A Whirlwind of Activity

The Valentine's Banquet (with Ruth)

only my new favorite dress ever. (with Janelle)

Alright. So I thought I'd start off with some fun pictures from the Valentine's banquet, which was a huge success. We served about 45 people, the kids were great, and we all enjoyed dressing up. It was 50's themed - most of the girls went more for the poodle skirt or Pink Ladies look, I simply looked like a housewife. Works for me! I found the dress last minute in a little shop near my apartment, and fell in love with it.

Earlier that week, we had our house-warming party. I invited about 25 people, expecting maybe 2/3 of them to actually come. I was wrong. All but 3 people showed up, so we had a very full house. I made lasagna (a Pioneer Woman recipe, slightly altered), which was a huge hit, and loved being able to host a party. It was great to have people over, and to show off my new apartment. The Superbowl was the next evening, and was also so much fun. A whole bunch of us were at a friend's house, with loads of junk food, watching the game projected on the wall. Janelle is a huge Colts fan, and sadly watched as the Colts lost. Now, I'm not an avid Saints fan or anything, but Reggie Bush plays for them, and I love USC players. Should one eventually end up with Dallas, however, I won't root for them. That's a little much. And while I'm on the subject of football, I got some devastating news this past week - the Eagles let Brian Westbrook go. Westbrook is one of my all-time favorite players. I absolutely love him. So when I saw this, I just about cried. All I can say is that as long as he stays away from Dallas, I will root for whatever team he plays for, should he decide to continue playing.

Ok. Outside of school, loads of homework, and a lot of choir rehearsals, I've slowed down my weeks considerably. I found that I was way too busy, and I wasn't handling it all that well. So I kept my schedule relatively free, and went on a day-by-day basis again. I spent time with some old friends, hanging out and cooking and talking, and had a lot more quiet time.

A little over a week ago, 5 of us rented a car (that was a debacle. seriously.) and skipped out of town on Saturday to go hiking. I did the wadi last November, but it was a chance to get out and spend some time with friends, as well as an opportunity to try out my vibrams. We left at 730 in the morning, drove down to the Dead Sea, and set off. It was a beautiful day. My shoes were awesome for rock climbing and bouldering. So much so that I went off climbing crazy rocks that my mother would not approve of, and it was so much fun! Last time I got wedged in this crack trying to get up this rock, this time, I did it with ease. I really love my vibrams. You should all try them out. We enjoyed lunch by the waterfall, I had some great one-on-one time with one of the other girls, and then we headed back around noonish. As we approached the end of the hike, we ran into a bunch of goats and some kids on donkeys leading them around. There were also some incredibly adorable baby goats that Janelle and I got to pet. Then the goats chased us. Or maybe the kids were telling them to, I don't know. But it was kind of funny. We drove back to the city, dropped everyone off, and I went off to meet with some other friends before church. It was a wonderful time away.

This week has been crazy in its own right, but in a good way. I got to spend a lot of time with Ruth on Tuesday, hanging out for a bit, staying for dinner and a movie. Another friend of mine celebrated her 25th birthday this week, and I loved being able to celebrate that with her and some other friends. I had 3 choir rehearsals this week - Monday, as usual, Wednesday, a sectional, and last night, in preparation for a concert next Wednesday. We had off of school on Thursday, which was really nice. I also left Thursday afternoon for the youth retreat, getting back last night. The retreat was awesome. The speaker connected really well with the kids, and was really funny, the worship team did an excellent job, and the kids really enjoyed all the activities we planned for them. There were about 80 kids there, and they loved the shirts. I was really nervous about that, but it went really well. It was so much fun seeing my pieces of art everywhere. It was raining the entire weekend, so we were constantly wet, but we didn't let that dampen our spirits. We had a castle activity - there's an ancient castle in Ajloun, where we had a challenge to find leaders, collect puzzle pieces, all while several team members were blind-folded. It was good fun. We also had a photo scavenger hunt and a talent show, in which the leaders all performed a number from the Sound of Music, to the kids' great amusement. We had a game of ultimate frisbee, lots of Dutch Blitz, and finally, packed the kids onto the buses and shipped them back to the city. I was in a van with a couple other leaders and some of the equipment, leaving right after the bus. Except we couldn't start the car. We ended up push-starting the car, which was a funny sight. I got back, unpacked, finally had dry feet for the first time in 3 days, then went off to choir rehearsal. I was exhausted, but managed to make it through. Luckily, I have today and tomorrow to recuperate before going back to school on Tuesday.

