The “Cooker” or “My Blond MomentS”

Over here they are not called “ranges”, they are called “cookers”. Not to be confused with having an actual chef in your house! My apartment complex was just finished, and I mean JUST. There are still things that aren’t done….like the hole in my bedroom ceiling, the exhaust fans that don’t work, and the glue/insulation/mold that is pouring out of my walls!! Oops, off track! So, the building has gas connections in the units BUT no gas. It has not been brought in from the street by the city. Since I prefer cooking with gas but baking with electric, I thought ahead and ordered a cooker with an electric oven, 3 gas burners, and one electric burner. Unfortunately this was not a floor model and the salesman wrote up the wrong model…and I didn’t check! My bad! So the cooker gets delivered and the stove is all gas burners. After trying to get the cooker switched out, I gave up trying to argue with Carrefour and bit the bullet and bought a two burner electric hot plate. 

Is it insulation? Is it glue? Is it some weird Middle Eastern Mold?

Then I hear about this wonderful thing called a gas cylinder. Voila! I pay one of the hubbies to get the tank and the connections and to give me gas! I came home that day so excited to cook on my stove. But, I decided I wanted something that involved the oven. I turn on the oven and put my chicken in and go about my business. 20 minutes later I open the oven to discover the chicken is still frozen. What’s up with this? I figure the hubby must have disconnected my electric to the oven without realizing that the oven is electric. So I message him as I take my chicken to the neighbor’s to bake it. 

Isn't this attractive? But...I have GAS!!

When I come back, he is at my door laughing his ass off. His assumption was that I had forgotten to turn on the switch for the cooker. Yes look at the picture….you turn the power on and off. It’s like that for the washer/dryer and the hot water heaters too. Nope, I’m not that STUPID!! He turns the thermostat up and OMG I have an oven that works. Seriously, the last time I used it, it was set at the right temperature. I never turn it back to zero. But…he did after he tested it. So, back I go to get my chicken out of Melissa’s oven. He threatened to post my stupidity on Facebook so I beat him to it. 

Yes you have to turn on the electric before you can turn it on!!

Then, last Saturday night I tried to boil water for pasta. The gas comes out, I can hear it and smell it but the burner won’t light. So I message the hubby again. I decide to make something in the oven instead. When I turn it on to preheat it, NOTHING!! Dang! I never flipped the switch! OK message the hubby back and tell him it’s all good and not to even ask!!!

I think I should stick with take out!!

The Difference in Schools (NO I am not in NJ anymore)

The first thing to note is that males and females do not attend the same schools. KG schools (3-5 year olds) are separate entities except in only a few cases. 1-4 Grades are grouped together as Cycle 1; 5-9 grades are grouped together as Cycle 2 and have not been included in the New School Model so the Native English speaking teachers are not there yet. 10-12 grades are grouped together as Cycle 3. That is where I am, teaching 10^th and 11^th graders. 11^th and 12^th grades are grouped by either Art or Science. Think of it as regular or honors tracks.

School starts for me each morning at 7:45 with Assembly, where the girls line up outside and say their pledge, sing their national anthem, and read passages from the Quran. The first period teacher lines up with them. Here is the BIG difference, the students do not change classes, the teachers do. The classes are 55 minute periods and there is one 30 minute break and one 20 minute break. There is a prayer room where the girls may go and there are also prayer rugs available in each classroom. I have only had one occasion where a girl has asked to pray and that was during independent work and not the actual lesson. There is only one bell for the change of periods so I have to zoom between classes that are not close to each other. Often the girls “take a break” while teachers are en route and are very hard to get back in. They are even harder to get back in after break. The bell rings and none of the girls move. It is not a matter of defiance but of culture. Things do not operate on our Westernized timetable here. Nobody monitors the halls and there are no substitute teachers. Sometimes a teacher will be asked to cover during an open period, but very often the girls are left on their own.  We had been operating without one English teacher since school started, she finally started last Tuesday. 

There is no real schedule in the sense that I am used to. I have 3 different sections of students that I teach for a total of 8 meeting a week. Do the math…..I have a different schedule every day and there is only one class that I see in an actual block of 2 class periods and that is only once a week. I have to look at my schedule to see where I am going each period. But then on Sunday, my brain thinks it’s Monday and on Thursday my brain thinks it’s Friday. It’s a lot to get used to. The main learning is done in what they call ECART but I know it as Project Based Learning. The actual graded packet has been provided to us by our advisor and then we supplement as needed with reading materials. Some teachers in other schools are flying completely blind. Our advisor is great and we have tons of resources while other schools do not have dictionaries. There are 6 Native English speaking teachers. Five of us are new this year including the new-newbie, one is in her second year at the school, and another is one her third year in the UAE but her first year at this school.  We each have our own computer, but no internet yet. InshAllah, it was to have been taken care of weeks ago. The Arabic teachers, some of whom are Emirati, have been very welcoming to us. That is not the case at all of the schools, as Arabic speaking English teachers are being forced out. 

Two weeks ago when I left in the morning it was a little foggy out here in the city, but where I exited the highway into Al Nahda (aka East Camel Funk), the fog was terrible. School started very close to the end of second period since the only girls in the school on time were those with “drivers”. The buses do not run until the fog lifts and visibility is improved. I am told that the fog will get very bad early in the year and that I will not be able to see off my own balcony. Apparently I am not to rush or call in, it is accepted that we may very well be late on those mornings. In the US, we were expected to know there was going to be fog….and leave accordingly!!