September 24 - 30
Hello from Dubai where 70 hour workweeks are becoming the norm. Rich worked so much this last week that one night when he came in the door in time for a late dinner Christian looked up at him and said, "Who's that?" However, all that hard work is really paying off as Rich is becoming quite the diplomat. Last week he and some colleagues threw a party for some work contacts, and Rich was able to get someone who was refused a visa to come to the party. Talk about your smooth talking. If this career doesn't work out, he may move to Arizona and start selling some waterfront property.
Things are going pretty much as expected at the University. Most of the assignments and in-class activities that I think are fun, my students find excruciating, and I am buried under the first major assignment of the semester. I told the class that I was just as excited to read their papers as they were to write them; it really is a win/win situation. As you may guess, the quality of the assignments run the gamut, but some of the student responses to the philosophy of "assignment completion" were surprising. I actually had one student ask me on the day the assignment was due if he was required to turn it in. I felt like telling him all assignments are optional and that he should only choose to turn in those assignments which he felt interested in completing. The only thing that stopped me was the nagging feeling that my sarcasm would be lost on him. Good grief. I also have students who attend class about once every three weeks, and others who never come but their assignments mysteriously turn up in the pile of papers that has now become my life. You can always tell who these students are because the completed assignments are only vaguely reminscent of the actual assignment. For example, one of these enigmatic students turned in a paper last week that did not focus on a literary figure of his choice, but rather presented the pros and cons of nutritional supplements. Close but no ginseng.
Due to the craziness of this week, I'm not sure if the kids have done any cute, newsworthy things. Truth be told, I'm not even sure where they are right now. Hopefully after our much needed vacation this weekend we will have more info on their daily evil deeds and some pictures to boot. We do want to report, however, that the ski slope in the Mall of the Emirates just opened up two days ago, and we will definitely let you know how the snow is here.