In other news, Horton, one of my favorite teachers from high school (she taught the Autistic kids and was the JV coach for lacrosse), had a baby boy this past week. Congrats!!!

Coming up: wadi pictures!!!, my first Dozan concert, and a trip to the Royal Academy of Culinary Arts for free pastries and conversations with the chefs.

New Apartment!

Finally.... Here are some pictures of my new apartment! Lets start on the roof.

...the view...

Now in the apartment, we've got a dining room table!

The formal sitting room

The informal sitting room (also known as the warm room)

When it's cold, we put up farshi to insulate and block off the warm room to keep it nice and toasty

Now, this kitchen is huge. SO much better than the last one. We can fit a whole ton of people in here, and there's even enough room for a table! And there's counter space....

Big perk: a real washing machine!!!! No more filling it with water by hand or draining into the toilet...

My room!!!

I have a desk! And lots of pictures. They make me smile :]

... and I finally have a mirror that isn't hidden inside of my wardrobe.

So that's about it for pictures! Janelle's (my new roommate) room is out my door to the left, and we both have our own bathrooms. I absolutely love the roof access, it's great to sit out there in the sunshine and read a book, or do homework, or just to sit and enjoy the quiet.

New update coming soon. Until then, enjoy the pictures!

I'm....... Moving Out!

OK, so its a been a while. Things on my end have been absolutely crazy. First of all, the Eagles did not win. They lost, again, to all their fans' disappointment. It was a sad night indeed.

As most of you know, I like to paint shirts. A whole lot. It's a hobby of mine. Last summer, I hand painted more than 20 shirts for Aisling's ultimate frisbee team. It was so much fun, though quite time-consuming. This winter, I outdid myself. Before I left Jordan, we had a leaders' meeting about a youth retreat in February, and next thing I knew, I had volunteered to make and bring back all the shirts for the retreat. In the taxi on the way, I was kicking myself. Sure, I love painting shirts, but 85? What was I thinking? But when I got home, and started making designs and buying the shirts, I knew exactly what I had been thinking - that this was gonna be awesome.

So we bought 85 shirts. Black for the leaders, then yellow, teal, purple, and green for the team colors. Then we worked on the design. The company that makes my screen printer (Yudu, the best birthday present ever) makes some cool base designs. We took one of those and added theme words from the retreat to it, then made the screen. We grabbed the paints, my very wise mother made me cover the floor with plastic, and then started painting. After a while, I got into a system, and cranked out all the shirts in a couple days. We then decided that the shirts needed a design on the front as well, so we played around on photoshop for a while, made a new screen, stuffed all the shirts with newspaper, and cranked them out. The sweatshop opened and closed with plenty of time to spare. See more pictures here...

The lease on our house is up in July, so I had to pack up all my things before I left (things would've been thrown out if I hadn't...). I enlisted both Helena and my mother to help out, and got everything packed. I also threw out enough junk to fill a small dumpster. Turns out all sorts of things had accumulated in my room over the 2 years that I lived there.

My mother demonstrated her amazing packing skills once again by fitting all the shirts and my own clothes into 2 duffel bags, both just over 30 lbs each. How she managed to do that, I will never know. With sad hearts, I left to go back for my last semester at Kelsey. I got through security with no problem, got on the plane to JFK, when we were told that the AA terminal at JFK was being evacuated, everyone was being de-planed and re-screened. There was no telling when we would be able to get there. I managed to get to the front of the line to try to get me there in time to make my connection in time, and managed to convince the guy that it was of the utmost importance that I be on the last plane to JFK that evening. So I was. I made it to my connection just in time to board. The flight was long, as always, but we got there and all of bags arrived.

