Disclaimer: the following are the writings, ramblings, grammatical errorings, and observations of one educational intern (me) living overseas (Middle East) for a semester. Some are intended to incite laughter, others are meant to be informative and still some are intended to be completely random. All are written by me, mostly thought out, often contain specific details about weird things and are completely sincere. Feel free to leave comments and questions. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I did writing.
Greetings reader! Long time, no see! Yes I realize most of that is my fault, as there has not been anything to see in weeks.
I apologize for the lack of writing in the last three weeks or so. I will be honest with you (when have I not?) some of it was laziness. So much goes on here on a daily basis I found it difficult to exert the energy to write of things with the usual wit and charm that this small blog has been complimented on. Other issues were more personal as I was having a difficult time dealing with nostalgia (homesickness to the common folk) among other things and, needless to say, the end of October was not a good time for me. Finally some of the excuses fall into the purely circumstantial category. The great Laptop Crisis of October 2013 for example, in which yours truly is now sans laptop along with all of the key documents that it holds. Alas, it was a difficult time rife with upper-middle class white kid problems.
Today is a new day however, and I write to you from my good friend’s laptop, he who has played such a large role in our stories. I am also writing from the comforts of a home that I have moved into and out of twice this semester (now THAT is a good story).
In the future I may choose to provide more details about those fateful few weeks in which my world turned upside down and every which way before settling back onto its side a headphone in one ear, cursing out a certain cricket….
YES! I had not forgotten faithful readers. My mother in particular still has not let up the number of requests as to the fate of Jiminy the ADD ninja floor cricket (lol been so long I had forgotten about the insanity that led me to diagnose him with ninja abilities and a learning difficulty… huh? Where did everyone go? Oh well.)
Fear not mother dearest, I shall settle the score with this cricket once and for all and share anything that comes to mind along the way. You know the drill people, expect nothing of me and I shall exceed all expectations… HEEERRRRE we GO!!!
The death of Jiminy
I remember the final showdown as if it were only a few months ago. It was the end of a difficult week, one of our first if I remember correctly. My head was swimming with “oh no’s” and feeling completely under qualified for an internship I had voluntarily filled out the paperwork for.
You see, I was dubbed the “Social Studies guy” from the moment our professional development days started. For those of you that don’t know the school that we had been sent to work for was using Alberta curriculum. It is part of the reason that I knew several of the teachers coming over here and most of the reason that a lot of us are white Alberta kids teaching in Muscat, Oman. As the “Social Studies guy” it had become my job to attempt to merge two curriculums together: the Alberta and the Omani.
In this task I quickly found several large issues. The first was that, while familiar with the Alberta curriculum, I had no idea what the Omani curriculum was, nor was it even available to me in English. How was I supposed to merge curriculums when I only had one to look at? I settled with changing the wording in the Alberta curriculum to make it centered on Oman and decided to run with that.
The larger issue was that Social Studies is a very contextual discipline, meaning in very simple terms “it depends”. Social Studies depends heavily on where in the world you are studying, what time period you are looking at and through which lens you are viewing the various goings on. I’ll give you an example.
When you were in school you probably learned about a few little skirmishes known as World War 1 and World War 2. You learned that the United States, the British, the French, the Russians and Canadians were on one side, while you learned that the Germans, the Austrians, the Japanese and others were on the other side.
If you grew up in my house you went to school every day with your father’s voice in your ear saying that the French were cowards and useless in both of these skirmishes (technically he wasn't really that far off... but that isn't the point.) So already the lens that I was viewing the events with was shaded towards thinking a certain way. I will never forget the day that my father told me that at one time in history the British, French, Russians and Americans were all on the SAME side. “How could they have possibly lost anyways?” I thought at the time.
Whether your teacher did it on purpose or not, it is doubtless that you learned that the side the British and Canadians fought on were the “good guys” and the Germans were bad guys. There is an old saying that “winners write history” and due to the fact that the Canadians were on the “winning” side in these disputes, their side were the victors and we teach that the other side “lost”. If you go back two paragraphs and read the last sentence you will notice that I even referred to the Germans, Austrians and Japanese as the “other” side subconsciously…. This is precisely the type of lens shading I am talking about.
Think for a second if you were raised in Germany, or Austria, or Japan…. Would this change the way that these world changing events were portrayed to you? Would Pearl Harbor, declared “a day that will live in infamy” by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the time, be treated as a tragedy in the eyes of the Japanese education system? Would the reign of the Third Reich, which restored German nationalism and dragged the German economy back into respectability, be looked on with such negative connotations in a German school?
