Another week gone. The days seem to fly by, but go so slowly at the same time. My weekend has just started, so I'm really happy to have some down time. We have two more class days (Saturday and Monday) before the Eid starts. The Eid is almost a week off, a national holiday, to celebrate the end of Ramadan. It'll be the first time in a month and a half that I'll have have more than one day off in a row. I'm so excited for it! A lot of people take this time to travel and go sightseeing, but a lot of places are closed, or extremely crowded, so I'm not really sure if I'll be going anywhere.
This past week was a busy one. After my last post, I went to choir, and really enjoyed it. The director asked me to try out this week instead, but more about that later. Thursday, I went to Jafra again with the same group of people, and I got to try stuffed grape leaves. They were really strong, and heavy in taste. It's definitely an acquired taste...
Friday was a relatively quiet day. I went to church, and got to meet a bunch of new people. After church, I went to Jasmine's for lunch. Her mom made a dish with rice, boiled eggs, meatballs, potatoes, pine nuts, cranberries, and chicken. I think it's called mansaf, but I'm not sure. Anyways, it was delicious. I ate way more than I thought I could. Apparently Arabs drink yogurt blended with salt and water with lunch - I tried it, but I really did not like it. Maybe with curry, but probably not. After lunch, I chatted with the family for a bit, some in Arabic, but mostly English. I don't know enough Arabic to really talk to people yet. We had tea and baklava, as well as some other traditional Arab sweets, and I left after a couple hours. I spent the evening in, studying and watching a movie. I wasn't able to make small group because of other commitments, but small group pretty much came to me. Jessey, Jeff, Emily, and another couple all came back to our apartment for pizza and to hang out, which was really fun.
Saturday, I got my test results back. Turns out I did pretty well, for all my worrying - I got a 91. I guess all that studying really paid off... The rest of the weekend was quiet, I spent a lot of time studying and took some time for myself. On Sunday night, I went with Emily to another group member's house to watch Sunday Night Football - Carolina vs. the Vikings. I really wanted to watch the Eagles game, but it didn't start until midnight, and I had school in the morning. Definitely reminded me of how much I dislike the huge time difference.
This week has been busy, mostly with school work. The difficulty of the lessons is increasing, which for some reason makes our teachers think it should go faster as well. But it's all good, we're getting better at the patterns and at keeping up. I had dinner with one of my classmates on Tuesday night - we made a spiced lamb bolognese with pasta, salad, and fried goat cheese. It was really tasty, and nice to have a home cooked meal. I don't cook full meals for myself too often, it's time consuming. But it was worth it, I might have to start actually cooking again. Wednesday was choir night, I went early for my try out. I was the first there, so I sang a song and did some scales so she could put me in whatever section she thought was appropriate. And I got in - as an alto, but she's puts me in soprano II when she gets bored, it's kind of amusing.
Today was really good as well. Classes weren't too hard, we were all in a funny mood, so we were cracking jokes in Arabic as often as we could. After class, I headed out to City Mall with a classmate to get a new pair of jeans and some more food. Tonight, I'm having a movie night with some other friends of mine from school, complete with popcorn and whatever unhealthy baked goods we can throw together before nightfall.
Of all the things going on right now, the change in the weather is probably my favorite. Sounds ridiculous, I know. But it's starting to cool down. The evenings are low 70's, which from high 90's, is pretty chilly. And it's dropping fast. We were in the 60's last night, supposed to be in the low 50's tonight, freezing on Friday night, and below freezing by Saturday night. But still in the 80s during the day, of course. Love that desert weather! We're getting clouds during the day, and we're supposed to have the first rain this weekend. I'm really excited! Any excuse to pull out my favorite hoodies and curl up with a cup of hot chocolate...
Coming up: Rain check, freezing nights, warm comforters, hot chocolate, a week off, end of Ramadan celebrations, and perhaps a bus trip to Jeresh. It'll be an interesting week.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Gotta love the sunset...
Well, another week has past. Just after I finished my previous post, I went out to meet up with my friend, Jasmine, at City Mall. I managed to avoid taking a taxi by myself, although I had all my choice phrases prepared just in case. After a couple hours, we took a taxi back to 2nd circle, which is near Jasmine's house, when her mother called and invited me to come for tea and to meet the family. This was at 10:30, on a school night. However, it is considered to be really rude to turn down an invitation, so off I went on my first Arab family visit. We talked for a bit, had tea and cookies, and I got to meet Jasmine's two sisters and her little brother. Babal Hara came on, and they thought it was really funny when I recognized the theme song. I got to practice some of my Arabic, which was a lot of fun. Jasmine and her mother walked me back to Rainbow St. at 11:45, and when we past Jasmine's aunt's house, they asked if I wanted to come visit her aunt with them. This time I had to decline, after all, I had to be up and functioning for school in 7 hours.
