Pretty pictures and rants, all in one!

Rachel and I went over to a fellow teacher's place the other day for some brews, bbq, and music swapping. Mike Hockley is a middle school math teacher from Wisconsin. He's into motorcycles, beer, and classic rock. My type of guy. I only wish I would have met his ass earlier this year. Anyway, he lives in an apartment building in Juffair, the same part of town I live in. Juffair is riddled with high rises, but it's also home to the Grand Mosque, the biggest mosque on the island. We went up on his roof to cook on the grill (that's him above) and I got some bad ass photos while I was up there. He lives across the street from the Grand Mosque, and I got some sweet photos.
But first, a few of the roof. This is looking from the same spot I took the picture above, except a bit to my left. This building stays true to form with the rest of them in Juffair with the pool on the roof. Rachel's just chillin'.
Taken from the back side of the pool. You can start to see the huge ass neon sign above Mike.
And there she be. That's the name of his building--although we're a long way away from Dallas, cowboy.

This is standing at the edge of the pool looking to right. You can see the low tide with the boats normally floating shored up on the beach. Where the cars are parked is normally where the water reaches.
And this is looking left towards Juffair.
This is the new main library under construction. Like all Arab things, it's gaudy (and fucking huge). I need to get a front on view so you can see the obvious knock-off design of the Sydney opera house.
Another shot of Juffair...

And these are my time progression shots of the Grand mosque. I should flip the order of these, but I'm lazy. You'll get the idea.



This one was taken without using my zoom, to give you an idea of where his building was.

Now that that's out of the way, I'm gonna vent about today. So last Thursday I gave my last test to 6 different classes. Well, one of my 4th grade girls who is rather intelligent but highly annoying (and a behavioral issue) decided to cheat. To give you a background about this culture--I've read in the paper since I've been out here about cheating at the high school and collegiate level. It's incredibly rampant here. And in most cases, these kids seem to be proud of beating the system. They tell how they hide answers in the abaya (black dress) sleeves, in the head scarf, hell some even put in a bluetooth piece that is completely covered by either the hijab or the towel the men wear. In fact, when I went to complain about this girl cheating (more on that in a minute) to Janet (the principal), she told me that just that morning one of the Arabic staff's daughters at the university came into Janet's office boasting about how she had just cheated on one of her final exams. That's how bad cheating is in this society. Anyway. I was giving a test, and when they finish I normally give them a piece of paper and tell them to keep busy (draw, whatever.) Well, this specific girl decided to write the answers on this paper and give them to her friend who was sitting two desks away. I caught them red-handed, and during the course of my discipline cycle I found out that Laurie (this girl's English teacher) had caught them cheating in her class just 2 periods prior. Long story short, this A+ girl got a 0, as did her friend. So today her dad comes to see me after school, pulls me aside and begins to talk to me. He asks me what her final grade is and I tell him with that zero it comes out to a B. He tells me that's not her level--and get this--proceeds to tell me "so you're just threatening her with a B. She'll get her report card when school's done and she'll have an A+--like SURPRISE!" I looked at this asshole in disbelief and said "no, she's getting a B. She cheated, that's what her grade will be!" He says "no, it WILL be an A." Fuck you, buddy. Your girl is getting a B--and you know what, if that one B devastates her to the point that she learns her lesson and never cheats again then I've made a difference. This guy kept going, but I'll spare you the details. I just can't believe he had the balls to tell me that essentially I MUST give his daughter an A. Fuck you. It doesn't work like that where I come from--you cheat, you suffer the consequences. Those are American ideals. If you don't like them, send your precious to a private Arab school. Oh wait. They can't get into decent colleges if they go to those. So go fuck yourself, buddy.

Thank god there are only 2 weeks left...