Showing posts with label American School of Doha. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American School of Doha. Show all posts
Monday, May 9, 2022
Tuesday, September 1, 2020
First Day of School (and approximately 6000th day of work)
The kids school started back today. The teen jumping into sophomore year and Clarissa into 4th grade. They are doing virtual school for the first few weeks tentatively while all the new teachers get into country. They are then set to start a hybrid model for the first semester attending on campus every other day...who knows if they will be on the same schedule A/B...fingers crossed. Richard and I had some 'glamour shots' done the other day at the Embassy....so we have nice thumbnails for our work emails....thought they would be fun throw in.
Saturday, June 15, 2019
Thursday, December 13, 2018
Major Perk for Third Culture Kids
So I'm not sure if I've ever used the term Third Culture Kids (TCK).....you can head to Google for all the nuts and bolts, but basically it is a kid who is brought up living in a culture other than their parents/passport.
Exhibit A & B:
I gave him a hug and sent him on his way with his travel leader, 9 other classmates, and his passports to another country. (They had 2 locations in Sri Lanka - so each drop off was about 75-80 students....organized chaos at it's finest!).
learned about the local culture and traditions,
Our household luggage inspector detected some odd odors.
And just like that our TCK has a passport stamp in his passport that the rest of us don't.
Also - big shout out to all the teacher photos that showed how amazing his trip was. I have more but tried to only select the ones without other students being real recognizable.
Exhibit A & B:
As result of our lives overseas, Mason & Clarissa are TCKs! Their childhoods are much different than mine/Richard's. While we celebrate American holidays...it's not quite the same. Along the way, they are also picking up traditions from our host countries. So they are ending up with traditions that are a mix of 'home' & host countries making a 'unique to them' culture...aka a third culture.
Life as a TCK will have its ups and downs, but I think the biggest up is being able to explore the world. We try to do as much regional travel wherever we are calling home for the time being. Of course this travel has to work around school schedules....which brings me to schools. Our experience so far has shown, international schools have a knack at really fostering independence and exploration in TCKs. In Fiji, starting in third grade, the students would spend time away at camps in remote villages (year 6 and year 7) or entirely different islands (year 8). The students were split into groups and had to plan all their own meals for the 3-5 days they were gone. Seems daunting (they were not gourmet meals - canned spaghetti, fruit & toast) but it was a life skill that was great to learn. Here in Doha, only middle school students participate in 'Week without Walls'. So with the hemisphere switch and having to restart the grade, Mason had the opportunity to participate in the year 8 trip....which goes to Sri Lanka!! Right before Thanksgiving, he got packed up and I took him to the airport.
I gave him a hug and sent him on his way with his travel leader, 9 other classmates, and his passports to another country. (They had 2 locations in Sri Lanka - so each drop off was about 75-80 students....organized chaos at it's finest!).
While they were gone, we got a nightly update of what the students had been up to. Mason was in the group that went to Borderlands up in the jungle of Sri Lanka. Everyday he woke up to views like this.
He went white water kayaking.
The group took lots of long hikes up steep hills (with leeches and all on the paths).
These hikes allowed them to visit the ruins of an old temple built in a rock wall
and reenacted a movie scene in a waterfall.
They volunteered at a local school,
learned about the local culture and traditions,
did some 'outside of their comfort zone activities',
saw lots of creepy crawly critters,
as well as, some really cool animals!
A week later, I am back at the airport (arrival time was 12:45 am....after customs and baggage claim it was pushing 2:00 am) and he's back! He made some new friends on the trip.
Our household luggage inspector detected some odd odors.
And just like that our TCK has a passport stamp in his passport that the rest of us don't.
Also - big shout out to all the teacher photos that showed how amazing his trip was. I have more but tried to only select the ones without other students being real recognizable.
Tuesday, September 18, 2018
Our next adventure has started.....
So I worked hard and got all caught up on the blog about the fun we'd had during home leave and training, then all our household effects (HHE) from Fiji arrived and we were swimming in boxes....so blogging took the backseat. We have a little more HHE coming from the states (we didn't use all our allotted weight despite buying lots of hand carved wooden artwork). Our supplemental HHE is set to arrive in country later this week (not sure how long customs will take) and our car just arrived and is waiting on delivery/plates. So I thought I would take this little lull to update.
