Half-Marathon (part two)

The good news is that all suspicions of any dishonesty with regards to the race are completely unfounded. The bad news is that this is because it was one of the most disorganized events I've ever been a part of. This is a photo from a local newspaper called The National. (You can read the whole article by clicking on the above link.) Clearly, in Abu Dhabi's quest to be an international recognized city as far sporting events, concerts, and high culture, they planned a half marathon and invited elite runners. Unfortunately, they didn't think much past the invitations.

First of all, they had the start time in the middle of the afternoon on a workday for most people. Also, there was no information available in English. I only heard about it by word of mouth. There were only about 300 men and women combined running the half-marathon. There were a few more running the 6 kilometer race and thousands of kids running the 3-kilometer race. I really got the impression that they were expecting more people for the half marathon and were surprised that no one showed for it.

One of the more frightening things about the races was the start of the 3 kilometer kids race. I was warming up in the parking lot near the start line. Because I had heard that the last time they organized this race (two years ago, not last year) they started it 30 minutes early with very little warning, I wanted to make sure that I was ready. Suddenly, A huge group of 10 to 15 year-olds came running towards me. At first, I was annoyed that I had to stop running. Then I had to stop walking and shield myself from all the kids that were stampeding towards me. As it went on, I realized that the kids were running to be first in line for the start. The problem was that a majority of the kids were on the wrong side of the fence of the start line so they all began climbing the 10-foot fence that wasn't even grounded. It was held in place by cement blocks. Luckily it didn't topple over but within minutes, the starting line was so packed, that kids had their faces pressed against the fence and were unable to move. A few minutes later, some kids were climbing back over the fence because it was too crowded. The whole thing is similar to what you used to hear about in European soccer stadiums with people getting crushed.

In my last posting I mentioned how there was a sudden venue change. Originally it was scheduled to be on the the new race track that hosted a Formula One car race a few months ago. They had to change things after they realized that they were going to have a hard time shuttling everyone out to the track which is way out of town. This worked out well for me because the start of the new course was a few miles from where I live and the race passed past my apartment twice. That meant I was able to get some cheering from my wife and kids twice (along with a few photo opportunities). I imagine you can see the difference between the beginning of the race and end of the race in the photos.

Also, it was poorly advertised not only for people who wanted to enter but for people who wanted to drive down the road that they had to close off for the event. For the first half, it was fun to run down the three-lane main thoroughfare and watch all the people in the cars in the oncoming lane stopped in traffic and all pissed off because no one told them about the half-marathon and they couldn't go anywhere. On the way back though, they started letting cars go and for a while I was running next to the curb with a huge embankment while three lanes of cars were zooming past me. After a little of this, the police started driving up to the runners and yelling at us to get on the sidewalk. I did at the first chance I got, but that meant instead of running on soft, paved roads, I had to run on a hard, brick sidewalk for the last third of the race.

You'll notice that on the course map the start and the finish aren't really all that close. When I was starting I figured that I'd want my car with stuff in it close by while I gauged whether I wanted things or not. It also gave me a chance to get sips of water or throw my warm-up sweats in the truck as needed. By the time I finished, I was sore, my knees were screaming, and I was wondering how I was going to make the 3 kilometers back to the start line. Walking it wasn't that bad, but I noticed that a few people I run with on Sundays were limping a bit from the run so I made a sweep between the start and the finish to pick up people I knew that may need a ride back. Looking back, the best thing would have been to lock a bike near the finish and leave my car at the start. Now I know to do that but I'm sure if they ever run this again it will all be completely changed.

In the end I think I did pretty well. I had a watch on but screwed something up on it at the finish so didn't get an accurate time. The organizers had a clock running at some point but must've stopped caring after the top people finished because when I crossed the finish line, it said zero. Based on people who finished near me I must have had a time about 1 hour and 47 minutes. That's not bad considering that I hadn't any plans to run a half-marathon a week ago. Most of the people I asked said to not be too optimistic about the organizers posting times or places so I may never know the real time.

