Back at School

Wow, what a week. Today is the first time I've been back to school since I got sent home last Sunday. I got hit with some kind of nasty flu, and my symptoms all line up with a certain kind of flu going around right now. The clinic I finally made it to (that is a story that makes me so angry I'm not even going to post it) told me I had the Common Cold and Bronchitis, but that sure wasn't how I felt, so I'll let you draw your own conclusions. Today I'm still feeling pretty tired. I'd love to go lie down on the little bed Johani put together for me in her store room last Sunday, but my classroom is still a disaster, and I feel like there are lots of other things I should probably be doing. So, I'll bear with it for now and go to bed at 7:30 again tonight.

Interesting, I feel like my heart has taken a turn with my health. I haven't posted a ton this school year, partly because there isn't a lot that I've wanted to share, and partly because I've been so angry and frustrated lately, and I don't want to write about that all of the time. Things here have been really miserable--two of our new teachers ran away within two weeks because they couldn't handle it. It's sad when our secretary getting fired is considered one for the plus column. Anyway, after getting so massively sick and after the whole clinic saga that I went through, I called my mother and broke down on the phone. I was ready to pack my bags as well. I'm so tired of being lied to, of our school falling apart, and of not being able to get simple, logical things accomplished. It's frustrating. But I talked with my mom, which was good, and I got some reading done while I was laid up in bed, which was also good, and I was reminded of a very important fact: I get to choose my attitude. I realize that sounds like a very cliche thing to say, and I think most people usually hate hearing that. But I think we often don't like hearing things that are true. What I realized is that, partly due to my new living situation, I've been doing nothing lately except discussin how bad things are right now. And then we discuss it again. And then this person adds something new. And yet another piece of information comes out. And then we rehash the whole thing all over again. I've decided that I'm done doing that, and I let the people around me know. There's just no sense in poisoning my own soul.

So, that's what I have to say today on my first day back at school. Now time to go and get some work done.

~Nikki

Spiteful

Life feels a little bit spiteful right now. I'm not really down in spirits, but I am pretty sick at the moment, and I think that makes me at least a little bit whiny. But first, let me back up.

This past week has been Diwali (pronounced di VA li), which is a mainly Indian (hindu?) holiday. Besides lots of our neighbors (we live in a predominantly Indian area) putting out lights and setting of pop-rocket type fireworks all the time, the four nearby mosques felt the need to remind everyone that we still reside in a musilm country. That means that the mosques turned up the speakers all last week. So every morning, somewhere are 5:30, Johani and I got a nice wakeup call in the form of chanting for morning prayers. Joy. On top of that, some evenings they would go off every half an hour, so we heard them constantly! GAH! I am convinced that the mosques were feeling spiteful.

Returning to me being sick... I think I've got some kind of flu. I've had a number of sick kids in my class, and I've been out of hand sanitizer for two weeks. Nevermind that I've been asking the school to give me more for two weeks, apparently the fact that they want everyone in the school to use it every hour just wasn't that important when it came to classroom 2C. Now, when a very sick version of me cornered the vice-principal yesterday and told her all of this, I got handed the bottle off of her desk! About time! I just wish it would have been before I got sick. As it is, I got sent home yesterday afternoon with a 101 fever. I've pretty much been sleeping since about 1:30 pm yesterday. I'm tired. I ache. I can't make any logical connections, but somehow it feels spiteful that I am sick. Like I said, I get whiny.

Another Week

Nothing too exciting this past week. Things in my class are going well, and hopefully we'll have three more teachers at school on Sunday, which should alleviate some stress. We're kind of placing bets on how quickly the new teachers will run away screaming, but I'm going to do everything I can to keep at least the Grade 2 teacher from quitting in the first month. She'll have the remedial class (unaffectionately called the crazy class), which means the autistic/learning disabled/weakest students in Grade 2. It's going to be rough on her, that's for certain.

On a very happy note, Neal is coming to visit me! I've got a break at the end of November/beginning of December, so he'll be putting his passport to use for the first time and heading on over to my side of the world for a bit. He'll even be here for my birthday, which is really exciting. Hurray.

Lastly, you might have noticed a new little gadget/link on the right side of the page. I wrote before that I recently read The Five Love Languages and that I would mention more about it later. I ended up choosing another book first, but I've gone and started another blog where I'll be keeping notes on books that I'm reading, conferences I go to... stuff like that. So, if you're interested, Nikki's Book Notes is now open for public viewing. Scroll down below the archive on this blog to find the link to it.

I think that's about it for now. No new culinary adventures this week (did I ever mention the chicken I made stuffed with ham and topped with halloumi cheese and sauteed mushrooms? Man, that was fantastic...), no major outings, nothing fantastic or horrific. I'm trying to motivate myself to get pictures up, so we'll see if those appear by the end of the day or not. Picassa hasn't been agreeing with me though...

