The first time I went to IKEA in Riyadh, I went with a group of new teachers in a big bus. I didn't feel good, I felt rushed and Travis couldn't come because he was working. However, we were home within 3 hours or so (including travel time). On top of that, we didn't run into any prayer time issues. Because of that, I think I won that round and IKEA lost.
Our trip this weekend was not so successful. I have never been a huge fan of IKEA because it is always so crazy. Shanghai was especially crazy. I have to say, though, Riyadh IKEA takes the cake. Oh.my.goodness. It was a disaster. Let me tell you how it all started...
Krystle and Zach also wanted to go shopping. They drove in their car, we followed in ours. Luckily, Zach figured out how to get there ahead of time. We got there in roughly 30 minutes. I felt optimistic and happy. I was so relieved that we had made it there in one piece, safely. As we were driving, there were two VERY seriously car accidents. These accidents had clearly happened a while ago, but had not been cleared. The first car was upside and quite smashed up. I guess he wanted to go too fast on a curved exit ramp. It didn't turn out well for him. As for the other car accident, I wouldn't really call it a car anymore. There was not much of it left that was in the shape of a car. So, with that said, just arriving at the store was fantastic.
Shopping was fine. They didn't have everything we wanted and needed, but there were plenty of things to buy. I had a long list and knew we didn't have a long time. We got to the store around 9:20 and prayer wasn't until almost noon. We figured if we were in line by 11:30, we could make it. That gave us 2 hours of shopping. It is amazing how quickly that time goes by. Before we knew it, it was 11:05. Travis and I decided to head in the direction of the check outs. Thank goodness that we did. This line was the longest line in a store I have ever seen, no exaggeration. We got in it and I quickly texted Krystle and told them to hurry and get in line too. Our lines were creeping along very slowly. It wasn't long until we decided we were not going to make it before prayer time. As noon got closer and closer, we were right up to the register. We were certain that they would stop selling right before me and Travis or right after us and before Krystle and Zach. When our turn was up, we threw our things up on the belt as quickly as possible. The cashier checked us out and then stopped. Travis explained that our friends were behind us and asked if he would just do their check out as well. The guy looked at the amount they had, as the call to prayer came over the speaker, and said no. Ugh. We now had to wait an additional 30 minutes for prayer to end. Yes, we just sat there waiting, along with everyone else in line. It was so strange. I guess we had to go through it at least once. I hope, never again. After standing in line for an hour, checking out and then waiting another 30 minutes for our friends to check out, I never want to go to IKEA again. I have also decided that IKEA Riyadh is much harder to shop at than IKEA Shanghai.
Finally, we drove home. We kind of got a little lost-ish and ended up at the airport. We went through it and drove to our homes, which are only about a 10 minute drive from there. The entire trip was about 5 hours and 15 minutes. What a great Saturday! That was then followed by 3 hours of working to get ready for the week. :(
As for everything else, we are doing great. Work is very busy and hard for me right now, but I know it will get easier as time goes on. I don't like the unknown and it's hard being a new teacher again. I am really enjoying all the awesome people and we are having a lot of fun. Friday night we went to a school party at the US Embassy. That was a lot fun, great food and dancing! Oh, and we also booked our October Holiday to Ethiopia! We are headed to our fourth continent. Our friends Tracy and Ian invited us to join them. It should be a great experience. That will happen at the beginning of October.
That's all for now. Talk to you all soon!
C
Monday, September 8, 2014
Tuesday, September 2, 2014
The kids come to AIS-R!
Today was finally the first day with students! It is 6:45 and I am just now sitting down at home. To say it was a busy and chaotic day, is an absolute understatement. Today was, by far, the craziest first day of school I have ever been a part of! And I wasn't the only one feeling that way. I think there were a number of reasons why it was so nuts...
