The Mister and I have had social engagements pretty much every single weekend since we arrived. Tonight is the first night I've spent at home by myself and it was of my own volition. Granted, most of the first few parties or gatherings were because the new hires were still somewhat in the honeymoon phase of settling in. It was like the first few weeks of freshman year of college: we have all these fun, new, exciting friends and we love them ALL! We've since started working and our social circles have become more defined. But unlike college, our social groups are largely governed by our crazy work schedules. For example, I spoke to a lot of the new elementary teachers during the first couple of weeks, but since school has started, I have literally not set eyes on 98% of them! We just don't cross paths!
But the nice part about this new school is that the staff and administrators facilitate social hang out time that allows the different departments to mingle. Tonight it was the dinner club.
It's nice to have a variety of choices for social things to do here. Life in Saudi got a little lonely and I often felt like that awkward kid sitting alone in the cafeteria at lunch when I heard about how much fun some of my colleagues had on the weekends while I had just been facebooking in my pajamas alone at home.
The one drawback to having a school and colleagues that are so concerned with the health of my social life is that I spend a lot of time with North Americans. I know that sounds silly considering that I just complained about not having enough friends at this time last year. But now instead of focusing on just having a life, I'm going to need to focus on having Arabic friends. I want to try to connect to the local culture, which can be hard to do when living in an American bubble.
Not complaining, just rambling on about how much my life has changed.
Vicariously yours,
But the nice part about this new school is that the staff and administrators facilitate social hang out time that allows the different departments to mingle. Tonight it was the dinner club.
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| The theme was "Grandma's recipes." I made my granny's hot chicken salad. |
It's nice to have a variety of choices for social things to do here. Life in Saudi got a little lonely and I often felt like that awkward kid sitting alone in the cafeteria at lunch when I heard about how much fun some of my colleagues had on the weekends while I had just been facebooking in my pajamas alone at home.
The one drawback to having a school and colleagues that are so concerned with the health of my social life is that I spend a lot of time with North Americans. I know that sounds silly considering that I just complained about not having enough friends at this time last year. But now instead of focusing on just having a life, I'm going to need to focus on having Arabic friends. I want to try to connect to the local culture, which can be hard to do when living in an American bubble.
Not complaining, just rambling on about how much my life has changed.
 |
| This was the dish after dinner. You could say Granny's recipe was a hit. |
Vicariously yours,
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