More Overtime

This week I was asked to teach more classes. One of the part time teachers who had been teaching for a few months finally had her employment application processed. It was rejected so she was let go. The class I'll be teaching is a lower level course that doesn't involve much teaching preparation but is difficult to manage. I was asked if I wanted to teach two of the four periods that it meets a week, but that would have meant a tricky coordination that would have been more difficult than teaching all four periods so I figured that I would take over the whole class. We'll see how it goes for the remaining 5 weeks of classes. I'll have 28 teaching periods a week with the standard teaching week being 20 periods. I'm interested to see if they'll just keep piling on classes if I let them.

Tony Blair

I said it was a shame that Queen Elizabeth of England didn't come to the Higher Colleges to speak. I said I was looking forward to the next mandatory lecture. Well this is what I get. Yesterday, Tony Blair came to Abu Dhabi Men's College and I was required to watch him speak. To be perfectly honest, this is one that I wanted to see. The day began with me not being allowed to park in my usual parking area. I was given the choice of parking in the student parking lot or in the far away CERT lot. I chose the latter.

We were told to be in the auditorium at 10:30 for the 11:00 arrival of the dignitaries. They arrived about 11:30. Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, the Chancellor of the Higher Colleges of Technology was also in attendance.

The Sheikh introduced Mr. Blair who kept his talk short. He mainly wanted to discuss the "Tony Blair Faith Foundation" and to present plaques to the donors. Here is one plaque that the recipient kindly allowed me to photograph.

Afterward, they had a formal cake-cutting ceremony, but I had to go to class by the time they were doling out the cake so I didn't get any.
After the ceremony I went to quickly eat lunch before my next class. I was sitting fairly close to the entrance with a mouth full of Subway sandwich when the procession including Tony Blair walked by me.
I found it interesting the number of British people who refused to attend the ceremony out of principle. I'm fairly unhappy with a number of past and present U.S. politicians, but wouldn't hesitate to see them speak. I'm just a sucker for the glamor surrounding career politicians.

National Day Celebration

Thursday is the UAE National Day so our school had a celebration yesterday morning. It started out with everyone standing outside to wait for the police band to arrive then perform. Here they are playing the bagpipes in formation.

Once we got back into the auditorium, we were treated to a musical performance by some of the students. They played four songs beautifully. The first and third were classical Arab songs played on instruments from the region. I was very impressed with how well they were played and was disappointed that they weren't longer. The second song, sandwiched between the Arab music was "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica. While it is a slow song, I thought it was an interesting choice. However, it wasn't as interesting as the fourth song, "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen. It was great to see how into the chorus the audience got and quite surreal to see the students clapping along and chanting "Hallelujah."

After the music, there were some students who read poetry in Arabic. Despite having no idea what they were saying, it had a really good rhythm to it and was entrancing. As someone who didn't know what was being said, I felt the poetry went on a bit long, though the students who hadn't sneaked out by that point really got into it.

The presentations were followed by a two hour buffet lunch outside in the shade. That was my morning classes shot. I was a little surprised to find my afternoon students showed up but there you have it. With National Day on Thursday we have a four day weekend. Combine that with all the planned celebrations this week, I don't feel like teaching so you can imagine that the students won't feel like studying.

Football Village

In the same spot as the Formula One Fan Zone is now the Football Village. This is in response to the upcoming Soccer Club World Cup. There's a space on the boardwalk near our apartment that is used to promote major events that are going on in Abu Dhabi. I thought it might be fun to take the kids there today. As with the Formula One Fan Zone from a couple of weeks ago, I thought it would be a good idea to get there just after they open.
While I was impressed with what they had on offer in celebration of the Grand Prix final, I was doubly impressed with Football Village. It wasn't as high tech as the Fan Zone, but there was loads more for the kids to do.There were several stations for kids and adults to kick a goal.
Kids could play goalie as well. Here they launched balls at people at high speed. I stopped one that hurt my wrist. Kids got a slower speed.
They had a bouncy soccer field with participants harnessed to the walls with bungee cords.