I do not possess the answers to these questions, though I would lob a theory or two at you if we were having a nice cold beverage, but in reality this matters very little. The POINT of this educational little rant is that Social Studies curriculum of one province doesn’t travel very well, because everything is contextual. It depends where you are and what the situation is.
As an INTERN my job was to merge to curriculums together. Yay me. Why did I sign up for this again?
Ummm… how did we get here? What the heck is he talking about? Isn't Pearl Harbor that sad Ben Affleck movie with the love triangle...? That's historically accurate right? And what's a 'Reich'.... why doesn't he just get to the bloody cricket thing already. If he thinks he is so smart then wait until he realizes I just skipped all that stuff about lens’ anyways.
WAYY ahead of you kind reader. One more side story, then you may have your cricket’s head on a spike.
Oh ferr father time’s sake
(Sidenote: I use “father time” in real life as a substitute for that other ‘F’ word that people often use when frustrated. Works good for the classroom and anywhere else really. Like have you ever banged your knee, the kind where it is RIGHT on that sensitive spot the doctor hits and makes your reflex kick in, and started with that first letter “FFFFFFFFFUUUUU…”, only to immediately think “uh oh I don’t know who is around…” Customers could be in the store, kids could be in the other room, you could be in church.
“FFFFFFFFFUUUUU… ATHER TIME!!!!!” – You’re welcome.)
Kyle… the cricket… RIGHT! Okay one story about grocery shopping then I promise Jiminy’s end. Trust me… it is almost kind of relevant.
I get home from the long week with my head hurting of trying to merge curriculums. We had just done a grocery run a few days ago. Grocery shopping in another country is an interesting experience.
There are a few popular spots that our group likes to frequent for its grocery shopping needs. TSC (literally “The Sultan Centre”) is designed much like a Costco, although not on quite the scale as some of ours back home have gotten. Al Fair is a heavily western store that is much like your regular Safeway or IGA, albeit on a smaller scale. One interesting part of an Al Fair in a nearby mini mall is the inclusion of a “non-Muslim” section. The section is located at the back of the store and clearly marked with only one doorway that leads to a cold room in the rear of the store. If that sounds shady at all it is really not, the place is an IGA remember? Located in this room are pork products. Bacon and pork tenderloin I believe I saw in there, as well as hot dogs I think.
Pork is not permitted to be consumed in Islam. This is not something that is unique to Muslim culture as it is observed in many parts of the world. Without over stepping my knowledge boundary allow me to say that, quite simply, most of these cultures believe the pig is a very unclean animal and cleanliness is an incredibly important part to the culture, Islam in particular.
Last of the popular grocery is Carrefour, located in the City Centre mall about 15 mins away from our residence. I think I will publish another blog entry about my adventures in Carrefour, so be on the look-out for that episode coming soon.
One thing that will be in that episode is about how cheap water is here. I can buy a 6 litre jug of water for 500 beiza, or $2 Canadian. Course you really shouldn’t drink the tap water here… so it is kind of a weird trade off.
Anyways there I was (for the third time) back in my apartment, armed with a tired head and a week’s worth of groceries, and specifically the large water jugs.
I get home and it must have been 4:30 or 5 o clock pm.
*Chirp, Chirp* *Chirp, Chirp* *Chirp, Chirp*
“You’re up early,” I thought to myself. He usually didn’t start chirping until 7:30 – 8pm. I went about my usual evening activities. I made dinner, listening to music as always, and didn’t think much of him at the time.
Fun Fact: when I live by myself, or am alone in the house, I ALWAYS listen to music when I cook and shower. I like the other voices in the house and it always provides the opportunity for a nice little dance party. A friend told me that it is only healthy to have a 60 second dance party for yourself, once a day, everyday. and she has medical training, so I trust her implicitly.
Finally it was close to 10pm and I decided it was time for bed.
*Chirp, Chirp* *Chirp, Chirp* *Chirp, Chirp*
He was relentless.
*Chirp, Chirp* *Chirp, Chirp* *Chirp, Chirp*
I changed into my PJ’s…
*Chirp, Chirp* *Chirp, Chirp* *Chirp, Chirp*
… and went to brush my teeth. It was only a few moments into my teeth brushing that I realized I was brushing my teeth in sync with his chirping… I kid you not.
*Chirp, Chirp* *Chirp, Chirp* *Chirp, Chirp*
*Brush, Brush* *Brush, Brush* *Brush, Brush*
*Chrip, Brush* *Chirp, Brush* *Chirp, Brush*
Yeah… kind of insane.
