Goodbye November

I thought it only right that I post something on this here blog in honor of the month of November (yes I know it's almost over). November is probably my favorite month of the year. The leaves change to vibrant reds, oranges, and yellows, the weather cools, pumpkin lattes are in abundance, families get together...ahhh...(poof). Okay, back to reality. I'm in a desert, there are only two colors of leaves here: green or dead (yeah, I know, not a color), I have had one "pumpkin latte" here that tasted nothing like pumpkin, my family is on the other side of the world, and my husband is a 45 minute plane ride away and I can't see him until February. On the bright side, the weather has gotten cooler, (65 degrees-ish?) and although November has not been November as I have always known it, it has been a good month.

For starters, the beginning of November ushered in the end of the first quarter of school, which is fine and dandy and all unless you are a new teacher (yo!) and make epic mistakes on student report cards. My confidence as a teacher is up and down on a daily basis. Some days I pat myself on the back for my "great ideas" and relationship with my students and then other days I am kicking my behind for forgetting to teach them this, rushing through that, not taking the time to help every single student with their every weakness! I know I've only been an official teacher for three months, but I need to hurry up and get it all right so that no one misses out on something they need to learn! Aye!

Me in my classroom

This month I joined a choir. Yay for being involved in music again! There is a group here called the "Manama Singers" and they meet every Tuesday night to sing. We are working on our Christmas music now and I am really excited about that.

November also started off with car trouble. I was on my way home from church, driving on one of the biggest and busiest highways when I came to a red light. When the light turned green, I pushed in the clutch and, "pop!" bye bye clutch. I sat there in my car terrified with a hundred angry Bahraini's honking their horns at me because I was in the middle lane and holding up traffic (yup, I was THAT guy). Some police officers showed up and called their nice police tow truck that came and towed me to a side street (for FREE!). I was then able to call my own tow truck who towed poor Bessie to the shop to get fixed. All in all, I ended up getting a whole new clutch set, a new starter cap, engine, radiator, and exhaust leaks repaired, some important belt, clutch cable, radiator flush, oil change (yawn, I know) all for the low price of $600! That's actually pretty good considering that I paid $400 just for a clutch in the US. Anywho, I don't mean to bore you with the details of my car, the point is that there were some really great people involved who helped me get the right garage number, tow truck number, car rental number, and kept me sane through the whole ordeal (thanks Melissa and Verna!) Also, while I am on the subject of cars, I should mention that I also got hit by a car (again) the other day. I was at a stop light when the guy behind me had a momentary bout of insanity and thought that the light had turned green and just ploughed into the back of me car. My car is fine thanks to the good ol' tire on the back. I hope his car is dented or something though because he just drove away without even bothering to see it I was ok (hmmf!).

In other news, I had a pretty good Thanksgiving. I was able to enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner with some people from church. There were about twenty of us and we had a good time stuffing ourselves with Turkey, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, and pumpkin pie. The circumstances of this year's holiday season have caused me to be even more aware of the blessings in me life, because as they say, "absence makes the heart grow fonder." And so...to those of you who would usually sit around my Thanksgiving table, here is what I would say:

I am thankful for my wonderful husband who challenges, encourages, and loves me.
I am thankful for parents who gave me an amazing childhood that I will spend the rest of my life cherishing and trying to recreate for my own children.
I am thankful for all of my grandparents who have experienced so much and have so much wisdom to share.
I am thankful that I had the opportunity to reconnect with aunts, uncles, and cousins this past summer.
I am thankful for Aaron's parents and how they have given so much of themselves to others throughout the years.
I am thankful for my siblings, Jill, Sarah, and Joel (Erika too), and am proud of them for all the little victories they have had this year.
I am thankful for all of my new (and old) friends and for my job that challenges and rewards me every day.

For all of you at home, (or not at home) I miss all of you so much it pains me, and yet it makes me all the more grateful that you are in my life (sniff...ok, moving on....).

Last but not least I must tell you about how I almost burnt my house down today. I invited my friend Melissa over to help me put up and decorate my Christmas tree. Before she came over, I lit a heavenly "Gingerbread Cookie" candle (thank you Glade). When she got to my house, we proceeded to unwrap all of the Christmas ornaments, tossing tissue paper everywhere...which leads me to the reason I am telling you this story. The tissue paper caught on fire. It was scary! Like, I could hear the flames making noise that's how bad it was! At that very moment, I understood why the Navy requires a safety inspection on any house you want to live in because that means that somewhere in the house, there is a FIRE EXTINGUISHER! I ran to the kitchen, yanked the thing off the wall, pulled the pin, and let those flames have it. I thank you fire extinguisher inventor man (or woman) for making those things so easy to use that even the most mindless of idiots (yo!) can operate them. Thankfully, nothing was damaged! The coffee table where the fire started has a glass top so the table was not damaged and I was able to get the fire out before the area rug caught fire. Lesson learned here... do not put tissue paper near fire (duh!) After I extinguished said scary flames, the smoke alarm went off (annoying! I know there's a fire!). So I then proceeded to the storage room to lug the huge ladder into the house (which incidentally requires navigating a 12 foot ladder around very tight corners) for the second time since I have lived here (the first time was after a burnt casserole incident) to turn off the smoke alarm. I will probably be cleaning up tissue paper ash and fire extinguisher power for the next two weeks, but at least no one got hurt and nothing was damaged.

That's it for now. School starts up again on Wednesday. We have school for two weeks and then we have another holiday break for 2 weeks. Side note: This week we had a week off from school in celebration of Eid al-Adha. To find out more about this holiday, go here:

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/hajj/2009/11/2009111895127111168.html
or here:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/11/2009112773723385491.html

Here is my Texas themed Christmas tree:

I tried to get Maple in the picture...

but she said "please mama, don't make me!"