Heartstrings 34.0: Happy burfday!

Today is Monday... and it's GONZO's birthday all the way back in Texas! Happy birthday, Katie-did! I miss you and hope you're having a wonderfully spoiled day. Been thinking about you all day today!

Aside from being Monday and a birthday, this day was also the last Monday I will have to work until April 15th!!! It's getting so close to being my turn to go on vacation... 'bout dang time! I have decided that Thailand is going to be my do-my-research-but-don't-book-anything vacation. As in, I just want to veg on a beach, do lots of water activities, hike a little, and just be. I'm really looking forward to wondering aimlessly around the islands and not have a care in the world for the time being. We've decided that we're going to spend the first 3 days in Bangkok and then head down to Krabi and the islands after that for a little over a week.

This week so far has been a breeze at school. I have only had 9-10 boys in each class for the two school days... had to take some kids from my co-workers class as she was at a wedding back in Ireland. That put me a little up there, but nothing to complain too much about. We've done lots of math and watching movies... trying to bore them to death so that they don't show up for the rest of the week--lol.

It rained here in Abu Dhabi Doo again... for a desert, it sure has rained more then I assumed it would here in this country. It's nice and refreshing... although it can leave you fatigued and wanting to nap on the couch all afternoon.

Welp, it's getting close to that thing called bed-time, so I should go make preparations for that... have a wonderful Monday and enjoy wherever this day may lead you! 

Heartstrings 33.0: just a normal, average weekend... Except not.

Welp, it's Saturday here folks; which means tomorrow is the start to another work week. I will have to say, I am reallly hoping that these next two weeks go by as fast as this past week went. I have had my share of ups and downs here lately, so I'm hoping that the roller coaster ride of emotions and life in general will subside.

This weekend was a good start for an upswing... I had a friend come over from Al Ain and we had a nice and relaxing weekend. Andrea had never been to a beach here in the UAE, so that was our first goal to check off for the weekend. After finding out that they had opened a new public beach on Saadiyat Island, we ventured that way. The island isn't built up very well and the signs are for crap; so we drove around for a little bit attempting to find the road the beach was off of. After stopping and talking to a guy who was at the gate of some beach villas and getting some non-helpful advice, we finally circled back around and found the road. The beach was quite full, yet surprisingly quiet, for opening weekend and we weren't able to secure a chair/table for this "soft opening" as they called it. Didn't bother us any, we just plopped our towels down on the nice cool sand which was a few hundred feet away from a protected area for some sea turtles that lay their eggs in the dunes. It was 22° outside (72° F) and the water was the same temperature... So needless to say, it was a perfect afternoon to wade in the rolling waves and get a little sandy.

this is what it would look like if it were empty...

the turtles lay their eggs in the dunes up off the shore to hatch

After finishing up our beaching experience, we headed for one of my favorite western places to eat here in Abu Dhabi called Jones the Grocer. It's an Australian restaurant... I had a burger last time, so I decided to go for a chicken burger with guacamole. It was delish... Andrea got some salmon and baba ghanoush which she really enjoyed as well. 

A few hours later, we ventured to Emirates Palace (Abu Dhabi's only 7 star hotel) for a compilation from a world famous Russian ballet company. It was quite a nice show... more intermission periods then we cared for (one 20 minute break and another 25 minute break). This was only my second ballet experience (my first show being in Prague) but I did enjoy most of it... It ended pretty late and we'd driven, so we decided to let the crowd disperse a little. We settled down and had some dessert... in the chocolate lava cake topped with gold flakes form. Best.... dessert.... ever! It was ah-mazing! I wish I could describe how rich the flavor of the cake was and how as soon as your golden fork hits the cake, it breaks apart due to its moistness... but words just don't do it justice. 

heaven!

We wondered around the hotel and you've never seen so much gold in one place at one time... I don't think they know that other colors exist in this place: 

After having my first Emirates Palace experience, I was quite impressed. It was a lovely experience... one I wouldn't do over and over, but a nice place to go to feel a little luxury in life. 

We came back to my place, attempted to sleep in, but ended up leaving the flat early this morning to head to breakfast at the mall (all the restaurants/fast food places/grocery stores are in a mall). We ate a nice hearty breakfast, and Andrea did some shopping... I had previously had my girl moment the week before, so I didn't need to purchase anything. Friends back home, you would be proud... bought 2 dresses, a purse, and some shiny silver dress sandles.

Back to reality today though... and work. I think I've put off doing eSIS (student grades) for awhile now today, so I should probably get back to that for a bit. Enjoy your weekend, wherever you are!

heartstrings 32.0: tiiiiii-eeeerrrrddd!

