Beyond Samarkand

The mid-term is tomorrow. The students are excited and so am I. After the mid-term, I get two weeks off. Ash is still waiting on her visa from Portugal, so we will kick around Jeddah and Taif for the time. Who knows, her visa may even arrive and she'll be off before the holiday is done. If so, it is good there is is a separate terminal for Hajj travelers and regular travelers. Hajj season is here, and that's the reason for the holiday. I have two weeks off, and can go back and forth to Jeddah if I like. Of course, the road to Jeddah will be crowded as it goes right by Makkah on the way. I had to do it once last year on my motorcycle, waiting nearly an hour and working through the stopped traffic to reach the turn off. I'm not looking forward to going to Jeddah in the coming weeks. Maybe if we leave early, early in the morning we will be okay.

The semester is finally underway. This is shaping up to be the best year yet at the Academy, at least from my point of view. I am challenged in that I'm working with the students with the least amount of English. After having upper groups all last year, my teacher language has been to high level and too fast, so this should get me back to ground on teaching basics. The group itself is smaller, only ten students. I'm hoping that two others, held back for failing last year, might be returned to their current year group. I doubt it, and honestly it wouldn't be better for them, but it would make things easier for me. In other news, the labs have been frustrating. I somehow assigned an unknown password to the students' Moodle logins. Making for wasted class sessions and a great of frustration on the part of teachers, all of which is my fault. I'm fixing today, but not a great kick-off to Moodle. Additionally, our updated typing software hastily installed last month, does...

The new semester has begun, at least for my online classes. I've been having problems with registration exacerbated by my internet connections - yes, I have two - becoming terrible at the same time. Fortunately, school has not started here yet as Ramadan is almost upon us and NOTHING gets done in Saudi Arabia during Ramadan. The large amounts of nothing getting done are a worry at my school. We are down to four front line teachers, and one admin that can teach some classes in a pinch. We will have eight odd students this fall, which is down from 120 or students last term. We are supposed to be staffed with ten teachers, and supposedly have four "in the pipeline". Given the delays, I will be surprised if we see even two teachers in time for the term to start. Okay, I'll be surprised if we see them before October. While 20+ students in an ESL class may be normal in a public school in the States, it's unusual here. We are supposed to have an upper limit of twelve - t...

I'm beginning to research the next podcast. I have various articles from the Arab News about black magic, sorcerers and the Committee for the Prevention of Vice. Now to weave these into an interesting narrative. If you have specific questions to ask, please e-mail them as text or audio and I'll work them into the show. Thanks for listening to the first show!

I've finished the certificate portion of the masters program. I have to say, I'm really happy about that, and really happy about the work I've done so far. I only need four more courses for the masters, so should finish by spring. It's been a personal goal for a long, long time to have a masters degree. The funny thing is, finishing this one, I want to try and do others - philosophy, digital libraries, humanities.It's unreal in a way to find myself contemplating doing all three in some kind of sequence. In other news, if I didn't have other plans, an ESL job I'd love to do: Pavlodar, Kazakhstan

About two weeks ago we went to Makkah, (or Mecca if you are used to the traditional spelling). Ash and Ammi did Umrah while I did the driving. As I find driving in Saudi cities stressful I did not do Umrah myself. A note for those not familiar, Umrah is the "Lesser Pilgrimage", compared to Hajj, the "Greater Pilgrimage" that most educated people in the West have heard of before. Anyway, we arrived shortly after night fall. After getting settled in the ladies went off to do Umrah and I found a spot to view the Qaaba and wait. While there I was able to get a few pictures. The spot I picked was popular with visitors. Many people stopped to take pictures. Other people would slide past the rail to join the inner walkway on the upper level. At one point a girl stopped and spoke with me in English. From Iran, she was surprised to meet a Westerner at the Qaaba. The benefits of pilgrimage - to open your mind to greater possibilities! The evening was well spent. I was nice to...

A video lead-in to the podcast of Beyond Samarkand.