Week 5

Sorry all I have not had an opportunity to get the blog done till now. We are getting into the swing of things, settling down and actually having to work now. Well kind of, Ramadan is now on so the teaching goes from 8:15 to 12:45 but we then have meetings till 3ish most days. there is a ton on information to take in and try to get sorted out. We are doing a PYP program here, it is different because it is very student driven and inquiry based, it is very interesting but hard to change your mindset from years of teacher driven lessons to having the students push the lessons depending on what they want to know about a subject. There is always a theme to every unit such as caring or the need to explore but allowing student to choose how they understand that theme. make sense? well it is not as easy as that but it is the basic version of the ideas.

Life here is settling down, there are still things that make me laugh here. the traffic is ridiculous but you have to laugh or you would get so frustrated that you would not want to ever drive anywhere here. So I was thinking about a motorbike to have instead of a car at some point but with the heat and the drivers here only the very brave or very stupid drive bikes.....luckily I fit right in the middle of those two descriptors.

I do have to admit I have been homesick this week with a lot of stress that has been going on and would love to sit down to a BBQ at my parents place with good friends, family food and a beer. So when that happens this summer i will be a very happy man.

I have not talked too much about where i am living, it is a nice apartment....kind of. It is tile from front door to bedroom which is nice if you have a maid (which we do). but the tile was put down by someone who has just learned how to tile so that he can come and work in the country. it is shocking actually how poor the poor people are here and how rich the rich are. anyway the place is nice but quite basic, it is what we need for staff accommodation. the only thing I would have to say is it feels like we are back at the dorm rooms in University. lots of drama with 100 people living in the same building.


anyway I do not want to leave off on a negative note, I am very happy. please e-mail me or find me on facebook and say hi. I really do appreciate hearing from people to find out what is going on back in Canada.

Cheers all I will post more pictures soon!

Curtis

week 4

Well it is very hard to believe it is week 4....wow. I am still having a great time and also very happy that I have started to settle into a routine. I have now joined up with the local refferee's society and will be reffing this weekend for a woman's 7 tournament. I have been told that I can also be a part of the Dubai sevens aswell and i am super stoked about that!! so I have to start getting in much better condition, running everyday I feel so that I can be at the top of my game for reffing.

Life in general is great, we now have a maid that we pay about $60 for her to come in 3 days a week to clean everything and do our laundry....how great is this place for that!! we have a laundry service for dry cleaning, the guy comes to our door and drops off the drycleaning. it is a dollar for a pair of pants and 50 cents for shirts....could you imagine the savings my father would have if he could pay that little...

I went golfing last thursday at a PGA quality course, it beat me up but was an amazing time, it is cheaper now that it is still really hot out...so it is only 100 for the round it goes to 300 when it cools off. We are going to try to get out a few more time before it gets cool.

other then that life is rolling on, not having a car is proving a bit of a challenge but I am going to hold off as long as i can before i get one. I want to try to live without for a bit and see what life is like without. Plus it would be nice to get some cash together before I go spending it all....see I do have a plan...kind of.

well that is all for this week. send me some e-mails and let me know how life is over there.

thanks all

Curtis

picture posting

here is the site of my pictures too.

http://picasaweb.google.com/cehegge

4th week

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This is Marc, he is my roomate. He teaches Grade 6, I will not say it to his face but one of the best teacher I have ever seen in a classroom.

So by the end of this week I will be here a month, it has been super fast...wow. I am still smiling, stressing sometimes but overall very happy. School is great, there are preps but we have more committee meeting to attend to get us up to certification and I am also helping rebuild the report card. it has been a lot of work already, but totally worth it. last weekend was the first weekend we had nothing planned so we took it easy at the apartment and had a few quite beers. It was nice to chill out and get into a bit of a routine. The bad news is they drained the pool for Ramadan. It is a month long religious celebration where by the Locals feast at 5 am then fast for the rest of the day, so they will not allow anything to pass through their lips when the sun is out. it is interesting but they frown upon westerners eating drinking or not being very quiet so they drained the pool so that the women would not show too much skin this month. It is not too bad, but you just have to make an effort to be a little more sensitive this next month.

All in all it has been another great week, I appreciate the e-mails and such from people, I will get up more pictures too you can see them on my picture site. I will post that soon as i can not remember it off the top of my head.

I will post more soon...

Curtis

Week 3

this is me at the desk in the royal suite at the Burj, (the 7 start hotel).....


