I finally paid the course fees today. A bit of a sticker shock for us, we're used to a lot of cobbling things together here and there, I am hopeful that we will be able to be reimbursed from dh's employer as we are for our other educational expenses -- once again it's a new thing, so I don't know what the reaction will be until we actually submit the paperwork. Regarding the university, what worked for me first was to have a connection to the school I was interested in approaching. I'm an adjunct, I only teach a class or two a semester, but even that small amount of being on campus has given me the chance to have people at least see that I am familiar. I think that was a big help, that and being able to say "Oh, yeah, I work over in that department" I believe made people at each step more comfortable in navigating a new procedure. I had not been involved with the registrar's office at all, but for example at one point in the process I had a sit down with the dean of students, and while I had not actually met him before we had seen each other at graduation ceremonies, so the familiarity helped. Second, I searched out fellow Americans to help me get the ball rolling. I knew I needed people to help me who knew about auditing and what it means, so even when I was first asking around about it at the school I approached full-time American professors I am friends with, and then they asked further on my behalf. Ds has only been attending one week, but so far so good. The class is really small -- about ten students -- which I like; and there is just no way we could have replicated at home what is in the lab he is using. This week was all about learning about lab equipment and lab safety, but I think that alone has been interesting for ds to see that level of equipment; he kept saying that they had some things we had at home but in much bigger sizes -- like the pipettes and graduated cylinders, etc. I was telling dh, even if we were not using this for high school credit, and even if we are not able to get reimbursed, to me the experience is worth it for him to navigate a classroom experience and be inside a formal science lab. I'm hopeful the entire experience will remain positive.

Yes, it's the same here. And I mentioned to the main prof when we first met that any feedback he gave was entirely at his discretion, he and the lab prof both brought up themselves individually the evaluation aspect as a way for ds to see his own progress... but then "school" was mentioned and I felt may have caused some concern. So now I'm torn between just letting sleeping dogs lie -- and deal with it whenever quizzes and assignments come up -- or sending an email or whatever assuring them that we have no expectations in this area, whatever they wish to do (or not do) is fine. Or just butt out completely, I feel like I'm hovering too much. I tend to overthink.

It's the ongoing saga! We spent a good part of yesterday at the university. I had forgotten how tedious it is to wade through all the procedural stuff -- wait in line to get this form, take it to another office and wait to get approval, track down where the professors are and get their signatures, go to this office and get a stamp, etc. etc. Well, the registrar has given the green light. She said to have ds start attending the class while we work out the details, so he went to his first class yesterday. I had to get the signature of the lectures prof and the lab prof; the lab prof seemed a little unsure, in introducing this whole situation to them I may have misspoke in saying that he would be using this towards his chemistry credit. So in talking to her she was saying that she would grade ds' assignments but that it couldn't be construed as something "official", and I said of course not, this would be for our own benefit, etc. etc. and we could play it by ear how she wants to handle grading. When ds went to his first class, he said he asked the prof for the syllabus (he missed the first week) so he could give it to his school. Ugh. I told ds that from now on he should not mention the umbrella school at all, that anything of that nature -- syllabi, grades, tests -- should be looked at as something for our own personal benefit, not as anything "school related." So hopefully this will iron itself out, but if it comes up again with the professors should I just reiterate that any grades or things would be for our own personal use? It's not like I turn in assignments to our umbrella school anyway, at the end of a course ds has to write up a report of what he did and what he learned, and I have to give my evaluation of what he did -- all of which I can do without "grades" from the teachers... in fact, isn't this what we usually do? Like when we did earth science last year and ds had TC video lecture series he was assigned to watch -- isn't this somewhat similar to that? If anyone has thoughts or suggestions on how I can divert any discontent from the professors on this topic, that'd be great. I don't anticipate anything, I have hope that I won't even need to talk to them again at all -- just drop off ds at the school. They still have to work out the payment part. I spent over half an hour with the dean of students yesterday afternoon (thankfully a fellow American!), he says there is no problem it is only a procedural issue. They've never had a non-student audit. When I went to the finance dept to pay, they didn't know what to do with me, they needed a student id number. They tried to tell me ds would have to apply and register as a student. etc. So the dean said that they need to work out how they will code it in the computer. It's been a bit painful, lol, but the dean was reassuring that if we go through this now, then hopefully it will be established and if we (or anyone) choose to do it again it shouldn't be so involved.

