Monday, June 29, 2009

Another instalment of reassurance

It seems as if I am disappointing my readers. It is taking me longer to post now due to no longer having access to the internet from home. You see, my laptop has met with the most unfortunate accident...I never realized just how hard the floors here really are.

Lately it has been tough for me. There aren't a lot of opportunities to go out and do things, so most of my free time is spent at home. This isn't totally bad except lately I have had no access to the internet, no television, and mostly no people. There have been times when my roommates were home, but for some reason they have been gone most of the time. I was sure that I was going to go crazy, and perhaps I actually did.

I have been doing training for some of the teachers at the primary school here. And starting next week it will be admin staff. They are looking for pronunciation training. I am not sure how many of them actually need it, or what level they are going to be at, but I have to have the material ready for when they get here. Talk about having to do things tentatively and have a backup plan ready just in case something doesn't go well.

I don't get to see the university students anymore, except in passing. They wonder when I am going to teach them again. Luckily I know that I will be teaching them starting this Thursday. I hate that it will be such a weird day to start, but that is just the way things worked out in the scheduling. It will be nice to work with them again; I really do miss them.

One of the university students said that his dream vacation was to go to "tomato." Of course he got a very quizzical look from my coworker from this, and she questioned him about it. "Tomato," he replied, "you know, the capital of Canada." He was obviously surprised that a Canadian would not know the capital of her own country. "Oh! You mean Toronto...but that is not the capital of Canada, Ottawa is." At least I am not the only one who has problems with geography :)

My housemate is from Mosul. He is Iraqi, but as he is not from the Kurdistan Region, he does not speak Kurdish. One day he went to take a cab. This particular cab driver did not speak Arabic (which is actually a little strange here), but my housemate managed to tell him where he was going and was quoted the price of 15,000 IQD. He felt this was too expensive so he replied "11. I will give you 11." The driver did not seem to understand, so my housemate "wrote" it on his hand and said "eleven. one-one." The driver replied "no, 10!" So my friend agreed. He shut the door to let his wife get past first, and the driver shouted out "nine!!" If only I could negotiate with people like that.

All is mostly alright. The frustration level is raising as I have no way of relieving it. Hopefully I will find someway.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Finally another blog post---I guess....

Well, I guess it has been way too long since I have posted anything, but I have been really busy here lately. The university students have been preparing for their final exams, and as part of that, the teachers had to give them "oral exams." This actually consisted of having them, in groups of two and three, read a passage, answer some questions about their own passage and also about what the other people read. Then they had to choose a topic on their own to talk about and then answer questions about that.

Unfortunately it wasn't set up as well as I would have liked, and even with the sections (reading and speaking) being broken into sections and having a rubric, it wasn't quite clear enough for my liking; it was still too subjective. The other teacher and I mostly agreed on the scores, so it wasn't too much of an issue outside of my own head. We have to do a report on this for the dean and probably for the head office as well. The passages were too long, the students tended to memorize their topics, and they really were unsure of what to expect as they have never done this type of thing before. All in all it was alright, but we do have a bit of refining to do.

In other news, I have been trying not to go crazy, though this is not as easy as it sounds. I have managed to get myself into trouble with some of the people in the office. I basically let the dean's assistant have it today when we talked about the upcoming test. The other teacher and I made the writing and comprehension portion, but the company wants to set the main portion of the test at the head office so they can have it standardized in order to be able to compare them across all the schools they have across the world, or some nonsense like that. As of then, we had not received the test, and we have to have the test for Thursday morning. As this test is over 4 books, I told him that we need to know if we are getting the test or not as we would need to set the test starting now if we are to finish in time. I also told him that there needs to be better communication between us and the main office as well. I let him know that I was not going to set the test and then not be able to use it; if it were just a weekly test, I would have no problem with it, but I am not putting as much work that is required for this in to see it wasted. And what would happen would be that the head office would be able to use our tests to put into their databases, so they would send one later that we would have to regive to the students. Obviously, I was a little perturbed.

He then called the head office and found out that the dean did in fact have the test with him, so all would be well. It was good that he came and told us. Communication breakdowns are too common, and I guess I have become just a little frustrated because of it. I guess this is all part of the game.

My air conditioner had been broke the past couple of days, so I was sleeping in a sauna. Luckily they came to fix it last night, and it is cool again. I guess they had to refill it. The 40 degree Celsius temperatures are a bit much, so I have to have it at least a little bit. Hmmmm...All is well now.

