Parents Concerned About Exchange

I've been getting a lot of messages lately from NSLI-Y applicants for this year's cycle asking about how they can convince their parents to simply let them apply, much less go. I can't speak for all the programs, but here's my attempt to address most of the concerns I've heard.

1. "Will you be safe there?": On the American Councils program in Jordan, each student was given a Jordanian cell phone, which was used to keep in contact with host families, other students, and the resident directors. They gave us literally every emergency number possible on a cute little laminated card to keep in our wallets - everything from the embassy to our apartment manager to the student services director at our school. Students are allowed to go around the city, but only in groups of three or more, or with at least one member of a host family or local friend. I felt safer walking around Amman at night than I do walking around American cities at night. There wasn't a single moment in Amman when I didn't feel completely safe.
2. "The Middle East is dangerous, right?": Yes, there are protests. When I was in Jordan, it was the height of the "Arab Spring," and there were plenty of protests. The thing about protests is that they're planned, which means you can avoid them. the State Department registers all NSLI-Y students, knows they're in the country, and sends daily email updates on whether there are any planned protests, and therefore areas to avoid. While there are protests, and probably more than in the States, it's SO EASY to go weeks without ever seeing a protest. Also, remember, NSLI-Y is a State Department run program - they're in with the embassy. You can count on the fact that the security and safety of NSLI-Y kids is a priority. If a program starts to be unsafe because of protests and the like - THEY CANCEL IT, and the kids go home early. There's no chance of your kid being in a country where it's not safe.
3. "Why don't you just study the language at home?": You just can't. You learn so much of the language by speaking it with everyone you meet, and speaking it all day, every day. You can't possibly do that at home. On exchange, you can't survive without learning. I don't know how to make this any clearer - exchange is THE BEST way to learn a language. Even with no prior language experience, studying on a NSLI-Y trip will have you conversant in the new language by the end of the program.
4. "Sending a teenager to live on their own for a whole summer? No way.": To be honest, your kid is so much safer overseas than in America. In Jordan, alcohol wasn't even an option - in the culture, it just doesn't exist. I can't speak for the other programs, but in Jordan, we did ridiculous things, we had a wonderful time, but looking back on it, it was incredibly wholesome. Seriously - your kid will be fine. If you as a parent are simply not ready to send your kid away for a couple months (or a year, if that's what you're considering), take a step back, and please, please think about what this means to your kid, and what an amazing opportunity this is. And applicants, if you really want to go for a year, but haven't gone away ever before, consider applying for a summer for now, and a year later, maybe as a gap year. I promise, it's still an amazing experience, and it's smart to try it for a summer before committing to a year abroad. Plus, it makes it easier on your parents.
5. "Is NSLI-Y actually entirely free?": YES - IT'S FREE! Free to apply, and everything paid on the program. You just need to pay for a passport if you don't already have one, and then spending money during the program. But they do give you a stipend, and what they gave us in Jordan was plenty to pay for food and souvenirs, so if you're worried about spending money, don't be. And yes, the international airfare is included as FREE!

If anybody has any other questions from parents, feel free to ask me in the comments- if you have country specific questions about programs other than Arabic, please join our Facebook group. We have alumni from almost every program and duration to answer questions, and plenty of applicants asking questions - http://www.facebook.com/groups/215777371826134/. (Yes, I know the year is wrong, it was created last year, and Facebook doesn't allow groups to change their names. It's been very active so far this year as well).

Kids and the World

I'm currently working five days a week as a babysitter for a seven year old boy. He's a really wonderful, intelligent kid, but sometimes it shocks me just how little he knows about anything beyond our little town. I'm sure that I used to be the same way, but it's still strange.

For example, he asked where I got my wallet, and I said that I bought it while I was studying in Jordan. I figured he didn't know where Jordan was, but I was really surprised that he didn't know where the Middle East was either. I get that that's a little specific, but I definitely knew where the Middle East was when I was that age. I used to have a sticker book with outline maps of the world, and I colored the Red Sea... red. With a colored pencil. But regardless, I knew where the Middle East was. I'm a pretty big geography geek though, so I'm probably not a good benchmark.

Talking to him just made me really grateful for opportunities for travel I had at such a young age. We never went in luxury vacations when I was a kid, but no matter how much I moaned about it then, it's nice to think of all the places I set up a tent when I was a kid - mostly national parks, but I still had that chance to go across the States traveling. He said that he had only been to California, which is wonderful, but it made me think about all the places I've been able to go to, and made me so thankful.

