Shenanigan-ing the Fifth: Shelter from the Storm

We'd been playing pussyfoot with the rain since our second day in Istanbul.  People kept apologizing for the weather, explaining that it was usually warmer this time of year.  Little did they realize that we hailed from Mongolia - their idea of "cold" is a warm spring day to us.  Also, it was nice to not have to fight our kids over wearing the hoodies on account of it being too hot.  That said, I have to tell you that when the weather really did catch up to us, we felt it.  The fifth day of the trip we were scheduled to visit Topkapi Palace, and while the weather held long enough for me to go ahead of everyone and buy tickets...

...just FYI, apparently those 85 lira 3-day museum passes can sell out.  As in, like, everywhere.  And that sucks...

...but by the time we'd entered the second court and started to look around rain was coming down.  This was such a bummer I hardly had words for it, because the last time I visited Topkapi Palace, it was a gorgeous autumn day, and the lovely grounds really deserve to be strolled through at a leisurely pace, rather than quickly as you shiver from building to building.  Still, a palace is a palace, and I think everyone enjoyed seeing the fantastic architecture...just not as much as they would have on a sunny day.

While Time Lady stayed back with the majority of our students who were getting their fill of shopping at their second gift shop of the day, I went ahead to buy tickets for the Istanbul Archaeology Museum (since we now needed tickets for every attraction we went to) with one of my tenth grade boys (who brought a ukulele on the trip and thus earned the moniker "Ukulele Man") who had a great sense of direction and liked to be ahead of everyone else.  The main group spent so long shopping that we bought the tickets and were half the way back to the gate before they caught up to us.  Since we were all cold from the rain we decided to go to lunch down the hill from the museum first, and we all ended up eating at The Han, where most of the kids got to enjoy another meal seated on cushions (not to mention some good food).  Afterwards we went to the museum where we were THRILLED to be able to skip the ticket line and go straight in.

Now, this is where I kinda lost it a little.  We'd already "lost" kids a couple of times - once because they forgot to check in before wandering off, once because "Can I goof around?" means something different to me than it does to one of my students.  And I had not yelled at anyone, even though at one point I promised to murder one of them, because we were on vacation and I didn't want anyone - myself included - to have a shitty time.  As we were getting ready to leave the first building of the museum, a few of the girls were straggling, and when they and Time Lady caught up to the main body of the group, we came up one girl short.  And I cracked.  It's a big enough museum that you aren't going to be able to find someone just by looking, so I waited out in the cold rain while Time Lady went on in with the rest, and I started feeling sorry for myself and got pissed off for a couple of reasons, so that 10 minutes later, when I made a lucky guess and went in looking for our girl, I couldn't actually talk to her, and had to go off by myself for a few minutes once she was with the rest to cry a little.  It didn't ruin the rest of the trip for me, but it made me ready to go home, and even though when we did get home it was disappointing to be back and I was all about planning a trip for next year, I also needed to be left the hell alone for a while.

It helped to lift my spirits that after a short walk up the hill we were visiting one of my all-time favorite places, the Basilica Cistern.  You walk down steps into a cavern of water held up by columns, lit from below by a soft golden glow.  Every time I'm there it feels like magic, like a different time or even a different world.  It's my kinda place.

We went from there back to the hotel for about an hour, where people put on dry clothes and I let myself nap for about a half hour, before we headed out to our belly dance workshop.  This was another of my ideas for something we could do in the evenings, and on bellydanceclasses.net I found Hale Sultan, a fantastic Turkish dancer who agreed to do a workshop for us for a great price, and was super flexible with our schedule and the weather.  We ended up going to her studio in Taksim, and I had to listen to both grumbles and giggles along the way, because a lot of my students didn't exactly know what to make of the fact that they were going to learn belly dance.  Once we got started, though, almost everyone enjoyed themselves.  In our two hours Hale talked about some of the history and culture of belly dance as well as teaching us most of the basic isolations.  She was a great teacher - she kept it fun and fast paced, and at least a couple of the girls told me they'd like to learn more. Afterwards we went out to Istiklal Caddesi (known as "the street" by all my students, most of whom were keen to go back) to grab a bite to eat before heading to Sultanahmet. 

Set the Wayback Machine to...2008

As I mentioned yesterday, I kept coming back to Korea because of the people, particularly Bronte and my Dark Lord and Master.  Well, you can't call yourself Evil Incarnate and not expect your Spawn to follow suit.  This is how he came to have a surprise party thrown for his 39th birthday.

We talked about the idea at school, and later I went to her mom's shop and we worked on the plan some more.  I was sure he was going to figure out what we were up to because that night his wife insisted I stay at the shop until my Dark Lord got there to give me a ride home.  Somehow, we got away with it.

The three of them picked me up at the park in the 'Dong across from GDA - the story was that we were going out for dinner to celebrate.  Instead, the Spawn and I ran off to the playground, and my Dark Lord and his wife got out of the car to follow us.  He got the shock of his life.

The party was a big school secret - all of the teachers were invited, as well as some of his friends that the Spawn had to get me contacts for.  Bronte had already moved on to Greece, but she provided the music by burning us a collection of her favorite tunes - one of the things she'd shared with our Dark Lord.

One of my favorite things about my time in Korea was belly dancing, and since my Dark Lord and his Spawn had been there for my first performance - a hafla that Azhaar put on just for me - it seemed fitting that I would dance at his birthday.  I had two choreographies I'd been working on at the time: Sonia's Art of the Drum Solo (with a few modifications by Azhaar), and the veil routine we'd put together to Massive Attack's "Teardrop" (which I'd first experienced another year in Korea, courtesy of another friend). 

Teaching at a hagwon brought together an eclectic bunch of 20-somethings from all walks of life every single time I did it.  It was absolutely crazy, and I loved most of them even though I often had little in common with them other than the black sheepishness that led us to move to the other side of the world in a career move that I've often thought of as Russian roulette.  There are really no guarantees that the school that you're signing a year of your life away to is going to follow through on its promises. 

But we got lucky.

I found belly dance.

Some people found love.

Others found a new career.  I can't tell you how many people I knew who went home and started working on a degree in education, because that year and those kids had that kind of impact.

But I think just about all of us found friends and shared a time that we'll always remember.  Especially those of us that were there that night, 'cause that shit got crazy.

Set the Wayback Machine to...2006

My second job overseas was in the Kingdom of Bahrain.  It's a tiny speck on most maps, smaller than a crumb, but my Dad knew where it was when I chickened out and called to tell them where I'd scored a job on my way home from the University of Northern Iowa's hiring fair.

"Where's that?" asked my mom.

Loud sigh, "IT'S IN THE MIDDLE EAST, GLENDA," said my dad.  He was not impressed.  I was, though.  I'd started learning to belly dance in earnest when I was in Korea, and I was eager to live in the culture, to learn about it unbiased by the media, relying on my own perceptions and experiences.  Those experiences taught me that no, Muslims are not all terrorists.  Some of them are zealots, some are hypocrites, some are heartfelt believers (so, basically, just like Christians, apart from a few points of doctrine).  The men can be total and utter assholes, but aren't necessarily.  The women may be extremely kind and utterly gorgeous, or they may not.  It isn't my favorite place I've lived - in fact, I think it was the hardest year of my life, but that had less to do with the culture than it did with the school.  But anyways.

Ramadan began in September that year, and school had hardly even started before we were on a shortened schedule.  The non-Muslim teachers had to be really careful not to eat or drink where anyone could see us.  The kids were exhausted from staying up late partying and getting up early for prayers.  Everyone - and I mean EVERYONE - was thrilled when we finally went on holiday for the last week or so of it...and then it was Eid!  I went with my roommates (whose heinous bitchiness I had yet to truly realize the depths of), these two gorgeous ladies (who I still keep in touch with via Facebook), and a couple of the Lebanese staff, and we had brunch in public in BROAD DAYLIGHT!  If you've never lived in a Muslim country, I don't think you can understand how good that feels.  During the month of Ramadan, depending on what country you're in and who catches you (and possibly how hungry they are at the time), you can be fined or even arrested for eating, drinking, smoking, or hell, even chewing gum in public.  So having a nice meal with friends was a great pleasure.

