Back in Doha

Ok so yeah... I know i haven't written on this thing since the end of October. Honestly I didn't think anyone was reading it, but I guess people must be. I will try and give you an update on life!

So I went home for Christmas and it was LOVELY! I spent a couple of days in London which was great(love the place) and then went home to Chicago. I said I wanted snow and cold weather, and that's what I freaking got. It was nice though to be able to see my family and friends again (not enough time with butler friends if you ask me). It was the best feeling to be able to know that I had the money to pay for my trip. I didn't have to ask anyone else to pay for it for me. I have never been the kind of person who needs a lot of money, but just being able to do what I want to do without having to worry about money is amazing.

So now I'm back in Doha, and my big dilemma is trying to decide what to do next year. Basically I have 3 options, stay in Doha, go back home, or go somewhere else in the world and teach. Honestly, I have NO CLUE what I want to do. I am the suckiest person ever at making decisions. I feel my whole life everything that I have needed to decide has fallen like right in my lap, and it always works out. Problem here is they want to know soon what my decision is. I know my family probably wants me back home, but I don't know if that's the right decision for me. I love them, but I'm afraid if I go back home, I'll end up staying for a while, and I'm young, and crazy and I want to see EVERYTHING not be in one place for too long. I could go somewhere else in the world, but most places want someone with atleast two years experience, and there are a lot of crazy variables that could happen. Doha isn't the greatest place in the world, but since I've been back I've been having a lot of fun. The money here is really good, and the style of life is super nice. I feel like I've put a lot of work into my classroom and teaching also, and it feels like almost a waste to leave after only a year. I have no freaking clue what to do, HOPEFULLY something will happen that helps me decide!

Anyway... what have I been doing since I've been back in Doha? Well my roommate from last term decided not to return (which sucks because I really liked her), so as soon as I got back I moved from my shitty kid's bedroom into an "adult bedroom." I currently have a kingsized bed, ensuite bathroom. I even bought new sheets and a duvet cover. This is like the first time I have felt like I actually live here. I got a new roommate who seems nice. It's hard for me though because although I think of myself as a pretty nice person, I don't want to take her along with me everywhere I go.... honestly I haven't taken her really anyway (i'm a bitch). She is a lot older than me, and I've been busy going out with friends from last term. She doesn't drink either so yeah... Anyway when I'm here (which seems to be rarely lately) I try and talk to her and help her out.

So I got residency FINALLY before I left, so now I can actually function like a real person here. I could have real internet and a driver's licenese, but I've been too fucking lazy to actually go and get them. I'm hoping to do that soon! Then with a car I'm hoping I'll like this place a lot more. I have met a lot of new people since I've been back :) and I've been having a lot of fun. Yesterday we (me mike michelle and rob) drove south about 40 km to look for this cave. We got a bit confused where to go (because there aren't really roads off the highways, just paths of sand) and we pulled up to a camp where there were a bunch of qatari men and asked directions. The men were super nice. Michelle asked them "what is this" and the man answered "this is men sitting" haha. They offered the guys tea but told us it was for men only :( haha oh well. Anyway when we asked where the caves were they all hoped in their white landcruiser (that every qatari drives here) and lead us to the cave! When we got out it was seriously like just a huge hole in the ground, sadly I was not dressed appropriately (didn't think I was litterally gonna have to clumb underground with a bunch of arab men watching) so I couldn't climb down... but hopefully we'll go back again.

I am really enjoying my time here since I've been back. I've stayed fairly busy (even though I keep getting fucking sick). It was great to come back and see my kids (my student's). They are really great people and I have so much fun with them. Last week I got two new kids in my class which is a bit difficult. They are older than the other ones, and don't seem to speak a word of English which is very hard. I have lost my voice because I am constantly trying to talk over them... and they have kinda changed the atmosphere of my class. Hopefully soon though it will be back to normal!

Anyway that's all for now :) Love you and miss you guys, and remember if you win the lottery PLEASE come and visit me!

still here

So I haven't written in forever, mostly because I don't really know exactly what to write. You think writing one of these things would be easy, but it's not, atleast not for me. Writing about yourself and what you're doing seems kinda self-centered, but whatever, I guess no one has to read this unless they want to right?

So I am still teaching... 5 days a week, getting up at 5:00 am, teaching from 7:15-12:30.... yeah it seems like a short day but I am exhausted at the end of the day!! It is so hard getting up early,and being able to function then later in the day. I always come home and I am dead to the world. I WISH i had a car, but I know I won't be able to get one for a very long time which sucks. I'm still waiting for my residency which I'm afraid will never happen. I love my job, but I don't know if I like the organization that I am working for. It seems like they focus too much on money, parents are always right, and we get shit... I have to find a way to be optimistic, I want to join a gym, and I know I've been saying that forever.... but I need to figure out a way to do it because I think i'd be a lot happier if I worked out.

