Coming Home

I'm coming home. Tomorrow morning at 4:30 in the morning, I will wake up and go to the airport and actually be coming home. I can't believe it.

What's funny is saying goodbye to everyone, and saying goodbye to a place I never thought I'd go, a place I still don't understand why I came to, really.

I get attached to places more easily thank I thought I did and it terrifies me a little. I love the little things, like when I would come home here every night after a day at school, and the moon was in Jordan at night, looking out of my cab window and following it all the way home and then as I walked up the steps of my building taking on deep breath, tilting my head to the right a bit and seeing the rabbit in the moon. I'll miss feeling the limestone of the building with my left hand on the wall as I walked to my front door. I'll miss the kitchen at school where I would go to boil a cup of tea to procrastinate work just a little bit more. I'll miss the comfortable smells of all the the places here that I have grown accustomed to.

But more than everything I'll miss the people. And saying goodbye just felt so insufficient and weird and informal and tragically not what it should have been. I'm terrible, terrible at goodbyes.

And really, I just can't believe it's over. It doesn't feel like I've been here at all really and now I'm going home. And I still have no idea why I decided to study abroad randomly and why I just randomly found Jordan. I thought by the end of the program I would be more sure about these things but nope, still just giggling about it all really. What a trip, in so many ways.

I'm so interested to see how I'll feel about everything a year from now, or five.

Coming home is going to be so good and so stressful. But really, coming home is stressful, being here is stressful, going away is freeing but stressful. Maybe it's not these things, maybe life is just stressful and I need to just be okay with that really.

Well, I'm sure I'll post something more notable soon but this is just a little half goodbye to start. I've made my going home playlist (with help from Paul's CD he made everyone) to listen to on the plane. It's so funny to be going back. It's so funny that I was even here.
See everyone soon.

Are you done with me yet Jordan?

What to even blog about, I just don't know. I was planning on blogging about my trip to Jerash/Heaven with some friends. I was going to blog about almost being home. I was intending on blogging about my final presentation of my ISP. Alas, none of this will be blogged about, at least not right now. Why is that? Because I got sick. I KNOW. If you know me well enough at all, you know that I do not get sick, I simply am temporarily disappointed in my immune system and refuse to acknowledge said weakness. Here is my story...

It was the night of mother's day and I was fine, perfectly happy, in fact because i had just been on a trip to the most beautiful place in the world and was just feeling pretty great. Until I wasn't. Being sick in America sucks, being sick in Jordan, sucks even more.

My host family posited that it was because I kick the covers off of me at night (wrong, in fact, I just hate heavy comforters). In fact, I had amoeba eggs.
Here's the best part. I HATE absolutely ABHOR taking medicine. Much less antibiotics/antiparasitics/whatever the heck I got prescribed (metronidazole, if you're curious). And dear doctor, thanks for checking me out and stuff, but maybe next time you could NOT be smoking while I'm in the office telling you I haven't eaten in 24 hours and I'm miserable.

Also, I realized on this night of terror and unfortunate things that the only person you will EVER want to be around when you're sick is your mother. I mean really. Throwing up sucks no matter where or who you're with but I just want my mom dammit.

This brings me to my main point tonight.

Dear Jordan,
You're great and all, I've tried really hard to be pretty positive in this country/might have at least succeeded a little in that endeavor but really, can we be done yet? I mean really, I think I've had enough. You killed my apple tree I planted in the garden outside of school, sexual assault, 2am police statements, creepy courtroom, amoebas, antibiotics, utter failure at learning arabic, ISP anthropology fail (not nearly as good as I wanted it to be/ugh), smoke filled indoor areas, and far more tragic things I'm forgetting about now because of my memory or self-preservation, we'll never know. I know you mean well and everything and that I'm personifying an entire country here and being pretty anthropologically unfair, but really, can we be done?
I've had a lot of good experiences here, I know, I'm not trying to be mean or anything and I think I'm still happy I came here. Of course, had I not, there would be no metronidazole in my body right now, nor would there be a copy of my passport and statement in a courtroom somewhere in downtown Amman. Really, I'm just being whiny right now. But honestly, after everything, I thought it couldn't get worse and now I'm sick, can barely stand up without feeling weak, and just want to come home. I want my mom to make me vegetable soup and to take a shower in my shower and sleep in my bed and not take weird medicine (I HATE MEDICINE) and not have amoeba eggs (I mean, really, what the hell?)
Yeah, that's about all I have left to say on the topic.
With as much love as I have left in me,
Sarah.

Anyway, that's my tragically short, not really informative update of today/this is really just getting funny it's so ridiculous.

love you all. Hopefully, I'll come back in one piece, at this rate, I just am not so certain anymore that that's a feasible possibility. 

WHAT?

I come home in nine days, officially. This cannot be.

Dearest readers,
I know I've been full of complaints/anthropological rants/general anxiousness to return to my lovely state alas, at the prospect of returning so soon, I can only think of one word to describe how I feel: terrified.

Have I been taking full advantage of being here? Have I been appreciating everything as much as possible?  Have I learned anything? Am I ready to return to a culture of college parties, resume building, hyper-thin societal body image ideal, constant text-messaging connection to the world, general responsibility for that scary "future" thing I should be thinking about, and (foot in mouth) short shorts?!?!

There are so many things I've been struggling with in this country and so many annoyances encountered, so many anthropological issues arisen but put into the perspective of "you have to go home soon Sarah" all of the sudden I'm granted sight to things that, though previously unnoticed, I've actually really loved about Jordan.

-I love that there's no pressure to drink here because it's not religiously practiced and people know how to have a sober ridiculously good time.
-I love that my host dad has been on a one-man mission to "fatten me up" before I go back to the U.S. because he thinks I'm ridiculously undernourished.
-I love that I'm not constantly expected to be by my phone and available to people to talk. I have loved lacking phone communication.
-I love that here I finally received a break from the ever-present issue of my future life plans. I wasn't asked what I'm going to do after I graduate, I wasn't expected to have a job, I wasn't pressured to be on a certain path that was more legitimate (I'm looking at you Pre-Med people, you make everything I do in school seem like I've dropped out to live on a corner making art with thrown out newspaper to sell for a dime).
-I love the huge amounts of coffee and tea always available to me.
-I love my taxi rides home.
-I still hate eating meat and will never eat meat again upon my return.
-I love the amazing conversations I've had with SITers and being around a concentrated group of terrifyingly smart people.
-I love that my hair has finally grown out more (I will never cut it short again, what was I thinking/this is a little bit of a vain bullet on the list, ignore if you like)

That's just a bit of what I've been freaking out over. But really, am I ready to come home? I mean, yes. Definitely. But am I fully prepared to leave? Not really.

I've also been having fun putting things into an even larger perspective and imagining what freshman year Sarah would say about all of this. Because I'm fairly certain she was content with not studying abroad and should it have occurred, she was set on going to France or China. And now, I will repeat the question that I stated in my first few posts: Why, oh why did I come to Jordan? What was I thinking?

In retrospect i think i was curious and tempted and stubborn. I wanted to see what it was all about, I had no idea and felt like in order to really get any sort of picture, I would just have to come over here instead of sitting on the sidelines reading some books. I was tempted in the utter foreign-ness I associated with Jordan. I could do a pretty good job accurately picturing China, France and other areas in my head, but I had no conceptual image of what here was like and needed to know. I'm stubborn because there was a part of me that was just so sick of and fed up with all of the generalizations/misconceptions/confusing statements made about Islam and the Middle East and Middle Easterners and everything in between. There was a large part of me that wanted to come here to be able to come home and defend people here. Not that they can't do it themselves but I just felt the need to join the forces, you know? Be one less silly American who made generalizations about a place they knew nothing about (and there I  go generalizing about Americans, I really am just terrible).

That being said, I still feel as if I know nothing. I'll still hold my tongue before I say much about people here or Islam or anything else really, because honestly, what can I really know? Not a whole lot. For one, there are SITers here who are extremely well-versed in political systems, religious studies, and the like and they are the ones who need to be here and need to be doing things like this for the rest of their lives because they can make a difference. Which leads me to this tragic little question: What am i taking away really?

I randomly decided to come here and will probably not ever do much with the little Arabic I've learned or the small amount of knowledge gained because unlike some people here (ahem, Megan...), I'm not a Middle Eastern studies major or on any sort of track to be working here or in a related field really (there's that future freak out thing again...). But you get my point, this whole thing can't all just boil down to random moments of advocacy when others randomly decide to be intolerant or ignorant about issues involved with this area? Can it? Mumkin it does and that's just that.

