i am sooooo bored

Well, that's really only for this particular block of time, and even then and exaggeration slightly, but my Ramadan class schedule on Monday/Wednesday is really obnoxious. I have class from 8:50-11:20 in the morning. Then 2-3:30. This is made worse by the fact that I am the only one in the program who has this second class block. So, basically, I have decided to take over the internet in the university's language center for this period of time. The silver lining? Ramadan is (in theory) ending tomorrow. In shah Allah. At least, the country has decided it is enough to declare the national Eid al-Fitr holiday to begin tomorrow (which, apparently, is the first time in Jordan's history for this to happen. Normally, holidays starts and ends are just called as they happen). So, if the moon decides to cooperate with the national government of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Ramadan ends tomorrow and the Eid begins. In either case, I'm not going to class tomorrow. I'm going to the Red Sea for my birthday. Woot.

Other stuff to make up for (since I so rarely post).

1) I am switching families. Today, at 4:30. I don't know too much about the new one, other than that there are 4 of them (mother, father, 13-year-old son, 6-year-old daughter), and a very vague idea of where they live in the city. We'll see how this goes. I have pretty mixed feelings about the move, since I've grown quite attached to my current living situation, let alone the simple stress of needing to readjust to a different family and schedule. I think having kids in the house will be interesting though, and hopefully help out the language some.

2) Amman got "cold." It rained (well, the dots on the ground connected) here on Saturday (which actually is a legistics/safety nightmare, because so many of the cars here are old, so in the summer they leak oil, which boils into the burning hot road, then when it rains, it's traffic slip-&-slide!). It has since been sort of cloudy every morning, with a breeze. This was described to me yesterday by someone as "wintry," which seems to be beating a Providence winter.

3) On Saturday (despite the torrential rain in this horrible Amman winter), we had a trip down to Mount Nebo (said to be where Moses is buried), and Madaba (the Christian center of Jordan). Basically, this trip consisted of seeing a lot of mosaics (pictures hopefully forthcoming), as well as now being able to say that I've seen the West Bank. We did have really good food in Madaba though. Like, really good food. It was pretty amazing. The experience was kind of aggravating due to the fact that our guide was very into talking every single minute of the day to us, which is probably a cultural notion on what a tour should be, but one that I am not warming to. This included by the end of the day him making us translate soccer fan jokes into Arabic with him on the bus back. He kind of took teaching us Arabic to be his number one goal for the day, which is fine, but he also assumed that we spoke no Arabic, so he'd repeat everything at least 5 times, then make us repeat it back to him, which is really annoying when you want to know where the bathroom is. Anyhow, I can now legitimately say I have seen the Holy Land, which is possibly the best part of the trip.

4) Random observations of Jordan:

The buses: I try to take buses to/from the university everyday, because they're cheaper. That said, they're a pretty amazing system. They don't really have routes per se (well, the government ones do, but I've never actually bothered to take one of those), so you just ask someone when they're pulling up if it's going to where you're going. Then, the inside is normally somewhat threadbare in terms of the seats, but then will have thick, dark green, faux-velvet curtains, and often lots of black tastles hanging from the ceiling. Best buses ever.

Grammar exercises: For my class on the Qur'an, I'm currently using a Saudi textbook for 3rd grade religion, which is a very fascinating cultural experience in and of itself. Qur'anic Arabic differs significantly both from colloquial Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic (unsurprisingly, as those two have evolved from it for 1,400 years). As a result, the textbook often just needs to explain the grammar and vocabulary in the Qur'an. My favorite drill on this so far was on the emphatic (which doesn't really exist in English, but Arabic has many ways to make it, especially in Qur'anic Arabic. Basically, all it does it emphasize whatever the sentance is saying). So, my drill was just on putting two variants of the emphatic in one sentance. It would give two words, and you had to put them in the construction, "The BLANK is in the BLANK," then, "THE BLANK IS IN THE BLANK!" Same exact form, everytime. However, the words to be inserted were things like, "sinners/hell," so "The sinners are in hell." "THE SINNERS ARE IN HELL!" Or, "believers/heaven." "The believers are in heaven." "THE BELIEVERS ARE IN HEAVEN!" There was a complete page of these things. I'm not sure it helped me with the grammar per se, but I'll definitely think of where the sinners are whenever I see an emphatic from now on.

Proverbs: For our colloquial class, one of our textbooks is on phrases, proverbs and adages in the Arabic Arabs use a lot of these when they speak (eloquence is much more emphasized in Arab culture than in the US for example, and quality of speech is as, if not more, important often than what is actually said). That said, it has some pretty great examples, some of which are closer to English than others. Like, "The son of a duck is a good-swimmer," ("Like father like son"), or "Turn the jar upside-down on its mouth and the girl still resembles her mother." Some are fairly universalist, "Ignorance is its own enemy," or "Speech has a taste like food" (Watch your tongue!). Some of them though, are rather unfathomable, like my personal favorite, "A lover's hit is a raisin." I think this means something like, "Sometimes we fight with those we love as we get closer." I mostly just say it as an excuse to hit someone else in the program.

Food: Living with an Arab family has given really interesting insight into Arab eating habits. Food is always a collective affair (proverb: "The one that eats alone chokes."), so whenever something is brought out by the family, not only for meals (2 a day, breakfast and a lunch-dinner thing at about 3), but also a whole slew of snacks that last for the night, that's what I'm going to eat for a snack (and to get enough food for a day). This has led to some interesting food options, like, 9:30 pm. Whole cucumbers. Or 8:30 am. Beans. Or, 5:00pm. Sweet pancakes stuffed with cinnamon and walnuts soaked in honey (albeit better than cucumbers. The beans are pretty awesome too though.). Also, food has meaning (which it probably does in the US, but I'm too tired to think of an example). Like, serving guests coffee ("Thanks, but it's time for you to leave."). I guess that's like getting coffee in the US as a code for dating now that I think about it. I don't think we ever ply food as a means of kicking someone out though.

Ramadan: Did I mention Ramadan is supposed to end tomorrow? Cool.