I spent the next week in the house on my own, seeing as I no longer had a roommate. I still hadn't found a new one, and I was starting to look at other options. I registered for my 4th semester classes (!), lead my first small group solo, and took a short trip up to Ajloun to scout out the youth retreat site. On Thursday (the 21st), I heard from my small group co-leader, Janelle, and she told me that her roommate had suddenly moved out, and wanted to know if I was still looking for a roommate, since she now had an opening. We talked details over the weekend, I talked to my landlord about my lease, and by that Monday (the 25th) it was official: I was moving out. I started packing, and by Tuesday night, almost the entire place was packed and ready to go. I started school on that Tuesday as well, but I'm not so sure about what happened in classes, I was a little distracted. After class on Wednesday, I moved all my stuff into Janelle's apartment. Our apartment is huge, compared to my old one at least. I have my own bathroom, you can fit like 10 people in the kitchen, there's roof access, and I even have to take more than 3 steps to get from my bed to my desk (I have a desk!). It is a little farther from school, about a 10 minute walk in the morning instead of a 3 minute walk, but I really love the location. I'll get some pictures of it up soon :]

On the 25th, I also officially became a member of Dozan wa Awtar, a prestigious choir here in Jordan. I originally had wanted to try out for it a year ago, but was thwarted by the mono invasion. I also got to go on the choir retreat to the Dead Sea that weekend. We left early Friday morning, and started off with some hilarious ice-breakers, involving cartwheels, yelling, dancing like various pop artists... We sang a lot, and the music sounded awesome. I can't wait to hear what it sounds like when we know the music! We performed a few pieces for the guests, went out for dinner, and then had some dancing lessons on the grass later at night. I even taught them how to "strip the willow". (For those who don't know, it's a popular reel-like dance in Scotland, a ceilidh thing) We went to bed late, got up early, sang some more, then had group skits. We were split into groups, given a piece of music that we had to learn, and then had to perform as part of a skit. They were ridiculous. We're all a little weird in our own ways, which definitely made things interesting. We left Saturday evening, having made new friends and no longer feeling self-conscious or shy around any of the other members.

Yesterday was a bucket of fun. I got to hang out with Ruth and Janelle over a pot of chili and biscuits made from scratch. This week is also "Wild Scotland" week here in Jordan. I went with some choir friends to the Cultural Center for a night of Scottish Music. It was excellent. Musicians from Scotland were flown in, and worked with some local artists, who learned some of the Scottish pieces, as well as the Scots learning some Arabic pieces. It really made me miss those rolling green hills and that thick, Scottish brogue. Today, we had a "snow" day. There was apparently snow in West Amman, so classes were cancelled. No snow where I live, but hey, I'll take it.

So, coming up: this Saturday, we're having a house-warming party!, baking in a real kitchen, a Valentine's Banquet for the parents at AIC (put on by the youth), more choir rehearsals, and the Superbowl this Sunday!!!! It will be awesome. It starts at 1:30 am. Here comes the all-nighter.

A Christmas Song

It's hard to believe how quickly the last several weeks have passed. I remember sitting down for my last blog post, wondering how I was ever going to get through those two weeks. But I did. They were busy and crazy and wonderful.

The week of the concerts was ridiculous. I had school, loads of laundry, people to visit before I left, and had to sing every night. The concerts went really well. We did a concert up north in Irbid at this little church, which was lots of fun, and we were given roses and food afterwards. It was really sad thinking that these could possibly be my last Christmas concerts in Jordan...

After finishing with the concerts, Bethany and I focused on packing her up and getting ready to leave. We had a farewell dinner with some of the Sunday night football crowd. I got together with a friend from choir for a really good meal (linguine with prosciutto, spinach,

gorgonzola cheese, and toasted pine nuts) before packing up to leave early Thursday morning.