Of course he only chirps when I am standing still in the bathroom… you’ll recall he is a ninja. Every time I move toward him, from any direction, he stops to listen. I don’t imagine anyone in history has made a living hunting crickets… and now I see why, the process is infuriating. Just when you think you are walking towards him, he stops and is deathly quiet. Then I leave him be and he roars back is ugly legs and continues his Siren Song…
*Chirp, Chirp* *Chirp, Chirp* *CHIRP, CHRIP*
I laid my head down upset, with a headphone in one ear and my hand clutching my pillow to the other. It was no good... whether i was crazy, or he was that loud, i could hear him through my music as clear as day. He was in my head for good.
"Damn you's a sexy *Chirp*, a sexy *Chirp*" "Damn you's a sexy *Chirp*, a sexy *Chirp*"
"ENOUGH!" I yelled aloud.
I jumped out of bed, raced across the room and grabbed closest, heaviest thing to me, and slammed it down on where I had thought his approximate position in the floor was.
My murder weapon of choice…? One of the 6 Litre jugs of water that I had recently purchased. I dropped it like an anvil right over top of that stupid ninja’s sound before he could even manage to chirp again….
And I waited… and waited… holding my breath not daring to move lest he realize I was standing over top of him.
After several moments of bated breath I exhaled and walked quietly back to bed and laid there… staring and listening. All I heard were the cars on the street, racing down the road (a popular thing here) and the air conditioning buzzing above my head. I must have fallen asleep, because when i awoke it was morning and my good friend was banging on the door wondering if i would like to go to the beach. There was no sign of Jiminy, and I dare not move my anvil now.
We went to the beach and back that day and when I returned….. there was nothing. Not a peep. Rumors swirled as to the location and state of Jiminy.
“He’s in the fourth floor hallway!” one man said.
“I swear he is in my room!” said a girl on the floor below me.
I’ll be honest with you reader, I have no idea as to the fate of Jiminy the floor cricket. I know that I slammed an anvil of a water container down on his position, and that was the last time I heard him.
Whether he fell through the floor as a result of the impact, retreated at what must have sounded like a cannon shot through the pipes in the floor, or spontaneously combusted due to the sound waves, I will never know.
What I DO know, is that the night after his disappearance/death/murder I fell asleep on my side peacefully, with no headphones in my ear, holding my teddy bear tight and completely awoke the next morning completely undisturbed.
Greetings reader! Long time, no see! Yes I realize most of that is my fault, as there has not been anything to see in weeks.
I apologize for the lack of writing in the last three weeks or so. I will be honest with you (when have I not?) some of it was laziness. So much goes on here on a daily basis I found it difficult to exert the energy to write of things with the usual wit and charm that this small blog has been complimented on. Other issues were more personal as I was having a difficult time dealing with nostalgia (homesickness to the common folk) among other things and, needless to say, the end of October was not a good time for me. Finally some of the excuses fall into the purely circumstantial category. The great Laptop Crisis of October 2013 for example, in which yours truly is now sans laptop along with all of the key documents that it holds. Alas, it was a difficult time rife with upper-middle class white kid problems.
Today is a new day however, and I write to you from my good friend’s laptop, he who has played such a large role in our stories. I am also writing from the comforts of a home that I have moved into and out of twice this semester (now THAT is a good story).
In the future I may choose to provide more details about those fateful few weeks in which my world turned upside down and every which way before settling back onto its side a headphone in one ear, cursing out a certain cricket….
YES! I had not forgotten faithful readers. My mother in particular still has not let up the number of requests as to the fate of Jiminy the ADD ninja floor cricket (lol been so long I had forgotten about the insanity that led me to diagnose him with ninja abilities and a learning difficulty… huh? Where did everyone go? Oh well.)
Fear not mother dearest, I shall settle the score with this cricket once and for all and share anything that comes to mind along the way. You know the drill people, expect nothing of me and I shall exceed all expectations… HEEERRRRE we GO!!!
The death of Jiminy
I remember the final showdown as if it were only a few months ago. It was the end of a difficult week, one of our first if I remember correctly. My head was swimming with “oh no’s” and feeling completely under qualified for an internship I had voluntarily filled out the paperwork for.
You see, I was dubbed the “Social Studies guy” from the moment our professional development days started. For those of you that don’t know the school that we had been sent to work for was using Alberta curriculum. It is part of the reason that I knew several of the teachers coming over here and most of the reason that a lot of us are white Alberta kids teaching in Muscat, Oman. As the “Social Studies guy” it had become my job to attempt to merge two curriculums together: the Alberta and the Omani.