One person I met while signing up for the race was a Japanese guy who's living here who graduated from Fukuoka University, where I used to teach, in 2002. While he wasn't a student while I taught there, I thought it was pretty coincidental that we met while signing up for this race. I ran with him for a while but was pretty happy to have beat him by over two minutes. It just goes to show what a small world it is.

Half-Marathon (part one)

It's the end of the semester at Abu Dhabi Men's College, the tests have been given and corrected. The grades have been submitted. Everyone is pretty much waiting out the last few days until we go on break. I've been busy getting ready for next semester. I have a lot of time, but for the most part, I've been working on getting the tablet PC up and running. I was having issues with one of the main features, writing in word documents with the stylus. While, I think that the IT people at are school are highly qualified, I did enjoy watching four people scratching their heads and trying to figure out why I had the one tablet with problems and what was different about my particular tablet than the ones that worked. They finally gave up and gave me a new one. That was after over 24 hours of attempted troubleshooting.

Thursday is our last day that we have to be at work before we get our two weeks of vacation. Personally, I don't mind hanging out at work and not being busy. It gives me the chance to make sure that I'm ready for the new semester now rather than doing it an hour before I go to bed the last day of vacation. From watching people sneak off early these past few days due to having little to do, I'm guessing that Thursday after lunch will be fairly empty. That's why I decided to do a half-marathon late Thursday afternoon.

I've been wanting to run a half-marathon but couldn't find one scheduled anywhere near me so signed up for the Dubai Marathon later this month. I haven't been following much of a training program but make sure that I run, cycle or swim 5 or 6 days a week. I've been nervous about the full marathon and know I'm not ready for it. That's why when I first heard about the half-marathon this past Sunday, I signed up.

I was running with a group of people that I usually run with on Sundays and they were all talking about it. They told me where to go to sign up. When I got home I looked for it online but could barely find anything apart from a few casual mentions about it in some local publications. I eventually found the link to the website but it was only in Arabic. Yes, I understand that I live in a country in which the first language is Arabic. However, when you consider that 80% of the population is foreign and of the 20% that are citizens, very few are physically active, there should be some English on the site, especially when it's called the Zayed International Half-Marathon (second annual nonetheless).

Here's where it starts to get weird. I went and signed up for the event three days before the event no problem, am handed a t-shit and cap and told that there's no charge for the entry. Then on the application I read that there are prizes for the first ten finishers including a $300,000 first prize and $100,000 second prize. Just to put this into perspective, the Boston Marathon which has been going for over 100 years, is one of the most well-known marathons in the world and that you have to qualify for has an entry fee of $130 and a prize of $150,000 for the top finisher.

I talked this over with a few people, (some of which have also been looking for a half marathon in the area to run and were annoyed that they couldn't swing this on such short notice) and the conclusion that I've come to is: very limited publicity plus excessive prize money for a half marathon equals an excuse to give money to someone who's fairly sure that they're going to win and doesn't want too much competition. That's not even taking into account the sudden venue change within the past week or two that puts the half-marathon running right past my apartment.

At any rate, it's nice to know that I'll be able to participate in an event with such international prestige.

Pilot

Recently, I've been asked to pilot a new program at my school. Someone at the school wants to try classes with no printed textbooks. Because I'm already trying to see what we can do with the technology available to us, it sounded interesting. The idea is that students will not receive printed books. Instead, they will download an electronic copy of the book to their tablet PC. I will give their lectures and notes via my tablet PC on which I can write notes directly projected to the SMART board in the classroom. I will be able to then save all the notes to the network and they will be available to the students to review at home or print out and review at their leisure. Having the books on the network eliminates the excuse that a student forgot his textbook. I can just print out the pages that we are working on in class on the printer in the classroom and then the student is good to go for that class period.

In addition, there is already a school-wide network available to the students with computer generated quizzes and activities. The students log in to this network, do the quizzes, and receive immediate feedback. They can review the questions that they missed and try the quiz again with similar questions to see if they can improve on their score. They can do the quizzes in class or access them anywhere with an Internet connection. That way, they can review material until they know it well enough to get a good score on the assessments.

