Bait hilu bait (home sweet home)

Here it is people, in all of its glory (or lack there of)... My house.

Here is my "living room" which is actually a large hallway because my actual living room (not pictured) is too big and if i put these things in it, it would just be ridiculous. Straight ahead is my bathroom (notice the dolphin shower curtain, it is all about the little details my friends). The door on the right is to my bedroom. The door on the left is to my kitchen and across from my kitchen is a guest room (also empty and not pictured).

This is my mini fridge with fruit and honey and whatnot on it.

This is my washing machine and dryer... got this as soon as i could. If I don't have to hand wash my clothes for two years, I won't!

This is across from the washing machine. The sink, stove, food, and dishes. Some things I would like to point out, the santa head band that keeps back my unruly hair on bad days, you can't see it but there is a neon orange "fruit" sticker on the last green tile on the right, the "types of pasta" apron, there is also a toy car and a santa snow globe to the left on the counter.

This is the left corner of my room. Laundry, guitar, etc. (messy, get over it)

Bed and books. My bed is the one with all the blankets on it... the other is for stuff. That orange rope is laundry line and that head checked item is the Jordanian Shmog, a traditional fashion accessory most commonly found on men over sixty. I just had to have one! (it brings out my eyes)

And the right corner of my room. Closet and drawers from clothing and some stuff i put on my wall. I don't want to brag but there is a copy of Twilight on that closet. I don't want to treat this like MTV cribs but I feel like I should because do you remember how awesome that show was? And how crazy Mariah Carey was when she got in her tub. I am not going to do that because it is cold in hurr, so I am keeping on all my clothes and then getting under some blankets.

You don't gotta go home but cha gotta get the hell outta here. (They always said that as they shut the gate in the camera's face)

XOXO

Laura

This is the view from outside the gates to my house... how does it feel to be an outsider looking in?

Flag (Couldn't think of a clever title for this)

Here is the Jordanian Flag

I may or may not have messed up the star on four birthday cards... sorry guys. Each color represents an Arab dynasty era. Black - Abbasid, White - Umayyad, Green - Fatimid, Red chevron - Hashemite dynasty. The seven pointed star represents the seven verses of the Islamic belief in the Qur'an.

My host sister's husband filled me in on an interesting fact... The green and white stripes used to be switched. I don't remember why haha (if anyone knows please enlighten all 3 of my readers). Short and sweet... there is the Jordanian flag. 

Where in the world is, Laura?

And now I have just gotten ahead of myself. I should probably tell you where in the world I am! When I started telling people the most common reaction I got was "That is so cool! Where is that exactly?". Although I am sure most of you have looked on a map to see I will let you know where I am anyway. Jordan is in the Middle East (mind blow!) and about the size of Indiana. Isn't is little and cute!

And is a muslim country...

It is surrounded by Syria, Iraq, Israel, and Saudi Arabia (you can sort of count Egypt if you want, I mean it is on this map). And then there is the dead sea! The lowest point on earth! Also on this map you will see it's capital Amman.

Jordan is separated into what are called governants (muHaadaDHa). There are 12 and they are as follows; Irbid, Al Mafraq, Ajlun, Jarash, Al Balqa (where I am!), Az Zarqa', Madaba (where I had my pre service training), Amman (different from Amman city, the capital), Al Karak, Al Tafilah, Aqaba, and Ma'an.

They are as culturally and climately (yea, that isn't a word but I think you get what I mean) different as the states back in the U.S. The closer you get to the dead sea the warmer it gets and the higher up in the mountains; Ajlun, Jarash, the colder it gets (makes sense, lower altitude = warmer, high altitude = colder). As for culturally, depending on where you are it can be very conservative (strict separation of boys and girls, what is allowed in public and in homes, what to wear, how to act, etc.). Other places are more liberal and the above is a little more relaxed. Amman the capital, is a whole other story. It is like the U.S. in Jordan. Almost everything in the U.S. is there but it tends to be a lot more expensive than any other place in Jordan.

XOXO

Laura

How a 23 year old learns how to write again, like a 5 year old.

