Pen Pals, Swip- Swapped Seasons and Moving Flats

Pen Pals
We are finishing up a writing piece this week. For fast finishers I gave them a couple choices of what they could write about. One of them being, write a letter to my 5 year old nephew, Noah. I said, "Tell him about yourself, ask him questions, or maybe tell him how awesome it is to have his aunt as your teacher." Wink, wink.

Here are a few things my students want to tell/ ask Noah:

How old are you? Do you like to play PS40? What is your favorite food? What is your favorite hobby? I want to go to America like you. Your aunt is helpful and kind. Did you know we are learning about multiplication and division. I end with this, my favorite comment; "Reading is my favorite subject and it so important because you learn words and stuff." (from one of my struggling-est readers.)

Swip- Swaps
Swip- swaps are the most popular, and my least favorite, behavior cards (because they talk to who they choose to sit by).

It takes more Dojo points to earn it, but when you do you can redeem it and sit by whoever you want for the day.

Because of the reward card, my class has the meaning of swip-swap down (If you don't, look it up in Urban Dictionary). We even use it in math. One strategy we practice to help us become Multiplication Masters is the Commutative property (9 X 5 is the same as 5 X 9- this strategy helps because they can all count by 5's even if they can't fluently recall their 9's yet).  So if one student gets stuck, I will prompt, "Can you 'swip-swap' the number to a problem you do know?"

Well, there is another thing that is swip-swapped here, too. In a temperate climates in the northern hemisphere, leaves change colors and fall to the ground in the fall and things bud and start to turn green in the Spring. It is not so here. In Kuwait, in the spring, things start to turn brown and leaves fall from the trees.   

Interesting fact of the day: Our campus is carpeted almost entirely in green AstroTurf instead of grass.

Freedom

Things I miss, besides specific friends and family like these:

Yea for Facetime.

🌳🌷🌾🚴🚶🚘

-My car

-Road Trips

-Trees

-Walking outside

The things I listed above represent freedom and independence to me. Claustrophobia; noun anxiety caused by living in isolation or indoors for a long period of time. Though I don't have claustrophobia, it sometimes feels like I am confined in a small place and I have to struggle for breath; like I have cabin fever. It doesn't help that it is now regularly over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, too.

I don't always like being in this dusty, scorched country, but I have gained a lot of invaluable experiences and met some great people.

Looking forward to some freedom this summer and hopeful for an awesome next year in Kuwait.

Church Love

"What is important to you when it comes to a place to worship?" 

"Do they Love Jesus?" 

"Yes." 

"Good, that is foundational." "They play Rend and All Sons and Daughters!?" 

"Yes, they do." 

"Sold!" 

A friend said commented (said is dead), "It feels like a Sunday school class." and I agree.  The church I've settled on is small, low key and ran by the congregation. For example, in the service, someone asks for prayer requests, someone else reads that week's bible passage, someone else gives announcements and so on.  The message is bible based and short.  On the other hand, it takes 25 minutes to get there and we have to schedule a taxi pickup in advance because taxis don't frequent the area, but... I like. 

I love Rend Collective.

It's tricky getting a taxi to and from church because our taxi drivers are Muslim and they have their Friday prayer time at the same time that local Christian churches meet. Yes, church is on Friday here. 'Member the first day of our work week is on Sunday.

Moving Flats

New single teachers usually live in the smaller, not as nice, apartments their first year. The year is almost over and since some teachers are getting ready to move on, their apartments are available. The most desired apartments are usually seaside and as high up as possible. That is also what I wanted, but I got the other side, call the sunset view, on the 11th floor. Picking an apartment is a bit of a gamble because some apartments have better lay outs, nice painted walls or better furniture. I like my current place enough, but I am happy for a little upgrade. The other apartment is in one of the two buildings the school actually owns. I am currently in the one the school rents. The apartment I am moving into will be bigger and has a nice private courtyard. I'm excited though I won't actually get to be in it until after summer break.

Garage Sales
I did a little shopping in my future apartment today. Those leaving threw "garage" sales in their apartment, so I bought a couple of things and just left them over there for when I move in. I am still hunting for games and puzzles though. I have a ton, in America, but I didn't want to pay for the extra weight to bring them over. I might need to bring a couple back on my return trip. I have been puzzl-ing pretty compulsively for the last 2 weeks. If I keep this up, I think I've gathered just enough to last me until the end of the school year.