Well it has been an amazing week, I rode a camel, went dune bashing in a 4X4 and sweated more at a pub then i thought was ever possible. the Desert Safari on Thursday night was nothing short of one of the coolest experiences that I have ever had. We rode a camel in the desert, watched and partcipated in some belly dancing and ate amazing food (a beer or two was consumed aswell). stunning experience, once it cools down I look forward to doing more of the same.

the pub we went to called the Irish Village was great, all outdoors and being 43 degrees we were all soaked...they have fans with misters on them but the were only good for about 3 feet then the water was gone in the air. good experience, very expensive drinks. We did not stay long and came back to the Apartment where we had a beer or two on the roof of the building in the pool... very good times.

we went on a beer run, this is like nothing I have ever experienced before, since it is not exactly legal to get beer we had to do a run into Sharja at a place called the hole in the wall, why you ask/?? because it is literally a hole in the wall that you walk upto ask for whatever you want and they give it to you in a wrapped black bag and you leave. it was interesting to say the very least. they call it the grey market over here, not exactly legal or illegal either.

the heat seams to be getting stronger as today it was horribly hot at 7amm when we walked out of the building to school at the humidity was at least 90% it was crazy hot, everyone was soaked in seconds leaving the building, the worst I have felt since being here.

The Kids are in school today, they are all great. I am suprize at the diversity and the range of the students. some are advanced for thier age and others are quite below minimum standards.....but all are great and all call me sir.....for now.

I am still smiling like there is no tommorrow and really like where i am at. everyone should do something like this before they are pushing up daisies I think....

thanks for reading more next week!

Curtis

2nd week

So here it comes, the second week. We have been working on and inquiry based type of learning which puts the students learning more under their control and responsibility. It is very interesting and I am looking forward to seeing how it progresses over the next year.

Anyway not that you all want to know what is happening with my classroom but on the weekend I did get to tour the Burj, it is the 7 star hotel in Dubai.....one word....insane...it is beautiful, crazy expensive and very nice....in a gawdy way. there is over 2000 square meters of gold leaf in the building and wild color schemes that go together well.

the royal suite that we got to go into has it's own 3 butlers on call 24/7 and it is a mere 20 grand US a night to stay there. The hotel itself is amazing work of archetecture and will be one of the marvels of the world over I am sure.

We went on a river cruise on friday night and it was amazing, the AC died in the boat so everyone was soaked with sweat in an hour but the good thing is even the locals were sweating on board so all was good from where I was sitting.

We are starting to settle into a bit of a routine and the pool has definatly been a huge part of it. But being the Dumbass I am, I went out in the pool for 3 hours on thursday tried to stay in the shade and burned the hell out of my shoulders by not wearing any sunscreen, somehow it totally slipped my mind but the local pharmacy gave me some very nice cream to put on my shoulders and atleast i could sleep that night.

not sure what else to say right now, I should be making my classroom great and doing some research into what exactly I will be teacing these students but that will come with time and a lot of effort on my part over the next few weeks.

Anyway you can leave a message for me on here or post a relpy to what I have said if you so choose. or e-mail me at cehegge@gmail.com or find me on facebook and add me as a friend.

take care all,

Curtis

Here I am

Well all here I am, now for the next few years in Dubai. I am a very happy man and will try my best to keep this site going.

It is an amazing culture, the place I have to live is great (not a lot in it yet), My roomate is an Auzzie named Marc, good guy, into rugby and likes to have a drink now and then. we will get alone fine I am sure.

I have been here now for 5 days and seen soo much. The 5 star hotel is unreal.....no other way to say it, come over and check it out for yourself sometime.

It is hot but not unbearable, the good thing is everyone is sweating and you do not feel so bad.....plus on the good side of that it is a really good reason to go to the pool. we have met everynight around 6 for saftey meeting there...(no one moves no one gets hurt).

there are shops all around where we live, atleast 15 grocerey, hair dressers and moblie phone shops within 3 blocks of our place. there is also amazing food here, things called shwarmas, meat lettuce, french fries and cheese in a pita....they are awesome and super cheap.

there are a few incovinences but nothing to get your back up over and the driving is brutal, huge amounts of traffic and no one signals just goes....it is funny for now (till we get into an accident) which i have to say have yet to see.

going for a beer is not an easy task but there are a few places to go and it is good fun when we do go.

I will stop there but I will try to fire off more info as it comes in, I will also add pictures to this so that you can see this amazing place.

Cheers for now

Curtis
oh yea, the school is great, the kids will be in in 2 weeks and class sizes are about 15......awesome!