Finally, he was telling me about the second language he spoke. I got all excited, until he told me it was a burp language... Cute, but not exactly what I was hoping. I just realized that I've been able to speak two languages since I was twelve years old, and even though that makes it only five years, it feels like knowing a second language is a given for me. He's only seven, but it's strange to think that at that age, most kids, including myself, haven't started studying a foreign language. Would it do them any good? Maybe knowing a second language longer would make kids want to learn more about the world...

These are the things I think about as I do the dishes and clean this apartment while the kids sleep in their room. I love this job, but I have to say, I hope Barbie storybooks aren't a thing in swaziland :)

Reasons to Write - Part 2

When I started this blog exactly one year ago (almost), my first post was titled "Reasons to Write." And one year ago, I said that I wanted this blog to be a way for me to remember things - the little stories.

Well, I broke 4,000 pageviews yesterday, and realized that the things I had been writing were different. I was no longer writing things for myself to remember - I'd started trying to figure out what people interested in exchange would want to read, and I'd write about that.

To be honest, it didn't work out very well. So, this is a throwback post to some "little stories" of Jordan. Soon enough, I'll have new little stories of Swaziland and other adventures soon, but for now, enjoy.

When we arrived in Jordan, they gave us cell phones. Nothing fancy - they weren't even flip phones, but I was so excited because there was Arabic on the keys, along with English. Now, there are a few stories about this phone. 

First, keep in mind how terrible I am at phones and texting and all that. So, I learned to text in Jordan - on this phone. The funny part is that the very first day, I didn't really know how to work it, so I had our assistant resident director activate the phone, and copy down the number to give to the director. Apparently, he gave her the wrong number, because four weeks later, I realized that she'd been trying to text me the entire time, and I never got any of them. Oh my..

Second after we had been in school for maybe three or four weeks, my Arabic ego had starting swelling, and I thought it'd be a good idea to set my phone to be all in Arabic - for practice, you know? I had no problems setting the phone to be in Arabic, and so I stuck it back in my pocket thinking I was hot stuff. About an hour later, I got a text, grabbed the phone, and realized I had no idea how to work it when it was set in Arabic. I had to go find my host sister and hold the phone out to her, saying "Inglizi, losamati," English, please. It took her a second to figure out what I had done, and then she just laughed at me. Silly American...

Okay, one last story about the phone. Amman is a very mountainous city, so a lot of the time it's like the houses are on top of each other. Okay, so the houses are on top of each other. Anyways, my host aunt and uncle and their four daughters lived right above and next door to us, depending on how you described it, and there was another exchange student living with them. One morning, I get a text as I'm getting dressed and getting my books into my bag. It's a really, really, frantic text from the other student, saying that she needs my help RIGHT AWAY or something. So, I head over to their house, open the door, and  see my friend with a horrified look on her face. I ask what's wrong, and she says that there's a cockroach in the shower. That's what she texted me about at six in the morning, before anyone else in the neighborhood was awake? Yes.

Here's the second thing - the sulhafa, simply meaning "turtle." The sulhafa was my host cousin's pet, all the way from Saudi Arabia, where they found it outside their house. My cousin was a really smart, creative kid, and he had built all sorts of things for the sulhafa - a car made of popsicle sticks, a whole farm scene where it could sit, and a house. And so, sulhafa became one of the first words I learned beyond simple conversations. 

One day, in class, we did an activity where we were in groups of two or three, and we all had to write a line of a story. Then we'd pass the story to the next group, and write the next line, and keep passing until the story was finished.The catch? It all had to be in Arabic. To make a long story short, our group added a turtle army, a "jaesh sulhafa," to each and every story, much to our amusement, and the aggravation of the other groups. Our teacher just laughed at our spelling of sulhafa, because we'd only ever heard it around the house, and essentially made up the spelling.

Finally, there are the doorknobs. Now, I hate to say that the apartments we moved into were in disrepair, but they were. The shower heads were hanging off the walls, the couches had nails sticking out of them, and would often collapse when someone sat down on them, and finally, the doorknobs kept falling out. We had four doors in our apartment, and it was so normal that the handles would fall off that if it happened, we'd just toss them by the door to reattach later. On this particular day, three of the four handles had fallen off. We didn't think it was annoying though - it was hilarious.

Anyways, those are some stories that I hope in 50 years I'll be able to get a laugh out of, or that someone else can appreciate. Thank you all for reading this blog, it's amazing that people have read it 4,000 times! I'm excited to see what borders I can cross next!

Exchange Programs and Real Life

One of the biggest things I read about is how exchange programs get people ready for other opportunities, whether they're abroad or at home. This summer, I'll be living in Iowa working at a special needs camp (exact location classified: aren't you proud, Cat?). I've worked as a counselor before, and decided I'd love to spend another summer as a counselor. I get paid in smiles and sunshine, and I'll be making enough money to pay for my ticket to Swaziland - what more could I wish for?

