Walli what?

WALLIWOOD! Yes, folks, I have renamed my place of residence from Hawalli to Walliwood. Sounds much more regal, don't ya think?

Anyways, this week has been busy busy busy. I started a long ish term sub position in a KG 1 class. This is different than the one I'll be taking up in March, but same age group. We've had a lot of fun. Part of that fun happened on Wednesday. This weekend is Kuwait's Liberation Day celebrations and, so, on Wednesday the Preschool area had a bunch of stuff in honor of this special weekend. There was a bouncy castle, a roller coaster type of thingie, face painting, throwing games, and CHARACTERS (Spiderman, Minnie and Mickey, Donald, Barney and Friends!). It was pretty cool, but mostly hectic. Whatevs. The kids had fun and, in retrospect, so did I.

Since this weekend is a super special weekend, we have four days off! Holla! Yesterday, Lindsay, rents, and I went way out to Bnaider (way out) to a Kite Festival. It was glorious! Such a gorgeous day and then seeing all these ginormous kites floating around. It was really awesome. Here are some pics!

Daddy even got to fly a kite! Look at him go!

Oh my goodness! I almost forgot to add that we started the weekend off right with a random dance party at PhiLindsay's! It was awesome! Too much fun.

Peace, love, & Lotion!

Play-by-tiny-little-play

Weekends are awesome. Not that I do much during the weekdays... YET! It's just nice having the rentals and the other cool cool people around.

This weekend (by the way, weekends are Friday and Saturday here) on Thursday, there was a huge basketball game, so I sauntered on over to the school to partake in being a spectator. We, unfortunately, did not win, but we played one helluva game! Rock on. Afterwards, the rents and I hung out with PhiLindsay, the HuffHos, Emily, and Stephen. Most excellent.

The following day, a couple of the ladies went to the salon. It was an interesting experience. Painful. Yea. Then we just chilled out, per usual. That night, a couple of us went out to eat at Ruby Tuesday's (WOOT) and then went to a show at Kuwait Little Theater. KLT is super cute! It's a little theater (duh) that is in Kuwait (duh, again) and a combination of foreigners and Kuwaitis put on shows! It's so cute. Last night the show was entitled "Love Story" and it was practically like Glee. COOL! Needless to say, I wiggled and sang along most of the show. They had references to Friends and How I Met Your Mother and one of the guys wore a BAZINGA! shirt! BALLER! Exciting.

Today, Saturday, we went to school because there was a carnival! The kids teamed up with other kids and sold stuff and just a bunch of stuff. There were bouncy castles (yes, I went on them, duh), turtles (didn't buy one..), water guns, and other cool things. Since then, I've been hanging out. Filled out my FAFSA (YIKES!) and am gonna go tutor.

Super exciting play-by-tiny-little-play of the weekend. I know you enjoyed it.

Peace, love, & good music

Valentine's Day is Tomorrow

I feel like I take too much time inbetween blog posts because between the last time and the actual blogging time, I come up with a bunch of different things I'd want to write about. Then I set down to actually put it on here and can't think of a damn thing! Bah humbug!

Let's start slow.

Last week I substituted in a pre-school classroom twice. Those kids. SO FREAKIN' CUTE! You can pretty much tell them apart (which was not really the case my first month or so in Korea) but, the thing is, all their names are the same! You're either Dana, Abdulazziz, Mohammad, or Yousef here I feel like! I guess it makes it easier, but what about the kids who don't fall under those names? Poor babies... :( ANYwho. I had a blast. We played a lot. It's amazing how they can get play-do EVERYWHERE. They're pretty talented. Also, they're REALLY fast. Like, they run really fast. And their small, so they can dart this way and that really ninja-fast, too! It's crazy! In those two days we played, we went on a leaf hunt, we did a lot of jumping (aka dancing), and a lot of cleaning up. A kid cut his own hair. Luckily, it was just a whole one curl, so it's not entirely noticeable. But yea, I had a blast. They're so much fun!

I've started getting the ball rolling on my master's! I've also been tutoring a bit. And I also got a job! Ish. It's from March to the end of this year. A kindergarten assistant is going on maternity leave (P.S. everyone is married and/or pregnant here, yikes!) and they asked me to take her place! BALLER! So that gives me something to do for then.

Liberation Day is coming up, so Kuwaiti flags can be seen everywhere. I'll do my best to capture photos of this and display them here. Guys, these flags aren't just normal-people sized, they are GINORMOUS flags hanging from people's GINORMOUS houses. And, in Kuwait City at night, the buildings are all lit up! It's so pretty!

Oh, and also, I've been here one month! Time has flown slowly by. Weird. I confused myself.

Okay, that's it, guys. Too much, I know. My apologies.

Peace, love, & trucks. (I don't know. I couldn't think of anything else.)

Snippity Snappity Snapshots

Kuwait in a Nutshell

Since I came here knowing close to nothing about Kuwait, I thought that I'd post a post including a few things about Kuwait.

Here goes a brief synopsis:

1. Malls: Kuwaitis love them. Basically the only thing to do here (go to malls). They have a ton of them. I've been to Avenues, Titanic Mall, Crescent, and 360 (a mall that goes in a circle, hence the name). They're huge. They have stores from the States (H&M, Forever 21, Armani, Gucci, Coach, etc.).

2. Cars: When you go out in the street or on the road and wherever, you do see some Hondas, Toyotas, Fords, and Nissans, but mostly you see Ferraris, Porsches, Mercedes, Jaguars, Audis, etc. Exciting.

3. People: The women are gorgeous, as to be expected. Makeup is always done and, most of the time, they are dressed up. Stinks for me, as I like tromping around in my hoodie and just a plain pair of jeans, but whatevs.

4. People (continued): There are so many different ethnicities here! There are Pakistanis, Indians, Sri Lankans, Filipinos, Canadians, Americans, British, South Africans. Foreigners are everywhere! Oh, also Iraqis, Iranians, Saudis, too.

5. Outside: It's pretty dusty, guys. I mean, I think this is what most people assume the Middle East is like and, welp, you're right. It's dusty. It's dust-storm season, so all the teachers have been just waiting for it to consume the city. The dust/sand also makes most things brown. Every once in awhile you see a blue or pink building and it just pops out from the brown. Nice change. Other than dusty, it's pretty. Kuwait City is still growing, buildings are still being built and the buildings they have are really cool looking and fancy shmancy. The sky is usually blue and cloudless, so it's pretty pretty.

That's it guys. That's all I've got. Kuwait in a really tiny nutshell. There's a lot more going on with Kuwait, but I either haven't figured it out yet or I don't feel like talking about it publicly. Shrugsies.

Peace, love, & American goods.

Edit: Kuwaitis also don't really have addresses. You tell people how to get to a place via surroundings. "Oh, you know that one Lobster Lake place? Yea, that's where I live. Somewhere off 4th Ring Road. Oh, you don't know? Hmmm... across from Champion gym? No, no, past Subway. Past Dominoes. Yes, yes. That's where I live."