Friday, October 9, 2015

Some Current Thoughts.. and Pumpkin Spice Lattes

Excuse my typos.. for this was rushed and quick. But needed.

So as I sit here in one of 17 (exaggeration.. but for real..like 5) Starbucks in Yas Mall, sipping on my "grande, soy, no whip, no foam, 1 pump, pumpkin spice latte"… *takes breath*.. I minimized my online textbook and weekly assignment for I have too many thoughts and if I don't type them up now.. I'll forget them.

I live on post-its. My short term memory is ridiculous.

Current thoughts;

1. This PSL is off the chain. Wish I ordered nonfat instead of soy though. Next time. But 1 flavor shot on point. (Fun (Nasty) Fact: Starbucks grande drinks have 4 pumps of flavor syrup… helllllllll no.)

2. I woke up this morning and tried to imagine rainfall against my bedroom window. I miss rain. So much.

3. I also miss a breeze. Once in a  while, you'll get one. Then you count up to 2.5 seconds, and that happiness is gone.

4. I just finished my latte, and am considering another.

5. I went to the Dave Matthews Band last night. Now.. I have some experiences with this man.. most have to do with his music forced upon me. I shouldn't say forced, but I have really never gone out of my way to listen to him. Boy.. was I missing out. This concert was incredible. Their music is incredible. Their vibe, their harmonies, their everything.. incredible. These guys play real music. Their energy is so incredibly contagious.. New fan.

6. At the concert, we stood right in front of a family of 4. Mom, dad, 2 twin daughters (14-15 yrs old?) I couldn't help but watch them as much as I was watching Dave. Typical, laid back, expat parents.. looks like they've probably done some time in the Peace Corps, smoked some definite weed in their young and old years, had a love of traveling, had these two girls, and decided to share their love of traveling and culture with their offspring. Could I be totally judgmental and wrong? Absolutely. What I do know is that these parents love their children and started playing Dave to them while still in the womb. The mom was killing it with her dance skills EVERY song. The dad had the whole chill, rock back and forth style with the white linen pants look and deep V with some cool ass necklace he probably got in India. And the girls, sitting on top of the fence, bobbing along to every song. Never once looking bored, never once making fun of their mother who was just taking over every area she could spin around in. And the happiness between all four of them.The love that radiated through this husband and wife when they looked at each other. As the husband leaned against the fence, smiling from ear to ear, while watching his crazy ass wife. It was like I could see into his mind.. "My, god, she's beautiful. How lucky am I to have her in my life. How lucky am I to be able to expose these girls to these cultures, this music, this world. God, I love my life."
They were content. They were so happy. They were so relaxed.

And then I thought.. they are what I want.

I want to find someone to travel the world with. I want someone who wants to travel, and live that expat life.. at least for a little while.

And then I thought.. wait MaryKate, you found that person. Those things were all agreed to. They were mutual beliefs. Mutual values. Mutual goals and dreams. We were ready. We were set.

And then I thought.. Okay. Namaste. Five deep breaths. Accept. Move on. Back to Dave.


I digress..

7. Still sitting in Starbucks, with a cart full of amazing mercy from ACE (including: dust buster, Brita, Magic Bullet, cookie baking sheet (that actually fits into our oven/won't melt).. WHY? Because we finally got paid!!

8. Yes, finally.. first pay check (after 6 weeks). Let's just say it's been rough. My credit card has especially been struggling. I think sometimes I hear it crying from my wallet pleading for me to stop using it.

9. A family just left. An Emirate family. Husband, wife, 2 children, 1 infant, and a nanny. (Almost all Emirate families here have nannies. Very common) Just some observations:
1. The wife and husband are sitting alone, not talking. Husband is on his phone. Wife looks bored.
2. Wife waves over to the nanny. Nanny brings over her purse. Wife says nothing. Wife grabs something out of her bag. Holds up the purse for the nanny,. Says nothing to nanny.
3. Children are running amok.
4. Nanny looks on edge, constantly looking over at husband/wife team.

