As a part of Project No-I-Swear-I'm-Going-To-Write-More-And-Not-Just-For-My-Dumb-Blog-That-No-One-Reads-Since-I-Moved-Back-To-America, I started rereading some of my old journals. Actually, it had more to do with the fact that I finally cleaned out my closet today for the first time in years (ok, two years, but that still means years plural) and this was a massively self-indulgent/narcissistic way to procrastinate.
Journals, as a rule, are the worst possible place to gauge how good a writer is. Not that you should be reading other people's journals. But the fact that you shouldn't be reading it is the reason the writing is bad. It's a place to practice how the word "fuck" sounds amidst your regular vernacular at age 14. It's a space to write things like, "When I finish a book I get all sentimental. Or philosophical. Both, I think. What's the difference?" (I kid you not, I wrote this on Jan. 21, 2006).
Immediately following that in my journal entry from January 2006 was, "Leslie* has a boyfriend from [a different school]. Leslie. QUIET LESLIE has a freshman boyfriend.** And I don't even have a cell phone." Obviously I knew what was up in eighth grade.
I read something somewhere once where a writer was saying that keeping a journal is important, not because it improves your writing, but because it's a database of how you used to think at a certain age. I've been sporadically filling pages since age 10, so I have--**moment because I'm old**--10 years of the evolution of my priorities recorded on paper in a box at the back of my closet. Do you honestly remember what you cared about in fifth grade? I was quite the little philosopher, with my rapidly curling hair.
April 30, 2003: "Well, I've learned so much! Not from school, but from being me." Ten-year-old me then goes on to compare everyone in the universe to our cats at the time, Zippy and Zephy. "Zephy is aware of everything. Zippy on the other hand has lived up to her name and wouldn't know it if a shark was in front of her ready to bite out her brains. I am a Zephy, obviously. I am aware not of Ms. Avant's dull math lectures, but of the world. I am this way and will stay this way."
Uh, yeah, that was me at age 10. Guys, I was pretty damn spunky. Why wasn't I the most popular kid at Hill City Elementary? Oh probably because I was a pretentious fifth grader who spent all her time writing in her fuzzy red journal.
Also, I used to spell exact with a Z. Now I edit my college newspaper. Oh, how she's grown, lads.
*names have been changed to protect the innocent
**We were both in eighth grade at the time. So this was, like, a big deal.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Saturday, December 29, 2012
On the timing of having a new year dead in the middle of winter
I think I remember my Dad once saying something to the effect of, "Only white people would have a new year in the middle of winter."
The more January 1's I live through, the less sense it makes to me to celebrate newness in the middle of deadness. January is cold and depressing and miserable. No wonder no one sticks to their new year's resolutions. Most of the time, I can't even muster up enough resolve to come up with a resolution (Re, new year's 2010: I resolve to watch more TV).
The Persian new year is on the first day of spring, which makes a lot more sense in my mind. All the rebirth and growth and warm springiness is way more conducive to celebrating a new year than dead, cold January misery. Usually by the time March 21 rolls around, I've managed to convince myself I'll eat less cookies this year--no, really this time--and that lasts until the winter temperatures and school-induced misery hits in about mid-October and I start baking again.
Nonetheless--winter be damned--I resolve to write more this year. The only time in my life that I wrote every single day was also coincidentally the only time in my life that I felt like I improved as a writer.
Resolving to write something every single day would probably end up being something I failed at by January 6, so I'm just going to leave it open ended and say: This year I will write more than last year, and if I don't manage to write more than last year, I will consider it a success as long as I write enough. Parameters of enough to be determined later.
By the time the real new year rolls around in March, I'll probably have enough drive to change my life again. For now, this is good enough.
The more January 1's I live through, the less sense it makes to me to celebrate newness in the middle of deadness. January is cold and depressing and miserable. No wonder no one sticks to their new year's resolutions. Most of the time, I can't even muster up enough resolve to come up with a resolution (Re, new year's 2010: I resolve to watch more TV).
The Persian new year is on the first day of spring, which makes a lot more sense in my mind. All the rebirth and growth and warm springiness is way more conducive to celebrating a new year than dead, cold January misery. Usually by the time March 21 rolls around, I've managed to convince myself I'll eat less cookies this year--no, really this time--and that lasts until the winter temperatures and school-induced misery hits in about mid-October and I start baking again.
Nonetheless--winter be damned--I resolve to write more this year. The only time in my life that I wrote every single day was also coincidentally the only time in my life that I felt like I improved as a writer.
Resolving to write something every single day would probably end up being something I failed at by January 6, so I'm just going to leave it open ended and say: This year I will write more than last year, and if I don't manage to write more than last year, I will consider it a success as long as I write enough. Parameters of enough to be determined later.
By the time the real new year rolls around in March, I'll probably have enough drive to change my life again. For now, this is good enough.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Horizon
Nothing reminds me that I have not been home in two years--like really been home for more than just 72 hours of unpacking--quite like the state of my closet. My dresses are in chronological order: hand-me-downs from my cousin that I never could figure out what to do with in high school, my prom dress debuted early with excitement as a concerto dress and re-worn later for a lackluster prom, summer weddings dresses, a few flimsy numbers appropriate for Italian clubs and not much else, Middle Eastern skirts with bells and sequins and peacock designs that brush my ankles, a coat with a lining of irrelevant thickness for Fairbanks.
On the upper shelf there is a box of incomplete journals and bank statements I haven't done anything with since December 2010 (am I supposed to be responsible enough to shred things with my bank account number on them now?). And then there are outlet converters and a hatbox of high school memories and muddy hiking boots still in the Fred Meyer bag I shoved them into on the last day in Coldfoot.
Now that I am in the same house again, I can hear my mom dissect us on the phone with her parents during their weekly phone calls. "Yeah, Zayn is really getting into his internship. Yeah, Elika will be home for spring break too." And then, because she knows I am listening, "she must really love us."
It is not so much that as where else would I go?
For the first time in a long time, my horizon is fairly bland. No great adventures to look forward to. I guess it was stupid to think that would always be a thing, but truthfully I didn't think about it. I am doing the normal things--like being in America and coming home during my breaks from college. And the weird restlessness that invaded my senses this summer and evaporated when the semester started is creeping back into my line of vision.
I alternate between rereading E. Lockhart and travel blogs. Both Ruby Oliver and pretentious travel writers seem to speak to me right now.
On the upper shelf there is a box of incomplete journals and bank statements I haven't done anything with since December 2010 (am I supposed to be responsible enough to shred things with my bank account number on them now?). And then there are outlet converters and a hatbox of high school memories and muddy hiking boots still in the Fred Meyer bag I shoved them into on the last day in Coldfoot.
Now that I am in the same house again, I can hear my mom dissect us on the phone with her parents during their weekly phone calls. "Yeah, Zayn is really getting into his internship. Yeah, Elika will be home for spring break too." And then, because she knows I am listening, "she must really love us."
It is not so much that as where else would I go?
For the first time in a long time, my horizon is fairly bland. No great adventures to look forward to. I guess it was stupid to think that would always be a thing, but truthfully I didn't think about it. I am doing the normal things--like being in America and coming home during my breaks from college. And the weird restlessness that invaded my senses this summer and evaporated when the semester started is creeping back into my line of vision.
I alternate between rereading E. Lockhart and travel blogs. Both Ruby Oliver and pretentious travel writers seem to speak to me right now.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Calculations
A friend remarked to me earlier that she had tallied up the sum total of her wins and losses this semester, and in the end she seemed to come out behind.
I am familiar with measuring my life this way. This self deprecating math. Three points for success because I did my laundry and I took notes in class today and I'm not too worried about finals. One point for failure because there was an inaccurate fact in my editorial. One correction trumps three trivial wins so the week is at neutral.
I am good at measuring time. I'm good at deadlines and countdowns and keeping track.
But I haven't been as good at it lately. Measuring minutes means measuring them in reverse as well. It's been nearly 6 months since I've been back in Alaska, and every few days I unzip the top pocket on my backpack looking for chapstick and find a handful of coffee beans from the afternoon that Balqees took us to Salt and Fathme bought coffee and the shopkeeper gave all of us handfuls of coffee beans to smell.
I pulled up the countdown clock on my dashboard a few days ago. "GOING HOME" was counting seconds 165 days in reverse, and I replaced it with "going home." Eight days from now, a softer trip.
I hadn't stopped to calculate any wins and losses since it was mentioned to me earlier.
Win: I still have the coffee beans. Loss: They don't smell like much anymore.
I am familiar with measuring my life this way. This self deprecating math. Three points for success because I did my laundry and I took notes in class today and I'm not too worried about finals. One point for failure because there was an inaccurate fact in my editorial. One correction trumps three trivial wins so the week is at neutral.
I am good at measuring time. I'm good at deadlines and countdowns and keeping track.
But I haven't been as good at it lately. Measuring minutes means measuring them in reverse as well. It's been nearly 6 months since I've been back in Alaska, and every few days I unzip the top pocket on my backpack looking for chapstick and find a handful of coffee beans from the afternoon that Balqees took us to Salt and Fathme bought coffee and the shopkeeper gave all of us handfuls of coffee beans to smell.
I pulled up the countdown clock on my dashboard a few days ago. "GOING HOME" was counting seconds 165 days in reverse, and I replaced it with "going home." Eight days from now, a softer trip.
I hadn't stopped to calculate any wins and losses since it was mentioned to me earlier.
Win: I still have the coffee beans. Loss: They don't smell like much anymore.
Monday, November 12, 2012
New pets
We got a fish!
Here's what happened.
We were growing garlic in the pickle jar. It was going well. Except the garlic grew really fast, and so we were always eating really garlic-ey things. Like really, really garlic-ey spaghetti sauce. And then the garlic's will to live sort of petered off.
So we needed something to put in our pickle jar since the garlic was dead. So we got two fish and a snail.
The orange fish is named Miranda after the Miranda Rights. Because she has the right to remain silent. Even though she is a fish. The silver fish is named Mohammad, because we wanted to give him a holy name. And the snail is named Lucifer. Because Ashley hates snails.
The thing is that apparently goldfish don't thrive in pickle jars. Also, you have to make sure there's enough oxygen in their water. Fish care. Who knew?
Valerie on the fish, "The fish are way more interesting than the garlic."
Here's what happened.
We were growing garlic in the pickle jar. It was going well. Except the garlic grew really fast, and so we were always eating really garlic-ey things. Like really, really garlic-ey spaghetti sauce. And then the garlic's will to live sort of petered off.