12 more days of school left.

20 more days till I take a jet plane.

A Nebraskan Teacher in Kuwait

A Nebraskan Teacher in Kuwait

Was planning to write another post about teacher stuff(this post) and I thought maybe my blog should be called Nebraskan Teacher in Kuwait but when I said it in my head, it sounded like a personal ad.  Which reminded me of Haiti and THIS.

Adjective practice in Beginner's English last summer, in Haiti.

The 3 Little Fishes

Working on irregular plurals in class.  The ones that don't change they found hilarious. "5 sheep?!," one said. Another guessed, "wolfs," when I asked for the plural. Person to people befuddled them and when I went over fish some thought I was lying. That is the reason we spent a week going over how to make plural nouns. My students are adapting classic fairy tales and a couple changed the classic The 3 Little Pigs to The 3 Little Fishes. 

Some of the nouns I picked are rare like oxen, cacti and di (I think I learned the singular form of dice only a few years ago) but I need to stump some of my higher kids sometimes and unbeknownst to them they are being prepped for an I Have Who has activity. 

#IHaveWhoHasLove 

After School Club

We met 7 times. Twice all 4 boys showed up. Twice only 1 student attended. The other three times, 3 came. Low turn out, but I loved Math Game Club.  I hope to do it again next year. It was a great way to learn some new games I can use in class, get to know my students in a different environment and make a little extra cash.  We had our final meeting last week, so I brought out a few of their favorites and this new one. 

Fraction Bump. We used a paperclip/ pencil spinner.

We always play for points and the winner gets to pick the Go Noodle brain break, at the end. You'd think it was a jumbo candy bar they get so excited.  It saves me the money and time of having to buy a prize.

Dominoes War.  We did the addition and subtraction editions.

My least favorite game, Multiplication Twister.  They like it though.

Math Jenga.

Miss Macgyver

Just call me Super Teacher.  My student raised his open hand up to me and looked expectantly at me. Inside was his broken eye glasses. They were missing the pin that holds them together.  I said "George, (names changed to protect the identity of those involved) I don't think I can..." "...just give me a minute." And before students had unpacked their bags and shuffled to Morning Meeting, I had strung a paper clip through, twisted, clipped and yanked out an eraser to safety-fy the sharp ends. Ta-da! All in a day's work of Super Teacher. 

He went the whole day like this.

Super Hero Stance
We actually did just finish up a 3 week "Super Reader" challenge. So we have been doing this attention grabber in class where I yell out, "Super...!" and they respond, "Reader!" and give me a super hero stance.  Then I repeat and they repeat and they change their stance.  Good times.

One lucky Super Reader in every class received a "Super Reader" cape.

The countdowns are on.

Incredible India

After the bumpiest flight of my life, we landed in the capital(Delhi) of incredible India.

India, green and lush, felt calmer, more peaceful-making. Though some scenes were chaotic and filled with need, there was so much natural and quiet beauty. Everywhere there seemed to be a continuous soundtrack of bird songs.

Arrival.
When you fly Emirates, regardless of the length of flight they serve a meal and a coffee service. As soon as we are in the air, they bring out the complimentary wine or beer, too, which was surprising the first time since it's just minutes after take-off from dry Kuwait.

So, after a well serviced (my favorite airline is still Turkish Air) and bumpy flight, we disembarked and were met by a guide with a sign and leis. We were picked up by our rental vehicle and driver for the week. Traffic was light as we made our way to the hotel due to Good Friday. In each city a "company man" met us. We also had a different tour guide, a specialist for the local sights, in each city.

DAY ONE: 

Our first morning in India, it raining steadily. I gazed at the pools of water sprinkled all over the manicured hotel grounds as I drank sweet lassi(Indian yogurt drink) and fresh watermelon juice from the hotel's extensive juice bar and ate wonderful waffles.

We visited the Red fort, took a bicycle rickshaw ride through a popular narrow-allied shopping area in Old Delhi to India’s largest mosque. We had to wear these flattering jewels (*note the matching bed slippers). 