Anyways, here's a "top five" list of sorts, of how having studied in Jordan (or anywhere abroad) will make camp easier. I guess it's kind of a "things-you-gain-from-exchange-that-can-help-you-elsewhere" list.

1. Living with other people: While in Jordan, I lived with a host family and in an apartment building. After that, I have no qualms about living in a cabin with a bunch of other people. Can't leave my stuff in the bathroom? No problem. Very little privacy? No problem.
2. Very little sleep, can't be tired during the day: In Jordan, we'd stay up late with the host families, as it was their summer, but then we had to wake up early to catch the bus for Arabic classes in the morning, and we couldn't allow ourselves to be tired during school. Running on very little sleep definitely won't be an issue at camp.
3. Being away from home: I didn't really have any problems with homesickness in Jordan, so it's not that, it's just that after living in the Middle East for seven weeks, going to Iowa for ten weeks just doesn't seem like a big deal at all.
4. New people: While studying abroad, everyone you meet is someone that you have virtually no connections to. They don't know you, or your friends, or your family. It's a strange/amazing situation that you end up, able to interact with new people like that. Camp? Same thing.
5. Attitude: While on exchange, you've got to have an open mind and a smile on your face, whatever goes wrong. A good rule of thumb is that nothing's a real problem unless you decide it's a problem. Otherwise, it just remains an amusing challenge. The same mentality applies at camp. Both situations require an attitude made of open-mindedness, optimism, determination, and just going-with-the-flow.

There are plenty of other things gained from exchange that are not so easily put into words, but these are a few examples. I've gotten several messages from people going to Jordan with NSLI-Y American Councils, and it makes me so excited to see more people leaving for something that is so important to me. It's strange, while I know that my experiences in Jordan were unique, there's something nice about knowing that you're part of a community of people who have been in similar situations. I guess that's not just NSLI-Y Jordan though, that's a feeling that everyone who has ever studied abroad shares.

Well, now I'm just packing for my summer in the foreign, exotic land of Iowa. I'm pleasantly surprised though, that I'm just as excited for ten weeks working at camp as I was for seven weeks in Jordan. NSLI-Y made my summer really amazing, and now I'm looking forward to the chance to help make someone else's summer amazing.

Call to Prayer

I uploaded this to Youtube for a French presentation I'm giving in class tomorrow, but figured I'd post it here as well. There just really aren't very many good recordings of the call to prayer in Amman posted, and I think it's too lovely not to hear. This is only a really short clip of it, less than thirty seconds, but it's so beautiful.

And so, I present to you, the call to prayer, as heard from the speakers of Husseini Mosque, fi al-balaad, in Amman, Jordan.

Official Rejection and Facebook Pictures

I'm proud to say that I received my official rejection email from NSLI-Y; after several weeks of being an "alternate," it's all over. Sob, sob, sob.

Oh wait, you mean I already have other summer plans figured out, and I'm leaving for Swaziland soon afterwards? Right, right.

But in all actuality, I'm really just happy now for the people who get to go this year, so here's to hoping they learn as much about the Middle East and themselves as I did last year.

The funny thing was, I see that, and then I get on Facebook, and the first thing on my newsfeed is a picture of the program director for NSLI-Y Jordan, in Jordan, hanging out with my host family on their planning trip. AHHH I MISS THEM SO MUCH! It was a whole bundle full of "Wait, our director is in Jordan? Oh right, planning trip. Hey, I know that couch... I KNOW THOSE PEOPLE! THEY'RE MY FAVORITES!!!"

Anyways, just a week and a half left of school, and I leave to cross the treacherous Iowa border on June 9th!

Packing Tips for NSLI-Y (and other study abroad)

So, there has been a little (lot) bit of freaking out about packing, and how much to pack, and what to pack. This is a run-down, in a handy dandy Q&A form, for everyone who is freaking out about packing. I mean, come on guys. You're capable young adults, going abroad for the summer/year. You can handle filling a suitcase.

(Note: NSLI-Y official rules of packing (at least my understanding) - summer guys, you get one checked bag. Year, you get two. Fifty pounds (MAX) for each. Plus your carry-on.)

Q: How much should I pack?
A: One (two, for year, if you need it) suitcase(s) that weigh less than fifty pounds, plus a carry on bag. Rule of thumb? You have to be able to carry all your luggage (BY YOURSELF) up a mountain and back to get to and from your house with it. Oh wait... that was reality in Jordan. Still a good rule of thumb!

