Apocalypse

Alright, so my use of that term is patently incorrect: apocalypse, as both of you who read the first few pages of my dissertation now know, means unveiling, not end-of-the-world scary-destruction-stuff: that's the popular or "demotic" sense, and that is the sense I mean to invoke here.

Two different kinds of course evaluation, one of which involved a committee of students leading a discussion of about 10 different points, and the other an online form that students were required to complete before they could get access to their final grades. Of course, half of them don't, and then they email the profs asking for the grades personally.

Then you have about twenty minutes (minor hyperbole) to mark the exams and submit the final grades. Following which you complete a course report for each course, including a description of your pedagogy, assessment procedures, and plans for revision, a statistical report, and an itemized gradesheet for each course. Oy veh.

Oh, and you can be called upon to proctor other people's exams, as well, people who may not necessarily be there themselves. So I had to supervise 7 exams in toto this term. Riddikerrus.

My experience with the first of these was interesting. I was part of a committee of proctors, each of us assigned to a quadrant of a major exam hall, where multiple sections of the same course were sitting for their standard exam. The course was in Arabic, the exam was in Arabic, the conversation was in Arabic: I was the only Englishman in the mix. One of the teachers was there, and he seemed to enjoy making unsolicited announcements ad alta voce. Established the precedent for Tyrrettical outbursts--from other faculty and students . . . in Arabic. He had several very loud conferences with other faculty, shared a few jokes, clowned around for students, and then bailed. Left me in a sinking ship full of chatty sailors.

I called another faculty member over to answer a question, and the committee chairman came along for the ride: he'd been clowning, too, but in what I can only describe as a Hyde-esque, bipolar reversal, he suddenly turned into a National Socialist schoolmarm, twisted sneer and everything. Started wrestling exams away from students and forcibly relocating them to other parts of the quadrant. So suddenly it wasn't okay to talk, I guess.

Interesting that none of my students exhibited these behaviors. They raised their hands very politely when they had questions, and whispered their queries appropriately. The brat to twit ratio is pretty high in this country: kids are kept out 'til all hours, and you can usually hear a tantrum in progress wherever you are. Too much sugar. Too much party. So sorry. No problem. Welcome.

So I figure that with their schizoid Arab profs, oscillating between totalitarian patriarch and Sideshow Bob, they must revert to spoiled brat syndrome. With me, the regression is milder and slower.

Off today to Global Village in Dubai: Riley has a combined youth activity to attend, and we're going to scope it out while he hangs with the Abu Dhabi crew. By the way, he was set apart as DQP yesterday.

Shout outs: Welcome back, Ahnos. We still don't know who you are!

ec: no guns.

Next time: Global Village and maybe Green Mubazzarah/Jebel Hafeet.

Kids' turn: School's a real pain in the AAESS

Q. How's school? What's your favourite subject? Meet any cute girls? Made any great new friends?

Christopher: Great besides the Arabic teacher. 2. No, I haven't met any girls. 3. Yes. I met three new friends named Jesse, Sam and Ashley who's a boy not a girl. Played ruggers last week. Believe it or not, this Canadian kid was accused of unnecessary roughness. I din't know two things: a) if you get tackled and then accidentally step on the kid's crotch, people get upset; b) grabbing heads is not allowed. Panzies.

Parents' note: Ashley is a sweet kid. From India. Very polite. We hope some of that rubs off . . . .

Jonah: (While we wait for Riley.) I do school with my mom while the brothers are at their school. We draw, print, play, and swim. We are working on numbers and letters, including letter-sounds. My letters are getting pretty good, and I can recognize most of them no problem. I can also tell the difference between English and Arabic street signs, and sometimes I read things. Here is the alphabet:

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

Also, today I ripped half of my toenail off throwing one of my patented tantrums. It happened right before church. Ouch.

Riley: School's great. Our mean history teacher quit after a week. I could do without art. Other than that, it's all good. All of my teachers are Brits (except the Arabic teacher), and they say some funny things, like "one, two, free" and "rubbish" and "bee-ography." Favourite subject is lunch break. Kidding. It's science. We've done some cool things, like playing with fire, melting metals at high temps, and putting potassium in water. Girls: plead the fifth. Friends: Talbot Turner from Sihth Ihfricuh, Marvin from Germany (das ist gut!), Jack from Britain, Micah from parts unknown, and Jacob from Holland. Met a few Canucks, too.

Mom's two bits: School's great. I've enjoyed meeting Christopher's friend and hearing stories about their experiences. I think the international flavour of the school is really great for our kids. Jonah and I watch Little Einstein. We've learned about "adagio" and "allegro" and some of the famous composers. Jonah has shown an interest in the piano lately. Riley is signed up for guitar lessons, and Christopher for piano lessons at the school. I'm very happy that they can continue with their musical training. We're still hoping they pick up British accents.

