Smoke comes out my ears

Here's a little slice of irony for you: Saturday as things were winding down at the British school, I expressed concern to my fellow teachers that we put things back, because I know I get pissed when I come back to my room after the weekend and shit's been moved around. One teacher explained that this was these teachers' way of contributing to the festival, and another joked and said, "Well, it's a good thing it's not your classroom!"

Unbeknownst to me at the time, there were high school boys unsupervised across the street in my art room, ruining my life. Okay, I'm being a little dramatic with Exhibit A: half a bottle of glue emptied into my class pack of oil pastels, but Exhibit B: the utter obliteration (seriously...read on...) of EVERYTHING in the "My Documents" file on my hard drive. I know it was utterly obliterated because the IT god of RAKESS came and dredged everything up from the last two and a half years, and after three hours looking through them, all I'd found was two files that were actually saved on the server. Most of which I could live with, but those were my student records from the last two months, and I can't recreate that. So the moral of the story is, back that shit up. And

Also on Saturday: experienced my second car accident. Or my second car accident that was not my fault. My taxi driver was trying to merge back onto the road that keeps getting shut down to a one-lane every other week, and apparently he didn't see the car that was going the wrong way, because they merged right into each other. Well, that's all well and good, we all know what the driving is like here, but I got pissed when he got out to talk about it AND LEFT THE METER RUNNING. So I started yelling at him to come in and turn it off because I'm not paying for him to talk to the police, but he ignored me (yeah, he probably had other things on his mind. I don't care). After he'd pulled over another taxi to finish driving me to Sunrise (no thank you, I am two blocks away and so pissed I need the chance to blow off the steam), he finally got around to turning off the meter and tried to charge me 8 dirhams instead of 7, which is what the meter was at when he got hit. One dirham is not a lot of money, but it's a principal, I had a headache and I was pissed.

Yesterday was without significant event, and ended with Arabic night at Bait Muneera, which turned out lovely (thank you, Petra Kitchen). Socrates came over more than 15 minutes ahead of everyone else and it was nice having an intelligent conversation for a change. And with that, I think I'd better get ready for classes.

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.