Q: Is 50 pounds going to be enough?
A: Yes. Although shoot for 30 or 40 if you can, just to leave plenty of space for souvenirs and such. If you're a book person, or are planning on getting a particular heavy object, leave more space, as these items weigh more than you'd expect.

Q: Do we have to wear long pants/skirts if we're going to the Middle East?
A: Yes. You're ambassadors of the United States, like it or not. That's what you get for accepting a US government sponsored scholarship. Therefore, be modest, and learn to love the long pants. I promise, when you get back to the states, you'll be in shock at the haraam clothing of American teenagers ;)

Q: How do you pack for a whole year?
A: The same as you pack for the summer. Laundry exists, you know. You don't have to bring another outfit for every day!

Q: How big should my suitcase be?
A: Rule of thumb? Don't be an idiot. You'll know if your suitcase is too big if you can't carry it out the door by yourself. Just make it big enough to bring what you need, and no bigger. (Although, if you're a big shopping/souvenir person, leave extra room. I had enough room for souvenirs after giving my host family their presents, but that might not be the case for you).

Q: How many outfits should I bring?
A: Enough for one week - you can do laundry. Or follow the "rule of fives." Five tops, five bottoms, five pairs of socks, five pairs of underwear, and so on.

Q: How do I make all these clothes fit?
A: Don't fold pants, just put them flat at the bottom of the suitcase. Roll t-shirts like this. Put anything that's not cooperating in a Ziploc bag, and zipper it when you're sitting on it to squish out all the air. Put your socks and underwear inside gym shoes so that you don't waste the space.

Q: What do I put in my carry-on?
A: Heavy things, because your carry-on isn't weighed, but your checked bag is. This includes books, and any sort of large metal jewelry, if you have a lot of that.

Q: What should I do for luggage locks?
A: You really don't need to lock anything, but if you want to you can buy a luggage lock at Target or Walmart. Just make sure it says that it's TSA approved on the package.

Q: What about bringing back souvenirs?
A: If you know you're a big shopper, leave room. If you're not, the space that "opens up" after giving your host family their presents should be enough, depending on what the presents are.

Q: What will I bring back to the States when I'm done?
A: Souvenirs, of course. But most likely you'll end up leaving a lot of your clothes that you brought with to the host country, in the host country. In some cases it's to make more room for a souvenir that you now like more than that old t-shirt, or because you're just barely over the weight limit. Our group created a significant pile of clothing items that stayed in Jordan after we left, so don't be surprised if ou find yourself leaving lots of clothes behind. As such, pack accordingly, and try not to be emotionally attached to every piece of clothing you pack :D

Q: AHHHH WHAT ABOUT _________ ?!?!?!?
A: Do you need it? Yes? Bring it. No? Don't. Easy as that.

HAVE FUN PACKING EVERYONE! Even though I'm not going with NSLI-Y this summer, packing just makes me excited. Plus, I still have to pack for eleven weeks of camp this summer, and packing to go to Swaziland is right around the corner!

Life

Here's a short list of things on my mind. Sometimes lists are easier :)

1. I really want to just gush happiness over all the people going to Jordan this summer, and tell them everything about why I love it there, but I promised myself that I wouldn't tell them ANYTHING so that I don't ruin it for them. But I really want to make sure that they appreciate the fantastic-ness of Radio ROTANA. But I don't want to tell them, because I want them to discover its awesomen factor all on their own. 
2. I'm getting more and more nervous about the UWCs as the week of fate draws nearer. Not much to say about this, other than I just really, really want to get in. I watched the entire One World show from the UWC in Canada after it got posted on their Facebook, and it just made me that much more excited :)
3. I wish nobody would be rejected from NSLI-Y their first time through. I understand that us alumni are to be turned down sometimes, but I wish everyone could have the experience at least once! It just makes me sad to see people who aren't getting accepted.

I have more on my mind than this, as that would be rather pathetic to only think about three things, but this is all that's really relevant to this blog. 

Also, I just want to say that EVERYONE WHO APPLIED FOR NSLI-Y IS AWESOME AND I LOVE YOU ALL AND I DON'T CARE WHO MADE IT IN AND NOT YOU'RE ALL STILL FANTASTIC AND I WISH EVERYONE COULD GO! I'm sick of seeing everyone who hasn't heard back yet being so sad. 

(NSLI-Y acceptances aren't done yet, but they're drawing to a close. They said that they'll be done by April 20th, and all the alternates, aka me, will know for sure by May 15th).

Writer's Week!

