Shout Out

First a shout-out to Sonia's bf who is one of my biggest international fans at this point. Sonia's my housemate and apparently he is reading the blog to find out interesting gossip about her, of which I have none. She has kicked our asses (another word that can be found in the Penguin Readers that I unwittingly assigned my class) into doing Pilates everyday do to the fact that we are all gaining weight from Ramadan. How can one gain weight from fasting, you ask? Well, fasting all day and then eating a three course meal topped off with about three different types of deserts is a bit like eating a Big Mac and Chocolate shake and then walking up the stairs on your way back home hoping that you will balance it out. Here's a picture of us (top row from the left, unknown, Becky, Miriam, unknown, me, Sonia, unknown, unknown, Adbulla, Sukaim, unknown) at one of the dinners that we went to. Sonia is the only one in the house that is fasting, so I am trying not to eat around her but I probably shouldn't bother. She starts cooking at around 3PM and the smells that come from the kitchen drive me crazy even though I have eaten that day.

Ramadan is tough on teaching as well. I am back at the Gas Company for a 10AM class (not fun considering that I still have my 10-12 class at night and I have to wake up at 8AM) and my poor students have mostly been up until 5AM. During Ramadan, you stay up all night to have the sunup meal and then sleep all day, unless you're them. They get four hours of sleep and then wake up at 9AM to go to class. (They get an extra hour of sleep because they are guys and they don't have to bathe.) Needless to say class participation has been down. I find it helps to randomly start jumping up and down and screaming "Wake up, Wake UP, WAKE UP!!!!!" I get a five minute reprieve from 16 sets of glazed eyes and open drooling mouths.

Miriam left, and if she is reading this then she should know that her email address that she gave me is bouncing, so please send me an email!!! It's very sad without her. Becky and I were watching "Crocodile Dundee" and we didn't have anyone to make fun of during the viewing. So a shout-out to Miriam: "Crikey, G'day mate! Is it true that people grab each other's genitals in the bush?" It's really sad about her, she was the brightest spot in Yemen. Right now she is working in Korea (or as I like to think of it she is scouting out Korea as a possible destination for me after Yemen.)

There was an earthquake and Tsunami in Samoa but apparently everything is okay.