I am in the last week of my 2 week semester break. I have been playing a lot of golf but have been taking care of the business as well. As you may or may not know we bought a 4th place in Warren MI. Well the condo above ours had not been winterized and the radiator burst which lead to the ceiling/ floor collapsing and completely destroying our condo causing $16,000 worth of damage. Dean Elliot our lawyer is trying to get some money from the responsible parties but he does not think it likely. Dean is a great help for our business. Also we had to evict another tenant so this business is slow going right now. It has a lot of potential it is just getting it up to that potential.
I do not know how it came to be that they had decided not to close my department. All I know for certain was that up until January 11th the department was supposed to close and then after that they decided that not only are they not going to close the department but that they were going to hire 30 to 40 new teachers!! Granted I have not gotten an official notice that my contract will be renewed but if I do not hear anything by the end of February then I am in for the long haul. I figure that I will have about another 10 years before they will actually close the department. You see my wife is part of the 1,500 native English speaking teachers that they have hired to teach in the public schools. So when these kids do reach the University level there should be no need for my department.
I am on the “men’s” campus now and what a change it is, not good. It is good in that there is a lot more camaraderie with my colleagues at work and they are always ready with a good joke and a big laugh. But the boys are very difficult to teach. I get frustrated when I spend hours preparing a lesson and having it fall flat as the boys could not be bothered to do the work. They just want to copy off their friends. And quizzes are a total joke. Next semester I am going to be good about following the rules and they can hate me.
We have had the shortest winter since we have gotten here. It is already up to 85 with mornings only getting down to 60. It is usually 55 in the mornings until early February with day time temps up to 75. BUT we did have a couple of days where it rained all day long!!! I have never seen it rain all day long here in Al Ain. They say have this $11 million US Dollar weather modification program going on and this caused the rain but who can be sure.
Ashley is having a bit of a hard time with the transient nature of the Ex-Pat life. She was in tears yesterday because one of her friends had said she was moving to Qatar (this turned out to be untrue). But I helped her get thought it as best as I could; pointing out that she has several friends who will not be moving and she is good friends with them as well. Besides that she is in an after school program 2 days a week they do a bit of school work but also do some fun things as well like yoga. She enjoys it and I think it is helping her gain confidence in her intellect. She has a bit of a low opinion of her intelligence; I think this is due to her brother being a bit too hard on her. Andrew acts like she should be able to do the things he does and can be quite harsh to her. So I am happy she is enjoying her after school program. Also she has started taking piano and is happy with it for the most part. We have just started her doing 15 minutes of piano practice each day. She is very good about this and it is already showing its worth.
Andrew is gone. He got the xbox 360 live and now he lives in his room with MY xbox! Seriously he spends at least an hour 9supposed to be at most) on xbox live every day. On the weekends he just stays on live all day long. But he is doing alright at school. I would like to see his grades improve and he has brought home some good tests grades so I hope next terms grades are better. We are going to send Andrew to live with my mom after he finishes school next year. I figure it will be good for him to acclimate to the USA before he goes there for undergraduate school (he wants to be a DR). Also he will be able to get in-state tuition. I would like him to go to a community college for a year or two before he goes on to a state school.
Tita is in and out of love of her job. She had been really enjoying her work up until recently but things have changed and they are being a bit more demanding at work so she is not really happy with them. Granted she is a very hard working teacher who is constantly working on lessons. I admire her work ethic and her drive to be a good teacher. I know I try to do some of it but it is a bit too much for me, as my students are a lot more difficult to work with. Anyway the good news is she will have a nice long vacation in the summer and she is going to ask to be transferred to a school close to our hose next year. Right now Tita has to drive 45 minutes to get to work in the morning. It is a long drive and I think that adds to the stress of her job. Well I talked one of the people in the main office about it and he said it should be no problem to have her transfer to a closer school.
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