I had put some fabric I picked up in Fiji and my staple gun in our UAB (air shipment) and covered our kitchen chairs. Beyond the regular wear and tear, we will be charged for damages made to the embassy furniture we are issued. So kids + light colored seats + food.....covering was a natural decision (we had put a towel down on Clarissa's chair at our last post, but she's too big for that now).
It's been hot here....duh Deb you live in the desert. Oddly enough, it is not like the "dry heat" in the hot deserts of US Southwest. We have humid desert here. So at bus stop time (ie early am), temps are usually mid-90s (mid 30sC) with 50-70% humidity...which makes it feel like 110-120F.... It is like stepping into an oven when you walk outside. Speaking of ovens....no more easy-bake oven for me! Our oven is American size!!
We keep hearing that in about 1.5-2 months the weather will cool down and be wonderful. Waiting for that! In the mean time, we've gone to the neighborhood pool (which cools the water).
This is not quite half of the pool. It is great that a large portion of it is covered and there are wonderful views as it is on the roof of the neighborhood clubhouse.
Richard and I have both done some tours of the Souq Waqif (standing market)....I'll give those their own post. The company that did the tours offers lots of other fun things...we are just waiting on the weather to cool down a smidge! As you saw Monday, we had a fun little photo shoot with Isa and some American Girl glasses....while this one is not the most focused I think it portrays her feelings towards the photo shoot.
Another way to entertain ones self in stifling heat, is to head to the mall. To which there are plenty to choose from. We've gone to four different ones so far (some multiple times, as a grocery store tends to be attached to the mall). The mall that go the most "whoa's" so far has been Villaggio Mall. When you step inside, it suddenly feels as if you are in Venice, Italy....complete with a canal and gondolas. So naturally, we had to take a ride!
There are little bridges you can cross over the water and ceiling is painted blue with fluffy clouds. We spent hours there and when we walked outside to complete darkness it messed with our minds...lol.
We had to take care of some cell phone/internet business. So we found our way to that shop. What should happen to right around the corner from there? Gondolania Theme Park ....a theme park/carnival inside the mall!!
Kids were amazed to see the bright lights and rides...and since we had an afternoon to pass....we said why not and went on in to ride the rides!! Clarissa had fun driving a pink swan around a little lagoon while Mason and Richard went on a full fledged roller coaster (you can barely see some of the track going along the building facades as well as past the entrance).
Both kids rode on a little "under the sea" lazy river ride. We then rode the bumper cars, I think we did those two or three times in a row....super fun. We ran into each other a lot, but culturally we weren't sure how it would be taken to ram a complete stranger....so I just said to Clarissa we were racing them...lol.
Clarissa and I rode on the ferris wheel (here's a not so flattering selfie but it shows how high up it went and all the fun below us).
While we were on the ferris wheel, Mason and Richard rode the 'drop ride'. We happened to stopped near the top to load/unload people while they were riding....so we had an awesome vantage point to shoot a little video. There are the only two on the right hand side of the drop.
As I mentioned, we don't quite have our car yet (it arrived in country around midnight last night...not that we've been stalking it or anything). So we've mastered Uber (even let Mason Uber home from school one day), we are enjoying life with food delivery (there is an app called Talabat that allows you to order from practically every restaurant....at times it takes longer to decide where to get your food from than it takes to actually get said food!), and finally we have been busy with all the start of the school year events from new student orientation, meet the teachers, back to school night (just learning about the curriculum/grading methodology), and back to school coffees.....wooh! I get tired writing all that and thinking about all the things we've gone too. For the middle school new student orientation, they talked to everyone, then the middle schoolers went off for a tour while us parents got some more talking, finally we got a tour. Given Clarissa's orientation was right after the middle school one, she was with us....it appears she took a bit too much pleasure invading Mason's locker.
So nothing out of the ordinary here....just getting up, going to work/school/unpacking, and then doing it all over again. Same routine, just a different country!