Thursday night was a blast - Christina, Emily, our friends Jessey, Jeff, and Zoe from group, and I went to Jafra. Jafra is this little, hidden restaurant that serves traditional Arabic food in the balad. We had all sorts of stuff: hummus with meat, a yogurt w/ thyme thing you put in pita, eggplant hummus, and this salad thing. I say thing, because I really have no clue what it's called... But it was really good.
On Friday, I took a taxi by myself, and didn't die, I was soooo excited! I went to the Meridien to study at Starbucks for a couple hours before heading off to play Ultimate. When we got the field, I found out we were playing some serious savage - 3 vs 2. It was a workout, but it was definitely worth it. After Ultimate, we went to group, which was actually a baby shower for one of the members.
I spent the rest of the weekend relaxing and studying for my test on Monday. I was put in charge of the first review, so I set up Pictionary and Jeopardy, which went very well. One of my classmates put together "Who wants to be an Arab speaker?" for the class before the test, which was amusing. When it came time for the actual test, we were all pretty nervous. I felt pretty confident when I went it, after all, I had really studied for this test. But when it started, the woman who was asking me the questions was impossible to understand, so I'm not sure how I did on that half of the test. The second part was much easier, we had to translate sentences and we were tested on vocabulary. So it was tough, but I think I did ok. Of course, if I failed, I won't tell anyone...
Yesterday was a pretty good day. We started a new lesson on verbs, which has been challenging, to say the least. For starters, we're learning the past-tense first, because the past-tense form of the verb is actually the root word. And we won't be learning present-tense until next semester. Our teachers also decided that they were going to up the amount of work expected to be done in an hour, so we've been trying to follow the lesson at twice the speed. Not so easy. But I'm still enjoying the challenge. After class, I went home to take my afternoon nap, but was too wired, so I watched a movie and studied for a bit before heading off to the bookshop. I had been at the bookshop for about an hour when Emily came up and asked if I wanted to head out to this cool bridge in Abdoun to take some pictures at sunset. I was all for it, so I packed up, and we headed off to Abdoun to shoot the bridge. It was really pretty at sunset, and we'll go back soon to shoot it at night with all the lights on. After our photo session, I went home to study some more and watch ER. I was exhausted from climbing over walls and hiking through dirt piles for my pictures, so I crashed early.
Today should be fun, I'm going to try out for the only choir in Jordan. It's usually only up for holiday concerts, and I'll miss the actual concert, but I still want to sing. So here's to hoping I make the cut...
Coming up: Results from my try-out, and a proper Iraqi lunch with Jasmine's family.
Thursday night was a blast - Christina, Emily, our friends Jessey, Jeff, and Zoe from group, and I went to Jafra. Jafra is this little, hidden restaurant that serves traditional Arabic food in the balad. We had all sorts of stuff: hummus with meat, a yogurt w/ thyme thing you put in pita, eggplant hummus, and this salad thing. I say thing, because I really have no clue what it's called... But it was really good.
On Friday, I took a taxi by myself, and didn't die, I was soooo excited! I went to the Meridien to study at Starbucks for a couple hours before heading off to play Ultimate. When we got the field, I found out we were playing some serious savage - 3 vs 2. It was a workout, but it was definitely worth it. After Ultimate, we went to group, which was actually a baby shower for one of the members.
I spent the rest of the weekend relaxing and studying for my test on Monday. I was put in charge of the first review, so I set up Pictionary and Jeopardy, which went very well. One of my classmates put together "Who wants to be an Arab speaker?" for the class before the test, which was amusing. When it came time for the actual test, we were all pretty nervous. I felt pretty confident when I went it, after all, I had really studied for this test. But when it started, the woman who was asking me the questions was impossible to understand, so I'm not sure how I did on that half of the test. The second part was much easier, we had to translate sentences and we were tested on vocabulary. So it was tough, but I think I did ok. Of course, if I failed, I won't tell anyone...
Yesterday was a pretty good day. We started a new lesson on verbs, which has been challenging, to say the least. For starters, we're learning the past-tense first, because the past-tense form of the verb is actually the root word. And we won't be learning present-tense until next semester. Our teachers also decided that they were going to up the amount of work expected to be done in an hour, so we've been trying to follow the lesson at twice the speed. Not so easy. But I'm still enjoying the challenge. After class, I went home to take my afternoon nap, but was too wired, so I watched a movie and studied for a bit before heading off to the bookshop. I had been at the bookshop for about an hour when Emily came up and asked if I wanted to head out to this cool bridge in Abdoun to take some pictures at sunset. I was all for it, so I packed up, and we headed off to Abdoun to shoot the bridge. It was really pretty at sunset, and we'll go back soon to shoot it at night with all the lights on. After our photo session, I went home to study some more and watch ER. I was exhausted from climbing over walls and hiking through dirt piles for my pictures, so I crashed early.
Today should be fun, I'm going to try out for the only choir in Jordan. It's usually only up for holiday concerts, and I'll miss the actual concert, but I still want to sing. So here's to hoping I make the cut...
