It seems that I have once again been neglecting my readership. I can be such a bad writer on occasion! I do, however, have an excuse: I am not able to connect to the internet at home, and here at work I am generally busy. As you can probably tell now, I am not busy. I am sitting in my office wondering if the internet is truly so important that I come and sit for 9 hours just so I am able to have use of it. Of course if I were back home I would be going crazy.
Since I last wrote, there was an election here in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Apparently the appropriate person won because there was gunfire in celebration all over the city. This resulted in 11 injuries and one death. Not exactly the way I would want to celebrate a victory, but that seems to be the common way here in the Middle East.
I have been suffering through classes here. Luckily they ended last Thursday, and I am now free! I will definitely not teach summer school again! My actual vacation starts on the 5th; though I suppose I can consider it started now as I don't have to be at work. On the 5th I will fly to Istanbul for three days. After my stay there, I will fly to Cairo where I will stay for almost one month. The plan is to study Arabic so that I will be able to communicate with some of the people here. After that month I will head back to the US. I will go to Hancock for a wedding and then to visit my family in Standish. Oh the days are going to busy for me!
Yesterday my coworker and her housemate left for their respective vacations. As much as we fight, I really miss my coworker. What makes it worse is that we aren't going to be working together next semester. Actually, maybe this will be better. She will be living in the same location (practically next door), so I will be able to visit, and I won't have to be with her constantly at work so there will be less time for us to get mad at each other. I do so hate arguing with people, especially if it really doesn't matter...and this place is so full of stress already; the fighting has just added to it tremendously.
I wish there were more exciting things to report, but there isn't. I haven't done anything other than work and hang out with coworkers at the coffee shop and at restaurants. None of the students have done anything out of the ordinary either. The ones that cause problems are still causing problems, and the ones that are good are still good. There is a new teacher for an impromptu summer session for staff members at a new school that the company is going to help manage. She has never taught English before. I guess she is educated in counseling or social work or something like that. She has her PhD, but I am not sure what in. It sounds as if she is going to be moving to the primary schools in September.
There is a new English teacher coming in the fall for here. She has taught with this company before, but there were problems and she had to leave. Now she has decided to come back; it seems there is still some rough spots between them though. There is also a science teacher coming from Egypt (she has a little girl that is coming with her, so I am not sure how that is going to play out), and a teacher from Lebanon I believe. I think they will teach math. We should be getting an IT teacher as well and these teachers generally come from Lebanon as the company is Lebanese. It will be interesting to see what they are going to do for housing. All of those working at their main school live there; those working for the university or the two government schools that they are managing (if they are not Iraqi) are provided housing somewhere. They said they have finally found enough houses, so that is a good thing.
I was told that I would be moved, but I don't think that is going to happen now. It seems that all of the teachers that they have hired are female, so there is no other place to house me than where I presently am. This was a problem in the past as both my roommates are Lebanese and one is kind of a supervisor. This does not lend itself to a very relaxing home-life. I guess I will have to deal with it though. Not unbearable, especially if I am able to get a basis in Arabic before I come back.
I think I will cease boring you now. Hopefully all is well.
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