So we needed something to put in our pickle jar since the garlic was dead. So we got two fish and a snail.
The orange fish is named Miranda after the Miranda Rights. Because she has the right to remain silent. Even though she is a fish. The silver fish is named Mohammad, because we wanted to give him a holy name. And the snail is named Lucifer. Because Ashley hates snails.
The thing is that apparently goldfish don't thrive in pickle jars. Also, you have to make sure there's enough oxygen in their water. Fish care. Who knew?
Valerie on the fish, "The fish are way more interesting than the garlic."
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Snow and skies
It's snowing.
Snowing like tomorrow morning the morning light will be reflected in the ground. Like right now the city lights are a blur through falling flakes. Like season purgatory is over and it's finally, undeniably winter.
On Tuesday night, I was awake at 3:30 a.m. looking out the window at a dancing green aurora. It was a moment I wanted to freeze: wrapped in a blanket, looking at light apparitions, alone in my awake-ness.
It got me thinking about the moon. How it always seemed bigger in Amman. Like the moon was as Arab as the people on the ground. Like it subsisted off the same diet I did-- of falafel and snickers bars.
The skies seem so different between Amman and Alaska. But lately I've been looking for the same stars I saw with Katrina in the desert on that night where we didn't go to sleep. When we counted 6 shooting stars and hiked up a mountain before the sunrise and fell asleep on top as the sun finally started to dawn.
When I have a spare moment, I try to think about the things I took home with me from Jordan. It seems like a dream. Like something so foreign, it's incomprehensible.
But the cafés on Rainbow Street are starting to move their outdoor tables inside at night now. And here it's snowing.
It just seems like we're all going in the same direction.
Snowing like tomorrow morning the morning light will be reflected in the ground. Like right now the city lights are a blur through falling flakes. Like season purgatory is over and it's finally, undeniably winter.
On Tuesday night, I was awake at 3:30 a.m. looking out the window at a dancing green aurora. It was a moment I wanted to freeze: wrapped in a blanket, looking at light apparitions, alone in my awake-ness.
It got me thinking about the moon. How it always seemed bigger in Amman. Like the moon was as Arab as the people on the ground. Like it subsisted off the same diet I did-- of falafel and snickers bars.
The skies seem so different between Amman and Alaska. But lately I've been looking for the same stars I saw with Katrina in the desert on that night where we didn't go to sleep. When we counted 6 shooting stars and hiked up a mountain before the sunrise and fell asleep on top as the sun finally started to dawn.
When I have a spare moment, I try to think about the things I took home with me from Jordan. It seems like a dream. Like something so foreign, it's incomprehensible.
But the cafés on Rainbow Street are starting to move their outdoor tables inside at night now. And here it's snowing.
It just seems like we're all going in the same direction.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Wednesday summary: classifications
Dad called me in the middle of class today. So I called him back while I was walking home.
Honestly, I've never completely understood the idea of spacial thinking. My brain is so far opposite of spacial thinking that I'm not even sure spacial thinking exists. When I look at a sheet of music, I see letters.
Meanwhile, Valerie and Denali are talking about the amazing things that spacial people can do.
I've never been able to figure out what kind of a person I am in regards to spacial, visual, etc. No one ever talks about people who read music in letters and think in paragraphs. So I asked.
We moved our couch into the kitchen recently, and so the floor of our living room is now entirely covered in sleeping bags. Denali has basically lived on the floor of the living room since last Thursday when we made this change. I brought this up to her.
Me: Hey, what's up?I tried to brag about it to my roommates, but no one really knows who Roxana Saberi is. So I started making brownies instead. In the midst of brownie making, Valerie and Denali starting talking about being spacial people.
Dad: I just wanted you to know that I posted a picture of you on facebook, and Roxana Saberi liked it.
Honestly, I've never completely understood the idea of spacial thinking. My brain is so far opposite of spacial thinking that I'm not even sure spacial thinking exists. When I look at a sheet of music, I see letters.
Meanwhile, Valerie and Denali are talking about the amazing things that spacial people can do.
Me: What? I have no idea what this means.So they explained it to me, and I still don't get it because my brain works in words not pictures.
I've never been able to figure out what kind of a person I am in regards to spacial, visual, etc. No one ever talks about people who read music in letters and think in paragraphs. So I asked.
Valerie: Dude, you're an auditory learner. You remember things without taking notes. You like listening to podcasts.So, tonight's revelation: I am auditory person. I spent 20 minutes washing the dishes and thinking about what this means. My thought process was something like this: I never have to take notes again! I'm probably a language learning genius! I can sit in class and not pay attention and still learn everything!
Denali: Uh, you like lecture classes.
We moved our couch into the kitchen recently, and so the floor of our living room is now entirely covered in sleeping bags. Denali has basically lived on the floor of the living room since last Thursday when we made this change. I brought this up to her.
Denali: Dude, I'm just a floor person.We are just into classifying ourselves these days.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
3.5 months in.
I've been back for three and a half months now. Which is almost as long as I lived in Amman. And a third of the time I was gone.
The last three and a half months have flown by without much to remark on. I spent most of the summer fitting back in and pretending I wasn't a disaster. I don't think I fooled anyone. School has been going on for a little over a month. We finished putting together issue no. 6 of The Sun Star last night.
Life keeps going on.
I read a lot of study abroad blogs.
I like watching the posts go by in this order:
I wish there were more returned-from-study-abroad blogs. So I could keep tabs on how I was doing. As far as I can tell this is the order:
The last three and a half months have flown by without much to remark on. I spent most of the summer fitting back in and pretending I wasn't a disaster. I don't think I fooled anyone. School has been going on for a little over a month. We finished putting together issue no. 6 of The Sun Star last night.
Life keeps going on.
I read a lot of study abroad blogs.
I like watching the posts go by in this order:
- I LOVE IT!
- Um, do I love it? Now I'm confused and foreign.
- JK, totes love it again.
- Now I'm leaving... FEEL ALL THE EMOTIONS.
I wish there were more returned-from-study-abroad blogs. So I could keep tabs on how I was doing. As far as I can tell this is the order:
- Whoa. America. Hot water. Cool.
- I miss ALL the things.
- I'm actually pretty lost and heartbroken and upset and NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ME.
- Ok, I'm so busy, I don't have emotions to expend on this anymore.
If you studied/lived/served/danced abroad and came home, let me know how you're doing. Let me know that I'm not crazy or that I am crazy or that you just miss the way your roommates would cheer you up with horrible movies and hookah or that you hated everything and you're happy to be home or something. Tell me something.
Monday, October 1, 2012
My life on Sundays
Actual text conversation.
My roommates made a bet on what time I would get home last night. Everyone lost. I came home later than the most adventurous guesser. So that happened.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
On editing and keeping moving
Last week was the I-think-I'm-starting-to-know-what-I'm-doing-with-the-paper week. It was fabulous and I literally skipped around campus and I baked cheerful cookies and listened to music that could best be described as sunshine music.
It made me feel hopeful and happy and like I'm starting to learn how to fold in the corners of my life abroad and fit back in to the greater sphere of life at home.
This week has been the who-are-you-kidding-you-are-so-not-equipped-for-this week. Mountains of typos have cracked the windshield of my rosy glow and melodramatic reporters are grating on my nerves.
Now that I'm five issues in, I actually had a chance to sit down and have a comprehensive budget report that means something. And I've always known the Sun Star has no money. But we really have no money. It's kind of depressing.
I'm starting to realize being editor is basically a life of deciding which battles you want to fight. And proofreading.
---
I'm sitting at my desk listening to the Shins seriously researching journalism internships in Shanghai right now.
It's an itch-- this travel thing. All I want to do is go places and write and keep going and keep writing.
I bruised my knee yesterday, trying to move on.
(I actually bruised it in broomball. But that was a poetic ending, right?)
It made me feel hopeful and happy and like I'm starting to learn how to fold in the corners of my life abroad and fit back in to the greater sphere of life at home.
This week has been the who-are-you-kidding-you-are-so-not-equipped-for-this week. Mountains of typos have cracked the windshield of my rosy glow and melodramatic reporters are grating on my nerves.
Now that I'm five issues in, I actually had a chance to sit down and have a comprehensive budget report that means something. And I've always known the Sun Star has no money. But we really have no money. It's kind of depressing.
I'm starting to realize being editor is basically a life of deciding which battles you want to fight. And proofreading.
---
I'm sitting at my desk listening to the Shins seriously researching journalism internships in Shanghai right now.
It's an itch-- this travel thing. All I want to do is go places and write and keep going and keep writing.
I bruised my knee yesterday, trying to move on.
(I actually bruised it in broomball. But that was a poetic ending, right?)
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Baking obsessed
Us Cutler 204 girls are a bit baking obsessed as of late. Apparently when you grow up after your freshman year in the dorms where every Saturday night is a party and move into your own apartment, you entertain yourself with flour and sugar. It's so... domestic.
So far this weekend we've made:
Cranberry-chocolate chip bread
Pumpkin bread
Pumpkin bread muffins
Zucchini brownies with chocolate-peanut-butter frosting
Baked pumpkin seeds
Also, on the list to bake today and tomorrow tentatively:
Pumpkin pie
Apple pie
Pumpkin cranberry bread
Pumpkin chocolate chip bread
Not to mention, we make our own bread. So there's a bunch homemade wheat bread filling up cabinet space waiting to be turned into toast.
And Ashley's mom sent us a lovely care package full of chocolate chip cookies and peanut-butter cheerio bars this week. The peanut-butter-marshmallow-cheerio bars are already gone.
So yeah, apparently I won't be losing that falafel weight. But at the moment, I'm ok with that.
Also, come visit us! We'll feed you baked goods.
Cranberry-chocolate chip bread
Pumpkin bread
Pumpkin bread muffins
Zucchini brownies with chocolate-peanut-butter frosting
Baked pumpkin seeds
Also, on the list to bake today and tomorrow tentatively:
Pumpkin pie
Apple pie
Pumpkin cranberry bread
Pumpkin chocolate chip bread
Not to mention, we make our own bread. So there's a bunch homemade wheat bread filling up cabinet space waiting to be turned into toast.
And Ashley's mom sent us a lovely care package full of chocolate chip cookies and peanut-butter cheerio bars this week. The peanut-butter-marshmallow-cheerio bars are already gone.
So yeah, apparently I won't be losing that falafel weight. But at the moment, I'm ok with that.
