Nothing beats a feeling of preparedness. With my reading lessons all taken care of, everything else falls into place since all of the other subjects are handled by other people on the grade level. To extend this feeling, and because I'm so compulsive, I made all of my coffee for the week and refrigerated it, packaged my lunch for the next few days and I'm about to take care of my Parent Night presentation (it's tomorrow). I'll probably also iron my outfits for the rest of the week. By taking a few evening hours out of an early weekday to prepare for my week in all ways (down to packaging my snacks and supplement), I give myself a sense of relief, an opportunity to exhale really big every night, knowing that I won't have to get up too early or rush in the morning. I'll be able to come home and do a good workout, contact some of my family/friends, look at wrestling, or promote some of my music without feeling like I should be spending my time doing something else.
The feeling is priceless.
Good health is contingent upon a lifestyle that includes healthy eating, expression of emotions, taking care of responsibilites, being active, having a spiritual balance, sleeping well, and using energy wisely. When I'm getting things accomplished, all of the positives feed into each other. Works the same way with negativity. When I'm depressed about one thing, I start thinking about all of these other bad things and then they all start building on top of each other until they form some big, scary stress monster. And who needs that, right?
For some reason, every time I photograph the sun, it comes out like this:
Maybe because there are hardly any clouds here? I don't know, but it's beautiful.
I'm starting to realize that the intensity of the sun is far more difficult to withstand than the actual heat. I mean the intensity of light. The sun beams harder than you can imagine out here. You literally cannot keep your head up; everyone wears sunglasses, they are a must. If you find yourself out in the noon sun without them, you get uncomfortable really quick. We do lunch duties here. Today I had the cafeteria so I was good money. But Wednesday I'm out in the field. 20 minutes of blazing sun and 37, 38 C temperatures (that's about 100 F for you Westerners). Might wear TWO pair of sunglasses, haha. We wear neon green vests during duty. Figure if I gotta be out in such a hideous garment I might as well do the thang and hook it up. Looking for some neon green sunglasses and a matching visor or something.
My kids did an AWESOME job of generating questions while reading. Like, seriously, it was shocking. I introduced them to K-W-L charts and the results were astounding. Most of the class completed fantastic fiction and non-fiction charts independently. Kids will surprise you every time.
There's an initiation you (or your stomach) goes through when you get here. Maybe it's adjusting to the food and water, I don't know, but let's just say, your toilet goes through the initiation as well. Glad I'm over it. You just have to get used to it, it's the only solution. I thought that I could find some different brand of water from the brand I initially drank that would make a difference, but nope. You just gotta keep on drinking and eating until you develop that iron stomach.
Doing conversions is a constant brain workout - 3.65 riyals to 1 dollar (about 27 bucks to every 100 riyals); .625 kilometers to a mile; multiply celsius by 1.8 and add 32 to get the farenheit temperature. You may even find yourself trying to convert the milliliters to pints and fluid ounces and such. Yeah it's as annoying as it sounds.
There is, like, no sunrise and sunset here. Or at least it feels that way. It starts to get dark at around 5:45 and then its dark at 6; very little transition, very weird. Does the same in the morning. It gets dark so early, I need to find out why. It makes you less productive. And by "you" I mean "me." Kind of like how I am in the winter. But I combat it by doing the things I started this blog with. Still, though. It's wack. But I'm not. Not when I look like this haha:
By the way, I HAVE to wear a shirt and tie everyday. And since I'm tatted on the arms, I gotta wear long sleeves! Damn you "unforgivable blackness!" I think a kid said he noticed my tattoo today, but didn't want to repeat it because I was sort of on the rampage because they were being too rowdy. My methods are slightly different from other teachers, but they work. I let the parents see when they come to my door before dismissal (ugh, that's for another blog). I got nothing to hide. I turn my back to the parents and demand that the kid behaves his/her little behind until the second I release them. After that, s/he's the parent's problem :)
Remind me to tell you about the non-existent special education services and what I plan to do about that later. Peace!
The feeling is priceless.
Good health is contingent upon a lifestyle that includes healthy eating, expression of emotions, taking care of responsibilites, being active, having a spiritual balance, sleeping well, and using energy wisely. When I'm getting things accomplished, all of the positives feed into each other. Works the same way with negativity. When I'm depressed about one thing, I start thinking about all of these other bad things and then they all start building on top of each other until they form some big, scary stress monster. And who needs that, right?
For some reason, every time I photograph the sun, it comes out like this:
.JPG) |
| View of the sun from my building. |
I'm starting to realize that the intensity of the sun is far more difficult to withstand than the actual heat. I mean the intensity of light. The sun beams harder than you can imagine out here. You literally cannot keep your head up; everyone wears sunglasses, they are a must. If you find yourself out in the noon sun without them, you get uncomfortable really quick. We do lunch duties here. Today I had the cafeteria so I was good money. But Wednesday I'm out in the field. 20 minutes of blazing sun and 37, 38 C temperatures (that's about 100 F for you Westerners). Might wear TWO pair of sunglasses, haha. We wear neon green vests during duty. Figure if I gotta be out in such a hideous garment I might as well do the thang and hook it up. Looking for some neon green sunglasses and a matching visor or something.
My kids did an AWESOME job of generating questions while reading. Like, seriously, it was shocking. I introduced them to K-W-L charts and the results were astounding. Most of the class completed fantastic fiction and non-fiction charts independently. Kids will surprise you every time.
There's an initiation you (or your stomach) goes through when you get here. Maybe it's adjusting to the food and water, I don't know, but let's just say, your toilet goes through the initiation as well. Glad I'm over it. You just have to get used to it, it's the only solution. I thought that I could find some different brand of water from the brand I initially drank that would make a difference, but nope. You just gotta keep on drinking and eating until you develop that iron stomach.
Doing conversions is a constant brain workout - 3.65 riyals to 1 dollar (about 27 bucks to every 100 riyals); .625 kilometers to a mile; multiply celsius by 1.8 and add 32 to get the farenheit temperature. You may even find yourself trying to convert the milliliters to pints and fluid ounces and such. Yeah it's as annoying as it sounds.
There is, like, no sunrise and sunset here. Or at least it feels that way. It starts to get dark at around 5:45 and then its dark at 6; very little transition, very weird. Does the same in the morning. It gets dark so early, I need to find out why. It makes you less productive. And by "you" I mean "me." Kind of like how I am in the winter. But I combat it by doing the things I started this blog with. Still, though. It's wack. But I'm not. Not when I look like this haha:
.JPG) |
| "The text reads: Oh u mad cuz I'm STYLIN' on u" |
By the way, I HAVE to wear a shirt and tie everyday. And since I'm tatted on the arms, I gotta wear long sleeves! Damn you "unforgivable blackness!" I think a kid said he noticed my tattoo today, but didn't want to repeat it because I was sort of on the rampage because they were being too rowdy. My methods are slightly different from other teachers, but they work. I let the parents see when they come to my door before dismissal (ugh, that's for another blog). I got nothing to hide. I turn my back to the parents and demand that the kid behaves his/her little behind until the second I release them. After that, s/he's the parent's problem :)
Remind me to tell you about the non-existent special education services and what I plan to do about that later. Peace!
