Formula Rossa

Ferrari World is all set to open on October 28th, just in time for the Formula One race in Abu Dhabi. For people who have never hear of it, Ferrari World is the world's first Ferrari themed amusement park and will be located in Abu Dhabi on Yas Island. The plan is to have Yas Island be an entertainment center. Currently, it only has a Formula One track, concert venue, a whole bunch of hotels, and Ferrari world on it.
Every Friday morning I go cycling out past Ferrari World and get a close-up view of the Formula Rossa, the world's fastest roller coaster. It's top speed is 150 miles per hour (It is so fast that people are required to wear goggles to ride it. Not only does it hold the record for being the world's fastest, at 2 kilometers long, it is also the fifth longest. This past Friday, I took some photos of it using the crappy camera on my phone while slowly cycling past. I've never claimed that my photography was anything special and here are the photos to prove it. If you want better photos, click here, but I warn you that some of them are artist's renditions. At least mine are real.

GRE

In applying for graduate school, it only recently occurred to me that I need to take the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). This is definitely something that I should have thought of in advance. It is a test that required by most American graduate programs and is produced by the American standardized test company, ETS. For ETS tests abroad, there are typically only a couple of testing centers per country giving tests other than the TOIEC and TOEFL. Luckily for me, there is a sitting of the test coming up in about two weeks in the middle of the work week. The testing center is in a building attached to the college I teach at. It's about a five-minute walk from my desk.

This is the second time that this has happened to me. When I lived in Japan, there were only two testing centers that gave the PRAXIS test for teaching licenses and I taught at one of them. Now all I have to do is find someone to teach my classes while I'm in a room a couple of hundred meters away taking a test.

License Plate

Those who are only vaguely familiar with Abu Dhabi, may think that the only valuable export is oil. Those people are wrong. Abu Dhabi also has license plates. A few years ago, one collector bought the license plate numbered 1 for $10 million. Recently, someone bought a number 9 for 10 million dirham ($2.7 million).

As this article goes on to explain, people aren't buying the plates to put on their cars. They're buying them to put on other people's cars. "Good" license plates are bought as an investment to be sold at a later date for a profit. There are certain numbers that fetch a higher price like repeating numbers or palindromes. Generally the lower the number the better, but "lucky" numbers tend to be worth more. A week or two ago, I saw a plate with 22222 on it. At the time, I thought it was a neat coincidence. I now chuckle when looking back at my naivety at that more innocent time.

Some rental car shops buy them to put on the cars that they rent out. The cars with better numbers can be rented for higher prices. Emiratis expect to be given the lower numbers when renting a car. It seems that it's a sign of prestige. I suppose when most citizens can afford almost any car, there isn't much left to distinguish yourself. It just goes to show that anything can be collectible.

University Prep

In the news yesterday, there was an article about how 90% of U.A.E. high school graduates are unprepared for University. The recently hired Provost of the Higher Colleges of Technology, the schools I work for, was quoted extensively in the article. There are a number of statistics given showing the number of students who need to complete college preparatory courses before they are suitable for studying at the university level. These are generally the students that I teach.

Unfortunately, while the article is full of examples of students that need these "foundations" courses in Math and English, along with descriptions of the students' situations, not much is written about the causes of the problem. The only mention of this talks about how students go from wrote-learning in high school to an environment where they have to analyze data and think critically (sound familiar to anyone in Japan?). Having taught rooms full of students who couldn't sit still for more than 10 minutes at a time last year, I don't know if I would attribute this situation to that entirely, but it is one reason among many.

One thing that the online article misses which was in the print version, are opinions from four Emirati students. Two of the students felt that the foundation programs were a waste of their time a third thought that he knew the Math, but since he studied it in Arabic in High School, the program taught the the Math in English, which he needed for University. The fourth felt that it prepared him for the change in teacher dynamic required for university.

Personally, I find that the students I teach this year are much more able to sit and study than the students I had last year. At first, I thought it was because I was teaching a higher level of student but after talking with other teachers who are teaching the lowest students, they all agree that that students this year are much more respectful that last year.

Overall, I thought the article was well worth a read, especially for people who are considering coming to the U.A.E. (Click here to read the article.) Also, I give the people who released the data, the credit for realizing that there needs to be a change.

Handicapped Spot

In one of my classes, there is a handicapped student who walks with a special cane. Because of this, the school created a special spot for him outside his classroom. They had to cut some hole into the brick, cement some posts around the spot with chains and a lock to keep others from parking there.

After the school went through this effort, he got transferred to my class, a few hundred meters away. Since then, the classrooms have been exchanged so his spot is right next to his classroom again.

I don't want to give the impression that I'm complaining about the student, because I'm not. In addition, I think that it's great that the school would go to these lengths to make his life easier. I just think that it's a sad state of affairs that the school would have to do anything more than paint a sign on the spot to reserve it for a handicapped student.

When I told my wife about this lack of courtesy, she told me about the time a few days ago when she saw a car double-parked in front of a handicapped spot at a supermarket. The space was empty, but the car was blocking it so when a person with handicapped tags tried parking there, all they could do was circle around the parking lot waiting for the car to be moved. The thing that really gets me about that story is that the person didn't even have the guts to actually park in the spot and risk a fine. Instead, they blocked the spot for their own selfish convenience, completely missing the point.

Cosplay

Since I lived in Japan for 12 years, any kind of connection between Japan and the U.A.E. catches my attention. Even though this event is out of Dubai and not Abu Dhabi, it's still interesting to see this particular news item. On November 29th there is a World Game Championship for video gamers and naturally there will be a cosplay contest. For those of you out of the loop when it comes to all things geek, cosplay is where people dress up and act like their their favorite Japanese animation characters. This is the third year that the cosplay competition is being held in Dubai and the numbers are growing. This year, anime enthusiasts will compete for a 3000 dirham prize (about US$820). It's good to know that even though I left Japan, I can find its influence locally.

Beethoven

Yesterday and today was a charity event to benefit diabetes research called Beat Beethoven. The idea is that entrants have to finish the run or walk before the music stops 32 minutes later. The event raised money through the entrance fees and donations. Last night was the 3 kilometer family walk. This morning was the 6 kilometer "elite" run and after that the 1.5 k children's walk. The draw of this for me was that the start and finish were about a 5 minute jog from my apartment. I was proud to say that I "Beat Beethoven" with a time of about 27 minutes in 26th place. Directly in front of me was a 15 year old high school student whose 17 year old brother was a few minutes ahead of me.

It's nice that the city is organizing these charity events. In addition, even though the run was a bit hot, it's saying a lot for how cool the weather is becoming that they could even hold a 6k run at 8:30 in the morning.