3 Days

... THAT has been the most magical thing ever, lately.  We had a surprise 3 day weekend last weekend because Kuwait celebrated their 50th anniversary of their Constitution.  They had so many fireworks - it was record breaking!  No, seriously!  It was!  I watched from the roof of our hotel, surrounded by good people.  I thoroughly enjoyed the hour of fireworks... I mean, who wouldn't?!

Then, we had a 3 day work week!  While it was super short, it felt super long.  I wasn't feeling life this week, and I'm not quite sure.  I guess it's just one of those slumps that creep up on ya and settle right on in for a bit.  I'm in the process of shaking it off for good at the moment!  This week at school, we started a new unit: Bears!  So I had the kids bring in their teddy bears and we have been doing fun things all week.  I'm excited to continue it next week.  If only the kids would get their ish together and stop being knuckleheads causing trouble.

THENNN we have another 3 day weekend!  It's the Islamic New Year (HAPPY NEW YEAR, btw!) and so we got Thursday off!  It's been relaxing so far.  Went to the salon and will probably meet up with some new friends tonight for some shisha and beverages.  I'm excited!  :)

Some other pretty awesome things: my boss complimented me on my comments on the report cards saying that I worded it very well and the parents can see what exactly is going on in the classroom from it.  :) My Arabic teacher (for the kids) loves me - so says all the other Arabic teachers! :) Went to Mad Musicals last night put on by SIK and it was pretty okay. :) Got to see Alex and Ian.  They always make me smile.

Here are some pictures and a video of my week!:

 Peace, love, & Lucky Number 3

This Week in Bullets

Hola,

This week has proven to be a bit of a test to my patience, happiness, motivation, and any other good/feel-good words.  But there have been pretty amazing things that have happened, too.  Here's what's been up:

• the school (KG) has been going through assessments because report cards are coming out soon.  Thankfully (and, at times, surprisingly) my class did relatively well.  There were just a few that I had a feeling wouldn't do as well, and didn't.  But that's good!  I'm happy about that.  
• in relation to assessments, I haven't really been in class this week because I've been assessing one-on-one and so my TA has been leading the class this week.  I missed them, until I was in the class yesterday.  They were complete MONSTERS.  We were going to have a fun day, but those little munchkins ruined it, so we did not fun work.  Suckers.
• Obama got re-elected.  While I didn't really follow the election all that closely, I knew for a fact that I definitely did NOT want Romney to win.  I still don't feel like either were the best candidate, but Romney was just the WORST.  I cried out of pure happiness that he did not get elected.  Thank goodness for that.
• us hotel people are still in the hotel and there hasn't been ANY good news WHATSOEVER.  We heard via hearsay that there might be an apartment ready in fifteen days, but when my roommate and I went to talk to the assistant superintendent yesterday, we were told it wouldn't be ready til January/February.  The apartments we were supposed to be moving into are all ready, but the owner backed out of having North Americans in his complex.  Bullshit.  ACA needs to get their shit together because it is not fun.  I'm fed up, but not to the point where I'm going to go find my own apartment, because our apartment stipend???  DUMB.  It's only 150KD, not nearly enough for anything.  Dumb dumb dumb stupid stupid stupid.  I'm very frustrated.  I love the school and my kids and my boss and my coworkers.  It's this one thing that is bugging me.  I'm not settled in and I don't feel at home yet because, well, I'm not at home.  It's dumb.  And frustrating.  And stupid.  
• I'll end this with good news.  Next week, we start the 2nd Quarter and we are kicking it off with the theme of Bears!  I'm very excited to bring my teddy bear, Brianna, in.  It'll be great.  She'll have a blast in school.  Last time I took her to school (in Korea), though, the kids gave her stupid mole on her snout.  So... I will have to talk to her about how this school will be better... insh'Allah.  I really love bears.   

That's it, homies.  Sorry for the rant, I tried not to make it all negative, but whatever.

Peace, love, & teddy bears.

Home sweet home: Pakistan edition

Since I've been home for four days, I guess it's sort of time to write about Pakistan, eh?