To all my friends back home spring breaking it up now... please know that you have an extremely jealous friend half-way across the world. I've been facebook stalking people and really wish I could say I was enjoying some time off of work right about now... I'm in desperate need of a break. Doesn't help that we changed our schedule up three weeks ago and I don't really get too many breaks anymore. Just today I was told that during my break, I would have to go to another school for an observation, bring back what I learned, and present it as a professional development for the rest of the english teachers. Then had to immediately go to a meeting room to sit and wait for parents to show to talk about their son's progress--to which none showed... then got a call right as our time was up that I had a parent in the office waiting for me. So I had about 20 minutes of a break today to eat. Good times. My body is so not used to working this long without at least a day off and it has caught up with me.

In the past two and half weeks, I have:

• parked in another person's parking spot and wondered why someone put their bike in my spot
• left the gym, got off on my floor; heard lots of noises from my flat, wondered why my door was open, who the people were, and where my welcome mat had gone--only to realize I had gotten off on the wrong floor. 
• attempted to make copies one morning at work, and put in my copy code from the states
• put the cereal in the fridge and the milk in the cabinet
• almost fallen asleep when my boys are playing during their classroom break time
• purchased 100 dirhams of phone credit for data and accidentally put it in as phone credit.
• gone to bed at 8:00, thinking it was 9:00... Then when I realized it was only 8:00, I didn't care to get up out of bed, so I just called it a night. 

I have never... ever... ever felt as tired in my life as I have lately. And I've done some pretty silly stuff, but I not so much of it in such a short span. Maybe it's a mixture of work, no break since January, and a reading everyone's spring break plans that has made me feel like this... all I know is that it is still 2 weeks and 1 day until I get to say that I am on spring break myself.

Hope everyone back home is enjoying their time off--you've definitely earned it! Don't be jealous of my working whilst you're playing away in your everyday life!

Heartstrings 31.0: Dubai lovin'

Howdy, howdy, howdy, ho!

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend back home. I had to work today (blah!) and I went full steam ahead with no food allll day... guess that's what you get when you go to Dubai for a day and then come back and meet friends for dinner. So it was totally my own doing... still not fun.

Last Tuesday, I got in touch with a fella off of dubizzle (kind of like a craigslist) and he was selling a ticket for the ladies semi-finals match on Friday. I was a little worried about meeting some random person and was hoping it was a legit ticket... I ended up meeting him in the Dubai Mall and turns out, he had an all expense paid work thing to Egypt that came up and apparently it was a lot more important then tennis. Can't argue with that. I got there a little early and wondered around the mall for a bit doing little "touristy" things on accident after taking a wrong turn in the mall.

The Burj Khalifia on a beautiful night

The Dubai fountain... right outside the Dubai Mall/Burj Khalifia. Beautiful.

Little MJ fountain show while waiting to meet up for dinner.

After collecting the ticket, I met up with someone for dinner at Roadhouse (I needed a little bitta home after my observation and longish week.) We had a nice dinner and I got home suuuuper late for my standards--no thanks to some idiot who almost clipped the back end of my car going an easy 160 km/h. Definitely woke me up a little more for the last 30 minutes of my drive. The people here are insanely bad drivers... makes Texans look like world class drivers.

On Friday, I met my friend Andrea at our hotel we were going to be staying in called the Media Rotana (I am a big fan of a Rotana hotel as that is the place where I lived for a month when I first got to Abu Dhabi). We checked in and headed straight out with the intention of taking the Metro to the Tennis Center... good thing we asked where the stop was because it was Friday morning and the metro doesn't start operating until 1:00 (or was it 2:00? I can't remember now.. hmm...) So we hailed a taxi and headed for the Irish Village (which is a nice little place outside the center with a really great atmosphere--if anyone is ever in the market for something to do whilst in Dubai on holiday!) We ate a quick bite at a local restaurant there... walked around for about 30 minutes waiting on the gates to open (I bought a RAFA HAT! yesss!) and then we be-lined for some really fantastic seats. Andrea met a German dude the day before and he joined us for the day. We settled in for a nice afternoon in the sun full of tennis! I'm not gonna lie, I wasn't too terribly excited about attending a women's tennis match (I'd MUCH rather see the men play; but seeing as I couldn't even register to purchase tickets before they were sold out... I figured the women were better then nothing.) It's a different pace and atmosphere, but it was still fun nonetheless. The women are a lot smaller than they look on TV... quite interesting. I'm currently trying to find some tickets to the mens match now. We'll see how that goes. I'd love to see Roger and Novak in person!!

