Night 10: In which Arabic is not Spanish and Going Out is hard.

It's noon here, not exactly "Night 10," but whatever. I like consistency in my blog posts. 

The last couple of days have been a lot better than Sunday. I'm getting used to the campus and I'm getting into a routine, I'm even making friends! Sort of. I've only been here a week though, and I know things are only going to get more familiar and "normal" from here. 

We started our first Area Studies classes on Monday and I'm pretty excited about them. I'm taking Conflicts in the Middle East (current conflicts between and within states in the Middle East; Israel/Palestine, revolutions and dictators, etc) and Political Islam (the political nature of Islam; really similar to my Secularism and Fundamentalism class last year). All of my professors are Jordanian, and we were warned that professors here are seen as "fonts of wisdom" and their wisdom was not to be questioned. However, I haven't really experienced that yet. My professor for Conflicts in the Middle East was half an hour late to class on Monday, and in the States he might have apologized for that, but here it's like professors are entitled to be late and students just have to deal. However, he also spent the class asking us about ourselves and asking about what we wanted to learn so that he could shape his syllabus, so he's definitely taking our thoughts and interests into account. He's a little soft-spoken though, so I'm going to have to sit closer to the front when I have class today. 

I think I'm most excited about my Political Islam class. The professor seems fantastic and his syllabus was very clear. We're also reading a few texts that I've either read before or whose authors I recognize. We're reading Karen Armstrong later in the semester and I'm really excited because I DETEST her and can't wait to rip into the book we're going to be reading. Another girl in my class has similar feelings, so it was fun to geek out about how much we hate Karen Armstrong. Also, the professor is really flexible with what we'll be writing our final (and I think only) paper on. 

My Arabic classes are a lot harder than the Area Studies classes and they're getting to be less exciting. We have Arabic everyday, and we're supposed to have Colloquial Arabic three times a week, but right now I think it's all Modern Standard, since we're still focusing on the alphabet. We know 11 Arabic letters now, out of 28. Speaking the language in class is difficult, too, because Spanish keeps popping into my head. If I don't know something I'm tempted to say "No se..." or when I'm supposed to say "I want chicken with rice" I end up saying "Biddi dajaj con roz" which is like Spanabic or something. The word for "with" in Arabic is "ma," by the way. "Roz" really is the Arabic word for rice. I can do nouns in Arabic, but a lot of phrases that have been drilled into my head in Spanish come out randomly. It's like my brain goes "Foreign Language mode, activate!" and the only setting is Spanish. Hopefully, I'll come out of this program speaking better Arabic than Spanish, though. 

Also. Going Out is hard, guys. Especially if you go to a small school in a small town that has one bowling alley, one non-skeezy pub, and your local grocery store is Wal-Mart. That would be me. At Beloit people don't leave campus; we stay in our Beloit Bubble and party in our rooms or hang out and watch YouTube videos and play Settlers of Catan on the weekends. This state of being causes problems when you're taken out of the Beloit Bubble and plopped down in a major city, living and studying with students that go to big-time universities of ~40,000 people. They know how to Go Out. It comes naturally to them--finding something to do in a big city, taking a cab to get there, and staying out until 2AM, all with very little planning. I don't know how to do that. We have a lot of free time here too, so I feel like I should be utilizing that time by going out and absorbing the culture here, going to restaurants and shops and hanging out with people... I suppose I'll learn in time, but for now I'm spending a lot of time in the study center across the street from campus. Fortunately, it turns out that quite a few other people in the program are doing the same thing, and I like hanging out with them, so for now I think I'm satisfied with not Going Out too often. 

Oh, I have pictures! Here: 

                                                        

My room! Very comfy.

 This is from the internet. I did not take this picture. It's really awkward to take pictures on this campus. This is the clock tower at the University, where students meet. It's the go to meeting place.

This is also from the internet. The main gate at the University where I enter campus.

Okay, yalla bye!