Well, as most of you know, our flight was delayed... three times.  Yea.  Ridiculous, right?  That's what I'm saying.  We flew on PIA.  The last time I remember flying on it, I just remember it being really smelly and how my parents just complained about it.  Because it was so cheap, though, we booked our tickets with PIA.  Supposedly they have quite a history with delaying their flights a trillion times before actually leaving, and we got a little taste of that!  So, 12 hours after we were supposed to take off, we finally were on the plane.

It takes about 3 hours to get to Lahore from here, so it wasn't too bad.  The pilots are awful and it's still smelly, but that's about it.

We got off the plane around midnight and were greeted by my uncle and taken home.  We didn't see many family members because, well, it was midnight.  So we went to sleep to ready ourselves for the next day, in which we were to go FABRIC SHOPPING!  My cousin is having her wedding in January and, since it's during a 3 day weekend, we are going to go!  YAY!

That's what we did pretty much our entire first day - fabric shop.  Because it was the day before Eid, it was CRAZY out in the streets, yo.  People can be crazy insane, including my father the Pakistani-Kuwaiti-American driver.  Oy.

Our second day there was Eid.  We didn't go out much that day, aside for going to a pharmacy and a grocery store right quick.  We had a couple visitors, which was nice to see again (after 2.5 years for me).  That was nice.  We received raw meat from neighbors and family and my uncle, dad, and I went to the butcher to pick up our part of a CAMEL we ordered!  YESSSS!!!!

That night, my married cousins came over and we had a BBQ-type thing in the yard.  It was cold out, so the huge fire was very much welcomed!  The chicken kabob was delicious and Saman made delicious salad thingie!  :)  It was a lot of fun hanging out with the family in that way.  I don't remember having a time like that - just hanging out and laughing that much and smiling that much and stuff.  It was really really lovely.

Our last day in Pakistan, we spent the majority of the day in/around the house to squeeze in as much time with Grandma as possible.  We ate our CAMEL for lunch and it was DELICIOUS!!!!  Ahhh.  Nice-uh.


This trip was exceptionally nice.  While we didn't get out too much, we spent some good QT time with the family that proved to be one of the best trips I've had there.  It's so weird that the older you get, the closer you might become to cousins and aunts and uncles.  I love my Grandma too much, too.  I'm so incredibly happy I got to see her while I could.  It makes me happy making her happy, smile, and laugh (which she did a lot of).  Although there is a huge language barrier, we still manage to have a lot of fun together and understand each other after a couple of minutes of guessing, which just adds to the fun.  I'm hoping that by January, I can learn a couple more phrases of Urdu (heyyy, Rosetta Stone).  I love her.

 Fabrics!

 Mama :)

 The craziness of people.

 Family BBQing

 Mama, Grandma, and Daddy

 Eid Mubarak, goat!

 What an excellent gift!

 Thumbs up for a great visit!

Peace, love, & family

Vacation - Wahoo!

Yes!  Our first vacation of the school year has started!  Yes!  So exciting!

Tomorrow, M&D and I will be heading to Pakistan!  I'm excited to go back.  And pretty content on it just being for three days.  I haven't been there since before I went to Korea in May 2010 (blog posts here: 1, 2, 3, 4 and many inbetween) and, no, I won't be getting a haircut again!  Usually I do a lot of reading when I'm there... but seeing as it's only for three days, I'm not sure.  I'm going to bring a book, though, and school work.  Hahaha.  Yep!  Going on vacation with school work!  We're getting close to assessments and I need to get myself prepared for them! 

Anyways, I'll make sure to take some pictures and stuff to post!  Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Also, here is a link to information about Pakistan. I realize it's Wikipedia, but you'll live.

Peace, love, & travel (FINALLY!)

Birthdays Around the World

Oy.

I've been sick for almost a week.  With a slight cold now.  Just a bit stuffy.  Sound like a 5 year old, nothing unusual.  But, to top it off, after my birthday dinner with my momma and papa, I woke up with a horrible stomachache.  Went to school, but came home early and opted out of going to school today because I still felt ill.  Yay, sickness!  As of right now, I'm doing well.  Ate some rice (first thing in the past two days), so that's good!

