Eid

Eid marks the end of Ramadan. I can now officially eat and drink in public. This is one of the most significant holidays in Kuwait and most of the Muslim world. Our school is taking a four day weekend and most of my students are on vacation somewhere. I now understand why, as pretty much everything in Kuwait is closed. (Picture Christmas Morning during siesta in Mexico City).

The gym said they would open tonight, so I'm headed over there after dark. In any event, here's a picture of my apartment

Girgian

Girgian (GHUR-gi-YAHN) is a uniquely Kuwaiti holiday celebrated amidst the merriment and family time that characterizes the month of Ramadan. At night, Kuwaiti children run around their neihborhoods and collect candy, much as American children do during Halloween. The UAS elementary school goes all out for a day, exchanging and feasting on candy and sweets.

As my students are all seventh graders, most are too old for these traditions (much as children in my own country outgrow trick-or-treating) but some of my students still managed to get out and collect candy.

Nice One Mahoney!

I was surfing the net today and ran across this article. Everyone remember Cardinal Mahoney, the guy who protected all those wicked priests in Southern California from prosecution?

Well, the day of reckoning has finally arrived, with a several hundred million dollar settlement that the Archdiocese must pay out. But how have they decided to pay for it? A church bake sale? A cut out of Mahoney's no doubt extravagant compensation? Should we sell off some of the Archdiocese's more valuable properties, including oil fields? No! Let's evict elderly nuns who spent the last 40 years serving migrant workers in Santa Barbara! Brilliant!

Read all about it here.

In Way Over My Head

Sorry its been so long, everyone. As you can probably guess, I've been super busy. On top of that the internet connection at my apartment hasn't been reliable at all so you can probably guess why I'm so behind on updates. My internet connection is very slow as well, so it's difficult to upload pictures onto blogger. I think I'm going to try one of those Picasa accounts pretty soon and see how that goes. When the upload times take way too long I may just break down and go to a wireless internet cafe sometime.

I'm struggling to keep up with all my work. I'm still not accustomed to the hectic pace of things and workload I'm now facing, but I'm trying to adjust. Hopefully I'll get some of that done today.