Thailand

The Grand Palace and a Ride on an Elephant

View from my hotel window

I just returned from Bangkok, Thailand, about three weeks ago.  Thailand was an amazing, bustling city full of street vendors, tuk tuks, and lots of Chinese tourists. I was there because I had been chosen to be a speaker at an international educator's conference known as NESA: Near East South Asia Council of Overseas Schools.  We stayed in this beautiful hotel located on the Chao Phraya River called the Royal Orchid Sheraton, well named because there were bouquets of orchids everywhere.  You can buy orchids by the bushel in Bangkok at the flower markets not far from the hotel.  I arrived at night by taxi and was greeted by the doorman who made sure my bags were taken to the lobby, then I checked in.  My hotel room was spacious; overlooking the river and the city itself.  I looked down and saw the river cruise boats moving slowly down the river and the lights of city lit up and so welcoming.  I could hardly wait for tomorrow!  I arrived about four days before the conference so I could get acquainted with this bustling city.  In four days I barely scratched the surface, but I gave it my best shot!

This lovely woman played music in the lobby every afternoon

Fresh orchid bouquets everywhere

The Grand Palace

These little guys are "monks in training" on a pilgrimage to the Royal Palce which houses the Emerald 

Buddha

No visit to Bangkok is complete unless it includes a visit to the city's most famous landmark, the Grand Palace.  The Grand Palace is a huge complex of buildings with a combined area of about 218,400 square meters (2,351,000 sq. ft.). Construction began in 1782 and completed a hundred years later in 1882.  It was very crowded with Chinese tourists the day I went.  It wasn't easy to get a good photograph without asking about twelve people to get out of the way.  I was a typical wide-eyed tourist.  Nothing I had ever seen before could prepare me for the grandeur and opulence of the Grand Palace.

Gold everywhere you look

Borrowed this pic from ytravel.com.  There were so many tourists it was hard to get a good shot of him.  I think this big guy is one of their national symbols.  You see him everywhere.  I don't think I would want to mess with him!

 Detail of the gold tiles you see everywhere you look

One of the many former office buildings in the complex.  Those are actually giant bonsai trees in the foreground.

Amazing craftsmanship 

Striking a rather cheesy pose!

Me and my buddy!

Bangkok River Cruise

I could see the river cruises from my window, so I decided I would sign up.  The buffet was wonderful and the entertainment was interesting.  You haven't lived until you have heard "Friends in Low Places" sung with a Thai accent.  They had some lovely Thai dancers which I enjoyed a little more!

I love watching these traditional dancers.

One of the many lovely sights to see as we cruised down the river.

Like most cruises, this one had a very nice buffet.  I was busy filling up my plate, when I heard the guy who was doing his very strange American country western twange with a Thai accent announce that if you're standing, you need to duck because we were going under a bridge.  I thought he was joking and if I ducked, I would look really silly because I'd be the only one foolish enough to actually duck.  

Well, I looked up and HE WASN'T KIDDING!!  Looming before me was the concrete underbelly of this enormous bridge.  I never bent my knees so fast in my life!  I'm lucky my head is still attached to my shoulders!  That was a little too much excitement for one day.

These Chinese tourists really know how to get down and boogie!  That was my hotel in the background.

Riding an Elephant

Yes, this is a very touristy thing to do in Thailand, but I had to do it for all my friends back home.  Glad he wasn't very big!

I started out on that chair contraption you can see behind me, then before I knew what was happening, the young man who was sitting where you see me in this picture hopped off and told this grandma behind him (that would be me!) to slide on down and straddle the elephant's neck like he had been doing.  Really???  Not wanting to appear any more fuddydudddy than I already was sitting on this elephant, I slid down very carefully.  It wasn't too bad...it was actually pretty fun.  The tricky part was getting back on that darn chair without sliding off and getting stepped on!  

Taken while floating down the river Kwai in a bamboo raft.  So very peaceful.

I survived riding the elephant, now it was time to float down the River Kwai to catch the train for the ride home.  On our way back, we stopped to see the Bridge on the River Kwai made famous in World War II.

Built by Allied POWs in WW II and Asian labourers from other countries.  It took 60,000 men about 8 months to build it.  Over 13,000 men died building this bridge.  It was destroyed two years later.

