Three Things Thursday; UAE top three

Happy 2017 readers! And with a short crimbo holiday under my belt to aid in the recovery from finally completing my studies (huzzah), I brought in the new year with three…

Deira and Dubai Creek

Burj Khalifa

Old and New in Masdar City

…fun things to do on a trip to the United Arab Emirates.

My first henna tattoo… and other TEFL tales

It’s probably because I’m studying again, desperately trying to get the final module of the Delta completed and off my plate in order to put it behind me and use all my new Super Teacher skills on different challenges, but I’ve noticed that the long-neglected ‘Working’ aspect of this blog’s tagline is creeping back in.

Last autumn, when I set sail for Thailand and the first, intensive part of this Delta journey, I was definitely burnt out. All the joy had disappeared from my classroom. My inventiveness had diminished. I was seriously questioning whether sinking a few thousand dollars into a further qualification and a definite period of unemployment was the best of ideas, or whether I should turn my mind to another career change.

Run day Monday: MSQ 10km beach loop

MSQ, Shatti, Al Khuwair: 10km loop

Map courtesy of Mappedometer.com. Route 564360.

This is a great route I started over the summer before my knees started playing up again. I’m currently doing little-and-often and hoping to build back both the stamina and pace I’ve lost over the past year.

Starting at a handy parking spot on the service road for Madinat Sultan Qaboos st, head over the highway into the shade lanes of MSQ where the first three kilometres take in the quiet back streets and rolling hills leading down to the busy Sultan Qaboos highway.

How to write a great personal statement

This month’s ‘How to…’ on completing a great application for your next job in TEFL.

TEFLism

Part 1 – the Personal Statement

It’s easy to find a lot of information on employers and interview techniques for most ELT jobs, from disgruntled rants on Dave’s ESL cafe to informative reviews on Glassdoor. However, information in one of the market’s best-known employers seems thin on the ground.

The good news about their application process is that it’s uniform and transparent and aims to be as objective as such a procedure of selection can be, so there is a process you can follow.

I’ve experienced three BC interviews and a number of applications so far in my ELT career, two of which have been successful. Each time I’ve refined my process using help from others and what minimal internet resources I’ve found. Here’s my guide to making the best impression you can.

Photo credit: Flazingo.com via Flickr

View original post 623 more words

Three Things Thursday; ancient things of Oman

Q: What do you do if you’re a fast-developing oil economy with outrageously beautiful natural resources caught in a slowdown ?

A: Turn to tourism and hope you can successfully diversify in time to stop it all going down the pan.

Winter Is Coming. And in Oman this is time for great celebration. We can finally venture out of the house during daylight hours without the fear of being burned up like vampires. The Eid holiday at the start of September gave me an opportunity to take advantage of this and head through the Hajjar mountains and into the Interior for a couple of days. In my inimitable “explore-by-random-accident-rather-than-any-conspicuous-planning”style, what I encountered was glorious and wholly unexpected. Wonderful for me, problematic for the country unless it seeks to dramatically expand its capacity and infrastructure for tourism.

With few road signs and little in the way of a comprehensive guide to reaching and enjoying the best of Oman, I cobbled together a great couple of days’ of exploring. In the spirit of sharing, here are three…

Hillside tombs

The view from above

Mud-brick mansion

… wonderful ancient sights in Oman.

Oman green update

It’s been six months! I can hardly believe it, but it’s a year since I left Korea, six months since I arrived in my latest home, and about two months since the heat began to ease off enough to allow for exploration. And the first thing I needed to explore, quite desperately, was a recycling centre.

Yes, since my last post about keeping carbon-footprint conscious in Oman, progress has been slow, but significant. Happily, this is not only true for me personally but also in wider society, where energy conservation is being nurtured. As the oil price slump continues and Oman seeks to diversify, belts are being tightened, expats are flooding home, and the answer to a number of problems is decidedly Green.

Travels and changes

How much can change in six years? Well, it turns out pretty much everything. Hair colour (used to be kind of brown-and-blonde, now obnoxious red over far too much grey), goals (didn’t really have anything specific in mind other than ‘travel’ and ‘have adventures’, now aiming for early retirement somewhere warm with a farm and a goat), hobbies (used to be dancing at every opportunity, now brewing tropical ciders in my broom cupboard and tropical compost in my garden) and a host of other superficial and more profound things.

So serious, so salsa – Antigua, Guatemala

The gateway to Tequila

A younger me in pursuit of adventures. Shortly pre-CELTA

Run day Monday: Worldwide WordPress 5k (wwwp5k)

The start of the WordPress community’s Worldwide 5km community blog n’ run coincided precisely with this month’s runday Monday, so rather than a new route, I did an old route at a new time of day and hit the road early.

Map courtesy of Mappedometer.com. Route 539820.

Well – early-ish. I intended to set out by 8am but eventually got out there at 9.30am. The temperature already read 31°c and humidity was at around 75%.It was pretty hot, but nowhere near as bad as the height of summer.

How to travel through the Balkans by bus

Let’s go!

Last month I wrote a dedicated guide to Albania on the same topic, because bus travel in Albania deserves a post all of its own. This month is a quick guide to the rest of my bus route through the Balkans.

Three Things Thursday; Nguyen tombs of Hue

I’m reading northern blogs hinting at the signs of the end of the summer and the first signs of autumn with hopeful anticipation. Temperatures have teasingly dropped a little here at the south east corner of the Arabian peninsula, but the ferocious summer shows few signs of letting up just yet. So while I wait for a glorious winter to roll on in and allow me to showcase the best of Oman, I’m reaching back to the archives again for this month’s Three Things in order to share Three Nguyen Tombs…

Khai Dinh main gate

Minh Mang main gate

Tu Duc temple entrance

…you can reach under your own steam in Hue, Vietnam.