Also, come visit us! We'll feed you baked goods.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
blink&you miss it
Fall in Fairbanks is the kind of season that runs by at warp speed. Blink and you miss it, take a nap and when you wake up you're well into winter.
Just days ago it was pleasant fall and now it is biting, ominous chilly fall. Weeks ago it was summer and sunshine and oh-my-God-it's-so-hot-I'm-dying temperatures (i.e. 75 degrees Fahrenheit--so I have a low heat tolerance, sue me). I semi-seriously joked all summer that I wished it was winter. Now it's almost winter, and I'm kicking myself for sweating the summer away.
To be honest though, I've missed the snow. Anyone who spent a modicum of time with me last year can attest to my weirdly large love of Alaska. I'm not particularly into winter sports or cold weather activities, so it doesn't make sense to me either. But I've heard from rom-coms that the truest loves make the least amount of sense.
Really, I've moved around enough to know that my soul belongs in the snow. Or in Jordan. Or, to be honest, a large number of places. But I'm making a concerted effort to stop writing about my aching wanderlust, so this thought ends here. (Per Valerie's feedback, "no, I mean, your blog is still good. You should just stop writing about how much you miss Jordan.")
I keep meaning to stop when I'm walking through the woods to get back home. The leaves are turning more yellow every hour and the ground coverings are a brilliant red. But there are articles to edit and math homework to finish and lunch to eat and reading for classes to blow off and the internet to surf and lap swim to make it to and a radio show to put together and texts to guiltily not answer (sorry, guys), so I keep walking. I tell myself that one day my life will calm down. It might.
I'm writing for writing's sake. It's been a challenging few months since I've been home, but the one thing I can do is put one word after the other. Sometimes I forget that, but I'm trying not to these days.
It's nearly 2 a.m., and tomorrow morning will be the beginning of another day that passes in September bringing with it a few more fallen leaves.
Just days ago it was pleasant fall and now it is biting, ominous chilly fall. Weeks ago it was summer and sunshine and oh-my-God-it's-so-hot-I'm-dying temperatures (i.e. 75 degrees Fahrenheit--so I have a low heat tolerance, sue me). I semi-seriously joked all summer that I wished it was winter. Now it's almost winter, and I'm kicking myself for sweating the summer away.
To be honest though, I've missed the snow. Anyone who spent a modicum of time with me last year can attest to my weirdly large love of Alaska. I'm not particularly into winter sports or cold weather activities, so it doesn't make sense to me either. But I've heard from rom-coms that the truest loves make the least amount of sense.
Really, I've moved around enough to know that my soul belongs in the snow. Or in Jordan. Or, to be honest, a large number of places. But I'm making a concerted effort to stop writing about my aching wanderlust, so this thought ends here. (Per Valerie's feedback, "no, I mean, your blog is still good. You should just stop writing about how much you miss Jordan.")
I keep meaning to stop when I'm walking through the woods to get back home. The leaves are turning more yellow every hour and the ground coverings are a brilliant red. But there are articles to edit and math homework to finish and lunch to eat and reading for classes to blow off and the internet to surf and lap swim to make it to and a radio show to put together and texts to guiltily not answer (sorry, guys), so I keep walking. I tell myself that one day my life will calm down. It might.
I'm writing for writing's sake. It's been a challenging few months since I've been home, but the one thing I can do is put one word after the other. Sometimes I forget that, but I'm trying not to these days.
It's nearly 2 a.m., and tomorrow morning will be the beginning of another day that passes in September bringing with it a few more fallen leaves.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
This week's issue:
Our layout editor wasn't around on Sunday, so Ian (the marvelous magnificent web editor!) stepped up an laid out the paper.
This paper was different than the last two for a few reasons. First, this is the first issue I've truly had to deal with new reporters and photographers so there was a bit more coaching and rewriting involved this time around. Second, the layout editor wasn't there, so for about 14 hours on Sunday a group of us just stared perplexedly at InDesign.
We did manage to produce the paper somehow (Ian! Ian! Ian!), and I even left the office at the early hour of 12:30 a.m, all things considered.
I feel a lot more connected to this particular issue, mostly because I had a lot of input in layout this time around. Also, I designed the cover. Look at it. Isn't it beautiful and super bright and colorful? I think so.
The issue comes out tomorrow. If you're in Fairbanks, you can pick a copy up at one of the usual locations. And if you're not, you can read it online at www.uafsunstar.com.
This whole producing the paper thing gets easier, right?
This paper was different than the last two for a few reasons. First, this is the first issue I've truly had to deal with new reporters and photographers so there was a bit more coaching and rewriting involved this time around. Second, the layout editor wasn't there, so for about 14 hours on Sunday a group of us just stared perplexedly at InDesign.
We did manage to produce the paper somehow (Ian! Ian! Ian!), and I even left the office at the early hour of 12:30 a.m, all things considered.
I feel a lot more connected to this particular issue, mostly because I had a lot of input in layout this time around. Also, I designed the cover. Look at it. Isn't it beautiful and super bright and colorful? I think so.
The issue comes out tomorrow. If you're in Fairbanks, you can pick a copy up at one of the usual locations. And if you're not, you can read it online at www.uafsunstar.com.
This whole producing the paper thing gets easier, right?
Sunday, September 9, 2012
stolen photos and misremembered moments
Finally starting to wade through the 7,000+ photos from this year including the several hundred pictures from my brother when my family came to visit at the end of the semester. Here are a few of my favorites.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Labor day shenanigans
I went hiking and picked blueberries. I don't think there is anything I love more than Alaskan blueberries, other than strawberries of any sort, E. Lockhart books and KSUA playlist album reviews.
Then Valerie and I managed to break into the post office building and we produced our radio show.
Then I talked to my parents about how extremely overwhelming e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. is. And they made me feel a lot better.
And then I ended up sitting on the floor of my room covered in scarves and roommates, and it was just like when I would spend my nights doing nothing but pretending I lived with Ashley and Denali and bothering them and it was a good end to a good day and an interesting weekend.
Tonight I told Denali that being the editor of the Sun Star is like having a baby (not that I have a baby, but I assume they need a lot of copy editing). And she said, "only 26 more babies to go!" When I think about it as something that will be my life for a year it makes my stomach clench into knots and I shut my eyes tight to try to keep the panic inside and not let it spill out and infect the happy people around me.
But when I think about putting one word after the other then I think I can manage. Fathme texts me periodically and tells me not to worry so much. Everyone needs a sassy Mexican roommate to look out for them, I think.
Today was fun, at least.
Then Valerie and I managed to break into the post office building and we produced our radio show.
Then I talked to my parents about how extremely overwhelming e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. is. And they made me feel a lot better.
Tonight I told Denali that being the editor of the Sun Star is like having a baby (not that I have a baby, but I assume they need a lot of copy editing). And she said, "only 26 more babies to go!" When I think about it as something that will be my life for a year it makes my stomach clench into knots and I shut my eyes tight to try to keep the panic inside and not let it spill out and infect the happy people around me.
But when I think about putting one word after the other then I think I can manage. Fathme texts me periodically and tells me not to worry so much. Everyone needs a sassy Mexican roommate to look out for them, I think.
Today was fun, at least.
Monday, September 3, 2012
On stretching your arms out too far
“Walk tall, kick ass, learn to speak Arabic, love music and never forget you come from a long line of truth seekers, lovers and warriors.”
I haven't been able to write lately.
There are two bright spots on my life that make everything bearable currently:
Maybe I am grasping for poetry beyond my reach or maybe my words never came home from Amman. It's where my mind is. In the sand-colored skyline and the among the hijabi fashionistas. Nothing matters to me right now quite as much or in quite the same way as things mattered three months ago.
Two and a half months should be long enough to know how to live in Alaska again. But I am still falling asleep to dreams of blue domed mosques and waking up to texts that let me know there are others going through the same process I am. We are miles and miles apart, but we sync together with our ungrounded restlessness.
I stretch my arms out too far. There is something missing here.
Someone is watching an action movie in my apartment, and I am falling asleep to the sounds of cars speeding away as fast as they possibly can.
Hunter S. Thompson
There are two bright spots on my life that make everything bearable currently:
- Nighttime wandering with Denali.
- Producing Emotional Celery with Valerie on Mondays.
Maybe I am grasping for poetry beyond my reach or maybe my words never came home from Amman. It's where my mind is. In the sand-colored skyline and the among the hijabi fashionistas. Nothing matters to me right now quite as much or in quite the same way as things mattered three months ago.
Two and a half months should be long enough to know how to live in Alaska again. But I am still falling asleep to dreams of blue domed mosques and waking up to texts that let me know there are others going through the same process I am. We are miles and miles apart, but we sync together with our ungrounded restlessness.
I stretch my arms out too far. There is something missing here.
Someone is watching an action movie in my apartment, and I am falling asleep to the sounds of cars speeding away as fast as they possibly can.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
I don't know where I go (where I go)
Today was a long day.
I delivered the paper, voted, interviewed, set up interviews, worked, adventured, participated in orientation things, and went to Fred Meyer college night.
But the best part was this hour-long trek Denali and I ended up taking through the woods when we were looking for the sustainable village. It made me miss after-dinner treks through the woods in Coldfoot.
Tomorrow is my last day of freedom before classes start on Thursday.
I'm going to bed.
I delivered the paper, voted, interviewed, set up interviews, worked, adventured, participated in orientation things, and went to Fred Meyer college night.
Tomorrow is my last day of freedom before classes start on Thursday.
I'm going to bed.
Monday, August 27, 2012
I JUST PRODUCED THE PAPER
It took, like, literally all day.
On a scale of one to ten, I am feeling like a superhero and also incredibly daunted by the fact that I have to do this 27 more times. That is a lot of times.
Lakeidra and I had a pretty in depth convo today about how reporter is actually the best job at the Sun Star, 'cause you just hang out and do some reporting and writing and rewriting and then you see your story in the paper on Tuesday. It's pretty much instant gratification.
But even though my leisurely reporting days are behind me and I am SO NOT PREPARED for what doing this 27 more times will do to me, I am feelin' full of potential and super proud of this year's first issue.
Orientation is going on at UAF right now. I wasn't here last year to watch freshman discover themselves, so it's kind of interesting to suddenly be back and two years older than everyone. I told my orientation leader friends they should just pop balloons in front of freshman and tell them UAF does that to people's souls.
Except even though UAF did take broomball away from us (something that I am still coming to terms with) and it is also kind of a depressing school, it is a place where I can do things like I did today.
Which is to say: produce the paper.
