It started in a really low place. I didn’t get any sleep at all after Fajr and I didn’t feel like talking to anyone at work. I was thinking about Syria and my own life and had all these things running through my mind and it was crap.

It got better once I started teaching. My new batch of students are actually really good kids. There are a couple who stand out already and they can be a pleasure to teach. They’re smart and funny and I can engage with them on all these different levels. I can actually talk to them about things and that makes teaching them really great. They know I only have three weeks left and they’re going to try to make them as good as possible for them and me. I’m giving teaching my all right now. I’m preparing classes with diligence and care and it shows. I’m going to miss a few of them.

Anyway… Let me give you a bit of back story before I continue… I’m not the best driver in the world. I’ve only had my licence for a few months and I lack experience. Regardless of that I have a dream car (my actual dream car is an Aston Martin DBS but this is a dream car I can afford) that I was giving serious consideration to buying but when I realised I wasn’t going to stay in Saudi for long I decided against it.

The dream car is a Chevy Camaro. I’ve been wanting to drive one for years and years. I love the way the look and they’re powerful and they always looked like incredible fun to drive. I’d never driven one, though, because I didn’t have a licence/didn’t know how to drive and also because I couldn’t afford to buy one. That changed today!

One of my students has a Chevy Camaro and we were talking about it last week and I told him that he better let me drive it before I leave the country. He told me he’d let me drive it but I thought he was just saying that to placate me. He took a few days off school because his sister was getting married and today was his first day back in class and I reminded him of what he said and he replied again saying that he’d let me drive it.

At the end of the class, I asked him if I could drive it today, as a joke, and he agreed!!! He told me it was fine so we went to the car park after work and he handed me the keys and… OH. MY. GOD!

It was amazing. It was everything I dreamed and more. I loved every second. I drove it for around twenty minutes in total and really let it rip a couple of times pushing it to over 100mph. He was loving it. I was so nervous about hitting it against someone or getting in an accident because it could cost so much to repair but it was all good.

We’re going to go out again on Saturday. He told me we can head to the desert where they have crazily long straight perfectly smooth roads and he said he’ll drive at 180mph/300kmph on the roads out there and show me some of his drifting skills. I think I’ll snag the keys off him again and try to push the car. I can’t wait.

I was literally bouncing up and down for about an hour afterwards. I’m still not fully down from the experience.

That’s one thing ticked off the bucket list… the only problem is that I want one for myself now…