I had put some fabric I picked up in Fiji and my staple gun in our UAB (air shipment) and covered our kitchen chairs. Beyond the regular wear and tear, we will be charged for damages made to the embassy furniture we are issued. So kids + light colored seats + food.....covering was a natural decision (we had put a towel down on Clarissa's chair at our last post, but she's too big for that now).
 |
| Before Khaki & After Dark Brown w/Green Palm Tree Pattern |
It's been hot here....duh Deb you live in the desert. Oddly enough, it is not like the "dry heat" in the hot deserts of US Southwest. We have humid desert here. So at bus stop time (ie early am), temps are usually mid-90s (mid 30sC) with 50-70% humidity...which makes it feel like 110-120F.... It is like stepping into an oven when you walk outside. Speaking of ovens....no more easy-bake oven for me! Our oven is American size!!
We keep hearing that in about 1.5-2 months the weather will cool down and be wonderful. Waiting for that! In the mean time, we've gone to the neighborhood pool (which cools the water).
This is not quite half of the pool. It is great that a large portion of it is covered and there are wonderful views as it is on the roof of the neighborhood clubhouse.
Richard and I have both done some tours of the Souq Waqif (standing market)....I'll give those their own post. The company that did the tours offers lots of other fun things...we are just waiting on the weather to cool down a smidge! As you saw Monday, we had a fun little photo shoot with Isa and some American Girl glasses....while this one is not the most focused I think it portrays her feelings towards the photo shoot.
Another way to entertain ones self in stifling heat, is to head to the mall. To which there are plenty to choose from. We've gone to four different ones so far (some multiple times, as a grocery store tends to be attached to the mall). The mall that go the most "whoa's" so far has been Villaggio Mall. When you step inside, it suddenly feels as if you are in Venice, Italy....complete with a canal and gondolas. So naturally, we had to take a ride!
There are little bridges you can cross over the water and ceiling is painted blue with fluffy clouds. We spent hours there and when we walked outside to complete darkness it messed with our minds...lol.
We had to take care of some cell phone/internet business. So we found our way to that shop. What should happen to right around the corner from there? Gondolania Theme Park ....a theme park/carnival inside the mall!!
Kids were amazed to see the bright lights and rides...and since we had an afternoon to pass....we said why not and went on in to ride the rides!! Clarissa had fun driving a pink swan around a little lagoon while Mason and Richard went on a full fledged roller coaster (you can barely see some of the track going along the building facades as well as past the entrance).
Both kids rode on a little "under the sea" lazy river ride. We then rode the bumper cars, I think we did those two or three times in a row....super fun. We ran into each other a lot, but culturally we weren't sure how it would be taken to ram a complete stranger....so I just said to Clarissa we were racing them...lol.
Clarissa and I rode on the ferris wheel (here's a not so flattering selfie but it shows how high up it went and all the fun below us).
While we were on the ferris wheel, Mason and Richard rode the 'drop ride'. We happened to stopped near the top to load/unload people while they were riding....so we had an awesome vantage point to shoot a little video. There are the only two on the right hand side of the drop.
As I mentioned, we don't quite have our car yet (it arrived in country around midnight last night...not that we've been stalking it or anything). So we've mastered Uber (even let Mason Uber home from school one day), we are enjoying life with food delivery (there is an app called Talabat that allows you to order from practically every restaurant....at times it takes longer to decide where to get your food from than it takes to actually get said food!), and finally we have been busy with all the start of the school year events from new student orientation, meet the teachers, back to school night (just learning about the curriculum/grading methodology), and back to school coffees.....wooh! I get tired writing all that and thinking about all the things we've gone too. For the middle school new student orientation, they talked to everyone, then the middle schoolers went off for a tour while us parents got some more talking, finally we got a tour. Given Clarissa's orientation was right after the middle school one, she was with us....it appears she took a bit too much pleasure invading Mason's locker.
So nothing out of the ordinary here....just getting up, going to work/school/unpacking, and then doing it all over again. Same routine, just a different country!
Monday, August 27, 2018
Monday's Moment: First Day of School Déjà vu
First Day of School Year - January 2018 at International School of Suva
Year 8 and Year 2
First Day of School Year - August 2018 at American School of Doha
Year 8 and Year 2
*Note: new school rules dictate when coming from the southern hemisphere, if the school year was not completed, then students must restart the school year...and after a 5 month (yes FIVE) summer break....that might not be a bad idea! No worries...we have been doing worksheets and reading!
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