The actual Club World Cup trophy was on display.
You could even see some of the hot new Toyota Yaris on display.Inside was mostly more of the same, but it was targeted more at younger kids. Here is a virtual soccer field in which the ball is moved by shadows.
There were trainers available to help kids with their soccer skills.
The kids could play a soccer game in one of the mini soccer courts.
Kids could even try their hand at one of the six or so foosball tables.
There were loads of other things that we did including a reflex test and an obstacle course. It was really a great day. I'd only intended to stay for an hour or so, but we ended up staying for a couple of hours. There are loads of other events like concerts and movies in the evenings. There will even be a vertical football match in which the participants will be suspended by bungee cords. The best part of it all is everything is free of charge.

Ice Hockey Tournament

Yesterday, I caught up with a friend of mine who I knew from Fukuoka. He moved to Muscat, Oman about 2 years ago and was in Abu Dhabi for an ice hockey tournament at Zayed Sports City. We met for lunch then I went back with my family to watch him play in the evening.

I'd heard good things about the place, but had never been there. It was also fun to see my wife and kids really get into watching the game. It was the first time I've seen my kids completely engaged in watching a live sporting event. It was good catching up with him and in addition, it was good to finally get out to see the ice skating facilities.

Queen Elizabeth

Queen Elizabeth II is currently in Abu Dhabi and visited the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque today. (For the exciting details, click here.) This is the Queen's first visit to the U.A.E. in 31 years. With the Queen being the head of the Church of England, she is the first head of another religion to visit the Mosque. Unfortunately, she was unable to make it to the Abu Dhabi Men's College. I would have like to have heard her give a lecture.

Bicycle Shop

With living in Abu Dhabi, like any foreign country, you have to sometimes accept that doing what would be considered a simple task in your home country can be a major undertaking. Having lived in the same city in Japan for twelve years, I generally felt almost as comfortable running errands in Fukuoka than I would in Milwaukee. Not so with getting something done in Abu Dhabi,. Here I feel like my comfort zone is expanding. In some cases, I feel qualified to give advice about certain things like a good bike shop to get parts or minor repairs done. Unfortunately, when it comes to children's bicycles, that's a different story.

Because the weather has finally gotten to the point in which it is comfortable to be outside in the daylight hours, I wanted to take the kids out on the bicycle ride they've been asking for. I'd planned to take them out on Saturday morning when it was cooler. I was putting air into the bicycle tires after they had been sitting on the balcony for the past seven months when I snapped the end off one of the valves. I have plenty of tubes for my bike but no idea of where to get one for my son's bike. I figured that I might be able to take the wheel to Lulu's, the department store where we bought the bike last year but wasn't counting on much help from them. Sure enough, they refused to sell me a tube and gave me the advice that I'd been dreading: go to a bike shop on Hamdan Street.

Hamdan is a part of town where you can find hundreds of little shops that sell almost everything cheaply. It is also under heavy construction and impossible to find parking. It's a maze of tiny streets with cars on either side and in the middle. If you are lucky enough to find parking, you'd better not leave your car too long unless you want it parked in. In the above picture you can see a sample of the parking I saw on Saturday while looking for a shop.

A friend of mine gave me some advice as to where I could find a good shop selling children's bike parts. I drove close to the area where I thought it was and as soon as I found a parking spot, I got out and began asking around for a bike shop. I didn't see any bike shops but I did see thousands of hair salons copy centers and electronics shops. After a while, someone told me that it had moved and I walked to the new area and began to ask around again.

Eventually I found it. The shop was a nice little shop selling only kid's bikes and various parts for them. The bikes were more reasonable than department stores and, I'm guessing, better quality. In addition, there was much better service than you'll get at stupid Lulu's. I was able to buy a couple of tubes for the bikes really cheaply. When the kids eventually outgrow their current bikes, I know where to go now. Since everything is so chaotic in that area of town, I've always avoided it. I went mostly as an exercise to see if I could find a shop. In the end, I got a new bit of knowledge and now dread going to Hamdan a little less than I did before.