Bethany and I had our last movie night (we watched the blind side - excellent film!) and then said our farewells the next morning. I got on the plane, and was actually doing really well until the stewardess ran over my foot with the food cart. That hurt. I then got myself on standby for an earlier flight down to Florida, where I would meet up with my family, who had driven down the day before. I had a slim chance of getting on that flight - there were only 7 open seats, and over 90 people trying to get in them. I totally pulled the "I just spent 12 1/2 hours on a flight with

screaming children, I'm done with traveling" card, smiled, and got the last seat on the plane.

In Florida, we had a hot tub and a swimming pool at the house we rented. I spent a whole lot of time in that hot tub. We played card games, read books, watched more TV than a person ever should, ate my weight in junk food, went ice skating, and I beat my dad at pool. Twice. We drove back up to NC on Christmas Eve, the last couple hours filled with Christmas stories and our own Handel's Messiah Sing-In.

Christmas was quiet. We woke up earlier than usual because my mum had to work that day. We had eggs Benedict for breakfast, followed by the traditional Aunt Gladys' sticky buns.

We had some fun stocking stuffers (Santa got me an Intruder Alert alarm thingy, and lots of chocolate...) and some fun gifts.

Mummy got a Cricut machine (it does all sorts of cool paper cutting crafty stuff) and a bunch of accessories for it. I got the Pioneer Woman

cookbook, and an Eagles jersey, a book of Bedouin poetry, fun colored paints for my screen printer, Aisling got some salad forks from South Africa and a sweatshirt with thumb holes, I got Mummy some salad forks from Jordan (with camels on the top!). My dad got push up bars and running gloves. He's a work out geek now. Helena got a piano book of lounge music (she's really enjoying singing lots of jazzy stuff right now), some handmade jewelry, and the most memorable gift of '09 - a Fulla doll. For those of you who don't know, it's basically the Arab Barbie. She's got separate indoor and outdoor fashion, and wears the hijab. Helena, whose nickname has been Barbie for longer than we can remember, was not so amused. The rest of us thought it was absolutely hilarious.

*This is the gift I spent over an hour looking for with Bethany in a previous blog post.* We later joined my mum for dinner at the hospital. Boxing Day, we made the mistake of going to the mall. Big mistake. It took us over an hour to get out of the parking lot. I did, however, get a new pair of jeans.

On the 27th, I got in the car and drove down to Atlanta, Georgia. Two friends of mine from Jordan, Jeremiah and Ruth, had just gotten engaged, so I went to visit them and Ruth's family for a couple days. I made the drive without incident, met the rest of Ruth's family, then took a nap, just in time for a bunch of people from Ruth's church to come over to hang out and meet Jeremiah. A bunch of us took a walk in the park, which was really nice. The next day, Ruth, Jeremiah, and I went out for breakfast at Panera's, followed by getting her beautiful engagement ring sized, and a trip to Plato's closet to get some new shirts for Jeremiah. We hiked Stone Mountain that afternoon. It was a really nice hike up - great view from the top. It was also absolutely freezing at the top. We hiked back down, drove around the mountain, took some fun pictures, then went back for some spicy hot chocolate. We had an amazing home-cooked Mexican dinner, complete with sangria, followed by some competitive card games and ping pong. One of the twins and I were soundly beat by Ruth's older brother, who was playing left handed.I I slept in the next morning, had a quiet breakfast and a lesson in military uniforms, then said my goodbyes and drove back home. It was an awesome couple of days. I can't wait to go back in July for the wedding :]

After I got back, we vegged some more. Aisling, Daddy and I went to play some frisbee golf. Daddy won with only +5, Aisling hurt her wrist at hole 11, I finished with +26. Oops. Then I got a lesson on marking, and I totally out-pulled my dad. Seriously excited about that. We had a quiet New Year's Eve - Helena was babysitting, Daddy fell asleep on the couch, Mummy was working, so Aisling and I watched Night at the Museum. Mummy got home with plenty of time before the ball dropped, Aisling went to bed before the ball dropped, I opened a bottle of champagne for the first time in my life, without hitting anyone in the eye. I was pretty excited about it. So Mummy, Daddy, and I watched the ball drop, and sang Auld Lang Syne. I packed it in pretty early, because Aisling and I had a New Year's day hat tournament.