I mentioned in yesterday's post that being Mormon is really helpful when it comes to finding your feet in a new country.  The church in Bahrain organized a sightseeing day during that Eid, and I brought my heinous, bitchy roommates with me (don't let anyone tell you I don't try to be nice).  We visited Qal'at al-Bahrain, the World Heritage fortress on the north end of the island that is one of the few preserved historic sites in the country.  We also visited the "Tree of Life."  Bahrain is one of the suggested sites of the Garden of Eden, with this big tree in the middle of nowhere supposedly being THE tree.  But my favorite part of the tour was the camel farm.  I got to take a short ride (that didn't even remotely prepare me for the camel trek I would go on when I visited Wadi Rum in Jordan) and even did a camel (a belly dance undulation) WITH A CAMEL!

The last stop on our tour was Bahrain's Grand Mosque, which was airy and full of light.  It's not usually open to the public, but Eid is a special time.  Bahrain is a fairly forward-thinking country, and women are not forced to wear the hijab, but we needed to for the mosque, and we were okay with that.  It was a day full of good experiences, and gave me something to lean on as the days of poorly behaved students and passive-aggressive roommates started to add up.

The Awkwardest Show on Earth

The rest of the school year has gone by more quickly than this week.  Seriously.  I don't know if it's because finals have robbed me of my favorite students or what, but this week couldn't go by any slower.  And at its end?  A graduation that left me utterly cold.  It was a very well-done affair, and went off without a hitch, but I didn't feel connected to it at all.  I taught half the graduates over the last two years, but whether at the actual ceremony or at the dinner, none of them actually had anything to say to me.  A different group of graduates - affectionately known by some of their teachers as "the Shrews" - was warmer than that.  But this was probably my fault - I wasn't on the graduation committee, and it's possible that they felt that all of the hard work I did for the art program this year wasn't for them.  Whatever the case may be, it's over, and in less than two weeks I'll be flying off to Lake Khuvsgul, from whence I will trek out into the Mongolian hinterlands in search of the Tsataan - an ethnic group of reindeer herders living in the taiga on the Russian border.  So roll on, summer.

I've been to the circus in UB six times now, and every show's been different.  But whether it's the presence of animals, the caliber of performers, or the narrative quality of the show (Fire Legend is still my favorite!), there are acts in common.  Contortionism.  Acrobatics.  Clowns.  The usual.  Well, the Little Stars' Miracle circus we saw last week was truly unique.  It was a Russian circus (a fact that Engrish mourned when she figured it out at the show, because she is supposed to be boycotting all things Russian) and all the performers are midgets.  Or, as Blondie likes to call them, "small friends."  And let me tell you, our driver, Enkhaa, got a big laugh out of imagining us two Amazons at a midget circus.

GAME OF THRONES SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  In the fifth book, Tyrion gets captured and sold into slavery as a dwarf performer.  If the jousting midgets at his wedding made you uncomfortable, you can probably only imagine how humiliating his life as a performer must have been.  I cringed while I was reading it.  I probably should have realized than an actual dwarf performer circus would be no less awkward, but it took being in the crowd to realize it.  According to InfoMongolia, this is the world's only famous dwarf circus, and they were last here twenty years ago.  According to Engrish, Blondie, and I, these are the same performers.  They were not as...spry...as we've come to expect at the circus.

There were a lot of animal acts in this circus.  I was looking forward to the cat act, because I once saw a really good one on Youtube.  However, most of the stunts the cats did were things cats do naturally, such as weave between your legs while you are walking and climb up and down over things.  The thing that cats do NOT do naturally - jump through flaming hoops - the first cat wouldn't do.  He had a "F#(@ THIS $4!7!!!" look on his face.  The second one went ahead, but by then, the flames were almost out.

The clowns were probably the best act.  I giggled hysterically when one of them brandished a live rat at the audience, stuck it back inside his jacket, and then pulled out a fake one that he threw at the audience.  The most hysterical part though was when they stole Blondie's purse.  They'd done a disappearing act where one clown waved the blue curtain while the other one made balloons "disappear" into his pants.  He then came around the audience to give the balloons away...and stopped in front of Blondie (okay, he actually gave me the eye, but apparently he decided that my backpack was too much trouble).  He gave her his - as Blondie dubbed it, "clown crotch balloon," then snatched her purse and ran back into the ring, where he repeated the trick with her purse.  She may have been a little traumatized, mostly because she knew she couldn't throw her fake leather Target purse into the wash.

And then there was the act that traumatized me - midget belly dancers.  It was a little bit creepy - there was a bit of an ick factor because one of the male performers was wearing a turban and sitting there watching them before putting one of them in a box and sticking swords into her.  It also wasn't very good.  Belly dance no matter what your size is, and perform no matter what your talent may be, but if you're gonna take your show on the road, improve it.  I realize they're circus performers, not professional dancers, but it kind of bothered me that they put on cheap costumes and just shimmied.  Give me something that will dazzle me.

Just like last year's circus for children's day, this year's finale ended with bears.  Blondie and Engrish were a little concerned about our front row seats, envisioning the bears coming past and deciding that some plump, juicy white meat sounded nicer than the snacks that their trainers were handing out, but this didn't happen.  Instead we got to see bears riding bikes.  Bears playing basketball.  Bears proving they are smarter than your kids (yeah - they are).  And...yeah.  This happened.  Bears who get excited about their jobs.  'Nuff said.

I won't say that this was the most surreal night of my life, because I've seen some crazy shit, man, but it's up there.  I think the absolute normalcy that it was presented with is what made it so bizarre.  If they'd played up the weirdness, it wouldn't have been so awkward.  Maybe I'm a terrible person for wanting them to take what they are and run with it, but hell, I want everyone to take what they are and run with it, make it work for them, so I suppose that's not too discriminatory.  At any rate, it was an experience, and one that got a big reaction out of my students when I mentioned it the next day.

Grub Club: Luna Blanca

This week has been ridiculously long.  This week has felt longer than any week since school started.  I'm very disappointed in this week.  Bad, bad week.  This might have contributed to me being in a sulk last night, but there were other factors.  Needless to say, by the time I got to Luna Blanca - I say "I" because I allowed myself to be separated from my buddies and ended up going to the wrong vegetarian restaurant (there are two of them within a block of each other) - I didn't particularly consider myself to be fit company for anyone.  And THEN I found out this "healthy" restaurant didn't serve coke!  If ever I needed a coke, it was then.  I turned around and left the restaurant.

 

 And after I bought myself a couple cokes at the shop two doors down, I came back.  I mean, I may not have been fit for company, but I was hungry.  And I'd seen Sichuan tofu on the menu, and I love me some tofu.  You can see my coke there - I felt like quite the infidel, bringing something so unhealthy into a place that advertises having "healthy food."  Seriously, their drinks were all smoothies and juices and feel good shit like that.  Even the one beer they had was non-alcoholic.  I mean, what's the point of that?  The tofu was good, although there was quite a bit of stuff to eat around (peppercorns and red pepper skins).  The salad in the background is PE's - it looked delicious.

However, next time we go back (if we go back - it took a loooooong time before everyone had eaten) I believe I'll have the dumpling platter.  They were amazing (a couple of my buds shared, in spite of my bad mood).

On a related but separate note, my eating habits have rapidly gone downhill since we got paid a month ago, and I haven't been feeling too sexy.  On a whim I decided to borrow the key to the dance room after school today and ended up practicing for the better part of an hour.  This was the first time I've danced in a good long while, and at first it was kind of painful, seeing in the mirrors exactly what I've let myself become.  But then I got over it, and really remembered why I love belly dance so much.  I left feeling worked out with that nice sweat smell (yes, my sweat smells nice), and didn't feel hungry.  I need to do this more often.

Korean Belly Dance Comes of Age...