I am still waiting to hear about my vacation, so I am not sure what I am going to do. Hopefully I will hear soon. Summer school will start in a week or so, and then June and July will be over. Ahh the days are starting to go by so fast. Hopefully things are not so fast that I miss the good things that come with them.

I have also been quite the coward lately, but that is the way I am. I hate being shy, and I do what I can to overcome it, but I will always be shy and selfconscious. I have learned to deal with it and do things that are outside of my comfort zone, so I do not miss out on things, but I find that I am missing out on things that I really want to not be missing out on now. And even now that I know the other side, it still doesn't seem any easier.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Bangladeshi and English...what's the difference!

Yesterday was another long day. Not at first of course; days are never long at the beginning. It did, however, seem to drag on into the night with an indeterminate length and strength. One would think this was a bad thing, but it actually turned out all right.

The morning was test time for the university students, so I had free time after reading the listening portion until that part was finished 10 minutes later. Then I was correcting those sections as they began their other parts. This lasted until my class with the engineers/vets. This class was about clothes and comparisons and opposites. They had minimal problems with this except for the inordinate amount of differences between British and American English. Then came the question. While I explained to group 2 some of the opposites and how confusing they can be on my own accord, group 3 actually asked about them. "What is the difference between light and dark and bright and dull?" AHHHHHHH!!!

If I have to keep explaining opposites to people, I think I am going to quit! Who invented this rather odd language of English anyway? Actually it is quite amusing to see people struggling with the difficulties created by all of this. Even for native speakers some of these things are not easy. Oh the fun of teaching things that make little sense.

The class ended, and it was time to get back to marking. The marking lasted the rest of the day. Then I came home. As I was walking from the van to my apartment, the other teacher asked if I really wanted to go out to dinner at the Persian restaurant, which I immediately agreed to do. Of course, she had to wash her hair, so it would be a little while. I didn't think much of this until it turned out to be just over an hour and a half later that she came over! Apparently it usually takes her 2 hours, so she must have rushed a little so we could have dinner at a semi-decent time.

The restaurant was fabulous! It has one large fountain at the front door, and a fountain that looks like a river (complete with fake ducks) running down the center near the back portion of the restaurant. This ends not to far from another "fountain" that looks like a large waterfall. The front part of the restaurant is made up of regular tables one would expect to find at a fine dining establishment; in the back are raised "beds" on which you sit after having taken your shoes off. It is like sitting and eating off the floor, except you have to climb onto it. There are cushions, so it is quite comfortable.

The food was also quite excellent, and well priced. At first it seemed a little expensive ($13 for a kabab), but then I realized that the pop (soda), water, and all you can eat salad and desert bar were included in the price. And the kabab came with a large plate of different types of rice (purple, yellow, white...the colors were wonderful), vegetables, and bread. It was very filling, and the atmosphere made the wait well worth it.

After spending about 2 - 3 hours in the restaurant, we walked to Maximall (a clothing store). I walked around with her for about half an hour and she tried on various tops and looked at the jewelry and other such girlish nonesense. Then we crossed the street to Bakery and More for some ice cream...and they were out!! They said they would have some tomorrow...but it was quite dissappointing for that night.

The cab ride home was interesting as well. The person made me sit in front while the other teacher had to ride in back alone. The driver attempted to talk to me all the way home. He asked me where I was from, if I like Iraq or America better, if it would cost a lot of money to go back the US with me, and various things like that. I only caught half of it, though as it was all in Kurdish. I am not sure what possess these people to constantly talk to me when they know I can not understand. I generally don't mind, but sometimes I just want peace and quiet, and I would probalby pretend to not understand even if I did.

I got home around 11ish, and I was tired. I said good-bye to the other teacher, but then got caught by the Bangladeshi who works on maintenance and such. It is here that I learned that there are some twisted similarities to English in their lanauge when it comes to family. Apparently "mommy" is Bangladeshi for mother's sister, while "daddy" is grandmother and "dadda" is grandfather. He tried to teach me more, but I have sense forgotten them. I am already going crazy with all these words floating around in my head. I really need to find a way to organize them. Even when looking to say thank you, the first words to enter my mind are the Arabic, the Polish, and the Finnish...eventually the Kurdish gets there, but it is still a little slow. Perhaps as time goes by, I will be able to get it faster.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Can I speak Kurdish?