Anyway teaching is going well, I still love my kids. They take a lot of energy to teach but I think they are enjoying themselves and really learning. A couple of parents have come up to me saying that now their child is happy to go to bed at night because it means that they get to wake up and go to school the next day, which makes me feel good. Each day they are speaking more and more english which is good, and hopefully by the end of the year they will all be mostly fluent.

I have been mostly only teaching here during the day. Hopefully we'll start doing more touristy stuff, but again it's super hard without a car. We've been going to the bars on the weekends, which is fun, but then men here are uber agressive, which is a bit intimidating. Oh well though, we've been having a good time.

I never thought I'd miss cool weather, but because it's almost halloween and it's still 80 some degrees here, it's hard to get in the spirit. I'm afraid too that I won't be able to celebrate halloween here, which is one of my favorite holidays. I guess next year will have to be twice as crazy! I'm trying to figure out what to do next year, do i stay here, do I go back home, do I try and find a job in a different country? And what do I have to do to keep my license? Ugh, it is a bit stressful. It will all work out in the end. I have great friends at home, I have a great family, and I am starting to form great friendships here too, so I know I am a very lucky girl. And please, if you feel bored or lonely, COME VISIT ME HERE, because we could have fun :-D

xoxo miss you guys

Holiday is Over :-(

So today is my last day of the break :-( It has been amazing. I really got to feel like I was on vacation. I got to go to the beach, we went on a Dhow boat cruise where they took us to a beach (well so we could see the beach) and swim in the sea. The water has so much salt in it I didn't even have to swim. Let's see, bars are open now which is bad news, I've gone out most every night and spent entirely way too much money, but I'm having fun. Seems like only American guys buy drinks here... and I'm not the biggest fan of american guys over here, they kinda seem like douchebags, oh well. All in all i'm having a lot of fun. I bought a webcam so I've been able to see and talk to people from home which is awesome, and I have finally put my photos online. I'm getting a bit nervous about school starting again tomorrow. It's frusterating I can't teach the way I want to teach because of the size of my classroom, and I don't know what to do about it. I'm hoping everything will eventually work itself out, but who knows. I'm excited to see my kids again though because I have missed them. WEll I'm running out to the mall, so I'll talk to you later :-D

Holiday!

So I get 11 days off of school :-D It's EID, kinda of like their Christmas (I still don't know what they're celebrating) so I get 11 days off of school. It's official. Today is the last day of Ramadan which means tomorrow is the day of EID and NO MORE FASTING. I guess everything (except restaurants) is closed for 3 days, Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday, and then it should be normal again which is awesome. I guess bars open Wednesday, which is ladies night at the Aussie Bar which i am SOOOOOOOOO pumped about. It seems like when you can't do something you want to do it 100000 times more.

So it's getting harder to write things on here, because things here are starting to seem "normal" now, so it doesn't seem like there is anything for me to write about. I suggest if you are interested then WRITE ME AN E-MAIL and I can answer questions. I've been going to parties, going on boasts, swimming in pools and the sea, meeting fun people, and eating too much! Everyone here is super nice, they invite us to parties, pick us up and take us home... so I am having a lot of fun! I miss home a lot, it's weird I kind of miss the idea of football and stuff.... so maybe i'll get into rugby or something here. Please send me emails, let me know what's going on in your lives!! LOVE YOU! CIAO!

Wow

So I don't remember the last time I wroteor what about, and I don't know if anyone is even reading this page, but I like it because if I want to go back and read them to remember my trip I can. Let's see, today is Friday, end of the second week of teaching. I really have the best job ever. What is nicer than getting paid to play with little kids and see the world? NOTHING of course :-D

Each day I love my class even more. The parents are getting better. The Qatari parents really want their male students to succeed. It's not that they don't care about the girls, it's just in this culture, like most cultures, males are more valued so I have a lot of pressure on me to make each boy student the "best boy in the class." And yes I have been told that multiple times.

