Birthday at ENS

Today is my 37th birthday!  Can't believe I'm 37.  How did I celebrate, you ask?  My students threw me a surprise party!!

OK let me back up here.  We're not supposed to tell the students when our birthdays are because they will bring gifts (which they did and which I'm technically not supposed to accept) and they will bring sweets (which they did and which aren't allowed either).  So I had no intention of telling them when my birthday was.  That was until a lot of them started asking.  I mean a lot, not just one or two, and it wasn't just the girls either.   So figured that since they wanted to know I would tell them.  This was before Eid and no one mentioned it until yesterday so I assumed they forgot over the break. 

Wrong!  It was all they could talk about yesterday.  They told me they were going to give me a party and bring me a cake.  I told them not do that because it's not allowed at ENS.  The subject was dropped for a while and then after their afternoon break Shamsa told me that she needed to talk to the class but I wasn't allowed to hear.  Fatima suggested that they talk in Arabic, but Shamsa reminded her that I know some Arabic so I might be able to understand what they were saying.  OK, not really but I'm glad they think that!!  Anyway I let them have 5 minutes to talk (actually they were screaming at each other like they usually do; everyone trying to talk at the same time).  They turned off the lights and hid and when I came back in they jumped up and sang Happy Birthday!  Very sweet and I thought that was the end of it.  Wrong again; so wrong! 

Mohammed Rashed and Saeed came in the class early this morning with a cake and a present.  No problem here I thought something simple.  When the rest of the students arrived Saleh was carrying a cake and various other students had bags of stuff.  I was again kicked out of my classroom as the planned something.  I got Jennifer and had her supervise.  She called me in about 5 minutes later and I was greeted by another surprise singing of Happy Birthday along with the two cakes, lots of chocolate and presents on my desk!!   Aww how sweet they threw me a surprise party!  I really had no idea.  I thought it was over when they sang on Wednesday.  So we had this party at 8:00 am!  Not the best timing, but what could I do, they had it all set up.  They were eating candy while I was trying to find a knife to cut one of the cakes.  Saeed had brought plates and forks but no knife.  I told them that the party would just continue during their golden time (reward time) at the end of the day; which is a much better time for a party anyway.  They were ok with that so long as they got to continue eating their candy and chips.  No problem.  I thought we would just have a little party at 2:00, no big deal.  During their Arabic lesson I went to put the cakes in the fridge and then tried to resume a normal day afterwards. 

All I can say is chaos.  They were so distracted by when they would have cake that I couldn't get much of anything out of them.  We make it to their afternoon break and I went to get the cake out of the fridge.  That's when I found out how terribly overboard they went.  The parent communication officers told me that there were 4 cakes and lots of other sweets in their office.  Yes, 4 cakes!  I told them I already had 2 what did I need with 4 more.  They had gotten permission from the principal to let me have all the cakes since it's considered terribly terribly rude to refuse something (even if it's not allowed).  So all the junk food was brought to my classroom.  I cut the cake that Saeed brought (it was the only one that was rectangular and easy to cut) while the nannies kept bringing bag after bag after box of junk into my classroom.  In total there were 5 cakes, 24 individual cakes, 2 dozen donuts, a box of cupcakes, cookies, juice boxes, soda, and tons and tons of candy.  We had enough to provide a treat to all the teachers and a lot of the staff along with leftovers.  I gave one whole cake to Gursharn (she had some sort of function that she needed a cake for) and the cleaner and I took one home.  I gave a bunch of other stuff to the cleaner as well.  I saved a lot of the candy for a later time, like maybe when they are actually behaving.  Maybe I'll use that as a reward.  I'm sure there will be a reminder email on Sunday about not having parties or sweets at school.  But in my defense I really truly did not know that they were going to do all of that.

In addition to having the party they brought presents.  I got a nice sweater, 5 bottles of perfume (Coco Noir by Chanel, Very Irresistible by Givenchy, Manifesto by Yves St. Laurent and 2 ones that I have never heard of) , a teddy bear, roses, 2 homemade necklaces, and one really really nice necklace.  Lots of very nice gifts that I'm not supposed to accept.  I am going to talk to the parent communication officers about the necklace because I'm sure it was quite expensive.

So that is how you celebrate a birthday ENS style!

I'm going out to dinner with Deborah tonight and tomorrow Kirstie has something planned.  I have to wear a dress!

90 degrees at 6:15pm