So, the quiz night was wonderful! My team tied for 1st (we were on fire, the questions were right up my alley), but it was decided that we needed to do a tie breaking question. My team got this question almost immediately. The other team too what seemed like forever to answer, but they also got it right (time should have been called :P ). Then the next, and final tie breaking question: The PGA decided on the maximum weight a golf ball could be. What is that weight? Come on! Who knows this stuff? Golfers might, but I do not golf, and I do not know anyone who is really serious about golfing. Neither team had a clue, so we just put down numbers. There guess was closer than ours, so they got the money. Oh well, I was still very happy with the night.

Yesterday morning went well, at least I think it did; I really don't recall much about it. It is amazing how much all the days seem to come together and turn into mush! I do remember, however, trying to teach phrasal verbs and plurals. It was supposed to be review, but it seems they forget everything, even the parts they add to the class. So, I in review for "to talk someone into" I brought up the idea of being hesitant. In Kurdish, hesitant is "doodle" (pronunciation not spelling). They were surprised that I knew this, even though it was them who taught me! In the other class, the students didn't know the plural of "cloud". This is regular, so fairly easy. "Clouds. The plural is clouds. ds, ds, ds." I felt emphasizing the last /ds/ sound would keep them from adding a vowel between them. As it turned out /ds/ is actually the word "theif" is Kurdish. I suppose I can now figure out if the adjectives come before or after the nouns and say hesitant theif in Kurdish...and perhaps something about a watermelon as well (shifty). The shifty doodle expelled air "ds". Ok, so going from one language to another using false cognates is not a good idea, but it is fun!

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Yet another observation!

Today was another nerve wracking day. I knew I would be observed, but I didn't know when. My first two classes, and there was no sign of the observer. I had to take the mothers' class for the dean today, and just before, I was told that this would be the class that she would observe! Not my idea of a good time as I had no idea what I was supposed to do with them or anything.

Of course, it turned out that I did not have to worry about it anyway; the mothers decided not to come today; instead they went to the dean's house and visited him :) I think they are just too loyal to accept another teacher when theirs is sick! So, instead, the Academic Quality Control person for the region came and observed me teaching my 1:30pm class. This is my lower level class, and today was a review day as well as a day for presentations. Many of the students did not do their summaries that they were supposed to do, and they would constantly try to talk while I was trying to explain things. I felt odd telling them to be quiet and such while I was being observed, but this had to be done. It turned out that I was complimented on doing this, but it really didn't make it any easier.

The other teacher and I had a rather interesting talk today as well. Her situation is precarious at the moment. The one student who is trying to get her fired is making things difficult for her as well as the rest of the class, and just may win! We tried to make sense of the situation, and I listened to her complain about it and how this is the first time she has ever not been a model employee for the organization. Then she listened to me complain about some of the things that I am not comfortable here with. It was good to get it out. I really hope she stays for summer school and comes back next year. Unfortunately, I am not so sure next year is going to happen :(

Tonight is quiz night, and it appears that I am the only one who is going to go. The other teacher doesn't have a team, and my housemates must have other plans. I just hope that my team shows up. If they do not, then I will be very upset as the only reason the other teacher is not going is because her housemate is not going, so she won't have a team. It is actually quite silly, but that is the way things are. I am not sure I can do this last one by myself; I had such a time on the previous one! These flags are definitely not my strong point.

Monday, June 8, 2009

More trouble

I tried to post earlier, but my computer froze and didn't save anything I had written, so now I have to attempt to once again write what was there. Hopefully it will be easier the second time around, except now there is more to write!

Yesterday was a hectic day that caused a lot of problems for everyone. It didn't seem any different than any other at the beginning, but then something happened to turn the rest of the day into an seeming disaster! I was teaching the vets/engineers. Just as the class was ending, I see this face looking in through the window: it is the other teacher. I let the class go, and the other teacher comes in with puffy eyes, a box of Kleenex, and a solemn look upon her face. I ask if everything is alright, and she replies simply, "no" and begins to cry. Then she explained that the dean had had a heart attack. "He was teaching, he turned yellow, he spit up blood, and then he fell down. They took him to the hospital. The mothers said it was a heart attack." I was both skeptical and worried. To me, this did not sound like a heart attack, but I really can't judge as I am not a doctor, nor was a I there to see it happen. No matter what it was quite inconvenient of it to happen during class!