Across the way.. another mother is sitting, on her phone., while her children climb the architecture of Starbucks. I almost jumped out of my seat to catch the boy who's foot slipped. She looks over (in slow motion) says something disciplinary. Children continue climbing. She looks back to her phone, not bothered.



  

 

Saturday, September 5, 2015

Here I Go Again..

Well.. I've moved again.


Yep.. two years ago if you asked me where I'd be right now, I'd say back in New York, most likely teaching in a public school in the city, with the love of my life, living in an apartment in Astoria with some roommates, stressing over money, going out to beer gardens, and loving the life of a 25-year-old in Queens.

What happened?

Life.

Let's just make this into a simple bulleted list, shall we?

1. Andrew Cuomo is an ass. (Aka New York teaching careers are almost non-existent for new teachers. Even for some seasoned ones.)

2. Daily NY life is an obnoxious expense.

3. Two people incredibly in love, realized that they were not in the same place, and as a result their lives turned completely upside down and their relationship into an 8-month rollercoaster.

4. The expat life calls people back even when they thought it had gone away. 

5. The world is too big of a place to be missed.

6. If your job is out there, you need to chase it.

7. You do you. 

And that's exactly what I did.

Where shall you ask did I move?

To a tropical paradise on a secluded island, drinking coconut juice and admiring the beautiful palm trees.



Somewhat..

The Middle East. Aka: The Sand Box.
It does have palm trees. It does have sand. It does have beautiful white sandy beaches and coconuts. But before we experience all that luxurious goodness, we need to sort out our lives and get past the initial crap that all expats go through as they drop their lives and enter a new country.. again.  

The country: United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The city: No.. not Dubai.


Abu Dhabi! It's one of the 7 Emirates (Dubai included) in the UAE. One of the safest middle eastern countries you can get.





I want to make this somewhat short, for it's 2:44 am and my hard rock of a bed is calling my name. But I have a feeling that won't be the case. I've been here 2 weeks, and wow has a lot happened. My friend/roommate Jackie and I arrived on the morning of August 28th to the joyous rays of sunlight and HEAT. Welcome to the desert. Literally. As we stepped out of the airport, it was like a punch in the face, except it was dry heat, and coming from a humid NY, this was actually kind of bearable after we got used to it. Little did we know.. the humidity would begin within a few days.. and let me tell you.. the humidity is unlike anything I have ever experienced. We stepped outside our apartment one day and my phone immediately fogged up, our skin glistened with sweat, and as I took my fourth step outside I realized that I was going to have to use caution because my feet were sliding across my sandals. No exaggerations here whatsoever.

We were met at the airport by two kind men (one who worked for the school, the other his friend, who he also made drive.) We packed up our things and had no idea where we would end up. Apartment? Hotel? The school? A camel ride? Of course I had hoped for the latter. We arrived at our apartment and walked into a beautiful, HUGE, accommodation. Huge kitchen, huge living room with sliding glass doors that open up to a patio, two large bedrooms complete with a bathroom each, a free gym and pool in the complex. We looked at each other and felt like two kids running through a house. Not going to lie.. we're pretty lucky with these digs.


We soon realized that we did not have wifi or money (with the excitement of landing, and rushing through the airport, it did not allow us time for exchanging money.) Let's just go exchange money! Oh wait, there's no stores around. Let's try the one grocery store in our complex! Oh wait, it's closed. Let's just have this man drive us into town! Oh wait it's Friday (Holy Day) and nothing is open. Let's just catch a cab back to the airport! Oh wait we don't have money to even catch a cab. So we set up a car ride date with the kind man from the school for the following day to bring us to a bank… mmm didn't work out so well. Long story short, he never showed up, we spent almost an hour with some security cards and finally got our message across that all we needed was a phone to call him. "Oh no, no, school will arrange for a bus to bring you to the mall tomorrow." Great. Wellllll that didn't happen either.. Wait are we in Korea? Good thing we ran into my fellow friend from Korea, who had also gotten a job at the same school. She lent us some dirhams and off we went to the mall to start our lives. (More about these incredible malls later.)