Well, I started this post last night and left it unpublished and now, this morning, I've lost all of my train of thought and really can't think of anything else to add to what I've already written. Suffice it to say, I'm excited as ever to get home and see everyone. I miss my family, i want my sisters back in my life. But I'm also scared out of my mind at the prospect of leaving such and interesting, nice little hiatus from my real world. That and my host family here is beautiful. I will definitely miss them.
Well, must get back to work really, ISP presentations are coming up and that powerpoint isn't going to make itself unfortunately.

Love you all. 

bathing...same thing as near death experience, yeah?

I have never felt closer to death in a place that was supposed to be relaxing than I did today.

In a "hey we're almost done with everything yay!" moment, some of the SIT gals decided to go to a turkish bath: a place where calm goes to die.

Everything was well and good as we stripped into our "bathing suits"/sports bra and underwear for lazy people (like yours truly, same thing, right?) and we were ushered into a dank fairly dark room with some sweet mood lighting and asian-esque ambiance music by a women who does not speak english at all. I'm feelin' great (minus the crocs they made me put on for the bathhouse, barefoot would have been germier, but preferred).

This is where I enter the first circle of hell. We are ushered into a steam room in which I am told we must sit for fifteen minutes. I nonchalantly walk in, have trouble seeing (in said sweet, but unhelpful mood lighting) and get told by a friend above the ruckus of slight squeals around me that if I keep walking there are stairs to go up. I do the stingray shuffle, find said stairs, and climb all two of them until I feel like I'm dying. I could not breath. At all. You think I'm kidding, I know but I felt like I was breathing wet fire and droplets of condensed burning water kept falling onto my bare skin. TORTURE CHAMBER. We figure out collectively, one must stay low in order to survive and utilize hand towel as pseudo-mask in order to prevent imminent cooking of lung tissue. I sit here, contemplating my death feeling the sting and burn of drops of water.

We then are taken into a hot tub where I swear you could have poached an egg it was so hot. Alas, we get in muttering to ourselves it's not so bad if you just commit to it. As we swap first kiss stories and best kiss stories to distract ourselves from the pain, I feel my hands and feet continue to tingle in protest and my head get so light I swear I will fall over. Practicing some good old Bikram Yoga breathing (if you haven't tried it, go now! It's amazing), I regain my ability to process oxygen and leave the group as two by two we are called away to be exfoliated and massaged.

How many layers of skin does a person have? Today I think I had like two of them scrubbed off. Mish mushkilah, everything was peachy.

MASSAGE- happiness, worth all of the tragic terrible-ness of almost dying in a 2x3 foot steam room and a boiling vat of water.

I swore thousands of times I'd never do it again because it advertises loveliness but inflicts SO MUCH PAIN (and I'm sorry but people just can't massage my feet without me giggling, it's impossible). Alas, I'd go again tomorrow if I didn't have work to do. I FEEL SO HAPPY and CLEAN. It's great. If you ever have the excuse to go to a turkish bath, do so and you will only regret (and forget) half of it. ;)

Love from afar and home so soon!

Short Shorts

Well Osama Bin Laden is dead. But something about Obama's speech is just a little disturbing. He pulled out some very odd "prosperity" connotations saying things like, "we [Americans] can do anything we set our minds to"....like going on a killing spree for ten years until we find this guy?

Here's the transcription of the speech as well as a video so you can watch if you missed it for some reason: Obama Speech.

I mean I'm not trying to be anti-American here or anything and maybe I just didn't understand why we cared about one guy so much anyway, but it just felt a little weird to hear Obama parading his death and using it to reaffirm all of these Norman Rockwellian cute little American values. My feelings about it might also be tempered by being here... The BBC put out a quotation from a senior Afghan counter terrorism official who said, "This would have been more significant in 2004, 5, or 6, now it's too late. There is a Bin Laden on every street today". I like this. I think it reflects a little bit why I'm not the enthused flag waving American right now. I mean, before I even heard about this news this morning by opening up my computer I was reading the newspaper in the kitchen while I made some tea  and read about Syria issues and settlement arguments about Israel and Palestine and generally a whole bunch of more relevant news. And then I hear online that Bin Laden's dead and Americans are on the streets partying and I'm just a little put off by the way Obama spun everything to sound so "OMG America's the |3E$T!!!"

Megan and I are actually discussing this currently and she just said something that I think reflects why I'm just so bleh about it all: "I mean, I'm glad he's not a main military priority anymore so we can maybe focus on something else..." Agree. And now I'll actually talk about my more insignificant random doings in Jordan because that's what I was going tow rite about to begin with and then people died. Geez, How inconvenient (SARCASM).

So SIT had it's last "group" trip and we went to a Wadi with the Jordanian Jiu Jitsu team from the gym we all go to. We biked the same road that we ran the half marathon on and then hiked and clambered our way into a beautiful waterfall area. This is where I was called an "animal rights person" by a Jiu Jitsu member who saw me free a crab from a man who was going to take it home and put it in his aquarium. He ended up putting two other in a water bottle and I didn't have a chance to free them but I just got so sad about it for some reason. I mean, that crab LIVES there! And if I were a crab I would much rather chill in my awesome waterfall outdoors home than in some stupid small aquarium of the guy who won't really know what food I eat and then will probably stop caring about me in a while because I lose the sensationalism of being new to the house. I mean I own pets and all, but they were all captive bred (I'm talking about the snake here. awww, I miss him) so they didn't have an awesome waterfall home.

Well of course, there's a flaw there because technically, if there weren't a market for captive bred snakes and circumstances had arisen that Isak (my specific snake) was born out of captivity anyway then he would have a really sweet rainforest home. So did I take him away from his awesome home too? Sort of... I guess. Ugh, can't win. Needless to say I was quite annoyed that he was taking these crabs home and wanted to make some sort of far removed analogy about Palestine and Israel to him so he could maybe understand that THE CRAB LIVED THERE. But Megan told em this would not be an analogy received well and told em to shut my mouth basically. But really, I think it would have driven the point home. Anyway, so while you're all celebrating the death of some guy, I am mourning the loss of two crabs' independence and freedom to just chill in their awesome Wadi house. Alas, I did end up saving one. Meager success.

Anyway, other than the animal rights infringement and sad contemplation of the lives of animals removed from their natural homes, the Wadi trip was great fun. Especially because I just got so sick of heckling coming from the cars of men on our bike ride up that in my 13.1 mile redo with the sun shining down quite fervently, I just started making some not so nice hand gestures at the more annoying, kiss blowing, whistling cars. This was not very appropriate and did nothing to forward the image of Americans to Arab people. I make no apologies though. It was satisfying and even though they actually use a different hand gesture here to mean something similar they definitely understood what I was going for. I just want to be able to wear shorts in this country without feeling like I'm walking around naked dammit.

I was discussing this with some fellow SITer women upon return from Wadi and something just hit me about the whole thing. First of all, you just don't realize you've been following the rules sometimes until you break them and suffer the consequences. By wearing shorts (and I could count the times I've done this on one hand here), I break the rules and suffer for it. But the thing is, it shouldn't be a thing I don't think. Women should be able to just wear whatever they want and not feel pressured to not wear something because stupid guys can't grow the hell up and realize EVERY HUMAN BEING HAS LEGS. And in summer, women get hot too when wearing pants. It's like we're sort of the same or something, I know, I know it's crazy but it's true I swear. Then I was thinking to myself, well this is just the straw that broke the camel's back, you know? If I wasn't annoyed yet, now I'm just done, done even trying. But then I think, well, I can't really, be done. Because patience is something that is a naturally renewing resource, right? I hope so. In any case, I feel it necessary to write another letter to the men of Jordan because that always calms me a little so here we go:

Dearest Men of Jordan,
You're great, you really are. I'm trying very hard not to judge a book by it's cover, walk a mile in your shoes, and all that other junk. But you could try a little harder too. You could stop making generalizations about American women (or Americans in general). Relationships are give and take you know and I'm trying really hard here to not make generalizations and try and understand you and empathize with you and be nice and generally see your humanity and awesomeness that I just know you've got in ya. Human beings are pretty great right? But really, hop onto the nice train with em maybe? Walk a mile (or 13.1) in my shoes (bike, run, whatever). Realize that not all American women are the same just like I realize not all Arab men are the same. Realize that I'm not a slut (and to your surprise, and my host sisters, I'm a non-religious 21-year-old virgin. I know it's crazy that I'm not doing it for God and that unlike what you think, and I quote, "all american girls your age have sex", I'm not!). Realize that my legs deserve to see the light of day without having to be subjected to stares and hollers. Realize that I should be allowed to jog on the street without you staring at my ass. Realize that it is not your god-given right to stare at any woman who walks past you. It's just not. And I've decided in a  couple years if for some reason I end up back in Jordan, I'm gonna give you guys a nice Lady Godiva moment. Because really, it's enough. Grow up, be adults, make a few less generalizations about Americans, and learn that my name is Sarah and that if you stare at me, even though I know it's culturally inappropriate I will stare right back at you like a cat with a really mean look until you break eye contact first BECAUSE I CAN. And because so far, it's the only appropriate way I've discovered to subvert YOUR stares.
With Sincerity and some Good Anthropological love,
Sarah

that felt so good. even knowing that no one will read it who should. Don't care. Maybe someday they will.

