As some of my readers know, I have recently been taking an outdoor boot camp class in Al Ain. The class consists of intense cardio and strength training, all in the 40 degree Celsius heat outside. I have just completed my first month and have lost about 10 pounds (woot!) I also got back my results from the first and final class to show my progress.
I am definitely most happy about my 1 mile run time. I managed to shave off 2 minutes and 11 seconds for this one. This will definitely help when I do my next challenge, a 5K run in November. I am signed up for another month of boot camp, so hopefully I will see even better results next month :)
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Enough bragging, time for a story. Yesterday I went to the hospital to get a doctor's note for my absence from work. I saw an Emirati man and woman come out of the hospital carrying a tinnnnnyyy newborn baby. The Mom looked tired, she must have just had her. It warmed my heart to see the father walking carefully down the steps, so as not to wake her. However, it did not warm my heart to see them go to their SUV, the Mom get in the backseat and the father carefully place his newborn infant on the passenger seat in the front of the car, WITHOUT an infant car seat, and drive away! How could you possibly NOT think that was a bad idea?! Even if you only got a car in the last 10 years, strike that, EVEN IF YOU ONLY GOT A CAR TODAY!!!!! how could you not imagine that as a bad idea? For this reason, this country continues to baffle me.
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I recently met a young Filipino girl who was visiting the UAE from the UK, where she goes to school. I asked her impression of the country, which I was interested to know because although she is a tourist, she would be assumed to be a maid or nanny in the UAE, just by virtue of her nationality. She said that a few times in her short, one-week stay in the UAE, locals had treated her quite badly, giving her orders or simply pushing her out of the way. She was shocked by this and asked me why. It was a very hard question to answer. How do you tell a bright eyed, 19 year old girl that this country thinks her people are nothing more than slaves to be used as they see fit? I tried to tell her some version of the truth without being offensive, and she surprised me by saying that it is the same in the Philippines. Since the Philippines is so poor and the strata between the rich and the poor is so great, she said that most middle to upper class Filipino families employ their own people in a slave-like setting. She explained that all young girls have to be driven around by drivers and cannot leave the house without an escort. This is much the same in the UAE, but she told me that the reason for the escorts in the Philippines was because so many young girls are kidnapped and taken into prostitution rings for tourists from OTHER COUNTRIES (can you guess which ones?) to come and purchase them for disgusting, indecent reasons. She told me that she once watched a video in high school about how Filipinos would often come overseas to work and end up trapped here, unable to go home. She laughed sadly, telling me that they left home to escape this exact same fate. Can someone tell me what the hell is wrong with the world? Oh yeah! Capitalism. Ugh.
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NAME
|
PUSH UPS
|
SIT UPS
|
1MILE RUN
|
SQUATS
|
BRIDGE
| |||||
| First | Last | First | Last | First | Last | First | Last | First | Last | |
KAREN
|
15
|
17
|
26
|
30
|
14:22
|
12:33
|
39
|
45
|
0:18
|
0:42
|
I am definitely most happy about my 1 mile run time. I managed to shave off 2 minutes and 11 seconds for this one. This will definitely help when I do my next challenge, a 5K run in November. I am signed up for another month of boot camp, so hopefully I will see even better results next month :)
***
Enough bragging, time for a story. Yesterday I went to the hospital to get a doctor's note for my absence from work. I saw an Emirati man and woman come out of the hospital carrying a tinnnnnyyy newborn baby. The Mom looked tired, she must have just had her. It warmed my heart to see the father walking carefully down the steps, so as not to wake her. However, it did not warm my heart to see them go to their SUV, the Mom get in the backseat and the father carefully place his newborn infant on the passenger seat in the front of the car, WITHOUT an infant car seat, and drive away! How could you possibly NOT think that was a bad idea?! Even if you only got a car in the last 10 years, strike that, EVEN IF YOU ONLY GOT A CAR TODAY!!!!! how could you not imagine that as a bad idea? For this reason, this country continues to baffle me.
***
I recently met a young Filipino girl who was visiting the UAE from the UK, where she goes to school. I asked her impression of the country, which I was interested to know because although she is a tourist, she would be assumed to be a maid or nanny in the UAE, just by virtue of her nationality. She said that a few times in her short, one-week stay in the UAE, locals had treated her quite badly, giving her orders or simply pushing her out of the way. She was shocked by this and asked me why. It was a very hard question to answer. How do you tell a bright eyed, 19 year old girl that this country thinks her people are nothing more than slaves to be used as they see fit? I tried to tell her some version of the truth without being offensive, and she surprised me by saying that it is the same in the Philippines. Since the Philippines is so poor and the strata between the rich and the poor is so great, she said that most middle to upper class Filipino families employ their own people in a slave-like setting. She explained that all young girls have to be driven around by drivers and cannot leave the house without an escort. This is much the same in the UAE, but she told me that the reason for the escorts in the Philippines was because so many young girls are kidnapped and taken into prostitution rings for tourists from OTHER COUNTRIES (can you guess which ones?) to come and purchase them for disgusting, indecent reasons. She told me that she once watched a video in high school about how Filipinos would often come overseas to work and end up trapped here, unable to go home. She laughed sadly, telling me that they left home to escape this exact same fate. Can someone tell me what the hell is wrong with the world? Oh yeah! Capitalism. Ugh.
***
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