Anyways, I had my birthday celebration at the bowling alley Saturday evening/night and it was a lot of fun.  Many of my friends came out, except for a few that weren't feeling well.  I got some awesome gifts from awesome friends and coworkers.  Awesome.  And my day at school was really great, too!  The kids were super cute.  I got a chocolate birthday cake from one student and a cutesy card from another!  Lurves!  The kids were sooo good and kept saying happy birthday and giving me lots of hugs.  Perfection.  Went to tutor and then went out to eat with my mom and dad, who haven't helped me celebrate a birthday since 2009.  I know, I know.  It's not that long, but really?  It is.

My first birthday away from my parents was when I was studying in Thailand in 2007.  Lucky for me, I had a great group of friends that I lived with and traveled with and, just, did everything went!  We went out for dinner and they bought me an ice cream cake (tradition!) and we went out to a chocolate bar afterwards.  It was a great birthday (also because the next weekend we went to Koh Pha Ngan for the Full Moon Party).  Excellent.

My second birthday away from my parents was when I was in Korea and they were here, in Kuwait (2010).  That has got to be the best birthday I can ever ever remember.  My bestest friends and I went out to eat and played darts and I won TWO raffle prizes AND a darts game against the boys!  It was the greatest.  And the following night, there was a big party at our local hotspot, Underground.

The third birthday without them was last year (2011).  It was alright, went out to dinner and had a football-shaped birthday cake!!  And great presents with a great family that I am eternally indebted to for housing me and loving me!

This year, I had a great birthday.  I'm really happy I got to celebrate my awesomeness with special people that mean a lot to me.  I am a very lucky person, to have met such great people all over the world that can share my happiness with me and make me even more happy.  Really.  Super lucky.

Peace, love, & birthdays around the world.

A [super] short story

Because Momma loves it so much:

A parent came into the class on Thursday after school to chat before picking up her daughter.  Fine and dandy.  What a sweet family.

Anyways, she told my assistant and I that every time they drive past a palace (note: ANY palace), S points to it and says, "Ms. Sophia lives here!"

The kids really believe I'm a princess!!  I love it!

The end.



Today I'm going bowling with some people for my birthday (that is tomorrow)!  I'll also be baking rainbow cupcakes for my babies.  They'll be thrilled.  I can't wait til tomorrow!

Blog Post #137

I don't like naming posts cos I feel like I'm not good at it.  So, this post is entitled "Blog Post #137" because it's my 137th blog post.  Yayyyy.

Also, I DO like numbering the things IN my post because it makes me feel like I got everything I wanted to get.  Bam.  So, in honor of this "like":

1. Today was pretty sweet.  There is an Asian conference going on and so a couple of roads are shut down, which meaaaans that I had 6 kids missing from class today!  WOOHOO!  That was really cool.  It was a good day.  It's not like the kids that were absent are "bad," but it was just easier to be with only 17 kids as opposed to 23.

2. My school is in the process of getting re-accredited, which means that the accreditation team is here this week!  Today, they spent the day in KG and came into my class twice!  Once, was during Phonographix, and I quickly had the kids switch to practicing the sounds to spelling sounds using our awesome "smart board" wannabe.  Then they came in again as the kids and I were setting up for centers.  Lucky for me, there were only 17 kids and they were AMAZING.  Love them.

3. Went to a boat party last Friday!  It was pretty fun.  I quite enjoyed dancing and eating fried catfish!  Yumma!  Oh, and meeting new people, haha.

4. This Friday, I am supposed to go camping in the desert.  Seeing as I've only camped once, I'm not sure how I feel about it.  I can backpack across Asia easy peasy, but camping??  I don't know... seems so wild to me!

5. Then I'm going to have a Celebration of Awesomeness for my birthday on Saturday.  We're gonna go bowling.  Not sure how many people will show up, but whatever.  I know that some cool people will be there and I will be there and I love bowling!

6. And my birthday is Sunday!  Woohoo.  It will be the first birthday since 2010 to have with my parents!  That's really the only thing I'm looking forward to :)

7. Also, KatieD and I have been planning our trip in February.  I think we might go with Sri Lanka!  I'm pretty excited.  I've heard it's amazing and that two weeks might not even be enough time!!  EEPS!  Oh well.  I'll be with KD!  I'm so excited.  :D :D :D

Peace, love, & unnamed posts.

TGIT!

Thank goodness it's Thursday!  Orrr SHIT!  So Happy It's Thursday!