In other news, after hearing about snow in Alberta, I'm REAL glad we're here.

Post the Second: Eh-coal

"The time has come" the walrus said, "to talk of many things.
Of schools, and fools, and parking lots, of SUVs and springs."

Guess that means "I am the walrus."

Well, when I was in contact with some folk here early on, they advocated enrolling our children in Al Ain English Speaking School. Said it was the best bang for the dirham, loved the activities and things, lobbied for the "gifted and talented program," and in short had nothing negative to say. So we trusted them, and registered the kids in May. I was asked to provide a "family bond" in the amount of 8,000 dhs, roughly 3,000 cdn. Did so, by wire, and sent as much info as I could by fax and scan. Kids were enrolled in years 5 and 7, and away we went.

When we arrived, we found the landscape had changed significantly. Several crises had hit the school over the last year or two, and I discovered that the "family bond" was not, in fact, an advance on the very steep tuition, but a separate account, like a damage deposit, that would be returned to us when we withdrew our kids. What its purpose is I still do not know. Also, turns out the school is on the British system, which meant that the kids were supposed to be in years 6 and 8, not 5 and 7. And they had run out of room in year 8. So in effect, I was asked to pay 46,000 dhs in tuition for the kids to repeat a year.

Frustration 2: the university currently covers only 15% of my gross salary in tuition for up to three kids. In effect, the amount covers Riley's tuition. We can handle it until Jonah starts school, but after that--oy veh! But instructors in the Undergraduate Requirements unit--people largely with MAs--have a much hugher benefit because they negotiated it a long time ago. Also, other state schools have better benefits for this sort of thing. In short, I was disappointed.

Oh, and it turns out that I had to pay more money because their special programs were not included in the regular tuition. SO bang, another 3,000 up front if you please.

So I took the kids over the Chouiefat academy for testing. Slightly less money, very rigorous academic focus, especially in maths and science, very stressful environment, but nice people, well organized. They had already started their year, but they accommodated us anyway. Kids would have been placed in years 5 and 7, however, because of their math issues: they begin algebra in year 5 in that system. Also, they were very tense after my three-day crash course in fractions and basic algebra. So I went back to AAESS and said look, I'm considering a move. You didn't tell me about the years issue, even though you clearly knew, and if you had I would have enrolled them accordingly, so what are you going to do about it?

To their credit, they saw reason, and allowed us to enroll the kids in the proper years. Still had to pay a whack of cash, but they agreed to bill the university for their portion off the bat, so that's helpful.

And the kids are happy. More on that in their turn, as you have seen.

We'll see what happens with tuition benefits in the next couple of years: I bought Chouiefat's math curriculm lock and stock (not barrel) to work on at home, and if I have reservations next Spring, we'll try that again.

Parking lots:

This city is very well designed for traffic flow. In fact, I'm grooving on driving here. Reminds me of Rome. The only boneheaded move they made was putting all the schools--and there are many of them--along the same stretch of what is a very busy road. It amounts to a six-lane highway, with drivers doing between 80 and 140 kph, with service roads branching off that feed into a handful of these schools.

Last year there was a pile-up on the main road, and as I understand it several injuries and a death or two. I haven't fared badly: we leave for school at 7:10 or so, so I get them there before things really heat up. Picking them up is wild, though: parents are, in the immortal words of the Police, packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes/contestants in a suicidal race." What's funniest are the SUVs: they end up parked off road, or crossing medians, just to avoid the thickest traffic. And those are the responsible ones. Others stop right in front of the school to get their kids and block all egress and ingress (never mind egrets and regrets and ingrates). Anyway, I remain calm, try to park strategically to avoid the crush, and keep my middle finger to myself (as of course I've always done, mom).

Speaking of SUVs:

we are now the proud and car-poor owners of a Honda MRV (Pilot). Sweet ride. Haven't taken it off any sweet jumps yet, though. Up around 250 kms after 5 days. Might take a jaunt to Abu Dhabi tomorrow. Actually, we did alright. Vascillated b/t that and a much cheaper Honda Accord, but decided that not having the three-year-old sit between and systematically abuse his harried older brothers was more important than saving a few hundre bucks every month. So we paid more than a third in cash, and have a moderate car payment for three years. Trying to get the paperwork together so we can import this if we go the US or Canada in the next few years. It's very, very nice: leather, sunroof, personal masseuse nice. Okay, maybe not the masseuse.

Next time: "We're s-h-o-p-p-i-n-g! Adventures in Materialism" and "The Great Curtain Caper" in three languages!