The water lilly is the national flower of Thailand.

Enough for one day!  I will post again in a couple of weeks.

Three Years Overseas

An international speaker?  Who would have thought?

Rejection and Rebirth

Rejection is a powerful emotion.  One day you are a cog in a machine; equal to all the other cogs that make this machine work.  The next day you sit in your boss's office in stunned silence while he tells you that due to budget problems and internal surveys (but you must understand that you can make a survey say anything you want it to say if you are very clever and know your desired outcome) your services will no longer be required.  You sit through meeting after meeting while your fate is publicly discussed and described using a bucket analogy.  "The money for teacher salaries comes from this bucket and the money for coaches and sports comes from this bucket.  The building fund comes from this other bucket."  And on and on it goes.  You would have thought that half the staff must be let go in order for the school to survive.  But no, it was just me, an elementary principal (which was later turned into a part time position) and 1/2 of a custodial position.  You bravely face a school board and a room full of anxious parents whose last hope to save the music program lies in some profound statement you can make defending the program you gave your lifeblood to nourish and build in a community where the arts have little value. You do your research and practice your speech in front of a mirror.  You pray to God to open the ears of the listeners.  You give your speech.  The school board votes in favor of the budget plan.  One chapter closes in your life.  

I tell my students that this will be the best year we have ever experienced in our journey together.  The seniors and I will walk out of this school and thIs community with our heads held high.  I will challenge them and push them and people in this town will look back and remember that, yes, we did have an outstanding program and yes, we did make a difference.  We went to contest that year and did ourselves proud.  We sang songs in foreign languages in four part harmony at our concerts and these students sang from their hearts.  Each performance that year was a series of last performances.  So bittersweet.

Meanwhile, I was on my own personal journey.  I wanted to lock myself up in my bedroom and never come out.  I walked through the halls of my school  with a brave optimistic smile plastered on my face.  People would look at me with pity or not see me at all, which was worse.  I'm no stranger to rejection.  It hurts.  It really hurts.  But there was no time for self pity.  There were house payments  to make and property taxes to pay and the electric company doesn't really care about your personal problems.  They just want the check in the mail.  I was given notice in November.  My resume was ten years old.  I was fifty-eight and would have to compete with young people fresh from college which are a very desirable commodity because they are much cheaper to hire.  I had already been down that road too many times and I didn't know if I could do it again.  

But then a thought occurred to me.  There was a business card that had been gathering dust on my nightstand for I don't know how many years.  It was given to me by a friend who thought I may be interested.  Somehow it had never gotten lost or misplaced.  It just sat there among some other odds and ends waiting to be discovered.  It was a business card from an administrator from an international school in China of all places.  Apparently, life exists outside of my small prism of experiences.  Who would have thought?  Children all over the world need to be educated and a high value is placed on American education.  And even better, highly experienced teachers are a much sought after commodity in the international community.  So I enlisted the help of my son and daughter in law who were experienced in this  murky world of flashy resumes and cover letters and with their help I began my journey with the UNI Overseas Job Fair.  Apparently, it is world renown because it attracts job seekers and administrators from around the world to come to a very cold and snowy place in February.  Don't they know that the probability of a substantial blizzard is pretty high that time of year?  But in the international world, that is the ideal time to hire teachers for the next year, so that is when the job fairs are held.  So I went.  I was hired to teach elementary music at Universal School in Kuwait.  It didn't seam real.  Three schools in particular competed for my services.  Really?  Three schools?  I made my decision based on the fact that the accommodations for teachers at UAS were less than  a block away.  I had been commuting to schools most of my life.  This was a no brainier.  I accepted a position as elementary music teacher at UAS. 

UAS, the big blue building in Hawally!

This school was balm to a soul that was hurt and pressed down.  I was almost daily lifted up and praised for things that I have always done as a teacher and didn't really think twice about.  They wanted me to do five programs a year.  I counted up about fifteen programs I did a year as a K-12 music instructor in Iowa and that didn't include weekends at music contests and clinics I took my students to throughout the year.  To just teach elementary music at the end of my career was a blessing I could only dream about.

Who me?  Teach preschoolers?