On a scale of one to ten, I am feeling like a superhero and also incredibly daunted by the fact that I have to do this 27 more times. That is a lot of times.
Lakeidra and I had a pretty in depth convo today about how reporter is actually the best job at the Sun Star, 'cause you just hang out and do some reporting and writing and rewriting and then you see your story in the paper on Tuesday. It's pretty much instant gratification.
But even though my leisurely reporting days are behind me and I am SO NOT PREPARED for what doing this 27 more times will do to me, I am feelin' full of potential and super proud of this year's first issue.
 |
| UAF is not naturally inspiring. |
Except even though UAF did take broomball away from us (something that I am still coming to terms with) and it is also kind of a depressing school, it is a place where I can do things like I did today.
Which is to say: produce the paper.
Monday, July 16, 2012
middle of the night hodgepodge
I found 2.35 JD in the pocket of a pair of jeans the other day. How have I been home for a month and this is still happening to me? I thought that after, like, a week or two you're supposed to have things all unpacked and put away. But it turns out there is no specific schedule to this, whatever this is, and even a month later there are weirdly painful pangs that are triggered by nothing and reminders from inane objects you thought would have been filed away weeks ago.
I posted my first story as editor this week. Lakeidra wrote it (fabulously, I might add) and I took pictures. It's about construction on campus. And working on editing it and posting it was the most purposeful I've felt in a long time, which makes me think that I'm probably in the right place doing the right thing I just have to figure out how to be back here again.
It's almost-kind-of-a-little-bit dark outside right now. I miss Ammani nights a lot. I miss sunsets from hilltops and warm night air and weekends on Rainbow Street.
When will it start to get wearisome to read about how reverse culture shock is weird? I don't know what else to write about, because this is all-consuming and I think about literally nothing else.
Honestly, at the moment I'm just waiting for my hair to grow back out.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
A month ago...
Coming back is a process.
It was nice at first. To see people, to speak constantly in English, to visit familiar places that were once taken for granted with a renewed sense of enthusiasm.
But then something shifted. And I can't shake this unsettled, ungrounded, unraveled feeling that permeates every.single.moment.
I've been comparing notes with my roommates. They all seem to be settling into America quite nicely. But I can't help but feel like the place I'm trying to fit back into hasn't accounted for the new ways I swing my arms when I walk, because I am constantly bumping into walls and expectations.
No one asks me about Jordan. But if they did I would tell them that I miss the man with the Egyptian granddaughter who visited us at the bus stop some mornings. I would tell them that I was thinking about how a month ago on Friday I was browsing hand-made crafts at Souk Jara. I would tell them that these days I unfold the entire sheet of directions just to see that Arabic is the 8th language they are written in, and I sit and patiently sound out words I do not know the meanings of.
I can't sleep. So I watch movies with British actors just to try to lull myself to sleep on the waves of their differently pronounced words. I put on mascara just to have something to do with my hands. I read. But I start in the middle of books now because I cannot stand beginnings anymore.
Lately, I've been thinking about Budapest. About how the day before Deshani and I left, we sought out this Indian woman who threaded our eyebrows in the back of her shop, which was half liqour, half noodles. About all the bridges. About how those days were a juncture between two states of being. About how neither Deshani or I were particularly interested in reading our map, so we spent a lot of our time lost. About how it snowed on us.
At every intersection, I am learning how to be at home again. But it is happening too slowly. Everything that I cannot reach out and touch seems like a dream. When once upon a time it was terribly, wonderfully, awesomely gritty.
It was nice at first. To see people, to speak constantly in English, to visit familiar places that were once taken for granted with a renewed sense of enthusiasm.
But then something shifted. And I can't shake this unsettled, ungrounded, unraveled feeling that permeates every.single.moment.
I've been comparing notes with my roommates. They all seem to be settling into America quite nicely. But I can't help but feel like the place I'm trying to fit back into hasn't accounted for the new ways I swing my arms when I walk, because I am constantly bumping into walls and expectations.
No one asks me about Jordan. But if they did I would tell them that I miss the man with the Egyptian granddaughter who visited us at the bus stop some mornings. I would tell them that I was thinking about how a month ago on Friday I was browsing hand-made crafts at Souk Jara. I would tell them that these days I unfold the entire sheet of directions just to see that Arabic is the 8th language they are written in, and I sit and patiently sound out words I do not know the meanings of.
I can't sleep. So I watch movies with British actors just to try to lull myself to sleep on the waves of their differently pronounced words. I put on mascara just to have something to do with my hands. I read. But I start in the middle of books now because I cannot stand beginnings anymore.
At every intersection, I am learning how to be at home again. But it is happening too slowly. Everything that I cannot reach out and touch seems like a dream. When once upon a time it was terribly, wonderfully, awesomely gritty.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
On missing things
I miss nights. Specifically, I miss Amman nights. And getting home from school wearing too much clothing because of modestly and collapsing onto our cold stone floors in tank tops waiting for the sun to set. And walking up the hill to buy juice, like we did that one time.
I miss Arabish. And I miss the small list of things I was responsible for in Jordan. I miss Levi's class. I miss talking about Arab politics (doesn't anyone care here?). I miss reading Arabic on street signs and handouts and in the faces of strangers every second of every day.
I miss winter in Amman when it would rain almost every day and the streets would turn into rivers. I miss being cold in Shmeisani wrapped in blankets watching chick flicks that our favorite movie man judged us for buying because he was a bit of a hipster and he always wanted us to watch his favorite foreign films.
I miss teaching English. Even though most of the time I felt estranged and awkward and like I spent too much time sitting in the teacher's lounge not teaching. But I miss being in the classroom with my ever-rotating cast of kids who I tried to coax into saying one or two sentences over the course of a few months.
I miss Hashem. Oh my god, I miss Hashem.
I miss mine and Fathme's pink bedroom. I miss our assortment of comfortable couches. I miss our infrequent family dinners at home and I miss our hookah room that we never really smoked hookah in. I skype interviewed for a job in there though. Against the stone wall that probably made me look like I was tuning in from prison not an apartment in the nice part of town, and I knew that there was going to be life after Jordan I just didn't know it would get here so quickly.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Diary of a jetlagged traveling slightly mental 20 year old who just got home
I'm home I'm home I'm home I'm home.
I forgot that in America you don't have to turn on your hot water heater and wait half an hour to take a shower. I forgot that you can drink tap water and that lots of people in Alaska proclaim their individuality through vanity license plates. I forgot that towels that were dried in a dryer are so, so, so soft, and how good honest-to-god real pepperoni pizza (not halal!) tastes.
But I remembered how to drive home from the airport, and I remembered to put on my turn signal. And I remembered about the grey sweatshirt at the back of my closet, and I remembered where I put my cellphone charger 10 months ago. I remembered to say "thank you" instead of "shukran." I remembered what the good radio stations were.
It hasn't quite hit me yet, or maybe it doesn't hit you? I've never done this before, so I don't know what to expect.
And I woke up at 5 a.m., and I forgot I owned the red puffy vest I'm wearing, and my family got a new cat while I was gone and she is a monster kitten, and my brother doesn't use conditioner so my hair is a frizzy dried out mess, and the contents of my year abroad are spread out over the living room floor, and I'm home.
I'm not good at missing things. I am good at moving on and looking forward and being excited about the future. But I am not good at remembering and missing and thinking nostalgic thoughts about things that once were. Maybe I won't miss Jordan too much. Or maybe I'm jetlagged and slightly mental and tomorrow I will be so sad.
I forgot that in America you don't have to turn on your hot water heater and wait half an hour to take a shower. I forgot that you can drink tap water and that lots of people in Alaska proclaim their individuality through vanity license plates. I forgot that towels that were dried in a dryer are so, so, so soft, and how good honest-to-god real pepperoni pizza (not halal!) tastes.
But I remembered how to drive home from the airport, and I remembered to put on my turn signal. And I remembered about the grey sweatshirt at the back of my closet, and I remembered where I put my cellphone charger 10 months ago. I remembered to say "thank you" instead of "shukran." I remembered what the good radio stations were.
It hasn't quite hit me yet, or maybe it doesn't hit you? I've never done this before, so I don't know what to expect.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Almost the end
I'm about to leave and my life in Jordan is about to become a series of memories. No longer a nuanced life of ups and downs, but snapshots remembered and retold to people only half listening.
I am ready to move on to Life After Jordan, but I am not ready to leave.
Because my Arabic teacher taught us how to make maqloobeh, and I spent an hour chopping parsley in the kitchen and when will I ever have that much time to spend cutting vegetables into infinitesimally small pieces ever again?
Because I speak this horrible made up language of Arabic and English (and Spanish sometimes when no one can remember the word in Arabic) and at home I will only get exasperated sighs and eye rolls for my enthusiasm about the word mnamanmat.
Because where will I ever find a roommate who wants to talk about Syrian refugees or the elections in Egypt as much as mine do?
My stomach ties itself into knots that I blame on heat and too much falafel but I think have to do with coming home. A year is a longlonglong time to be gone. Can you be a million things at once? Because I am and I have no words to encompass all of it.
I am leaving more broken and more whole than when I left. I am leaving with a renewed sense of purpose and a better understanding of just how lost I am.
I am a walking contradiction and at any given moment I could write a novel with the thoughts racing around my head.
I have asked too many questions in the past year, and I am not quite ready to resign myself to the lack of answers and return to my far away mountainous winter wonderland.
But it's almost the end. And again, I'm leaving a place that became a home in such a short amount of time with a small amount of luggage and a perspective on the world that's been irrevocably changed.
I am ready to move on to Life After Jordan, but I am not ready to leave.
Because my Arabic teacher taught us how to make maqloobeh, and I spent an hour chopping parsley in the kitchen and when will I ever have that much time to spend cutting vegetables into infinitesimally small pieces ever again?
Because I speak this horrible made up language of Arabic and English (and Spanish sometimes when no one can remember the word in Arabic) and at home I will only get exasperated sighs and eye rolls for my enthusiasm about the word mnamanmat.
Because where will I ever find a roommate who wants to talk about Syrian refugees or the elections in Egypt as much as mine do?
My stomach ties itself into knots that I blame on heat and too much falafel but I think have to do with coming home. A year is a longlonglong time to be gone. Can you be a million things at once? Because I am and I have no words to encompass all of it.
I am leaving more broken and more whole than when I left. I am leaving with a renewed sense of purpose and a better understanding of just how lost I am.