Moving on then, yesterday was Zeta Chi Senior wills and because of my awesome, amazing, astounding friends, I was able to be skyped in on a phone (thank you technology!) and could watch my big sister, Katie will away her ZX stash. And here's my official blog shout out to home much I love you guys and everyone. Y'all are amazing and such wonderful women and I can't wait to be home and hanging out with every single one of you.

Alas, I must get off to doing some work! ISP due in five days!! Love to you all back home and everywhere else. Thanks for reading. It's nice to talk it out sometimes. Here are some photos if you like!

ridin' in my short shorts. Whatcha gonna do about it? 

Assault Cake

There were some things that I had been thinking about blogging yesterday that were about how I only have three weeks left here and I feel as if I haven't been here at all, or about how differently I think about hijab now and generally more academic, more calm topics. However, all of these topics are dwarfed by what happened on this very innocuous morning in Jordan.

Started out like every morning. I had anticipated showing up to SIT, making myself some coffee and honey and sitting down to blow off some time before I actually needed to do work. And by that I mean, I should have been doing work from the beginning but alas, like most college students StumbleUpon and Facebook called me away and it's almost as if my brain refuses to write papers without them these days.

I come in and megan is watching a bootlegged copy of The Fountain, a movie I have always hated (even though Hugh Jackman is beautiful, well when he doesn't look sickly and has hair but, you know). So I finish up watching the tragic movie with her and we are called in to speak with our director who informs us that the case (from Petra, if for some reason you wouldn't  know what "case" I'm referring to) has come to Amman and that the head magistrate of the criminal court needs me to come in and tell my story all over again. wonderful. Megan and I hop skip over there with a lovely staff member and we walk through some grungy hallways that no description could do justice. Random people sitting, walking into offices. To me it looks all like chaos but we find whatever office we were supposed to visit and are ushered in.

Now readers, I watch my fair share of Law and Order, CSI, Bones, Criminal Minds and the like but after our translator had sworn to the truth on the Qu'ran, I was told simply to say that i would swear to tell the truth in the usual way, you know, no big. Well, I'm blaming the stress of being in a room with a stenographer, 2 random folks sitting behind me, and a judge (and they've freshly expunged Megan into the hallway becasue she can't hear my statement!). I forget how to swear myself in! I KNOW! Instead of the usual "I swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me god", I spurt out a very nervous, "I swear to god to tell the truth". How unfortunate. My one chance to be so legit and I fail miserably. Alas, as an agnostic, it's not like it meant much anyway (I promise I tell the truth though!!).

So, just for anyone who isn't on board with what went down, when it comes to sexual assault, the brain tends to forget little details like time and place and other random things that weren't 'oh god, what's going on' worthy. Megan really took care of that in the original report I gave. so her in the hallway created some problems. Also, I still don't understand why he needed me to go through the whole thing again when my statement from that night nicely translated into arabic is sitting right in front of him in a pink folder (it figures that my case folder would be my least favorite color). Anyway, we go through the whole thing again and I realize I am the only one in the room willing to say penis. I mean, it's a medical word! But I truly felt bad for my translator and the man behind the desk. I mean, I felt awkward and tragic but I'm sure it didn't help that I was just being so non-arab in my lack of hesitation or skirting around the word.

So after about a half hour my story is once again told, freshly remembered and it's Megan's turn to be my witness. Readers, have you ever had those moments in your life where you're just so struck by everything going on, you sort of want to giggle, and you know you'll never forget it? I cannot tell you how sublimely odd it felt to watch the stenographer typing away in Arabic when I entered that office and then, before my statement got underway, to watch him stumble over typing in English and take very long minutes typing out my full name. In a sea of Arabic in a random court office in the middle of the Middle East, there's my name. Right there. That was a moment that won't be long forgotten. How strange things all turn out, really.

Anyway, Megan gives her statement in a much shorter time after having suffered her own interesting half hour in the hallway (read her blog for her story) and we're off after I mutter what feels like a very misplaced 'shukran' to the judge. And there it is, man in jail, Sarah on her way back to figuring out how she's going to finish writing this research paper.

On our way back our translator and wonderful staff member says to me as we leave the office, 'mabrook'. I do suppose it would be a moment to say congratulations, it just felt a little funny. Anyhow, before we get back to school she stops in a cake shop and comes back, gives megan a white box and tells her it's for me and her becasue we've had a hard hour (though I would protest much longer time period) and that we should celebrate our experiences. God bless her awesome-ness. I'm sitting her blogging and finishing up what I have decided to call our Assault Cakes. It doesn't really make anything go away and it doesn't change anything that happened but it is indeed hard to cry while you're munching on cake so I feel like it's serving it's purpose.

I can honestly say though that I feel better that it didn't just end in Petra because something felt unfinished. I know he's in jail, I feel a little more responsible for it. It feels good knowing that it's official. I spoke with a judge, there was a stenographer. It's hard to get that sort of closure in this country because things just don't work the same as in the U.S. so everything just feels sort of up in the air and frustratingly wasta-based and not legitimate. But I've got it. Cake Closure. Feels nice even if it doesn't make everything better.

To continue, I did want to at least touch on something I thought about yesterday because I felt it was pretty significant. When I went to Dominica before I went to college I wrote myself a letter at the end of my stay there that was sent to me around 5 months after I had been back in the country. The main gist of the letter that 18-year-old Sarah wrote was: "Oh hey older version of me, feel like you still don't know what you're doing with your life or what you want to do and feeling a little out of sorts? Go abroad! Pick up a random plane ticket to anywhere and get out because then you at least won't be static." Well, it looks like I followed my advice and it really is one of the larger reasons I went abroad to probably the most random place I could have chosen (because let's face it, I still don't know why I came to Jordan of all places).
Of course, the other day at my realization that I"m leaving in three weeks, I started to freak out becasue I felt like I hadn't really accomplished what 18-year-old Sarah wanted. And now I had only three weeks to do whatever it was! Crap.

Then it dawned on me, what that younger version of me had wanted is impossible here. Because the younger version of me wanted me to go abroad, figure out who I was (please don't judge for the annoying prosaic-ness of that question, you know you've asked yourself at least a couple times too) and get my life together you know? And I came to Jordan where I couldn't really do that, because here I suppress myself, I've tried to fit in, to absorb a culture I didn't understand and didn't know if I was comfortable with. This isn't a bad thing. In fact, I feel like I've grown intellectually by coming here (even if growth really just means being more unsure of everything). So while I could sit here and chastise myself for not "studying abroad" and being able to come back a more calm, together person, instead I shouldn't freak out these last three weeks that I missed something because I didn't actually follow the advice I gave myself three years ago. If I had wanted to follow that advice I would have had to go to a place where I could have been me. And let's be real, I can't really be me in Jordan for lots of reasons.

I suppose my reason for saying all of that is that I am trying to reassure myself to not freak out because I'm still out of sorts (maybe that's just an eternal thing for me) because I didn't actually "study abroad". But whatever it is I did do, I'm glad I did it.

Also, I'm getting a kitten when I get back to the U.S.
Sorry, I just had to tack that on to the end, this blog felt a little too crazy without it.
KITTEN!
love you all.

Wishes

SO lately I've been in this "wishing" stint of deciding to list in my brain all the things I've ever wanted. I shall list them here. not because they relate to Jordan (well not all of them anyway) but because i just decided listing them would be fun. Also, i'm feeling sort of sassy. be warned.

1. I want a horse. But while I'm going I might as well go big. I want a ranch and some of my own cattle, a chicken coop, and more than one horse.

2. I would love it if Jordan all of the sudden decided to celebrate Easter so that I could have a proper excuse to gorge myself on chocolate and high fructose "but do you really care just this once" corn syrup candy corn things that are refurbished from the Halloween ones and made in pastel colors so they're all jesus-appropriate and stuff. Alas, there's this other prophet who's so much cooler over here and is preventing this from being a possible future reality.