Not only did this school help me get my mojo back, but they had enough confidence in me to send me to an international convention in Bangkok, Thailand as a speaker, no less.  Schools around the world have begun to realize how the arts and particularly music prepares the brain for higher thinking skills such as spatial reasoning, language acquisition and behavior competence.  So it looks like music education isn't just a luxury for schools lucky enough to be in affluent communities.  Music education helps raise test scores and supports every aspect of core subject areas.  A small town Iowa school board closed its ears to the value of music in their school, but educational communities around the world were beginning to see how music builds and supports all areas of education.  

The Royal Palace, Bangkok, Thailand.

When my life was at a cross roads and my future was so uncertain, the faith the Holy Spirit planted in me as a child was always there.  Deep in my soul, I knew that if God had given me musical talent and a passion to share that gift with generations of children, He would find for me a place where I could teach again.  He never left my side.  I teach in Kuwait, half way across the world.  I don't feel brave.  I'm not on some grand adventure.  I am a teacher.  That is who I am.  All children need music in their lives.  Jeremiah 29:11.

Enough said for one day!  I will share more of my amazing journey in my next blog.

A Very Special Visitor

Stacia enjoying the view from Dhow Harbor at the Scientific Center in Kuwait

When I signed my contract to teach in Kuwait, I was pretty sure I would never have any visitors.  Kuwait is located on the other side of the planet from Iowa and it is not exactly a tourist destination, however, it is gaining some notoriety for its malls and restaurants. But then, very few of my close friends would venture this far out for a shopping expedition, even if it included The Avenues.  But never say never.  I recently had a visitor.  My daughter, Stacia, is in the army reserve stationed in Germany.  Germany is a short six hour flight from Kuwait.  She recently dropped by for a visit during the Kuwait National and Liberation Day holiday.  I hadn't seen her since June, so it was certainly a joyous reunion.  When she finally walked through the doors after a small ordeal trying to get her visitor's visa, it almost didn't seem real.  It was so nice to wrap my arms around her!  

Here we are taking a selfie in front of the Liberation Tower

It was Stacia's first visit to the Middle East.  With all the talk about terrorists and ISIS we hear on the news, most people from the west have preconceived notions of what people in this part of the world must be like.  The greatest takeaway my daughter had of the time she spent in Kuwait was the many kindnesses she witnessed on a daily basis; the elderly man in a dishdasha who offered to take a picture of us in the old souk, the man who with a simple gesture stopped some traffic for us so we could safely cross a busy street, the Iranian merchant who took the time to talk to us about the craftsmanship behind the different wares he was selling.  Most people in the world have much more in common than the differences that divide us.  We share a common humanity and have many of the same hopes and dreams for ourselves and our children.  The people who distort Islam for their own power and evil are an abhorrence to any of my friends of the Muslim faith.  They too are shocked and saddened when the newest ISIS atrocities are aired on television.  There are never any easy answers.  All I can tell you is that I have been treated with utmost kindness everywhere I travel in this country and it was wonderful to share this experience with my daughter.

Soaking up the sunshine along the coastline of Kuwait.

Expat April Weems

April and her daughters, Deshona and Tatanasia.  This was Christmas 2014.  

Before I began teaching overseas, about 90% of my acquaintances were from the Midwest; mostly Iowa, Nebraska and Wisconsin.  A majority (not counting the instructors who teach Arabic) of the staff here at UAS are American, but very few are from the Midwest and only one other person is from my home state of Iowa.  My prospective has slowly begun to change as I have had the interesting experience of meeting people from all over the United States.  I really notice the range of diversity in  when we celebrate Thanksgiving and friends bring dishes to share that I have never heard of or never associated with Thanksgiving.  I never thought I would have to travel half way across the world to get to know my own country on a very personal level.

This was taken in Texas at a Mary Kay convention.  April was her mother's director!

April Weems has been the eighth grade American History instructor here at UAS for two years.  She grew up in Detroit, Michigan.  One of the defining moments in her life occurred when she was in third grade.  She couldn't focus on the lesson her teacher was trying to teach her.  In frustration her teacher told her, "I don't care if you learn it or not.  I get paid the same."  After that day she decided to take matters into her own hands and she would be the teacher. So at the tender age of eight years old, she decided to open up her own neighborhood school.  She gathered all the neighborhood kids she could find and set up her own play school with herself as the teacher, of course.  She found her calling at a very young age!

