Greetings,
We have been fairly enmeshed in the process of gearing up for a new school year. Teachers have all been meeting to work on units, advisory, attendance, planning ... As a new school in its second year, we have structures to get into place and decisions to be made to support the learning that we can provide. We are working on becoming approved as an MYP/IB school, so we have projects to do for that approval as well. School starts on August 28, but as it's right in the middle of the Holy Month of Ramadan, we will be missing many students who are either away or at home in Jeddah but unable to come to school. As a school, we have made a big push to encourage kids to come to school for these next two weeks of Ramadan and prior to the Eid holiday. The school day will be somewhat shortened to accommodate students who may be fasting and in honor of Ramadan. During this month of Ramadan, somewhat surprisingly, we have prescribed differences in required working hours for faculty and staff across the entire KAUST community, depending on whether a person is Muslim or non-Muslim. For an international community, I would have thought that all people would have the same working hours, shortened or not. Perhaps this is something that will be adjusted and/or equalized as time goes.
We have several new faculty and staff members for our growing student body - more from the United States than in the original group. It has been a pleasure to get to know the new members of our 'team'. They are a dynamic and talented group, who are working hard to learn so many new things and prepare for school too.
My mother and our son, Hayden, arrived a few days ago. They both looked happy and had gotten tremendous support and assistance at the airport from a KAUST representative who met them and helped them through immigration and customs. They are both struggling to adjust to the huge time difference between Colorado and Jeddah, but it gets better daily. It's very nice to be back together as a family - I missed that time. Hayden has matured a lot over his month away, including his two weeks at camp, and he seems confident and taller. Apparently, he wrote us a postcard from camp, but as we have not yet received it, I am so grateful that we had other ways to hear from him - phone calls and skype.
Hope for more blog posts soon. Perhaps even from Hayden. Thanks for reading, Jennifer
Jennifer, I am soooo thrilled to have found your blog! I am in the final stages of negotiating an offer from KAUST and my wife and I have spent the last few weeks combing the internet (and public library) for anything and everything relative to KSA, and KAUST in particular. I have read the majority of your posts and truly appreciate the insight you have provided to life in Jeddah and KAUST. Having spent the last couple of years looking for an opportunity to work overseas, coming across the KAUST opportunity has been both thrilling and daunting. Daily, we are running the full gamut of emotions from true excitement to “OMG”, what are we thinking!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I hope to be at KAUST by late October with my wife and our golden retriever following close behind and I look forward to the opportunity of meeting your wonderful family. Keep up the great posts; they are truly enjoyable to read.
Amy & Bill Bowen
Salt Lake City, Utah
Jennifer, I echo what Bill says above. I should receive my offer letter this weekend and should be in KAUST by October as well. I've enjoyed reading not only your posts but the posts from the Herrington's as well. My wife and daughters will come over the first of January 2011. I look forward to meeting all of you in the coming months.
ReplyDeleteJim & Jodie Pait
Wake Forest, NC
Thank you for the positive comments and feedback. It's great to be able to let people know what life is like at KAUST, at least to some degree. Exciting that you are both planning to come here. It's an amazing time to be here and to see this project with both its ups and downs. Another interesting blog is from a graduate student and it's called SaudiSober or something like that. You might check it out as well. It's quite well done, I think.
ReplyDeleteBest of luck. Let me know when you have arrived!