3. I wish there was a calorie-less, fat-less, wonderful creamy delicious ice cream that just generally didn't count. For that matter (feel free to roll your eyes, I do not care about your judgment) I just generally wish I could be magically skinny like all of those indie-girls who can somehow pull off high waisted jean shorts that I thought were only cool...oh, never. But they make them look so GOOD. Teach me your magical ways oh indie-hippy-newyorker-hipster-americanapparel women. HOW? (also, excuse the mad, utterly, un-anthropological generalizations just made).

4. I wish i could pause the Arab world for a minute and just give a quick lesson on waste management. Not that I know much about waste management, but I know what a trash can looks like and I know sort of how to use one and it would be pretty sweet if you know, nature reserves or natural parks here weren't so counterintuitively...trashy.

5. I all of the sudden have this giant urge to be the crazy high school english teacher that everyone loved when they were in high school when I grow up (and no, I'm NOT grown up yet, in case you weren't sure). I wish this will be a reality. I will make my students read things that aren't required technically but they will be all the better for. I will make them read The Metamorphosis and we can have a class period where we just laugh at it becasue I hate it (but I'll give the chillins a chance to express their opinions before I make them all cynics with mine, don't worry). I will bring my cat to class sometimes BECAUSE I CAN and it's cute and you know if your teacher brought a cat to class you would love her so much more.

6. I wish in the future I will live near an ocean. Not on one because sand is just annoying when it is everywhere (especially when it's in a piece of food you knew got nowhere near the ocean and you're left wondering. how? what? GO AWAY QUARTZ just go away!) But I need to be able to swim in a large body of water somehow. A kiddie pool/candlelit bathtub will do until I have money. But with Number 5, that whole money thing might not be a viable possibility... a girl can dream.

7. I wish i could live in the south without being sufferingly hot all summer.

8. It's sad that I only thought of this at number eight. But: world peace. I mean, despite all of the cliche miss america stuff that goes along with it, i want everyone to be happy, OKAY?! I don't think this is asking a lot. I'm not saying I know how to fix any of this but I know people who know people and I could get it done. Maybe.

9. This goes along with number eight. I want gay people, slash whatever kind of people want to, to be able to get married. like REALLY married. None of this civil union crap. What is that anyway, I DON'T KNOW.

10. I wish that I knew better what exactly my heart was saying (don't judge, you know you wish you could get all Disney movie too and know exactly what you wanted just like Pocahontas/know so well you can break out into a rhymed song about it) and what exactly my brain was saying. I am not good at distinguishing these two things at all. And then there's that thing called estrogen that gets thrown into the mix every once in a while that I hear guys complain about a bit... I don't know. It'd just be nice to be able to tell them apart so that I could know to always follow my brain. Except when my heart feels like traveling, doing art, writing, or any other general sappy stuff (minus love because that should be a brain decision too folks, if we're being serious here).

11. I wish i were better at interviewing Jordanians for my research. I'm bad at interviews in general but give me a language barrier, throw in some cultural norms I don't know about and my excessive awkwardness and, oh my god, so much fun.

12. I wish i would never get invited to another 'please take my survey for class/i lost all my numbers' facebook event. ever.

13. I wish, back in sophomore year when everyone else seemed to do it and I was still rebelling with leg warmers, that I had solidified a "style". So that I didn't run around like a chicken with my head cut off in Forever 21 wondering what cut of shirt looks best on me or if I could pull off a graphic tee. And then I just end up at Goodwill or Value Village and feel far more at home searching around for whatever strikes my fancy and will look equally as terrible as that cute little tee shirt with cap sleeves that i just know would not have worked out.

14. I wish I was a smarter person. This is a very lazy statement to make because really, if I wanted to be smarter I could just apply myself (to steal everyone's parents favorite catch word) and learn everything I wanted to know. Do I? Nope. I watch stupid movies and stumble around on the internet trying to find an internet meme I haven't seen yet that will make me internally giggle a bit. So really I could scratch this number and just person-up (to use a more p.c. version of the turn-of-phrase "man-up") and work harder but I'd much rather move on to number 15 because if I think about it too long I'll just not be a happy camper (even though I would just love to go camping right now).

15. I wish I were better at 'living in the moment' like all of these fun new-agey blogs I follow tell em to do. But every time I remember to 'live in the moment' I get stressed because I wonder "oh my god, have I not been doing this all along, WHEN HAVE I BEEN LIVING THEN?! when?!?!?!" And then I stress more because I'm trying to overload my brain with visual, auditory, sensory stimuli and remember all of it while also appearing aloof and carefree (becasue that's what living in the moment is, yeahhh?). I just wish I could pull that off better.

I wish lots of other things but that's all for tonight. Hopefully my mascara that I put on today (gasp! I know, first time in-country mascara application) will smudge itself just right while I slumber so that I look all 'post sleep, messy hair, Anne Hathaway, smudgy but perfectly applied mascara' in the morning. Probs not, but I have high hopes.
Goodnight from Jordan, and happy secular easter to all of you people who get to enjoy the cadbury deliciousness that will ensue.

I've never been Happier that I can Dance

Let's take a turn for the funny this post because, OMG, if this blog gets any more serious, I will have to clap my hands in hopes that a fairy somewhere will be saved to break even.

Last night I went to wedding number two of my time in Jordan and this one was much longer, much louder, and (I can't think of another much...to use) had more strobe lights.
I will never have strobe lights at my wedding. They stress me. Though I definitely will play a couple of favorite Arabic pop songs and might throw in some pyro-technic things just for giggles.


At my wedding- I WILL DANCE. However, last night was not my wedding. Had it been I would have worn more makeup (put on a pair of jeans I hadn't been wearing for the past...months), eaten a lot less for dinner, and seen more people that I recognized. Oh and not have been the only one with their hair uncovered.

I've done my fair share of performances my friends. I've had my foray into theatre, at one point wanted to be en pointe, done some demo routines for karate, sung a national anthem or two for gymnasts (because apparently flinging around on bars needs to be preceded by mentioning god and america in one song). Generally, I'm used to a stage and used to people watching me. But when my host mother decides she wants to show me off to all of her friends at the wedding and pushes me to dance until about 11:30 at night when the men finally join the party, women done hijabs again, and the booty shaking calms down, I'm somewhat unprepared for all of the attention.

I'll repeat blog title here for emphasis- I have never been happier that I can dance (and by dance I mean shake it because "arabic dance" is far more slutty than one might think).
I started getting the idea throughout the night that my mother's reputation was somewhat dependent upon my awesome dancing skillz when women kept coming up to her and pointing at me and whispering in her ear about how surprisingly good I was and giggling and coming over to dance with me. Now, my dancing wasn't nearly as heartwarming and cross-culturally wonderful as this little video that should make you cry if you have an ounce of emotion in your body --> Dance around the World
but I'd like to think I made some headway as the first thing my sister told me when I moved in was that Americans can't dance.

I'd like to make this blog sound a little less braggy than it does right now, but Megan has been encouraging me to be proud of things lately. Well, dear Megan, I am proud of being able to emulate most dancing styles if given the right amount of time to practice and prepare. Happy?

Anyway, I was just about to collapse from too many hip isolations and body rolls when the bride donned her frighteningly KKK-like wedding hijab and I knew that she was either going to the men's party or they were coming here. SAVED-they came into our party and out of "modesty" (but really exhaustion) I begged off from the dance floor and enjoyed watching the rest of the party continue/tried to calculate how many years were being deducted from my hearing as the music blasted into the room.

Finally, the family hits the road and I begin to contemplate under what circumstances the bride and groom met. If it was arranged and what their post-wedding night would be like. I also contemplated how easy it is to be a wedding crasher in Jordan as neither bride nor groom appeared alarmed at some random American girl shaking it on their rented light-up dance floor that was vaguely reminiscent of my DDR days. There's quite more I could add to this post like serious commentary on Jordanian weddings, or information on how my ISP is coming but I don't really feel like elaborating right now/I'm about to go play a ballin' game of futbol with the ju jitsu team at the gym we SITers frequent so I just don't have time to have anthropological fun in this post. ENJOY the lightheartedness, I'll come back with a vengeance soon after reading some sort of feminist article or whatnot, I'm sure.

Love!

How do you Feel about This?

As you all know, my ISP topic is about Facebook and relationships and can be explained in a lot more illustrative terms but I'm still in the beginning stages of research/of crafting my abstract so I'll just leave it at that for now.

In order to end up with a grade I deem appropriate, I've expended quite a lot of effort thus far in developing a theoretical framework in order to contextualize everything. And in the process of doing this, discovered that under the right circumstances and predisposed temperament, anthropology can be pretty depressing.

