My Deja Vu.....

So I've officially been a teacher for around four days now (really? that's it???) and I'm already starting to see some tendencies from my students. For example, the kid that didn't do his homework the first couple of days and had to stay in from break....yeah, that's going to happen a lot. The over-achiever that keeps doing everything you ask, perfectly....he'll keep doing it (thank God someone does). It's truly amazing to see the patterns already start to form in my classes. It's like I could almost fill in the gradebook for the rest of the year right now. Shoot, let's just forget the next 10 months, I'll give them a grade now!

While that's not exactly ethically acceptable and yes, one or two students may be able to turn it around, it's really true. I'm starting to see the patterns. Which brings me to what I'm trying to create....

....patterns. Routines. I'm trying to get these basic things in my students' heads now so that they aren't a constant battle for the entire year. For example, my students have a tendency to just blurt out. That has to change. They also have a tendency to call me "Meester, Meester". I have to remind them that I do have a name and if they want me to answer, they should use it. Otherwise I'll refer to them as, "Kid in the corner with glasses" or worse (if it was acceptable-use your imagination).

Truth be told, week one is in the books, since all we have to do on Thursday is spelling tests and reflections in journals. That's not bad. Plus, it's pay day and I have the last three periods empty. GOOD TIMES!!!!

My First Few Days......

Well, it's finally come and gone. We've actually started school! I didn't really think this day would come. To be honest, I thought that maybe, just maybe we would be able to delay school for the entire year. What a great year that would be!! Just planning, planning, planning....break....and then more planning. Good times.

The first day was chaos, to be honest. We were going on two different schedules at one point, the kids were excited and it was a mess. I won't even get into it, but when you only have around 30 minutes to teach, it's a little tricky to fit it all in.

Days two and three have gone much better. The students are starting to get settled in (and the teachers too). They are starting to really get a feel for my rules and expectations, which is good because the sooner this happens, the sooner we really start working. I've told them many times that my goal is to prepare them for next year, not only in the content they are learning, but in behavioral expectations too. I've heard too many stories of older students that don't listen, do pay attention and constantly do the wrong things. We'll see if I can get one or two grades to change that. But who knows, maybe they'll forget it all over the summer!

If you look really closely, you can see our new school....at least the exterior of it. 

My breaking point....

The last week has been crazy over here. We start school on Sunday and we're starting to get everything ready to go...posters, calenders, copies, supplies....the only drawback is that we have yet to actually see our classrooms. I've been creating posters for the last few days and I was expecting to hang them up today, so that I could go on the camping trip that I've had planned for a couple of weeks. Well, today has come and gone and still, we have not been in the school. So now, instead of camping, I get to be picked up by a bus Saturday morning (normally a day off) and go to the school to get my room set up.

While normally I wouldn't write a post like this, I'm a little upset right now. I feel as though I'm being punished because someone else is running behind. I know that I should be professional and take it in stride (which I am) but it's starting to wear on me. The posters are ready. Copies, ready. Now we just have to get into the building....not ready.

On the bright side, this allows me to further prepare for the first week of school and maybe even week 2. I'm ready for Week 1, but now I can create a couple more things for the classroom (Pen Pal signs and some other stuff). I just wish I was camping....

The suburb of Maadi, from the felucca. 

A felucca on the Nile. 

My Birthday abroad.....

So last Sunday was my first birthday that I have spent outside of the United States. It was a memorable one.

After a hard day of not doing much at school, I walked to Korba (45 min) to meet up with Kelly and Erica, two of the other teachers over here. We then took a cab to meet Reham, who had set up a felucca ride on the Nile for my bday. Awesome.

After taking a cab ride to Maadi and the banks of the Nile, we got on a felucca and were about to set off, when Kain (another teacher) called. He, Hollis and Gheda (yes, two other teachers) were there and they came to join in the festivities. So the seven of us set off on a ride that lasted a little over an hour.