So, eight hours ago saw me prying myself off of Belynda and convincing myself that I HAD to go back to Shanghai. I went back to Korea for her world belly dance day event, RAK 2011...in this instance, RAK stands for Raising Awareness in Korea, and NOT Ras Al Khaimah (just in case you were confused). See, World Belly Dance day is meant to be a charitable event, and this year and last Belynda donated the money to organizations that benefit women in Korea (for more info, check out her website).


Anywho. The opportunity to attend a dance event in the most wonderful of all cities was not to be missed (plus I needed some art supplies that I haven't been able to find in Shanghai), AND she even let me dance in her student show...win, win, win, wins all around! My performance went all right (with the exception of the bit at the end where I'm supposed to scoop down and pick up my veil...I slipped on my pants, oops), and I suppose the rest of my show was okay, but I didn't get to watch it. I can tell you that Koreans are STILL nuts enough to dress their little girls up in full makeup (complete with fake eyelashes) and padded bedlahs to dance - and from what little I saw between the curtains of the 10-year old soloist who performed before me, she was pretty good, but...well, let's just say that there's no WAY I'd let my ECA baby bellies dress up like that.
I got to watch the professional show, though, and I found some things very interesting.
Koreans have figured out that there are more than two styles. When I left Korea, it seemed like most of the dancers were doing cabaret or what might best be described as "sexy-dance fusion." This is not to dis the Korean dance community; it was highly entertaining, and I really don't care what style you're dancing, as long as you're dancing. But on the other hand, I was pleased to see a healthy mix of raqs assaya, tribal fusion, and even some khaleegi influence thrown in for good measure.


Costumes! Used to be that everyone wore bedlah or lycra cossies (or an assortment of other weird things). I'm happy to report that we've branched out. We've still got the sparklies, never fear, but now they come with shrugs, belly covers, and pants. Belynda tells me that this is, at least in part, due to the rise of South American belly dance. Whatever the reason for the additional modesty, I appreciated it...one of my fellow sisters-in-Zion may have expressed some doubts about the propriety of belly dance as an ECA at school, as her daughter - who wanted to join - wanted to know if it would be modest.


Never fear, though...it ain't all class. We had this lovely number, which I like to call "Xena the S&M princess" (yes, apparently it is a Suhaila Salimpour design - she's very famous, if you didn't know - but that didn't stop us from wondering whether or not you went commando with a cossie like that or whether the lovely Suhaila had thoughtfully built some panties into her creation).
This one treated the audience to a performance of raqs beaver before the strap started to come off the bra 2/3 of the way through.


Finally - be still, my beating heart - there were Korean girls dancing that didn't look like chopsticks! Good on them! I need to see something like that when I've been REPEATEDLY told by Asian kids this semester (and one fellow Mormon whitey who shall remained unnamed, the little turd) that I am fat.

Hiatus

I know, I know - I've been gone. I know I always say this, whether or not it's true, but I've been busy. No, really, I have. No sooner had Socrates left than I set off on an adventure in illustrating with my good buddy, Ger. Ger was also interested in starting a writing club, and since I've been trying to find the discipline to get my own children's book written and illustrated (not necessarily in that order), so on alternating weeks I'm either having a brainstorming "coffee" on Pluto, or meeting with the writers. I want to keep pretty tight-lipped about my own book, but Ger's got a website if you want to read the story we've been working on - it's Plip and the Purple Princess, which you can find here: http://www.ebookswithger.com

This has been really challenging for me. My drawings have a definite style to them, and I wouldn't describe it as "sci-fi picture book," but that's exactly what I'm doing. Plip is a little Plutonian boy who dreams of having ten arms with ten fingers on each and very long ears like his Grandpa Zoop. Yep. Ten arms. Ten fingers. How do you even illustrate such a thing? Well, something like this:

I stole from Hindu sculpture in order to manage this one. Shiva's only got four arms, but I knew other deities had more, and Kali, as it turns out, has ten. She was the inspiration for the arms.

I couldn't for the life of me think of anywhere I'd seen anyone or anything with ten fingers on one hand, but I laid my two hands on top of each other, and came up with this. I was pretty pleased with it - if we're so advanced (as opposed to animals) because we have a thumb on each hand, how much more advanced would a species with TWO thumbs be???

This is a scene I drew of Plip leaving for his first day of school. On Pluto, you have to learn to count BEFORE you have fingers, so Plip only has one finger on each hand. If Plip can learn to count to ten, he'll have ten fingers on each hand... The educational bits about counting and colors will make some nice graphic layouts, I think, and the colors should be out of this world (pun totally intended there, people).

I'm also trying to get back to the belly. I've been taking lessons almost since I got into Shanghai, but I haven't been an especially diligent student. Sometimes I think this is because there's not a whole lot of review from one lesson to the next, but I know (duh duh duh-duh duh) it's my own damn fault. I need to practice on my own to make progress, and I'm not doing it. I still love the dance as much as ever, but life gets busy and I'm a lot fatter than I was in my "glory days," which might explain why I still haven't bought a mirror to practice in front of. What I lack in quality I'm trying to make up for with quantity - my gym offers a class on Tuesday night, and I'm very likely going to start taking classes across the street, as I've discovered the yoga studio there offers them, and after a tip from the Evil One I've downloaded Kim Pechet's "Shimmy" workout show, which makes a nice (if cheesy) way to start the day...

...but really? What I really need is to perform. I'm doing this in May - I'm going to Azhaar's World Belly Dance Day extravaganza, and she's invited me to dance in her show - but although there are lots and lots of dancers here, I have yet to hear of any haflas or shows, nevermind be given a chance to perform. I have dreams of setting up a group like Azhaar's MECDACK, but I'm not the organizer she is, and I don't have a faithful sidekick like Kim to help me BECOME one, so right now it's just in the research stage. Someday, though...

Coups, and Hips, and Healing Facts

The problem with having a really lovely, warm apartment is the fact that it's hard to find the motivation to go anywhere else, knowing it's going to be colder there than at home. I haven't been to the gym since last Friday. So far I have not made the membership worth my money. Oh well, I've got 50 more weeks to do that.

One of my thoughts from the gym last week focused on what might have been if I hadn't come to China. If it hadn't been for Socrates, I wouldn't have applied to my school. Well, now he is gone - really gone - and I've been in a funk, and I ask myself whether it wouldn't have been easier if I'd only had to live through his leaving once. And I thought of the fact that if I'd stayed at RAKESS, I would have ended with two years under my belt, and right now would have been looking for jobs in Lima, where Evil will be moving this year. But then I realized that if I'd stayed in the UAE, I probably would have found myself working as a classroom teacher, or an ESL teacher, when the Trunchbull cut RAKESS' art program. Seeing as my current school was more interested in using me as a kindergarten teacher than an art teacher as it was, I think another year outside the art room might have ruined my career prospects. Thus, as hard as the last month has been, I've come to the conclusion that I'm ahead of the game.

Speaking of ESL, I managed my own personal coup at school this week. For the last semester I've been carrying the heaviest class load of any teacher there, and two hours of it have been ESL. This has not sat particularly well with me, and I've tried to make strategic battles against the situation, but a true opportunity to amend the situation didn't come until Wednesday. After our student-led conference day, I was pulled into a meeting with three of our powers that be, and had it explained to me that there was a problem with my schedule. The Chinese teacher who has been taking one of the grades for art was needed to teach more Chinese, due to an influx of second semester students. Their solution was to split his grade and give me two of the classes, give him my fourth graders, and thus fix the problem. They still wanted to keep me in ESL because the kindergarten classes were filling up and they were going to need the help. But there were some other issues brought up by this, and far be it from me not to press them to my advantage. Namely:
1. I knew at least one fourth grade parent was going to have a problem with Dingleberry taking those classes.
2. I didn't particularly want to have to plan units/lessons that he was going to have to teach, because he doesn't actually KNOW how to teach.
3. I was adamant that if I was continuing the ESL, that it would be in-class support only, that it was not fair to me or the kids to make me sacrifice art prep so that I could do a pull-out ESL class, which would take much more time.
Then as we were discussing this, I pointed out the fact that, at the beginning of the year, PE, Music, and myself were all told we would have to teach some ESL, but only I had been made to do so. PYP said, "Oh, I think PE is free during first period...I wonder how full his schedule is..." I had to work hard not to grin, as I knew for a FACT that PE was only teaching 12 hours, and he was about to get busted!

