The Return

September 27 marked my first day back in class as well as the day Lyssa and Christian finally came home. Hopefully, she'll get around to writing more details about it, but she told me the flight was uneventful and that Christian slept through most of it. From my end, I came home from work and was exhausted. I napped for at least two hours, which gave me only a little bit of time to clean before going to the airport. Her flight arrived about an hour and a half early, which I anticipated since mine did too. I left around 6:00 and got to the airport in about 20 minutes. The monitor said her flight had landed when I got in, so I lined up with the other mass of people, waiting beyond the security checkpoint. I waited and I waited, and she didn't come. A little boy was hit by the sliding door exiting the security area, so he turned around and hit it back. The men around me and I had a laugh at this, and yet she still didn't come out (Lyssa later explained to me that Christian had a huge diaper-related disaster as the plane was landing, so she had to attend to that). I waited a good 40 minutes when finally they came out of security and I got to see Christian smiling. He really didn't smile at me though. I think it took him a while to remember who I am. Lyssa drove us home so I could sit back with Christian and sing songs to him. It seemed like over the course of the car ride he went from "You look familiar, have we met before?" to "I know you, you're my daddy!" to "Get me out of this car seat! Waah! Waaah!!!"

The following weeks haven't had too much to tell. Christian is very happy to be home and he walks around all over the place. A lot. Like he's totally done with crawling. He does get into a lot of stuff, as he is one curious kid. He hasn't had a hard time with a hard tile floor, though he is constantly banging his head on our coffee room table. I think they're both pretty much over the jet lag now, though with allergies and Christian being sick it's been harder to adjust. They thought he might have the flu, but he's been doing much better over the past few days. At any rate, it's kept us from going out and seeing friends or doing stuff.

The first week of class is usually a bit dull as it's our orientation week. We go over syllabi and course expectations, as usual, but we can't begin teaching the class proper since the bookstore conspires against us, making the actual textbooks available the week after. So it's a week of rules and getting-to-know-you games. My personal favorite getting-to-know-you activity being for the class to go around and share an embarrassing or frightening moment from their life. I do this for several reasons. First, it's a lot more entertaining than having the students just list off likes and dislikes, and you get to see a bit more of their personality also. Second, from a pedagogical point of view, you can't be embarrassed when learning a new language. You have to open your mouth and talk, not being afraid of making mistakes. So it really relaxes the classroom atmosphere. Anyway, here are some of my favorite stories from the bunch:

• Several of the stories involved the girl going to the wrong place. In one, the girl thought she was knocking on her parent's door at the hotel, but she didn't realize she had got off the elevator at the wrong floor. She was quite surprised when a large Kuwaiti man answered.
• Another girl stepped into a white car, thinking it was theirs and waited for her dad. There was a guy she thought was her cousin asleep in the back. Her dad eventually came, asking her why she was in the car. The guy in the back, a complete stranger, was awakened by their conversation. Now to be fair, every other car in this country is a white Toyota Land Cruiser, so her confusion is understandable. If anything, I'm surprised that sort of thing doesn't happen more often.
• Another girl was in Saudi Arabia waiting in line at the mall food court. What she didn't know was that there were separate lines for men and women, and she had gotten into the wrong line. She got a lot of dirty looks. What makes the story even better though is that her last name, Al-Thani, indicates that she's a part of the Qatari royal family. You all laugh and mock, but do you know who her father is?!?

Pork Kebabs

• Another girl was vacationing in Interlaken, Switzerland. Her mom and she got lost walking around the town and were soon starving. They walked into the first restaurant they saw. The mother sat while the girl went to order food. They asked her if pork would be okay, and my student said yes. Now, if you weren't aware, pork is haram to Muslims, or forbidden. My student, however, only knew that pig was forbidden, and didn't know that pork and pig meant the same thing. The food arrived and came out as kebabs, which they thought was familiar. They ate it and thought it was delicious, though later that night they threw it all up (probably because their systems weren't used to it). Nevertheless, they went back to the restaurant the next day, attributing the vomiting cake they had eaten later that day. This time, however, the mom was with her when they ordered the food, and was very surprised to hear her daughter order pork. "Don't you know what pork is?" she asked, and proceeded to yell at her.