First, I am new to AIS-R. You forget what it feels like to be the 'new' teacher. When I taught in Southfield, I was there for 5 years, but had done my student teaching for a year there and also did some subbing in between my student teaching and when I was actually hired. I look at that as 7 years with Southfield. I knew how things worked, even if I was in three different schools during that time. I was familiar with the district and everything that went along with school. The last four years were spent in Shanghai, three of which were in grade 2. I felt really comfortable there. I knew SCIS. I knew how to get supplies, how to print, copy, find things, who to email, who was in charge of things, how things worked at the beginning and end of the school days. I had systems in place in my classrooms. Baskets that I used to organize stuff. I had accumulated so many helpful, useful things. When we left, I didn't think I left important things behind. If I could go back...I would have brought more with me! Now that I am new again, I feel a bit lost. As I have said before, I am VERY supported, but when you are new, it's hard. At SCIS students take the bus to school. They come straight to your room and the day begins. At AIS-R, many parents came with the students. I wanted to talk to them all and get to know them a little, but it was just too busy to do that. These students also brought with them huge bags of supplies. At SCIS, all the supplies were provided. I knew that these supplies would come, but I had no idea how much was coming. I was warned, but I just could not have imagined the bags that were brought in! All of this set up a very chaotic start to the day. Looking back, it wasn't a big deal. In the moment, I was stressed! One other thing caught me off guard as well. I went to shake hands with a father who was Muslim, as I did with so many other parents that morning. He told me he couldn't. I was so thrown off by the chaos that I forgot that some conservative Muslim men do not touch non-relative women. Both he and his wife were very polite and understanding and told me not to worry that I had put my hand out to greet him. They explained that not everybody is the same. The wife said some Muslims will shake hands, but they do not. They were both very nice about it all, but I was a bit embarrassed at the time. More on the first day in a bit...
Second, the campus is new. Basically, we were extremely organized and ready for it all. But of course, some of those things just didn't quite work. The end of the day dismissal was probably the hardest for me. I was so worried about losing a child, it was stressful. Again, in the end, it all worked out.
Third, everyone is new! I mean that everyone is new because the campus is new. If you go to work at a school that is already operating, someone knows exactly what to do for just about everything. Today, all the teachers and admin were figuring things out together.
The combination of all of that created a bit of a stressful and crazy day for all! Everyone I talked to said that the day was just nuts and we were all exhausted by the time 2:45 rolled around!
Anyways, here is a recap of my crazy day!
It started with the students and supplies being dropped off. Shortly after that, we went for a campus tour. I will try to take some pictures to show you the massive size our campus is, for now, you will just have to imagine. We walked around for about 10 minutes finding different important parts of the elementary buildings. As we were walking, one student's nose began to bleed. I was ready to send him to the nurse and get it taken care of. Then I realized that I don't know where the nurse is located. Epic fail on my part. I am sure I learned at some point, but I couldn't remember. I took the class back to the room and we got him a tissue. Luckily, it wasn't a bad bleed. While in the room, almost all of the students had to use the restroom. Not a big deal you think. It is now. We only have one stall in our classroom. No joke, it took a good 10 minutes for everyone to go that needed to go. Finally, we went back out to finish the tour. I would say the whole thing took at least 30-45 minutes. It took FOREVER! We also had to have indoor recess because the play areas are not quite done yet. That was a bit hard on the kids. Teachers had to also eat lunch with the students so they could learn how it would all work. I had about 10 bites of my salad, which was more than most teachers, and then it was time to go. Grade 2 had a fun activity planned for the kids in the afternoon. They rotated through classrooms and learned about our school theme this year, 'true to yellow and blue.' It took longer than expected and we couldn't finish. Then packing up was rushed and crazy and then we quickly went to PE at the end of the day. Finally, after PE ended, I met up with the kids to help get them to buses, nannies, drivers, moms, dads and compounds. It was nothing that I had expected!!! In the end, it all worked out, but WOW am I tired! I stayed at work until after 6 to get more organized and be ready for tomorrow. I can't wait to sleep and I am not even sure I have the energy to eat dinner!
So that was it. Day 1 at AIS-R with the students. It flew by. My students are absolutely adorable and I am really looking forward to teaching them.