So that took care of my ESL problem. I suggested that if my kindergarteners only had one art class a week, that I would then be able to take ALL of the classes in ALL year groups. This would make one of the kindergarten teachers pretty happy, and create a solution to Dingleberry's obstinance regarding criticism of his art teaching methods. PYP did a little schedule juggling, and yours truly is now teaching each class in every grade once a week. This means a little more planning for me, but on the whole, I'm pretty pleased with myself.

I haven't been very good about my resolution to not eat out this week, either. I had good intentions when I cooked my sweet and sour chicken on Tuesday night, but the following two nights I had dinner dates with a couple of friends. One was a girl Azhaar introduced me to on facebook, who had taken belly dance lessons with her in Seoul. We agreed to meet at the stop where our subway lines meet, which just so happens to be Xujiahui, a pretty major shopping and eating area, and the place of December's MARVELOUS (that's only half sarcastic) staff dinner. So I looked up the Xinjiang restaurant in Lonely Planet, figuring a fellow belly dancer would enjoy the food and the dancing both, and she did...but it didn't actually turn out to be the same restaurant (I think the other place was actually better food, and the dancers did a few more diverse styles, but this place didn't cart the lamb around with its head still attached going, "Baaaa!") She and I were - enthusiastic - audience members, to say the least, a fact which the uyghur staff found pretty amusing. As if being tall and redheaded didn't make me enough of a target. So during the third or fourth song I found myself being led up on stage by the male dancer, and being a bit of an exhibitionist, I found the experience of having a little dance off with a good-looking Chinese Muslim delightful. And the new friend turned out to be pretty cool, too.

Lastly...it has been hard letting Socrates go, but I'm getting better at it. Sunday I spent a while comparing our friendship to my heyday with my Dark Lord and Master, and I realized that - for a number of reasons - this was a piece of cake compared to boarding that final plane out of Korea. I also found myself thinking of his assertion before he left that I would be fine without him. That's something I realized when I was back in Korea, before he'd even lost his job with Soul Sucking International School. What I finally figured out this week was almost poetic:
No matter how much I want him, I don't need him.
No matter how much he needs me, he doesn't want me.
I think that makes me pretty lucky. And if that thought fails to cheer me up, Bohemian Rhapsody sung with vigor during a school sponsored karaoke night ALWAYS does the trick.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Oh. Boy. Where do I even start with this? This is what happens when time picks up.

So about a month ago our Chinese principal tells me I have to make Christmas crafts for the charity bazaar that takes place during the school's pre-holiday extravaganza, and that I have to decorate the stage for the Christmas program. I - calmly and politely - protested that a month wasn't enough time for me. She - calmly and politely - informed me that the old art teacher didn't find this to be a problem so maybe I had been a poor choice for the position. I said that I'd get it all done, but that I didn't appreciate being told things at the last moment.

Yes. One month's warning is the last moment when it involves small children you see once a week making cutesy crafts.

Two weeks later, the coordinator in charge of the dog and pony show...errr...the extravaganza...comes and tells me I'm supposed to head up the parents' committee for decorating the whole school, as well. I - somewhat more forcefully than with the principal - inform her that I had more than enough to be getting on with at the moment. She once again lobbed back, "Well, the OLD art teacher didn't have a problem with it." My friendly neighborhood music teacher was standing by when this conversation took place, and she held me back from throttling said coordinator with the promise of talking to the Western principal about it. I went up to my classroom with steam streaming out my ears, and decided that I'd better have a look at my predecessor's schedule. And what I found was that SHE had been given four hours a week in her timetable dedicated to putting up displays. Yup. So I emailed a copy of this very enlightening document to the Western head and said, "Look, I know Music is talking to you - just so's you know, this was the schedule for last year, and I'll be more than happy to do whatever you want as long as it's not more than fair." And that is how Jo-Jo the Chinese/Art teacher got landed with it. And why the stage looks nice and the school looks like crap. Maybe next year I won't have to teach ESL and the school can look nice, too.

Two weeks later now, the stage is decorated, the crafts are as done as they can be, the art display (the only bit I knew I was responsible for a month ago) is up, my belly dancers have done their bit at the after-school concert (and they were SO good, I was really proud of them), and I've attended the bloody staff dinner.

Oh yes, the staff dinner. Pain. So much pain.

Don't get me wrong. I like my coworkers. Mostly. On the other hand, I don't go looking to spend time with most of them, most of the time. But we were basically told that it wasn't exactly optional, and I ditched the last one, so I cowgirled up and waited the half hour for the bus to come and take us into Xujiahui where we had a reservation at a Xinjiang-style restaurant. I wasn't exactly looking forward to it, but on the other hand, some of them WERE, in fact, the people I DO spend non-paid time with, and Xinjiang is the Muslim quarter of China, and I was curious what the food would be like. So it couldn't be too bad, right?

Yeah, actually, it could. Cause as we're pulling up to the restaurant someone mentions that our secondary campus was there, too - and this place doesn't look that big. We go downstairs and there are a few seats randomly scattered around the room - and the people I was hoping to sit with ended up scattered at different tables, while I was given the choice between sitting with two of my colleagues that I don't dislike but would rather poke out my eyes than make small talk with...or a table of secondary people that I've never met...Oh, no - wait! It turns out I HAD actually met one of them before. I thought at the time he looked familiar but for the life of me I couldn't figure out where I'd met him. Well, when I talked to Socrates, he tells me that his friend mentioned he'd sat next to me (I met this friend all of once, on a night when I was in just about as good a mood).

At any rate, I chose to sit with the people I didn't know. Yeah, awkward, right? My reasoning was that if I sat with my colleagues, I would have to make small talk and pretend to listen while my mind engaged in other business. With the total strangers, I could get out my iPod and read, and hopefully come down out of my temper. Or I could if people would quit trying to convince me to go sit with people I don't care for (which they did....eventually). So I sat down, said hi, and indicated that I would be playing the part of antisocial bitch for the evening, nothing personal.

Dad, if you're reading this one...try not to worry. I've managed to mostly succeed in life, in spite of my abrasive tendencies.

So - by this time it is around 5:45, and having had nothing more for lunch than cookies, I am getting pretty hungry. It was a half-hour before any food finds its way to the table, although there was a liter bottle of coke on the table which I proceeded to empty over the next hour and a half. Finally, the food began to come, and it was actually really good. Well, most of it - I don't eat seafood no matter what cuisine cooks it. And, as I've been told, it has a lot of similarities with Arabic cooking - although I think this was MUCH more flavorful - including the prolific use of lamb. Lamb's not my favorite meat, but I'm down with it...or at least, I am until they cart it out, roasted and whole, up to and including eyeballs and teeth, making a "Baaaaa!" noise. Eurgh! I mean. EURGH! I'm-not-a-child-I-grew-up-on-a-farm-I-know-perfectly-well-where-meat-comes-from-and-I-believe-if-God-hadn't-meant-for-us-to-eat-animals-he-wouldn't-have-made-them-so-delicious-but-I'm-sorry-I-do-NOT-want-to-see-the-face-of-my-murder-tasty-tasty-murder-victim-thank-you-very-much!!!!!!!

