Results are trickling in . . .

The exam results are trickling in . . . .

Yusef passed!!!! He got an overall Jaid - which is Good on his report card. I am pleased. He really tried this year and had to overcome all kinds of obstacles - just taking his exam was difficult because he couldn't write (arm in a cast). A different teacher was assigned to him everyday of the exam. The teacher wrote the answers he told her.

Sara unfortunately didn't make it. 5, yes FIVE failing marks on her report card - and there were 4 other marks that were near failing. She cried all afternoon, but I do not feel the least bit sorry for her as she has been told since the beginning of the year to get her act together and open her books.

They have this thing in Libya where if you fail the exam the first time you can re-sit the exam and see if you can pass it the second time. Well, kids here have discovered that the teachers make the second exam much easier than the first and will let the kids cheat all they want - so passing second time around is basically a sure thing.

I made a rule this year that I will not allow the kids to do re-sits. If they fail the first time - even if it is only one failing mark - I will make them repeat the year. So Sara will be repeating the year. She had high hopes that I would not be so tough, but I will not relent. She can stay in the first year of middle school for the rest of her life. The choice was hers and she chose not to take her studies seriously.

I am such an ogre! I put a password on the TV, a password on the computer, I lock up extra dishes, I lock up sweets, I even lock up my chair while I am at work (because if I didn't the kids would be spinning around and around in it until they fall off and hurt themselves or the chair breaks). I am tired of being an ogre!

Marble in my future!

I think there might be marble in my future! Yes, dear old hubby, who by the way is speaking to me today (but hold on - he was poking his nose inside a file folder that had the three letter word TAX written on it) brought home a nice peice of marble for me to inspect. It was beautiful! Smooth and shiny in a nice creamy beige color.

I said YES! YES! YES! This is it!

The kids jumped up and down - squealing with delight! You never know what can make someone happy - Marble it is then! I WILL have marble in my new house!

Now to buy it and have it installed - I pray that this file folder with the word TAX on it won't spoil any of this good news!

Photo Friday

Photo Friday - I found this interesting site of a Friday photo challenge. This weeks challenge is to take a picture of a Symbol. So I took this picture of a cigarrette package that was thrown on the ground by the Egyptian workers that are building our house. Cleopatra King Size.

One more day

Adam has one more day of exams. All the kids will be finished then. I'm not sure what we will do with the whole summer.

Mustafa has gone off on a business trip. I hope he comes back in a better mood. It seems the good old baladia (libyan city hall kind of thing) has been giving all the shop owners in town misery. This is why dear hubby has not been in the best of moods - and unfortunately it is so convienient to have me around to take out his frustrations. It's a good thing that he does 'the silent treatment' as it keeps him from saying anything ugly.

The girls have cleaned out the kitchen cabinets. I instructed them to remove all but the minimum of dishes and put them in the cabinet that has a lock on it. Now when I come home from work I am not faced with as many dirty dishes as before. Less dishes in the cabinet, means less dishes to get dirty, and hense less dishes to wash. I am fed up with dishes - seriously, I'm thinking of throwing them all away and going out and buying paper plates.

Destroy trees, or use water and fill the environment with detergent residue? . . . . have to make a choice . . .

Silent treatment

Mustafa is being a crab. I don't know what is with that man. He won't speak to me and has been slamming doors and banging things around the house. Then he got really nasty and threw the alarm clock at me and said, 'Make sure you wake Adam up for school.' Then he went into the bedroom, slammed the door and I heard the bolt close. Hmmm. . . what has got into him?

I tried the door - it was locked, and of course he wouldn't answer it. I went into the girls room to get a blanket and pillow. Then I decided - two can play at this game! I got out my keys and locked the bedroom door from the outside too!

In the middle of the night, dear hubby has to go to the bathroom. But lo and behold! The door is locked from the outside! He ended up having to climb out the bedroom window onto the balcony and in the bathroom window. Of course he made all kinds of noise doing this. I was prepared!

After he finished in the bathroom he went into the kitchen and got a glass of water from the fridge. He came in and poured it drop, by drop, by drop on my head. I pretended to sleep through it all. He finally gave up and went back to bed.

He has never been very good at 'the silent treatment' - I am a champion at it! I think he will give up soon!

What a goofy man to be married to! Never marry a man who was born in the year of the monkey - he will always be up to monkey business!

If I could be . . .

This is an ongoing blog quiz / challenge / round robin sent to me by my dear Libyan blogfriend Highlander. The idea (I think) is to add five more occupations to the bottom of the list and ask that other bloggers pick up the idea ( I nominate Kristen, Another Lisa, and Gina)- do the same and link back to them. Anyway . . . scroll down to the bottom of the list and see what I would be if I could be . . .