To give you an idea of where this is all coming from, currently I'm reading up on some things about emotional work, public performance of self and the idea of panopticon as developed by Hochschild, Goffman, and Bentham/Foucault (respectively, if for some reason you feel like following along in my research footsteps). All of these theories, if read by the right person (and even, I think, sometimes just naturally) are pretty much dismal and cynical. Hochschild focuses in on the commodification of emotions and ho they are recruited and sold as genuine when it really takes work to put on a sort of performance for customers (she focuses specifically on airline attendants specifically and how emotional labor is a large part of their job in the book The Managed Heart. And like most people who have flown in a plane before, it's not hard to conjure the picture of the flight attendant who looks like they've had that smile plastered on just a bit too long to know what Hochschild is getting at. Goffman, in what appears to be an extension of Hochschild focuses on the Presentation of Self in Everyday Life and how this presentation is akin to performers on a stage, accounting for the audience that will receive your action and adjusting how you act according to said audience (making the receiver of said action constantly wonder as to how genuine anything really is). And then Bentham and Foucault cover basically how everyone is watching everyone at all times and basically peer correcting those who deviate from cultural rules set up and followed by everyone else. (For the record, these are all super super dumbed down one-liners about what's going on and you all should definitely read the original works, they're actually very insightful.)

Anyway, in reading all of these things, I can't help but be a little depressed about it all. I guess the question I'm always left with after looking into subjects like identity formation and the ones above is: How much of who you are or what you do is determined and unwavering in the face of society (what I would call, genuine) and how much of who you are and what you do a product of unspoken rules of culture, knowledge that you're being observed, or the necessary emotional response in a given situation that you may not feel but that is called for nonetheless? In essence, how much of You can you claim is just you? You know what I mean? And then if one turns this question outward and questions other people, how much of how they treat you is genuine and how much is just necessary due to external factors? And then I suppose, how can you ever actually know someone? Or can you only ever think you know them and really just be seeing measured responses that are guided by cultural norms and social mores and aren't necessarily their primary self? Or is the primary (genuine) self necessarily intertwined and inescapable from the secondary (culturally bound, socially measured) self?

I just don't know. I'm also not sure you followed all of that but my stream of thought is sometimes just a little out of control. I was going to provide some quotations from the above scholars for you to peruse and aid you in understanding my predicament concerning human nature but upon looking at all of the things I'd underlined realized that everything I could write would feel a little out of context and not make much sense unless you had read the previous ten or so pages. Anyway, I was just sort of mulling all of this over today and in absence of a journal, all of you lovely people (whoever you are) are subjected to whatever posts I feel like writing even if they might be only half-developed and vaguely depressive.

I'm trying to find a way of interpreting these authors without the negativity that I picked up somehow but I really can't think of one. But then, I'm sort of already a cynic so reading things that call into question the genuine nature of people's selves and actions and emotions might not be the best thing to do. But it's rather interesting and I'm not sorry I've read it. Alas, I'm quite happy in spite of it all, but I think that might be due to a disconnect I have between my "anthropological self" and my "oh hey this is how I feel about this self". (If that makes any sense).

Well, I feel like this post is lacking a happy concluding paragraph but I'm lacking the motivation to write one/don't know how I could neatly wrap up things I'm only beginning to contemplate anyway.
I hope you've all had a lovely day/evening/life (while I'm hoping I might as well go big or go home).

Thoughts anyone?

Also, recently stumbled upon these articles, which seemed sort of relevant these days. Enjoy.

Is it Natural for Older Guys to Lust after Younger Women?
This one I enjoyed but I'm not sure about the whole "stereotypes form the science" in the case of men thing. I mean, yes, I can see how that could legitimately be a cause for concern but...well, I don't know...how do you feel about it? IN any case, it was a fairly refreshing read.

A Good Man's Guide to Catcalling
This was amazing in so many ways. Not to mention it's applicability to my life lately. Love. Love.

Conceptual Emergen-C

Tonight, post-gym time, I washed my hair with Emergen-C and washed myself with biodegradable mountain climber laundry wash. Why you ask? Megan borrowed my baking soda and vinegar (convert, woot!) for herself and neglected to return it in the stress of our lives that is ISP period. Not a problem. I am a Macgyver of shower time. Magical, I tell you, I am magical. Don't even try to deny it. I could count this as an all-time low in my shower stats (which you readers might do) but I'm definitely counting it as an all time high of awesome inventiveness.

Well now that that's over with, what else have I done of significance recently you ask? It feels like nothing, I'm almost certain it's something. I've read most of my sources for my research, crafted my survey and sent it off to be translated, obtained an advisor (thanks Megan) and set up a meeting with her class to hold focus groups, written up most of my interview questions, and walked outside alone for the first time since Petra (which I'm counting as an accomplishment, so there). Look, I got my blogger sass back! wonderful.

Meanwhile Megan has conducted 2 interviews already and I'm attempting not to let it get to me that she's ahead in her research. It's not really working. I hate feeling behind. But I was singing some High School Musical today in order to abate the stress. This worked slightly.

I've also officially subverted the system of my household's habits and accomplished being a vegetarian again for 5 days now. BAHAHAHAHAHA.

Other than this I lack anything significant to blog and probably will for a while as ISP period almost precludes the running around and being ridiculous that leads to good blog posts. So forgive me if I lapse into silence or lack anything substantial to report. it's not for lack of love.

I think today I've decided that mumkin Jordan has made me more of a feminist than I was before. If this is possible. I don't know really. I suppose I'm still trying to categorize, contemplate, and communicate (what lovely alliteration, I know) what happened. I simply refuse to leave this country hating a whole group of people simply because I've run into a lot that happen to be idiots. But then I was thinking today: really, I gave these guys (and I do mean guys) a good 2 months of relativist love before that was splattered to the wind and I was forced to decide how I actually felt about everything. And in the end, all I really see is a whole bunch of sexist guys and girls who for some reason put up with it. I don't know, I don't want to be mean but I can't just look around and not pass some sort of judgement on something that I personally (not anthropologically...maybe... that whole relativism problem was never solved really) find disgusting. I mean, what kind of place is it where girls can't walk down the street without getting cat called and jibes thrown at them? As it is, tonight, my first foray back into the world of independence left me having to ignore about 3 guys at different times yelling my way as I walked to the gym.
And it's equally as odd to me why their women friends who are with them when they do this don't say something about it. Don't they realize that at one point in time, that's them too?? I just don't understand. And I don't want to judge/don't feel like I can/but if I can't, how can I acknowledge my own feelings about it ever?

Dear readers,
I'm just too confused. And don't want to sound mean but can no longer control how I feel and also feel like I've given things a fair chance. But have I? Probably not. And am I mean? Maybe a bit.
Things have only gotten more confusing. And here I was, hoping for a nice denouement to the program where I tied up all of the loose ends of misunderstanding and left happy and satisfied and with no unanswered questions. (typing that out and realizing that I thought it might actually be possible just makes me laugh at how ridiculously naive I sound). And we're back to the very beginning aren't we?

Well wasn't that a productive little thought train. Not. But I suppose thinking about it and trying to figure it out is better than not doing anything at all. Oh well. I give up for tonight, that's certain.

Love to you all. Have a green tea and think of me and I'll have some coffee with honey tomorrow and think of you. 

Moving on now...

There's no snazzy way to move on from last blog post to this one, so I'm not even going to try. Suffice it to say, I'm back in Amman, trying my hardest to get going on ISP because, oh, before I can come home, I have to do this whole "legitimate research" thing. Purrrfect.

ANYway, Let's begin shall we? The long, arduous task of bringing back the humor to this blog/to my life (not as hard as the former, i think).

Well for starters, I ran a half marathon. And by that I mean I walked about 4 km of it but ran the rest of the way (with Megan, who else?) If you'd like a beautiful, metaphorical picture of the marathon running, see her blog, it's actually quite touching. Here I was thinking I'd never run another half marathon after I ran one with my dad when I was younger (sans training, like an idiot) and felt like my knees were going to explode. Anyway, another 21 km under my belt as Megan and I ran to the Dead Sea with thousands of other people. I'd like to say I didn't notice every guy we ran past or every marathon guard we jogged by watch us and stare. But I did. Side effect? Probably. But I'm working on bringing the humor back so laugh away as I tell you that I totally listened to two Switchfoot albums on repeat the entire 13.1 miles.

And here we are crossing the finish line together. Felt good.

And with the advent of ISP period starting i've got to get cracking on this whole research thing. So I start looking around for some Foucault. I want to use the idea of Panopticon in my research and I needed a work by him that wasn't available on JSTOR or EBSCO because it's a full book. Megan and I go to the University of Jordan and search around a very dark library where the internet says it's there but refuses to work and where there aren't enough places to sit so you find yourself in a corner between Islamic studies in Arabic and plant toxicology studies in English, just praying that maybe, maybe you'll get a call number and things will work. Here, once again, I will implore you, dear reader to read Megan's blog yet again for a good laugh about our struggles in finding books in this country. Her newest post "Do they even Read Here" chronicles our search for academic life in Jordan. 