Oh, and of course my fitbit battery was low!!!! I am sure I racked up 10,000 steps today, but I will never know because it didn't record them. Boo!!! :(
That's all for now. Sorry for the grammar/spelling/confusing parts. I wrote this fast!!!
C
First, I am new to AIS-R. You forget what it feels like to be the 'new' teacher. When I taught in Southfield, I was there for 5 years, but had done my student teaching for a year there and also did some subbing in between my student teaching and when I was actually hired. I look at that as 7 years with Southfield. I knew how things worked, even if I was in three different schools during that time. I was familiar with the district and everything that went along with school. The last four years were spent in Shanghai, three of which were in grade 2. I felt really comfortable there. I knew SCIS. I knew how to get supplies, how to print, copy, find things, who to email, who was in charge of things, how things worked at the beginning and end of the school days. I had systems in place in my classrooms. Baskets that I used to organize stuff. I had accumulated so many helpful, useful things. When we left, I didn't think I left important things behind. If I could go back...I would have brought more with me! Now that I am new again, I feel a bit lost. As I have said before, I am VERY supported, but when you are new, it's hard. At SCIS students take the bus to school. They come straight to your room and the day begins. At AIS-R, many parents came with the students. I wanted to talk to them all and get to know them a little, but it was just too busy to do that. These students also brought with them huge bags of supplies. At SCIS, all the supplies were provided. I knew that these supplies would come, but I had no idea how much was coming. I was warned, but I just could not have imagined the bags that were brought in! All of this set up a very chaotic start to the day. Looking back, it wasn't a big deal. In the moment, I was stressed! One other thing caught me off guard as well. I went to shake hands with a father who was Muslim, as I did with so many other parents that morning. He told me he couldn't. I was so thrown off by the chaos that I forgot that some conservative Muslim men do not touch non-relative women. Both he and his wife were very polite and understanding and told me not to worry that I had put my hand out to greet him. They explained that not everybody is the same. The wife said some Muslims will shake hands, but they do not. They were both very nice about it all, but I was a bit embarrassed at the time. More on the first day in a bit...
Second, the campus is new. Basically, we were extremely organized and ready for it all. But of course, some of those things just didn't quite work. The end of the day dismissal was probably the hardest for me. I was so worried about losing a child, it was stressful. Again, in the end, it all worked out.
Third, everyone is new! I mean that everyone is new because the campus is new. If you go to work at a school that is already operating, someone knows exactly what to do for just about everything. Today, all the teachers and admin were figuring things out together.
The combination of all of that created a bit of a stressful and crazy day for all! Everyone I talked to said that the day was just nuts and we were all exhausted by the time 2:45 rolled around!
Anyways, here is a recap of my crazy day!
It started with the students and supplies being dropped off. Shortly after that, we went for a campus tour. I will try to take some pictures to show you the massive size our campus is, for now, you will just have to imagine. We walked around for about 10 minutes finding different important parts of the elementary buildings. As we were walking, one student's nose began to bleed. I was ready to send him to the nurse and get it taken care of. Then I realized that I don't know where the nurse is located. Epic fail on my part. I am sure I learned at some point, but I couldn't remember. I took the class back to the room and we got him a tissue. Luckily, it wasn't a bad bleed. While in the room, almost all of the students had to use the restroom. Not a big deal you think. It is now. We only have one stall in our classroom. No joke, it took a good 10 minutes for everyone to go that needed to go. Finally, we went back out to finish the tour. I would say the whole thing took at least 30-45 minutes. It took FOREVER! We also had to have indoor recess because the play areas are not quite done yet. That was a bit hard on the kids. Teachers had to also eat lunch with the students so they could learn how it would all work. I had about 10 bites of my salad, which was more than most teachers, and then it was time to go. Grade 2 had a fun activity planned for the kids in the afternoon. They rotated through classrooms and learned about our school theme this year, 'true to yellow and blue.' It took longer than expected and we couldn't finish. Then packing up was rushed and crazy and then we quickly went to PE at the end of the day. Finally, after PE ended, I met up with the kids to help get them to buses, nannies, drivers, moms, dads and compounds. It was nothing that I had expected!!! In the end, it all worked out, but WOW am I tired! I stayed at work until after 6 to get more organized and be ready for tomorrow. I can't wait to sleep and I am not even sure I have the energy to eat dinner!