This was taken at Ford Field, home of the Detroit Lions.  April's sister Shay is on the left and her brother Cyrill is center.  Cyrill enjoyed a brief career as #45 for the Detroit Lions.

The second pivotal point occurred when she was fifteen.  After her school physical, the doctor told her she wouldn't be playing  basketball that year.  To her shock, she discovered she was pregnant.  When she broke the news to her mother, her mother didn't react in anger and disappointment.  She told her daughter that if the baby was a girl, they would get to buy dresses.  April was blessed to have a mother who continued to love her and support her through this difficult time in her life.  Parents of April's friends made sure their daughters steered clear of her.  April's mother was the rock she needed because life was not going to be easy for this young mother.

April spent two years in an alternative school for teenage mothers.  Her future didn't look too promising at this point.  But instead of giving into despair and hopelessness, she dug in and decided that adversity would propel her to success.  She proudly finished high school with honors.  After high school she decided to join her sister who was living in Hawaii at the time.  After six months in Hawaii she returned home with her young daughter, but once again her life was about to change.  She discovered that she was pregnant again.  But this young woman wasn't about to take an easy road.  April decided that if she was to make decent life for herself and her young family, she would have to get a college degree.  There were to be no sororities or dorm experience for April.  Her mother wasn't even going to be there to help raise her daughters.  She was needed in Hawaii to help April's sister with her young family.  April was nineteen years old.  Deshona was four and in a few short months was about to become a big sister.  This young mother never lost her faith in God or herself.  She put her daughter and newborn baby girl into daycare and enrolled at Baker College in Detroit.  To help pay the bills, she did accounting work at a casino, then a nursing home.  When she had almost completed her degree in accounting, she listened to her heart and made the decision to pursue a teaching degree.  This decision meant she had to almost start over.  April knew this was her calling, so she took out more school loans, and got on track to become a teacher.  She managed to juggle motherhood, part time jobs, and a full college load.  She beat the odds and graduated in 2008.  She moved her girls out of Detroit to start a new life in Virginia.  She found a job teaching in Woodbridge, VIrginia. When her youngest daughter, Tatanasia, was ready for college, April had some dreams of her own.  She had always wanted to travel.  There was a great big world out there and April wanted see it for herself someday.  Her daughters loved their mom enough to encourage her to make that dream a reality.  They told her, "You have always been just a mom, go out and discover who April is!"  And that is how she found herself teaching eighth grade social studies in Kuwait here at UAS.

April wasn't done planning out her life by any means.  When all the other new hires were out and about getting to know Kuwait and traveling around the world during breaks, she was holed up in her apartment finishing her master's degree in Educational Leadership. She completed her studies last spring.  This young woman is really driven to succeed.  Her family couldn't be more proud!  Shortly after she arrived home last summer, her family put together a graduation ceremony for her like no other, complete with speakers, award presentation and conferring of degrees.  UAS has recognized what a jewel they have in this outstanding educator and has hired her to become the new assistant principal for the elementary grades.  Welcome to the elementary, April!

April's story is one of hope and perseverance.  How many nineteen year-olds would embark on a college career as a single mom with a four-year-old and newborn?  I could barely balance my checkbook at that age!  She shared with me that as she was growing up, her mother taught her to have a tough skin. Being black in Detroit was never easy.  Her mother told her, "You can do what you put your mind to do.  Do your best and God will bless you."  

This was taken in 2015 in Sicily, Italy last year for her birthday 

"Just like moons and like Suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hops springing high, STILL I'll RISE." Maya Angelou 

FIRE !

This was taken from the top floor of our school looking down on our back parking lot.  The blue building in the right of the photo is the teacher residence.  The fire was at the power plant.