During our break time, we heard back from the hospital that he was ok, and that it was not a heart attack. He had low blood pressure, and there was something that had been bleeding inside, though they weren't sure what. They suspected a bleeding ulcer, but they would have to check. Many students used this as a reason to leave. Some wanted to go visit him at the hospital, but this was not allowed this soon. Many of the girls were crying. It seems they are quite emotional here, and they took this incident very hard. I, on the other hand, being the hard-hearted individual I am, knew that we still needed to have class and proceeded to teach the lesson at the appointed time.

After class, I came to my office and discovered one of my friends who I had not heard from in a while was online. I decided to start a chat with her in order to take my mind off from the happenings. As it turned out, this was not the best of ideas. It seemed that she was having huge issues of her own to deal with and really needed to talk to someone. I was glad to listen, but it meant that I had to not think about mine for a little while and focus on trying to help her. It also meant that another one of my friends was hurting. I tried to help her as best as I could just by listening and telling her it would be alright, but there is only so much one can do when they are so far away.

Finally it was time to go home. I went home and tried to prepare myself to go out with some students and the other teacher as we had previously arranged to do. Then it turned out that we would be able to visit the dean, and the other teacher said that she would like to do so. I told her she would have to call the student and tell him that she wouldn't be able to make it. She said that I could still meet with him. "You don't think I want to go see the dean, too?" With a surprised look on her face, she replied, "you want to come? You can call the student then." "It is your phone, you call him." "You can still meet him you know, and then I can meet up with you later." "You should just call him and let him know what is happening," I said. "You are such a child!" "Yes," I said, "you are." "Here," she said as she handed me her cell phone, "I guess I am too much of a child to make the call." I took the cell phone, tossed it on the couch, and stormed out of the house. I was none too pleased with the way things were going.

I started walking, and continued to do so for about an hour. During this time I managed to fall against a large generator and hit my forearm. I would swear I broke it if I weren't able to move it. I do have a nice bump there as a reminder though. I would probably have kept walking around the city and toward a different one if it weren't already dark out. I started to feel as if where I was going wasn't safe, so I turned back and went home.

While I was in my room trying to sleep, my housemate gets a call from my student saying that he is outside waiting for me. He had called the other teacher and she let him know where we live. So, we were going to go out after all. The two students and I went to the restaurant and waited for about an hour for the other teacher to arrive. It wasn't too much of a surprise as she is always late. What was surprising, however, was that it wasn't as uncomfortable as I thought it would be. There was an off-handed joke told by one of the students, and she whispered to me "never throw my phone again." I knew that this would upset her which is exactly why I did it. She had just bought the phone two days ago and had been treating it like her baby. Of course for $345 I would think it should be well taken care of! Anyway, she said it in an understanding voice, and I apologized for my behavior. She also apologized for hers and all was forgiven. The rest of the night was filled with talking and laughter.

This morning we were both tired. We didn't get home until 12:50am, so we didn't get to bed until late. School was the same as always. We received more information on the dean. We learned that he is doing well, and they will release him either today or early tomorrow. I will probably have to teach his mothers class, so that will be fun (I hope). Other than that, today has been one rough day of teaching! I had to try and teach the difference between when we use "going to" and "will". There are basic rules, but they are so similar that they are hard to tell apart. And the students still do not want to study; they want to go home early, copy off from each other, and have me give them the answers. I guess that is just the way things go everywhere. Then I also found out that tomorrow is another observation. Hopefully this one goes well, though I am not sure if it will or not. We shall see.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Sports day!

The day started like any other Saturday: I get up, go to work, try to teach the vets/engineers class.... Then it was off to the main attraction that all the university students and all the staff from the other two schools and the university (minus the dean, the other teacher, and I) were already at. Sports day seems to be a very big, exciting thing!

We get there and meet up with the students who have just finished playing soccer. After chatting and getting pictures taken with them, we go up to the gym where the basketball games are about to begin. We watch those until around 1:30pm when we go to eat lunch. Lunch left a lot to be desired as it only consisted of a small sandwich (think 4 inch hot dog bun) and a drink box of fake orange juice. Combine this with my having to tell the students to pick up their trash as if they were five years old, and I was feeling a bit cranky.

Then it was more basketball, and I was ready to leave. Of course I was stuck there for a lot longer. So, I made the most of it and went with a group of them to the store where I helped to remind them that cookies and biscuits were the same thing and that throwing things away is a good thing (as opposed to leaving it on the ground). Then it was back to watch the volleyball games.