In Dubai Mall you will feel like you are in any mega mall. There are signs, I believe, requesting "reasonable" clothing, but you see pretty much everything there. The number of expats/tourists way, way outnumbers the locals -- honestly, you may see a handful of local folks walking around but you will be in a sea of people from all over the world. The only time clothing will be an issue is if you are planning to visit any of the mosques or local cultural centers, in which case you might choose to wear longer/looser clothes and have a shawl or scarf handy. Outside of that, anything I assume you would normally wear -- you will see it all in Dubai! I don't know how you have planned your itinerary, when I have had guests come for a short time I would plan a day for "new Dubai", a day for "old Dubai," and then excursions to other emirates as possible.

I was the blond guy in this photo on our flight to the US: In fact, in my case the guy was even perhaps an additional inch or two further down, I could seriously have minutely examined the top of his hair scalp, lol. He reclined at the beginning of the flight and left it down the whole flight, even through meals. It was a 14 hour flight. Like the guy in this photo, I could only take/remove my food tray by sliding it to the side. I didn't really fault the guy in front of me, I didn't ask him to raise his seat, or ask the stewardess. (On our flight back the stewardess actually automatically asked the person in front of me to raise her seat during meals.) I did recline my seat slightly, just so I didn't feel so on top of him. And I know that airline seats are not like the most perfect, like-new items; there was a lady next to me whose seat wouldn't recline at all; I'm sure there are many seats that are broken in this way, or recline a little further than they should from usage over time, etc. etc. My overall take on it is that we should all try to get along. If I want to recline I will glance behind me to see if the person behind me is perhaps sleeping so I can go ahead; or if he/she is awake I catch their eye and ask if they would mind if I reclined a bit. If they said yes, they did mind, then I wouldn't do it, but I've never had anyone say that -- I think most are happy that asked them first -- not even necessarily as seeking permission so much as giving a warning, lol.

Thanks, everybody! It was the first day of the school year here (for all schools, not just our homeschooling) so hectic and I'm still trying to unpack! Sort of trying. Lol.

Thanks, ladies! :)

This is one of the books on ds' list for Middle Eastern studies this year, we're on the modern period, I don't know if this is the kind of thing you are looking for? Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought

I volunteered at our local zoo when I was in highschool, cleaning the glass cases was a regular part of my job; i obviously expected (and got) lots of fingerprints, what was more troublesome were the kids who banged on the glass cases, even with a sign clearly posted. I would be back behind the cases and would hear a loud, echoing thunderclap -- sometimes we'd run out to confront someone who wouldn't stop, usually kids and their parents/guardians nearby. Maybe they didn't realize how truly loud and echoing that noise is from the other perspective, it sounds like such an innocent tap or knock from the outside.

Where we shop they have those coin operated carts. If you want a cart, you put in a dirham; if you want your dirham back, you put the cart back in the line and insert the tab into the cart in front of you (of course, you can't do that if the cart isn't properly returned). I generally do return it, although if I have someone helping me take my bags to the car I will give them the cart to return -- that one dirham means a lot more to them than to me. :sad:

I just came back from a trip to the States. The flight over the guy in front of me reclined almost the whole time, and his head was nearly in my lap. I felt like I had to recline some just to get away from him, lol. Coming back, the person in front of me also reclined but it wasn't too bad, also the stewardess had the person put her seat up during meals which was nice. They didn't do that on the earlier flight, which meant I had to slide my tray sideways to get it on or off my tray table. I try not to recline unless I really have to. I was on a flight some years ago where a woman was so irritated at the reclining man in front of her she kept kicking his seat. Hard. With full force. Even after he called the stewardess and complained. Eventually the man switched places with someone who didn't want to recline, I thought that was unfair but I guess on a plane the main goal is keeping calmness. Anyway, after that I have always made a point of either trying to get the person's attention behind me and ask if they mind if I recline a bit, or at least I do a gradual recline and only as much as I need to get comfortable.