A quiz from a blogger


The List:If I could be a scientist...If I could be a farmer...If I could be a musician...If I could be a doctor...If I could be a painter...If I could be a gardener...If I could be a missionary...If I could be a chef...If I could be an architect...If I could be a linguist...If I could be a psychologist...If I could be a librarian...If I could be an athlete...If I could be a lawyer...If I could be an innkeeper...If I could be a professor...If I could be a writer...If I could be a llama-rider...If I could be a bonnie pirate...If I could be a service member...If I could be a business owner...If I could be an actor...If I could be an agent...If I could be video game designer...If I could be a comic book artist...If I could be a hooker...If I could be a crack addict...If I could be a porn star...If I could be a mime...If I could be a domestic engineer...If I could be a chimney sweep...If I could be a masseuse...If I could be a taxi driver...If I could be a priest...If I could be a window cleaner...If I could be a gynecologist...If I could be a world leader...If I could be a healer...If I could be a proctologist...If I could be a carpenter...If I could be a amusement park ride operator...If I could be the manager of an adult bookstore...If I could be Pat Benatar...If I could be a hermit...If I could be a social parasite...If I could be an X-Man...If I could be Paris Hilton...If I could be a movie director...If I could be a super model...If I could be the new pope...

Bills additions:If I could be a neurosurgeon ...If I could be a playwrite ...If I could be a Belgian ...

Alan's addition:If I could be a Astronaut/Cosmonaut ...If I could be a Time Traveller ...If I could be a Dragon ...

My additon: If I could be a fighter pilot..., If I could be a sailor..., If I could be a dolphin.....

My answer: If I could be an actor, I'd want to be Angelina Jolie to have Brad Pitt's attention 24/7. If I could be a world leader, I would choose to be the President of the US to have a mighty power behind me to be able to force my will on others. If I could be a healer, I would be able to help all the people with strange diseases for free. If I could be a time traveller, I would want to go back to the time of the Prophet Mohamed (PBUH) and live in those days with him. If I could be an athlete I'd be a professional swordswoman.

Ok - KhadijaTeri's additions to the list: If I could be a bookworm . . . If I could be a mind reader . . . If I could be a genius . . . If I could be a nymphomaniac . . . If I could be a supermom . . .

One of my pet peeves - I really hate it when people let their kids put stickers all over the refrigerator doors and other doors in the house. This is my sister-in-law's refrigerator! Yikes! All those stupid stickers that they stick in the packages of cheese! How disgusting! 

the weekend

The weekend is finally here - it has been a long week, mostly because I haven't felt very well. I never got particularly sick, I just never felt particularly well.

All the kids are finished with exams except Adam. He has another week left. Today Nora had her last exam and she wasn't home from school for more than two hours when I heard her make a big sigh . . and say 'I'm so bored. There's nothing to do.' How disgusting to hear such a thing so soon! I told her I could think of about 5 million things for her to do if she needed some help.

I've been playing with my blog - for some reason it won't show up on the RSS reader. When I try to validate the link it comes up with some error in the metadata. Anyone got any ideas on how to correct this . . . . or will it remain the mystery of my life?

Tomorrow - big plans: laundry, housework, cleaning out the storage room, more laundry, lesson plans, homework, more laundry. Mustafa is grumpy these days - I don't expect he will be much help around the house this weekend. Hopefully he will get out from under my feet and let me get on with the housework in peace . . . but you never know what he might have up his sleeve for the weekend . . . my housework plans might be blown away in the wind.

Yusef's arm is healing

Yusef's arm is healing. He went to have the stitches taken out the other day. The doctors sawed open two windows in his cast and removed the stitches. Then they covered the windows back up again. He will have to have the cast on for another three weeks. Then it will be removed and the metal rods will be removed also.

Yusef has requested that I come with him. Poor thing. He is afraid. His father went with him to have the stitches removed. Yusef said his father ran out of the room , just when he needed him most. Mustafa has no stomach for such things. I'm the tuff one. So I told Yusef that, yes, I will go with him and be there for him.

The weather has gone hot, dusty and windy again - and I am coming down with a cold. I have that scratchy feeling in the back of my throat and a nose that is running like water. I feel feverish (but it might just be the weather?). I'm cramming in my lesson plans, trying to get as far ahead as possible in case I have to take to my bed and collapse to recover from this flu or whatever it is I'm getting.

One good thing - I had my hair cut the other day - and my eyelashes dyed again. So if I drop from exhaustion at least my hair and eyelashes will be OK. hehehe

Wow! 2000!

I looked at the counter today and it says 2000! Thanks to all who've read my blog, and a special thanks to those of you who keep coming back to see what I'm up to.

Apricots! Ain Zarah, Libya 

Week 2 of Final Exams

Tomorrow begins week two of the kids final exams. Yusef finished his exams yesterday. We still have Sara, Nora and Adam to go. I am still adamant that I will have the no-nag policy.