Coming up: Results from my try-out, and a proper Iraqi lunch with Jasmine's family.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Ramadan
Ok, so it's been two weeks since I last updated, but not too much has happened. I got sick a couple days after my last post, and it took me close to a week to recover. Ramadan started 10 days ago, and so far it hasn't been too bad. The calls to prayer are much more frequent, and much louder, and people tend to walk around banging pots and pans at four in the morning to wake people up for prayer and breakfast before the sunrise. School starts for us at the same time, and we're allowed to eat and drink in school so long as we don't in public, out of respect for those fasting. Breaking the fast in public also happens to be illegal, as I recently found out, and you can go to jail for it. My favorite time of day has quickly become around 7 pm, when everyone closes up shop and heads home for iftar, or the breaking of the fast. It cools down by then, and everything is quiet and peaceful for a time. Then around 8 or 9, everyone floods the streets and cafes to eat, socialize, and smoke the hookah (called argeelah here) usually until past midnight. And there are lots of fireworks.
Last Thursday, I went to a local restaurant with Christina and our neighbor, Emily, to hang out for a bit. There was a live band that played, which was actually quite good, and we got to just relax and talk and smoke argeelah. Friday morning, I went downtown to see the art market, which was open Friday mornings until Ramadan started. It was really cool - there were lots of eclectic things, jewelry, artwork, antiques from all over the Middle East. I settled for some funky earrings. I spent the majority of Friday studying at Starbucks before heading off to our small group, which is getting larger and larger every week. A bunch of us went to the pool to relax and celebrate my classmate, Amy's, birthday on Sunday. It was incredibly hot, with no breeze, the end of a stifling heat wave, so it was so nice to be able to jump into the cool water whenever we got too hot. We Christina and I got home, I made lasagna from scratch for the first time in my life, and was very surprised when it wasn't half bad. Classes this week have been much more difficult and at a faster pace than previous weeks, but I'm relishing the challenge. We've finished the first 5 chapters, so we're now beginning to review before our first test. My class thought it would be a good idea to put me in charge of our first review period, so I'm taking it and running with it. I've prepared pictionary and jeopardy to make the review more interesting, so it will definitely be a fun class tomorrow.
Today has been good so far. I got to explore the British Council, which was really cool. It has a library, classrooms and tables set up in a really nice, quiet garden. I will definitely be spending more time there. Our washing machine is still broken, so we're still doing our laundry at Emily's. Christina and I were invited to the office building to eat lunch, which was fantastic. I really enjoy a good home-cooked meal. Tonight I'll be attempting to take a taxi to a nearby mall to meet up with a new friend of mine. I'm still a bit nervous, but I think I'll be ok this time. After all, I learned a few choice phrases to use if the taxi driver oversteps the boundaries again.... And the icing on the cake: Babal Hara. Babal Hara is an Arabic soap opera shown every night during Ramadan. It's a great way to listen to how words are used in different contexts, and it's dramatic. My excuse is that it's educational.
So coming up: I attempt to pass the first test, register for absentee voting, and my introduction to steamed grape leaves.
Last Thursday, I went to a local restaurant with Christina and our neighbor, Emily, to hang out for a bit. There was a live band that played, which was actually quite good, and we got to just relax and talk and smoke argeelah. Friday morning, I went downtown to see the art market, which was open Friday mornings until Ramadan started. It was really cool - there were lots of eclectic things, jewelry, artwork, antiques from all over the Middle East. I settled for some funky earrings. I spent the majority of Friday studying at Starbucks before heading off to our small group, which is getting larger and larger every week. A bunch of us went to the pool to relax and celebrate my classmate, Amy's, birthday on Sunday. It was incredibly hot, with no breeze, the end of a stifling heat wave, so it was so nice to be able to jump into the cool water whenever we got too hot. We Christina and I got home, I made lasagna from scratch for the first time in my life, and was very surprised when it wasn't half bad. Classes this week have been much more difficult and at a faster pace than previous weeks, but I'm relishing the challenge. We've finished the first 5 chapters, so we're now beginning to review before our first test. My class thought it would be a good idea to put me in charge of our first review period, so I'm taking it and running with it. I've prepared pictionary and jeopardy to make the review more interesting, so it will definitely be a fun class tomorrow.
Today has been good so far. I got to explore the British Council, which was really cool. It has a library, classrooms and tables set up in a really nice, quiet garden. I will definitely be spending more time there. Our washing machine is still broken, so we're still doing our laundry at Emily's. Christina and I were invited to the office building to eat lunch, which was fantastic. I really enjoy a good home-cooked meal. Tonight I'll be attempting to take a taxi to a nearby mall to meet up with a new friend of mine. I'm still a bit nervous, but I think I'll be ok this time. After all, I learned a few choice phrases to use if the taxi driver oversteps the boundaries again.... And the icing on the cake: Babal Hara. Babal Hara is an Arabic soap opera shown every night during Ramadan. It's a great way to listen to how words are used in different contexts, and it's dramatic. My excuse is that it's educational.
So coming up: I attempt to pass the first test, register for absentee voting, and my introduction to steamed grape leaves.
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