Leave of Absence
In the event of a parent's (or child's) death, I am (at the approval of my principal) allowed 5 days of paid leave from the date of passing, only with the proof of death by death certificate. For anyone else's death, there is no paid leave. When I am gone, there is no one to take my place. Subs don't exist in this system, so everyone has to pick up the slack when someone is gone.
My Take-Away: No one I love is allowed to leave this mortal life until I return to the US. Well, okay, that is out of our hands, so the real take away is that I need to make the most of the time we have together here and now by maintaining frequent, quality communication, and remember that God is in charge, and families can be together forever!
Pay
I only get paid starting from that date I landed in the UAE. Unfortunately for me, it took my visa so long to clear that I lost about a month's pay. My last paycheck of my final year here will be through August. I arrived on September 12, leaving a gap of about a month with no pay.
My Take-Away: Oh well, at least I receive an end-of-contract gratuity of a month's pay for every year I teach. Plus, I was able to spend more time with friends and family, and I felt that I was exactly where God needed me at that time.
Flight Allowance
If your spouse is not sponsored by you because they have a job in the UAE, they will not receive a flight allowance.
My Take-Away
Oh well! Hopefully if Matt is lucky enough to find a job, it will cover a yearly flight allowance. If not, at least he will be staying busy and making some money.
Housing Allowance
The housing allowance is worked off over a period of the initial 2 year contract, and that 2 years is counted by the day. Since I was about 20 days "late" (stupid visa/immigration), if I choose to leave at the end of my 2 year contract, I will owe back a pro-rated amount for the remainder of my $5,500 housing allowance (it will probably end up being about $100).
My Take-Away: Oh well! I probably would have been really stressed had I known this before coming, as that meant that my tab at the end would be growing every day. Hopefully I will stay longer than 2 years and not have to worry about that.
Macs aren't compatible with the WiFi at schools
My iPad mini will not connect to the WiFi at my school, even with the correct password. My HOF told me that her MacBook and iPhone won't connect either. I brought Matt's android phone in to see if it would connect, and I couldn't get it to work either, but I'm not sure if it was because I didn't know how to use his phone or was blocked as well as my iPad.
My Take-Away: Oh well! I'm just going to have to get used to using the desktop computer that is connected to the SmartBoard. I won't be able to use Doceri here, but I can get over that. I can still use ClassDojo if I decide to, but just not from my iPad. I'm just going to have to figure out other ways to integrate technology in the classroom and get around the fact that I can't do some really cool lessons just because I'm lacking some authorization from the network administrator.
Internet is extremely censored here
Something I did know, but didn't know the extent of, was the limited web browsing because of content blocks. I can't show videos from YouTube (but I expected that). I was shocked to find that I can't access my Gmail account for the scanned resources I prepared.
My Take-Away: Oh well! It will take time, but I will have to figure out what sites they have blocked and which ones aren't. I will also need to send my scanned resources to my work e-mail. Hopefully I can do that well enough in advance to prepare.
Overall Take-Away:
The things I didn't know before I came aren't deal breakers, and knowing them beforehand might have just made me more stressed. Sometimes it's okay going into something without knowing all of the drawbacks. But for those who do know this before going in, I hope you can realize that the perks of this job far outweigh the drawbacks!
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