I have to admit, I've felt a bit burnt out the past two days. Yesterday seemed like an epic fail on my part in class, and I got really discouraged about what I've learned (or not learned). See, time goes a lot slower here, so I feel like I've been in Amman for ages. I have to remind myself that it's only been three weeks. I have six months left. Breathe. It's just hard to gauge where I'm at, or whether I'll get to where I want to be by the time I head back to the States. While I want to learn, I've been having a hard time studying much here. Well, the thing is, I'm really good with grammar - I don't need to study our lessons; the teacher teaches us, and it's forever implanted in my brain. I need to speak, speak, speak. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I feel lazy because I don't spend a lot of time on Arabic outside of class. I have Arabic class for 4 hours, five days a week. My day ends at 2pm. I should join a university club, or volunteer, or do something more productive, but the thing is, by the end of the day, my brain hurts. All the translating tires me out. I just want to go home and lay on my couch. But lying on the couch does not teach you Arabic. Insha'allah I will begin to get less tired, and I can start doing another activity. Plus, I have my break soon (six weeks in between terms) so I can do something during this time. Although, then I have to study for the GRE, which I'm taking here in Amman at the end of August . . . it never ends. I finally met with my peer tutor today. It was about as awkward as I anticipated. I just don't know what to talk about. She wore gloves and the niqab (only her eyes were showing), which undoubtedly means she's extremely conservative, which is fine, but it limits our conversation topics even further. In addition, I can't see her mouth when she talks, so I had a hard time picking up the Arabic she used. You sort of need to see someone's mouth when learning a new language. At UJ there are very few women who wear niqab - most dress pretty liberally - either western clothes with a bright hijab or no hijab at all. I noticed though when we had lunch with the peer tutors a few weeks ago that all the females wore hijab and more traditional clothing, and a couple wore the niqab. I guess none of the secular students are interested in forming relationships with Americans? I would have thought it would be the other way around. Whatever the case, my relationship with my peer tutor is going to be a struggle. I just can't be myself. Insha'allah she will be accepting, as I will be of her. Plus, I think I endeared myself to her, because she thinks I want to get married and have babies ASAP. Not exactly what I said, but she misunderstood me. Whatever, if that makes things less awkward, I'll pretend I want babies now. She just found out she was pregnant, so she's all excited. Yes, she is married.
This weekend, we're headed to Petra and Wadi Rum, and I just found out we get to camp in the desert on Friday night!!! Probably not real camping, more like some fancy Bedouin tent with bunk beds, but whatever, still cool. Can't wait to get some sweet shots of the desert. Plus we get to ride camels! Also, I found out that there are 130 students in the fall program . . . I had no idea it would be so big. We only have 30 in the program this summer. Thankfully, they split us up into groups, so no more than 40 go on one trip at a time. You know how I hate organized tours. Hopefully my dislike for them does not ruin our trip this weekend, because I've wanted to see Petra ever since I first saw Indian Jones. I can remember being told, "that's Petra, in Jordan" when I watched that movie when I was like 5.
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