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My Fantastic Weekend in Oman

Because we had a long weekend for National Day, my husband and I decided to go camping in Oman. The mountains in Oman are so stunning - just look at my pictures if you don't believe me! We left Sharjah on Friday and drove to Oman via Buraimi. We drove up a steep road into the mountains and camped at this spot below.

The next day the weather became very cold. It was incredibly windy as we drove further South. We drove to the mountains near Al Hamra, and it was FREEZING! You can see that we drove high up into the mountains. We were practically in the clouds. That night it rained really hard, and there was a lot of thunder and lightning. Overnight, all the wadis below us filled with water. Here is my husband in the clouds:

The next morning, we couldn't drive out of the mountains because the wadis were too full. We waited until the sun came out and we left at about 2:00 pm. It was not an easy drive out, but it was fun! Here is a nice view we had in Oman.

National Day at SMC

Wow! What a day! The National Day celebrations at SMC were a lot of fun for faculty and students. I went over to the sports complex and saw lots of students - some were eating, some were playing football, and the others were cheering them on. I really enjoyed the afternoon. I saw camels and horses, and Ali bought me a delicious pancake (thanks Ali!).

Did you see these cool Mini Coopers, decorated for National Day?




Do I look like a professional camel jockey?

A Description of Emirates Palace

A few weeks ago, my two sections and I visited Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi. I would like to describe it for you. Emirates Palace is really luxurious. The building is giant. There are many towers and windows. There are several fountains in front of the hotel. There are two swimming pools - there is a quiet pool for adults, and a noisy adventure pool for children. There are a lot of luxurious rooms. There is beautiful furniture in each room. There are also lovely paintings on almost every wall. There is actually gold on the ceiling! There are many employees from all over the world and there are also several Emiratis who work at the hotel.

Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera, so I don't have a photo to post. I hope that one of my students will send me a photo from our trip and then I will post it to my blog.

Our Trip to Al Rawabi Dairy

Last week I had the unique opportunity to visit Al Rawabi Dairy with Section 1. We traveled together by bus to the dairy, which is located in Al Khwaneej in Dubai. We spent about two hours at the dairy, seeing the animals, the machines, the employees and the processes which keep the company going. We saw the cows being milked, as well as the production area where the workers put the milk into bottles. We saw the area where they keep the cows when they are not being milked. We also saw all of the calves, which were only 20 days old. We all really enjoyed the laban and fruit juice that our guide gave to us. It was a great day out!

I forgot to tell you something. I think the most interesting thing that I learned was that it takes less than 24 hours for the milk to go from the cow to the shelf at your store. That is fast!

My Fabulous Eid Break

This picture was taken at my brother's farm. It is his neighbour's barn.

This is a picture of my parents' house in Wisconsin, USA. The leaves are gorgeous, aren't they?

This is part of my family: Jen, mom, Katie, me, dad. We baked those apple pies with fresh local apples.

As I mentioned in my last post, I went to the USA over the Eid break. It was a short holiday, but I am very glad that I went. I saw five of my sisters and one of my brothers. It was wonderful to see everybody! The weather was also fantastic - some days it was sunny, some days it was cloudy, and one day it even snowed! The temperatures were very pleasant, but a bit chilly - the low was probably about 5 degrees!

My sisters and I drove up to my parents house. Because it is the autumn in America, the leaves on the trees were not green - they were brown and red and yellow. I took a walk with my parents out in the woods and the air was crisp and clean. Afterwards, my mom cooked me my favorite food, and my dad made a fire in the fireplace. It was a great way to spend my week off.

Eid Mubarak!

I am so excited about the Eid holiday! Tonight I am flying to the USA! I am flying to Minneapolis, the city where my sister Jen lives. I'm staying with her, but we are also planning to drive to my parents house, which is about 250 kilometers from her house. It's going to be a great holiday because my two older sisters are flying in from Seattle, and my younger sister is flying in from Milwaukee. It is going to be wonderful to see everyone, and to be together. We are planning to go to a nice restaurant one night, and we're also going to just hang around, relax, and catch up on each other's news. I can't wait! I feel a little bit nervous because it's going to be pretty cold - for example tomorrow's high for Minneapolis is about 5 degrees! But I am really looking forward to seeing the fall colours!

Treasure Chest Cake

Our little friend Jesse celebrated his first birthday two weeks ago. In America, when a child has a birthday party, he often chooses a theme for the party. Some children choose a popular movie, like Star Wars for example. Then the cake, the decorations, the games, etc. are all connected to Star Wars. Sometimes the children even wear Star Wars costumes! Other popular themes are a popular cartoon, like the Rug Rats or Tom and Jerry, or a story, like Cinderella. I remember going to a cowboy party when I was little. Everybody dressed like cowboys and cowgirls and we played cowboy games. It was fun!

Jesse's parents decided to have a "pirate" theme for their party. Do you know what a pirate is? Did you see the movie Pirates of the Caribbean with Johnny Depp?

