Well, let’s see the last time I blogged, things were going
great right? How quickly things turn in
this line of work. We were told on
Monday of last week that we needed to come up with something for Cultural Day
that was to be held on Thursday of the same week (that’s right 3 days
later). After several attempts to
convince the translator that we shouldn’t be in charge of doing something for
Cultural Day, she agreed we should not in fact do something that had to do with
their culture. She did try and convince
us we could take something that we do in our culture and change it to be Arabic
culture related. Yeah, no. I was insistent that American culture is very
different than Arabic culture. We were
finally told to do two tables for Abu Dhabi Reads. Mind you, we were not told who was coming to
this special day and what it involved.
So, like we always do, we made two tables, one with arts and crafts and
the other we read Brown Bear, Brown Bear to the kids and they made bookmarks
gluing the characters in order. We were
told on Tuesday (keep in mind this is the day AFTER we were told this whole
thing was going to happen) that we needed to stay late and set up our
area. Ummmm no, they seem to forget that
we all live far away from school (an hour plus for some) and to tell us 5
minutes before we are allowed to leave is NOT ok. We assured the translator that we would have
things to put up the next day and it would get done, as it ALWAYS does. The principal agreed that was fine (of course
none of this conversation ever happened with the principal in our presence, who
knows why she can’t talk to us herself with the translator there to help, but
that’s another thing…). We left the
building seriously irritated.
The next day we put up our stuff as we said we would, and
our display looked awesome (see the pictures below). However, after we had finished, the
translator, “VP” and art teacher were looking at our display and talking about
how it needed more. We all walked away
and agreed if they had messed with it after we left, we wouldn’t do anything
during cultural day. Why ask us to
decorate if you don’t like it and want to change it! Anyway, we came in the next day and it wasn’t
touched, thank goodness. During Cultural
Day, we were completely ignored by all the Arabic staff. The only time they talked to us was to let us
know we needed to go watch the kids and make sure they had their
breakfast. Again, I am a professional
babysitter. Then we were told to take
the “leftover” kids into the play area and sit them at our tables and do the
activities with them. THEN, we were told
to stop and wait until our cluster manager walked in and then start so he could
see us doing something. WOW, excuse me,
so he could see us doing something, as opposed to us NOT doing anything, which
is apparently what they think we do.
We told our cluster manager that we had been ignored the
whole day and not told anything as to what was going on what the schedule was
like for the day, etc. He apparently
didn’t seem too thrilled with that information, but I’m guessing nothing
happened because we weren’t told anything was said. It’s ok; we celebrated the end of the worst
week ever in our own way J.
This week, I was in charge of lesson plans since Abu Dhabi
Reads was finished and all we did during those three weeks was review (not too
sure why, but ok). Our next theme
according to our yearlong plans which the EMTs all look at when doing lesson
plans was Staying Healthy. I was
actually really excited about doing this theme, there are so many things you
can do with it, bar graphs of veggies and fruits, etc. So, we walk into our staff room at 7:45, 15
minutes before the bell rings for the start of the day and the translator who
is also a KG2 teacher walks into the staff room to talk to us. The words that came out of her mouth about
made me have a heart attack! She says
that we aren’t going to do Staying Healthy for this week, we are going to do
Animals instead because someone is coming to evaluate the principal and there
are more things we can do with Animals than Staying Healthy. I about flipped my lid; I looked at her and
said “no! we aren’t changing, I’VE already done the plans for the week. Another KG2 teacher informed her that we plan
ahead and don’t do things last minute and that wasn’t going to work for
us. So after arguing back and forth for
that whole 15 mins, we stood our ground and she left to go tell everyone else
we weren’t changing. The audacity of her
to come and tell us on the day we are supposed to start teaching that we aren’t
sticking to the plan, when she knows we plan ahead! That pretty much told me and everyone else
that they do in fact not come to school prepared! However my co-teacher is always prepared and
does a very good job, I really miss her and hope she is able to come back to
school soon. The kids were also horrible
for the two days I was at school this week.
I told on every single one of them to their moms too, I don’t care if
they get annoyed of hearing that their son or daughter isn’t listening; I am
going to let them know. I also let them
know when they had a good day as well, not just the bad. On Monday night, I went to the other teacher
villas with Rebecca and we had ourselves a little Cinco de Mayo get
together. I met someone that was in the
Happy video that was filmed here in Abu Dhabi and I freaked out and got a
picture with him. I show my kids this
video all the time and they love it!
That night, my throat started to really hurt, it was very very painful
for me to swallow. I didn’t sleep that
much during the night and the next morning I went to the doctor instead of
going to work. He told me I had a virus
and gave me 4 medications, one of which was actually relevant to my symptoms. I decided the meds weren’t helping me since I
was in so much pain, so I took some Aleve and gargled warm salt water and it
was almost instant that I felt better. I
didn’t feel 100% better, but still, I could swallow with minimal pain.
It’s so funny to me that I complain that the kids are so
difficult to handle and teach and the moment I am away from them for longer
than a day, I miss them. As naughty as
they are, they all have my heart and I miss them and feel bad that I have
messed up their routine we have worked so hard to establish. Anyway, I hope
this was informative, entertaining and a “short” break from your day!
Enjoy the pictures!
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| What happens when you scream and run down the hall, EVERYONE gets a time out before playing! |
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| And your teacher will take pictures of said punishment! |
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| This beauty is in KG1, she's adorable! |
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| The boys finished matching the capital to the lowercase and the picture that goes with it! At the beginning of the year they could only match at most 5! They aren't in order, but baby steps..... |
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| LaQuanya and Chauntell decorating part of our corner, nice job ladies! |
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| I love it when my kids sit like this, especially when they are in their Kandoras |
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| I dog sat for Vinnie and Gizmo again, much needed dog time after such a stressful week! |
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| Pepper and I, it was her first Cinco de Mayo celebration! |
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| Rebeca and I |
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| Meet Bradley, he was an unplanned dinner guest who quickly was returned to his natural habitat of the great outdoors! He wasn't really red, more peach and transparent, it was the filter on my camera that made min look radiantly red! |
