Appreciating The People Around Us.

  This morning my principle called me as I was writing the morning assignments on the board for my homeroom class and told me that the security staff were looking for me as there was a problem with my car. My car (named Veronica by my brother and fondly nicknamed The Lady V), was hit by a minibus driver as she was parked outside my workplace. He had been driving in the wrong direction down the road, lost control, slammed his back into a lamppost and then went forward into my passenger side.

    The situation, although bad, could have been much much worse. For a start, if it had happened 15 minutes earlier we would have still been in the car and my mum-who was in the passenger seat-may have been injured. The damage to the car itself was also less severe than originally feared. We had thought that the axle may have been broken, or at least damaged by the look of the wheel. Luckily, that was not the case, it was something to do with the suspension that was bent (hey, I watch Top Gear for the stupid challenges not the car specs!).



         What a way to start the day! Now on top of the fact that I was staying at the school till 8:30 p.m for my Masters course, the fever that I've had for nearly a week and a full day of work (with kids who have advanced in leaps and bounds in terms of bullying) I had the added stress of worrying how I was going to get home!

     The real heroes of the day were the school security personnel. As soon as the accident happened, they stopped the driver, contacted me, made him contact his boss to claim responsibility and confiscated his licenses. They got the school mechanic to take a preliminary look at the car and once the owner of the minibus arrived they made sure he left his car keys with them as security while he-and one of them- took V to a mechanic.

    All ended well. At least I think it did, V got her ER surgery and I was able to -slooooooowly- drive her home. On the way home I was escorted by two male friends following along behind to ensure IrishAlexandrian and I wouldn't be alone if anything happened.

   So a big, big Thank You to the security team at school and my knights in shining armor. 

An Ode To English Plurals.

I was sent this poem from a colleague today and I had to share. What a crazy language we speak, no wonder the kids we teach get confused!
Thanks Wendy!

AN ODE TO ENGLISH PLURALS

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let's face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
Neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England.
We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
We find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing,
Grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and
Get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
Should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
While a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
In which your house can burn up as it burns down,
In which you fill in a form by filling it out, and
In which an alarm goes off by going on.

And in closing, if Father is Pop, how come Mother's not Mop?

A sense of accomplishment--TCNJ Class of 2011

    This has been a very long, very stressful week. For the past 18 months I have been enrolled in The College of New Jersey's global programme for teacher training. Last month I earned my teacher certification (qualification) and then this week I began the Masters program with the same college. The first step was the comprehensive exam to bring together all the content we have covered so far.

   To say that revision was tiring would be an understatement, bringing together the notes, presentations, papers and articles in a week was a mammoth task. We took each of these courses over a week in condensed form and all of us were teaching full time alongside that, not to mention that most of us went back home to families (often with young children).

   Although I have learned plenty from my professors and the course content taught over this time, I have to say that my true inspiration has been my fellow student-teachers. They are all wonderful women (and the occasional man!) who are passionate about their profession, their subjects and most importantly, their students.

  With the changes happening in Egypt now, we have a bigger chance than ever before to really make a true difference to the future of our country. The future's bright!!

TCNJ Class of 2011

The Beauty of Egypt

   My friend Tarek created this absolutely stunning video that shows off the beauty in Egypt ( a couple of the shots are mine too!).

Have a  look and let it inspire you to visit, it's a brand new and ancient land all in one!

  

Osama Bin Laden

   I, like millions around the world, woke up this morning to the news that Osama Bin Laden had been killed in a U.S air raid on his house in Pakistan. Now, I consider myself to be a fairly laid-back and tolerant person, but part of me is glad he's dead. The other part is worried about what his followers might do in his memory and how many more innocent people around the world will suffer because of this man's intolerance and hatred. 

  He was directly and indirectly responsible for the death of millions. Apart from those who died in attacks he and his associates planned and carried out , there are the thousands who died in retaliation attacks. Muslims around the world were reviled and hated like no other time in history and despite more than 90% of us condemning  his tactics we all suffered for them. Muslim women who wore head-scarves were attacked and the amount of security checks that young 'middle-eastern looking' men had to go through, especially at airports were almost insulting. It wasn't just Muslims who suffered of course, Seik men who wear turbans were attacked after being mistakenly identified as 'terrorists'.