I am a walking contradiction and at any given moment I could write a novel with the thoughts racing around my head.
I have asked too many questions in the past year, and I am not quite ready to resign myself to the lack of answers and return to my far away mountainous winter wonderland.
But it's almost the end. And again, I'm leaving a place that became a home in such a short amount of time with a small amount of luggage and a perspective on the world that's been irrevocably changed.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
In which my idealism takes a hit
I'm antsy. Antsy like I can't keep my arms still when I talk and when I don't. Antsy like I'm waiting for my hair to grow out and it's just not growing. Antsy like I'm suspended between two intakes of breath, and the slow exhale in between is taking far too long. Antsy like I'm far too nervous for what is waiting for me at home. Antsy like my faith in seemingly infallible facets of the world has taken a hit in recent months.
There is too much brokenness here, and it breaks down my naive idealism bit by bit. There is not enough water and not enough money and not enough food and too many people who need those things. There are not enough resources to fix things in an important, permanent way, and too much need for things to be fixed.
 |
| street flags in Ruwad in East Amman |
Aseel is an 8-year-old girl who goes to the school in the refugee camp I volunteer at every Thursday. She wants to write poems about Palestine. She wants to be a journalist when she grows up. Sahaafaa. That's journalism in Arabic. It was one of the first words I learned.
And it's hearbreaking that I can go back to Alaska and get my degree in journalism, but Aseel will probably live in Al Baqa'a for the rest of her life. She will probably get married young, and tell her children the stories that her parents told her about a homeland they will probably never know.
How, how, how can we live in a world where this is possible? How? How can there be 8-year-old girls who will grow up in refugee camps and never get to leave? How is that outside of her neighbors, no one will know her story? How are there fathers that eat every other day so that their kids can eat? How is that foreign aid comes with so many strings attached and it doesn't always get to the people that need it most? How is it that two guys can sit in a room and draw lines on a map that divide families into countries? How does the world run on corrupted politics when those politics affect millions of people? How am I supposed to just go home in three weeks?
I have no answers, whatsoever.
I have no answers, whatsoever.
Monday, May 14, 2012
The girls of apartment 5 are strange and now I am 20-years-old
I'm lying on my living room floor. I thought turning 20 would mean that I would be mature and stuff. But when my roommates came out of the kitchen with a bucket of ice cream with a single Spiderman candle burning in it, I resigned myself to the fact that it probably wasn't true.
We girls of apartment 5 are a strange breed. When I fell off the couch and inquired of the universe why I was such a catastrophe, Katrina answered in unconsoling mis-translated Arabic and then we looked at pictures of puppies on the internet and Fathme chimed in three-quarters of the way through our conversation singing happy birthday in Arabic, and Stephanie cooed at the cats outside the window. I think. Maybe they made it into our apartment this time. Or maybe they are on skype.
We watch bad, pirated movies and I keep up my obnoxious habit of disbelieving all cinematic works loudly from my perch on the couch. We don't wash our dishes that often, and since there's not that much of our semester left we never cook anymore, because why cook when you can go out for mansaf every other night?
I write a lot about my fabulous adventures out and about in the world, but the truth is that some of the things I enjoy the most happen right here in apartment 5 with Katrina and Stephanie and Fathme. Somehow we went from four awkward girls sitting around a table making strained conversation while we had no internet to the mess of friendship and dirty dishes we are right now.
Fathme made me pizza today. I turned on the oven though, since I am the only one not afraid of our oven. And Stephanie borrowed my markers to decorate the door to our apartment to say "Happy birthday Elika!", and I woke up this morning to find that Katrina had taped napkins to the walls.
This was a good birthday. With homemade pizza and a kilo of strawberries and doing Arabic homework while watching a movie with my roommates. Somehow, this ended up being a really good birthday.
We girls of apartment 5 are a strange breed. When I fell off the couch and inquired of the universe why I was such a catastrophe, Katrina answered in unconsoling mis-translated Arabic and then we looked at pictures of puppies on the internet and Fathme chimed in three-quarters of the way through our conversation singing happy birthday in Arabic, and Stephanie cooed at the cats outside the window. I think. Maybe they made it into our apartment this time. Or maybe they are on skype.
We watch bad, pirated movies and I keep up my obnoxious habit of disbelieving all cinematic works loudly from my perch on the couch. We don't wash our dishes that often, and since there's not that much of our semester left we never cook anymore, because why cook when you can go out for mansaf every other night?
I write a lot about my fabulous adventures out and about in the world, but the truth is that some of the things I enjoy the most happen right here in apartment 5 with Katrina and Stephanie and Fathme. Somehow we went from four awkward girls sitting around a table making strained conversation while we had no internet to the mess of friendship and dirty dishes we are right now.
Fathme made me pizza today. I turned on the oven though, since I am the only one not afraid of our oven. And Stephanie borrowed my markers to decorate the door to our apartment to say "Happy birthday Elika!", and I woke up this morning to find that Katrina had taped napkins to the walls.
This was a good birthday. With homemade pizza and a kilo of strawberries and doing Arabic homework while watching a movie with my roommates. Somehow, this ended up being a really good birthday.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Hoonaka, hoonaka, hoonaka
My roommate, Katrina, and I tend to have an Arabic phrase of the week that we get obsessed with. This week it is, "hoonaka, hoonaka, hoonaka." Which literally translates to "there, there, there." As in, someone is feeling down, and you pat them on the shoulder and say "there, there." Except this is a literal translation that doesn't translate culturally and that gets bemused head shakes from Arabs because sometimes (all the time) we are just so, so, so foreign.
This weekend I went to Aqaba, which is the most geographically exciting place I've ever been. Seriously, I could have walked to Saudia Arabia, Israel, and Egypt from my hotel and been back before dinner.*
Also, while I was in Aqaba I went scuba diving. Which, like, you have to be certified to do at home. But not in Jordan. Inshallah, you will come back alive. Scuba diving was really awesome and I liked it, but not quite as much as I like breathing above water.
Then yesterday, I got to jump off a boat repeatedly and snorkel and swim around a coral reef, and that was SO AWESOME. I am pretty sure I was a fisherwoman (or mumkin a fish) in a past life. I never want to get out of the water (as long as I am close to the surface of it).
Then I came back to Amman and read Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters in the backseat and absently checked where we were in relation to home every so often out the window. And soon enough I started to recognize the familiar landmarks that meant we were getting close to Amman
And I started to get that really happy exhausted feeling I always get at the end of a really long day fishing with my family when we finally get home. Like I had a lovely time, but there is nothing more lovely than my own bed.
I have three weeks of school left, and a little more than a month until I actually get on a plane and go home. And I'm happy about going back to Alaska. I've missed it a lot, and I've been gone a long time. And I love Jordan too, and I'll be sad to leave. But I don't think this is the last time I'll ever see this place again.
I mean, it'll take a lot more to console me than hoonaka, hoonaka, hoonaka if that's the case.
*slight exaggeration but you get the idea
This weekend I went to Aqaba, which is the most geographically exciting place I've ever been. Seriously, I could have walked to Saudia Arabia, Israel, and Egypt from my hotel and been back before dinner.*
 |
| I stole this picture from Stephanie's facebook. So, credit to Stephanie. Except actually, credit to Mohammad, because I think he was the one that took this picture. |
Then yesterday, I got to jump off a boat repeatedly and snorkel and swim around a coral reef, and that was SO AWESOME. I am pretty sure I was a fisherwoman (or mumkin a fish) in a past life. I never want to get out of the water (as long as I am close to the surface of it).Then I came back to Amman and read Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters in the backseat and absently checked where we were in relation to home every so often out the window. And soon enough I started to recognize the familiar landmarks that meant we were getting close to Amman
And I started to get that really happy exhausted feeling I always get at the end of a really long day fishing with my family when we finally get home. Like I had a lovely time, but there is nothing more lovely than my own bed.
I have three weeks of school left, and a little more than a month until I actually get on a plane and go home. And I'm happy about going back to Alaska. I've missed it a lot, and I've been gone a long time. And I love Jordan too, and I'll be sad to leave. But I don't think this is the last time I'll ever see this place again.
I mean, it'll take a lot more to console me than hoonaka, hoonaka, hoonaka if that's the case.
*slight exaggeration but you get the idea
Monday, May 7, 2012
1 kilo of strawberries
Today, some shabab asked me where Safeway was when we were right in front of Safeway. And I shot them this fantastically glowering glare. I feel like I have finally mastered giving dirty looks.
Sometimes I spy on the neighbors from my kitchen window. There's a girl my age who drapes a scarf over her head and reads on the back porch. When I see her outside of the house, her make up is done to perfection and there is not a stray hair in sight. But when I see her out the window, she is curled up on the swinging bench in her sweatpants with a book. It's nice to know Arab girls and I might have something in common.
The man at the fruit market down the street sells me a kilo of strawberries for 2 JD. We're friends.
Sometimes I spy on the neighbors from my kitchen window. There's a girl my age who drapes a scarf over her head and reads on the back porch. When I see her outside of the house, her make up is done to perfection and there is not a stray hair in sight. But when I see her out the window, she is curled up on the swinging bench in her sweatpants with a book. It's nice to know Arab girls and I might have something in common.
The man at the fruit market down the street sells me a kilo of strawberries for 2 JD. We're friends.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Wadi Rum
Some things I did this weekend:
- rode camels
- looked at the stars all night
- climbed a rock and watched the sunset
- climbed a rock in the dark and watched the sunrise
- jumped down sand dunes
- drank tea
- unabashedly wore a kuffiyeh all weekend
- did not sleep at all
- got sand everywhere
- accidentally threw my lens cap off a cliff
- played ukulele around a campfire
I was going to write this lyrical, adjective-ridden post about how beautiful my time was in Wadi Rum. How Katrina and I stayed up all night watching the stars, and it was sort of magical.
But you know what? There are some memories I just don't want to share. It's getting harder and harder to write about Jordan for me. There are a ton of half-written posts in my queue that I can't bring myself to finish and share with the world, purely because I'm selfish. What's happening to me here is mine, and sometimes I want it to stay that way.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Just so, so, so foreign
Last night, Katrina and I were getting pumped for our trip to al balad fi al sabah (downtown in the morning), and we mentioned it to our friend, Ahmed, who immediately mumbled under his breath "so foreign."
I feel like when I first showed up in Amman, I was too caught up in the exciting newness of this city to notice exactly how foreign I was. And then I went through my I-am-learning-Arabic-and-I-have-brown-hair-so-I-totally-fit-in-and-no-one-can-tell-I'm-American phase. But recently, the sheer comical ridiculousness of exactly how foreign I am has really been catching up to me.
