An Abu Dhabi Christmas

So I am sure many of you have been wondering what Christmas in Abu Dhabi would be like and as I have relaxed my travels this holiday season, I am uniquely qualified to tell you.

In all the hotels in Abu Dhabi and even the malls they have up holiday decorations compete with fat laughing Santa's and two story Christmas Trees.  You can even find Christmas music playing in most places.  Now I knew that Abu Dhabi was a place where you can get almost everything at your fingertips, but not so much at here in Abu Dhabi.  It is a well kept secret, but for both Christmas and Thanksgiving there is a restaurant that will make your entire meal for you.  It is called jones the grocer, www.jonesthegrocer.com, and I can honestly say that their turkey is akin to what I have back home and their pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving was the closest to my mom's homemade pie that I have had in a while.  They are also the only non-hotel related restaurant that is allowed to serve wine here in Abu Dhabi.  They have to serve it in tinted glasses and it can only be served after 6pm during the week and 12pm on the weekends, but its a plus.  jones is also decked out with Christmas decorations and has some of my favorite Christmas music playing from songs from the Nutcracker to Bing Crosby to songs from Home alone.  All in all it is the best place to come for a bit of home.

If you don't want to cook or worry about a whole turkey for Christmas, you can come into jones and get a three course meal.  The entree is really for two people, but if you come with an appetite like I did today, you can easily finish it on your own.  It has all my favorite starters, bread and dip, olives, seafood, etc.  Then you have a choice for the main Turkey or Salmon, today I chose to do the turkey, but I may come back tomorrow evening, so I can get the free-flowing wine option, and have the salmon with cauliflower gratin.  All this is wonderful, but the desert is what I am really looking forward to...Christmas Pudding!  The only way this day could get better right now is if I had some Gluvine!!

Yesterday we shared a wonderful Christmas Eve having Tracies homemade sushi.  Today we look forward to finally opening those Christmas gifts and getting to have a nice relaxing meal with close friends.  All in all a good Christmas day.  

Winner!

I first want to say thank you for all of you out there that read this blog and have found the information helpful because I am now Teach Abroad Blog Winner of 2012 through  http://teacherport.com.  I am honored by this award and hope to continue to give helpful tips in the future, thank you.

Now onto business.

The first term this year has shown some good changes and some repetitiveness of last year.  I have noted that the Arabic staff, overall, are more accepting, friendly and helpful to all the English staff.  This is great as it has meant less misunderstandings, less disrespect and more effort to work with us then last year.  That is not to say that there aren't still problems with some of the staff, but overall I see an improvement, which makes me hopeful for the rest of the year.  You are always going to have those one or two who enjoy making trouble, but luckily they are not the majority this year.

The Administration has also improved quite a bit this year and seems more focused to being our advocates with parents and other teachers, however there are still some cultural differences that can cause problems.  Discipline is considered primarily a teacher based issue, so when you have that one or two students who just won't listen, talks back, doesn't do work, comes late to class, or is even violent despite the best effort of the teacher to deal with the student, it is still seen as the individual teacher's problem not the problem of the administration.  There has been some improvement with the social worker being a greater advocate for the teacher then the students' whining.  These are simply cultural issues that can cause problems, but I tend to deal with students in my own way.  The year eleven students are much better behaved overall then the tenth grade students and like last year it is the tenth grade students that cause many of the problems with the discipline.

One thing that has both helped my life and made it more difficult in ways this year is that I have been put in charge of more responsibilities.  First, I am in charge of putting together the resources and plan for the eleventh grade units.  This is both good and bad as sometimes new teachers, who have a lot more experience then me, think that they can go off the plan, which doesn't always work with the rubrics and curriculum set by ADEC.  This has become a bit of a problem this term, but hopefully next term will be a bit better.  I am also in charge of organizing and executing the activities for the English department and I was made assistant coordinator for the Al Mafraq Activities group by my principle.  In addition, I am sometimes sent to computer related Professional Developments in the school so that I can then teach them to my co-teachers, a few of which sometimes struggle with computer-related work.  All these extra duties have brooked some good things, however.  This year we worked with our cluster manager and administration and are now streaming our students based on ability and because of my work load, I was given a three high level classes, which makes my life and planning much easier.  However, my two high level arts classes range from 32 to 35 students, which can be a bit of a challenge.  These girls do work hard and I have seen a real improvement in some of them, but because of the size of the class I sometimes worry that a couple of them feel like they are getting lost in the crowd so I continually try to make sure I get some one on one time with the students.

Overall this year is better, having a good home life helps.  My Abu Dhabi family has really worked hard to get together every weekend and to keep each other sane.  A lot of us will be staying in Abu for the holiday, which I think will make the break all the better.  I was at the Etihad Towers the other day and was ecstatic to see that they had the entire entry way decked out for Christmas complete wit a twenty foot tall tree with lights and Santa decorations.  They were also playing some of my favorite Christmas songs.  I am looking forward to my break which begins December 13th.  There will be a lot of relaxing, sunbathing and fun times, so until next time... Happy Holidays!