>gasp<

Yeah. So. Food good. I also noted, on my way in, that the wall had an image of a woman wrapped up in Isis wings, and the possibility that this restaurant might have a dancer was one of the reasons that I didn't leave when things started looking tedious (also, as I said, I was hungry, and figured if I had to cab home I might as well get something for my money). When the "stage" lighting came on, I found Giancarlo was back in my pocket and I was looking up before I became aware of what I'd just done. Two ladies and a man, all three of whom looked Persian to me (possibly because they were dressed in the costume that I've come to associate with Persian folk dance, although I don't know the style well enough to be sure), came out and started to dance, and I found that I was happy to be there. Even more so when the girls came back separately to "belly dance" for us. They were pretty okay - I've seen excellent dancers...hell, I've LEARNED from excellent dancers...and excellence is great, but the real show-stopper was when one went dancing up to our wee Irish principal, and dragged him out onto the floor. He's a great sport, and a fine comedian; I thought I'd bust a rib when she dropped to the floor and he kinda wobbled his way down to one knee! The next set saw her pulling -

Oh, I don't have a nickname for this guy! I'll call him Bilbo, cause he's about as tall as a hobbit, but isn't cool enough to be Frodo. A guy as short as Bilbo has only two options in how to live his life, and he chose the enlightened path. This guy does yoga and reads books on how to be a better man while cooking gourmet food for his Chinese girlfriend (cliche, he knows, but when you're that short, you have limited options and a Filipina would make him feel cheap and uneducated!) He's just so bloody earnest in all that he does, it's fricking annoying! Anyways, he was standing on the sidelines aching to bust a move when she pulled him out. Enlightened as he may be, he has no CLUE that when a belly dancer takes you out on the floor, the only expectation we have of you is that you bop along idiotically beside her for a couple moments - possibly mimicking some of her moves with nowhere NEAR her grace - before slinking back to your seat as soon as you can manage (embarassed and yet secretly pleased because YOU danced with a belly dancer). Oh no. He actually danced with her - twirling her over and over, or trying, because with her heels she was about four inches taller than him. And after his fifteen seconds of fame were over, he didn't slink back to his seat, but stood on the sidelines, so she pulled him back out, not once, but twice. It was so awkward to watch that it was painful.

Anyways, that was the staff dinner, and now it's over, and tomorrow, so will this week and school, too, at least until January. Shanghai is freezing, finally, I guess. Yesterday just past noon it started snowing. The kids went wild. I even got a little excited, until I realized that if it REALLY got going Socrates might not be the only one spending the holidays in Shanghai. I finally worked up some enthusiasm for the whole "home for the holidays" thing, as my darling Glamwhore will be in town, hopefully so will my niece, and Babysis invited me to go to the movies with her and a friend next Tuesday. Also - deodorant. I ran out last week, and rather than buying whatever I can get my hands on here, I'm just going without until I get back to the states. It really isn't as disgusting as it seems...well, not if you have good hygiene and don't eat too much garlic...

Doctor Who as a Metaphor for Life

There are so many things I could address in this blog. I could address our fat idiot of a principal threatening me. I could address the fact that Yew Chung eats your soul, even when you don't work there. I could tell you about the old Chinese man shuffling down the street backwards in his brand-new Converse All-Stars this morning on my way to church. But I'd rather talk about Doctor Who.

A significant number of people who have come into my life in the last six years have been Doctor Who fans, and this spring I decided to give it a try. I liked it alright, enough to watch two seasons, and enough to get excited and set the recorder when I found it on BBC America this summer, but it wasn't until a week and a half ago that I decided to start season three. It and four (which I'm halfway through after starting this morning) have been amazing. Why? Okay, I gotta say, I love the whole traveler of time and space thing - repeatedly the Doctor is asked what he does, and he replies, "Travel." That's kind of my life! But what's really doing it for me is the heroines from these two seasons. Don't get me wrong - I liked Rose, I liked what I saw of Amy, but they don't have the flaws that give Martha and Donna meaning. Or their strengths - I love the fact that after a season of pining over the Doctor Martha says, "Look. Enough of this. I'm getting out and moving on." Who has that kind of strength? And Donna, who we meet at the beginning of season three - she's kind of a loudmouthed idiot, but she helps save the world and, more to the point, pulls the Doctor back from the edge that he currently puts himself out on, then says, "You know what? No. Not going with you - ya kinda scare me." She comes to regret that decision, and by the time you see her again at the beginning of season four, she seems like a totally different person. Still a loudmouth, but more with it, more willing to embrace the world, even when it scares her, and still able to help the Doctor remember what makes him who he is.

I kinda want those qualities for myself.

I also love the fact that this show leaves you with that feeling that anything is possible. I don't mean aliens or time travel, but the little miracles of finding your strength, of moving forward and reaching for what you want.

It's November 21, 2010. I've been in Shanghai for three months and eleven days. In that time I've lost some weight - not sure how much, as it's been a while since I last hit the sauna - made some friends, and become a more driven teacher. But I've kind of been holding back. There's so much more I want to do - I want to belly dance again, not just practice but perform, in the body I had when I lived in Korea. I want to write and illustrate my book - I haven't even touched it in almost two months. I want a closer relationship with God. I realized today that the way I feel about one of my friends, who doesn't seem to really care about me unless I'm needed is probably the way I make Heavenly Father feel, even being the patient, omnipotent deity that he is. When I get home from school, there's not much dance in me, or much art for that matter, and let me tell you about how much I feel like hanging out with Mormons for three hours on the other side of town, let alone throughout the week. But I've been that version of myself before, on all three counts, and so it MUST be possible to be me again. And watching impossible things like Doctor Who makes me believe, somehow, that I will.

That's all I have to say, I guess. Except that I wish - OH, how I wish - that the weekends were just one day longer. I could really use another day.

Capital Improvements

I know the truth about the size of my body (how can you not, when you've been half-clad and shared a stage with Asian girls on more than one occasion?), but I've managed to put my insecurities far enough aside to get on with life. I do have insecurities, but in spite of being surrounded by girls the size of chopsticks, Korea did a lot for my self image. I could, for example, eat whatever I liked and still lose weight. There was also the fact that I worked for a man who was NOT one to spare your feelings, and when one night at the Beer Halle my Dark Lord and Master told me I was NOT a "big girl," I had to believe it.

And then I went back to America and gained 50 pounds. Life hasn't been the same since, so it was not a complete surprise when a person of my acquaintance called me - not too terribly long ago - a big girl. Still, I'm as human as any of you, so as you can guess, the insecurities were thrust back into the limelight, and now I find myself scrutinizing when I walk past a mirror.

What can you do? Well, I'll tell you what you can do. You can give up pop. Again. (Third time's the charm, right???) And I have - it's been a week since my last soda. You can stop eating chocolate bars for brekke and start eating two nice eggs with a little salsa for flavor (again). Okay, go ahead and laugh, tell me that of COURSE I've got some wobbly bits if I eat chocolate for breakfast, but it's been a staple of my diet. Ask any teacher from GDA between 2004-2008 about the Rebecca Teacher diet and they will tell you snickers and coke are breakfast foods (as I said before, I can eat whatever I want in Korea). But the fact of the matter is, I'm 31 years old now. Although at the rate my life is going I should have lived enough that I'm ready to die by the time I'm 60, I probably will not (as has been pointed out to me...I don't drink, smoke, do drugs or engage in other risky behaviors). And I don't want to be crippled and unable to enjoy sweets guilt-free if I do. Thus the changes.

I've been biking a lot this week, as well, but since most of those bike rides involved a stop at Coldstone's, the positive effect is kind of negated. And last night I went for yet another belly dance class. I've actually been to three teachers' classes now - a week after QiQi's performance class I went to the beginner class taught by Julia (pronounced Yu-lia), who is Ukrainian. She figured out at some point during the class that I was not, in fact, a beginner, and afterwards asked me how long I'd been dancing before suggesting that the following class with Tanya might be better suited to my level. This was the plan all along, so last night I finally (due to holidays and vacation) made it to her class. She's another Ukrainian if I'm not mistaken, and I've got to admit, I was not expecting to be impressed with any former Eastern bloc dancers. What can I say - I lived in the middle east, and except for Katia of Cairo, I've never seen a Russian dancer that was a dancer. If you get my drift. I still don't quite understand what they're doing here, but both Julia and Tanya were pretty decent teachers; whether or not they know all the fascinating cultural stuff that Azhaar knows, they can dance, that's for damn sure. Hell, Tanya put me through my paces so well last night that I've been sore all morning. And it's good to feel it.

Home!

After being in transit for entirely too long and in entirely too stressful circumstances (a tale to be told some other time), I made it to Korea. Stepping off the plane into Incheon airport was like coming home. I don't know how else to explain it - literally all became right with the world.