The volleyball games were somewhat exciting, but I spent much of this time being retaught the numbers in Kurdish along with a British teacher. Then I was asked to be in more pictures than one can even imagine! If I had implemented my 5000 dinar a photo idea, I would probably have at least 3 - 4 hundred thousand dinar right now...and then some of the people who wanted my picture started talking to me about their school, and my school, and such. It was an enjoyable conversation. They asked me to come to the PPP school for a long visit, not just for half an hour or so. If I get the opportunity, I would really like to do that. I don't think it will be easy though.

On the way home (around 6:30pm), we were stopped at the checkpoint. The guard asked the driver where I was from. He was very happy to hear that I was from America, and he told the driver that I was very beautiful...I hate hearing that! I am sure that if he had had a camera, he would have asked for my picture too! One of these days, I think I may have to put up the sign (in multiple languages of course).

I am not sure of the final results of the games, but I will find out tomorrow. There was the finals in soccer still to go when I left. They were going to stay until 11pm, and I didn't feel like I could do that, so I came home. Now I am going to see if I can find someone to talk to, and then probably go to bed.

Friday, June 5, 2009

an interesting ending to a LONG day

Yesterday was very long! After getting to the university at around 7:45am, I had to spend the following hour and a half or so writing the test. I managed to get that accomplished just in time. Then there was the test for the vets/engineer students. I fortunately was able to get the coordinator to invigilate the exam by taking over his post in the reading room. I did this because it would give me the opportunity to mark tests that needed to be graded yet. Unfortunately, this did not work out as planned.

It seems that most of the students were under the impression that they were able to go home after the exam; this was not the case. So, many of the students kept asking me to leave, none of them had brought the worksheet they had been handed yesterday that they were supposed to do today because they were allowed to study for the exam. The dean came in and took them to show them some slides, though I don't know where they actually went or what he was doing with them. I decided to just go and mark tests in my office and hope the chaos would work itself out.

As it turned out, for the afternoon class, the other teacher and I combined classes and had a total of around 16 students (a little less I think) (this is out of a total of 36). We watched a Tom and Jerry episode and had the students answer some questions about it. It was alright, but even that was like pulling teeth. Finally it was over, and it was back to marking more tests! We marked until 5pm at which time we left for home. Then the other teacher and I went to Coffee Shop and More to sit, have a milkshake and continue to mark exams. This lasted for almost 3.5 hours!

As we were leaving the coffeeshop, the owner stopped us and asked where we were from and informed us that a Texas BBQ place was going to be opening up behind the coffeshop in a few days! We talked a little bit about home because he lived in Michigan for a long time before returning here. He even used to hang around the place I grew up and the surrounding areas.

Then we took a ride home in a cab. The driver had spent 6.5 years in England. He kept going on about how if I wanted anything I could just call him, and such things like that. He gave me his phone number and told me not to pay for the ride (he was going to charge us 5,000 then agreed to 3,000 at first). I became a little worried with one of the exchanges however. "Have you two had anything to drink tonight?" We replied, "no." The response he gave made me cringe a little and shake my head. "I have."

He seemed to be driving alright, though, so I relaxed a little. Of course he didn't know his right from his left, but we managed to get him to where we live without too much difficulty.

Today was a boring day. I woke up, went back to sleep, woke up, tried to do some stuff on the computer, took a nap, woke up, tried to visit my coworker, she didn't answer so I came home and tried to not be bored out of my mind. I wish I was informed of when the people went on the trip today, I would have liked to have gone. One of the people who decided not to go said that there will be other opportunities to go to this destination, but to me, it isn't about the destination, it is about the journey there and spending time with other people than those that I see everyday six days a week. It is a chance to relax and just enjoy myself. But, yet again, I was uninformed and missed it. Ahh well...perhaps it was for the best.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

performances, effects of teaching, and tests!!

My brain is full!! I think I need to find a new way to relax and take it all in, and then try to figure it all out. Tomorrow is supposed to be a test for the university students. The other teacher and I misunderstood what the test was supposed to cover, so we told the students that Unit 4 Lesson 1-4 was all that was going to be on it. As it turns out, the dean has put all of Units 1-3 on as well! There is no way we can give that test to them, so we are going to postpone that test until next week. This means that we need to make (set) a test tomorrow morning when we arrive at the college. I just hope it is enough time. This also means that I have to come up with something to teach them in the afternoon. I was not supposed to have to teach as the test was supposed to last all day and then they go home; but now it will be a shorter test and they will stay!