I found a compendium of Foucault eventually at a library today and I will make do, I suppose. But I think I'm going to have to lower my standards a little if I'm going to complete a research project here without losing my mind. 

And now to what I really wanted to blog about today. At the culmination of our library stay, Megan and I left to catch a cab back to our homeland at SIT. A group of 3 guys and 2 girls walks by and one of the guys asks Megan what her name is. We both hesitate because in Jordan, you find out very quickly, you've met more people than you think you have and forgotten more of them than you should have. And it normally comes back to haunt you in awkward social interactions.

She gives her name and then when we both realize we have no idea who this is, we sort of start to khalas that convo and they walk away, one of the guys, turning around and clicking his tongue at us and hissing... You, dear reader, might not understand how much of an insult this is, but it is. You have no idea. 

Later on I told Megan, fi Amrika, that guy would have been slapped before he could inhale to hiss at us again. However, once again, I. Am. In. Jordan. Lucky him, right? Megan starts musing and wondering if any American would ever do that to an obvious foreigner in the U.S. An I can't imagine that happening. I'm sure it does, but I just can't fathom it.

This leads me to my main point of this post, Jordan prides it's tourism on having some of the nicest people in the world. And truly, Jordan hospitality is great. But I feel, in my pessimistic state that has been circumstantially induced in this country, it's my job to tell you (should you ever visit Jordan), expect lovely hospitality, yes, but remember, a$$hole teenage boys are that way everywhere. I'm ignoring the fact that anthropologically speaking that's the worst generalization to ever be making but I just can't be bothered right now. As Megan and I waited for a cab I sat and watched those boys stare and heckle at 2 girls walking by, just going about their lives (being forced to listen to these guys make fun of them as they walk around). 

Dear men/boys (if that's what you decide you want to act like),

                       Women make up roughly half of the population. And we also have two legs. So forgive us for walking places in public sometimes. We may or may not have places to be too, just like you. And nice, anthropologically sensitive (at least to things like this) Sarah got left behind in Petra. So if I catch one more man-child whistling and laughing at a woman who is just trying to live her life and get to school or work or back home, I will get in your face about it. Even if, and especially if, your two friends who are girls watching you do this do not. Because they need to know it's okay to call you out on being stupid and you need to know you're being an idiot. 

Sincerely, Sarah.

And now we can move onto some important things. Such as my short temper for anthropological sensitivity these days. I know you are probably freaking out right now, I am too! Cultural relativism was my claim to fame! No judgement right? Well recently I've taken to being a big meanie. Not about everything, but about some very important things. Mostly men. Okay, so I kind of know what happened, I suppose. And you do too. How to bounce back from this one...At least in the ways that matter. I certainly need to stop hatin' on all Jordanian men. Case in point, about 1 minute after that moment on the street some guy randomly says to me, "Do you want a cab?" I warily begin walking towards where he gestures and see that he is legitimately giving us a cab he has hailed. It didn't quite make up for everything but definitely gave me a much needed reminder that not everyone is out to get you/be sexist/generally be annoying. 

Which leads me right back to where I've started really. Lists normally help a bit and because blogger still hasn't given me a way to thought map this one out, here's a list to begin...

Things I think I'm pretty sure about (notice all the qualifiers):

1. I will be a negative nancy-pants for a while concerning all Jordanian men.

2. Eventually I will get over the whiny five-year-old stage and decide generalizing to a whole gender is not a healthy decision.

3. I will never wear shorts again in the country in public (I thought the marathon would be a good excuse but when eyes feel like they're burning into your skin, it's just not worth the extra coolness when you're running, oh I don't know, MILES).

4. I will feel compelled for a bit and maybe forever to give all men who approach/instigate conversation with me the "I perfected this 'i-could-kill-you-look' by watching the Matrix and thinking Trinity was just the coolest person in the movie" look. And I will have to be prepared to look like an idiot when they're actually nice and offer me a cab. 

5. I will be more vocal when I'm annoyed by men here, possibly to my detriment. I mean, don't be worried parentals, I'm not a complete idiot, but really, I'm done just standing by and not saying something just because I'm not sure if it's my place to say something. (I've had a discussion here with other students several times about the odd area we [women] occupy here. We are obviously not Arab and not men, but we don't completely count as women here either because people here don't hold us to the same standards as women here. I'm doing a terrible job of explaining this. But basically the idea is that we're in flux, somewhere in between being a woman but also being sort of allowed to engage in the 'male world' here also because we're not totally women.... Do you get what I'm trying to say at all? When it comes down to it, I think this is something that has prevented me from speaking up a lot. The fact that I don't get the respect that Arab women get here and yet I lack the power that a man inherently has here. So I'm stuck in the middle and am forced to constantly question my "place" in a situation and how I should (read: can) react.)

6. My paper will not be as good as a paper that I could write were I at school right now. 

7. I will be ready to go home a little bit more everyday even though I do still enjoy this country. I miss bins of organic spinach, green tea 24/7, being a vegetarian, feeling confident in sassing strangers a bit because they're being mean, baking, libraries that I know will have all of the books I need/want. And I will be at peace with the fact that this list will expand even as I continue to enjoy my stay here. 

8. I miss wearing high heels.

9. I will need to be a little more adamant with myself about being myself. I simply refuse to stop smiling at strangers. I know this is almost in direct contradiction to number 4. I do not care. It's my list, after all. 

10. I can't think of a tenth but once you get to nine, a list just begs for a ten so I had to include it.

Well that felt good, right?

I feel it necessary to tack on here that the list of things I will always love here has expanded. Bathrooms and taxi rides. You all have already heard 8 times over why bathrooms here rock. ALONE TIME. End of story. But cab rides... ahh cab rides. Now that i know where the cab should be driving and know I'm not being taken around in circles to up the meter price, I can relax a bit in cabs and I have to tell you, it's  a wonderful time to just check out a bit, or muse over something that's been on my mind, or just generally chill out. 

Basically readers, I love alone time. These are the places I have found it so far. Rejoice!

On another note from another world, I registered today for next years classes. And I got into intermediate drawing. Some things are indeed right with the world. If only I could describe to you the complete happiness I garner from going into the art studio at school for hours and intensely focusing on a piece and people call it 'homework' and 'school'. It's perhaps one of the best things in the world. Add in a perfect cup of coffee and I couldn't be happier. 

I can't think of anything to write for tonight. I feel like I've given you a terrible picture of my crabiness towards Jordan now. But take it all with a grain of salt, I know I am. Apologies for the lack of academic thinking in this post/lack of academic posts in a while. They'll be back soon, not to fret. In the meantime, I hope you're enjoying your life and getting lots of hugs (they really are wonderful). below are some photos to satiate you from various places. Love!

post marathon. woot!/thanks for walking with me megan. You'll lie but I know you could have run the whole thing. 

Post Petra pow-wow of exhaustion and love with Miller and Anne.

I miss riding horses, but this sufficed. for the moment...

Photo cred to Biff. Mink and I at Abdali (basically like the worlds largest garage sale that is open all the time).

Megan will say this sunset was a failure because of the clouds. But, true to form, I think it was better because of the clouds. When sunsets are too clear I get bored. Then again, I think that view would have been beautiful no matter what. 

Am I even Allowed to Blog this?

I don't know, nor do I care- it's my blog, I'll blog as I like (those are the rules, right?)
Anyway, readers beware (and I'm not being sarcastic this time), should you only vaguely know me, not care enough to hear the nitty gritty details of my life, or simply don't want to be weighed down by the crappiness of the world, don't read this blog post. I'm serious. I'm normally funny (and quite flippant), but I'm serious this time. If you like happy things, like flowers, puppies, bluebonnets, cherry pie (that's just almost not sweet enough), and believing that Pangloss was right when he said this is the best of all possible worlds, STOP HERE!

If you're otherwise inclined, or bored really, continue reading at your own risk.

I haven't blogged for a while and for that I apologize, you've missed a lot dear readers. I made mansaf with my academic directors family for our final arabic project (Megan and I had a silly awesome time, as always expected when I'm with her) and it was all around a lovely experience. His family is so adorable and his kids are amazing. Then there was a night when Megan and I went riding around with our mutual friend from a coffee shop we frequent through some protests (in retrospect, probably unsafe but great fun). And then there was Southern Tour 2011, which I just returned from this night.

On said Southern Tour, all SITers were scheduled to have our last hurrah of fun before ISP period really starts and we have to buckle down (I'm terrified) and go together to Dana Nature Reserve, Karak Castle, Wadi Rum, Petra, and Aqaba. Basically, southern Jordan. Needless to say we were all very excited.