In this task I quickly found several large issues. The first was that, while familiar with the Alberta curriculum, I had no idea what the Omani curriculum was, nor was it even available to me in English. How was I supposed to merge curriculums when I only had one to look at? I settled with changing the wording in the Alberta curriculum to make it centered on Oman and decided to run with that.
The larger issue was that Social Studies is a very contextual discipline, meaning in very simple terms “it depends”. Social Studies depends heavily on where in the world you are studying, what time period you are looking at and through which lens you are viewing the various goings on. I’ll give you an example.
When you were in school you probably learned about a few little skirmishes known as World War 1 and World War 2. You learned that the United States, the British, the French, the Russians and Canadians were on one side, while you learned that the Germans, the Austrians, the Japanese and others were on the other side.
If you grew up in my house you went to school every day with your father’s voice in your ear saying that the French were cowards and useless in both of these skirmishes (technically he wasn't really that far off... but that isn't the point.) So already the lens that I was viewing the events with was shaded towards thinking a certain way. I will never forget the day that my father told me that at one time in history the British, French, Russians and Americans were all on the SAME side. “How could they have possibly lost anyways?” I thought at the time.
Whether your teacher did it on purpose or not, it is doubtless that you learned that the side the British and Canadians fought on were the “good guys” and the Germans were bad guys. There is an old saying that “winners write history” and due to the fact that the Canadians were on the “winning” side in these disputes, their side were the victors and we teach that the other side “lost”. If you go back two paragraphs and read the last sentence you will notice that I even referred to the Germans, Austrians and Japanese as the “other” side subconsciously…. This is precisely the type of lens shading I am talking about.
Think for a second if you were raised in Germany, or Austria, or Japan…. Would this change the way that these world changing events were portrayed to you? Would Pearl Harbor, declared “a day that will live in infamy” by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the time, be treated as a tragedy in the eyes of the Japanese education system? Would the reign of the Third Reich, which restored German nationalism and dragged the German economy back into respectability, be looked on with such negative connotations in a German school?
I do not possess the answers to these questions, though I would lob a theory or two at you if we were having a nice cold beverage, but in reality this matters very little. The POINT of this educational little rant is that Social Studies curriculum of one province doesn’t travel very well, because everything is contextual. It depends where you are and what the situation is.
As an INTERN my job was to merge to curriculums together. Yay me. Why did I sign up for this again?
Ummm… how did we get here? What the heck is he talking about? Isn't Pearl Harbor that sad Ben Affleck movie with the love triangle...? That's historically accurate right? And what's a 'Reich'.... why doesn't he just get to the bloody cricket thing already. If he thinks he is so smart then wait until he realizes I just skipped all that stuff about lens’ anyways.
WAYY ahead of you kind reader. One more side story, then you may have your cricket’s head on a spike.
Oh ferr father time’s sake
(Sidenote: I use “father time” in real life as a substitute for that other ‘F’ word that people often use when frustrated. Works good for the classroom and anywhere else really. Like have you ever banged your knee, the kind where it is RIGHT on that sensitive spot the doctor hits and makes your reflex kick in, and started with that first letter “FFFFFFFFFUUUUU…”, only to immediately think “uh oh I don’t know who is around…” Customers could be in the store, kids could be in the other room, you could be in church.
“FFFFFFFFFUUUUU… ATHER TIME!!!!!” – You’re welcome.)
Kyle… the cricket… RIGHT! Okay one story about grocery shopping then I promise Jiminy’s end. Trust me… it is almost kind of relevant.
I get home from the long week with my head hurting of trying to merge curriculums. We had just done a grocery run a few days ago. Grocery shopping in another country is an interesting experience.
There are a few popular spots that our group likes to frequent for its grocery shopping needs. TSC (literally “The Sultan Centre”) is designed much like a Costco, although not on quite the scale as some of ours back home have gotten. Al Fair is a heavily western store that is much like your regular Safeway or IGA, albeit on a smaller scale. One interesting part of an Al Fair in a nearby mini mall is the inclusion of a “non-Muslim” section. The section is located at the back of the store and clearly marked with only one doorway that leads to a cold room in the rear of the store. If that sounds shady at all it is really not, the place is an IGA remember? Located in this room are pork products. Bacon and pork tenderloin I believe I saw in there, as well as hot dogs I think.