The meeting went well. The prof is young (well, compared to me, lol) and very enthusiastic about chemistry. I think he was excited someone from outside was interested in his class. He said he thought ds would do fine. He didn't know anything about auditing, but was open and flexible about it. Once he was on board we went to the registrar's office to see about signing up. There was a bit of a runaround there, most people had no clue what auditing was... One staff member actually told us to just show up and sit in the class... When I said 'what about paying?' He looked confused and sent me to someone else, lol. But eventually we got ahold of the right person and it was simply a matter of filling out a brief form. Now we have to wait until the end of drop and add week, which is next week; if there is room in the class he's in, at 50% of the regular tuition rate. I'll keep updating as I hear ;)

Funny you should post, Jamie, we have a meeting this morning with the course professor to discuss! (Classes start next week.) As advised here and elsewhere, I sent him a brief email explaining who I was and what I wanted, and requesting a meeting to discuss it; I'm taking the fact that he sent a very gracious response ("I'm very glad to come to know of you, please come to my office at this day/time, etc. etc.") as a good sign-- surely if he was not interested he would have either ignored my email or said no. I'll let you know what happens today, I will mention as a preliminary that there is no mention on the university's website of auditing a course. I had to ask someone I knew who was a full-timer, and she asked around on my behalf until she was able to track down a copy of the official university policy on auditing. My takeaway, if you don't find what you are looking for that doesn't mean it isn't there.

Now that you mention it, yeah, there's a whole lot of centering things around food, lol. I remember when I got married in Mumbai my in-laws were planning the reception and they brought, like, ten different kinds of homemade ice cream for me to taste and select from. The torture! lol

Eid Mubarak!!

I would expect that they would, I don't know for sure. I talked to my adviser about having ds audit a course at a local university, and they were fine with that counting towards a credit. They are pretty flexible.

For those still looking for information, I wanted to recommend the debates on Intelligence2 regarding Israel/Palestine. If you aren't already familiar, they conduct debates on a range of current event topics and they generally bring qualified and experienced people to represent each side; for example, in one debate about Palestine they had a former candidate for Palestinian president and a former Israeli UN ambassador. If you go to their website you can search for "Palestine" and pull up all the past debates regarding this topic. I have spent the last couple of weeks going back over all the relevant debates, what I found particularly helpful were the questions from the moderator and the audience -- often they were questions I had, and it was helpful to have answers from both sides in a cogent and well thought-out manner, as opposed to emotional or hyperbolic. I just found it interesting, maybe it would be interesting to someone else... http://intelligencesquaredus.org/component/search/?searchword=palestine&searchphrase=all&Itemid=132 Oh, and I've also been listening to some of the other debates, I find I rather like this format, although I don't always agree with the choice of debater or the outcome :)

Well it's not like Hamas condemned it or tried to distance themselves from it or openly tried to find the culprits. I think there have been discussions all along that it may have been Hamas members working outside the express command of Hamas leadership. I know that I had read before that the Israeli gov't knew more than it was letting on in the beginning. ..and, as I mentioned, the Israeli gov't has also made clear all along that they saw this as an opportunity to try and neutralize Hamas. I guess I'm not surprised by anything in that article, other than the person writing it seems surprised, lol.

My cat growing up learned to urinate in the toilet. Maybe they are learning? I think you should buy them little cat toothbrushes. Seriously, I think it's the same as cats that climb on your keyboard whenever you start typing, or the same cat I had, whenever my mom pulled out her sewing machine, would come running to watch the needle.

Most of the political posts on my FB page from Muslims are about Gaza; most of the political posts from Christians are about the persecution of Christians in Iraq by ISIS -- and can I just say, again maybe it is political, that I find ISIS disgusting and reprehensible. What is going wrong with the world?

I'm going to quibble with you a bit here. Three Israeli teens were kidnapped and murdered; Israel accused Hamas, Hamas denied it but praised the effort. Israeli forces began searching the West Bank and arrested hundreds, including a lot of Hamas folks in the West Bank. Netanyahu said from the beginning that his efforts were two-fold, to recover the teens and to break the unity government between Hamas and Fatah. Five Palestinians were killed. In response Hamas started launching rockets from Gaza. Israel then launched an operation in Gaza to take out as much of Hamas' weaponry/tunnel infrastructure/leadership as possible. A day after the funeral for the Israeli teens, a Palestinian teen was kidnapped and murdered in Jerusalem. There were some riots and counter-riots in East Jerusalem and other cities. The police arrested six suspects, three have confessed. This is my understanding of the situation, I could be wrong. One thing this has emphasized to me is the fractured nature of the Palestinian "peoples" -- there is the West Bank, there is Gaza, and there are the Palestinians living within Israel proper; and it seems that while the areas are interconnected, they are also distinct.

