I was talking to my father over Skype a few days ago when he mentioned the neglected state of my little blog.  So I decided it’s time for an update…

The Holidays

What can I say, it was great to have a real vacation as well as money.  I spent a relaxing week in Korea with K before she joined me for a nice week in Doha.  K was surprised to see a Christmas tree waiting for her in my apartment when we arrived.  Spending Christmas with her was great. We even got to share it with our families courtesy of wifi webcams and Skype, which I’d like to think is a tradition now.  We did a lot of sight seeing, shopping  and even went camping.  She loved dune bashing.  We also got to eat at ‘Maze’, a Gordon Ramsey restaurant.  K left on new years eve so we ushered in 2012 in the airport lobby.  The next week was spent relaxing and waiting for the new school year to start.

The College

What can I say about the college?  I’m never sure how freely to write when it comes to work related things.  Sure the job has it’s frustrating moments, but so have most jobs I’ve worked. Most of the frustrations for me are administrative, there are committees and co-ordinators for everything.  I’m the assignment/testing co-ordinator for my group and I’m on the TELL (tech enhanced language learning) committee as well as the assessment committee.  Kafka would be impressed no doubt.  However  I can say with certainty though that I work with some great people, and this semester it seems like I’ve got a good group of students.  I’ve also applied for a part-time position with the school’s testing centre.  Just because I’ve finally got money doesn’t mean I don’t want more!

Life in Qatar

Outside of school, I can be seen in my apartment pacing around like a caged animal with my head buried in text.  I’m picking up the Masters again now that I’ve settled in.  I’m taking a much more organized tact to my studies this time.  Last time I made a very general plan, as in I need to read all this in about 2 and half months.  This time I’ve looked everything over closely and given myself weekly reading lists, which have been further subdivided into a daily list of pages to cover so that I may stay on pace.  Thus everyday can now be reduced to a page count.  I used my iPod nano’s pedometer today to get an idea of just how much pacing I tend to do, turns out I’ve walked over 2 miles today with book in hand. Unfortunately I have miles to go before I sleep.