Everybody came dressed like pirates, and we played silly pirate games. I baked this cake for Jesse for his birthday. All of the hungry pirates loved this treasure!

Alligator Soup

Some of you asked me if my dad and brothers hunt for anything besides duck. Well, they hunt for many things including deer, rabbit and sometimes moose! My brother Mark tried alligator hunting for the first time this year. In this photo he is removing the skin from the alligator. I think this is probably the most disgusting picture I have ever seen! He lives in Florida, where there are a lot of alligators.

How exactly did he get this alligator? First of all, you hunt for alligators at night, and look for them in lakes. You can shine a spotlight into the water, like my brother did. He saw hundreds of alligator eyes staring out of the water! Eek! He was in a boat and he used a harpoon with a 25 foot tether. After he shot the harpoon into alligator, the alligator swam away. Luckily, there was a float with a light at the end of the tether, so they chased the light for about 45 minutes, until the alligator slowed down. Then they harpooned it again, shot it, and pulled it into the boat. My brother described what he did then:

"I carefully grabbed his snout with my hands and we taped his mouth shut. Back at the landing he measured 8 feet and his weight was estimated at 200-225 pounds (100kg)".

Would you ever eat alligator?

Hunting Trip

The weather is changing in my home town, and winter will be there soon. Fall is a beautiful time of year, and people try to spend as much time outside as they can, before winter arrives and everything freezes. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my dad and my brothers love fishing and hunting. Every fall my brothers visit my parents, and my dad and my brothers spend a lot of time hunting. They usually hunt for ducks near our home, but they often travel to other places, and sometimes they go to Canada. I love duck. I think that it is really delicious. Have you ever had it?

In this picture you can see my two brothers and my dad. This picture was taken last week - at the end of a 4 day hunting trip. On the trip they got 40 ducks and 1 goose. They did most of their shooting from the boat, which you can see is painted camouphlage so the ducks don't see them so easily. You can also see the duck "decoys" in the boat - they are plastic ducks that they put in the water to attract real ducks.

A new academic year

It is week 3 already, and my sections are already busy studying their grammar and writing and reading. I have about 40 students this semester, so the classes are full of activity. I think I know everybody's name, but I will get to know them better and better as the semester goes on. I already know that I've got some really hard working students, so that makes me really optimistic about the year ahead. I am sure that it will be an interesting experience for everyone, and I hope that all my students learn a lot, improve their English, and enjoy the learning process.

One of our first class activities was to try to build a building using spaghetti and marshmallows. I was really impressed with the structures that some students created. There was a lot of imagination in the classroom that day. We saw how, like English, it is important for a building to have a strong foundation. We discussed how this year we will continue to build a strong foundation for their English language abilities. We had a lot of fun!

Welcome Back!

After a long summer break which flew by faster than lightning, it's time to start classes again. It's difficult to get used to being at work after my wild summer. My husband and I traveled all over southeast Asia, including Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. We traveled for about 9 weeks, and spent about 5 weeks of that on motorbike. This is a photo from Vietnam. We drove on an old Minsk motorcyle (comes from Russia). It wasn't a high performance bike, but she had a heart of gold, and never broke down in the 2 weeks of muddy riding that we did.

Bowling!

Last Tuesday students from section 4B1 and 4B5 along with Miss Rosie, Miss Gwyneth and myself, spent the morning bowling at the Dubai Bowling Centre near Mamzar Park in Dubai. We had a superb time, and I was really pleased to see a lot of guys bowling for the first or second time, and doing very well. I guess I shouldn't be surprised! It was especially entertaining because all of the guys had to wear western dress (it is prohibited to bowl in national dress) so it was a chance for some guys to pretend they were English gentlemen (or American rappers) for the day! We had a blast. After we finished bowling we went to the Sahara Centre for lunch. We were of course very hungry after all of our bowling.

Super Spectacular Vocabulary and Grammar Bonanza

I had a hilarious day last Tuesday, when we had a grammar and vocabulary competition in class. I never realized how competitive they were until this day! It was total chaos. The students really took the game seriously. Maybe they thought the winners would be given a brand new porsche? Well, whatever the reason they worked really hard. I was very impressed with how well all the teams did. I was pleasantly surprised to see how much the students remembered from the grammar and vocabulary from this semester - especially passive voice. It seems like a lot of them have a good enough grasp of the basics to confidently move on to semester 6. I think my favourite part of the day was watching some of the students being crazy with a giant inflatable hammer after the game! Classic!!

My Dream Vacation

If I had enough time, I would love to take about six or eight months and travel from Mexico down through South America. I have always been interested in South America since I started studying Spanish at school. I would go with my husband, and we would travel by motorbike. This way we could see more of the country and go to places that you can't go to by bus or train. Riding all day on a motorcycle would be very tiring, so I would like to stay in nice hotels, and eat in nice restaurants. Maybe we could visit a spa, too! I would love to speak Spanish in all the different countries, and learn about the different ways they speak this language. And I love the food of South America, so we would stop at a lot of restaurants!