Like this morning, when Katrina, Fathme, and I were walking around al balad at 8:30 a.m. with our backpacks when nothing was open, looking in vain for a place to buy kuffiyehs and harem pants. The whole morning was just so ajnab. Just, so, so ajnab.
But especially when Katrina and I tried to take the bus from downtown to the university, which worked out mostly well. We tried to switch in Sweileh, and we got on a bus that obviously did not go all the way to Al Ahliyyih. But the guy on the bus insisted that he would take us there. Because with our bags of full of kuffiyehs, and with the two of us eating plain bread from a plastic bag and talking in loud english, it seemed pretty apparent that we might not make it to school on our own.
And tonight, when Stephanie and I were trying to catch a cab to dinner and this guy in a grey honda circa 1995 pulled over.
Him: "You need taxi?"
Us: "No, we're going. Ma assalama."
Him: "I swear to allah I am taxi!"
We ended up literally running away, and then he followed us in his car that was so obviously not a taxi, until we found an actual taxi. And truthfully, this kind of stuff happens to me all the time. Like random cars pulling over and insisting they are taxi (la, you are not taxi). Or guys following us when we walk to restaurants in the neighborhood. And life would not be complete without about 10 cars driving by every morning while I wait for the bus and honking just to point out that they know that one of these things is not like the other and she's standing on the curb. And, of course, the endless and ever-present ahlan wa sahlan's! that come from all directions.
It's not a bad thing, that I'm so foreign. It just is. It is exhausting, it is frustrating at times, but it is also overwhelmingly hilarious.
I feel like when I first showed up in Amman, I was too caught up in the exciting newness of this city to notice exactly how foreign I was. And then I went through my I-am-learning-Arabic-and-I-have-brown-hair-so-I-totally-fit-in-and-no-one-can-tell-I'm-American phase. But recently, the sheer comical ridiculousness of exactly how foreign I am has really been catching up to me.
Like this morning, when Katrina, Fathme, and I were walking around al balad at 8:30 a.m. with our backpacks when nothing was open, looking in vain for a place to buy kuffiyehs and harem pants. The whole morning was just so ajnab. Just, so, so ajnab.
But especially when Katrina and I tried to take the bus from downtown to the university, which worked out mostly well. We tried to switch in Sweileh, and we got on a bus that obviously did not go all the way to Al Ahliyyih. But the guy on the bus insisted that he would take us there. Because with our bags of full of kuffiyehs, and with the two of us eating plain bread from a plastic bag and talking in loud english, it seemed pretty apparent that we might not make it to school on our own.
And tonight, when Stephanie and I were trying to catch a cab to dinner and this guy in a grey honda circa 1995 pulled over.
Him: "You need taxi?"
Us: "No, we're going. Ma assalama."
Him: "I swear to allah I am taxi!"
We ended up literally running away, and then he followed us in his car that was so obviously not a taxi, until we found an actual taxi. And truthfully, this kind of stuff happens to me all the time. Like random cars pulling over and insisting they are taxi (la, you are not taxi). Or guys following us when we walk to restaurants in the neighborhood. And life would not be complete without about 10 cars driving by every morning while I wait for the bus and honking just to point out that they know that one of these things is not like the other and she's standing on the curb. And, of course, the endless and ever-present ahlan wa sahlan's! that come from all directions.
It's not a bad thing, that I'm so foreign. It just is. It is exhausting, it is frustrating at times, but it is also overwhelmingly hilarious.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
An Arabic vocabulary guide
Here is a list of Arabic vocabularly that will probably make its way back to the states with me. It's a combination of both ameea (colloquial) and fusha (formal).
mumtas- excellent
mush mushkilah- no problem
esh- what?
bijanin- super excellent, so excellent it makes you crazy (this word is derived from the root majnoon which means crazy)
wain ____?- where is ______? I will also probably incoperate some Arabic grammatical rules into this and say something like wain hairbrushi? because "i" at the end of the word means it's mine.
habibti- my female love, girlfriend, term of endearment
habibi- my male love, boyfriend, term of enderarment
ana keman- me too
matha hadatha!?!?!?- what happened?!?!? in fusha. If you actually say this to an Arabic-speaker they will laugh at you becuase you're so formal, but it's so much more fun to say than shoo sahr?!?!?
sufi mafi- what's up (seriously Jordanian colloquial)
safia wafia- nothing (seriously Jordanian colloquial response)
assifa- sorry
shukran- thank you
la- no
mush- no, but used to negate nouns.
aywah- yes
sah- yes, true
mashi- ok
ahlan wa sahlan!!!- welcome! although translated literally it means you are among family and you should feel at ease. ahlan wa sahlan is a great Arabic filler that people say when no one is speaking to break awkward silences. it is also yelled at ajnabiyyah when they walk on the street.
ajnabiyyah- foreign girl
khalas- enough, done (this word is used all the time, although apparently not to pull cabs over)
itfudali/itfudul- go ahead, although it is used in many more situations than "go ahead" is in english.
mumkin-maybe
yanni- I mean.... it's another great Arabic filler
esh hal arif- that sucks bro
moosh my mooshkilah- not my problem. this is a good example of how much I love Arabish.
bidi falafel wahid law samat?- can I have one falafel please?
and then there are the allah's. these are just a few of many, many, many.
yallah- let's go
inshallah- hopefully
alhamdulillah- good, great, awesome
yarhamukullah- bless you (what you say when someone sneezes)
mumtas- excellent
mush mushkilah- no problem
esh- what?
bijanin- super excellent, so excellent it makes you crazy (this word is derived from the root majnoon which means crazy)
wain ____?- where is ______? I will also probably incoperate some Arabic grammatical rules into this and say something like wain hairbrushi? because "i" at the end of the word means it's mine.
habibti- my female love, girlfriend, term of endearment
habibi- my male love, boyfriend, term of enderarment
ana keman- me too
matha hadatha!?!?!?- what happened?!?!? in fusha. If you actually say this to an Arabic-speaker they will laugh at you becuase you're so formal, but it's so much more fun to say than shoo sahr?!?!?
sufi mafi- what's up (seriously Jordanian colloquial)
safia wafia- nothing (seriously Jordanian colloquial response)
assifa- sorry
shukran- thank you
la- no
mush- no, but used to negate nouns.
aywah- yes
sah- yes, true
mashi- ok
ahlan wa sahlan!!!- welcome! although translated literally it means you are among family and you should feel at ease. ahlan wa sahlan is a great Arabic filler that people say when no one is speaking to break awkward silences. it is also yelled at ajnabiyyah when they walk on the street.
ajnabiyyah- foreign girl
khalas- enough, done (this word is used all the time, although apparently not to pull cabs over)
itfudali/itfudul- go ahead, although it is used in many more situations than "go ahead" is in english.
mumkin-maybe
yanni- I mean.... it's another great Arabic filler
esh hal arif- that sucks bro
moosh my mooshkilah- not my problem. this is a good example of how much I love Arabish.
bidi falafel wahid law samat?- can I have one falafel please?
and then there are the allah's. these are just a few of many, many, many.
yallah- let's go
inshallah- hopefully
alhamdulillah- good, great, awesome
yarhamukullah- bless you (what you say when someone sneezes)
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Adventures of an أجنبية (ajnabiyyah)
Give or take, I have spent the last year of my life being a foreign girl.* The Arabs have a word for that. They call us - the foreign girls from far off lands with dazzling stories and the capacity to hook them up with a green card - ajnabiyyah.
We mess with their Arab guy game, we speak in halting Arabic, we giggle just a bit louder than the girls that have lived here all their lives. Our foreignness defines us, and we see everything about this culture through our ajnabiyyah eyes that grew up somewhere else.
There are, of course, both pros and cons to being an ajnabiyyah.
Pros: You are a foreign girl in a foreign land. You are having fabulous adventures, and you take beautiful pictures. Your biggest problem is the language barrier, and even that is mush mushkilah because everyone understands your hand motions and your beautiful ajnabiyyah smiles. You regularly end your days memorizing the way the sun set reflects off the white stone buildings that make up the Amman skyline from your vantage point on the roof of your apartment building.
Cons: You are a foreign girl in a foreign land. You are literally halfway around the world from anything remotely familiar. You never have any idea what's going on, and you can barely communicate, and taxis fairly regularly have no idea where you want them to take you. You regularly get ahlan wa sahlan!'s which was funny at first, but is quickly becoming old because you don't need to be welcomed to Jordan on your way home from the bus stop: you've been here for two months already.
Try as I might to rid myself of my ajnabiyyah-ness by diligently studying my Arabic and eating as much mansaf as possible, there's not much I can do. At least for the next two months, I am an ajnabiyyah through and through.**
*I'm counting Coldfoot as a foreign country, and jumping the gun by a month. It makes for nicer writing, but I thought I would clarify down here in the footnotes.
**footnote about how poetic I am
Friday, April 6, 2012
Some reflections on life in Jordan
This is an extremely long collection of things that I think about a lot since I've been here with some recent anecdotes thrown in. Read on if you're particularly interested in the Middle East or my life.
Twice this week, I visted Al Baqa'a, a refugee camp near my university. On Wednesday we drove through it as a field trip for my class on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, since it is primarily a Palestinian refugee camp. We stopped a few times, but since you're not really allowed in Al Baqa'a unless you're with the UN or you live there, we mostly just looked around at the crowded buildings. Yesterday, a few of the other exchange students and I went back to Al Baqa'a to begin volunteering at an after school program. They explained to us what we would be getting into, and eventually we ended up on the roof in a crowd of beautiful faces and shoo ismek's (what's your name?) from 8 year old girls that were born and will probably die in Al Baqa'a where the trash piles up on street corners and where there is not enough work and water and food and money to keep these after school programs running.
On the way home I made a passing comment to the ISA director about if my brother visits we'd probably want to go to Israel. And he corrected me, saying you mean Palestine? It was a harmless comment, more meant for me to realize that other people would get offended, not him. But it was enough to drag me out of the Amman-dreamland I've been living in. Yes, I can order food in Arabic and I no longer feel utterly uncomfortable taking a taxi on my own and I recognize landmarks in the city now so I can orient myself as to where I am usually. But the reality I grew up with is shockingly different than so many of the realities of other people's lives I encounter here.