That's the theory, anyway. In reality, students have almost never gone on the network to do the quizzes or activities unless specifically told to. In the cases where I've had them do the work in class, it's a constant effort to keep them on task rather than on Face book, Messenger, YouTube, or whatever video game has caught their attention. I predict that there will be more paper used per student in printing out hard copies of the text via notes, forgotten copies of the the text, or just because the students feel like it than there would by just giving the students their own book. There will be a large number of technical glitches. Still, I'm interested in trying out the technology. I think it will be a good experience.

I've heard from a few people that by having a "green" classroom through no printed books, the school is actually harming the environment more through all the technology necessary. Apart from my prediction that there will actually be more paper wasted, I disagree. The technology is already there in the classroom. Every student already has a tablet PC. Don't worry, the school isn't dumb enough to entrust a pilot program costing tens of thousands of dollars to the likes of me. (at least I hope they're not) Everything is already in place. We're just trying to make use of what's already there. A friend of mine brought an article about the future of publishing to my attention. Number 8 says "College students will begin using tablet PCs in the fall 2010 semester for their school work. By 2011 or 2012 tablets will replace laptops on campuses across the nation." I'll be doing that in the coming semester. Whether or not it will work this coming semester is debatable. I do think that it is what's coming in the next few years, though. Because of the wealth of this nation, my marginally competent students get to be at the forefront of it.

New Year's Eve

For New Year's Eve we spent the evening and the next day with a family who have two children out kids' age. They had a building-wide party in which we apartment-hopped until midnight. The cool thing is that the husband graduated from high school the year before me from a school in Milwaukee. (Check out the Milwaukee Brewers hat) In my 13 years of living overseas, he's only the second person I've met from the Milwaukee area. (The first being a guy who lives in my building and who I work with.) That's about all about New Year's Eve.

Avatar

First of all, without giving away any of the plot, if you haven't already seen it, you should see the movie Avatar and you should see it in a theater with the new 3D technology. Otherwise you might as well wait for it on DVD. Don't worry, this entry isn't going to be a movie review. I just felt it was really cool to be in a theater full of people and to feel the energy of excitement with this new added sensation to the movie going experience was unveiled. I haven't been this impressed since I heard the digital audio of Jurassic Park for the first time or witnessing the special effects of The Matrix. Now that these things have been done to death in every other movie, it's not as cool, but it's fun to see something when it first comes out.

Enough about the actual movie. I had plans to see it on Saturday, but it was sold out. We had to buy tickets for today's (Monday's) showing. The theater was packed. I realize that this is a big movie, but I can't remember a movie that I've seen in the past five years in Japan in which more than a third of the theater was filled. Even for big movies on opening weekend. Avatar has been out for over a week and you still have to buy tickets in advance. I'm not sure if it's a reflection on the movie-going audience here or if it's a reflection on Avatar.

I'm guessing that the movie sensors here had a bit of a dilemma. I've only seen three other films here (Japanese animated film "Ponyo," Japanese dolphin killing movie "The Cove," and Michael Moore documentary "Capitalism: A Love Story") none of which had a many love scenes. (Don't be fooled by the title of the Michael Moore film!) Therefore, I've had to take people's word for it when I hear that movies here get butchered. Any scene with kissing, affection or more sensitive scenes get taken out along with any kind of nudity. According to IMDB, Avatar was given a PG-13 rating for "for intense epic battle sequences and warfare, sensuality, language and some smoking." The warfare and smoking would pose no problem and probably the language wouldn't be an issue. I'm surprised that the sensuality and the blue, 3-meter-tall alien boobies made it through. They aren't prominent, but I'm willing to bet that if the actors were wearing the exact same costumes without the blue make-up it wouldn't have gotten through. Then again, I haven't seen the movie outside the U.A.E. so maybe some of it did get cut.

While I did enjoy the film as a whole, I had one major annoyance. There were no English subtitles for when the aliens were speaking. I understand that I live in a country in which the predominant language is not English. I could kind of accept it in Japan where less than 0.2% of the population was a native speaker of English but here 80% of the population is foreign. Of that 80%, most don't speak Arabic and most speak English as a second language at least. I'm guessing not many speak the blue alien language, either.