The vets/engineers had their test today (except for group 3 which will take it tomorrow as well). I have to read through and make sure the answer key is correct, and I have already found 3 errors and I am not even halfway through it yet. After finishing the answer key, I have to do the correcting of the multiple choice, and then I have to read the "100 -150" word essays on their favorite vacation. They went a little overboard and wrote whole pages, some front and back. I was expecting only 10 - 20 sentences (depending on the length). One of them asked if the prepositions counted as words! I had to laugh to myself about that one.

With so much marking to do, I, along with the rest of the staff, left early to go to the other school the company runs. This is a primary school up to grade 8. I believe they will be moving into secondary as well next year. They lower grades were having their annual Spring Concert. They performed music and dances from different cultures and even had a miniture fashion show as well. This fashion show was done to Christmas music, so I was a little confused by that, but all in all, it was a fun time.

On a slightly different note, it seems that I have two or three phrases that I say a lot. Today I was writing on the board and put in ellipses. When I did this, one of my students said "blah, blah, blah". Apparently I often use this phrase when I write ellipses. Another student was telling me how she now uses "oh my gosh!" at home. Her mother (an English teacher) asked her what it meant, and the student replied "I don't know, but my teacher always says it." And now her brother is using it as well. It is amazing how much impact we have on the students' thoughts and the words they use. But it is not only the students; the dean has also picked up on one of my overuses: 'whatever!' I use this after listening to the way things are being done, and what they say because I know that it will probably change within the next day or so anyway; I have learned one must go with the flow here..

The president of the company stopped by to observe my class today. This unannounced visit was not a good one for me. I was so nervous! AND after I told my students to not use the dictionaries for the exercise, the one he was standing directly behind opens hers! I was walking around seeing how people were doing and when I came to the desk next to hers, the president said "you said not to use dictionaries." All I could do was look at the student and let her know she had done something wrong. I felt like and idiot. I guess these things happen though.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

9pm Kurdistan News!!

I have just found out that I was on the news two nights ago after the visit to my class by the Minister of Education. I did not see it, but a couple of my students did. I am not sure how I feel about this, but it is interesting to note that I am now becoming a celebrity ;)

Perhaps this means that I can start charging people who stop and try to take my picture. The paparazzi are everywhere!!

Idioms!! Oh how they make me scream!

Yes, idioms and idiots have something in common: they make me scream! This is especially true when I am trying to teach them (the idioms not the idiots!). Today I tried to teach my students the lesson in the book we are using; it is supposedly about idioms. The passage they were required to read was short, but it was so full of idioms and unfamiliar phrases that they were not able to even attempt answering any of the comprehension questions. Of course this meant attempting to go through the passage chunk by chunk to get some meaning from it. No, we could not even go sentence by sentence as most of the sentences were too difficult! I knew this would be the case because when I read it, I had to read it slow and put some thought into it to make sure I knew what was going on. If I had to do that, how much more would someone whose grasp of English is not that good have to put into it?

Teaching aside, today and yesterday seemed to be relatively uneventful, yet quite nice. I did have to give the person who is paid to clean our house some money, but I guess that is how it works. It seems odd that I have to pay someone to clean the house when that is their job, and I am supposed to have the common areas cleaned for free according to my contract. I don't like him to go into my room to clean, but I did allow him to do so once (and he did it on his own a couple of other times, though I will start locking the door from now on), so I suppose he did earn the money, whether I had agreed to it or not.

I have also decided to attempt to do a little research on English and attempt to write a paper to see if I can present it at a conference. I have never really done this type of thing before, but I suppose now is a good time to start. It is great for professional development, and it gives me a productive way to spend time while trying not to sleep :)

Today during lunch, I spent time with two students who were making signs/posters for the sports day on Saturday. Many topics of discussion came up including the one not wanting to come back to university next year because it makes her tired, and the idea of dating, marriage and such. One was talking about how there are no boyfriend/girlfriends here because the father and brothers have to agree to whomever asks for the woman's hand in marriage; and they normally know each other because it is almost always family. This is odd to me, but I suppose that if that is what it must be, for now, so be it.

I did have a little bit of distress last night when trying to pay one of my bills. It seems that they locked my account, and I can't pay it. I called them on Skype(which here is hard to use) and thought I had fixed it, but when I attempted to log in, it wouldn't let me. I have to call them back again, but I would like to do so from a phone that I can communicate directly with. I do not want to have to wait, hear echoes, and listen to what they say twice. I also want to know that the person I am talking to is there. This is not always known when I use skype. I wish I had a better internet connection, but one cannot expect too much here.