I'm here on vacation for our Chinese National Day holiday. This is the first of our holidays, and there was nowhere else I would have rather gone. Even if it hadn't been a cheap ticket, it's been two years since I've been back, and in the week before I left I was actually giddy at moments when I thought about seeing my Dark Lord, and dancing with Belynda again, and the food - OH, THE FOOD!

As I said, I felt at home when I had my feet on Korean soil again. Maybe this means I'm messed up, but I understand the way things work here. I know how to get around, I know what to do in an emergency, where to look for things. During the three years I lived in Bundang, I often had the impression that Seoul was just a big amusement park designed exclusively for me; that is how safe I felt here, and how much fun I had. I'm glad to say that I still get that feeling, and watching the city come into focus as I rode the airport bus through the middle of the city to where Mark and Emily are living was like going past all my favorite rides again (the 63 building, where we watched the first sunrise of 2005...Namsan tower, which Annika and I hiked up to, discovering Chili Chili Taco on our way down...the Han River...Gangnam Dae-ro...) But enough reflective prose. Let me tell you what I've been up to.

I got into Mark and Em's place after two yesterday, and spent a good long while chatting and catching up. We worked together my last year in Korea, and I gotta say, they are two of the coolest people I worked with at GDA. Mark is the most laid-back person I think I've ever know, and Emily is mad in the absolutely best way. We relived our glory days and caught up on gossip until I realized that if I didn't leave I was going to be late to meet Belynda and her students for dinner in Hongdae.

Hongdae is actually a pretty cool area that I've never spent much time in. It's basically a campustown, and as such, is home to THE club scene of Seoul (some people prefer Apgujeong, but it's "trendier" and thus, pricier). We ate dinner and then managed to find a Tom-n-Toms for coffee and dessert (honey butter bread...amazing that I remember this after two years and I only ate it the once right before leaving, but it was just. that. good.) So we caught up and I made plans with Bee to go to Samcheok later this week.

Samcheok is one of those crazy Korean destinations that I never made it to. I'll leave you to ponder why it's special til later this week.

Afterwards I came back here and crashed (and I DO mean crashed), but not before I got ahold of Jill and made plans to get together this afternoon. We met up at noon, talked, got lunch, talked, walked to COEX, talked, talked, talked. (We had a lot of catching up to do). We'll go to Dongdaemun to the bead market later this week. Maybe on Tuesday.

And tonight I got to see my Dark Lord and his family. As I took the Bundang line down and started to hear the old familiar names - Yatap! Imae! Seohyeon...SEOHYEON! - I started to feel nostalgic and a little emotional. Two years is a long time, and this place and this man were at the center of my world for a very long time before that. And yet it's a blink of the eye, and you realize that - oh damn, am I really going to say this cheesy line? - the heart remembers the way. The names of those places were like music to my ears, and the cafes of Jeongja, the neon lights of Samsung Plaza, like art to my eyes. And as for my Dark Lord? My gosh, I missed him, and his daughter (his wife...well, she's a little harder to get along with, but she didn't comment on my weight, so we're making progress). Michelle has gotten so freaking tall - I couldn't believe how old she is! - she gets the jokes that her dad and I make in English and can banter right back with us, she's just awesome. Unfortunately she has midterms on Tuesday, and dinner was just a break in the studying, so after dinner she and her mom went home, and Diablo and I went down to Samsung Plaza (supposedly AK Plaza now, but as he pointed out, nobody's gonna call it that for at least 10 years). He told me that the ahjjushi who ran the convenience store next to our school now owns one there, too, and I was really happy to see him and his wife when we stopped in. Then we sat in Starbucks and compared notes on our current jobs and just shot the breeze until they closed at 11 (I thought this was ideal, because if I left when they kicked us out I wouldn't miss the last train out of Bundang).

And now I'm caught up after lying here on the floor at Mark and Em's and it's past my bedtime, but Seoul doesn't sleep so why should I?

Soul....dancing.

So after a grueling day of teaching, I made my first trip into town to check out a belly dance class at Souldancing. I had mixed hopes. On one hand, I'd seen a Chinese dancer at Shanghai's 1001 Nights (the first time I saw a restaurant dancer was also in China, at the Beijing branch of the same restaurant), and she had pretty good technique, even if her musical selection was somewhat uninspired. Also, one of our teachers took classes there last year and said they were good. I had reason to believe she was right - Souldancing actually equipped one of their studios with poles just so they could teach pole dancing, and you don't have the kind of capital to invest in that sort of venture if you're amateur hour. But on the other hand...well, let's just say that learning from Azhaar for most of the time I was in Korea has spoiled me. I know there are better teachers than her, or more experienced, blah blah blah, but she has a sense of humor and is caring (how often did our lessons stretch on long past two hours as we bitched about our own problems to each other?!), not to mention has a vast knowledge of the dance, technical skill, and makes up the most beautiful, evocative choreographies...even if she can't remember them.

So yes, mixed hopes...but as I said in my last post, I am disturbingly out of shape, and I still love this art form, so I pinned my heart on my sleeve and slogged into the heart of the Emerald City, to West Nanjing Rd, and down a side street crowded with shops selling everything from clothing to Tibetan artifacts and everything in between, in my yoga pants (still splattered with Saturday night's strawberry shake, dropped as I was unlocking my bike) and Gap tee. Sweating and bloody hot, I went in and paid my money, filled out the form, got rid of my shoes, and started stretching. Luckily I had plenty of time to do this, because when QiQi came in she laid into us almost immediately. She drilled us in shimmies, hip lifts, shimmies, chest drops, choo-choo shimmies, 3/4 shimmies, and arms. To be fair, she warmed us up a little, but she transitioned fairly quickly into kicking our asses. Also to be fair, this was an advanced class, "Performance," which hopefully (thanks to my years with Azhaar) I didn't embarrass myself too badly in, out of shape or not. After brutalizing us for half an hour, QiQi moved into a choreography. I don't know how to describe the music - it was slow and sensual and had an unmetered feel to it, but was neither modern/fusion nor classical (unless I'm mistaken). And the combinations she put together for it were absolutely suited to the feel of the piece, and not simple ones, either.

In short, I was impressed. I can't wait to see what the other teachers have to offer.

Afterwards I walked back up to the metro, and the lights on Yan'an road were lit, painting me blue, and the trees on Nanjing Rd were lit, giving the place a festive quality...I wanted to go for a wander, but I was slaughtered, so I just stopped long enough to eat at subway and then headed for home. Today I noticed body aches in all sorts of places, and it brought back all the happy feelings of the night before.

Wow. That sounds dodgy. I mean that in a strictly belly dance sorta way.

Today I learned something about my school. Apparently we are a great experiment. We are a Chinese international school. By that, I mean that we are a Chinese school that offers international curriculum to Chinese students. Most international schools here have strict laws laid onto them about who can attend...essentially foreign passport holders (there are similar laws in Korea; I don't know about the Chinese, but if my Dark Lord's word can be trusted for anything, most Korean parents wouldn't want their kid going to an international school in Korea because it's not hardcore enough). This came up this weekend during the trip to Anting, when I said our majority was Chinese, and I was told they were probably Taiwanese instead. No, Virginia, they are, in fact, Chinese students. There's some sort of loophole. And we are, definitely, a Chinese school...remind me later and I'll tell you about the flag raising ceremony.

Huzzah for the Weekend

Monday always comes as a bit of a letdown. It's not just the fact that it's a work day (for several years Thursday was my favorite day of the week), and in fact, I should be relieved that it's not worse - I don't have that Sunday night panic that plagued me so severely in Korea and, to a lesser extent, in RAK - and that my life is such that there's never enough weekend for me, but the fact remains. Mondays suck.