It was so relaxing on the river!!! There was a gentle breeze that felt great and it was dark, so we could actually see some stars (a first in my time here). We ate a little bit of chocolate cake on the boat, drank some coke and shared some stories. To be honest, it is going down as one of my favorite birthdays thus far.

God Bless

My Address (kind of).....

Some of you have requested an address from me. The drawback is that if you attempt to send something to my home address, there is a very good chance that I won't get it. Mail has a tendency to disappear on its way to Egypt or once it gets here. Also, mail is very slow and any packages will be opened by Customs. So nothing illegal please (Dustin-Brad, this means you).

So due to this, I'm going to have my school address as my mailing address. I hope this works out and things make it.

Hopefully this will work!

Bill Flinn
Nefertari American International School-3rd Grade
Km. 22 Ismailia Road
Cairo, Egypt

My Answers II

Okay, so I got the RIP to Steve off my chest and now I can answer some of the questions that have come in (wow, I almost feel like a famous author or something).

For those of you that don't know, I'm here in Cairo teaching 3rd graders at Nefertari American International School. I teach English and Social Studies and I'll have around 30 students in my two classes. As awesome as this sounds, the drawback is that our start date has been pushed back (again), this time to the 24th of September. While this may be good, the drawback is that we now have to stay until the 28th of June AND our starting date is also the start of our Ramadan schedule. That means we will only have school from 8:30 to 1:30 AND the kids won't be able to focus because most of them will be fasting....for a month. Good Times.

As for my water situation, I've been drinking mostly bottled water. This is to avoid being on the receiving end of the Pharaoh's curse (which two of the new teachers already picked up). The only time I don't drink from a bottle is when we do ice cubes, but we boil that water for around 20 minutes before we put it in the trays.

I also had a question about what I eat over here. Mostly, it's a lot of fast food and pizza (am I in college again?). We have Otlob, which is a website that allows you to order from a ton of restaurants and they will call and place the order for you. It's amazing. Even Chili's in on the list.
Tonight however, I broke from the mold a little. I made flour tortillas tonight (yes, from scratch) and I plan on cooking up some mean quesadillas tomorrow for lunch. Tortillas are hard to come by over here. You can rarely find them in Royal House or Metro (to local grocery stores). It's an experiment, so we'll see how it works out.

That's all for now. Thanks soooo much for all the comments, questions, prayers and love that I've received over the last few weeks. It means a lot.

God Bless.

One of the pictures of Steve from his zoo in Beerwah.  

A picture of the flowers outside Australia Zoo, in Beerwah.  

My Sad Day.....

I got home from school on Monday morning and I read the sad news...the Croc Hunter, Steve Irwin....dead. I was shocked really, I thought that of all the things that man did, how could he die from an animal attack? He's wrestled crocs, been chased by Komodo dragons and he's been bitten by numerous animals. Needless to say, I was a little upset.

For those of you that don't know, I loved the Croc Hunter. He had one of my favorite shows to ever be on TV. I remember the first episode I ever watched, he was holding a goana (a lizard) and he was bit in the hand. The goana had a hold of his hand and after a minute or two you could see blood dripping down from the mouth of the lizard. Needless to say, I thought this was awesome and I was hooked.
I've watched nearly all the episodes of his show, I had some of the tapes, I saw his feature length Docu-movie and secretly the only reason I wanted to go to Brisbane to student teach was so I could go to his zoo (which was the first thing I did).

After seeing the pictures of the flowers, cards, and visitors to his zoo, all mourning the loss of a great conservationist. This may sound cheesy, but the shot of a little boy, holding a teddy bear, looking at the flowers nearly made me cry. I'm sad to know that he's gone.

Some of you may think this is cheesy, but I really liked Steve Irwin. I loved his show and his message of conservation and protecting wildlife. I'll always remember Steve. Thoughts and prayers go out to his family.

God Bless

My working weekend....

