Just me and Tux... For now

The poor guy was in super shock and stressed. We've both been traumatized. He was freaked out when I brought him home and wouldn't leave the crate before I went to bed.

During the night he ate and ventured outside the crate. He used the litter box- found it all by himself (I love cats) and he's BIG on covering up and scratching a lot. It woke me twice. And his new nickname is Sir Stinky Poos. 

In the morning he was still pretty freaked out. He meowed at me a couple times but when I approached him to try and pet him he ran away. He wedged himself in a the two inch space between my wardrobe and the wall and that's where I left him when I left for work. I left Pride and Prejudice audio book playing so he would have the noise while I was gone. Not sure that was a good idea- I think he thought someone strange was there and he needed to hide. 

He was exactly where I left him when I got home. He hadn't come out to eat or anything from what could tell. When I came home he came out to explore, eat, poop, and even play. He was still angry and meowing at me and wouldn't  let me pet him for awhile. 

Then we had a turn around. He let me pet him and he purred. He's exploring more, played a whole bunch, and his body posture is totally different from this morning. He's been confidently exploring the house and then coming over to meow at me every now and then. We played a lot. 

Last night he slept in the bed with me. I hate to leave him today for four days :( I hope he dose regress too much. 

I want to get another cat so he has someone to play with. The day before Brûlée was killed a student of mine asked if I wanted a kitten because his cat had kittens. I had told him no because I was already taking two. But the next day I was like- tell me more. I emailed his mom. I can have one but they're still nursing, only a month old. I think I might take one. 

Tux and Brûlée

So This February has been the worst month ever and it can just go ahead and leave now. 

Kuwait has a HUGE stray cat problem. For someone like me it is almost unbearable. I started carrying cat food with me at all times so I could feed the strays that looked like they really needed it or just because I felt like it. Fortunately most of the cats look fairly healthy. I was avoiding taking any in because of the traveling I do and being gone in the summers I didn't want to deal with that. 

About the same time I arrived here a litter of kittens was born near my apartment. I would sometimes see the mom with them. I always made sure to feed her so those kitties had the nutrients they need. 

Well, lately I haven't seen the mom and two of the kittens were left hanging around. I would feed them and soon the recognized me and would always come to me. They started waiting for me when I went to work and when I came one. They were a nice stress relief. One day I petted them when they were eating. They FREAKED a out but then they were like- that was AWESOME!! And they would rub up against me and want more. Sinae and I named them Tux and Brûlée. 

Then one day Tux tried to follow me to school. He would leave the food to follow me. I freaked out all day worried that he would try to cross the busy street and be hit. It was at this point I realized I needed to take them in. They were too friendly and I was too worried about them. 

Since I'm leaving for the Liberation Holiday (Feb24-28) I didn't want to take them in before then. I wanted to be here to help them adjust and I didn't want to take them in and then abandoned them for four days. 

So that was the plan. I made appointments with the vet, I bought carriers, I started feeding them in bowls in a certain spot. They would play on my lap and I thought- this is great, they have each other to play with. 

Then my worst fear came true two days ago. I found out that Brûlée was hit and killed by a car. Believe me when I tell you that no one is more upset about this than I am. I literally cried ALL day- in front of kids and everything. Full on bawling. I probably should have gone home but I didn't want to be there. I'm still really upset about it. 

I'm so sad and angry. Angry at myself for not just taking them in, angry at God for allowing this to happen when I was planning on taking them in a week. (I know that's wrong and bad of me to say but it's how I was feeling.... I'm starting to get over it) But I really thought they would be okay because they had each other and they were born on the street so they were pretty street smart. 

I wasn't sure what to do about Tux and of course I was worried about him. Then Sinae got me worried that Brûlée had been poisoned and not hit (I didn't actually see him and she did, but so did our building manager Sohel and Sohel was pretty sure he'd been hit) but with just a little uncertainty and three different people who volunteered to look in and feed him while I'm gone, I decided I had to get him checked at the vet to make sure he wasn't poisoned and that he was ok. 

Everything checked out and he's ok. It was totally not how I wanted to do it, but I was just too worried about him. I figured he'd either alone on the street or alone in my house but in my house I know he won't be hit by a car.

Assembly prep #killmenow

This month is INSANE! You won't hear much from me, in fact, I shouldn't be working on this right now. We have had everything possible at work scheduled for this month and then things are crazy with my church calling.

Basically, at my church we don't have paid clergy so members of the congregation have callings and they take on the leadership rolls and church responsibilities in addition to a regular job. Our women's organization is called the Relief Society and the RS leadership consists of a president, two counselors, and a secretary. I'm one of the counselors but this month both the president and the other counselor are out of the country so it's just me and the secretary. AND I was asked to give a talk on Friday. Again, with no paid clergy members of the congregation are asked to speak on assigned topics for 10-15mins. It can be stressful, but it is also nice because when you're researching for your talk you always find lots of cool and great gospel information.

At school we had to order supplies for next year- which was fun but very time consuming. We had to do DRA testing with our kids. We do DRA tests 3 times a year and it measures the student's reading and comprehension skills. It is VERY time consuming because we have to work with each student individually and yet find something the other students can do independently without killing each other or making tons of noise. We also have to do report card comments which is a massive undertaking. After we write ours we have to peer review another teacher's comments. This is also something we only do 3 times a year and it is a nightmare.

The cherry on top is someone brilliantly scheduled our grade assembly in the midst of all of this. Each grade does one assembly a year. Each class has to come up with something to showcase what they have been learning. It is a TON of work. We've pretty much ceased all regular lessons (except one or two a day) to work on our assembly stuff. My students voted to do skits of them fighting (and then solving the problem) and a glow in the dark (blacklight) dance. We've been making iMovies of the skits. I rewrote the lyrics to Everything is Awesome and recorded the kids singing it and that is what they will dance to. One problem- I just put it together and there is no tempo or rhythm. It's a mess. I have no idea how we're going to dance to this. I just have to hope the parents find it cute because it's their kid.
Here's the song- listen at your own risk.