Today is Friday, my day off. Seeing as it is my one day to myself, naturally, I have to go and visit with people. This isn't always the case, sometimes I get the day to myself. With all this time I have to myself I have been thinking about Jordan and that I haven't actually told you anything about this wonderful place that I have been living in for the past four months. I think the only appropriate place to start is the beginning. Let's begin with the alphabet, shall we?

This is it, in all of its glory. 28 letters and they all have three ways of writing them depending on if they come at the beginning, middle, or end of the word. Those dots above and below the words are called nukta (which if said in a slightly different way means "joke"). Arabic is read from right to left and there books open accordingly. I much prefer this picture of the alphabet...

All of these letters are connected into something that looks like this...

Typically people use just the diacritic dots (sometimes they don't). The vocalization marks are called harakat. They help you pronounce the words, the are the short vowels of arabic and they look like this.

How the letter 'ba' is pronounced with each harakat is on the bottom line of the picture. These are used in the Qur'an because the pronunciation needs to be specific and correct as it is the central religious text of Islam. However, in everyday life there are many accents of Arabic. Moroccan arabic is different from Jordan arabic which is different from Egyptian arabic. 'Keifik'(how are you) one places could be 'Keifich' another place. Whatever pronunciation is used you are always welcomed with a soft hand hold and a kiss to the right cheek and umpteen kisses (typically 3 where I live) to the right.

XOXO

Laura

Take my advice, I don't use it anyways

My mudeera and I talked about three classes I would teach before I even got here. 1. English – yikes, 2. Exercise – YIKES, 3. Drawing – ok I think I can do that? I only said yes to the exercise because I panicked and so much Arabic and what was going on?

For those of you who have never met me, I don’t really like exercise all that much. The only thing I hate more about exercise than actually doing it are those people who say they can’t get enough of it, they feel so good after a workout. The only thing I feel after a work out is gross and maybe a little like vomiting.

I am one of those people who my ideal diet would be having all the people I don’t want to talk to stand by all the foods that are bad for me. It always surprises me that there’s a fine line (a large football field) between “not dieting” and “eating half of every batch of brownies I make, the night they’re made.”  I am the girl who tells you “If anyone ever tells you you put too much Parmesan cheese on your pasta, stop talking to them. You don’t need that kind of negativity in your life.”

My main problem is I feel like either I’m supposed to be up at 5am having some sort of kale smoothie on my way to do yoga with orphans, or I might as well be sitting on my couch watching a Harry Potter marathon while eating ice cream straight from the tub. If I am not 100% in it why not just do the things I want to do?

But maybe this will be an awakening for me, where I recognize that maybe snickers aren’t something I can eat for dinner. Or send me on the right path where my daily multi vitamin isn’t the only thing standing between me and scurvy. Maybe this is the time where I stop telling myself that my baby fat is just getting pushed out by grown up fat.

Yes, I majored in physiology in college. Yes, I know all the things I am supposed to do to be healthy. Yes, the more I see those fun 10 minute work outs to flatter abs on pintrest the more I think I can do it. Do I do it? I have to start or else my exercise class will be like my English class… yikes.

I will let you know how it goes.

XOXO

Laura

P.s. this post wasn’t really that much about Jordan… but it is still true!

p.p.s. This is wikipedias definition of muffin top: A Muffin-top is the phenomenon of overhanging fat when it spills over the waistline of pants or skirts in a manner that resembles the top of a muffin spilling over its paper casing.Muffin tops are generally considered undesirable ^{[citation needed].  My favorite part about this is that they need a citation haha.}

An A for effort but still an actual F

Ross Geller enters the room: "hi" (you know the way he does when something hasn't gone his way)
Well that is how I feel. My first english class was today. Your internal voice must be saying "oh" in the tone that suggests maybe i just fell down some stairs. Well, I would have rather fallen down those stairs then had my class today.

So I had three different kinds of classes set up. A beginner (starting from the alphabet), an intermediate (Greetings and simple questions), and an advanced (discuss different topics). Today, I started with the beginner and soon came to realize they are much more advanced than I thought. I tried to move to the intermediate... that was too simple then I kind of winged it and just failed. My mudeera and the person helping me translate kept on intervening. The girls sometimes couldn't understand what I was saying, even the translator had problems. Some of the girls want more grammer and some want more speaking. Almost nothing was accomplished in the hour. At the end my mudeera said I needed to ask everyone's names and ages and what not before I started... that would have been good to know before I started... I wanted my first lesson to be about figuring out what they know and what they don't. Random things just got in the way.