We were on the fields at nine, decked out in painted blue tshirts and lots of underarmour. We had 5, possibly 6 or 7 games that day. It was cold, and lots of fun, although I strained a muscle pretty badly mid-way through game 3, couldn't run, and had to sit out the rest of the tournament. Aisling caught a bunch of goals (I'm convinced it was 3, she disagrees), and I also picked one up and got to pull before getting injured. After our 5 games had finished, Aisling and I picked up some cheesesteak sandwiches and headed home. Aisling returned to Denver the next

day. The rest of us went to see Invictus (with Matt Damon, directed by Clint Eastwood), which was an excellent film, and I got a pair of Vibram Fivefingers (they are WAY cool, Google them. Seriously.).

Yesterday was a bit of a disappointment. I was so excited about finally getting to see an Eagles game at a decent hour, and not only did they lose, they didn't even show up. They got destroyed, their heads handed to them on a plate. It was 24-0. Half of me thinks they threw the game, the other half doesn't want to believe my team would do that to me. Very disappointing. I did, however, get to enjoy a good church service, brunch with my dad and Helena, and got to spend some time talking with Aisling.

Today was good fun. I bought a new fishywishy for my dad (the last one died a little while back) - he's a beta fish, and a feisty one at that. I also bought 85 tshirts from A.C. Moore. Now don't freak out, it's for a good reason. I'm screen printing said shirts for the youth retreat in February. It's definitely my biggest project to date, but I'm really excited to do it. Daddy, Helena, and I also made this fantastic dinner from my new Pioneer Woman cookbook: rib-eye steak with a whiskey cream sauce, courgettes, and mushroom and herb couscous. It was simple enough on paper, relatively easy to make, and it was far better than I could have expected.

Coming up: the sweat shop opens in my living room, playoff game #1 against Dallas (which we better win...), definitely more Pioneer Woman, packing woohoo!, and an Oreo cream pie for dessert in 20 minutes. Good times.

PS. Got accepted to UNCG. 1 down, 3 to go.

A Rainy Day

With just 10 days remaining until I return to the States for the holidays, my life has become very, very busy. Yesterday was probably the last real quiet day I'll get until I get to Florida. And it was wonderful. I slept in. Then brewed some coffee, cleaned up the kitchen, baked blueberry muffins and made cheesy scrambled eggs for breakfast. I may or may not have consumed the majority of the muffins. I spent the rest of the relaxing with a book, watched a tv episode, then headed off for choir rehearsal. Afterwards, I watched some football (and kept track of the Eagles game, which wasn't being shown, but they won!!!!) and saw the Dolphins beat the Patriots. Whodathunk?

Anyways, the concert starts on Wednesday. As in, the day after tomorrow. And I have no clue how it got to be December 7th. Where did the days go? It promises to be a long week, with more rehearsal tonight, tomorrow night, then 3 concerts in a row. We're also preparing for Bethany to leave (she leaves the day after I do), but because she's not coming back next semester, there are all these people she has to see and things she has to do before she leaves. We're doing a dinner with a bunch of the usual football crowd on Sunday, learning to make some Chinese food with some classmates on Wednesday (yes, right before the concert), visiting other classmates... Somewhere in there is school, eating, packing, and sleep, if we're lucky.

