Night 5: Long Post is Long.

Aghdshf. So much stuff in the last two days, how do I cram it into one post? I'm basically going to skip over Day 2; we toured the University of Jordan and got our second or third safety presentation, but I've covered safety a little bit in here, and I'm sure I'll mention stuff about the University itself once I get to know the ginormous (35,000 students!!) campus better.
Anyway, yesterday. Moving in day. Oh man, guys, did I luck out. I wish that I could show this to myself about two or three weeks ago. I was all anxious about my host family not liking me, about them not speaking much English, about being shy and awkward (which I often am), about not having internet, and most of all, about not having my own room. It turns out I have my own room, I have internet (although my host sister claims that this should have been gone 4 months ago...), and both my host mom, Janet (pronounced with a long, French sounding ja, rather than the American way) and my host sister, Lara, speak basically fluent English. I'm still a little shy and awkward, and I'm worried about whether or not they like me (I think I always will be though, I worry about that kind of thing a lot), but the fact that there are only two women makes it WAY more comfortable. Lara is 16 and a chatterbox; she speaks fluent English and is more up to date on American pop culture than I am, especially when it comes to music. By the way, if Alex or Toby is reading this: Thank you for showing me the Ke$ha unicorn music video, I got to tell Lara that I was familiar with it. Janet is quieter, and I'm pretty sure that she knows just as much English as Lara does, but she doesn't practice it as often.
I really like how laid-back this family is. Today we went to a baptism of a family friend's and we spent more time getting ready for it than we spent at the church. We arrived late so we were only there for about 20 minutes, but I'm told baptisms here last maybe half an hour to 45 minutes. Very different from Catholic baptisms at home. After the baptism we came home and Lara and Janet immediately changed back into pajamas. We watched some TV and ate lunch and napped until the evening. It was a little busier between 8 and 11. They took me to a Friday market called Souk Jarra, where there is a TON of jewelry and tourist trinkets, as well as small animals like turtles and fish for sale. We bought some dinner from a vendor called ful (pronounced "fool"), which was kind of like salted beans with lime. I made a pun later: ful makes you full! I was very proud of myself when Lara laughed. We also took Lara to basketball practice--she's very aggressive and reminds me of Lucy, and we visited a friend of Janet's where I mostly sat on a couch and watched TV in Arabic while people talked around me in Arabic.
A lot of the day is spent watching television, which is very normal for Jordanians. The TV is always on, even if no one is watching it. They're very energy-conscious here; lights are always turned off if a room isn't being used, or if there's an adequate amount of natural light, and public lights (like in the hallways in apartments or public buildings) automatically turn off after a certain amount of time. But the TV stays on always, if that gives you any indication of priority here. Thus far, we've spent a few hours both days I've been here in front of the TV. Fortunately, Lara watches a lot of American television, so I can understand most of what she watches. We watched The Prince and Me last night, and some Harry Potter today (although Lara claims to hate Harry Potter). Unfortunately, Jordan no longer gets foreign films due to an increase in taxes on these films, so they only have the first through fifth Harry Potter movies. Today I told Lara what happened in the 6-8th movies/6-7th books. She is possibly the only person I have met in the last few years that didn't know about Dumbledore's death. :(
Also, a note on food: I'm learning that it's best to try as hard as possible not to become full at a meal unless you are absolutely positive that it will be your last meal of the day. People will try to feed you wherever you go; including at the gym where your host sister plays basketball at 10PM, and you will have to refuse because you just ate two pieces of something weird but tasty at your host mom's friend's house and you are really full. And just when you think you've let everyone know that you're full and will remain full until morning, your host sister will dash this wishful thinking and offer you cake. Yes, yes, I am speaking from experience. Also, Jordanians will try to make you taste something to the point of putting it in your mouth themselves. Don't bother trying to fight this.
I'm not going to post pictures now because 1. I don't have anything new, it's weird to whip out your camera when you're living with locals, and 2. This connection is a little slow and I don't want to crash it by uploading pictures. I'll upload any future pictures at the University or an internet cafe.
Edit: Sorry for the run-on-y post, but I'm too tired to fix it.