I'm currently procrastinating by writing this post. But this is stuff that has been on my mind now for a bit so I suppose it's not totally procrastinating because maybe writing (typing) it out will let me stop think about it for a while. Plus, I'm not keeping a journal in the country (time constraints permit this from being a feasible possibility) so you blog readers I have a feeling should maybe just skip this post, or read it and get a lot more than you bargained for when it comes to how personal blogs should be. Especially blogs that have been trying to be funny. Because I have a feeling this post isn't going to funny places. But maybe I'll try anyway to keep it hilarious (if anything I've written thus far could even come close to hilarious anyway). And with that my friends, yalla...
Thinking about the bathroom
This one came to me just now as I went to the bathroom to change from my good ol' everyday wear jeans into my pajamas (one of the more awesome parts of any day, I would say). I know I've discussed previously in a very complain-y annoying way that the bathroom is literally the only time I have to myself. This still holds true. But today I think I realized how much I need to go to the bathroom (not in that whole "I have to pee" way, more in the "to preserve my sanity" way). Today I caught myself doing something that I realized I do in the bathroom literally every time I go in without thinking about it. I take about 3-5 deep breaths and just sort of stare at myself in the mirror before I go back out into the real world. I'm not normally assessing how I look even. I'm just sort of staring into space really. Though I have to admit, every once in a while I do find that my hair has just decided to be especially crazy or something and try (failing every time) to tame it (why I still try, I do not know. That's a lie, I do know, I like it crazy. It's like a physical manifestation of my crazy.).
Anyway, I adore the bathroom. I love it. It's like a crutch. When things get overwhelming or I just need a moment's break to slip back into the comfortable skin of utter independence and non-Jordan Sarah, go pee! Plus before I left the states, I read an NPR article on the psychological calming effects (or affects? I'm so bad about knowing that difference) of washing hands. So I take my sweet time being hygienic. This sort of leads me into my next section so in order to maintain post prettiness I'll go ahead and start the new header...
Wanting Home
Of late, I have been feeling very guilty for missing home. I don't miss home in the "homesick" way really, I'm just sort of ready to be back. Today, as I was running in prep for the Dead Sea half marathon, I sorted through why I felt guilty, what I was actually feeling and how I should think about that. Here's where it went.
First off, I don't really miss home. What I found was that instead, I miss independence. Because when I stopped to examine the emotion, I realized if I had an apartment here in Jordan to go home to, I could stay for another 6 months and be happy. I love it here, I do. (Even with the annoying amounts of smoking, which I abhor). I also love my homestay family to death. I can't even imagine how little I would have learned here had it not been for living with them (what a terribly constructed sentence). Seriously though, they've taught me so much and made me laugh more than I thought possible and fed me very well (apparently my dad's goal is to send me back to america fat so that "they know we didn't starve you here"). Anyway, all of those concessions out of the way, I miss my privacy. I miss waking up and when the mood strikes painting for a bit and reading over breakfast and not feeling watched or rushed or bothered. This all sounds so terrible, and it's difficult for me not to feel guilty about feeling this way but that's what I decided at the gym along with all of this thinking. I will not feel guilty about this. I know I love my host fam and they know I love them and I'm fairly certain it's okay to want to be alone.
Along with this though I've also had to sort through some guilt of being ready to go back because there are some folks who are staying on after the program ends to work here over the summer and I know there's tons of people who would die to be in my shoes now and be able to be here, studying abroad, etc. I don't know where I was going with this.
;lakdjfblvakhjbviajfgv;ioauwre
I don't know- I think more than anything, I don't miss home, I just miss my lifestyle and being able to choose how to lead my life in a lot more ways than I can while I'm here.
One of the SIT Oman staff members said it best in a car ride around Oman one day when we were talking about SIT in general. She said that she is always really impressed with the kind of people who sign up for SIT because you're literally volunteering to live in someone else's shoes for four months and give up how you would normally do things if you were to do any other program and just chill in a country but not stay with a host fam.
Maybe I'm complaining too much, maybe I need to spend more time in the bathroom and just get over it. Maybe I'm not using this blog at all what I thought it would be for and instead I should talk about the ceasefire in Libya or the stuff going on in Bahrain...