Every year our school has this thing called Writer's Week, where every period for a week they have professional writers and such come in and give presentations, and then one student work read aloud per period. So, tomorrow, first period, I'm reading one of my pieces aloud! Fun time, except that they read my piece and scheduled me for fiction day.

It's not fiction.

It's a descriptive essay about life in Jordan. I've had so many people ask me whether it was a massive desert or a war zone, or somewhere in between, so I figured this would be a good chance to present a piece that just shows daily life, and get people to understand that WHOA, it's not that different from the USA. People go to school, go to work, eat, sleep, live, and so on and so forth. And I come up with this great plan about teaching people things, and sneaking culture lessons into Writer's Week, and I was all excited, and then I saw when they had scheduled me.

Fiction day. Aghh... why does everyone assume things like this are far-away, made-up, fairy tales?!

Anyways, I'm rather excited for any chance to get to talk about Jordan to a large group of people. Which means that I'm pretty excited for this :)

(edit) April 3, 2012: Most people, even after hearing it, thought it was fiction. Such is life...

4H International Night

Tonight is 4H International Night at the fairgrounds, and our club is doing Jordan!

Internation Night is where each club picks a country, does some research, and creates a booth about their country, complete with flags, food, posters, and souvenirs and objects if they can get them. After this summer,  we've got plenty :)

So I've got a box in front of me with everything I'm bringing to display, along with the poster that we put together last week. I've got a couple of scarves, a galabaya, an Arabic keyboard, a bunch of Arabic books, a Qu'ran, a few different sorts of dictionaries, some children's books, a prayer rug, and some prayer beads. And I'm wearing my flag bracelet, and my seeing eye bracelet. And I framed a five dinar note and a one dinar note to display as well. I don't think I realized the amount of "stuff" I brought back until now, nor did I realize how many books I brought back, and how few "souvenirs."

But this makes me really happy. I'll definitely post some pictures after tonight - it should look pretty cool!

"Home is wherever I'm with you."

In waiting for NSLI-Y notifications to come out this year, we've been thinking about last year quite a bit (by we, I mean myself and another one of the girls from Jordan who applied again and is a semifinalist with me).

Exchange programs are strange things. You go learn about the culture, and for NSLI-Y specifically, as it is funded as a language learning program, to study the target language. But I assure you, if you return having only learned verb conjugations and vocabulary words, you've wasted your time.

This is a post about the NSLI-Y group. While we definitely were immersed in the Middle East itself, it's not to say that we didn't become tight-knit as a group. Sometimes I wonder if it's ridiculous to have fallen in love with everyone and everything so quickly this summer. The program director in DC commented when we got back that we were closer as a group than she'd ever seen before. (I can't remember if that was before or after we all ended up with pudding on our noses at dinner...). Maybe it was because there were only 15 of us, and it wasn't a group of 30 or 40. Maybe it was simply because a lot happened, which sounds strange, but I feel like we had more of adventure than might be typical. Being on an exchange like this is kind of like being in a band. It's not that you're isolated, because there are people all around, all the time. There's very little privacy, and yet you and the other band members end up being closer than you could have ever imagined. Maybe it's because we could only speak English to each other, or maybe it's because we were the ones sharing everything with each other. No matter how much I love Arabic, after six weeks of class, there were times I just needed to talk in English about stuff that you can't say in a second language that fast. We all shared everything with each other, good and bad. That's enough to make any group be as close as we were.

After the summer, I come back to the States, and look around at everyone. The strangest thing was in DC, seeing ourselves in the same places we had met each other, seven weeks before. Except this time, we were the furthest thing from strangers. I remember hanging out in the pool our first night together. It was strange, and awkward. I remember studying Arabic altogether in someone's room the next night, not quite sure what to make of each other. But after a summer together, halfway around the world, the awkwardness was more than gone. We didn't sleep our last night - at all. We couldn't bear to sleep through a moment together.

So, now we're waiting to find out about another summer. We can't help but wonder how it will change, as last summer so was much defined by the people in the group. Sure, we'll be studying the same language if we get accepted (insha'allah), but that means almost nothing. The point of an exchange isn't words and grammar - you can learn that in a classroom at home. Exchange is something to learn more than that. I can't tell you what it is here, it's something to be discovered. Whether you do that in the target language, or in English as a result of the target, it becomes one in the same. And you fall in love with all of it, even if you were only there for six weeks.

And so she posted this video on my Facebook. It was kind of a theme song for us this summer, one of the few songs we all knew before getting there that we could sing along to when we needed it. But it's true, "home is wherever I'm with you." It's strange like that.

