See Me Squeegee

Quick post for today but I have confirmation that my mom is reading these, so this is now my way of showing her that I’m safe even though the closest countries to me are Iran and Saudi Arabia…

Today’s fun update – the realization that when you’re 11 times zones away from where you live – just about halfway around the world – your body clock hates you.  It’s Sunday in Dubai, and I’ve spent the day:

3:45am – woke up, realized that Michigan had played football at midnight and the Tigers were playing a playoff game that started at 2am.  Checked my phone for the results (Denard!  Verlander!  Oh My!) and spent the next hour-plus trying to sleep but tempted to pick the phone back up for ESPN Gamecast of the Tigers.

5:15am = Tigers win!  Brian realizes that the 5:30am wake up  call to hit the gym…is ambitious given that I’ve only slept for 4 or so disconnected hours.

6:40am – the new alarm clock time.  Wake up from the deepest sleep I’ve had since 1978 in Dallas, Pennsylvania. Disoriented as anything.  Snooze button, shower, breakfast over the Arabian Gulf, teach for 7+ hours.

5pm – like an idiot, check out this Club Access scenario I have here at the hotel, let the friendly hostess talk me into a beer.

5:45pm – sit down on the balcony of hotel room, admire view of the Gulf and Palm Island.

5:50pm – it’s hot…90+ degrees and I’m still wearing dress clothes.

5:52pm – change into workout clothes, sit on couch for pep talk

5:53pm – 9:30pm – accidental nap

9:31pm – present – venture back to Club Access room, drink wine and watch Tigers on ESPN Gamecast and my fantasy football teams on the Yahoo Stattracker.

Summary:  In one day in Dubai, I’ve now watched over 10 innings of Tiger baseball from Detroit, but at the oddest possible times. It’s now the Seventh-Inning Stretch, Detroit is down 2-1 and The Death Panel is behind in fantasy, I’m about to order another drink, and my chances of a good night’s sleep are dwindling now that it’s 10:15 and I’m wide awake.

On Deck For Tomorrow:  Dubai Mall, which isn’t as teenybopper as it sounds.  Tallest building in the world, fountains to match the Bellagio in Vegas, and some of my students psyched to show it all off.  Also on deck – I’ll teach Reading Comprehension and Geometry.

One Last Update For Today:  Algebra was this afternoon’s lesson, and Algebra was invented in the Middle East (well, discovered here…but it’s an Arabic word).  Tall order to teach this stuff to the people who invented it.  But I pulled it off – the one dude from Abu Dhabi who had already taken the test, at least a few times mentioned “I saw multiple questions like this and now I know what to do”.  Score one for the Midwest playing a road game in the Middle East.  Now for the Tigers to win a home game…

Seeing as how the only place to get a beer in this town is the terrace at my hotel with this complimentary WiFi, it seems like it’s about time to drop a few details of Day Two in Dubai.  The highlights:

• This class I’m teaching is a blast.  We have students from around the United Arab Emirates; from Saudi Arabia; from Kuwait; from Australia (actually an island a couple hundred miles off the coast, but she still has a sweet Aussie accent); from “everywhere” (Spanish last name, lives here, and has been all over; and from Sudan.  Too much fun – everyone is really friendly and the Kuwaiti guy already bought me lunch, with a guy from Abu Dhabi checking out his homeboys’ schedule so he can have me roll with his crew for a night.  Australia and Spain-slash-everywhere are each missing a couple lessons so we’ll catch up over dinner or coffee one of these days.
• Kind of part of all that – when I’m back to LA or even on the plane, my next non-random-travel-thoughts post is going to be about being a “global citizen”.  These trips…you really start to feel connected with the world and you start to realize that we’re all pretty much the same.  It’s funny – the more I travel, the more I get both “global” and “local”.  I identify much more strongly with Detroit and with the world…Detroit because it’s my tribe and my home, and the world because I realize how similar we all are.  It’s strange how much we identify with essentially a continent in the US (sorry, Canada – but I still feel you given that I grew up 30 miles away.  Also there’s a Tim Horton’s across the street), when as individuals we probably have a lot more in common with our international ancestry and with people who have common interests and values across the globe than we do with people from eight states away.
• Speaking of similarities…in my quest to eat at a shwarma joint last night and an authentic Turkish place tonight, I had to walk past:  Starbucks, Tim Horton’s, Chili’s, Subway, and two KFCs.  Plus a ton of Asian fusion restaurants, two Mexican places, a few Italian spots.  Sort of redundant, but what a global world.
• Today’s non-teaching highlight:  swimming “laps” in the swimming area of the Persian Gulf.  Way too many jetskis and boats around to just make a break for it up and down the coast, so I had to lap swim it in the couple-hundred-yard area roped off for straight up swimming.  Call it extra-long-course meters.  My take – the water is clearer than anything I’ve ever seen, but saltier too.  I still taste it a few hours later.  Really cool sunset happening while I swam – it pays to be able to bilaterally breathe so you can check stuff like that out.
• Also…jet lag is crazy.  Still haven’t slept more than a couple hours straight since I let LA Thursday morning, but every time I do zone out I drool like a fire hose.  The upside – I can regularly check in on the MLB playoffs and this weekend’s football games, which are all happening in the middle of the night here.
• Verlander on the hill in a few hours.  Don’t think I’m not psyched even 8 time zones away.
• Got corrected today for calling this body of water the “Persian Gulf”  Here on the Arabian peninsula it’s the Arabian Gulf and nothing else.  My save – “oh, we’ve always called it the Persian Gulf, at least both times we’ve fought wars here”.  Class also liked hearing me say that I enjoyed flying over Iraq yesterday just to see where my tax dollars have gone.
• Places in the US that students in my class have visited:  Big Rapids, Michigan; Omaha, Nebraska.  Places in the US that no one in my class has visited: New York City.  Weird world, man.
• Front page of the newspaper here and a full page of the 6-page editorial section: the US Presidential election.  All eyez on me, as Pac would say.  “Me” meaning “we”.  Choose wisely, fellow Americans.