So that was it. Day 1 at AIS-R with the students. It flew by. My students are absolutely adorable and I am really looking forward to teaching them.
Oh, and of course my fitbit battery was low!!!! I am sure I racked up 10,000 steps today, but I will never know because it didn't record them. Boo!!! :(
That's all for now. Sorry for the grammar/spelling/confusing parts. I wrote this fast!!!
C
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Just another update
Well, I haven't written a post for a bit, so here we go. It has been a very busy week, which is why I haven't done an update. Last weekend Zach arrived and Travis went to the airport to pick him up. It is so nice having a familiar face around here! Krystle should be here in a week, and I can't wait! Anyway, we did some more driving again and it went well. We followed another colleague to the grocery store and learned how easy it is to get there and how close it is. That made me feel better. I was little worried about getting food. We do have a grocery store here on the compound, but it is not as big and costs a little more. This was one stress that quickly went away. Then we went to Saco World the next day and got more things for the house. That was a little more difficult to get to, but totally doable. Again, one less stress. We started the week feeling really good. And now ended it exhausted, but ready for school to begin!
I can't say enough about how wonderful work is going for the both of us. Yes, Travis works A LOT! Yes, I am a bit overwhelmed. Yes, it is hard to be the 'new teacher.' But even with all of those things, I feel good and I know Travis feels really good. I truly feel supported by admin and other teachers. We have friends that invite us over and make sure we are doing well. It's great to know people are there for you.
The school has offered many learning and wellness opportunities that I have absolutely loved! There have been two learning session days so far. Many different things are offered. You, as the teacher, choose what you want or need to go to! I have learned a lot and have really enjoyed it. The wellness I have chosen has been yoga, T25 and reading for pleasure! And we get paid for it since it is during the work day. I just can't say enough good things about the planning and organization. Our staff meetings are well planned, thought out, told to us in advance and really are for us. I could go on and on!
Well that is all for now. School starts on Monday, so stay tuned for classroom pictures and an update on that.
C
I can't say enough about how wonderful work is going for the both of us. Yes, Travis works A LOT! Yes, I am a bit overwhelmed. Yes, it is hard to be the 'new teacher.' But even with all of those things, I feel good and I know Travis feels really good. I truly feel supported by admin and other teachers. We have friends that invite us over and make sure we are doing well. It's great to know people are there for you.
The school has offered many learning and wellness opportunities that I have absolutely loved! There have been two learning session days so far. Many different things are offered. You, as the teacher, choose what you want or need to go to! I have learned a lot and have really enjoyed it. The wellness I have chosen has been yoga, T25 and reading for pleasure! And we get paid for it since it is during the work day. I just can't say enough good things about the planning and organization. Our staff meetings are well planned, thought out, told to us in advance and really are for us. I could go on and on!
Well that is all for now. School starts on Monday, so stay tuned for classroom pictures and an update on that.
C
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Our Little Blue Lake House
Today we closed on our Little Blue Lake House! Thanks to Jackie and and our realtor Stephanie, even though we were in Saudi, it happened. We are so excited to have our own little home during the summer.
Many of you didn't know that we were buying a house, and neither did we. It just kind of happened. One day we were going for a run around the lakes by Jackie. There were two cute little houses for sale and we decided we wanted to take a look. The first house we looked at was the little blue one. We loved it right away, but wanted to see more to make sure we wanted it or even a house in general. After many, many properties and lots of discussions we decided to do it. We chose this one because we LOVED the lake it is on. The colors are like the Caribbean Sea, seriously. We also felt like it needed a little updating, but we could totally live with it the way it is...that didn't last long though. We have lots of renovation and construction plans! ;) We love it and are so excited to have our own home in Michigan and a pontoon on a gorgeous lake.
Here are some pictures!