And what a great Thursday it has been so far and it's only 3:46 pm!  Granted, most of my day is behind me, so that's pretty cool!

I woke up in an extremely good mood.  And was very happy to see all my little munchkins this morning.  The day started with some DELICIOUS coffee from our cafeteria then it was time for our LED Projector Tutorial and it TOTALLY made the day EVEN better!!  It was so neat learning more about what we can do with our projectors!  I'm so excited to play around with it this weekend (on top of putting standards in all my lesson plans and making a newsletter).  I came from the tutorial to DONUTS!  YUMMA!  And finished making homework for Sunday!  And and and!  It was just so great.  Going to look at a treadmill sometime this weekend!  Geez.  I had a huge smile on my face all day.  It was great.  I wish every day was like this.  That's my new goal: Be happy MORE!  I'm going to make it happen.

My birthday is this month, too!  That's cool.  I'm thinking about going bowling the day before (which is Saturday aka the weekend), but we shall see.  I would really like to, but who knows if people would show up, actually.  Who cares?  I'm going bowling for my birthday!

THEN the 24th, M&D and I are heading to Pakistan for three days!  I know, not a long time, but it's better than nothing, really.  I miss my family, so I'm very excited to be heading to Pakistan for Eid break.  :D

Anyways, I'm just in a good mood today, so that's fun.  I hope you all are having a great day, too!

Peace, love, & weekends!

Hugs Really Do Save the Day

Hola folks!  Happy Canadian Thanksgiving to those crazy Canadians out there!  Hope you enjoyed your time giving thanks and love.

Coupla things, y'all:

1. There are four stages to living abroad.  Did you know that?  I did not, until I read my friend's blog about it.  Interesting!

2. I'm still in the hotel and they pretend like they know when we are getting our own places, but, really?  They don't.  And that sucks.  And I'm fed-up and tired of it.  It makes me very angry.  Very.

3. On the plus side, the Rugby Ball was a lot of fun!  I literally danced all night and had a blast!  I was a bit sore the next two days, but it was totally worth it!

4. I got my projector (like a smart board) set up in my room!  We played on it all day today!  It was awesome.  The kids really like it a lot.  So do I.  It'll be great for our review weeks coming up before assessments!  Woohoo!

5. My kids give really good hugs.  Like, I think they're actually getting better in the hug department and that makes my heart happy.

Here's me before the Rugby Ball:

 And here is our "smart board"!!!:

Peace, love, & hope for patience

It's the BEST MONTH EVER!

It's been a hot minute since I've been on here and I, honestly, can't remember what has happened since September 22nd (aka my last post).

I went to lunch with a really good friend today and she was all like, "So, what you been up to?!" and I couldn't think of a thing!  Well, barely!  Just the same ol', same ol': working, tutoring, sleeping, eating, hanging out with friends.  That's really it, guys!  I mean, sheesh!

Granted, those things have been great times, from getting to know my little munchkins better (side note: when I walk into the room and say, "Hello my little..." THEY finish the sentence with "munchkins" or "monsters."  I LOVE it!) and getting loads of hugs and cute little presents as of late (flowers, a book, a cool bag), to going on our first field trip yesterday (YAY Little Gym!) and this week being Reading Week (we are doing Where the Wild Things Are and gonna dress up as wild things tomorrow for our PARADE!).  So, yea, I guess school has a lot going on for me.

I, thankfully, have a lot of tutoring, which is great!  Although I'm always super tired and, sometimes, up past my bedtime (coughcough730/8coughcough), I love it.  Last night, I was with my 3rd grader and I said something along the lines of her being "cray" (no worries, I'm real cool with their family) and she called me "cray"!  I asked her where she learned that from and she said, "You.  Last week."  Ahhhh maaaan.

Sleeping and eating.  Same same, whatevs.  I've been getting more stomach aches lately and that's probably because I have NO routine what so ever for eating or even healthy eating!  Ugh, oh well, for now.

And then hanging with people.  Watched half of the Redskins game last week (sad face) and have gone out to eat and shop with epople.  Tis nice.

Anywhos, that's pretty much it going on.  Going to the British Embassy this weekend for the Rugby Ball.  I'm excited to get dolled up and go dancing.  :)

Peace, love, & October 21st