This weekend started with a bang. The Roomie and I had a housewarming party Friday night, with all my favorite locals. There was music and conversation and things didn't wrap up til 2 in the morning. Fantastic. There was also the point where one of our company (who shall remain nameless due to the fact that I suspect she will murder me if I reveal her identity), went to pour a drink and ended up setting a bag on fire (I had a candle on the table, and someone had brought wine which came in one of those nice, tall, top heavy bags, and let me tell you, it went up like a torch). Luckily, whether she'd been drinking or not, Siobhan (the black girl with an Irish name who has been included in the group description as white twice in the last week - once by me...errrrr...so all Westerners are equal in my eyes. This is a step forward, right???) was quick thinking and miraculously got it to the sink and doused it before damage could be done. (Later, this same nameless friend got on top of a chair to determine the height of our ceiling in beer cans, and as the chair started to wobble, my memory hearkened back to a time when a drunken Bronte climbed up on top of someone's shoulders and then fell off, almost cracking her head open in front of the movie theater in Samsung Plaza. I heard her screeching, "Where the f*** were you? WHERE THE F*** were you, and came out of my revery in time to clutch Nameless' leg and stabilized the chair. Otherwise there could have been blood to go with our fire, which REALLY would have made for a kickin' party!)

So that was Friday night. Saturday morning the glass man was due to come at 7. Urgh. Luckily (if you want to look at it that way) I have been waking up early anyways, and so when he arrived - for the second time - at 6:50 I was already awake and skyping with Glamwhore. And was still skyping with her when I got an invite from a teacher I met from another school to go to Anting with her. I extended the invite to Shermeen, and 11 (an ungodly enough hour if you had company over til 2 a.m. the previous morning) saw us on the train to Anting. It was a bit of a trek, but well-worth it. Anting's old town is scenic and makes you feel like you really are in China after all (up to and including the the men's underwear hanging to dry in the historic woodwork...wish I'd taken a picture when I first saw it, but it was gone by the time I got back, so you'll just have to imagine). We went to a Chinese restaurant there after strolling up and down the street, and it was pretty delicious, even if you have a hard time ignoring the fact that the chicken's head is actually on the platter with it's delicious meat. Shermeen has been my saving grace when it comes to Chinese food - I have no idea what I'm ordering and I've been too chicken to walk into a restaurant and order on a wing and a prayer. If you knew me when I first went to Korea, it's pretty much the same as I was then...except now I have even fewer reasons to be adventurous, since my global palate has expanded dramatically since then and Hongqiao alone has more options than Bundang did back in those days. On the other hand, nearly everything I've eaten, I've liked, so I suppose there's hope for me yet.

That evening Shermeen, her colleague Janice, and I went back to the flower market. I was kneeling down making a decision about which goldfish to get when I finally figured out where the muscle pain I'd felt twinging at me all day had come from. One of the topics we got onto Friday night was belly dance, and the different styles, and I went into the difference between how the styles do floorwork, descending to the floor twice without warming up. I haven't actually danced in many many moons, and it made me realize exactly how out of shape I am. When I got home that night I sat down and opened up youtube to look at some of the combinations I wanted to incorporate into...well, I WAS going to do Kashmir, but....well, hell, why shouldn't I do Kashmir. I wanted to do it. I was going to do it. So I got out my veil poi and started working on it. It was therapeutic. It also resulted in the quite spectacular destruction of one of the cheap plastic cups the Roomie bought. It also got me to think seriously about what I was going to do here as far as dance lessons go, and I think I've got a plan: I'm going to get the 8-lesson, 880 kuai membership to SoulDance, use those lessons to decide which - if any - of their belly dance teachers I'd like to study privately with, and then get their 20 private lessons for 6,000 kuai (the more you sign up for, the cheaper they get, so the 20 lessons ought to last me five months and get fairly close to what I used to pay Azhaar, even if I can't imaging any teacher being as good as she is).

And then it was Sunday. I went to church, and actually stayed the whole 3 hours (I had plenty of sewing to keep me awake), and actually actually bore my testimony in Relief Society. I'm not the best Mormon in the world, I've even been called a hypocrite once, and I guess I can understand why. I do badmouth the members some. When the person responsible for getting you to church has basically become inactive because other Mormons expressed opinions over something that was NONE OF THEIR DAMN BUSINESS, when you have been called out over the pulpit in all but name for being happy and living your life rather than pining away on your hope chest waiting for Prince Charming to ride up and whisk you away, I would think it's a little bit understandable. They say "Love the sinner, hate the sin;" I would add, "Love the church, hate the culture." The gospel has made me who I am today (at least, in all the good ways...I'll take most of the responsibility for the negative aspects, although my Dark Lord and Master did play his part, bless his blackened little heart), and I do love it, even when it's hard. And that's why I got up and bore my testimony...in spite of everything, I DO still have one.

So yeah. Good weekend. And now it's Monday night and my ass is officially kicked by my busiest day of the week, but it was a good one, and I like the kids, and I have every reason to believe all the wrinkles will work themselves out. Plus, I'm (excuse the phrase, but I have to use it, it's a time-honored tradition) popping some jjimjjilbang cherries on Thursday night...ahssah-byo!

Another Day, Another Dirham

I'm trying to write this between tracing classes of Year One self portraits for tomorrow. Some dumbass scheduled five of her six classes for the same day, and forgot - on the first days of this week, when I was in PYP training - to do the teacher-intensive part (or ask Olga to)...so now I've got a Sharpie high and double vision. Oh, and I'm hobbling like an old lady down the hall, because apparently my back is not up to crouching over the table after biking into work and home again today.

Yeah, that. Came through the siege perilous unscathed. The hardest part of the whole experience was getting BACK on the bike at 4:00 and riding home. The next-hardest part was taking the bridge over the creek (Bronte, Wilmarie, if you're reading...does that sound familiar? Oh, that damned bridge on the way to Yuldong Park!) In fact, Socrates took pity on me when I suggested we take Khuzam Rd on the way home instead, although he insists I've got to conquer it (blerg). Actually, I took so long getting over it on the way in that he was nowhere to be seen when I got to the corniche...which was just as well with me, it meant I could slow down a bit on the final leg, and if - Heaven forbid - he had a hypo along the way and passed out, I was going to come across him shortly thereafter (at least, I think I would have...I cut away from the corniche to take the back roads after passing Safeer, and saw fresh tire tracks along the way), and I was prepared, too - stuck a pack of lifesavers in my backpack along with the five million OTHER things I somehow seemed to need today. Anyways, it worked out well, because I didn't have to do all the ass-kicking. I don't know how thrilled Socrates was to be leaving Sunrise at 6:45, but he walked out the door on time, I didn't have to drag him out of his apartment or anything (ahem, Bronte), and although there was really nothing in me that wanted to ride home this afternoon, especially following my club, I would have rather eaten glass than admitted I was considering taking a taxi tonight and the bike tomorrow.

And since I am fairly sure he's never going to read this, I feel safe admitting it here. No glass-eating necessary.

I mentioned my club, which is the "Middle Eastern" Dance (because belly dance has some negative connotations, remember?) club...can I just say how awesome it was? I have four girls - only three actually came today, but they were absolutely lovely - all enthusiastic and good learners and we just had a lot of fun! I had a headache for several hours before, and Casey gave me some panadol, but I wasn't really feeling up to it until I got into the activity room and started to talk to them and explain what we were going to do during our eight-week session. Then the headache magically disappeared (possibly due to drugs, but still...) Instead of making me more tired, I ended up energized and able to face the 30+ minute ride back to Sunrise. Can't wait for next week!

Funkadelic

It's Friday night. How do I describe the last 24 (give or take a few) hours? Let's begin at the end. I just finished watching the first season of The Office, which I downloaded off iTunes this week, in solace. I tried doing so earlier tonight, but I was pretty tired. I know this is going to come as a shock, but I had yet another late Thursday night...I came home around 1:30, but didn't go to sleep until 3. The difference between this week and most others is that I didn't go to church...I volunteered to do a belly dance workshop for the BRI'ISH SCHOOLS OF THE MIDDLE EAST FES'IVAL OF THE PERFORMING AR'S. Except we're calling it "middle eastern dance" (the preferred terminology by a lot of dancers, anyways), because the concept of belly dance may just be too challenging for the conservative parents (and possibly our patron, the sheikh), who will be coming tomorrow to watch the performance.

Never let it be said that I'm afraid to start trouble.