First stop was Dana, and Karak. Dana was beautiful. I had a little bit of an anthropological crisis because one of the information plaques on the wall said something along the lines of, "we forced the people who were living here to move out when we decided to make this a reserve and relocated them". I still haven't thought through how I feel about this one. Being partially Native American, it sounds a little too icky, but, I can see where they're coming from, I think... Anyway, I would need more information to make judgement anyway so I shouldn't even be talking about it really, I have no idea what those people were doing to the environment before they made them leave. Maybe they really were very destructive to the natural plants and animals. Should've asked more questions, I suppose. Too late now.

Karak Castle was so fun, mostly because of the distinct difference of museums and historic sites here. There are rarely fences and no guards to yell at you and generally you can climb all over everything. Basically an archaeologists worst nightmare. however terrible it was of me I suspended my archaeological preservation worry and just decided to clamber around the castle with the rest of the SITers. It was worth it.

Then came Petra. Okay seriously, if you're still reading and you are a happy person, stop now. Up until here I've given you time to turn back and you've hit the high points. Last chance!

Oh Petra. I was most excited for Petra because I'd been before with my Badia homestay family so now when I went I could chill out a little and just wander through the place. Also, my advisor back at school told me before I left that it's always been her dream to make it to Petra so I figured it's pretty awesome and I should take full advantage of something she's wanted to do for a very long time.

We get to Petra and start walking (sack lunches in hand) and Megan and I make a point to split off from the group. Love them to death but the amount of tourists there was just too much to handle and Megan and I made an unspoken mission to find a nice quiet place and eat our lunch in peace! After walking quite a ways and going past multiple languages, nationalities, and tour groups in general we find a little spot with some stone steps to climb. I'm quite certain it's okay to climb these steps because I did it with my Badia family. We climb up and start eating. A nice bedouin boy selling postcards climbs up and I talk with him a bit and offer him my date cookie for which I am given a set of postcards (the only thing I brought back from Southern Tour in the end). He leaves with a couple of "Yalla Bye's" and Megan and I proceed to eat lunch when an officer shoos us off our encampment because it's not allowed. I was fairly surprised but had sort of expected it so off we went. Wading through tourists again (though i was too really, I shouldn't be so mean when I'm one of them) we find a little spot on the side in the shade and sit down.

Our newfound friend sees us again and gets some of his older friends whom we speak with for a bit before they offer to be our Bedouin guides to Petra, no charge. Who could complain with that? Megan and I warily look at each other warily but end up going along because it sounds like an adventure. We start off on our journey with our 17 and 16-year old guides who speak surprisingly good English and are quite nice. We head up towards the Monastery which is apparently 800 steps away form the Treasury or something. Always up for a challenge we're off at breakneck speed up a whole bunch of stairs.

We meet halfway up a friend of our two new friends who's on a donkey named Monica and they start up with us on our trek. We reach the top and go for some free coffee and tea with our new friends whereupon we talk about a variety of subjects and meet another older guy. Pretty good time. I accidentally wake the baby with my laugh and the men start yelling fairly loudly about something that Megan and I can't discern (turns out they're talking about us) and then we are told that it's time to go.We set off with the two younger guys and get to the Sacrifice Place. We're told here it's for human blood too. I don't believe this, more research is needed.

At the Sacrifice Place we see the two older guys and are promptly told we're going a different way than they are by our younger friends. Hmmmm. Before I know it, I get picked up by one of the older guys (he who shall not be named), thrown on a donkey and we're off, Megan on a respective donkey (named Michael Jackson). This is where I lose track of where we're going and Megan stays on the ball and still could tell you now. But this is my story- read her blog for hers here --> 101 Arabian Nights (I promise it will be good and it's not even written yet, Megan has a way with words).

This is also where my story takes a turn for the 'not blog appropriate'/Sad Southern Tour. Friends, readers, siblings, parents, random stumblers, I was sexually assaulted. Ick, typing it out makes it sound so bland and jarring at the same time. And also so foreign. And also makes me want to hit the backspace button a lot. Alas, I've decided blogging about this, however awkward for you as well as for me and what could possibly construed as a pity post (even though I promise it's not), will be good for me. So you're going to have to deal.

Anyway, Megan's guy and he who shall not be named end up doing a good job of separating Megan from me and me from Megan. In the middle of the desert. On donkeys (which neither of us have ever ridden before). Without water or phones (Yes, judge away, it was stupid). Needless to say I learned a lot about myself I guess and about assault victims. I actually used to be a little jaded about this sort of stuff and thought to myself, "why don't these girls fight back? Why don't they do something? They're not powerless and know it's wrong!" So I always thought, should the situation occur, I would throw some punches and put my karate background to some good use. This was not the case. I was a listless fish. Like those betas that have water in their stomachs just sort of floating at the top of the tank a little glazed looking.

This needs some explaining. It's not like I wasn't vocal about my discontent with the situation. Believe me, I was. But there's this thing that I only really realized after the fact had so subtly occurred that made true anger virtually impossible. he who shall not be named and I had established this tone of joviality which meant, should I violate the norms of our rapport, and gotten violent in response, things could have:
1) actually stopped (at which point I probably would have been left in the desert and had to yell to get Megan to run back to find me and we would have to pick our way back as best as possible)
2) escalated quickly into something worse than what had already happened (if you know what I mean)

Without knowing it, I had made a sort of weighted choice that in order to not take the chance explained above, I would instead operate with the status quo and become a dying beta fish. Listless is the word for it. Listless... what a wonderful word under other circumstances. Anyway, sparing you the nitty gritty details (they're just not necessary for a general audience) that i'll tell you in person if you care to know enough to hunt me down somewhere when I'm home, let's continue.

Megan and I are finally reunited near the exit and we hurriedly walk away from our friends turned captors to the exit of Petra. We stop at a bench, collect ourselves and leave. I take a miniature shower (as much of one as possible) in a port-a-potty because it feels necessary and we're outta there.

Back at the comfort of our Petra hotel, Megan and I talk it over, resolve to forget it then somehow end up talking it over with a few other SIT gals at which point I'm advised (note the technical term here) to report it. We tell staff and then call the police. It's pretty late now. Anyway, we forge ahead, sleepy and tired of the story. Cops come faster than I thought possible, first lieutenant, in fact. I give my statement with Megan at my side and a girl possy a few feet away (that I couldn't have been more grateful for). And after all of my "tolds" have been changed to "advised to's" and clarifications are made between the word 'forced' and 'unwilling participant' (I'm not good at understanding cop lingo) and my sixth recounting of the story, we all take a giggle filled trip up the elevators to our rooms. There was a lot of laughing this night. One would think this was not possible but it was both predictable and necessary. I also have learned I not only laugh hysterically when things are funny but also when I'm extremely uncomfortable. Helpful, right?

Megan and I crash at about 4 in the morning.

I'm fairly certain the next morning Megan and I laugh a little before saying one word to each other.

This day is a visit to a special needs center in a city where one of our coordinators is from and from there we go to Wadi Rum. Recounting this whole day would just make this post unbearably long. Needless to say, at three in the morning he who shall not be named was picked up and is now in jail. (Thank you for the advising on reporting friends, it was the last thing I wanted to do but this day and every day since ad I'm sure for a while, I'll be very glad for it). And I didn't see the special needs center really, because this was a moment where I just decided to cry. So i went outside and laid on the ground next to a bush of rosemary with Megan and Sarah. And cried. And giggled, cried some more, got told to go inside by some people who just don't understand my need to be outside and promptly went a little crazy in a room of death and then ran away like pre-teens and cried some more. It was necessary. And will probably be necessary for a while. Who knows, not me. I've decided to go with the flow.

Then came Aqaba. Oh but before then, I rode a camel. and barely slept in a tent in the wadi where it was so cold I left even my shoes on to sleep. Which is so out of character it's scary. And we took a pretty sweet jeep tour and watched a beautiful sunset. It was a gorgeous day actually. Marred vaguely by previous Southern Tour happenings but beautiful nonetheless.

AQABA. the ocean. Southern Tour's redeeming day. I was on a boat the whole day in the ocean. we  went snorkeling. I dove, saw fish, watched the waves go by sitting on the edge, feet dangling over getting splashed every so often. It was amazing. and sunny. i wish i could create a new adjective to describe how perfect this was. just in general and for me at the time. But I'm no Webster and I probably couldn't make a good enough one anyway.