Many of you didn't know that we were buying a house, and neither did we. It just kind of happened. One day we were going for a run around the lakes by Jackie. There were two cute little houses for sale and we decided we wanted to take a look. The first house we looked at was the little blue one. We loved it right away, but wanted to see more to make sure we wanted it or even a house in general. After many, many properties and lots of discussions we decided to do it. We chose this one because we LOVED the lake it is on. The colors are like the Caribbean Sea, seriously. We also felt like it needed a little updating, but we could totally live with it the way it is...that didn't last long though. We have lots of renovation and construction plans! ;) We love it and are so excited to have our own home in Michigan and a pontoon on a gorgeous lake.
Here are some pictures!
Thursday, August 21, 2014
I miss...
I have been writing about all the wonderful parts of our new life here in Riyadh. Of course I am making it sound like it's all sunshine and cupcakes. And honestly, it is going much better than I expected. The reality is though, when you move to a new country, it's hard. It doesn't matter if it is your first time moving, second time or twentyfifth time. It will always be hard. Everything is new. The people, the work, the grocery store, the washing machine, and everything in between has changed. There are many wonderful things about our new city, school and home, but there are many things that I am missing. This blog is about what I miss from living in Shanghai...
- My friends- We truly made the bestest of friends in Shanghai and many of us are now scattered all over the world. I miss them all so much! I know I am making new friends, but for now I long to call up some of my old friends to see if anyone wants to come over for a girls night or out to dinner somewhere...
- Being able to go to a restaurant or bar whenever I want to go- I miss Yongkang Lu, Liquid Laundry, Lost Heaven, Sichuan Citizen and so many other places.
- Being able to go out into the city wearing anything I want- I loved that in China, anything goes, like anything. I could wear Hello Kitty sunglasses with a blue and green striped top and orange and brown polka dotted hot pants with sequin shoes and no one would like at me twice. Here, I can do the same, but it is covered by an abaya! ;)
- Knowing how to get to the grocery store- Here we drive and we don't know where we are going yet. I miss the easy transport system in Shanghai.
- The theater- Yes, I never thought I would say that, but I miss going into the SCIS theater, even if I was there for many hours after school.
- Food delivery- I miss that convenience of everything being delivered.
- Fruit markets- Fruit was everywhere and was so cheap!
- Dragonfly- I am in desperate need of a pedicure and it looks like I will have to do it myself. :( I could also use a nice oil massage after moving all of these boxes and unpacking.
I am sure there is more I will miss, and of course there is plenty that I don't miss! I just thought I would let everyone know that I am still a normal person and everything over here in our Pleasantville Compound and School is great, but I still miss things from my former life in Shanghai. ;)
Now my weekend begins!
C
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
What day is it?
I went to name the post 'day 5' or 'day 7'. However, I have no idea what day it is and I am too tired to figure it out. I think that is a good thing! We are so busy and there is so much going on that I can't keep track of the day of the week, the date or how long we have been here. It's also a little harder because our work week is Sunday-Thursday. That will be a bit strange, but I am sure I will get use to it quickly and forget that it is not the norm where we come from.
On with today's activities...It started with another healthy breakfast and some classroom work time. Nothing too exciting there, but lots of time well spent. After lunch I had a refresher in Reader's Workshop. I have said it before, but I will say it again- the organization at this school is so amazing! We use Lucy Calkins Reader's and Writer's Workshop. I love Lucy. I mean LOVE Lucy. I think her work is fantastic and it really works with my students. I am so happy that we are using her program exclusively and that there is a written plan of which units and lessons we will do. As a team we can modify and change as needed, but we have something to work from right away. In addition to this, we also have a Learning Coach. She is unbelievable! She will be coming into classrooms to help us teach, model for us, co-teach, whatever will work for us. This is so nice to have and she is a very valuable resource to have, I can tell already! Literacy is my thing and I am so excited for it this year!
Another thing I want to brag about, before I go on to the rest of the day, is our Educational Assistants (EA). I have never had an EA in grades higher than Kindergarten. The two EAs we have in second grade are awesome. They are hard working and have already done so much for me. I can't wait to have them all year! Today they organized and distributed all of our Everyday Math (another exciting thing for me!) materials. It is so nice to not have to do that stuff and to have things brought to my room.