Today, however, looked like it wouldn't be too busy, so Bethany and I took the opportunity to get some shopping done. So we went off to the mall, through rain, got ripped off by the cab driver (he rigged his meter), then enjoyed a hot chai tea latte from Caribou. Ok, so I splurged a little. But it's a yucky day, and I rarely go to the mall, and I needed something hot and delicious. Turned out to be a great decision, because we spent close to an hour walking all over the mall, back and forth, looking for this store with a particular gift I had seen earlier for one of my sisters. We finally found it, thanks to Bethany, and then went to Al-Afgani, THE tourist shop. They've got all sorts of cool stuff. I somehow managed to avoid many tempting purchases, and only bought the gift I intended to buy. Pretty good for me. We rounded the evening off with fried chicken sandwiches from KFC, then got in a cab to go home.

About this cab. I have heaps upon heaps of creepy cab driver stories. I've been locked in cars, asked all sorts of inappropriate questions, had several proposals (including one guy that said "I have Jordan passport, you have US passport, our children will have US passport too! It's perfect!). So I'm used to sleazy guys. Our cab driver was pretty sleazy. He claimed to have 2 wives, in 2 different countries, one in France (apparently a drunk with a crazy mother), and an Arab wife here. He kept trying to ask our ages. I had a feeling he would ask about our marital statuses next, but we got out just in time. Far enough from our apartment that he couldn't possibly follow us home. The stories you hear in cabs these days...

Needless to say, it was a successful day. Now I get to go pick the local shop owner's brain about local idioms and sayings, and go sing for another couple hours. I quite enjoyed one of the sayings we learned in class today (literally, it means "the monkey, in the eye of his mother, is a gazelle.") :

القرد في عين أمه غزال

And I shall leave you with that.

Two Turkeys and a Wadi

A little over a year ago, I was invited to watch my neighbors kill a sheep and clean it out, in preparation for the Eid al-Adha. It's one of the most important holidays for Muslims, and it involves slaughtering sheep, goats, or camels to commemorate Allah providing a ram for Abraham to sacrifice in place of his son. I was slightly traumatized by that experience, but luckily did not have to repeat it this year. Instead, we celebrated Eid al'shukur (holiday of thanks) - Thanksgiving.

This year, I had two Thanksgivings, both with turkey! (Last year, no turkey. It was too expensive.) The first, on Thursday afternoon, Bethany, Julia, and I went to the Haddad's, a large family Bethany knows partly from the States. They own some pretty big companies. There was a ton of amazing food, wine, and lots of really friendly people. We got all dressed up for the occasion - heels, nice clothes, make up, hair down... basically everything I avoid because of the extra attention it gets me. Thankfully, not a lot of people were out, being the first day of the Eid. There was some drooling though, to my amusement. Afterwards, Bethany and Julia went for another large meal with one of their teachers, and I went to see some German friends of mine.

Thanksgiving #2 (Friday) - a more relaxed occasion at the Schupp's house, where we go for football on Sunday nights. Julia, Bethany, and I were all supposed to bring a dish. Julia cooked hers earlier, but Bethany and I had to cook ours the morning of, in our ridiculously small kitchen. Turns out that having both of us in there trying to cook is really, really difficult. There's nowhere near enough room. I ended up mashing my potatoes on the floor in the hallway. Bethany made stuffing from scratch, I made sweet potatoes (with marshmallows!) from scratch, both recipes from the Pioneer Woman. I could hardly wait to eat those sweet potatoes... We decided it would be fun to dress up again, so Bethany

played with my hair a bit, we threw on some nicer clothes, then loaded all of our dishes into my laundry basket wrapped in towels and sweatshirts, and headed over to the Schupp's. There, we ate. A lot. There was turkey, salad, aubergine curry, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, rolls, green beans (also a Pioneer Woman recipe, made by Julia), and more. Oh, and homemade apple cider. Yum! We dove in like the starving students we are. The food was good, the company awesome. We had a quiz on how much we knew about the first Thanksgiving, most of us failed. Angie got the most correct, but handed the win to Julia, seeing as she was the hostess. I won't tell you what I got. We played Scattergories, I correctly identified the part of speech for "making" - it's a gerund, which was super exciting for me. I do not like grammar. Arabic grammar especially. But I guess it's paying off. (I also passed my final book test on Arabic grammar) Then there was more eating, dessert, and some super competitive Dutch blitz. The kids chose to watch Elf, and then I made my exit.