As a teacher, I have experienced countless fire drills in my career.  When the fire alarms went off Wednesday morning, March 15, I assumed it was yet another fire drill.  In fact, the day before this happened, we had all received emails alerting us to the fact that the fire department would be in the building testing our fire alarm system that day, so if the fire alarm went off, it would only be a test of the alarm and we were not to take our students out of the building.  So the following day, Tuesday morning about 9:15 am, the fire alarm went off.  I told my preschoolers to set down their lummy sticks and line up.  I led them up the stairs in the usual path I always take.  I was met by one of our guards on the staircase and was told to go out the front door instead of the side entrance and by the look on his face, I could see he wasn't kidding!  So I changed directions and proceeded to lead my little charges in the direction of the front entrance.  Fortunately, their classroom teacher met us on the way out of the building.  When we finally made ii to a safe place on the front parking lot, we looked up and it seemed like a corner of our building was on fire.  Dark black smoke was billowing into the sky.  We were soon relieved to discover that it was not our building on fire.  It was the power plant adjacent to our building.  But a power plant on fire isn't a very comforting thought!  The air was getting a bit uncomfortable with ash flying around, so we were given permission to bring our students into the nearby Direct Aid building, which houses the African Muslims Agency.  They were very kind and allowed our KG and elementary students to enter their building.  They had a very big open meeting area which was large enough to house our nearly 1,000 KG and elementary students and staff members.  Each teacher found a spot to "camp out" in.  Everyone had large laminated signs so parents could easily locate their children.  

I tried to make myself useful by helping the littlest ones find the restrooms and get them back to their teachers without getting lost in the mass of students.  I also held a few impromptu singalongs here and there.  Most of the children were picked up by noon and to the best of my knowledge, no child got lost in the shuffle! Classes were cancelled for the rest of the day, so my friend Hedy and I treated ourselves to a lovely lunch out and picked up some groceries on the way home.  All in a day's work!

This is what we found in our mail boxes yesterday.  Noura Al-Ghanem is the owner of our school.  Feels nice to be appreciated.  Thanks, Mrs. Al-Ghanem!

The Fabric Souk

The Fabric Souk

This building stretches about a half block and there is a similar building across the street.

I just got back from the fabric souk here in Kuwait.  It is a hidden treasure for anyone like me who loves the rainbow of colors and the infinite variety of textiles.  I love to sew and when I get serious about a project, it just consumes me and every inch of space in my tiny apartment.  The first time I set eyes on the fabric souk, it was sensory overload.  Like my friend Gretchen said, "If you can't find something here you like, you're way too picky!"  

Just one of the many aisles of fabric shops.

The silks were amazing.  Most of them from India.

If you need a new sari, this is the place to go. Then you take your treasure upstairs and have it tailored.

A souk is another name for a market or store.  In this country, like many other places in the world, shops that sell similar items are all grouped together. For example, in my neighborhood here in Hawally, I live just steps away from several blocks of jewelry stores that sell more bling than you can probably find in the entire Midwestern United States.  And this stuff is the real deal.  Huge golds pendants, bracelets, dangly earrings, brooches, and rings just perfect for the most discriminating of princesses.  I often wonder who would ever wear some of this stuff, but there is always somebody picking out a piece of jewelry in these tiny showrooms.  Getting back to the fabric souk...

There are many, many shops that specialize in trims and bangles. 

I love window shopping at the fabric souk!

This gentleman from Syria was just opening a new shop.  Very proud of his new wares.  He was very pleased to have his picture taken.

You can see the owner through the window showing his customer a piece of screen printed silk.

Why wear ordinary shoes when you can decorate them with lace and pearls!

There are two huge buildings that house the fabric souk.  The one I frequent the most really isn't much to look at from the outside.  The parking lot and streets surrounding it are a bit trashy and the cement steps leading up to one of buildings were crumbling. Even the escalator was in disrepair.  But once you walk through the doors, you forget all of that and all you see is shop after shop of silks, fine wool, brocades, lace and every trim you can imagine and much you could never imagine.  A feast for the eyes you will never forget.

The colors are dazzling!

When you walk around the fabric souk, you see all these women in their black abayas and you wonder what they could possibly be doing in these fancy shops?  What you don't see is the fashion underground...what the outside world does not see under the hijabs and abayas. When these women are just with other women at a wedding reception, for instance, which is customary that only the bride and the women attend, then the dazzling, over the top, gowns appear.  The women will find perhaps a picture in a magazine of a dress they like, they will pick out the fabric and spangles to go with it and then go to a tailor and have it made for them.  Then there are many Kuwaiti designers who create their own designs, have them sewn by a tailor, then sell them in small shops and markets all over the city.  Not all Muslim women here in Kuwait wear hijabs or abayas.  I love to see what the women wear who come to parent teacher conferences.  I would be fun to take their pictures and post it on my blog, but that would be a bit awkward!  There is no shortage of high end fashion in Kuwait.