That may do it for tonight.  If anyone is reading, thank you. Tomorrow your alge-bro teaches algebra in the land of Al-Jazeera.  Might have to pump the Al Jarreau just to stay consistent.  Don’t worry…I’ll be ready to get my boogie down.

Typing as I gaze out on the Persian Gulf, thoughts from my first partial day in Dubai:

*First off, I’m here to teach a GMAT class for Veritas Prep.  If you had told me in 1991, while I was learning Algebra at East Middle School during the midst of the first Iraq war, that in 20 years I’d be flying over Baghdad to talk about Algebra on the shores of the gulf…well, I’d probably have called it Stranger Danger.  What a world.

*While eating shwarma and tabbouleh outside here an hour ago, I listened to a good amount of Jay-Z and Nelly from the speakers of the Escalades driving by.  So, um, it’s not really that much different from Dearborn.

*Phenomenal cabbie from the airport – dude from Egypt who talked about every landmark on the way to the hotel, only his English isn’t all that much better than my Arabic so all we really agreed on was “much, much beautiful” for everything we saw.  I also gathered that he’s a huge fan of Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, is still gathering his opinions about Barack Obama, and can’t stand anyone named George Bush.  “Too much touch” is the reason.

*Line of the day by a jet-lagged me: the political discussions started when he showed off a poster of their president (or king, prime minister…I’ll research this) saying “Barack Obama”.  Now, it clearly wasn’t Obama but then I realized he was showing me that that’s their leader.  That was his other thing – he’d point to a tall building and say “Empire State Building”, then I’d look confused, and he’d say “it is like…”.  Interesting dude.  Anyway, after identifying their Obama he says his name, which is something Khalifa. And I say – wait for it – oh, we have a Wiz Khalifa.  Dead silence for 20 seconds.  Emirate cabbies are like American women when it comes to getting my humor.

*More universal than just Dubai, but what is it about expensive hotels and the way they nickel and dime you for things like internet, coffee, and newspapers.  Not a Travelodge in the world comes without a complimentary USA Today, WiFi password, and in-room coffee maker.  But you stay at a really nice joint and they’re telling you about how to charge that stuff to your room, and tempting you with multiple minibars.  I really don’t get it.  For $59 a night I live like a king, albeit surrounded by abject poverty and probably a few meth labs.  For whatever this place costs I can go into massive debt really quickly just trying to wake up in the morning.

*The phrase “Sir, may I interest you in some hookah” is misleading.

That may do it for tonight…I don’t really know what time or day it is here but I know that “tomorrow” I need to be on stage teaching at 9am so I’d better figure this out.  More adventures to come…

Don’t worry…these posts won’t all be titled this way.

But this is the intro post…just feels like it should happen like this.  I’m Brian, but I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time to talk about myself given that this is, you know, my blog. So be prepared for plenty of chatter about hip-hop, triathlons, Detroit, and Steve Breaston.

Up front – just want to thank Katie for requesting this blog for a few years now; Colleen for her inspiration with her 2-post blog; and Lance Armstrong for pushing me over the top today because I just have to say something about this bullsh.  More to come…

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