Friday night - my small group girls and myself came over to Janelle's (my co-leader) for a girl's night in. We talked, had some awesome taco soup and garlic bread, watched BBC's Persuasion (the actor who plays Captain Wentworth was pretty good-looking!), then threw a bunch of mattresses on the floor and went to bed. The next morning, we had pancakes. They were delicious. That afternoon, I went to a friend's house and helped them paint their apartment. I got lots of paint on me. It's unavoidable. I spent a couple hours on a rickety ladder edging the ceiling, had a couple scary moments where I was convinced I would fall off and die, and introduced my friends to some cool new music. And there were brownies.

We slept in on Sunday. I did homework. We cooked 3 full meals that day. This is a huge accomplishment for us. I made scrambled eggs with real bacon bits for breakfast. Uh-may-zing. Bethany and I shopped around for fresh produce for lunch, failed miserably, then made bruscetta from canned whole tomatoes, fresh basil, and italian bread, with a little melted cheese on top. It wasn't bad. Bethany made fajitas for dinner, also delicious. We went to football at the Schupp's, but left earlier than usual, because we had adventures planned for the next day.

Bethany, having never been to Petra before, finally got to go to Petra, as a day trip with Julia. They left around 6ish in the morning to catch a bus going down. From what I've heard, they really enjoyed it, except for the sore muscles and tired feet. They got back around 7 that night. I, on the other hand, had plans to go hiking in a wadi near the Dead Sea with Janelle, some classmates from Kelsey, and the youth pastor from church. We got pulled over 5 times by the police, 3 times on the way down, twice on the way back. And no, I wasn't driving. No tickets though, so no problem.

It was a 6 hour hike, and it was awesome. We climbed rocks and jumped off rocks, jumped back and forth over the creek, slid down hillsides, got wedged in between rocks, left a nice bit on skin on the rocks, and for some reason the boys really enjoyed throwing rocks at each other. There was a waterfall, and green growing things, and a somewhat hazy view of the Dead Sea and the hills on the other side. Today, I'm sore. My joints hurt. But it was totally worth it.

Coming up: another final, only 9 days of school left!, more choir rehearsals, a Christmas party, lots more homework, Christmas shopping, and getting ready to leave for winter break.

Click here for more photos from the weekend.

A Little Bit of Life

First of all, I'm sorry I haven't updated in a while, things have been kind of crazy day to day. Since my last post, I've been baptized in the Jordan River, went to Damascus for 36 hours, went to several birthday parties, got a stomach bug (multiple times), the flu, and bronchitis, got a blood test, pitched a fit in Arabic, had a couple baking disasters, had 4 different friends leave Jordan, and so many other little things.

I haven't done too many big things in the past two months. As for smaller things, I have class four days a week, loads more homework, I lead a small group of 10th grade girls, attend a community group, sing in a choir (which is now having rehearsals multiple times a week since the concert is coming up in a couple weeks), church, tutoring, visiting, and of course, football on Sunday nights. Having a schedule again is really exciting for me - I haven't been able to make regular commitments in about 2 years, ever since this whole debacle with my head started. 26 1/2 months later, I'm finally getting to live a relatively normal life again. My crazy summer procedures have definitely paid off.

So the bigger things...

On Sept. 25th, a bunch of my closer friends and I packed into several cars and drove an hour down to the Baptismal Site of Jesus at the Jordan River, where I was baptized. You can see the video of it here: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TYdDuIMC7g). Later that afternoon, the youth from church played their parents/leaders in a game of dodgeball, and the youth got destroyed. I totally got a bunch of kids out. I was very excited.