I love the way they drape fabric around the mannequins.  It would be interesting to see it done.

The reason I was at the souk was because I was having a shirt made for my son.  He wears a tall size and slender cut so his shirts can be very pricey.  The last time I was home he gave me one of his old shirts that fit him really well.  I found a tailor that was recommended to me by a friend who has lived here many years.  After making the circuit upstairs in the souk, I discovered that all the tailors for women were on the second floor and all the tailors for men were in the back on the outside.  I found "Prince Tailors" and talked to one of the men who was busily cutting out a pair of men's trousers, no pattern of course, just chalk lines drawn on the fabric. He looked at the shirt, told me I would need 2 1/2 meters of fabric.  Also said it was an easy design and I can pick up the shirt in three days.  I went back inside the souk and found one of many shops that specialize in fabric for men's shirts.  I showed the guy there the shirt and he said he had much better fabric than that.  Mind you, I want to be able to throw this in the dryer and not have to iron it.  We shall see!  When I get it back, I'm going to wash and dry it and see if really is a no-iron fabric.  Then I will send it to my son and if he likes it, I will have more made.  I'm pretty sure this will cost at least half of what it costs to buy his shirts from a specialty catalogue at home. I will keep you posted on how it turns out!

This was a bouquet given to me by one of my first graders this week after our program.  Sweet!

Goodbye from Kuwait!  I love hearing from you.  I'll be home in 99 days!

A Beautiful Wedding

This is the happy couple with this bride's bashful nieces 

This fall I received a last minute verbal invitation to the wedding reception of a colleague of mine here at UAS.  Her family is Pakistani, so I knew it would be a wedding like none other I had ever attended.  The civil ceremony had already taken place downtown.  The reception was held in a beautiful hotel.  When the bride walked in she looked positively stunning in her orange silk sari embroidered in gold.  The groom stood handsome and proud of his gorgeous bride.  We were then treated to a lavish feast of traditional Arab cuisine alongside a few American dishes like lasagne that were also served.  Then there was a wonderful variety of appetizers and desserts certain to break the will of the most fervent of dieters.  Oh well...you don't attend a Pakistani wedding feast every day and you certainly don't want to offend the family by not filling up your plate!

Henna designs are ceremonial traditions that women of many Middle Eastern cultures use to beautify and adorn themselves for special events.  

Expat Bobby Lincoln

Celebrating Islamic New Year in Oman

Bobby Lincoln came to UAS for the 2014-2105 school year.  He had just finished a one year master's degree program where he studied linguistics at the University of Melbourne in Melbourne, Australia.  Bobby is from Belleville, Illinois.  He graduated in 2004 from Eastern Illinois University with a major in English with teacher certification and a minor in Spanish.  He taught two years at Fenger High School on the south side of Chicago.  After two very challenging years at Fenger High School, he moved on to Noble Street Charter School, also in Chicago.  Noble Charter Schools serve primarily low-income students preparing them to graduate from college.  He taught English all six of his years in Chicago.

At the top of a hike to Wonderland in the Grampians National Park, Australia

While studying in Australia, Bobby met many overseas teachers who were also pursuing advanced degrees.  This is when he became addicted to overseas traveling.  Besides Australia, Bobby has been to the Fiji Islands, Singapore, China, South America, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Columbia, Peru, Mexico, Puerto Rico, UK, Spain, France, Germany, Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg, UAE, Turkey, Oman, and Sri Lanka.  I'm sure I've left out one or two countries, but I think I'd be safe saying that Bobby has become a world traveler.

Couldn't miss this opportunity in Yangzhou, China

World travel is a powerful draw to many young people who choose to teach overseas.  Teaching students in a different culture has many challenges as does living in a part of world where everything from transportation to finding your favorite brand at a grocery store makes life overseas a series of hurdles to overcome.  But the rewards are there.  Much of what we experience here we can look at as one obstacle after another, or a challenge to overcome.  I asked Bobby what advice he would give to someone who is interested in teaching overseas.  His answer was to be committed to the experience.  Also, come here with an open mind.  There are many things that are done in school systems overseas that are very much different than our experiences in the states, but it is important to be open to their way of accomplishing an objective.