Let's skip to the actual reason I'm here. Teaching.


I work at an international private school in Abu Dhabi. I am a 4th grade teacher. The Common Core is implemented here and I am solely in charge of all homeroom/classroom type responsibilities of a typical classroom teacher, however the only difference is that I only teach ELA and Social Studies (ESS). I teach these two main subjects to my own class and another 4th grade class. Lud, a great SA teacher, is the teacher of that other class, and as you may have predicted he teaches both his and my class Math and Science. In someways it is actually a really nice setup. Other ways.. kind of frustrating. But with everything, it's going to take time. We had a total of 6 days to set up our classroom. Yep. 6. So of course, we went straight to the mall, found a Daiso (THANK GOSH!), spent money I didn't have, and made it my own. I researched with whatever internet I could find, racked my brain for ideas that I have had running through it since my freshman year at Oswego, took wonderful management strategies and ideas from incredible co-teachers and co-workers I have worked with the past few years, and worked in between every meeting and workshop we had. 6 days later.. my students arrived. The school has a certain number of "local" classes which means mostly, if not everyone in their classes are Emirates. My class however is an "ethics" class, which means I have a mix of expats and Emirates. I am incredibly thankful for how that turned out for I enjoy all of the diversity in my class. I have 26 students, including children from the UAE, Korea, Greece, Egypt, Canada, Philippines, South Africa, The States, Lebanon, and the Netherlands.





My coworkers are incredible. My 4th grade team is welcoming, generous, patient and  sensitive. They're expats. They're what I've been missing for the past year and a half. We get each other. We understand each others' struggles and frustration, our excitement and our passion. None of us are above the other just because we've been living and settled in a country longer than someone else. We have all been in the same place once before. We have all picked up our life in search for our happiness and contentment.
They are also teachers. Certified teachers. Something I didn't have in common with a lot of people in Korea. And in that case, we get along on a different level. We know the education system, we know management, we know discipline, we know curriculum, we know children. We are  educators. That's what we went to school for. And above all, this school gave us jobs, and appreciates us and our careers unlike most of our home countries.


Adrienne (USA), Jackie, Myself, Eryn (SA), Elizabeth (Ireland)

Myself, Isle (SA), Anete (Latvia), Jasmine (SA), and Jackie


Some fun facts:

1. There is salt in the water. We figured out the hard way when almost puking after a great looking meal-prepped salad. With the warnings from others, this will, (and has already), dried out our hair, our skin, and has added unwanted sodium to our diet. Even bottled water has differing amounts of sodium. Of course I have bought nothing but the one brand that has a label, "Low sodium." Most people attach shower filters to alleviate this issue. We're investing in one and my greens will now be rinsed in the shower

Now.. if anyone knows me.. I am as obsessive as they come with sodium. I hate it (with no passion). It is what made me take complete control over my eating habits in Korea, and it is what I obsess about in all foods. This is something that is definitely affecting me here and something I am going to have to figure out. Most food once rinsed off will rinse off the salty water as well, but greens, we know hold moisture, and because of this.. it's been the joke that eating clean is not at all eating clean here. I even went so far as to asking a stranger in a Yas Crossfit shirt at the store how she handles clean eating here. She gave me a store suggestion on top of the other health food store here I know of. But basically, she agreed with me that it's definitely a challenge here.

2. iherb.com (my life savour while abroad) is blocked in the UAE. Enough said. This was actually really disappointing, because a lot of my clean lifestyle relies on food from there. Again, being resourceful, and doing what I can. 

3. Amazon.com (my last resort to clean foods is also (somewhat) blocked. I say somewhat, because it allowed me to ship a smoothie blender. However, protein powder, Lara bars, steel cut oats, and Jackies' textbooks?!?! Nope.

