If we die, we die with honnor

So. Midterms sucked majorly. Sunday we asked for review, but we were given a reading with new vocab. Monday and Tuesday we were given new grammar that was on the test. Wednesday we took the test. That is not how we do things in America. All of us wanted to die, we were so stressed! I know this is a very academically intensive program, and I am fully prepared to study, but to give us new material to understand and process and remember on top of well over 1000 new vocab that we go over once in class is not going to help me learn anything. My teacher kept saying the test would be easy and not to worry! I thought maybe it would be like it was in the summer (there were fewer vocab words and we studied them more in class, but similar). I WAS WRONG. My teacher was wrong too. THAT TEST WAS WAY HARD. There was a reading with questions, and the reading was something about Jews and Christians wanting to build their respective places of worship next to the Dome of the Rock and the Muslims are angry? But there was something about fundamentalist Jews attacked a Mosque and trapped a bunch of students inside and didn't let people over 40 in? I really didn't understand much, and using key words from the questions tried to answer as best as possible, but I was way confused. Then we had two writings! And I didn't know a lot of the vocab, but I wrote about and compared the tactics of MLK, Rosa Parks, and Malcolm X in their struggle for freedom and equal rights. The second writing I wrote about some made up terrorist attacks in Paris (I can't spell place names in Arabic so I just went for an easy one). The grammar section I did my best, but we shall see. I didn't really study that much at all because we just learned it and I had to study the thousands of words! All of us in that test were just working, plowing through, and the only time we made any noise was either a groan or a string of profanity. I am a fast test taker. It is my motto that on the day of the test, if you don't know it you don't know it and you can bs your way through as best you can and then get on with it. But this test took me until the very last minute because it was so long and so hard and I had to read the reading like 5 times and still didn't understand it!

So I didn't feel great after the test, but it is over and I can do nothing about it. If I failed, at least I know the others failed too. And if we all failed, its not our fault, it is our teacher's fault.

Today is a holiday, I don't really know what it is about, but I think it has something to do with those two sons of one of the Caliphates who were killed? Hassan and Ha....something? I don't know. I just know they fast and then kill a sheep. I should really take an Islam class one of these days.

This leads me to my very important announcement. (At least important to me and possibly my family people who will now get to see me) I am no long studying abroad in the spring. It was the original plan, but I did some thinking and discussing with my advisers, and I can graduate early (in the fall) if I don't study abroad in the spring. I am mostly done with my language requirements, all I have to do is take another Hebrew class, then I have 3 more history/culture classes to finish my major, and 3 more GCRs (general course requirements) but one of them (writing intensive class) is the same as the Hebrew class. the hard part is that I have to get to 120 credits I will have either 35 or 32 credits to reach after this semester (depending on if I can get two dialect courses approved or not). That means I may/probably need to take a summer class, but it is still a LOT cheaper than an entire extra semester! So I am happy about that! And this means I will be home for the spring holidays and summer and fall! (well in DC but still- home = AMERICA) I can honestly say that I never truly appreciated America until all my rights and thoughts and ideas that I was free to express there got taken away from me! I LOVE YOU AMERICA! I REALLY DO! We all got problems, but at least in America we can say something about it!

Midterms- Keep your fingers cross!

So midterms. They suck in any setting. Lucky for me, I only have a paper and one test. The test is super important and I am super unprepared, but I will get through. After that I get to go to Israel! Thank goodness. I need some freedom from this place. (remember my game? I got 40 points today- and I had my headphones in so I could have gotten more and not known.) It is making me go to the gym more- I have a lot of anger I can work out on the treadmill, so that's good I guess.

Another thing that makes me mad is the education system here. My language partner, the sweetest smartest girl I have met in a long time, Lara, is studying translation (like I want to! twinsies! lol). However, she is learning incorrect English! I don't mean she isn't learning properly, I mean they are teaching her incorrectly. For example, the phrase is NOT keep your fingers cross! it is crossed. And she is not the only English student whose professors were teaching them incorrectly. My friends Ra'ad and Khalid had a test this summer, and it was on something about verbs. Their teacher taught them that after "I like" there must be a verb ending in 'ing', and after "I would like" there must be the infinitive, "to...." but you could not do "I like" followed by "to...." for example, they were taught that "I like to swim" is incorrect, and you must say "I like swimming". I know I never properly studied English grammar, but I am pretty sure I say "I like to swim" all the time. Frustrating. I am seriously considering coming back (not to Irbid, but to Amman) and teaching English properly after graduation. Also, its not just their English that could use some work. General knowledge is lacking too. My Arabic teacher told us there was a genetic difference between Arabs and Americans and that Americans could not gain weight. Because of genetics. Of Americans. There are so many problems with that statement, we just started at her in exasperation. I mean, 1) we invented McDonald's! 2) Americans don't all have the same ethnicity, so saying we all share some commonality that is different from other countries is just...just wrong. She thought we all looked like actors on TV. That's how they learn about America-from our television shows!