I hope everyone has a lovely week this coming week! Won't be too much longer before spring break is here! I'm praying my granny gets over her shingles that she's had for a bit... it sounds incredibly awful! And my mama... she's been in the ER with some mini-strokes. Praying the doctors can figure out what's going on so she can get to feeling better!

Heartstrings 30.0: I miss the south!

Last night I really missed Texas for some strange reason. I found myself watching The Last Song on tv while I was waiting for a few friends to finish with their trip to Ikea. I found myself enjoying the southern-ness of the movie and then watched Reba on her new show to get more southern-ness into my life. I miss the yes ma'am, no sir, slow pace in life, and just plain ole twang! I'm about this close to going to Dubai just to go to Texas Roadhouse! :)

This week is going to be a big week for me... I have my final observation on Tuesday. It's supposed to be an English lesson so I'll have to come up with something this weekend for it. I'm supposed to have 44 student portfolio's done in a binder as well as my teaching portfolio. Not sure if I'll have all that goodness finished in time; but we shall see.

Speaking of Dubai, I went there last weekend with my friend, Cathy. It was loads of fun (and firsts) for me. Here are my firsts I experienced last weekend:

1. tried Indian chicken (wasn't as spicy as I was expecting!)
2. ate Korean food (it was really good... I picked up the art form of chopsticks quickly!)
3. sang karaoke for 4 hours (my family would be proud, I sang Sweet Home Alabama and attempted Walk This Way--did much better when I wasn't reading the screen.)
4. ate some form of Indian food I did not know (surprisingly, it wasn't bad)
5. stayed out until 2 am (paid for it the next day!)

I was the only American at dinner and at karaoke... it was a new feeling for me. We met up with Cathy's friend, Jo, to celebrate her new job in Dubai with some of her friends--all who happen to be British. There were a couple of ladies there that were lawyers and asked some pretty funny questions about Texas. They asked me if I wore uniforms to school, if it was "cool" to be a cheerleader, and then finally... they asked if high school in America was like the movie Clueless. (I got a big kick out of this question). Then they asked about the death penalty and if the Texas Chainsaw Massacre really did happen. Gotta love the Brits! Ever so amusing! 

This week had it's moments of ups and downs in the classroom... my allergies started acting up after leaving Dubai so I didn't get much sleep for the first few nights of the week. I was a tad less patient with some of the boys; but nothing they couldn't handle! One of them in the middle of teaching told me to "wait a minute," as he got up and walked over to another boys desk to talk. So I made him and a boy who laughed stay in at foosa (recess).

We finally started reading books in class (I got a document camera--sort of like an Elmo for all you teachers back in Texas, but not as fancy). The book is about dogs... one of my littles named Salem raised his hand and said, "Ms. I go to America, and in America, I see dogs everywhere!" I couldn't help but laugh because it's true. I then proceeded to tell them about how sometimes dogs wear clothes in America when it is cold outside (I had been showing them the snow in the East when we do the weather). They loved that bit of information.

Hope you guys are having a good week back home! Not too much longer before spring break will be here. I'm so ready--as we all are. I'm thinking about heading to Thailand for 10 days to relax on a beach, ride some elephants, and do some fun water things!

Heartstrings 29.0: Are You Ready for some Football?

Happy Day After the Super Bowl to everyone back home!!! Things are still pretty cool here but they are starting to warm up a little in the day. I'd say it's about 80 here now in the day and I am NOT looking forward to the heat that is coming. I kinda dig this cool weather.

So I saw the Ravens won the Super Bowl. As most of you know, I decided to wake up at 3:00 in the morning (yes, that time DOES exist!) to watch the game. I was super stoked to find out last night that I got the channel that would be broadcasting the Super Bowl live and in HD... which meant that I wouldn't have to stream it on my MacBook! I slept on the couch so my lazy bum wouldn't have to get out of bed to watch the game. I did really well and made it all the way up to half time before I had to turn the tv off and catch a few winks of sleep. I slept for about an hour before my alarm went off. Obsessive as I was; I immediately turned the TV on to find that I had only missed 7 minutes of the 3rd quarter. Didn't quite understand at that time how I missed so little of the game until they said the lights had gone out. Lovely. I didn't get a chance to watch the last 12 minutes of the game (so sad!) since I had to leave for work; but I did keep up with the live feed during my morning assembly whilst instructing boys to stand on their white circles ;)

I didn't really care who won... saw the 49ers last season in the playoffs and knew they would make it to the big dance this year. And the Ravens had the whole Ray Lewis and Michael Oher (the dude from Blind Side) story line to go with it... so I was pulling for both teams. Although I did find myself rooting more for San Francisco (but mostly because I really wanted an actual football game instead of one team dominating the other). I'm happy that Oher won a super bowl... and Lewis went out with the perfect ending.