4. Malls are everything here. Really though. Malls include your grocery stores, shopping, phone stores, hardware stores, banks, everything. They're almost ghost towns during the day, but walk in at 10 pm on a weekday or weekend (except for Fridays), they will be packed until they kick you out at midnight.


Yas Mall (I have gotten lost in this place every time I've been)
5. School weeks and work weeks run Sunday-Thursday. Friday is their Holy Day, so most stores will be closed. 

6. The wealth. Is. Ridiculous. I mean, our necks are going to start falling off from the quick second looks we give the cars here.


Etihad Plaza
Etihad Plaza
7. Alcohol is illegal here (unless you have a drinking license), due to the Muslim culture. We learned very quickly there are of course ways around it. Like anything. Thank goodness, because if you thought I was going two years without wine in the apartment, I would have left. Just kidding. But really though. There is one store by us that will sell to you if you buy cash. Emirates have been known to drive up and honk their horns, forcing the workers to come out and deliver alcohol to their cars.

8. Ladies Nights. Speaking of alcohol. All bars are located in hotels. Huge, stunning, incredible hotels. And every night of the week you will find at least 2 bars that hold ladies nights.. which means we drink free. All night. Yes, that's right.. ALL night. Sorry men. However, you find a bar that does not host ladies night that night, expect to pay anywhere from $12-$18 USD per drink (some places more). Yeah, that was fun.



Yas Marina
Grand Millenium Hotel (Ate dinner here one night this week)
9. Brunches. What is this NYC? Brunches on Friday and Saturday mornings are the thing to do here. They're hugely popular and pretty decadent from what I've heard. The Ritz Carlton brunch is apparently the most priciest, coming to a whopping AED 1,380 ($375). I've been told I need to do it once.. so we'll just wait until I rob the local bank and I'll be the first one in the door with a mimosa, some smoked salmon, and the entire rest of the buffet.

10. You don't talk about Israel. Buy a map in the UAE.. you won't even find the country. Yep, they just took it out. Snap. Vanished. And don't even think about bringing it up at school. Children will tell on you to their parents and you will face some pretty serious discussions with administrators. 

11. The women are gorgeous. If only I could pull off an abaya like they do.




12. The wifi connection is almost non existent here. Coming from Korea where you could probably find wifi in a ditch in the middle of a rice field, it's pretty frustrating when you have just started a teaching position and have no means of working from home. Coffee shops will have wifi for 1-2 hours at a time with a purchase, and then bam you're done. I would be less stressed if I didn't have 6 credits of grad school that started 3 days ago and lack of internet is "going to stop being annoying and start becoming a problem" -Jackie. It's a huge problem. And it's one that really can't be fixed until we get an Emirates (ID) card. How might you ask did I manage to write this entire blog in the middle of the night. Well, we decided to work up the courage and ask our neighbors across the hallway, who happened to be this lovely Scottish/SA older married couple, who gladly gave us their wifi password. I am currently sitting on the couch we pushed against our door (the only place it works in our apt).

13. The food is pretty amazing. The foreign population makes up 85% of the country, with Filipino,  Indian, Lebanese, and other Arab countries making up a majority. Therefore, the food is to die for.


Zaatar, a very popular Lebanese meal. (Pita bread with this delicious thyme seasoning and sometimes made cheese) Students have it available every day at school. Basically America's PBJ. 


My life here these past few weeks has been a lot to take in. I've been comparing it to Korea, and I need to stop doing that. I wanted this and I am excited for the joys it will bring me. But for now, I need to accept where I am and continue to hold my head up, take deep breaths, and remember why I'm here. I am lucky to be living with a lovely roommate and friend who can relate on all levels, and I am making new friends by the week, who also completely understand. This is not Korea. This is not the States. This is me taking a hell of a lot on at one time. A new country, 2 grad classes, my first full time classroom teaching position, and a new life. I am learning to let go of things and people from home who no longer serve me. Every day gets a bit easier and every day I am reminded of how much this lifestyle is meant for me in this moment in time.

"You are exactly where and when and who you are supposed to be. Anything else would be just plain ridiculous."