I've had a ton of people ask me, "Hey, since you don't work until the 17th, are you going to do any traveling before then?"

While this is a fantastic question and if I wasn't a teacher it would be ideal, believe it or not, I am actually working right now. If only my job consisted of showing up on the first day and just going from there! No, unfortunately they expect us to "plan" things and keep the children occupied for the ENTIRE day. How ridiculous is that? Can't I just hand half of them wiffle ball bats and tell them to go nuts?

This being said, I took advantage of the weekend to do a little bit of planning. As it looks right now, I have the spelling lists planned out until December. I also have my plans for Social Studies done until almost the same time. I still have a ton of time left in the day, so I should get a few more things done, but alas, it may go down hill from here. I'm starting to feel an unproductive streak coming on.

Finally, a view looking at the other end of the street. No, not all of Cairo has this many trees.  

Here is my sweet bedroom.  

Here is our living room in the apartment. 

My Answers....

Okay, okay, so I've been getting some questions on the blog and I figured maybe, just maybe I would answer one or two of them.

First off, the pollution here is not just smog, but there is honestly trash on the streets. Don't get me wrong, they do have people that come around and collect trash from our building (as well as other buildings) but there is still trash on the streets.
Also, the water is a little gross. Drink it and you'll get sick (just ask two of the new teachers here). They say that you will get used to it after a few weeks, but I couldn't deal with the Pharaoh's Curse for that long.
As for a Feminist movement, that's where things get interesting. To be sure, there are plenty of strong women in the country. However, women are seen as objects here, more so than in the States (in my opinion at least). I've been on the Metro and watched as men stared at the women I'm traveling with. I'm not talking about 5 seconds or anything even near that short, but for a long, long period of time. I've also heard stories of men saying outrageous things to women and even touching them in inappropriate places.
However, this being said, if anyone was to mess with a woman here, and she yelled or did something about it, the men within the vicinity would assist her and he would get what was coming to him. Interesting contradiction huh?

As for more photos.....soon.

God Bless

My Contact info...

Some of you have been asking for contact info: To be honest, mail isn't great here in Egypt. I've been told the mailing things to the school is reliable, so once I get that address, I'll post it. As for phone numbers:

Home: (20) 02-635-8886 We have a rotary phone with no machine, so no messages. Sorry. If this doesn't work, take out one of the zeros.

Cell: (20) 10-712-0303 Again, no voicemail here either. So if you catch me, yeah!!

Hope to hear a voice soon.
God Bless

This is the view from our balcony looking at the Military Academy. You can see the satellite dishes on top of the buildings in the background. 

My first few days.....

Well, it's official, I've been here for two weeks now. Don't worry, I'm actually having a good time over here, although there have been a few slip-ups and lots of laughs.

This week has been interesting, to say the least. I have decided to join a softball team this semester. The team plays/practices in Maadi, a suburb about 35 minutes away (in a cab at least). We practiced yesterday and truth-be-told, I suck. For those of you that don't know, I've never played baseball or softball, especially organized baseball/softball. In fact, I really don't like baseball, but this is giving me a way to get out of the apartment and a way to meet people.

Today, we took a trip to Maadi to eat lunch. About eight of us went from the school and we had a blast. We ate at a place called Luciles (or something like that). It is an American restaurant there. Maadi is a suburb with a lot of foreigners and ex-pats. It's a very nice place, but it's a complete contradiction to the Egypt that I live in.

School is going well. Currently I'm the only 3rd grade teacher, which would worry me a lot more if we started on Sunday. They have to hire someone to teach Math/Science. This also meant that I was volunteered to be on the Discipline Committee. Good times.

Arabic is coming along slowly. My roommate Alex and I are working on a word of the day. Today is was behb or door. Other words have been beda (eggs) and gamoosa (water buffalo). We don't pick the most useful words, but they're fun to know.

I'll post a picture or two tonight. I hope all is well where ever you are.
God Bless