And so here we are, waiting to find out about next year, anxious to hear about our next adventure. I'm definitely excited to be able to use Arabic on a daily basis again, but I'm also just excited to see what this summer will turn into. iA :)

Louder Than A Bomb

So my friend is really talented. She's pretty awesome, and she did this poem for Louder Than A Bomb, a  poetry slam in Chicago, and their team qualified for the nationals, mainly because they're awesome.

It's based on life in Jordan from this summer, and I just smiled watching it, and feel like sharing. (By the way, the Chicago-style pizza referenced? I take credit for that one. And my host mom gets credit for the crust though :D).

So, here's the link - enjoy!

http://vimeo.com/37908427 

Favorite Places

All right, this is more just to occupy my brain than anything. Also, sometimes I just have these moments when I'm scared I'm going to forget something, and I feel the need to write it down somewhere. So here it is, at least for these two moments.

This is the plaza outside of the Husseini Mosque in downtown Amman. It's always hustling and bustling, especially around the end of Friday prayers, when this was taken. There are people hawking fruit, and people shopping, and people leaving the mosque itself. It's one of those places that just standing there makes your head spin from so much excitement and people everywhere. From where I was taking this picture, to my left there is a small bookshop and an alleyway that acts as a fruit market, right next to the mosque. Behind me, about a block away, is the Roman ampitheater, a well known attraction in Amman. And to my right would be all the shops and side roads of downtown. And above would be the minaret of the mosque, lit up with the green lights of every minaret in the city. I love this place so much, it makes me happy just to think about it.

This is my host family's farm outside of Amman, near Al-Salt. First of all, it was the first time in several weeks that I had left Amman, and so I was really happy just to be in a more wide open space, and to be able to see something new. It was actually really spur of the moment. I was awake on a Saturday before my  immediate host family woke up, so I wandered upstairs to see if anyone else was awake, and my two uncles and my cousin were getting ready to go out to the farm for the morning. They knew that we had a farm in the states, and asked if I wanted to come with, as long as I could be ready in ten minutes. Knowing me, I was dressed and ready in five minutes flat, and we headed out to the farm. 

There were plenty of stories from that morning, like when we drove to the neighbors' house to borrow a barrel to use for water, and in true Jordanian style, they invited us in for tea, and we stopped and hung out at this woman's house for half an hour or so. There were a bunch of little kids running around, and they kept staring at me. While I was used to staring by this point in the trip, this was different. I joked about it, asking what they were looking at. They said they'd never met anyone who spoke English before. That really hit me, just because while I understand that English is not as widely spoken as some tour books try to make it sound, and most people don't speak English, almost everyone in Amman has heard it before, or met someone who spoke it. It was kind of humbling in a way to be the first English-speaker the kids had ever met. Maybe humbling isn't the right word, I'm not quite sure. But it was definitely thought-provoking. Knowing you're in a place where your language is not even on the radar is amazing.

Well, that's all for now! I'm just trying to occupy my brain in this dreadful waiting game I'm in :) Now, back to math homework!

Facebook is like a diary I forget that I'm keeping.

I’m not quite sure what prompted me to do this. Actually, I know exactly what prompted me to. The first post in this long list of posts popped up on the side of my Facebook, and while usually I ignore those posts, it kind of struck me. I mean, I posted it before I went to Jordan, before I met anyone there, before I knew anything about the Middle East, before it all happened. And that’s a little weird. So I ended up going through my statuses since then, and making a grand list. It’s strange, seeing life laid out like this, but kind of fascinating at the same time.

And so I present to you, a list of my exchange program related status updates on Facebook from December 21, 2010, to February 23, 2012. It’s a long read, but hey. If you’re up for it :)

December 21, 2010
“semi-finalist for this exchange program scholarship! so excited!”

March 31, 2011
“Will know in the next two weeks whether I'm spending the summer abroad. I don't think I'm going to be able to focus on much of anything else :)”

April 12, 2011
“WILL BE LIVING IN AMMAN, JORDAN THIS SUMMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!”

April 16, 2011
“Countdown to Jordan - 58 Days. Countdown to AP Test - 30 Days. I should put down the Arabic book and pick up the review books.”

May 31, 2011
“Packing for the Middle East is easy to do in advance: none of the shorts and t-shirts I wear here are getting packed, and I'm not planning on wearing any of the long sleeves and long pants here before I leave. Sounds like a plan :)”

June 12, 2011
“In about 12 hours, I'll finally been leaving. It's been 64 days since I got my acceptance letter, I'm so ready for this.”