One more thing to brag about- SCIS teachers you will appreciate this one. I have 1200 books (approximately) in my classroom library. They are checked out to me, but I don't have to go and get them. They are in my room and then someone comes to me to check them out and back in. No walking up and down the stairs to the warehouse! To be fair, the resource room is on the second floor and my room is on the first floor, so I will be doing some hauling of books and materials. ;)
I lied, one more thing...We work in trimesters this year! That means only 3 report cards and I am pretty sure conferences are at a different time than reports. I am so happy about this! It makes sense for younger kids and it makes planning all of our units easier! Also, we get a half day to write the reports! Yahooooooo!
Ok, on with the day. We had another wellness session to go to today. I went to something called T25. It was a high impact cardio workout that lasted 25 minutes. Let me tell you, it was the longest 25 minutes of my life! Not really, but it was pretty intense. I am not sure if any of you have done it, but I really like the one we did today. It was hard, I was dripping in sweat and I was done in 25 minutes plus a 2 minute stretch.
Thanks to that workout, I reached 10,000 steps on my fitbit by 4pm today! Yesterday the only workout I did was yoga, but I walked around so much I also hit 10,000 steps. This summer the only way I reached 10,000 was when I went for a 3 mile run. That is just to give you an idea of how much walking I am doing and just how big the campus is!
That is all for now. My next task for today or tomorrow is to try and figure out how to do the ALS challenge when we don't have cold water! It's luke warm. I have some ice cubes, so I will have to be creative. I have to say I had mixed feelings about this challenge because it seems to be a little silly to waste clean water to raise money. However, a friend pointed out that at least it is raising awareness. My plan is to use just a small bucket since we are in the desert and I don't believe in wasting water. I will also donate money to help the cause! Those of you that have donated to the cause, congrats!
Ciao!
C
On with today's activities...It started with another healthy breakfast and some classroom work time. Nothing too exciting there, but lots of time well spent. After lunch I had a refresher in Reader's Workshop. I have said it before, but I will say it again- the organization at this school is so amazing! We use Lucy Calkins Reader's and Writer's Workshop. I love Lucy. I mean LOVE Lucy. I think her work is fantastic and it really works with my students. I am so happy that we are using her program exclusively and that there is a written plan of which units and lessons we will do. As a team we can modify and change as needed, but we have something to work from right away. In addition to this, we also have a Learning Coach. She is unbelievable! She will be coming into classrooms to help us teach, model for us, co-teach, whatever will work for us. This is so nice to have and she is a very valuable resource to have, I can tell already! Literacy is my thing and I am so excited for it this year!
Another thing I want to brag about, before I go on to the rest of the day, is our Educational Assistants (EA). I have never had an EA in grades higher than Kindergarten. The two EAs we have in second grade are awesome. They are hard working and have already done so much for me. I can't wait to have them all year! Today they organized and distributed all of our Everyday Math (another exciting thing for me!) materials. It is so nice to not have to do that stuff and to have things brought to my room.
One more thing to brag about- SCIS teachers you will appreciate this one. I have 1200 books (approximately) in my classroom library. They are checked out to me, but I don't have to go and get them. They are in my room and then someone comes to me to check them out and back in. No walking up and down the stairs to the warehouse! To be fair, the resource room is on the second floor and my room is on the first floor, so I will be doing some hauling of books and materials. ;)
I lied, one more thing...We work in trimesters this year! That means only 3 report cards and I am pretty sure conferences are at a different time than reports. I am so happy about this! It makes sense for younger kids and it makes planning all of our units easier! Also, we get a half day to write the reports! Yahooooooo!
Ok, on with the day. We had another wellness session to go to today. I went to something called T25. It was a high impact cardio workout that lasted 25 minutes. Let me tell you, it was the longest 25 minutes of my life! Not really, but it was pretty intense. I am not sure if any of you have done it, but I really like the one we did today. It was hard, I was dripping in sweat and I was done in 25 minutes plus a 2 minute stretch.
