Time Flies!

 

Egads! Is it really May? My new year’s resolution has been flushed down the toilet! Herewith, I will attempt to skim over the last five months, since my last batch of more than five minutes to ponder my life was way back in January.

 Jared ran the Dubai marathon with brother-in-law, Sal! Awesome!

In late January, a colleague and I traveled to Doha to meet some of the education gurus du jour. We got charged up about standards and benchmarks and returned to ACS pumped and ready to implement. Doha itself was devoid of green, full of construction and cars, cars, cars. Not impressive at all, really, although the school American School of Doha was sparkling new and looked fantastic!

 

I kept playing lots of tennis through February and into March, at which point I managed to injure my foot in such a way that I had to take a hiatus from all sport for 6 weeks or so. I am just now getting back on the court and it feels great!

 

At the end of March, my FAVORITE band came to Abu Dhabi: Cold Play! It was one of the BEST concerts I have ever been to (Elton John came last year and was pretty darn amazing!).  The venue was outdoors at the Emirate Palace, just like the EJ concert had been. 

The most amazing part was that it POURED rain for the first 25 minutes of the concert. Who would have thought that a lightening storm and downpour would lead to tales of a great concert? Not only did the band make the best of the shocking weather, but they managed to weave in hilarious lyrics about the situation into their songs. After the storm ended, we were all soaked but felt cool and wonderful! At one point, the band walked out to a small stage in the middle of the crowd and we were standing only feet away from them. It was a fantastic event!

 

In Early April, we traveled to Goa, India for spring break. We signed up for a package deal through Expedia, a first for us. It was pretty much as I had imagined. A 3-star hotel (hah!) and flights through the night…all for a low, low price. After getting over the shock of the shoddiness of our lodging, we got into holiday mode. The kids did not even notice the crumbling walls and shoddy construction, although the constant presence of flies was hard to ignore. The really cool thing about our room was that it had TWO bathrooms! That should have been a hint that we would be spending many hours in them….indeed, Goa belly was had by most of us and we became good friends with the two toilets in our suite. But the beach was nice…the cows even came out for a visit on the beach each night at sunset and sniffed all around the lingering tourists. That was usually while I was receiving  my daily massage out on the beach…it was a wee bit disconcerting to be sniffed by a teenage bull while I was lying prone and half naked in public!

 

Sam and Sophia also tried their hands (and entire bodies) at parasailing. They LOVED it and could not get enough of the thrill. We sent them up a few times throughout the week; I am convinced one of my children will become a stunt performer one day!

 

Other exciting events included a visit to a spice farm, watching Sam and Sophia wash an elephant while sitting on its back, shopping for our summer jewelry sale, and eating a variety of great Indian food. (I think it was the German place at which we had breakfast that caused me such digestive distress!)

 

Back to Abu Dhabi for the final few weeks of cool weather before Hell weather returned. Sophia turned 7 and had a slumber party with 6 screaming girls. I barely got out of bed the next day. Was I ever like that??? Sam turns 9 next week and wants a slumber party of his own. We broke down and bought the Wii game just today, so I reckon the boys will keep busy with that!

 

In our free time on the weekends, we have been spending lots of time at the club we go to. There is a small beach there and we have been watching the bay become a canal as the construction trucks dump loads of sand on the island across from our club. It has been fascinating to watch the process of an island being created where there was only water before. The worker bees spend days packing down the sand and now are at the stage at which they are constructing 20-story buildings upon the sand. At one point, Jared and I counted over 80 cranes on the horizon as we sat sipping our drinks. I dread to think what would happen if an earthquake came rumbling through.

 

At the time of writing this, there are 14 days of school left. We are spending most of the summer on Nantucket and the whole family is looking forward to sleeping in, playing tennis, going to the beach and climbing the tree!

A New Year Begins

Alas, one of my new year’s resolutions is to keep my blog updated. After the dearth of postings in the last year, I have decided to try a new method: the short, more frequent bits and bobs. We shall see how it goes. Since it is only January 3, there is clearly not much to say, if I am only to report on 2009 thus far. I have spent much of my time at the tennis arena in Abu Dhabi over the last few days, volunteering my services at the Capitala Tennis tournament, featuring, as I noted in my December post, Nadal, Murray, Davydenko, Federer, Roddick and Blake. It has been fantastic to see them play from such a close distance. My head is exhausted from so much swiveling! This afternoon I head back for the third and final time to see how Murray fares against Nadal, the young 22 year-old stud. His game is truly astounding! Even Sam was able to sit for five hours and watch two matches yesterday, a tribute to the high entertainment factor of these tennis stars.

New Year’s Eve was somewhat subdued here in the UAE. Due to the distressing events in the Gaza strip, all live music events were cancelled in Dubai, leaving the Abu Dhabi Shakira concert the only live event worth attending in the whole country. We Rodgers were struggling to overcome jet lag, having just returned from the U.S., so we had a low-key evening with old friends visiting from our Manila days.

 

Shakira must have recuperated from her big night, as she was seated in the royal family box at the tennis tourney yesterday. The fans were heard alternating cat calls from “Rafa!” to “Shakira, I love you!”, to “Go Niki!” during the Nadal vs. Davydenko match.

On our way home from the match yesterday, both of our two decent radio stations were playing classical music, a sign that someone important in the UAE had passed away. It turned out one of the sheiks from a tiny Emirate met his maker over in London, thus beginning a period of mourning throughout the country, replete with 24-hour dirge –like music and three days of closed government offices.

It is to this dirge-like theme that I will drag my holiday-laden buttocks off to school TOMORROW. In sh’allah, I will be able to find the time to keep you posted on the comings and goings of the Rodgers clan in the coming year!