1. Strange encounters
Last week was a bit on the far side, with everything happening at once and life was not its usual sense. I
had a tooth cap that fell, 2 students out of homestays and a student without a visa, not to mention a
disgruntled mother who was upset as the university did not accept her daughter due to low grades, so
she puts the blame on us; on top of this I had a conference where I have to meet a school in a 25
minutes slot, and so had about 22 meetings in each day. Prety hectic I would say.
Lets start from the beginning, as it’s the best way to start (oh! isn’t this the song in Sound of music?) my
tooth was aching and I could feel some infection happening, so I poked it with a tooth pick, and soaked
it in tooth paste, took many panadols, all didn’t help, at the end I used the nail trick, where you push
your nail in a gap and try to find out if there is something stuck in between your teeth? Well that trick
did work either, as while doing that the crown just came off, luckily I didn’t swolow it! That would have
been a disaster I guess. So I kept it safely in a wee box that had the hair cap that you use if you don’t
want to wash your hair, lucky, both are caps, so using that box was PC.
Then one of the students phoned and said that his homestay are travelling and are asking him to leave, I
had cold sweat on my back, this is a disaster, as we signed up for 12 weeks, and why they changed to 6,
and what not. I talked to the homestay parent who told me that he had booked his holiday, and he
cannot change it and the student has to leave; when I said that the student is mature enough, he said
that the insurance company will not allow that. finally I convinced the homestay that I will book the
student in a hotel until he returns if he will take him back, he agreed. Finding a hotel is not simple
either, but that was the easy part.
The second student was actually kicked out of his homestay. So I registered in a site that provided
homestays, and what we found were not upto scratch, we found one, nevertheless that I had to talk to,
but the payment was an issue, and we had to go through that hurdle with agony too. that was very
stressfull time, fighting in between the meetings, and trying to sort out the payment and what not. The
homestay shut the phone in my face, which angered me, and I had to send her an email long enough to
kill any germ that you may have in your body. At the end all was cleared, and my student is happy in the
new homestay.
The third student, who is my nephew was the disaster of the disasters; his visa had 2 days to expire, the
money didn’t arrive and I had to scramble and get money from here, there and everywhere to pay the
school, but it didn’t reach their account on time, so we decided he has to travel for a week and come
back after we do a visa for him; thankfully immigration were at the conference and someone pointed
out to me that I maybe hav eto talk to them. They were the best, they solved the problem in seconds
and I had the relief of my life.

2. The emails from the disgruntled mum were not annoying, but threatening. She threatened to go to the
police, the immigration, the newspaper, the university, and to every website in the world to complain
about us?? Why? Because the university didn’t accept her daughter! As if anyone in this world knows
us? And if she writes in the papers the whole country will riot against Suad Alhalwachi and her
establishment for being insistive to a person’s feeling by conveying to them that a university had
rejected their daughter. Of course I would also be upset if a university rejects my daughter, but I will be
prepared to listen and apply to more than one unviersity just to avoid having to scramble the time in
order to find other universities. At the end I thought, oh well, if after 10 years of work, one person
complains about me, then it’s a small percentage, and I shouldn’t worry? But, I should worry, as
students have different aptitudes, and can be rejected, so we have to always be good scouts, and be
prepared to avoid such meshaps;
These lessons in life are valuable, and we live to learn. That is why I intend to put an evaluation form on
our site so students tell us what they think, and give us suggestions. Jihad, a new job for you son.