This morning I went to Jesus' baptism site at the Jordan River. The Jordan River is the border between Jordan and Israel/Palestine/the West Bank (the whole time we were there, Katrina and I made sure to only refer to Israel/Palestine/the West Bank as "the area of land west of here" so as to remain as politically correct as possible. Although at one point Katrina made a joke about something being kosher as in "yeah, that's kosher," and we wondered outloud if that could be construed as too pro-Israel... middle east study abroad problems). At one point we were literally so close that if I'd reached out I could practically touch the area of land west of the Jordan River that can be called several different things. But when I turned around and asked if I would be shot if I jumped in the water and swam to Israel/Palestine/the West Bank, I got a very emphatic yes. On the walk back to the vans, I ended up talking to our director again. And in the middle of our conversation about our proximity to the border, he asked his three-year-old daughter who was sitting on his shoulders where she was from, and she happily said "Palestine!" Mohammad is Palestinian living in Jordan, and his wife is from Arizona, and Noor is their beautiful 3-year-old girl. It was another dragging me out of the dreamland moment.
My whole entire experience in Jordan has been a big education on refugees. The ones that are coming from Syria, the ones that came from Iraq a few years back, the ones from Libya that fill up the hotels while they wait for medical care, the ones from Palestine that have been here since 1948 and '67 and '91. To be truthful, no one in Jordan is really Jordanian. Unless you get out into the small villages and sit with the Bedouins in their tents, everyone here hails from somewhere else. And they all have stories behind why they're not there anymore, but instead living in this small, water-poor country that doesn't have much going for it except its compassion.
All of this mulls around in my head constantly. I spend my spare moments thinking about the Syrians that cross the border in the north and are stripped of every earthly possession and penny before they can leave their country, and then move into refugee camps where getting a mattress to sleep on is a luxury. I think about how peace between the Israelis and Palestinians will not even begin to be considered unless Israel stops building settlements in the West Bank, which they're not (and even then, what will be done with all the settlements and settlers that are already there?). I think about how international organizations mean well and do a lot of good in the world, but there are still so many hungry people that go to bed on pieces of cardboard every night.
So, today we went to the Dead Sea. We got to go to this beautiful resort with about 6 different pools and right on the beach with salty water to float in and mud to coat yourself in and an all you can eat buffet. It was the first time the world had seen my shoulders and knees in two months, and subsequently I felt extremely uncomfortable. I also had a hard time not staring at some of the tourists and wondering how exactly they were walking around in bikinis with such confidence in a place where women have special swimsuits with hijabs built in.
The thing is that the resort is disgustingly not Jordan. It's fancy hotel life with a camel thrown in by the beach. Yeah, it was nice to check out for the day. But it got me thinking about all the people that travel and never step outside of their small comfort zone. Like the people that go to Jerusalem and travel the holy site circut, never stopping to look at the life of the people less than five miles away. Like me, who has lived in Amman for two months and hasn't really seen East Amman yet. And if all of these atrocities are fed by ignorance, how are we supposed to know what life in a village by the Dead Sea is like if we don't step outside of the resort?
If you're still with me at this point, you deserve an award. So here is what I think. I think that Turkey will be the country that saves us all from World War III by bridging the East and the West with their beautiful blend of cultures and prime geographic location. I think that even though Obama told the Russian president that once he was reelected he'd have more flexibility in an open mic slip, the United States will probably still fund Israel unquestionably because of the power of the Israeli lobby in the states, although hopefully they'll draw some sort of line at war with Iran. I think Jordan is a beautiful country for what it does for all the scared, hungry, running people that come here to seek refuge. I think that I'm too small to fix the entire world, but that if more people could see what I see they'd want to try.
Twice this week, I visted Al Baqa'a, a refugee camp near my university. On Wednesday we drove through it as a field trip for my class on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, since it is primarily a Palestinian refugee camp. We stopped a few times, but since you're not really allowed in Al Baqa'a unless you're with the UN or you live there, we mostly just looked around at the crowded buildings. Yesterday, a few of the other exchange students and I went back to Al Baqa'a to begin volunteering at an after school program. They explained to us what we would be getting into, and eventually we ended up on the roof in a crowd of beautiful faces and shoo ismek's (what's your name?) from 8 year old girls that were born and will probably die in Al Baqa'a where the trash piles up on street corners and where there is not enough work and water and food and money to keep these after school programs running.
On the way home I made a passing comment to the ISA director about if my brother visits we'd probably want to go to Israel. And he corrected me, saying you mean Palestine? It was a harmless comment, more meant for me to realize that other people would get offended, not him. But it was enough to drag me out of the Amman-dreamland I've been living in. Yes, I can order food in Arabic and I no longer feel utterly uncomfortable taking a taxi on my own and I recognize landmarks in the city now so I can orient myself as to where I am usually. But the reality I grew up with is shockingly different than so many of the realities of other people's lives I encounter here.
This morning I went to Jesus' baptism site at the Jordan River. The Jordan River is the border between Jordan and Israel/Palestine/the West Bank (the whole time we were there, Katrina and I made sure to only refer to Israel/Palestine/the West Bank as "the area of land west of here" so as to remain as politically correct as possible. Although at one point Katrina made a joke about something being kosher as in "yeah, that's kosher," and we wondered outloud if that could be construed as too pro-Israel... middle east study abroad problems). At one point we were literally so close that if I'd reached out I could practically touch the area of land west of the Jordan River that can be called several different things. But when I turned around and asked if I would be shot if I jumped in the water and swam to Israel/Palestine/the West Bank, I got a very emphatic yes. On the walk back to the vans, I ended up talking to our director again. And in the middle of our conversation about our proximity to the border, he asked his three-year-old daughter who was sitting on his shoulders where she was from, and she happily said "Palestine!" Mohammad is Palestinian living in Jordan, and his wife is from Arizona, and Noor is their beautiful 3-year-old girl. It was another dragging me out of the dreamland moment.
My whole entire experience in Jordan has been a big education on refugees. The ones that are coming from Syria, the ones that came from Iraq a few years back, the ones from Libya that fill up the hotels while they wait for medical care, the ones from Palestine that have been here since 1948 and '67 and '91. To be truthful, no one in Jordan is really Jordanian. Unless you get out into the small villages and sit with the Bedouins in their tents, everyone here hails from somewhere else. And they all have stories behind why they're not there anymore, but instead living in this small, water-poor country that doesn't have much going for it except its compassion.
All of this mulls around in my head constantly. I spend my spare moments thinking about the Syrians that cross the border in the north and are stripped of every earthly possession and penny before they can leave their country, and then move into refugee camps where getting a mattress to sleep on is a luxury. I think about how peace between the Israelis and Palestinians will not even begin to be considered unless Israel stops building settlements in the West Bank, which they're not (and even then, what will be done with all the settlements and settlers that are already there?). I think about how international organizations mean well and do a lot of good in the world, but there are still so many hungry people that go to bed on pieces of cardboard every night.
So, today we went to the Dead Sea. We got to go to this beautiful resort with about 6 different pools and right on the beach with salty water to float in and mud to coat yourself in and an all you can eat buffet. It was the first time the world had seen my shoulders and knees in two months, and subsequently I felt extremely uncomfortable. I also had a hard time not staring at some of the tourists and wondering how exactly they were walking around in bikinis with such confidence in a place where women have special swimsuits with hijabs built in.
The thing is that the resort is disgustingly not Jordan. It's fancy hotel life with a camel thrown in by the beach. Yeah, it was nice to check out for the day. But it got me thinking about all the people that travel and never step outside of their small comfort zone. Like the people that go to Jerusalem and travel the holy site circut, never stopping to look at the life of the people less than five miles away. Like me, who has lived in Amman for two months and hasn't really seen East Amman yet. And if all of these atrocities are fed by ignorance, how are we supposed to know what life in a village by the Dead Sea is like if we don't step outside of the resort?
If you're still with me at this point, you deserve an award. So here is what I think. I think that Turkey will be the country that saves us all from World War III by bridging the East and the West with their beautiful blend of cultures and prime geographic location. I think that even though Obama told the Russian president that once he was reelected he'd have more flexibility in an open mic slip, the United States will probably still fund Israel unquestionably because of the power of the Israeli lobby in the states, although hopefully they'll draw some sort of line at war with Iran. I think Jordan is a beautiful country for what it does for all the scared, hungry, running people that come here to seek refuge. I think that I'm too small to fix the entire world, but that if more people could see what I see they'd want to try.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Some things that suck
Not everything about life in Jordan is peachy.
1. Incessant calling from a wrong number at 2:30 a.m. Every so often 0799298102 calls my phone over and over again, and when I answer is like "Mohammad? Mohammad? Mohammad? Mohammad? Mohammad?" And I have to be all, "ana mush Mohammad. Eindek THE WRONG NUMBER." But they persist calling over and over again, as if sheer persistence will change the American girl at the other end of the phone into their friend Mohammad that they so desperately want to reach. Last night they did this at 2:30 a.m. I kid you not they called me about 14 times before I turned my phone off.
2. Jordanian internet. It sucks hella balls. And only when you have a skype date or when you need to do something important. It takes approximately twelve thousand years to upload a picture, and it is only marginally faster to send emails.
3. How far away Al-Ahliyya is from where I live. I have to catch the bus by 8 a.m. every morning, which means that I have to wake up by like 7:50 a.m., which is just super early. Also, on any given day the bus is between 5 to 30 minutes late, so you just never have any idea what's going on. And then it takes about an hour to get to school since the university I go to is basically in Salt and I live in Shmeisani.
4. The disapproving stares of men and women alike. Despite my vaguely Middle Eastern eyes and my attempts to blend in, literally everyone can tell that I'm a foreigner. Luckily, since I have brown eyes and brown hair I get harassed a lot less than my blond friends since I'm less of a novelty here. But the women shoot disapproving glares because I am obviously a slutty Western girl here to eat pork and make out with every single boy. And the men either don't talk to me since I am a women, or harass me because I am a woman. One time this guy followed me into Safeway and proposed while I was trying to buy oreos. Foreign woman in Jordan are held to an obnoxious double standard because we are both expected to conform to the modest and conservative lifestyles women here live, and also to be as crazy and liberal as Hollywood depicts us to be.
5. How cold it is. If you sat me down and told me that for nearly half of my time living in Amman, Jordan I would be wrapped in a wool blanket I would have laughed in your face. Yeah right, I would have said, I go to school in Fairbanks, Alaska. I know cold. Except, hilariously, the dessert is cold in the winter. Who would have thought, right? And there's no central heating here either. So we just sit in our apartment with stone floors and leaking windows at night wrapped in blankets, too cold to wash the dishes.