Pork is not permitted to be consumed in Islam. This is not something that is unique to Muslim culture as it is observed in many parts of the world. Without over stepping my knowledge boundary allow me to say that, quite simply, most of these cultures believe the pig is a very unclean animal and cleanliness is an incredibly important part to the culture, Islam in particular.
Last of the popular grocery is Carrefour, located in the City Centre mall about 15 mins away from our residence. I think I will publish another blog entry about my adventures in Carrefour, so be on the look-out for that episode coming soon.
One thing that will be in that episode is about how cheap water is here. I can buy a 6 litre jug of water for 500 beiza, or $2 Canadian. Course you really shouldn’t drink the tap water here… so it is kind of a weird trade off.
Anyways there I was (for the third time) back in my apartment, armed with a tired head and a week’s worth of groceries, and specifically the large water jugs.
I get home and it must have been 4:30 or 5 o clock pm.
*Chirp, Chirp* *Chirp, Chirp* *Chirp, Chirp*
“You’re up early,” I thought to myself. He usually didn’t start chirping until 7:30 – 8pm. I went about my usual evening activities. I made dinner, listening to music as always, and didn’t think much of him at the time.
Fun Fact: when I live by myself, or am alone in the house, I ALWAYS listen to music when I cook and shower. I like the other voices in the house and it always provides the opportunity for a nice little dance party. A friend told me that it is only healthy to have a 60 second dance party for yourself, once a day, everyday. and she has medical training, so I trust her implicitly.
Finally it was close to 10pm and I decided it was time for bed.
*Chirp, Chirp* *Chirp, Chirp* *Chirp, Chirp*
He was relentless.
*Chirp, Chirp* *Chirp, Chirp* *Chirp, Chirp*
I changed into my PJ’s…
*Chirp, Chirp* *Chirp, Chirp* *Chirp, Chirp*
… and went to brush my teeth. It was only a few moments into my teeth brushing that I realized I was brushing my teeth in sync with his chirping… I kid you not.
*Chirp, Chirp* *Chirp, Chirp* *Chirp, Chirp*
*Brush, Brush* *Brush, Brush* *Brush, Brush*
*Chrip, Brush* *Chirp, Brush* *Chirp, Brush*
Yeah… kind of insane.
Of course he only chirps when I am standing still in the bathroom… you’ll recall he is a ninja. Every time I move toward him, from any direction, he stops to listen. I don’t imagine anyone in history has made a living hunting crickets… and now I see why, the process is infuriating. Just when you think you are walking towards him, he stops and is deathly quiet. Then I leave him be and he roars back is ugly legs and continues his Siren Song…
*Chirp, Chirp* *Chirp, Chirp* *CHIRP, CHRIP*
I laid my head down upset, with a headphone in one ear and my hand clutching my pillow to the other. It was no good... whether i was crazy, or he was that loud, i could hear him through my music as clear as day. He was in my head for good.
"Damn you's a sexy *Chirp*, a sexy *Chirp*" "Damn you's a sexy *Chirp*, a sexy *Chirp*"
"ENOUGH!" I yelled aloud.
I jumped out of bed, raced across the room and grabbed closest, heaviest thing to me, and slammed it down on where I had thought his approximate position in the floor was.
My murder weapon of choice…? One of the 6 Litre jugs of water that I had recently purchased. I dropped it like an anvil right over top of that stupid ninja’s sound before he could even manage to chirp again….
And I waited… and waited… holding my breath not daring to move lest he realize I was standing over top of him.
After several moments of bated breath I exhaled and walked quietly back to bed and laid there… staring and listening. All I heard were the cars on the street, racing down the road (a popular thing here) and the air conditioning buzzing above my head. I must have fallen asleep, because when i awoke it was morning and my good friend was banging on the door wondering if i would like to go to the beach. There was no sign of Jiminy, and I dare not move my anvil now.
We went to the beach and back that day and when I returned….. there was nothing. Not a peep. Rumors swirled as to the location and state of Jiminy.
“He’s in the fourth floor hallway!” one man said.
“I swear he is in my room!” said a girl on the floor below me.
I’ll be honest with you reader, I have no idea as to the fate of Jiminy the floor cricket. I know that I slammed an anvil of a water container down on his position, and that was the last time I heard him.
Whether he fell through the floor as a result of the impact, retreated at what must have sounded like a cannon shot through the pipes in the floor, or spontaneously combusted due to the sound waves, I will never know.
What I DO know, is that the night after his disappearance/death/murder I fell asleep on my side peacefully, with no headphones in my ear, holding my teddy bear tight and completely awoke the next morning completely undisturbed.