   While I am not naive enough to believe this to be anywhere near the end of Al-Queada, I can and will hope that Bin Laden's death coupled with the recent pro-democratic awakenings in the Middle East will at least help to repair the damage one man has wrought on an entire people and that we Muslims feel that we can reclaim our religion from the fanatics who shout the loudest.

The Royal Wedding

   Yes it's a bandwagon and yes I'm jumping on it! I was really looking forward to watching the wedding with my best friend while we munched on sugary treats. As it turned out though, one of my teacher training courses was scheduled to start that day so I ended up watching parts of it via a live stream online while I sat in class.

   I thought the whole thing was beautiful, Westminster Abbey looked wonderful, the greenery and plants inside and the way the red carpet accentuated the memorial to the unknown soldier, apt considering William's military career.

   Catherine (Kate) looked absolutely stunning, very elegant and regal. I noticed that while William looked quite nervous when he first arrived at the Abbey, once the service began he was calm.

   They looked  very happy together and in love and I wish them all the best of luck. 

Sharm El-Sheikh and Sham El Nessim

    Recently the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. In 2010 there were a series of shark attacks that killed several people and since he was deposed in February 2011, former President Mubarak has taken up permanent residence in the city. Despite all this and the drop in visitor numbers since the Revolution, it is still a popular destination for tourists, especially those looking to combine sun, sea and sand and stunning natural beauty with an active nightlife. The waters of the Red Sea are ideal for snorkeling and scuba diving.

   Sham el-nessiem is an Egyptian national holiday and is a uniquely Egyptian way to welcome spring. It translates literally into "smelling the breeze"  and dates back to Pharaonic times. These days it falls on (Coptic) Easter Monday and is celebrated by all Egyptians irrespective of religion. It is celebrated, as most festivals in Egypt are, with food; in this case, coloured boiled eggs, green onions and salted fish (ringa and fessekh). These are usually eaten as part of a picnic as most families head off somewhere green. I remember when my cousins and I were young, we would all head off to the family orange grove and the smell of orange blossom still brings those memories back.

  This year a friend and I headed off to Sharm El-Sheikh for the long weekend and I have to say, it was one of the best ideas we'd had for a while! She was able to get us a good deal via her workplace so we were staying in a lovely 5 star resort at a fraction of the cost. The hotel was nice, the room large enough for the 2 of us not to constantly be in each other's hair and the view from the balcony was lovely

View from our room.

The other advantage this hotel had to the one I stayed at two years ago was that the beach was right within the resort. A three minute walk (through the pool area and garden) lead you to a walkway from which you had a glorious view of the red sea.

First view of the Red Sea

   While I would have been perfectly happy to spend all 4 days on the beach, snorkeling, reading and soaking up the sun, my friend had other ideas. She insisted that she wanted to climb Mount Sinai and visit St. Catherine's monastery. I was slightly less than enthusiastic as I had done this on my last visit and it was exhausting, freezing and took up a whole day. However, remembering just how tiring it was I felt I couldn't leave her to do it alone so we booked 2 places on a trip leaving the night we arrived. Unfortunately, the trip was poorly organized and our guide was rude, badly spoken and aggressive, but enough of that story now! On the bus journey to the mountain the air-con was on full blast and that was just enough to bring the cold I'd been keeping at bay all week to full strength. By the time we started the hike, my nose was completely stuffed and breathing and hiking at the same time was becoming problematic (I've discovered I like breathing...it helps keep me alive), so in the end I only made it as far as the first rest-stop on foot and then carried on on a camel!

Me on the camel watching the sunrise over Mount Sinai

    My camel pilot Saleh (a Bedouin native to Sinai) and I had a good chat as we made the trek up, he's been doing the job for about 3 years and that on a good day he can hire his camel about 4 times in either direction. The best tourists in his opinion are Indonesians as they nearly always opt for a camel ride up , while Russians are far less likely. I asked him how the revolution had affected business and he told me that they've definitely had fewer people this year but the numbers were starting to pick up again. 

  The view of the sunrise was as stunning as I remember and I'll let the pictures do the talking.

  In the end we weren't able to go around the monastery as the monks had decided to close to visitors in preparation for Easter services, but we did manage to use the facilities there and I snapped a picture of the door to the main church decked out for the occasion.

    Back at the hotel I took some paracetamol and slept for 12 hours straight! Luckily I got my wish and was able to spend the next 2 days on the beach.