Anyways, I am exhausted, and procrastinating my homework, so I am going to finish this up real quick:

This weekend, my "archaeology class" went on a trip to see the desert castles. We didn't see all of them, just 3: Qasr al-Azraq, Qasr Amra, and Qasr Kharana. They were really cool! Unfortunately, we ended up going with a Jordanian anthropology class so we went on a bus with about 20 Jordanian students. Different cultures, I know, but I was kinda hoping I could sleep on the bus because they are far apart, and about 2 hours from Irbid, so we left really early. I am NOT a morning person, but I figured I would sleep, and when I woke up we would be there. Nope. It was a party bus! There was singing and clapping and trilling, and lots and lots of noise! On top of that, I have been getting these headaches ALL THE TIME and it sucks, and I had one for most of the trip, but explaining to a bus full of Jordanian students that but time was for sleeping is like trying to tell kindergarteners how to build rockets in Chinese. Impossible. On top of that, a lot of the ACs were broken, and were on full blast, so I was freezing. I was miserable on the bus, but the forts were really amazing.

Roman guards carved a mancala board into the floor in the entrance way to play while they worked! how Awesome is that?!

And I am standing in T.E. Lawrence's office....Like a boss

The first one, Qasr al-Azraq was the oldest, and the one I researched (there are 3 students in my Archaeology class so we each researched a fortress and taught the others about them)  It was really cool- Lawrence of Arabia used it as HQ during the winter of 1917 in the revolt, and its entirely made of basalt, and the doors weigh 1ton, but you can open them (with some effort) because they used palm tree oil.

The second fortress was Qasr Amra (Qasr means fortress/castle) it is pretty small and in the middle of the desert. But it was really cool because it is covered floor to ceiling in frescoes from before Islam, aka there are people and animals, not just designs. However, it is in disrepair, and there were people doing restorations, but it kills me that people would graffiti OVER these amazing frescoes from way back in the Umayyid period!

Frescoes at Qasr Amra

The last fortress was really cool too. I don't have any photos yet because my camera died, but I will have to get some from my friends who went with me. It wasn't decorated, and was used only for meetings so it wasn't quite as exciting as the others, but it was earthquake proof!

Next week we have a week break, and I will be going to Israel to party it up!

Its all fun and games until....

I have decided to make a game out of my life here in Irbid, to make the time pass quicker. Here are the rules:

5 points for a drive-by harassment
5 points for original style of harassment
10 points if you see a swastica
10 points if someone throws something at you
20 points if you come inches away from being run over by a car
25 points if you get grabbed on the street
Automatic win for the day if you get hit by a car
Automatic win for the day if you get grabbed more than once

If you get to 100 you win for the day. The game is Us vs Irbid: the Daily Battle


Can you tell what kind of a  week I am having?

oh and I got up to 45 today! Not too shabby eh?

Bnat vs. Food fi Aqaba

Ahlan w Sahlan!

So as you know, the ladies and I spent our weekend in AQABA! It was awesome, aside from being a little sick, having a ton of homework, and having to take two buses to get there. I planned to do my homework on the way down, but the bus driver decided to chain smoke the entire 6 hours to Aqaba, and I was sick already so add some second hand smoke and I was choking and hacking and coughing for about 6 hours, and the smoke stung my eyes so I couldn't read my school book, and it was a huge unfortunate journey. Once we arrived, we went to the hotel where they upgraded us for free because the internet lied about their availability, and then we went out to eat where my ego was lifted as all the waiters were shocked that a white girl could speak so well. I got asked where I was from so many times, and they didn't believe me when I said from America. One waiter asked if I was from Morocco, which was a HUGE ego boost!

That night was movie night. "THANK YOU FOR NOTHING, YOU USELESS REPTILE" Can you guess which movie we saw? Shout out to my awesome sister who gave me all the movies a girl could want in Jordan.

The next day we got up late-ish, and my friend Jenny Sue and I went down to the kitchen to scrounge the last of the breakfast and brought it up to our sleeping friends. We ate, then went to the private pool/beach! Its nice because it is owned by 4 hotels (I think 4) so it is super fancy because some of the hotels are really nice, but not that expensive, and has a swim up bar! I only got one drink because I had to do a lot of reading, and I did finish one chapter and began the second one! Go me! This picture looks like I am drowning a little because I am on point under the water....I'm a little too short. Jenny is on flat feet by the way- she is tall. Oh well, s'est la vie. The pool was beautiful. I didn't go to the beach because I have been before and I didn't want to get all sandy. This pool is water enough for me. and the ocean behind it is in view so it is beauty without the sand! Lunch kinda sucked there- the service was terrible. We ordered salads and a pizza to share, but the pizza took 1 hour to cook apparently and we asked the waitress 3 times and she kept saying 5 minutes and then it would be another 20 minutes before we saw her again. But overall, a great day. We left around 6, and the last bus from the pool was filled, so one of the workers at the beach was instructed to drive us back to the hotel, but then two other girls needed to go, and we were already 5 (not including the driver) in a 5 person car (including the driver) so it wasn't going to work. So they called another bus and we were driven home.

