I’m sitting at Costa at Dubai Airport, waiting for my flight to Singapore, and I’m thinking about the sub-culture I’m part of. Today, we worked our very last day at the college before the winter break, which for many of us meant frantically trying to get ready for the next term. Up until 4.00 pm.

Now, a few hours later, we are (almost) all of us in different stages of getting to the airport, checking in and flying somewhere in the world. The question around the water coolers or in the staffroom today was one and the same: “When’s your flight?”

I have this image in my head of us all suddenly, almost instantaneously, dispersing from one single point on the map to – literally – the four corners of the world. If we all wore trackers, I’m sure it would create an interesting pattern on a world map.

The other funny thing of being part of this sub-culture is that flying around half the world for two weeks is the norm. The teacher saying: “I’m staying in Fujairah this break” is in the minority.

Anyway, it’s fun being part of this sudden dispersal over the world map over the next few hours. And I’m very much looking forward to finding out what Singapore Airlines are like.

I’m really excited about my winter holidays this year. I’ve finally decided to take the plunge and see South East Asia - something my friends have been telling me I just have to do for over a decade now. And as a true train fanatic, I’ll be travelling by train. This is the first leg of my train journeys through South-East Asia.

I’m flying to Singapore on Thursday evening – with Singapore Airlines, which I’ve heard so much about - and then I’ll take the night train to Kuala Lumpur on Saturday evening. Thanks to my network of friends on Facebook, I’m already in touch with a friend of a friend, who has kindly offered to show me Singapore on Friday. That is just Fabulous. I love Facebook and the way it helps you to get in contact with people when you’re travelling.

I’ve seen my GP this morning, and he’s given me a whole shopping bag full of stuff. “If you get bronchitis, you take this, if you feel bloated, you take that.” Bless his heart! I could open a pharmacy of my own.

OK, now it’s only four days to go.

“Will there be adjectives on the vocabulary exam?” one of my students asks me.

This is not the first time I’ve had this very question from this very student – let’s call him Ahmed – and I’m probably exaggerating if I say he looks terrified, but he’s very concerned, and he won’t let go. “If there are adjectives, I’ll fail! We’ll all fail!” A Shakespearian-style tragical fatalism settles briefly over the class. Or at least over the students sitting nearest to Ahmed.

Many students find word-class transformation questions tricky, I know (Disaster is a noun. What is the adjective?). But what intrigues me is why it is the transform-this-verb-or-noun-into-an-adjective variety that makes Ahmed so worried. Perhaps nouns and verbs are less threatening? Some nouns can be rather cuddly, I suppose. In my opinion, some adverbs can be quite nasty – irritatingly difficult to nail down in certain syntactic structures.

It is a well know fact that attack is the best defence, so I quickly write some word-class transformation questions on the white board – some ending with “What is the adjective?” I think I hear Ahmed groaning quietly when my back is turned towards the class, but is this not what cognitive phobia therapy is all about? Helping phobia sufferers face their worst fears?

I know word-class transformations and other types of tasks focusing on the mysterious workings of syntactic structures are not for the faint-hearted. But aren’t we training and preparing the next generation of Emiratis for the real world? For dealing with economic downturns? Fixing the red tide? Meeting the ever-increasing demand for drinking water in this desert land? For terrifying adjectives that any come can come at you when you least expect it?

That’s my job.

Oh, I almost forgot. I think Ahmed scored 89% on his final vocab exam.