I guess that's it for now. I'm going to go do some more reading and napping. Weekends are wonderful. :o)
~Nikki

Happy

I am really quite happy right now, and I feel the need to share that. My first week of school is over. I was absolutely drained by the end of it, but that wasn't the fault of my kids. I have a good group this year, and I'm really excited about it. We're started things off well I think, and it looks as though it should continue that way. Amen! It's kind of fun, too, to have my old students walk into the room and tell me it looks like a whole new room. Granted, they changed some of the cork boards in the room--put new and bigger ones up, but I also spent a good chunk of money and bought some nice resources. So I have a really great alphabet, number line, "classroom rules" posters, some borders for my boards, and a few other things. On top of that, the school actually bought some decent paper to put up as the background on the boards, and that makes huge difference. Before it's always been dull shades of green, black, white, off-white etc. Now I've got really brilliant blue, lime green, purple, and even some stripey stuff. I like it a lot. As soon as my external hard-drive finishes copying my old computer and I get the files transfered to this computer, I'll put up some pictures.

Last night was really nice as well, and that made me happy. Johani and I went out with four of the new teachers from school. There is a married couple from South Africa--Mark and Yolanda, then Michelle from Canada, and Lynn from Ireland, though she spent the last two years teacher in Qatar. They are all in their late 20's/early 30's; we meshed pretty well. They aren't too wrapped up in the politics from last year either, which is refreshing. So, we went to an Irish pub/restaraunt last night where they had ladies night--free champagne and daquiris. Granted that the daquiris are pretty weak, but that was kind of nice. So we had ourselves a good dinner, enjoyed some free drinks, and even danced a little. It was good to hang out with people and for pretty cheap (Johani and I managed the bus. You've got to love traveling around for less than a dollar a person).

The final item on the list of things currently making me happy is that Johan was able to bluetooth Skype to me this morning, so I now have that on my new computer. For some odd reason, hers came with it already installed, while mine did not. We got the same computer from the same place (though mine ended up coming in from a different location because they were temporarily out of stock). Interesting, but I'm just glad to have Skype again. It felt a little silly and counter-productive to have two computers on at the same time. Glad to have that problem solved. Now I can call home again, and I once again have a backspace and spacebar button that function properly. Life is good.

Oh, I meant to post this before, but I guess I'll do it now. Last weekend Johani and I had to go the the main post office branch for me to collect a package from a certain man in my life. For some reason the man from school who usually collects the mail wasn't allowed to get this piece, so I had to go retrive it personally. I guess I shouldn't say that Johani had to come along--she choose to. But that's beside the point. The point is that you would think a trip to the post office would be no big deal. You would be wrong about that. First, I located a bus map and figured out a route to get there. After, Johani both made sure we had out bus cards, then trekked on over to the bus stop nearest our flat. When we got to the bus stop, we noticed a new machine there. We saw people swipping little gray plastic cards, which looked different than the thick paper ones that she and I had. So, I tried swipping mine, and sure enough, it was now out of date. We needed the new credit-card looking ones. So, I followed the directions, put my 20 dirhams in, and got us a card. We decided that we would just get one card and swipe it twice on the bus rather than get two when neither of us ever take the bus without the other. Then we waited for the bus. The bus came, we got on, I swipped the card once, then tried to swipe it again. It said "Already checked in". I thought, this cannot be good. The driver then informed us we both needed a card. Except he began pulling away before Johani could hop off the bus to quickly get herself one. So, she got a free ride. Not a bad deal, even though it costs all of 60ish cents to ride.

We got off at our connection point where, thankfully, there was another card machine. I had noticed that most of the bus stops did not have machines. We got out more money and went to get another card. Except that this machine was not turned on yet. So, we decided that we would just catch a cab the rest of the way since it wasn't that far. After walking for a bit and not finding a good spot to get a cab, I took a look at the map and thought that we might just be able to walk to the post office, though it would be at least a good half an hour walk. Off we went, in the 95ish degree weather, with full sun and very high humidity.

After a while I thought we'd reached our final turn, but upon consulting the map a little closer and looking around for matching landmarks, I decided that we might not be exactly where I had hoped. Nearly melting from the heat, we decided to catch a cab, which ended up being good because we were headed in the wrong direction. Eventually, we made it to the post office, I got my box, and then we tried to being making our way back home.

First, we had to figure out where the nearest bus stop was. After trying to ask someone in the post office, I finally gave up and we began consulting my two maps. Just about the time I got it figured out and was ready to put the maps away, somone from inside walked out and told us that they stop was just around the other side of the building. Great. So, we walked to the stop. No card machine. No card machine = no bus ride. I knew there was a bus station somewhere in the area, so we began walking toward it. To make a very long story short, after many failed attempts, lots of walking in the heat, and SEVEN HOURS from the time we left, we finally made it back to our apartment. I'm quite glad to get the items that were in my box, but I'm hoping that I don't have to make that trek again soon.

That's all for today. :o)
~Nikki