Hook, Line, and Sinker...

Hook, anyway. I know it's been a little while - I haven't really done too much exciting. "But Andrew, it's your first week living and working in Qatar! That's pretty exciting!" Maybe so, but blogging something like "Went to school, came home. Ate dinner, planned a lesson for tomorrow, ate ice cream, slept," would not be a very exciting blog. So I'm going to wrap up a week's worth of blah into a night's worth or pizazz. Maybe? And pizazz isn't underlined; apparently it's a correctly-spelled word. I have some awesome neighbors here, everyone who lives in this building is a teacher at ASD. Hospitable through and through. I went for dinner across the hall - excellent Italian pasta and wine, salad, the whole works. Ordered pizza the other night; it's not the same as Tony's, but it'll do for a while.

I'm managing my way around the school, and the students seem to like me. That's what I was more nervous about than anything. And, by the way, to all of you who said "They won't get your jokes:" they do. And they are more cultured than most of the kids at home. Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it. If anything, I'll be more confident in my joke-telling ability, which was already flawless. America, look out. As I write this, I have my laundry in the dryer for the first time since I've been here. It's a little bit of an adventure, but not too bad at all. Have a 4-day weekend this weekend also. Sort of. Friday and Saturday are a conference at ASD open to educators in the Near East and South Asia region. Sunday and Monday is a conference for our school alone. It's going very well, it's very helpful. I would imagine that not too much of this has been different than if I had a job back home and decided to blog about it, so I apologize. There will be more cultural stuff to come though, I promise. And more pictures. But for now, a few lines of text will have to do. Have a super afternoon.

Evidently, Pennsylvania Dutch is not an internationally-known ethnicity

So I stepped foot in my classroom (that would be cool to say back in the States, let alone here!) for the first time today. This week there is standardized testing, so the schedules were a little different than normal. I have 2 sections of pre-Algebra and 3 sections of Algebra. I introduced myself, and went around the room doing introductions and whatnot, and I asked them to tell me where they were from. About the 4th girl in said "...and I'm Dutch." I said, "Nice! I'm Pennsylvania Dutch." That brought a whole new conversation into the room. The only way I could really get the point across was to ask if they knew about the Amish. They did. So at least one of the classes is semi-convinced that I drove a horse and buggy around at home.

What an amazing day, though. My schedule is great, I teach from 8:00 until 12:10 on days 1 and 2, and from 10:00 until 14:10 on days 3 and 4. It's great, and the students are awesome. Every Tuesday, the students have early dismissal for PACT: Professional and Collaborative Training. Spending time each week for teamwork, what a novel idea.

That's is for now - I don't want to beat a dead horse with how nice it is here (the phrase hurts my transportation's feelings), but that's all I can say so far. Evidently the fact that I played in a soccer match 19 hours after I got off the plane circulated around the school, and when I met some of the teachers who were not even on the faculty team, I hear "so you're the guy who decided to beat jet leg with a game of football, huh?" Yep, that's me.

Have a good night everybody, more to come. Obviously.

Post-Soccer

No, not a new breakfast cereal from the makers of Smacks. I went to dinner at the Ramada, at a very nice restaurant called Maxim. Silver platters, pallet cleansers between courses, etc...Four of us went. Everyone is amazingly nice so far, and I don't anticipate any of that changing. I start tomorrow...kinda (very) nervous. Oh well, c'est la vie, right? It's 9:30 right now, and I'm not sure if it's the long day I had today or the jet-lag, or a combination of both and/or anything else that is rushing through my head, but I'm exhausted. Goodnight all.

Are you ready for some football?

Yeah, I wasn't either. But I played anyway. ASD Faculty 3, ASD students 2. Victory! While I didn't score a goal, I at least played a bit of defense and made a few nice passes. It'll come - I haven't gotten my legs under me yet. Fourteen hours to go until I start. Had a good breakfast and lunch today: Johnny Rockets and Ric's Kountry Korner. Eggs, sausage, toast. California burger. Not quite ready to culture myself yet! Took a walk along the Gulf Coast too, it's beautiful. The Knowledge Enrichment Centre was closed though, so we toured the city. I have an excuse now if I act dumb: "Sorry class, the centre was closed. I won't be enriched until I can visit during business hours." Let's see how well that goes over. Also took a tour of the school - awesome. Beautiful, it's like a nice university campus. So excited. This was supposed to be a pretty short post, but I guess I did more than I thought. This is Andrew, signing off.

Viva Les Bleus!

Qatar Hero

Wow...exhausted. What a whirlwind the past week has been. Friday, an e-mail comes across my computer that a school in Qatar has a undefined-in-length math teacher long-term substitute position. I send the principal of the high school my resume and references. A week later and I'm setting the defaults for my web browser to translate from Arabic to English.

Email me for details if you want, but it's been hectic. But at least that part is over - now I'm showered and unpacked and waiting anxiously (and nervously) for Sunday to come: that's when I start. So from whenever I wake up tomorrow until whenever (and if) I go to bed tomorrow, that's how long I have to get ready. Crazy. Anyway, I didn't get to explore too much - I got out of the airport around 19:45. It's 21:30 now, and I haven't left the flat. But from what I saw on the ride over here, it's going to be amazing. Pictures to follow but for now, goodnight!