"Your driving is a reflection of your civilization"

I love the road signs in Kuwait..."Your driving is symbol of your civilization," "Speed=Death," and "Speed results in prison and death" are some of my favorites. However, i'm positive nobody pays attention to these signs as Kuwait has the most dangerous highway in the world according to some. It has been ages since i've written anything...I am aware of this, however, its been crazy around these parts. Going back a month ago, I got an unexpected week long vacation. We had a long weekend schedualed for the end of Ramadan, which the government decided at the last minute wasn't sufficient. So, they decided to just call the whole week a holiday (giving two days notice) and The Ministry of Education (I can't think of them without thinking Ministry of Magic....hilarious) cancelled school for a week. So, I bought a plane ticket and jumped on a plane heading to Oman with a stop in Dubai. I went with four other teachers (one of whom i'm dating....oh and working with....he also teaches 9th Grade...what the hell right? His name is Brian) and it was awsome. My passport officially has two new middle eastern countries in it...oh and I got my residency in Kuwait so I have a really cool sticker in my passport for that too. Okay so we went to Dubai the first night and took it easy, went to dinner and then to bed....it had been a long week of school. Then the next day we got up and headed to the airport to fly to Oman. We arrived in Oman in the morning and headed out into the city. Oman is beautiful, I got to see mountains which was awsome because although Kuwait has the Gulf which is lovely, its very flat. More recently I have been very busy at school and had some crazy weekends mixed with plenty of grading thrown in. My kids....so cute...but also a huge pain at times....they are trying to "exit" (meaning kick out) three kids in the 9th grade and I have all of them....but hey it keeps life interesting. Two weeks ago Brian and I crashed a wedding, Brian managed to comendear the job of bartender and I made friends with the wedding party. As a result, we were best freinds with the brides father and mother by the end of the night and falling over drunk. I got to dance for one of the first times since I got here which was great and it was just hilarious....did I mention that we were dressed in street clothes for this event...I was wearing jeans and crocs, Brian had on flip flops. I also had a milestone pass last week- I finished my first quarter of school! I've finished 1/4 of my year- crazy! It's gone so fast, my kids got their report cards today and we have parent teacher confrerences on Sunday and Monday. Insane. Anyway.....I'll write more this weekend but I donated my classroom to a Model United Nations Simulation happening all weekend and kids are starting to arrive so i've got to sign off. I'm heading to happy hour at the embassy tonight and a Marine Ball tomorrow so it should be a fun weekend until Saturday when I need to grade 60 short stories, appendix, and creative element projects. But hey, even that doesn't sound too bad. Hope all is well with everyone else. Talk to you soon. Oh and Zach I promise the next post will illuminate the phenomena of "Wasta"