Insight two weeks in

After two weeks in Kuwait and our first week of school, here are some thoughts about being back here:

Coming back for year two is already infinitely easier than being a newbie.  Even though I was scheduling a record number of new juniors and seniors, things went rather smoothly.  Interestingly, several of the students are Kuwaiti foreign service kids who are returning to Kuwait after living most of their lives abroad. What a shock ahead for them.  Even my bunch of severely credit deficient students are off to a fairly promising start.

The value of a/c (to battle the heat) and someone to help clean (to battle the dust) cannot be overestimated.

We live and work with some great people.  It's been wonderful reconnecting with them.  Tonight there is bbq at the pool and tomorrow night a smaller potluck with friends.  Like at home, food is a focal point.

There is a serious sticker shock going back into the grocery stores here. But we can find most everything we need.  Unfortunately that does not extend to decent leaf lettuce which is hit and miss (we are 1 for 4).

Love our Lebanese dinners - the variety of olives, breads, hummus, baba ganoush, falafel, and stuffed grape leaves is satisfying and a familiar comfort food from last year.

Since we got the AFN cable box last spring, we are watching more television than we ever did in the US.  Well we don't need to be martyrs, do we?  Awfully nice watching NFL, morning news shows, the Colbert Report - all on tape delay, which in our case is probably for the best.

Never minding that it is the first week of school, our thoughts drift to vacations ahead.  We have the Islamic calendar to thank for the numerous monthly breaks this year.  Finally bought our tickets to Oman when mom and dad are here in October..  There is much chatter on the morning bus about who is planning to go where for Christmas (already).  Ethipia? Bangkok? Egypt?  I think some people back home think that all teachers do here is travel, but it's a work-hard-play-hard sort of thing.  Not that we play hard much anymore because we are exhausted by the time vacation rolls around.  Anyway, it's all fun to think about and we are completely undecided on where we can go on our budget.

Professional development for me at least has taken new shape.  I am going to Alexandria for a counselor workshop at the end of the month, and speaking at an international conference in Monaco come November; both trips are free for me!  Oh the joys of working at a proprietary private school in the oil-rich Gulf!  It gives me something to look forward to and that will make the year inevitably go by quicker.

We have reached the point in our lives when working out is a vital part of our daily schedule.  We are completely off-balance when it doesn't happen.  We missed it this summer but we had so many other wonderful distractions.  Here still, there is not much else to do, so that has worked nicely for us.

I do find that I tend to write about the same sort of things in most blogs.  Maybe something new will happen, but basically we are back in the groove here and that feels good.