The Holiday of Sacrafice begins Thursday night. What this means for me is a 10 day break from class before we come back and finish the last week of the semester and take our final exams. According to Islamic tradition, Abraham was commanded by God to sacrafice his son Ishmael, but at the last moment God had Abraham sacrafice a lamb that was caught in a nearby bush. So, in short a lot of unlucky lambs will be sacraficed in the coming week to commemorate this event and most everything in the country will be closed for four days while people visit with family and eat delicious lamb.
Luckily for us Americans who are living here, the supermarkets have turkeys, Butterball turkeys no less! The sign above the frozen turkeys reads, "imported just for you." How cool is that? So, Mel is going to cook her second Thanksgiving dinner in a couple of days and we are planning to have a couple of girls from class over. We've also seen plenty of Christmas stuff here so we plan to get a small artificial tree in the coming week or two.
We plan to do a lot of relaxing and take a trip to Petra and possibly some other quick trips within Jordan. Classes are going well, but I must admit that I am burnt out at the moment and need a break. Luckily, it will begin in less than 24 hours.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Beef Stew
People told me it would get cold here. I knew it would, but was surprised to wake up a few days ago to 46 degree temperatures and rain. I decided to go back to bed and did not leave the apartment for the entire day. I slept in, studied, hung out with Melanie, and ate the delicious beef stew that she made. It has since warmed up a bit with highs in the high 70's and lows in the 50's and it has stopped raining. Hopefully, that will last as I do not like cold, gloomy weather unless I can stay inside and eat chilli or stew.
Classes have accelerated and we are slated to complete the last five and a half chapters of Al Kitaab 3 in the remaining four weeks of class, which should be interesting. That's fine with me. I love learning all of the new vocabulary and grammar. I may be a nerd, but I love reading an article or watching the news and coming across a recently learned word or grammatical construction. Yesterday, I bought a book that my teacher recommended. It's an autobiography of Taha Hussein called, "The Days". Taha Hussein was an Egyptian writer and intellectual who earned a PhD at the Sorbonne in France despite being blind.
We had to go downtown to find the book, which was quite an adventure in itself. My teacher had given me general directions, saying that the bookstore was down an alleyway near the King Hussein Mosque. From there, I had to ask directions, which was fun and good language practice. We didn't find the bookstore my teacher had mentioned, but found another small bookstand. I asked the owner if he had the book. He didn't have it, but asked me to wait a few minutes. He darted down the street and came back with the book, which I bought for 2 JD's or about $2.80. We also bought Melanie a pashmina and chatted up the owner there who was very nice. Melanie also saw someone get tapped by a car as they tried crossing the street. She has more about that on her blog. Suffice to say that the lack of crosswalks makes running across the street a daily necesity for pedestrians here. Luckily this guy was "tapped" by a car going only a few miles per hour and was unhurt.
I read the first chapter of about 8 pages last night and this morning. It took about an hour and a half as I had to use the dictionary quite a bit. I've learned many of the high frequency words used in newspaper articles, but the word usage in this book was a mix of a lot of words I already know and more nuanced vocabulary as the author describes being picked up and carried by his older sister as if he were as light as a blade of grass or laying in bed, being careful to cover himself completely with his bedsheet so that the imaginary monsters can't get him. In any case, I'm hoping to reinforce the vocabulary I already know and learn some knew words along the way by reading the book. It may take two or three reads to fully appreciate what the author is saying.
We have a week long break around Thanksgiving and it will be nice to sleep in and relax a little. All in all, we're still having a great time here. I'm just anxious to keep learning until I can read books and newspapers easily and understand the news and television shows easily. Luckily I'm in the right place to make those things a reality.
Classes have accelerated and we are slated to complete the last five and a half chapters of Al Kitaab 3 in the remaining four weeks of class, which should be interesting. That's fine with me. I love learning all of the new vocabulary and grammar. I may be a nerd, but I love reading an article or watching the news and coming across a recently learned word or grammatical construction. Yesterday, I bought a book that my teacher recommended. It's an autobiography of Taha Hussein called, "The Days". Taha Hussein was an Egyptian writer and intellectual who earned a PhD at the Sorbonne in France despite being blind.
We had to go downtown to find the book, which was quite an adventure in itself. My teacher had given me general directions, saying that the bookstore was down an alleyway near the King Hussein Mosque. From there, I had to ask directions, which was fun and good language practice. We didn't find the bookstore my teacher had mentioned, but found another small bookstand. I asked the owner if he had the book. He didn't have it, but asked me to wait a few minutes. He darted down the street and came back with the book, which I bought for 2 JD's or about $2.80. We also bought Melanie a pashmina and chatted up the owner there who was very nice. Melanie also saw someone get tapped by a car as they tried crossing the street. She has more about that on her blog. Suffice to say that the lack of crosswalks makes running across the street a daily necesity for pedestrians here. Luckily this guy was "tapped" by a car going only a few miles per hour and was unhurt.
I read the first chapter of about 8 pages last night and this morning. It took about an hour and a half as I had to use the dictionary quite a bit. I've learned many of the high frequency words used in newspaper articles, but the word usage in this book was a mix of a lot of words I already know and more nuanced vocabulary as the author describes being picked up and carried by his older sister as if he were as light as a blade of grass or laying in bed, being careful to cover himself completely with his bedsheet so that the imaginary monsters can't get him. In any case, I'm hoping to reinforce the vocabulary I already know and learn some knew words along the way by reading the book. It may take two or three reads to fully appreciate what the author is saying.
We have a week long break around Thanksgiving and it will be nice to sleep in and relax a little. All in all, we're still having a great time here. I'm just anxious to keep learning until I can read books and newspapers easily and understand the news and television shows easily. Luckily I'm in the right place to make those things a reality.
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