I've never taught belly dance before. Well, I've showed a few moves to a close friend or two, but never to a stranger, and never to adolescent girls. I was sort of uncomfortable with it at first - I introduced the basic isolations, which are not as fun. Once I showed them their first combinations, though, we all started thinking how cool it was, and really got into it when we started the choreography (four combinations, all told, taking up about 40 seconds of our allotted five minutes' performance). One of the girls was quite good, the other two did well enough and enjoyed themselves, and that's all I really want. Well, that and not offending anyone tomorrow...I can positively say there are NONE of the even slightly provocative moves in the choreography, but if any of the kids start singing "go bananza, shake ya body like a belly dancer" (gee, thanks Akon) tomorrow in front of the parents like I heard in the corridor today...I just see potential for this to bite someone in the ass. Probably me. Probably during a hip circle when my booty is sticking out behind me.

There was a drumming performance and free dinner tonight, and I texted a few people to see if they wanted to join, but everyone was still too hung over from the previous night's debauchery. And I couldn't be bothered with flying solo amongst the BC (British curriculum) staff, although they made me feel very welcome and never took the piss out of me once (which sort of made me miss OUR British people). Then - after my nice long nap - I ended up at Melissa's (one of our British people) apartments, and remembered that even MORE, I miss having conversations that meander around lots of different topics and don't focus predominately on one person. After I was there for a while, Socrates came over, and had to go and ruin the new potential to have a more interesting conversation by bringing up her camera.

Let's have a little flashback to earlier this week. Tuesday was silly staff day in secondary - the kids had to raise money to get the staff to dress up in silly costumes. Well, Melissa brought her expensive camera with her, and during the course of the day, it managed to transfer ownership in one way or another (it's unclear whether she left it in her classroom and it got lifted, or whether it fell out of her pocket when she went to change for her staff photo). It is suspected that it ended up in the ownership of some of the Emirati kids, that apparently are disliked by the rest of their year group (read: grade), but there is no evidence, and when they were questioned, nothing was gotten out of them. Well, she wants to drag the police and the parents into it, and Paul, who is head of that year group, was explaining to her that without any evidence, the head of secondary didn't really want to take it any further. To which my friend was adamant that if the head didn't have the balls to do it she'd go over him and get our principal involved, that they'd lean on the kids and they WOULD get her camera back.

And at that point, I opened my mouth and started going on about how it's not fair to do that to the kids (I don't particularly think it's fair to do it to the principal, either, he has enough to deal with and I think he deserves a break from our traumas), that you shouldn't turn them against each other, that even if these kids aren't liked, that WE are the adults and we have to act like it and set the example, and that using them against each other and encouraging that sort of discord is how shit like Columbine happens. And I was told that I'd sing a different song if it was MY 400 euro camera. Not true. I'd be pissed and feel violated and I'd store it up to bring out at a later date...but I'd - in essence - let it go, because at the end of the day, that's all you can do in a situation like this. And when I asserted this, I was told that she wasn't in the mood for it tonight and that I could leave. Which I did, a few minutes later, but not because I can't agree to disagree. I left because I was sick of hearing the Emiratis villianized, which was the course the conversation took after I was told I could leave. Don't get me wrong - khaleegis are not my favorites of Arabs, but recirculating the wrongs of the last couple of weeks is no healthier than recirculating air on an airplane. It stops you from seeing the good, and it's hard enough to see the good as it is.

But I couldn't help but feel a bit of a funk over the dismissal. In spite of the fact that I was a little bored, I played the part of Wing Girl admirably last night, and coached her with the advice that seemed to make sense from Why Men Love Bitches, which I finished earlier this week. She asserted that she owed me big time at one point, so to have her get cross with me so easily...

...admittedly I was being a little confrontational. I have been this week...

...was a bit of a slap in the face. And so I came back over to my apartment and watched The Office alone, appreciating the variety, the witticism, the many shades of American humor at its finest, missing Babysis, Tori, Evil, Sara, Bronte, Azhaar...basically those people who have been to the mattresses and back with me, those who let me get a word in edgewise and would actually care enough to ASK about my belly dance workshop at the other RAKESS, and who, in spite of my propensity for total bitchiness, or possibly because of it, love me all the more. Emptiness is NOT loneliness, Billy Corgan, it beats it anyday, but can't hold a birthday candle to the friendship I have with you guys. Love you :*

Another day, another dirham

So last week, as crazy as it felt, helped me to gain some perspective and improve my work ethic. See, last Wednesday, I had a six period day. This seemed like a LOT of teaching to do in one day, at first. But then I realized that those six periods, forty minutes each, added up to less than one morning - without gym/swimming - at GDA. I'd still have two, possibly four hours more to teach if I were still there. So I've been trying to kick it up a notch here in Miss Becky's art room, and went ahead and started tentatively planning times for double periods for year two - since they requested it and I needed to do it, anyway. As a result - or maybe just because it's been a crazy week, which I'll get to in a minute - this week has flown by.

Yes, it has been a crazy week. Sunday Michelle went up to wake our grieving coworker up so she'd come to school and start working on rebuilding a sense of normalcy in her life. Or at least that was the plan. Actually, she was drunk as a skunk, and in the afternoon Michelle and Sarah took her into the hospital. And after checking in, she turned around and checked herself right out. I got warning of this around 6 that night, and went to spread the word to Maureen, and thus was standing next door when this individual made her way home. I said hi, but got no acknowledgement; she tried the doorknob, then turned right around and walked away. I called our principal to let him know, and tried to catch up with her before she hurt herself, but by the time I'd gotten to the lobby she'd vanished into thin air. I checked the floors, but nada. So I ate dinner with Tony and Melissa - we are so smart, we're taking turns cooking for each other - and when Roy showed up we went looking for her, but she was exactly where I said she would be, checked in at the Hilton via her husband's credit card. We explained what was going to have to happen at this point - that she was going back to her husband in Qatar - and stuck around long enough to make sure she was okay, but left around 9:30. I was fighting a cold - still - and wanted to go to bed early.

Ha. Not likely. Because Melissa needed "petrol," and on our way to the station that also has Macca's (because nothing feeds the soul like greasy fries), we stopped at a corner to let traffic clear, and a Gypo driver tried to cut around her and ended up sideswiping her. Blerg. So while Melissa lost it, I phoned Roy and asked if he was familiar with the saying, "when it rains, it pours," and asked Tony to bring Melissa's backpack (because it had her license), and asked Paul to bring Tony (because he has wheels). Except instead of explaining the situation fully to Paul I seem to have given him the impression that we just needed him to come pick us up, and he showed up without Tony, who took a cab, and hadn't made it to the scene before the police informed us to go to Mamourah station to sort it. And in spite of the evidence in our favor, we ended up getting stuck with the blame...maybe money exchanged hands, maybe it was because we couldn't communicate in Arabic, maybe just because it's a boys' club and we were screwed by our excessive x-chromosomes. Whatever the case may be, the accident was supposedly our fault.

I was pretty strong the whole night. I shed a few tears with Linda, and several on our way OUT of the station, but for the most part, I was cool, calm, and collected. Then I got home and found out my niece the Princess - who I feel fairly confident in saying is the closest thing, genetically, I have to my own children, and possibly always will be (Abby and I have similar coloring, and Shaggy and I look more alike than any of our other siblings) - was born. And THAT'S when I lost it. I didn't think I'd be so emotional over another anklebiter in this world, but I am. I missed little Princess' birth.

I still haven't fully processed the fact that there's a new crazy little redheaded girl out there in our family. And part of me is glad that I haven't had any kids, so I could really appreciate the Princess for who she is. I can't wait to meet her next summer!

There was more trauma throughout the next day or so, and I basically decided I was going to morph into Antisocial Girl on Tuesday and give a great big, "Screw You!" to the rest of the world. And I did. Recovered enough by last night to do my dinner duty (Korean curry - nom nom nom!) but my mind is in a weird place (worried place) and I wasn't the best of company...basically I wanted to get everyone out so I could dance. It's been a while since I've felt like it as much as I have been. Maybe because I've lost some weight, or because I've got three mirrors up on my wall, or just because I have my own space in which to dance. Whatever the case, I'm glad to be back in it. I forgot how much I missed it.