Well, to be completely honest, I have virtually no knowledge of other umbrella schools, so I can't compare at all. When we were moving here I started looking at options, and right at the beginning I came across families living in my area of the world who used Clonlara and were able to put their kids in local schools when they needed to. And I was already doing my own thing, so I wanted to retain that freedom. We have been with Clonlara since my oldest was in first grade (he's now entering 11th), and I've never looked at anything else. With the earlier grades I have very little interaction with my adviser. I could, probably, if I wanted; I mean, when I had questions she is always ready with suggestions, but I just don't have many questions, lol. As an example, this year my 3rd grader for literature wanted to do all poetry, so I mentioned that to our adviser and she sent back a list of some books I could look at. That kind of thing. I send in an overview of my plans at the beginning of the year, and a simple report at the end of each semester. That's mostly it. With high school I have to cover the required credits that include both the state requirements for their state and some additional things they add on There has been a lot more interaction with our adviser, I have to send in more detailed plans and more detailed reports. They are flexible with how you go about creating a school credit, but you do have to keep in a dialog with them so that they can approve it, etc. I have a longish phone meeting with ds and our adviser a couple times a year, and emails going back and forth as needed. At first I bristled a bit at the increased oversight for high school, but now I find that I quite like it -- it helps me get my ducks in a row and is helpful to have someone to bounce ideas off of (or get suggestions from). I should add that education expenses are part of dh's work contract here, so I never really paid a huge amount of attention to the fees -- by homeschooling we are way under the contract limit, so that has not been a concern so far.

We are registered with Clonlara and have been for the entire time we've lived overseas (10 years now). The main reason I chose that is because where I live it can be extremely difficult to place your child in a school without official transfer documents from another school. When we first moved here I looked into schools for my oldest, who was in KG at the time, and the main American school I visited wanted transfer paperwork -- he wasn't even required to be in school in our home state at that age! So for us it has been mainly as an insurance policy, in the event for some reason we needed to put our kids in school here. I will say that while I didn't use their services much in elementary grades, now that my oldest is in highschool I have had a lot more interaction with our adviser and am happy to have that interaction and oversight. Would I have done the same if we were living in the US, where I was sure that my kids could get into school somewhere even without an official paper trail? I'm not sure. I hadn't planned on it. I had never really considered it for the US side of things, just the foreign country side.

Our current cat is one that came up to my boys when they were leaving a masjid in our neighborhood. No collar, he was a little matted, had some scabs from fighting, and the poor thing had wounds on his foot pads the vet said came from walking on burning hot pavement. I took him to our local shelter and they kept him for two weeks. I told them I was interested in the cat if no one claimed him -- he was very friendly and sweet -- and I posted on the community notice boards online with a picture that I had found a cat. The shelter said their policy was to wait two weeks. Given his condition, that he had no collar and had not been fixed, they did not think he was currently someone's pet. So we waited two weeks, he got cleaned up and was fixed, then we paid an adoption fee and brought him home. I felt uncomfortable for a long time that maybe he belonged to someone. He is so sweet and friendly, he is clearly not from the feral cat population that is all over here. But we have so much expat turnover, people will abandon their cats and in fact this summer has been a record with shelters overwhelmed with pets left behind. I wouldn't be surprised if he was turned out or left behind, or maybe he ran away although I find that harder to believe.

Thanks, this will be ds' first formal classroom experience, ever, so I'm wanting to not make I any more stressful than it needs to be. I also don't know that they've had many (any?) students audit at the University, I've gotten a lot of quizzical looks when I've brought it up with different people there, although once I've explained our unique (to them) situation and shown them the policy paper, they have been positive about it. I keep telling myself if things don't work out for whatever reason, well, we'll just go with plan B!