and stuff. So I was happy to meet some girls there - one of whom looks like a taller version of Diana (I had to restrain myself from boinging her curls), and seemed to find my mix of sarcasm and snideness agreeable. I may still consider Dubai once I've got a car.

The teachers are a really quite amazing mix. Everyday I get to listen to accents from all over the world - Aussies, Saffers, Indians, Brits from all over the isles, a few Americans, and...ugh. Canadians. Whose nationalistic pride I still don't totally understand. Maybe next year. There are lots of single ones too...yeah, that's a preoccupation of mine. To understand it you'd have to know my history in Bahrain, and that's too long a story to go into right now. Suffice it to say that in spite of the fact that I'm a fiercely independent person, and that my friends have actually been known to drive me NUTS (hello, Christa), at the end of the day you need them to put it all in perspective, to help you laugh at things or to sympathize with you over the frustration. In the end, it was not the crappy school or the atrocious student behavior or whatever that made me leave Bahrain...it was that lack of friends.

Last thing for now - Ramadan. It started yesterday, and it annoys me now, almost as much as it annoyed me three years ago. But I'm trying to think of it as a forced opportunity to work on some of my less wonderful habits. Which are coming along alright just by virtue of leaving the states...and possibly something deeper. I already feel better than I have in a very long time, like a layer of myself has peeled away leaving behind a softer, newer thing in its wake.