I still don't have definite plans, so I've just been teaching how I want to, and what I want to, which is awesome and horrible at the same time. About half of my students don't speak English, so this has been a great challenge for me. I decided that each week the class will learn a poem, and it will be posted on the wall. THe students can look at the words, and I have multiple students each day point to the words as we read it. Yesterday, Thursday, we read our poem for the last time. It made me SO happy because each and every student in my class was reading the poem aloud in English!! They were smiling and it was so great to hear their voices. It is crazy to think that because of me, this year about 10 new students will be able to speak English. I will have taught them English, I will have taught them to read, I will have taught them to count, I will have instilled confidence and a loving attitude in each of everyone of them. ME ME I will have done that. It is seriously the best feeling in the entire world to be teachng kids, and I am just so happy I agreed to come here. Each day is a new learning experience and it is great. I thrive off of this stuff! I love meeting people from all over the world (which I have). I love trying new things, I love neat architeture, I love everything :-D

Ok, away from school.... we have been eating out a lot because it is so cheap here and it's hard to go to the grocery store in a cab. Wednesday we ate at Ponderosa for a "Iftar" buffet. Iftar (i don't know if that's how you spell it) is when the sun goes down and they can break their fasts. So we sit down and we have to wait to get our food because the sun was still up. Finally the workers at the restaurant come around and tell us to go get food. So we all go up to the buffet, wait in a long line, get our food and then sit down. Of course, like you would in America, we start eating. Seems normal until someone else who was with us told us we had to wait 5 more minutes to eat, and everyone in the restaurant was staring at us!! It was the worst feeling ever, I felt horrible. One of my least favorite feelings is being rude to other people, and I'm sure we looked horribly rude to everyone in that restaurant! Ugh.... oh well we'll never do that again!

OMG it's only been one week?

So it seems as if I've been in Doha for a month. I've done so much in such a short period of time it is CRAZY. Anyway overall I think I really like it here. It really doesn't feel like I'm so far from home, probably because I see benigans hardys, macaroni grill, starbucks, and EVERYTHING everywhere. I am really starting to like my class and my job, and I still can't believe I'm actually getting paid to teach. It's like the greatest thing ever! Each day I'm getting to know the people here better and better and everyone seems like good people. The other teachers are so helpful and fun, and everyone in the building so far seems cool (except for this middle aged "woman" who likes to say dude a lot, i think s/he smokes a lot of pot).

I can't wait until it cools off a bit so that I can walk around and explore a bit more. Last night me and 3 girls went to a souq (i think like an outdoor market) and had dinner. We ate at a Moracan restaurant. The food was delicious but I think the power went out like 6 times, which means it was HOTT in there. Anyway the souq was beautiful at night. When I buy batteries I will put up photos. When we were there however I think we may have been the only women, which is weird. The guys try and be subtle to look at girls here but it's totally obvious, it's almost funny.

I can't wait until Ramadan is over. None of the bars are open until after Ramadan which pretty much stinks. To drink here you have to get an alcohol permit. I guess you have to put down like a 1000 riyal deposit or something.... so it has been alcohol free for us here!

I've been talking with the other girls and we have a week long break at the end of this month. I had hoped to travel, but because I'm basically trapped in the country I think we're going to get a hotel room downtown and pretend we're on vacation. I can get my beach and pool, and they can get their alcohol at the bars (yes the other girls want alcohol more than me :-D).

Anyway I am happy I came here, and I can't wait to see what else happens!

more teaching

So teaching seems to have gotten better. I think I actually have a wonderful class. Yesterday was only the 3rd day and my students sat without talking, they raised their hands, they kept quite when I was working individually with students, and they are all helping the shy students come out of their shells. I think after a couple of weeks I will share their selfish attitudes out of them and have extremly great students. When the parents aren't there I LOVE my class. We have fun and we are learning. There is a big difference between the skills that my students have, and it is also very hard to assess them because a lot of them don't speak English. I have received almost no training in working with ESL students, so I'm hoping these students pick up fast.


The school still hasn't given me half of the stuff I'm supposed to have, so I have just been winging teaching. I teach what I want, how I want, and when I want. No one has showed me British curriculum or standards yet, so we are just having fun. It makes me so happy seeing all of my children, even the one's who don't speak English and who were crying earlier, smiling and dancing the hokey pokey with me. I think it's most important this week to develop the student's trust, because without that I don't think they'll learn anything.

Outside of school I haven't been doing much except for sleeping. I am still jet lagged and confused about the time change. I'm hoping this weekend to get to know the people around here better. I'm also looking for a day off to just relax an enjoy this town. I keep telling everyone here I want to join a pool so I can swim and work out and such, and everyone looks at me like I'm crazy. I don't understand why you wouldn't take advantage of the sun and warm weather, everyone else seems to want to be inside. Oh well.

Well I have today and tomorrow to teach before the weekend soI am feeling good. That's all for today.