I love Jordan, but I have a perpetual headache from never knowing what's going on and dodging eye contact with every male I run into. Also, that stupid guy that keeps calling for Mohammad. I am obviously not Mohammad, bro.
1. Incessant calling from a wrong number at 2:30 a.m. Every so often 0799298102 calls my phone over and over again, and when I answer is like "Mohammad? Mohammad? Mohammad? Mohammad? Mohammad?" And I have to be all, "ana mush Mohammad. Eindek THE WRONG NUMBER." But they persist calling over and over again, as if sheer persistence will change the American girl at the other end of the phone into their friend Mohammad that they so desperately want to reach. Last night they did this at 2:30 a.m. I kid you not they called me about 14 times before I turned my phone off.
2. Jordanian internet. It sucks hella balls. And only when you have a skype date or when you need to do something important. It takes approximately twelve thousand years to upload a picture, and it is only marginally faster to send emails.
3. How far away Al-Ahliyya is from where I live. I have to catch the bus by 8 a.m. every morning, which means that I have to wake up by like 7:50 a.m., which is just super early. Also, on any given day the bus is between 5 to 30 minutes late, so you just never have any idea what's going on. And then it takes about an hour to get to school since the university I go to is basically in Salt and I live in Shmeisani.
4. The disapproving stares of men and women alike. Despite my vaguely Middle Eastern eyes and my attempts to blend in, literally everyone can tell that I'm a foreigner. Luckily, since I have brown eyes and brown hair I get harassed a lot less than my blond friends since I'm less of a novelty here. But the women shoot disapproving glares because I am obviously a slutty Western girl here to eat pork and make out with every single boy. And the men either don't talk to me since I am a women, or harass me because I am a woman. One time this guy followed me into Safeway and proposed while I was trying to buy oreos. Foreign woman in Jordan are held to an obnoxious double standard because we are both expected to conform to the modest and conservative lifestyles women here live, and also to be as crazy and liberal as Hollywood depicts us to be.
5. How cold it is. If you sat me down and told me that for nearly half of my time living in Amman, Jordan I would be wrapped in a wool blanket I would have laughed in your face. Yeah right, I would have said, I go to school in Fairbanks, Alaska. I know cold. Except, hilariously, the dessert is cold in the winter. Who would have thought, right? And there's no central heating here either. So we just sit in our apartment with stone floors and leaking windows at night wrapped in blankets, too cold to wash the dishes.
I love Jordan, but I have a perpetual headache from never knowing what's going on and dodging eye contact with every male I run into. Also, that stupid guy that keeps calling for Mohammad. I am obviously not Mohammad, bro.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
polychromatic sunset and monochromatic city
We took a different route than normal on the bus ride home from school today. There were a new group of students being dropped off on the tops of hills that afforded a particularly spectacular view of a monochromatic city and a polychromatic sunset. I have never been one to think manmade things are beautiful, but Amman is a beautiful city.
There are moments in my life here that I want to freeze as perfect memories forever. Speeding through Amman streets blasting techno, eating shawerma on top of the city, being wrapped up in blankets on a hill overlooking millions of twinkling lights.
There is nothing quite so fun as hanging out with Arab boys who want to race everyone they meet at a stoplight in their white Honda Accords. Nothing quite like shivering in the cold desert nights listening to others explain the metaphorical resonances of their favorite color. Nothing quite like a bright pink sun setting over a beige city.
I love the way I fit into Amman so awkwardly and foreign and welcome into this Arab melting pot of a country. I love the 35 fil falafels for lunch, and the woman at the snack stand behind the university who explains to me what everything on the menu is. I love the warm smiles from women, and the way Shmeisani is spelled 7 different ways in English around my neighborhood. I love this city, this culture, this country, this corner of the world.
There are moments in my life here that I want to freeze as perfect memories forever. Speeding through Amman streets blasting techno, eating shawerma on top of the city, being wrapped up in blankets on a hill overlooking millions of twinkling lights.
There is nothing quite so fun as hanging out with Arab boys who want to race everyone they meet at a stoplight in their white Honda Accords. Nothing quite like shivering in the cold desert nights listening to others explain the metaphorical resonances of their favorite color. Nothing quite like a bright pink sun setting over a beige city.
I love the way I fit into Amman so awkwardly and foreign and welcome into this Arab melting pot of a country. I love the 35 fil falafels for lunch, and the woman at the snack stand behind the university who explains to me what everything on the menu is. I love the warm smiles from women, and the way Shmeisani is spelled 7 different ways in English around my neighborhood. I love this city, this culture, this country, this corner of the world.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Going to Ghor
For most of my time in Jordan so far, I've been in and around Amman. So today, I went and visited the village of Ghor which is right next to the Dead Sea. We went through a program called the Zikra Initiative, which is an NGO that aims to show foreigners (and Jordanians) what life is like in the smaller villages while supporting the villages economically as well. It's called exchange tourism, and it was honestly one of the coolest experiences of my whole life.
We started out our morning meeting some of the people that work and volunteer for Zikra Initiative and some of the women and kids that lived in Ghor. The big plan of the day was to make qalayet bandoora, which involves a lot of tomatoes. So, each of us grabbed a crate and went out and picked some tomatoes (even Mohammad's super cute little girl!).
After we had picked a lovely assortment of tomatoes, we climbed up to a tent on top of a hill overlooking Ghor and the Dead Sea Valley and did some really cool crafts. I made beads from dried olive pits and strung them together in a bracelet with the help from some Jordanian women. We also learned a few basket weaving tips, how to make kohol (eyeliner), how to grind wheat, and a lot of other cool things.
But really, the most important part was making qalayet bandoora and bread. Of course I'm in the middle of observing the Baha'i fast (stuff like this ONLY HAPPENS IN MARCH), so I did the best I could to not draw attention to the fact that I wasn't eating. I did take a piece of bread for after sunset though :)
Overall, it was a really cool experience. All the girls drew henna on each others hands. And at the end of the day, someone started playing the flute and someone else started drumming so we all clapped and danced together.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Impending hearbreak
I got a you-need-advising email today from the College of Liberal Arts at UAF. It was a bit of a wake up call. That- and the impending stress of applying for housing abroad, coupled with some complicated forms I needed to get signed to apply for my PFD- have made me realize in the last two weeks that as much as I feel like I'm never going home, I will eventually be going home.
I would venture to say that for the first six months of my life abroad, I was living with the large caveat of loving Alaska miles more than I could ever love Florence. And so everything I did and felt and saw functioned around that.
But ever since I've moved to Jordan, I've found a corner of the world in Amman that I love in more ways than any place I have ever loved. Because here I laugh so hard I spill honey in my shoes. Here Ghadeer brings us strawberries on Tuesday mornings just because. Here we celebrate half-birthdays with half-cakes and fruit salad. Here we walk up hills into the night with the city around us, and sit in parked cars eating cupcakes. Here- yanni, here- the alphabet is an art form that I have learned to sound out.
Eventually, though, I will go back to Alaska, as the email from CLA so lovingly pointed out. And as much as people have told me, just don't think about it, I can't not think about it. It's there. Impending heartbreak scheduled down to the day.
I would venture to say that for the first six months of my life abroad, I was living with the large caveat of loving Alaska miles more than I could ever love Florence. And so everything I did and felt and saw functioned around that.
But ever since I've moved to Jordan, I've found a corner of the world in Amman that I love in more ways than any place I have ever loved. Because here I laugh so hard I spill honey in my shoes. Here Ghadeer brings us strawberries on Tuesday mornings just because. Here we celebrate half-birthdays with half-cakes and fruit salad. Here we walk up hills into the night with the city around us, and sit in parked cars eating cupcakes. Here- yanni, here- the alphabet is an art form that I have learned to sound out.
Eventually, though, I will go back to Alaska, as the email from CLA so lovingly pointed out. And as much as people have told me, just don't think about it, I can't not think about it. It's there. Impending heartbreak scheduled down to the day.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Day 8
If you can measure maturity in fasts I am a million years older than I was when I was fifteen waking up on Sunday, March 2, 2008 to drink twelve hours worth of water with a groggy mother eating basically all the fruit in our house and a father who kept happily pronouncing "misery loves company!" in jest-but-also-not on the subject of my first fast.
And yet, if you're measuring maturity in fasts I am basically five years old. Especially here in Amman where I am learning to read and taking the school bus and getting lost and asking basic questions that have simple-but-not-simple answers.
I say my prayers on the roof, and I pass my daylight hours counting the calls-to-prayer until the one that means I can eat again. I write down concepts that interest me in my classes that touch on Islam and look them up later in The Writings. This part of the world sheds tears that taste like God, and I have done my fair share of crying for things too large for me to understand lately.
Today was a hard day fasting.
And yet, if you're measuring maturity in fasts I am basically five years old. Especially here in Amman where I am learning to read and taking the school bus and getting lost and asking basic questions that have simple-but-not-simple answers.
I say my prayers on the roof, and I pass my daylight hours counting the calls-to-prayer until the one that means I can eat again. I write down concepts that interest me in my classes that touch on Islam and look them up later in The Writings. This part of the world sheds tears that taste like God, and I have done my fair share of crying for things too large for me to understand lately.
Today was a hard day fasting.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Filling your days with photography instead of food
During the fast, I usually end up pursuing those hobbies and pastimes I let slip away all other parts of the year. I have to find something to take my mind off of not eating. So today, I went out on a walk and captured some pictures of my neighborhood in Amman. It was a beautiful day.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Reflections (or Fast Day 3)
Can I stress enough the ups and downs that I have been through this year? The fact that I'm starting to put together a meaningful existence in Amman is almost enough to make me forget the months of floundering around.
But it's the challenges we face that make us who we are, and who I am has been so changed by everything that has happened to me this year. Going all the way back to last year's fast when I loaded up on Fairbanks campus water alone in the mornings and broke the fast at night with french fries at the cafeteria with a friend or two who could be persuaded to eat so late to right now.
I am seeing myself, my religion, my future, my culture in a multitude of new ways I never thought possible.
But it's the challenges we face that make us who we are, and who I am has been so changed by everything that has happened to me this year. Going all the way back to last year's fast when I loaded up on Fairbanks campus water alone in the mornings and broke the fast at night with french fries at the cafeteria with a friend or two who could be persuaded to eat so late to right now.
I am seeing myself, my religion, my future, my culture in a multitude of new ways I never thought possible.
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