And then home. I could ruminate about this for eons on this blog and I'm sure I will come back to it in the next couple of posts. But in general, I've begun to contemplate how many camels I'm worth, reconsidered how I feel about assault, unhealthily compartmentalized, contemplated emotions and relationships and how emotional intimacy relates to physical intimacy, or doesn't, wondered at the speediness of the Petra police force, appreciated my friends (both home and abroad), and appreciated the ocean more than I thought possible. And developed a newfound love for Cat Power. Who knew I even had her on my iPod? Not me! But then again I don't know much in general and even less these days. But it's been a pretty okay day so I can't complain. and I have amazing friends and amazing  coordinators here. and my parents are pretty great too.

I'm also alive and like to think I'm fairly well adjusted so, can't complain.

Anyway, love all of you readers, wish me luck as ISP officially begins and I have TONS of work to do. I'll post some photos soon. In the meantime, sorry for the more depressing post, and here's to hoping you'll get yourself to an ocean as soon as possible. It's gotta be the saltwater or something.
<3

I made Guacamole...Oh and there's that Protest Thing

I'm going to try my best here to help you understand what it feels like to be in Jordan right now. Because you aren't here and I am! HA!

Well first of all, here's an article from the BBC:

They are indeed throwing stones, and breaking memory cards (information I got from my little brother who awesomely went to the protests in the circle that is quite close to my neighborhood). So close in fact that today when returning from a cafe in another part of town Biff and I had to walk the rest of the way because the roads were closed and the cab wouldn't take us further.

Here's the part that's hard to explain. Though protests have indeed sped up and gotten more fervent, everything is still wonderful and calm. to put this into perspective, or at least try to. Upon walking back from the cafe Biff and I noted how humorous it was that we no longer have to turn on the TV and watch Al-Jazeera to hear the protesters laments because we can literally hear them screaming from our rooftop and on our walk home. However, tonight I made guacamole. It tasted like home and wonderfulness and my family enjoyed (so they say, I'm going to take their word for it because I make a pretty mean guacamole, courtesy of sophomore year and Sarah Telaneus who gave me the real secret ingredient). I'm also apparently going to a wedding tonight (it ended up that just my parents went, nevertheless someone had a wedding tonight). Because even though this is the Middle East and even though the news back home I'm sure makes it seem like everything's insane, people still get married and make guacamole.
Other than my daily commute facing a few mushkilahs, really everything's great, especially because it's just my little brother's memory card that got broken.

Last night, Biff's family took us on a drive and we got to go around the circle (before they closed it off today) to see what was going on, here's a pretty epic photo from the night.

Now that explaining that is over with, on to my planned blog post of the night. Be prepared, it's literally a copy of the same blog posts I've had over and over again. I'm still going to talk about it, I make no apologies.

 --> Intermission: I have been fed by a total of four people in this country. Megan, Cassie (some of our funnier moments), Sarah Dawn, and my brother Sa'ad (last night I found out that when you have jaaj and roz, apparently it's bad luck not to finish the roz so he literally did the old school 'air plane flying'/feeding a baby and fed me even though i was totally halas-ing that the whole time, bahaha). Also, "being a pessimistic person" when there's a language barrier turns into have a little sad baby in your heart. What?

Along with that, tonight we went up to the roof to observe the police and people everywhere and I am determined to learn how to whistle loudly like my brothers can. you know, the way they do it in the movies when they hail a cab. Watch out America, I'm honing this skill within the next week.
--> finis


So in between the time I began this post and now when I've come back to it to finish it up and actually post it, apparently someone died in the protests at the duwwar. Honestly, who knows what will happen tomorrow. According to my brothers and sister, all of the protesters left because people who are for the king (and think the protesters are calling for the king to step down when really what they're protesting is change in election law and the abolition of appointments in the government) started throwing stones that were actually inflicting bodily damage. So, will they come back tomorrow? No one knows, I think they will. Biff brought this up tonight but, the fact that the protests starting in the rain yesterday was significant, along with the setting up of tents. They mean business, but there's a lot more going on I think than anyone can know, especially and outsider (which is me, if anyone forgot). So who knows, I shall report back of course. What else would I be doing? Oh, studying...woops!


Anyway, BACK to the book that blew my mind. If you've been reading, you'll recall the title well, Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism: The Limits of Post Modern Analysis. Alas, as most anthropology books do (and I should have expected it, honestly) this book posed a lot of questions and offered very few hard and fast answers. But then what kind of anthropology book would it be if it gave actual answers? Granted, it would have been far more satisfying, but would have been far less anthropological. Here are two of  my most thought provoking quotations I pulled from the final chapters of the book:


-The author was discussing the ways in which anthropological work surrounding the tracking of Iranian women in the workplace has been bereft of any serious criticism of Iran (becasue the numbers are so low and losing ground instead of gaining) and in fact sometimes has been prone to a sort of apologetic stance where anthropologists will attempt to justify why the numbers are so low when she wrote, "In all this the question we come down to is why is it that the stagnation (or regression) in women's access to employment and education is not taken as a serious blow to women's status in a non-western context such as Iran, as they would be had the authors been dealing with women's status in the West? Can this attitude be understood in any way other than as reflecting the low expectations of cultural relativists when it comes to the rights of women in non-Western societies?" I added the emphasis becasue it was that question that got me. Is cultural relativism a limiting factor when it comes to women's rights? Are we (as researchers) so afraid of stepping on toes and offending (because of mistakes of the past in social sciences as well as the need to be hyper politically correct so as to not lose legitimacy in the field) so much that it is now impossible to condemn things we see as problems? Or it this hyper sensitivity a necessary evil in order to avoid going back in time to the sort-of ugly past of the social sciences? It would be so much easier if we were dealing with hard and fast facts and could make judgments and say something is either wrong or right. Alas, complaining gets us nowhere. But then again, is cultural relativism also getting us nowhere? Outside of the well-developed framework of the book it sounds terrible to even think about some of these things but are we too bound by being politically correct and by the idea that we can never judge another cultural practice?

 -Along the same lines as the above question, the author, near the end, once again asks the question of limitation, "Should intellectuals continue to blur their own views-apologize for their secularism, even turn to religion- because religion has been presented to the masses as the only genuine, home-grown vehicle for national liberation, and thus avoid asserting their own identities?"
This one is tricky. Mostly because I've been thinking about religion here a lot this past week. In America, I would pretty much be comfortable saying to most people that I dislike religion because I think it muddies the water and is just generally a nuisance.  I openly criticize Christianity, Catholicism, Mormonism, Scientology, etc, etc. And i would have added Islam to that list except I can't bring myself to. Not after having been here. Because something I have realized through discussion with other SITers and contemplation is that the reason I find it difficult to latch onto Islam and criticize it in the same manner I do religions at home is that Islam here is intertwined with the culture in nuanced and confusing ways. It's difficult to separate here what is Islam, what is government, what is culture, etc. And becasue I have established in the framework of cultural relativism a non-judging attitude towards culture, I can't bring myself to be as openly mean towards Islam. So whereas this author says that giving Islam more berth when it comes to being judgmental is a flaw, I would contend that if you look at Islam in the way it is expressed here it becomes more difficult to be as harsh as she promotes. However, she brings up a very good point still that hearkens back to the discussion I had about the previous quotation. Are we being too nice? Are we being too careful? Is there such a thing as being too careful when it comes to the lives of others?

I just don't know.


Like I said before, it would be so nice to have finished the book and have it tidily tie up all loose-ends like a good piece of fluff-fiction should. Instead this book opened up avenues of thought that I hadn't even considered until now (I mean, who honestly contemplates whether they're being too PC...well i guess a lot of people recently). But I hadn't! It has been a steadfast goal of mine for so long to be as PC as possible, becasue I didn't understand why someone would not want to (and still when it comes to just being PC, aside from cultural relativism, I don't understand why you wouldn't err on the side of 'oh hey let's just be nice')! And now here I am, wondering if anthropology has stagnated itself in being the "science of nice-ness" that it can't actually do anything or condemn things that anthropologists feel are wrong. Gah, here I go again. Seriously, circles, CIRCLES.


Anyhow, it's been a splendid day and a wonderful night full of fun (including mock protests staged on my kitchen floor by my siblings and myself during dinner) and I'm off to bed because tomorrow I have plans for pancakes. And even if my mind is in unrest with so many issues being rummaged around and dust being kicked up in my mind's eye from documents in my file cabinets under the label "Things I'm pretty Certain About" being strewn about and reconsidered, and the whole of Jordan is waking up to more protests tonight, I have plans for pancakes dammit. So I'm going to attempt to quell the thinking and embrace the shouting and chanting and (every so often) police sirens as some nice background noise and wake up tomorrow to try and find some blueberries. Goodnight wonderful readers, endless love and here's to hoping you have an amazing breakfast as well (best meal of the day!)!