We also went up the minaret to get a great view of the city. We visited the cremation sight of Gandhi and Deborah got her nose pierced. I briefly considered it as well. We also visited one of the world's tallest minarets built in 1193 (though our guide told us at the time it was the tallest) and the ruins of a mosque built from Hindu temples that had been destroyed.



DAY TWO was Easter so I researched and found a place for us to worship. Our driver agreed we could leave later than planned. 

On our way out of town, we drove by the India Gate.

This is actually at the Taj, but same-same.

We mainly traveled this day, to Agra. Agra is considered a small Indian city with just a little over 2 million residents. Yeah, that is the total population of Nebraska. It is also the home of the famous Taj Mahal. The 4 hour drive, for the most part, looked like Nebraska's I-80. Close to Agra we stopped to tour one location, but our local guide did not show up. Our driver didn't speak English fluently nor did he know all the details about these places so we ventured out alone. This resulted in an increased appreciation for our guides because we were bombarded by picture requests. They wanted their(Indians on holiday) pictures taken with us. No one asked us for money and everyone was friendly, but they wanted a picture. We were probably in 6 photos. We contemplated asking for money to have our pictures taken but, in the end, we decided against it. LOL. We learned to avoid eye contact; were aware of our surroundings through our peripheral alone.

DAY THREE: We declined the sunrise tour and met our guide at 9:30 in the lobby to go to the Taj Mahal. My favorite view is the most typical, but up close it's amazing, too. 

The inlay work especially struck me. The region is still known for this type of work.  It is un-stain-able white marble with inlays of lapis lazuli, mother of pearl, jasper, etc. There were even inlays in the trendy chevron pattern. 

Our guide knew all the best picture places.

At another Red Palace next to the Taj Mahal.

Love the arches.

Later, we secretly met up with our driver to go shopping in a cheaper location than our guide wanted to take us to. Lol. It still seemed pricey, but... it was awesome. We also got to practice are bargaining skills. We got to see how inlay marble work is done and we bought these from the young, humble artisan. The elephant looks like the inlay work done on the Taj Mahal. 

The inlay work has supposedly stayed in the same families, and the secret to the glue has been passed down to the men in the family (only), since the women will later marry into other families. 

Mary, after bargaining for some colorful clothing of her own.

We got a demonstration of how to make rugs, too. A typical single knotted 5 by 7 rug is a 6 month, full time process and sold for around 450 USD. Double knotted, finer rugs of a smaller scale, also take nearly 6 months and are sold for about 200. 

DAY FOUR: Also mainly a travel day. 6 hours from Agra to Jaipur. We did stop at the extravagant ruins of a palace. The entire place was made of carved red sand stone. 

Jaipur is also considered a small city at 3.5 million people. Like Delhi, it is clean and modern. Jaipur is called the pink city because all the buildings in the old town are painted pink.

DAY FIVE: Here we did a drive by of a few places but the highlight was an elephant ride up to a palace with great views, and getting henna tattoos at another pretty palace.

DAY SIX: On the drive back to the airport, we stopped at a jewelry store. We were shown raw jewels and learned how they make them worthy of selling. Initially I didn't want to buy anything but after tea and a demonstration (which I took photos of), I felt a little pressure. My companions bought enough that I really could have said no, but I ended up buying a silver cross pendant with a blue sapphire. Apparently there are 6 or so colors of sapphires. I haven't bought any adornments in the shape of a cross before. I felt it was often more fashion than faith for many, but it seemed right to do it now. Where I'm living, no one wears a cross simply for fashion. I also liked the idea of buying it in India. The sapphire comes from Kashmir (in the north of India) and Jaipur is renown for silver. After our extensive jewelry shopping, we loaded back into the car for a 6 hours drive to the airport.

Lodging.
All of our hotels were all awesome and unique. They all had great service. One had a repeating Alan Jackson CD playing from the 90's. One made this towel monkey. 

They all kept us amply supplied with free bottles of water- a happy surprise. 

India was, and is, one of my favorite countries. One of the reasons it's a favorite is because it is so colorful. Flowers, cars, buildings even people are decorated in bold, bright colors, though women's smiles and clothing were my favorite color splashes. 

Incredible India.

Snip, snap, snout. That tales told out.