The culmination of a four day hike along the Incan Trail arriving at Macchu Picchu at sunrise

"Something I'll take away from my experience in the Middle East is cementing my understanding that, all around the world, people are pretty much just doing the same thing. The difference is in how cultures choose to express those things. It's kind of calming to see that when the common denominator is human, what we get out of different combinations and expressions of idea and behaviors is such a diverse range that I find beautiful and exciting."  Bobby Lincoln 

Jet Lag Tired

I have discovered in my last two Christmas holidays home, that there is no tired like jet 

lag tired.  Oh, I used to complain about daylight savings time in the fall when we would lose an hour of sleep on a Sunday and feel a bit out of sorts the next day or two.  But the jet lag a person feel after about 16 hours sitting in the cramped quarters of an airplane, untold hours sitting around in the airport and then doing all of this in reverse ten days later is a tired that is beyond description.  When I got home this December I immediately launched into a frenzy of baking and decorating so everything would be just right for my family coming home for the holidays.  And they came and it was a wonderful and joyous as a holiday can be with a two year old granddaughter who is discovering the joy finding gifts under the tree.  A few days later I drove seven hours west to visit my Dad in Nebraska who isn't able to travel anymore.  I can't go home without touching base with him and assuring him that I'm ok clear over here on the other side of the planet.  The weather was starting to turn nasty, so I had to cut my stay short and head back to Iowa before the roads began to get icy.  Two days later I had to get up at 3:30 am to catch my flight back to Kuwait.  I was extremely lucky and didn't experience any flight delays.  I got back to Kuwait and had three days to recover.  You would think that after three days of doing practically nothing, you would be ready to face the new year.  In my case, that wasn't nearly enough time.  It has been two weeks now and I'm just finally feeling like I'm back to my old self again.

I started teaching in 1977.  Please, DON'T do the math!  That is a lot of years of getting to work on time.  That includes 2:00 am and 6:00 am feedings, toddlers who would NEVER sleep through the night, a two hour commute to work on icy roads only to discover within a mile of the school that it had been canceled, fog, flooded roads, and more road construction than I care to think about.  And never once was I late.  Sadly to say, I overslept the second day of school after the winter break.  I woke up and there was sun streaming through my window and I was gripped with this sick realization that I had exactly twenty minutes to put myself together, thumb in, and greet about 26 fourth graders all ready for the first music class of the new year. Good thing the apartments here are just across the street.  I made it with five minutes to spare!  I'm not saying that I had the very best day of my career (I don't really remember much of that day, actually) but I'm happy to say I was still standing when the day was done.  When I got home, I checked my iPad which I also use as my alarm clock.  It actually did go off just as I had set it.  However, it will stop ringing after a while if it's not shut off.  How I could have slept through that incessant ringing I'll never know.  I guess that's when you know what it really means to be bone tired.  What is really sad is that this same thing happened to me last year after I came back from my holiday in the states. So after this happened yet again, I set three alarms; two by my head and one across the room.  Last week I was down to two alarm clocks.  I don't quite trust myself yet, so I have decided that I will use two alarm clocks for a while.  You might wonder what the reaction of my principal was after I did something so irresponsible.  Actually, people are pretty understanding around here when these things happen after the holidays.  She gave me a hug the next day when she saw me at my post on playground duty.  As long as you get here within an hour of the school day, it is up to the discretion the principal to dock your pay.  I sure don't plan to let it happen to me again!

Many of my friends went on holidays to Italy, Sri Lanka, Thailand and other exotic locations.  They came back to school relaxed, tanned, and refreshed. My vacation was more like a happy homemaker marathon with a couple of six hour road trips thrown in for the fun of it.  I am a music teacher and the two weeks before I went home I had six holiday concerts.  Would I do it again?  In a heartbeat!

Camels running free across a soft, green desert.  It had been a wet winter!  Once again thanks to my good friend, Linda Young, for her beautiful photos of the wedding and the camels in the desert.