Back in School. Again.

Today was a pretty big day for me - it was my first day at Kelsey! Classes started at 8.15, so I had to be up early. Not so much fun.... But we got there, and Mark, the director, sat everyone down for a little assembly to talk over the rules and make sure everybody knew where we were going. After that, we headed to our separate classrooms. The class you're assigned to stays in the same room and with the same people for classes, with only the teachers changing. Nellie, my first hour teacher, launched right into a lesson on patterns and pronunciation. We had a 10 minute break between 1st and 2nd hour, so we used that time to start learning each others names, and got contact info in case one of us missed a class. Our 2nd hour teacher, Haifa, also put us straight to work, working on learning the consonants, vowels, and how they were pronounced. We also started learning how to write them. After 2nd hour, we get a 30 minute break, when the students usually congregate in the courtyard, and we have tea and chat for a bit before heading off for the final hour of the day. 3rd hour was the most difficult for me, we were learning a long list of new vocabulary, which is due to be memorized by tomorrow, and has lots of pharyngeal consonants in it. It's actually pretty difficult to learn new ways to make sounds I've never heard spoken, it just doesn't feel natural. So we'll be working on that... All in all though, it was a good first day. I met a bunch of new people, and I was able to hold my own.

Now, today is Wednesday. Cleaning day. Honestly, we should just call it the day of disasters. Christina and I came home from school, and we were making lunch before we started cleaning. I made some ramen noodles, and sat down to eat them when I looked down at my bowl and saw a TON of dead ants. Apparently the ants had gotten into all my noodles, and, not noticing, I boiled them alive with my noodles. And almost ate them. I joke that it's extra protein, but truth be told, we've put so much ant poison down to keep them out of our food and kitchen that I'd probably get sick. I grabbed another pack, seemingly sealed, put it on the stove, and then saw that it, too, was filled with ants. So I pulled out the whole box, but didn't see any ants. Regardless, I'm pretty convinced that all my noodles are infested. All I wanted was some ramen noodles. So, I had to go to the shop across the street a get a Cup 'O Noodles. Frustrating. Then we decided to test the washing machine, recently returned and said to be fixed, before putting in a load. Lo and behold, it was still broken. Now the spinner didn't even move. It seems like we just aren't meant to have clean clothes. With a nice heavy load of homework tonight, I do not have time to hand wash two weeks worth of clothing. So we've talked to the landlord again, who's trying to sort it out, but it looks like we're going to have to send out our laundry to get it cleaned. It's an expense I don't want, but for lack of a better option, it seems to be the short-term solution.

Ok, so disaster may be over-exaggerating. There were no floods, broken bones, getting locked out, or falling down dusty, smooth staircases. But the fact that I still can't wash my clothes without scrubbing them in a bucket by hand to me is ridiculous. As my dad would say, it's an adventure. Which is completely true. Every day of these past two weeks has been an adventure. And I'm loving every bit of it.