Christmas

Normally, I would have to work on Christmas. This is a fact that I've gotten used to with living in non-Christian countries over the past 13 years. This year, Christmas fell on a Friday which is the weekend here. For the first time since my kids were old enough to have a concept of Christmas, I could spend Christmas morning with them. So naturally, I planned a bike ride with one of my friends. That didn't go over very well with my wife so that got canceled.

For the most part, we had a relaxing day with the kids. We let them ride their new bikes along the walkway near the beach. It was the first time that I've experienced warm weather on Christmas apart from one year when I was a kid and it was 60 degrees and my mom wouldn't let me wear shorts. I wished I'd have worn shorts this year because I was a little warm walking in the sun.

We eventually ended up at another really big park near our apartment. I've seen it a little, but it's on the other side of a hill on a busy street so I never really had the chance to go there. It was a pretty sizable park with a whole bunch of different playground equipment and now that we know where it is, we have a new place to take the kids.

For those of you who are wondering, Christmas is widely celebrated here. While shopping malls don't seem to decorate as much as in Japan, it is easier to actually buy decorations and other Christmas stuff. Also, the city left up the white, red and green (the U.A.E. national colors) lights from National Day earlier this month so it actually looks a bit a bit Christmas-like. There is some speculation as to whether that's done on purpose, but I like to think that it is. Even though most of the locals don't celebrate Christmas, they respect and understand those who do. I also like that unlike in Japan, they don't try and make co-opt it into the culture without really understanding it. Instead, they make the decorations available, step back and let people do what they will.

Merry Christmas everybody.

Security

On Wednesday, McDonald's took me down again. This time I tried the Chicken Big Mac set but I didn't eat all of my fries. I blame my students coming into the classroom with the McDonald's smell for putting the idea in my head. Also, back when I was on a strictly Subway diet, I never went to the back part of the cafeteria where McDonald's is. That new restaurant that I like is just too close.

Over the past few days, we've had the access to our desks restricted. Whereas usually there is one main door and two side doors, the side doors have been locked. There is now a security guard guarding the main door and he has to press a button to open the sliding doors for anyone who enters. As a staff member, I just have to smile and wave and he opens it right up. Students either have to have an appointment written down on a list or have to know their teacher's extension so the security guard can call them and verify that they are going to see them. The reason? Exam time! Yes, that's right. The school distrusts our students to the point where they will restrict access to the teachers' desks to keep exams from being stolen or compromised somehow.

I would have to say that this is justified, too. Say what you want about Japanese students versus Emirati students. The students here are way better at cheating than Japanese students. When I was teaching in Japan, I would leave the weekly quizzes in my bag at the front of the room and go out to talk to other teachers. I would have a copy of the final exam sitting under my teacher's book and taunt the students with it during class. I'd be one of the first to admit that I was pretty horrible with exam security in Japan but I really don't think it was necessary. I don't mean to suggest that it was because Japanese students are entirely honest. It more had to do with the fact that I didn't think they had the guts to go rifling around in a teacher's bag looking for a quiz. Alternately, any student who would do that, wouldn't care enough about the quiz to do it.

Here, however, it's a different story. The students do have the guts to steal a test and do care enough to try to do it. Unfortunately, they don't care enough to actually put in the effort studying. I tend to take the attitude towards cheating that a teacher doesn't have to make cheating impossible. They just have to make it more difficult to cheat than to actually do the work to succeed. If a student wants to cheat that badly that they'll put in more effort than studying, that's fine with me. That attitude doesn't work here. A lot of students will put more effort into cheating than it would take to study and do well on the exam honestly. That's where the guy in front of the entrance to the teachers' area comes in.

On Wednesday, I had to proctor an exam. The students weren't too bad because it was a higher level course. Still, there was a level of trying to share answers that I didn't see in Japan. As someone who is pretty attune to how people could cheat, even I was impressed by some of the ingenuity. It had to be a two-way street and there was an element of plausible denyability, but it was pretty good.