Lord help me in March when the NCAA bball tourney starts. I will be beyond sleep deprived like I am now but throughout the span of weeks! 

Work is going okay (in the classroom.) Having some pretty ridiculous issues with one of my head of faculty. Trying to push through that is proving to be harder then I thought it would be.

Anywhoo, just wanted to stop by and update you on my "stupidity"... guess you gotta make a few sacrifices to feel a little closer to home when you're 6,000 miles away.

Heartstrings 28.0: Issac

Have you ever woken up in the morning and been thoroughly confused as to where you were? That was my exact thought on the first morning I woke up in Texas. It took me a good minute to realize that I was in Nikki's guest bedroom and not in Abu Dhabi anymore.

The trip back home was realllllly long (over 22 hours and 3 flights) but it was totally worth it. When I touched down in Dallas, the real fun began. I had to gather my baggage and then re-check it for my flight to Houston. I wasn't worried about the time (almost 2 hour layover) but then I got into line for customs and suddenly, I started to worry a little. After finally making it through, I ran and checked my bag in only to find that my flight to Houston was not on the departure board. I didn't have a clue where to go, so I saw what gate most of the other AA flights were departing from, and headed that way praying I made the right assumption.

I ended up getting stuck in the line for security with less than an hour before my flight started boarding. Shortly after getting in line, a guard told a group of us to go to the next line because the line was shorter... so we complied--wrong call. The same dude came back about 20 minutes later and told us that there was a shorter line down the way if we wanted to go wait in it--the same line that he had moved us from before. I now had less than 20 minutes before my plane started boarding and I was still stuck in line for security--then the fun began... my flight started boarding and I was still a good 20 people back in line.

I was certain that I would be missing my flight to Houston and I didn't have a way to get a hold of Nikki to let her know what was going on. I woke up mid-flight to London and realized that I left my US cell phone charging on the counter in my kitchen--not the place for it to be!

After finally making it through the line, I checked the board once again. My flight was still not on there. I was a tad stressed and a little unsure as to what to do--so I asked some workers who were chatting away for some help. They looked up the flight and told me that my flight was leaving out of the farthest gate from where I was at that moment and that I needed to run to catch it in time.

So that's what I did--minus the running part. I just walked quickly. I made it to the gate and asked if this was the flight to Houston. They naturally said yes and that they were closing the door. I had made it. Good times.

Nikki picked me up and I got to see my little man, Issac for the first time in 3 months. I wasn't greeted with a smile immediately, but I told him I would break him... and by the time we got on the highway, he smiled. :)

We had dinner at Denny's... Issac and I played with the "balls" on the Christmas tree while mama tried to finish eating her dinner and then made our long drive back to Bryan, Texas to spend the weekend. We got home pretty late and prepared for a long weekend of packing for their big move to Nebraska.

The first order of business Saturday morning for me was to get some potato and egg breakfast burritos and a Diet DP. It was delish! I could have had it every morning if I was allowed to--haha. We were supposed to meet up with our good friend, Katie, and her family that morning; but her son woke up with a fever. We ended up running to Target and Wal-Mart to pick up the most important things I needed back here in the UAE--goldfish and sweet-tarts.

Nikki's dad and brother arrived later that day and thus the packing and painting process began. In the midst of the move, Nikki's dad was really adamant about using plastic tubs to move with. So they went and got tubs and when they got back; I did what I do best, trying to occupy little man whilst the others packed.

I didn't get very many pictures because some little guy is obsessed with cameras... but our tub time was a blast!

Someone remembered the camera as soon as it was pulled out!

spinning around in the tub mid-air was a blast!!!

what ya up to Issac?!? t-r-o-u-b-l-e...

just look at how much excitement a tub can bring!

it was a little dizzying after though... lol

Needless to say, I missed (and currently miss) this kid. I was blown away at how much he had grown/learned since I left 4 months ago. He was talking and learning things minute by minute. It was amazing to watch him mimic everything that I did... like putting my foot on a metal bar to rest it while at Home Depot getting carpet samples and seeing him follow suit. They really do watch every little thing you do and see if it's possible for them to do it as well.

keeping the kid occupied during an unwanted diaper change... camera distraction!

just look at that face!

This guy will soon be a big brother... like this week kind of soon. I'm excited that he's going to have a sweet little sister. Bummer I won't be able to be there and meet her though :/