Superficial Joy

For a while I thought I might come back to the United States because I knew I was done with Abu Dhabi. But a few close friends, and some acquaintances, told me they didn't think I was coming back. They were right! I am delighted to announce that I will be moving to Israel next year to join the staff of the  Walworth Balbour American International School ! My mind was mostly much made up when the school year began--it is time to leave Abu Dhabi. I like my job and love my friends and the community I have found here, but I don't love the weather. It is  so  hot! After all, I left Texas in part because of the heat (the other reason was the cockroaches, which we also have here in the UAE). And there is so little to do outside. I was rather spoiled by the weather and activities in Boise--skiing within an hour of finishing the work day, running in the mountains regularly, riding my bike to work. This has been an excellent first overseas job. Thus I attended a job fair in Dub

I brought all of my Abu Dhabi scrapbook stuff over to my new [temporary] digs and have taken over the coffee table in the living room with it. I am making progress, though. Last weekend I got all of my trip to Zanzibar finished and after work this week I got all the way through to the beginning of Istanbul! Here's a sample (in no particular order).

We all knew it was coming back at the beginning of March. Finally the word came: the UAE moved all spring breaks forward from March 29 to instead begin March 8, with distance learning to begin on Sunday, March 22. As I write this I have completed 2 weeks of distance learning (more on that in later posts). The relocation of spring break of course meant we all had travel plans to cancel. I was first going to go to China, Japan and Hong Kong to visit friends, but that was cancelled ages ago when the virus was just in China. The backup plan was Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. We were eventually able to cancel all the hotels and how have a variety of vouchers for various airlines in the region. The backup backup plan was staying in the UAE. I spent some time at the coast before school resumed. I made it through about 4 days of working from home in my 500 square foot apartment on the 18th floor before I started having panic attacks and feeling like I was in an MRI machine (post is