On Oct. 8/9th, I went to Damascus with two friends of mine. This was a ridiculous, whirlwind trip. We left early Thursday morning, got back late Friday night. It took us 4 different cars to get to Damascus, we waited for almost 4 hours for one the other girls to get her visa cleared (mine only took half an hour, which I should've realized was wrong...). We stayed in a monastery next to St. Paul's church, where Paul was lowered from as he escaped from people trying to capture him. We went to the big outdoor market, walked through the old city, took a rickety little bus an hour outside of the city to visit Ma3lula, a small town with a really old, famous convent. If I ever decide to move to Syria, that's where I will live. It is a beautiful, small town, filled with people who have a passion for their language and their neighbors. We took a bus back from Damascus to Amman, and at the border, found out that 2 of us had the wrong type of visa, and had been in the country illegally. As soon as the officer said possible jail time, I busted out with all the Arabic I had, flirted shamelessly, even used terms of endearment you couldn't pay me to use in Jordan. We got through fine, without having to pay a fine or spend time in jail. There are also now maybe 20 Syrian men who would marry me at the drop of a hat.

Several of my friends recently celebrated their birthdays - there were lots of baked goods, and I had some of the best Chinese food ever made, cooked from scratch by Bethany's classmate. We will soon be heading over to her house to learn how to make it ourselves. As for my baking disasters, I was super excited about making this chocolate mousse pie, but the consistency was all wrong and it wouldn't set. So we froze it, and it made for an excellent frozen fudge pie thing. I also attempted to make meringues, but couldn't get the eggs to form stiff peaks (the eggs were defunct, I tried everything in the book), so instead made a lemon cream cake with cream cheese frosting. I've been doing a lot of baking on my weekends - it's always an adventure, nothing ever turns out the same way twice, and it's fun. Plus, everyone loves baked goods.

I really enjoy my school. But it is a breeding ground for illness. Everyone's kids go to the same daycare, and then the kids get their parents sick, and then the parents come to class anyways, and then poor people like me get whacked with 6 different bugs. I got stomach bug after stomach bug. I couldn't shake it. I spent almost 3 weeks on a bland food diet and still had to take stomach meds to keep food down. As soon as I began to finally recover, Bethany and I both got the flu. We were in a bad way. Bethany began to recover after a week, I got worse. Turns out I got bronchitis on top of it, spent 10 days on antibiotics, and am finally (almost 2 weeks later) recovering.

Jordan just implemented a new visa regulation - after a month in the country, you report to the police station, but now you have to get a blood test first. The place to get it done was dingy and falling apart, and I thought for sure I would get an infection. But the test itself was clean and professional, took maybe 2 seconds. They used a baby sized needle. Easy stuff. The poor girl after Bethany was deathly afraid of needles, kept pulling away, and had to get stuck again and again because she kept moving. It was kinda sad. She didn't speak Arabic or English though, so there wasn't much I could do to help.

I am now able to pitch a fit (a small one) completely in Arabic. Taxi drivers try to rip me off all the time, now, they're scared to try. Another taxi driver tried to get me to marry him, he got an earful. Next time he'll think twice before he says all sorts of rude things to a foreign girl.

In the past week and a half, I've had 4 friends leave. We had a fun going away party, got to eat good food, there was a cake, dancing, it was a good time. I was really sad to see them leave, but I loved the time I got to spend with them this semester.

I have less than a month left until I return to the States for Christmas. It's really weird, I don't feel likes it's been almost a year and a half, the time has flown by. It makes me sad to think that I only have one more semester here before I move on to the next chapter of my life. So I'm trying not to think about it.

Coming up: multiple Thanksgiving celebrations, a girl's night in, going to see New Moon, crazy rehearsals for choir (the concert is on the 9/10/11th of Dec, I got a solo part!), lots of baking for those multiple Thanksgivings, and putting down the carpets. That's right, its officially winter. Our apartment is once again colder than outside, staying around a crisp 40-50 degrees Fahrenheit. Bring on the space heaters!

PS. If you're not watching the tv show "Glee", you should be. It is amazing.

PPS. Helena just got accepted to University of Evansville, her first choice college. Mabruuk!