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."

RIP Colorful, Sticker-ful Waterbottle

So, I've been going into school everyday to hang out with the rents (mostly my mom because I can actually understand the stuff she's teaching) and then hanging out with KG2.
Today, we were getting ready to go outside for recess and a kid comes up to me and says "Sophia! I know how to spell your name!" And I was all like "Wowww, how do you spell it?!" And he answered, "S-S-H!"
Awww, he saw my initials on my ASA water bottle. I had to take them off, along with all of the stickers, though cos the kids had jam and so, therefore, jamhands and were touching everything! ME! MY WATERBOTTLE! ME! Ugh. So sad, so sad. I miss my stickers. My waterbottle looks so naked and skinny without them. :(
But, in other news, I'm getting used to being here... Sorta making friends, which is a good thing, but still mostly hang with the rents. Random Glee sing-a-longs and dance parties with momma? Okay! Learning about cool Kuwaiti/Arabic facts from daddy? Okay!
That's it for now, folks!

Peace, love, & stickers (send some!)

High-FIVE!

"Everybody in, everybody out,
everybody turn around,
everybody shout HEY!
Everybody ready cos here we go
Let's do the Pinocchio!"

Spent the day (note: really, morning 730-1230) with KG2 and KG1 (about 4-5 year olds). Um, ADORABLE. All of them. Little kids are fun. And funny. In KG2 today, the teacher asked what they did for the weekend (another note: weekends here are Friday and Saturday) and a kid with glasses and a croakie raised his hand.

Teacher: Yes, Bader, what did you do this weekend?
Bader: I went to London!
T: You went to London for the weekend?? (you could tell she didn't believe him)
B: Yes! I flew in a plane!
T: Are you sure you went to London?
B: I flew in a plane!
T: Okay... what did you see wherever you went?
B: Sharks! Dolphins!
T: Um... I'm pretty sure they don't have sharks or dolphins in London, Bader. Are you sure you went to London?
B: No.
T: *laughs* Okay... so you saw sharks and dolphins? Maybe you went to Dubai?
B: YES! I went to Dubai! I flew on a plane!

Cute. Kid was just stoked to have flown in a plane, which he probably does, like, all the time (rich). The kids were also super stoked when they read their sentence correctly and got high-fives. That's right, HIGH FREAKIN' FIVES! Bam. I rock.

After school, I had a tutoring session with a fifth grader for English. Such. A. Sweetheart. Her dad is the manager of an airline. Pretty cool. But there are more established people that the teachers at the school teach... Like the grand-kids of the Amir.

Anywhos, that's it for nowski!

Peace, love, & Frank Ocean!

Ain't No Party Like a Hawalli Party

I haven't updated in awhile (surprised? I'd hope not...). So I'm just going to skip over the stories about my trip to Kuwait (to NYC: bus driver lectured a passenger & made bffs with an old man from SanFran; to Kuwait: no movies on American Airlines, five hours in Charles de "Dull" airport, & sitting next to a creepy Indian man).

Anyways, so I've been here for a bit over a week and have done little to nothing. This is what I've done:
1. walked around
2. went to the school
3. met people
4. did a tiny bit of "sightseeing"
5. slowly making new friends

This is what I've learned about Kuwait/Kuwaitis
1. Any kind of road signs are just for decoration, like the speed limit, stop signs, and "give way" signs.
2. Kuwaitis are so loud. Like, so so soooo loud. Just when they speak! They speak-yell! They yeak!
3. They go to the mall and drive around for fun.
4. There isn't really Kuwaiti food. People eat everything but Kuwaiti food. I had something like a pakora at the souq last night and it was very bland, good, but very bland.
5. It's cold here.

That's it for now, homies.

Peace, love, & new countries!

Reporting from JFK

Here I am again, traveling. Not really traveling as in hopping from one spot to another a couple weeks at a time, but traveling through the air to land in a foriegn country that I will make my home for a bit.
Most of you know that I will be moving to Kuwait for an unknown amount of time. My parents have lived and worked in Kuwait for about a year and a half now and I have decided to join them. While there, for the remainder of this school year, I will be tutoring (hopefully) and getting started on my Master's! Exciting stuff.

Anywhos, I will be starting up my blog a bit more now since I'll be having more adventures (HOPEFULLY!). As I will be on a visitor's visa that is only valid for 90 days, I will have to leave the country every 3 months or so! Sooooo, DEFINITELY more adventures! New adventures make me so happy and excited! Straight up adrenaline rush starting in the pit of my stomach (weird?) and spreading through the rest of my body. Great, natural buzz.
Yea... that's my update for now. I'm sure I'll have a couple stories about my travel from JFK (where I am now) to Kuwait. I have layovers in Paris and Bahrain, landing in Kuwait about 1:30pm on Thursday east coast time (9:30pm in my new time zone). Already have a few from my trip from DC to JFK... so I'm sure there will be more.

Peace, love, & buzzes

I'm outta hereeeee

My adventures in the States is coming to end, folks. Yes, yes indeed.

For those of you that I have talked to, even if for a brief moment, know that I'm not the happiest person being back in Virginia. So, taking my own advice, I'm going to become un-unhappy! I started by looking into jobs in Japan and Korea (again). After realizing that working a full-time job and doing an online master's program would probably cause more harm than good, I've decided to move to Kuwait! Yes, my parents are there still. Yes, I'll be living with them. Yes, I'll be [hopefully] tutoring to make some money. Any more questions?

So, there you have it, guys: I'm moving. I'm getting outta here! My adventure in the States end around January 12th! Let the craziness of packing ensue...