Nothing like a little stress therapy-My Style

So I have been feeling a little stressed out lately. I have two favorite ways to relieve the stress, but I rarely get the time to do them both often and almost never within a day of each other. Yesterday I went to my friend Marsha and got a life saving massage, if I don't go at least every six weeks then I get tension headaches due to my anatomy and the strain it puts on my neck, shoulders and upper back. As Marsha put it, she got my shoulders out of my ears. Today I also went out into the woods to shoot guns with my brother. Yes believe it or not I find shooting guns to be fun and very stress relieving. I have been shooting since I was a child and I have shot many a variety of guns. Not your typical girly activity, but I love it. I am also quite skilled at it. The next time you feel stressed out I suggest you try one of my stress relieving methods although I would not recommend that you do them at the same time!

Should I be worried?................

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/AD326650-AD24-4811-8E50-33B954D66CFF.htm
I have cut and pasted the parts of interest in the article to me: Instead, the people most at risk are those who try to bridge the gap between the two cultures, those who try to broaden the scope of Islam to include ideas from other traditions, all the while critically questioning everything they learn. It is those who imbibe from both cultures and attempt to take the best from each that are most at risk, because they are seen as traitors, as collaborators, who must be eliminated. Those of us interested in genuine dialogue are quickly losing the ability to speak across cultures, bridge gaps, address legitimate grievances and support inquisitive discourse, because the arena in which that debate takes place has been commandeered by extremists on both sides, cordoned off into hostile camps, each bent on destroying the enemy they have fabricated.In other words, we should strenuously resist buying into the idea that the world is facing a clash of civilisations, no matter how many times that phrase echoes, because this is precisely what Bush and Bin Laden want us to believe.

Yes I think I should be worried about moving to Jordan where some terrorist attacks against Americans have been plotted and stopped and some have taken place, but if I didn't go, then the terrorists would win. I don't want to die or live in fear, but I also don't believe in the tactics of terrorism or letting it effect the world although it often does. I am not afraid of being dead, but I admittedly don't have a death wish. My biggest issue of going to work in Jordan is not that I myself might be a target of terrorism, but what my death might do to my family. That is my biggest guilt trip about going. If I had a dollar for every negative comment my friends and family have made about my decision I would now have enough money to keep me from going.

Egypt Chronicles-Settling In

So when I arrived at Cairo International Airport at around 2am, after a delay, I was supposed to be escorted by my taxi driver Hussein out of the airport and straight to my hotel. Well there is a huge crowd that gathers outside the customs area and their are taxi and hotel drivers everywhere. I could not find Hussein and could not reach him by my cell phone because I couldn't figure out which country and area codes to use or leave off. I finally got someone to call him, after I bought a phone card for the pay phone. I could not figure out how to use the card or the phone since everything was in Arabic. Hussein was supposed to be the nephew of a very reliable driver of my friend. The friend's driver was already booked during my time in Cairo. Hussein drove me to my hotel in Dokki, but charged me way more than what he should have and what I was told he would, that was just the first of many problems with Hussein. I got to my hotel room around 3:30 in the morning all I wanted to do was sleep in a nice comfortable bed after 29 hours of travel. Well the room was not so nice and 3 stars in Egypt is not like 3 stars in the USA. My room had two twin beds and the decor was old and dingy. There was no heat and it was around 50 degrees. I put on several layers of clothes pushed the twin beds together, tightened the strings on my hoodie and quickly fell asleep. When I awoke in the morning I really wanted and needed a shower, the only freshening done in two days was brushing my teeth and doing spot cleaning with baby wipes in an airplane or airport bathroom. Well the shower was not the cleanest, but not filthy. I had almost no water pressure and no hot water. I was not very pleased, remember it was in the fifties, so I was very cold. I was booked there for 3 days, but I only stayed one night, it was called the Concorde Hotel. But bad shower was only the first of my problems in the hotel, I had scheduled a full body waxing...................

Egypt Chronicles-International Flying

When I set off on my Journey to Egypt I had not flown in several years. The only time I had flown outside of the USA was when I went to Morelia, Mexico. On the Mexico trip I did not have to change planes in a foreign country and this airport was fairly small, so customs was a breeze. I was nervous about flying to Egypt and have to switch planes so many times in different countries. I flew to Memphis, then to Amsterdam, and finally Cairo. The trip home was not so simple (the price you pay for cheap tickets). I flew Cairo to Athens, Athens to Paris, Paris to Detroit and then my home town. I slept a lot on the flight to Amsterdam, but it wasn't ever a deep long sleep. KLM Royal Dutch airlines has good food, to my surprise. They also had individual tv monitors in the headrests where you could watch a map with the flight progress and it would tell you all kinds of interesting things like altitude, outside air temperature, etc., you could also play music or watch movies and tv programs. I had an 8 hour layover in Amsterdam, and it was a decent airport. I browsed the souvenir shops, ate at McDonalds, watch it snow outside, and then from exhaustion from the long flight across the Atlantic Ocean, I took a nap. Now I swore that I would never sleep in an airport where I could be robbed in my sleep or miss my flight, but my body won. I found a strange configuration of plastic covered chairs near the neon sign that flashes hello in many different languages. The chairs form a circle, but there are metal arm rests in between. I pulled out my travel memory foam pillow and slept on it and my backpack for safe keeping. I curled my feet around the armrest and rested them on the next chair (all connected). I also set the alarm on my cell phone so I would not miss my flight. I did not get very long naps, I woke up every few minutes with all the noises and announcements inside an airport. After awhile there was another man napping several seat away from me (later I saw him boarding my flight to Cairo, so he had a long wait also). A while later there was an Indian couple sleeping in the last few seats, it seems everyone who passed by me wanted to join me in sleeping. The flight to Cairo seemed to last forever because I was tired, excited and nervous of the unknown adventures that awaited me. At long last I arrived in Cairo. Clearing customs was easy, but finding my taxi driver was not so easy...........

International Teaching

I went to an international teaching job fair this past weekend in Boston, Massachusetts. I just got home today (Monday) because I was a victim of the 2006 Blizzard and my flights home on Sunday were cancelled. Anyway I have chosen a fork in the road of my life, which will be a major life change. I took a job for next school year, beginning in August in Amman, Jordan. I did 9 interviews in two days, and I could have had many more interviews, but I limited myself seeing as this was my first time at one of these job fairs (some people make a life long career of it). I ended up with 4 job offers: 2 in Dubai, United Arab Emirites, one in Cairo, Egypt, and of course the one I accepted. Wish me luck! I am both excited and nervous.

Going International

So sorry I have not posted in so long, but I have two very big projects going on in my life right now. I do promise I am going to tell the story of my journey to Egypt, but not until I finish my ongoing projects. I leave on Thursday morning for Boston. I am going to an international teaching job fair, where I will be lobbying schools for a job overseas. Why? Most people ask me. Well the truth is I have always wanted to see the world and not just all the tourist sites, but I really want to see how other people live their normal lives. I also have also felt the need for an adventure for several years now. Since I am single and don't have any children for now, I say why not go for it. It is a very hard decision to make, I don't want to be far away from my family and their is always the fear of the unknown and a lot of my friends and family think it is just crazy to go to different countries alone, but what is a girl to do if none of her friends or family will ever accept the invitation to go along with her? So I figure if I get a job offer from one of the schools I am interested in then it is meant to be, and if not, then it is not meant to be and I will be stuck where I am, which I am happy in my job and home, just a little bored. So wish me luck and pray that I make the right decisions in my life.