June 15, 2011
“Leaving for the DC airport in a couple minutes, had some extra time for Facebook. Apparently houses in Jordan don't have street numbers, so mail doesn't work. So, I can send letters home, but not recieve them. BYE! I'LL BE ON A A A PLANE FOR LITERALLY THE NEXT THREE DAYS, WITH THE WAY THE TIME CHANGES WORK. It's insane, actually. But it's fun, I'm loving it so far.”

June 18, 2011
“At the Qasid Institute in Amman, Jordan. My host family is amazing, but they don't speak English at all - I'm learning so much Arabic”

June 30, 2011
“Ana 3ndi wajb kiteer. Ana mish baheb wajb. Laken ana 3ndi al urdun, so life is good :)”

July 1, 2011
“Dear deep dish pizza we're making tomorrow,
Please work despite the fact that we couldn't buy cornmeal in the middle east. There's 25 jordanians expecting pizza from this little adventure. Don't make me regret opting for crust from scratch.
Thanks, see you tomorrow morning,
Diana”

July 2, 2011
“Pizza is success so far. Crust and sauce from scratch are good, hopefully this works. Hopefully the middle east appreciates this.”

July 5, 2011
“Spent the 4th of July in a cafe on "shar3 rainbow," and then went and got schwarma. I feel un-American :)”

July 7, 2011
“Leaving for our weekend trip south tomorrow morning. Supposedly I'm not supposed to post where we're going for security purposes, but honestly, there's only three places where people go in the south of Jordan, and we're going to all of them. Today is our last day with our host families though... I'm horribly sad. I'm going to visit them pretty much everyday when I'm living in the apartments when we get back.”

July 7, 2011
“Our family has declared that we are not sleeping tonight because it is our last night with the host families. I am going back and forth between sobbing and having a good time.”

July 11, 2011
“Yesterday I woke upin Wadi Rum with the beadouins. This morning I woke up in an apartment with a broken washing machine, and the bunch of sketchiness everywhere. Figures. I want my host family back :)”

July 16, 2011
“Protests at the mosque downtown yesterday. Some police used clubs on people, so it was international news. There's rumors of people hurt and dead, but I'm fine. I was at the mosque downtown yesterday, but I wasn't in a protest and I'm fine. Don't worry.”

July 18, 2011
“Arabic teacher is operating on Jordanian time, meaning she's currently one hour late and counting. Rock on, yanni.”

July 21, 2011
“Happiness is...”

July 23, 2011
“Exhaustion. But I never want to come home :)”

July 25, 2011
“When I say home home, I mean Dhahiat al Hussein. When I say home, I mean Tila al Ali. America is just being referred to as "back."”

July 27, 2011
“Woke up, and went to the Jordanian police station to try and pay our way out of getting a blood test because we overstayed our visas and broke the rules. Funny how things work here.”

July 27, 2011
“taxi min shar3 rainbow ila tila al ali, sab3a dinar??? la, shukran, m3salaama.”

(Back in America)

September 25, 2011
“Bidi al-Urdon. It's one of those days.”

October 22, 2011
“I wish that I could still use this as a reason to be tired: "I made a trip fi al-balaad and lost a small Asian girl in the fruit market and had a taxi driver who wouldn't take me home the right way, and now I'm out of shai and the hamaam is broken again and ya haraam, there goes the door handle again, and I just spent fifteen minutes stuck in the elevator with some random kid wearing boxers on his head, holding up a firecracker discussing some sort of bomb with another kind wearing a pink hijab. And then I just wanted to sit on the roof but there was some creepy kid asking whether boxer man's wife had a boyfriend, and then I wanted to go to bed but there was a fan that kept threatening to fall on my mattress, and I was just exhausted." Tisba'ala khair, world. If only I'd wake up in Tila'a al Ali tomorrow morning.”

October 28, 2011
” Priority list for the weekend: NSLI-Y app, NSLI-Y app, NSLI-Y app.”

October 29, 2011
“Sooo... anybody want to edit my NSLI-Y essays?”

October 30, 2011
“"Why do you want to study Arabic?" Why WOULDN'T anybody want to study Arabic? :) If only I could make that my entire essay.”

November 21, 2011
“Bidi al-urdon... it's one of those days.”

November 28, 2011
“Looking for full-ride scholarships for exchange programs. Found one that's two years, and somehow my mother likes that one more than the one that's just one academic year. Strange world...”

November 29, 2011
“" Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence." Oh, how I love personal statements for applications...”

December 20, 2011
“Looking through all of my Arabic books instead of doing homework :)”

December 23, 2011
“Driving out to Pennsylvania for Christmas, and then back to Chicago for New Year's with all my habibtis”

December 28, 2011
“Remember that night in Til3 al-Ali when we were joking about having a reunion for New Year's? I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU'RE ALL COMING TOMORROW! Ba7ebek, bishofik mbukra!!!!”