Yesterday the weather cooled off, but today it went hot again. Hot, muggy and hazy. It makes you feel like you're inside a pressure cooker. In the afternoon I told Yusef and Ibrahim to get ready to go out for a walk. I wanted the house quiet so no one would have the excuse that the house was too noisy to study. We walked and walked and did some shopping along the way. It would have been pleasant if it weren't for the weather.

As soon as the exams are over I'm going to put the kids to work cleaning out the storage room. I walked in there today and nearly had a heart attack. Someone had been in there poking around looking for something and has left the place upside-down. I am going to go tomorrow to the shop and get some jumbo sized garbage bags and we will do a bigtime de-junking of the whole place. It is amazing what junk gets collected - and if Mustafa ever gets that house finished, I don't intend on hauling a bunch of crap to my new house.

I think I need to stop at the pharmacy and pick up some multi-vitamins to help me through the de-junking. From the looks of that storage room it is going to take a big effort! I will need all my strength to get through it!

Better weather and a party

Well, the weather changed. It finally got cooler and it was a good thing because the 'Annual 21st Birthday Party' for my friend and colleague, Alea, was held at the school where we work. You can see all the highlights here: http://alea-english.blogspot.com/

There were all kinds of music. Actually all the English books use some kinds of music in them with gap-fills for the students, and Alea uses these familliar songs at her party every year. It was fun because the students had sung the songs in class. Some of our students are quite talented - one is in a band, and another plays guitar and sings with a very sweet voice. So we had all kinds of musical entertainment. Also dancing and party games. Everyone joined in the fun.

Now I'm exhausted - I'll recover by sleeping late tomorrow.

It's like an oven out there!

Today was one of those scorching hot days that everyone in Libya dreads. The air was blowing so hot - like you had your head stuck in an oven. No one feels like doing much in this kind of weather - and even though I cooked lunch no one was interested in eating anything but salad and bread.

Poor husband was off working on the house. Actually he's been out purchasing marble to use around the window and door frames. I like marble, no I take that back - I love marble. We've been having the marble debate going lately - I want all marble floors put in the house and Mustafa is wanting marble only inthe public areas of the house and cheaper floor tiles in other areas. I hope I win this argument. But lately the weather is too hot to even want to argue much. Hopefully the weather will cool off enough for us to have a heated discussion about the subject!

This is me unplugging Aljazeera! 

Non-nagging

The kids are full swiing into exams and studying - well maybe not studying. I am fulfilling my promise to myself NOT to be a nag. I will NOT NAG them about studying for their exams. The choice is theirs - to study or not - to pass or not! The TV is off - closed with a password and they have nothing to so but study . . . .

but it seems they do their best to find other things to occupy their time.

Yusef has decided that he should wash all his clothes by hand . . . so he goes in the bathroom and fills up a washtub with half a box of soap and makes all kinds of suds. Remember - this is the kid with his arm in a cast - what on earth makes him want to wash his clothes by hand? I think he is more interested in playing in the soap bubbles. Maybe he is trying to see how long it takes for me to explode into a rage and brake his other arm?

Sara has decided to try on ALL of her clothes and try out about 16 new hairstyles too. Not much studying happening with her.

Adam keeps picking on all his siblings - trying to start a fight. When things get really heated up he takes off and goes to hang out on the corner down the street. Study - no way!

Nora occasionally opens a book, but I noticed she is doodling alot. . . .maybe there is some hope.

Jenna is finished with school - she's complaining about having a stomach ache. Is it something serious I wonder, or is it the 3 dozen apricots she ate yesterday?

Ibrahim isn't in school yet - so no exams for him. But he is doing his best to be a pain. He has managed to get into the sugar container twice today and spill milk and tea all over the floor.

In the meantime, I clean up the kitchen continually. Everyone wants to eat sandwiches non-stop. And that jumbo box of corn flakes that their father bought home had to be consumed. Oh neat! Dad's brought home a box of tomatoes, cucumbers and green peppers - the kids spend studytime making Sharmoula!!!!!!

Almost time for me to head out the door to work! Finally, a break from the pressure of non-nagging my kids to study.

Motivation 

Cultural Quizzes!

I found this website full of cultural quizzes - click on the image and see how well you do. Very interesting stuff! http://www.getcustoms.com/2004GTC/quiz.html

back online

The phone had been out for about three days - they turn the phones on half service here when it's time to pay the bill, recieving calls only. Mustafa finally went to pay the bill today.

The kids begin final exams tomorrow. I have warned them that if they don't pass on the first sitting of the exams that they will not be allowed to try the second sitting. Either they pass the first time or they will have to repeat the year. They think I'm not serious, but I am.

I am also not going to nag them about studying either. They are old enough to take responsibilities for themselves. They may need to repeat the year to figure it out.

Sigh . . . I will be glad when exams are finally over.