The Big Surprise

About 3 years ago, when I was living in South Africa, I traveled to the US to go to my brother's wedding. My parents have a large, spacious house, but because there were so many people at home visiting them the house became very crowded. My little sister and I decided that we would sleep outside in a tent in my parents' garden so we could have more space and be away from all the noise of my brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews. When I woke up the next morning very early, my sister wasn't in the tent. Suddenly I heard singing outside the tent - I opened the door and stuck my sleepy head outside and there were a lot of people - mostly my family- standing there and singing "Happy Birthday" to me. Because of all the preparations for my brother's wedding, I had forgotten it was my birthday! My sister had a big tray of donuts with candles, and when they finished singing I blew out the candles and we all ate donuts for breakfast. I will always keep that morning as a wonderful memory.

Guess the Baby Contest

Last week this picture of me was used in a contest as part of our Charity Bazaar at SMC. Baby pictures of several teachers were posted on the wall, and staff and students had to guess which picture belonged to which teacher. There were so many cute babies. To guess, you had to buy a form to fill out. The students raised quite a bit of money this way. It was a successful event.

Some Good Advice

Once when I was at university, I was working in the computer lab in my university library. I was working on a very important paper for an English class. The paper was about 15 pages long. I had spent about two weeks writing the paper. When I finished the paper, I got a big smile on my face, and I left the computer lab. The next day when I went to print the paper, I could not find my floppy disk. I searched my bag and my car, but had no luck. Then I realized that I forgot it in the computer that I was using in the computer lab. I ran back to the computer lab, but the disk was not in the computer. I asked the technician, but he did not have it. Somebody had taken it. I had to write the paper again, from memory. I was incredibly frustrated. You should always check that you have everything with you before you leave a computer lab.

Ice Fishing

This is a picture of my older brother Eric. You won't believe it, but he is fishing. He is fishing from Lake Superior in the middle of winter (January), when this part of the lake is frozen. He is kneeling on ice! Don't worry, the ice is very thick - about 2 - 4 meters thick, and covers a far distance. All of the lake that you see in this picture is frozen. You can even drive trucks and cars onto the ice. He uses special equipment for fishing and of course he dresses very warmly. The temperature was probably about -10 C when this picture was taken. This is near my parents' house near the US - Canada border.

My Pet Peeves

I really hate seeing people who throw rubbish on the ground. This morning when I was driving to work, the man in the car in front of me threw candy wrappers out the window. I felt like shouting at him, but of course I didn't. I don't know why people don't think before they do something like this. I don't want to look at his rubbish, and neither does anybody else. I really can't stand this.

I also can't stand sitting in a smoky restaurant for too long. I can't taste my food properly, and when I leave I smell like cigarette smoke.

My Grandpa

I love this photo. It's a picture of my Grandpa, and it was taken in 1932. I think he was about 20 years old. My grandpa loved fishing, hunting and camping. He was keen on being in nature, and away from the city. My dad is very similar. I also enjoy spending time outdoors, although I don't really hunt or fish. I like fishing, but I am not really passionate about it. I am crazy about camping. I love sleeping outside in the fresh air, with all the sounds of nature around me. I really love looking at the stars, too.

Last weekend

Last weekend I went to Muscat, in Oman. It's the first time I have been there since 2000. The city has changed a lot. I was happy to see that a lot of the old parts of town are still there, like the Corniche and it's old buildings. The city still feels very authentic. I loved visiting the souk in Mutrah. I bought some fabric and a necklace there. When we were returning to Sharjah, we stopped in Sohar. It was also very pretty. Here is a picture of the Corniche.

About Section 4B1

Section 4B1 is also fairly crazy! They are just as loud as 4B5, but that is probably because there are more students in this section. Here is a picture of me with Mohammed Ahmed and Salem at the SMC beach party. We had a lot of fun there. You can see my team uniform in the picture. Most of the guys from 4B1 arrived too late to play on a team, so I played for them!

About Section 4B5

You saw a pic of my students from last year, so now I will show you some of my students from this year. Section 4B5 has about 16 students in it, and they are nice guys but can be a little bit crazy and some of them are VERY LOUD (of course I won't mention names). This picture was taken at the SMC beach party.

More about me....

Yes, I love to talk about myself! Well, except for my age and weight! So more about me. I currently teach at Sharjah Men's College in the UAE. I have been here for about a year and a half. I teach English in the diploma program. Here's a pic of me and some of my students from last year.

My first blog!

Hi! Today is an exciting day because it's my first day blogging. I've heard a lot about blogs, and I think they are a great way to stay in contact with my friends, family, and students (both past and present). And maybe I'll even meet some new people.

My name is Eileen, and I am originally from Ashland WI USA. It's a small town of about 8,000 people and it's located close to the Canadian border, on the south shore of Lake Superior. It gets VERY cold there in the winter.

One of my favorite hobbies is baking. Here is a picture of a cake I baked for my friend's twin boys' birthday. Pretty cool, huh?