Thanks to that workout, I reached 10,000 steps on my fitbit by 4pm today! Yesterday the only workout I did was yoga, but I walked around so much I also hit 10,000 steps. This summer the only way I reached 10,000 was when I went for a 3 mile run. That is just to give you an idea of how much walking I am doing and just how big the campus is!
That is all for now. My next task for today or tomorrow is to try and figure out how to do the ALS challenge when we don't have cold water! It's luke warm. I have some ice cubes, so I will have to be creative. I have to say I had mixed feelings about this challenge because it seems to be a little silly to waste clean water to raise money. However, a friend pointed out that at least it is raising awareness. My plan is to use just a small bucket since we are in the desert and I don't believe in wasting water. I will also donate money to help the cause! Those of you that have donated to the cause, congrats!
Ciao!
C
Another fun day at AIS-R!
Today was an especially fun morning! It was the first day that we had a wellness session. From now until school starts (I think) we get to participate in an activity of our choice. They last one hour and range from reading to skateboarding to working out at the gym to talking tech stuff. I chose to go to yoga and really enjoyed it. The teacher that ran the session was amazing! It was a great workout and was really hard for me since it has been so long since I practiced yoga. Anne, Meagan, Michele and Jules- I was thinking of you the whole time (and of course Bob and his socks)!
After our wellness session we had a healthy breakfast. I love the emphasis on health right now. We got to choose from yogurts, fruits, museli and cereal. This was a really energizing morning. And today, we needed it!
Following breakfast we did a scavenger hunt with our team. There are only three people on my team right now since we are waiting for the other two (Krystle and Shelley) to arrive soon. It was Jon, Joji and me. We had so much fun! The purpose of this hunt was to really learn the new campus and find out where important things are located. It was so much fun running around trying to find things. To make it more interesting, you had to take pictures of each place you went to and put it on instagram. Those of you that follow me on IG probably noticed the pictures. Our campus is so big, we compared it to a community college campus, although maybe not quite that big, but darn close! Here are some of my favorite pictures from today.
There was one more I wanted to share, but it won't upload for some reason. Anyway, it seems like a really fun school and my team is great! The rest of the day was spent in our classrooms. At the end of the day the three of us went into Krystle and Shelley's classrooms to rearrange furniture and figure out where to put bulletin boards and white boards. I think we will be great at working together!
2 more work days to go this week...
C
After our wellness session we had a healthy breakfast. I love the emphasis on health right now. We got to choose from yogurts, fruits, museli and cereal. This was a really energizing morning. And today, we needed it!
Following breakfast we did a scavenger hunt with our team. There are only three people on my team right now since we are waiting for the other two (Krystle and Shelley) to arrive soon. It was Jon, Joji and me. We had so much fun! The purpose of this hunt was to really learn the new campus and find out where important things are located. It was so much fun running around trying to find things. To make it more interesting, you had to take pictures of each place you went to and put it on instagram. Those of you that follow me on IG probably noticed the pictures. Our campus is so big, we compared it to a community college campus, although maybe not quite that big, but darn close! Here are some of my favorite pictures from today.
This is Jon picking up our HR director, Mike Laird. Mike helped us get into the country and has helped us settle into life in Riyadh and at AIS-R.
This is in the faculty lounge area.
One of our tasks was to go to the principal's office. Jon is sitting at Travis' desk and was worried he was going to get in trouble for doing it. ;) He didn't. The three leaders all enjoyed our little disturbance.
I don't think they encourage climbing the flag poles, but we did it anyway!
This is my favorite one! This room is where we have all of our meetings. Usually our superintendent is behind the podium. I'm sure the school will use this picture at some other time in the year. :)
There was one more I wanted to share, but it won't upload for some reason. Anyway, it seems like a really fun school and my team is great! The rest of the day was spent in our classrooms. At the end of the day the three of us went into Krystle and Shelley's classrooms to rearrange furniture and figure out where to put bulletin boards and white boards. I think we will be great at working together!
2 more work days to go this week...
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