Back at the hotel, after showers, we went to eat and ran into the owner of the hotel who directed us to a very nice restaurant. He also bought us tea (yay free tea!). We ordered what we thought was a reasonable amount of food- I got a small salad and a lentil soup and split an order of sambosak (cheese pastry thing). However, our ideas about the amount of food were a little off! This is the meaning of the title of the podcast (Bnat means girls). The pizza in the photo was called a pastry...we thought it would be small...it wasn't. Unfortunately, I think the lentil soup had chicken stock and I got a stomach ache and went back to the hotel early. The girls were going to go out, but they ended up coming home with movies and Ice cream! Sweet girls. My stomach was still kind of iffy, but the hotel forgot the spoons we requested and when we called down to remind them they sent up more complimentary tea! (yay free tea!) The tea really helped with my stomach and we ended up talking and hanging out eating ice cream and drinking tea till the wee hours of the morning, all together on the big bed Olivia and I shared (such a comfortable bed!).

The next morning I got up early to study a little before we went out. We ended up going to a pizza place and just studying for until it was time to get on our bus home though, so it was a very productive day. The bus ride was long, and the scenery was beautiful if you are feeling optimistic or bleak if you are feeling pessimistic. Jordan really depends on your attitude.

I finished my homework just in time, but was still exhausted for class the next day, and had a coughing attack during my office hour where I pretty much coughed for 30 minutes straight. My teacher almost freaked out and thought I was dying.


Today class was very difficult. Our discussions were...sort of controversial and we talked about homosexuality in my amiyya class. I got a little upset trying to explain that parents are parents and there are good ones and bad ones and if you have two moms or two dads it doesn't matter because love is love is love. And the historical reason for religious opinion against homosexuality is to increase the believers, but now we have too many people in the world so being gay shouldn't be against religion because it is helping...also, one in five of any animal on the planet is gay, so it is totally natural and g-d would not have done that if he had a problem with homosexuality. But after class I talked with my language partner about it, and realized how much I love her! She is so open minded and wonderful and smart and while she doesn't know everything I know, she knows a lot of what I don't know so our conversations are always great...then we ended our chat in a fit of giggles as I told her all the bad words I know in Arabic, and all the bad words in English that have double meanings with not-bad words. Like 'ass' and 'Dick' (the name).

The Awkwardness of Being a Vegetarian in Jordan

People just don't understand what vegetarianism means. Okay so I don't eat mean, but the rice under the meat is fine, right? Sure it's made with chicken stock and soaked in meat juices, but its not meat so you can eat that, right?

No? Why? You are difficult!

That is pretty much how it goes. I have come to a point where I haven't eaten meat in so long (about 13 years) that I can no longer process the enzymes in meat, or something along those lines- all I know is I get violently sick if I eat meat. That is how I explain it to the Jordanians, that I would love to try the food they make me but I will be very sick if I do. They are a polite people and would feel awful if they thought they had made me sick, so they back off. I still offend them for not trying their food, though, and that makes me sad.

Yesterday was cooking class instead of real class. We bought the food, went to my friend Jenny Sue's Apartment with our teachers, and cooked Maqlube (chicken with rice and veggies- potatoes and eggplant and cauliflower) Its relatively similar to every other Jordanian dish, but whatever. It was fun to have a different type of class, but when it came time to eat, my teacher was sad that I didn't try any of the Maqlube and stuck to the salad and cucumber yoghurt we had also made. She couldn't really understand why I didn't eat it, and was disappointed that I hadn't told her before she put the rice in the chicken pot that I wouldn't eat it (I didn't tell her because she had already mixed in chicken stock to the rice, so I wouldn't eat it anyways) It was okay though, because we had lots of salad and yoghurt, and a different class (all 3 classes were cooking and we all live in the same building) had made a vegetarian dish, so I had some of their vegetarian rice with the yoghurt and salad and it was quite good.

It did kinda bother me a little bit that my teacher told us the day before we would be cooking in one of the girls' apartments:
     1)ask us?
     2)why not one of the boys' apartments? I don't cook, but once one of the boys in my class made us a home made pie! kinda sexist, but "Welcome in Jordan!"


On a different not, I was pretty sick this week which sucks because I am going to Aqaba tomorrow!!!!!!! It was supposed to be a whole group thing and be super fun, but all the boys are being stupid and are too tired to come so its just the girls, but it will still be super fun!!!!! I love love love Aqaba! Best place in Jordan!!!

Yesterday, my friend Jenny Sue and I decided to get materials to make muffins with. We made coffee cinnamon muffins, and will be creating different batches in the weeks to come. we both love making muffins for breakfasts, so it will be our Saturday ritual I think. Next week we will be making blueberry muffins (from a box, but still delicious!) Yay I love muffins!!!!