December 31, 2011
“New Year's with the best people ever... And I bought pita, so life is good :)”

January 21, 2012
“NSLI-Y Interview! :)”

February 22, 2012
“Compulsively checking my email every 50 minutes :)”

February 23, 2012
“Dear UWC National Committee,
Please just tell us already :)
Thanks,
Diana”

February 23, 2012
“Got an interview for UWC! :)”

Strange, this Facebook thing. Status updates… hm… strange.

And so now, I wait. To hear about whether I get to go on NSLI-Y again. To hear about when my interview is for the UWCs, and then to hear whether I get to go to a UWC. But for these sorts of things, I suppose it’s worth it J

Ma 3ndi 7abib and UWC Interviews

So tomorrow is Valentine's Day. And in honor of not having a 7abib, there's this song that makes me rather happy :) It's essentially the Arab version of Single Ladies. And it's fantastic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BgEVVBHjwc
And this version has English subtitles, so ya'll can understand better.

Also, as it's February 13th, that means that it's t-minus ten days until I find out whether I got a UWC interview! Insha'allah! I can't stop thinking about it. (Actually, that's a lie. I don't think about it for extended periods of time. But then when I don't have anything else to think about for a split second I think about it. if that makes any sense... oh my). ANYWAYS! I'm excited!

I miss Jordan...

Do you want to see the inside of my brain? Read on.

Today is January 16th.
My NSLI-Y interview is January 21st.

It's all happening so fast again, like a deja vu on fast forward. I want to be a finalist so badly, I miss the Middle East so much. I miss speaking Arabic, drinking shai, insha'allah-ing and al7amd'allah-ing people and having them understand.

Also, the head of applications for the UWCs said we'd hear something at least by January 23rd, whatever "something" means, whether that be "thanks for applying we're still working on it" or "here's interview days." But I'm excited to hear back from them as well.

And, side note, I sat down in my basement and did SO MANY Arabic dictations from the DVD that went with my textbook. I feel accomplished, and happy, mainly because my Arabic is not nearly as bad as I thought it was. Definitely a reminder that I need to be working on it more often to keep it up though :) No problem though, telling me that I need to study Arabic more is like telling me I need to win free happiness more.

Photo Albums

I was cleaning my room to get ready for all of my friends from Jordan coming here for our reunion next week, and I found my photo album of "home" I brought to Jordan to show my host family and such. It's a lovely album, filled with pictures of the farm, and Girl Scouts and school and such, but it seems rather, well,  foreign. I started to laugh at how much I'd changed since I put together that album earlier this year, and kind of wondered what I'd put together if I had to make a photo album to describe myself now.

Several hours later, I was eating dinner when I asked if any of my pictures from Jordan ever got printed, so that I could show my grandma in Pennsylvania how my summer was. Her computer is rather slow, so I don't think she ever saw any online, and it wouldn't really be possible to put them on a flash drive and pull them up once we got there. My dad stood up and brought in a photo album from the laundry room. He said that it was supposed to be a Christmas present, but that he couldn't possibly sit here and listen to us try and figure out some alternative when he had this already.

On the front of the album were two pictures - one from the farewell dinner I had with my host family, and one from the top of the mountain at Petra. In the picture, my mom wore the same black hijab she wore to all special occasions, and my dad stared solemnly at the camera, in the same manner as every Jordanian man I've ever seen. I felt a panging in my stomach thinking about how much I missed them .I realized that this was the album of pictures I'd asked him to print for me months ago, after giving him a flash drive with all of my favorites on it. Flipping through, it was indeed each and every one of my favorites from the trip. It was perfect to bring on our trip to show my grandma.

And then I realized, that if I had to make a photo album to describe me, who I am, and what I love now, it would be this album. Laughing, I think about what I named an album of photos on Facebook right when I got home, and how the name still proves true. Qlbna yskun fi al-Urdon. My heart lives in Jordan. And even now, five months after I got home, it's still true; I have a feeling it's going to be like that for a long time.

Where Should I Buy My Fruit Today?

These are the kinds of things that pop back into my head and make me want to be in Jordan again. Fruit market or regular store? Is this really even something that requires thought? Going to this fruit market fi wasaat al-balaad was one of my favorite things. I don't even know what half the fruit was called, but it was so much more delicious than any apples or oranges here. Maybe it's just because everything was such an adventure, but still. I suppose I like adventures.

Wadi Rum

I keep thinking about this night...

We walked to those mountains in the background, by the way. Three of us, with no cell phones, water, or flashlights. That's what I call an adventure :)