My arabic (like I have said) wasn't good enough to understand slash answer their questions. My mudeera wanted me to write the words in arabic and in english and I was like uh I don't know how to do that. I felt like I over pre-prepared then got there and wasn't prepared at all! I feel like my mudeera knew how she wanted the classes to go but never told me.

I tried to teach them some phrases but I didn't know how to explain them... neither did my translator. They are somewhere in between knowing simple sentences and not understanding simple questions. Somewhere in between understanding a sentence but not a paragraph... where in this heck are they?

I don't know. Between not knowing the language and not knowing what they wanted to learn/me to teach I feel like I was set up to fail... and the worst part is I still don't know the language and I still have only the smallest idea of what they want to learn.

To add insult to injury they told me I should teach this with another volunteer whom they have met who has better arabic than me... that stung a little. (Only because they always make comments like oh the other volunteer would know that word and such... you can only laugh it off so many times). They make me feel like "sorry you got the lemon volunteer" which I know isn't true but I was kicked when I was down.

So after all that fun I spent 2.55 JD on cookies and wafer crackers. I know I shouldn't eat my feelings but as of right now all those pins on pintrest that say things like "you are not a dog don't reward yourself with food" or "what to look forward to: no muffin top" or "running is cheaper than that pint of ice cream" can go die in a hole. (Man these things are the worst... these sayings are like the girls who can pull off the messy and cute look, blech just get out of my sight). If I want to wipe crumbs out of my cleavage instead of sweat let me do it without you reminding me that I have a muffin top... let me make my poor decisions in silence! (sorry off topic).

I also bought these wafer crackers that I thought had a strawberry filling and then after I bought them looked at the picture and thought it was fig (yuck) but then tasted the cookies which then turned out to be hazelnut. Gah! Deceived by a wafer cracker!... so you know I will probably never trust again.

Ok guys till next time,
XOXO
Laura

p.s. If it isn't a duck outside my window waking me up at the crack of dawn it is a goat! Come on farm animals! Let a girl get her beauty rest... god knows i need it!

Oh Kristen the similar problems we share.

Do you think she woke up one morning and said: I think I'll go to Jordan today?

So you know how in the movies, a character makes exactly one decision, often an arbitrary one, and all of a sudden there’s an uplifting song and a montage of that character completely changing her life. In Legally Blonde, Elle buys a laptop, gets a montage that just involves carrying books and reading while on the StairMaster, and then, BOOM, awesome legal internship. In The Devil Wears Prada, Andy asks for a makeover, and then, BOOM, gets an awesome fashion montage and then magically starts killing it at her job. It’s no wonder I assumed that just living in Jordan I would learn the language (by osmosis? Wouldn’t that be cool!).*

During the day I fumble over speaking and pausing to think about what I’m saying while trying to pick out the words I know from the sentences that are being spoken at me to try and maybe make some connection. Most of the time they just give up and I feel defeated a little. One time I am pretty sure I got a “Aw she is cute when she tries.” Why can’t they love me for my mind and not my adorable looks! Where is Margot's lucky scrunchie when you need it (If it helped her pass spanish it can do anything!).

The one good thing out of not knowing the language and having people know you don’t really know the language is people just kind of let you be most of the time. So I can choose when I want to listen and when I don’t. I listen to try and see if I understand what is being said for about a half an hour then I have time to ponder life’s real questions. Do musicians have their own music on their iPod as their band name or is it just under ‘me’? Did Britney Spears ever find Amy?

In summary, dear chick flicks, you have ruined my expectations for everything and I hate you! However, if I ever find myself in a bunny costume at the apple store buying a computer and there is a Luke Wilson standing behind me it will make up for everything you have put me through. (You hear that cosmos or karma or whomever i need to speak to for this to happen! All will be forgotten...)

I start English tomorrow… I am sure it will be interesting!

*Yes this was my status but I thought it would also make a good blog entry… Double dipping is allowed! (my blog, my rules)

XOXO

Laura

Oh Elle, sometimes the bend and snap doesn't work everytime!