While we're at it: On guilt, inadequacy, overthinking everything, and anything else I think of that I didn't put here because I couldn't anticipate in this title where my mind would go
Guilt. I hate it. But it's very necessary to my life. Here I feel very guilty becasue there's a large part of me that looks around at everyone else on the program and constantly thinks to myself "omg, why oh why am I not taking full advantage of this program like they all seem to be" Except I'm fairly certain I am. And I'm fairly certain I need desperately to stop comparing myself to people. In every way. (Comparisons: that should have gone in the title). Nevertheless, i feel guilty for not being so politically minded and aware and not being as excited about everything that's going on here. But then again, I think I get excited about other things. Okay, well this is stopping now. It's just silly.
Overthinking everything. This one is sort of self explanatory as the theme of this post is that I just need to calm the hell down and stop thinking so much about everything. I was skyping with my dear mother yesterday and she reiterated how true this one was as I went on some sort of anthropological rant about something or other (can't even remember what now) and she told me something along the lines of:
"Sarah, you just need to stop thinking so much about everything and you won't be so tired all the time".
To which I always reply, "well yes, if I could turn my brain off for a couple of hours everyday, I would. And I have a feeling be a little calmer of a human being."
I, however, have not mastered my brain and there's no button for me to press to accomplish said task so instead I'm forced to just think and think and think and think and think. And normally end up right where I was to begin with, not knowing how I feel about it, or not being able to give a definitive conclusion or opinion on anything becasue let's face it, with most things, you can't. And then I think about why I'm thinking about it, or think about how I'm thinking about it, or think about thinking about it.
Do you empathize at all with this? Isn't your brain hurting just the tiniest bit yet?
Anyway, this post is really me, trying tow rite all of this down so I can, maybe, hopefully, Insh'allah, stop THINKING about it!
And now time for inadequacy. My favorite because it bundles up all of the above (thinking too much, comparing too much, and feeling guilty too much). At SIT Oman, this feeling was in the spotlight for most of the day when we discussed the US response and the response of the EU to the protests and stuff that are going on over here. Someone brought up changing the immigration quota and letting more Libyans come to the US. Maybe I'm more of an idealist than I think so I don't even look into these sorts of things becasue i just don't think they should exist, but I immediately responded "What, we have immigration quotas?!" To which everyone looked at me as if I was some sort of alien. And then on top of that, we're not willing to change the numbers to let more Libyans come over when they're leader is literally having them killed right and left?!
I find this disgusting.
And the SIT Oman students (and I'm sure some Amman ones) found my lack of knowledge disgusting. And then the thought occurred to me that all this time, maybe I've been excused for my lack of knowledge in many areas because of the good ol' Texas "they don't know anything" stereotype. Or maybe I've been excused for this lack of knowledge about so much becasue even I don't take myself too seriously. All too often I'm very willing to look like the idiot in the room and ask very simple, stupid questions. This is normally never a problem. But then every so often, people do indeed laugh at me. At which point I want to die. It takes a lot to air out how utterly stupid you are about certain topics by asking what to others is common knowledge already. And then to have people confirm your stupidity by laughing is nearly impossible to handle. I think up until SIT Oman, I had been fine with being stupid. It's a good place to be when you think about it because it means that you can only ever learn more and ask more questions. But my breaking point was that room. And now I'm still thinking about how completely terrible it was. I wanted the slightly scuffed tile floor to eat me up so I could disappear.
And that's enough of that. If I think about it too much again I'm going to feel like a complete dunce again and that just won't do because I know I'm not. Maybe...
There's a very large part of me that feels that I royally screw myself over at every turn. For instance, languages and majors. I took french for 6 years, then quit to take chinese because I was bored and wanted to try something new, hated chinese and then couldn't go back to french becasue I'd forgotten too much so I'll take arabic instead right?! GENUIS!
And then majors: Major in chinese because I think it will be the end-all, be-all of my college career, then switch to geology for lack of any other ideas when chinese falls through then switch anthropology when I find out I could care less about rocks. So now I'm left knowing nothing about china or chinese, very very little about rocks, and am just beginning to learn things about anthropology (and am still focus-less to both my and my advisor's dismay).
Well.Done.Me.
So now I know nothing about anything and all I've ever wanted to do is know EVERYTHING. fail.
But then again, that's a very unattainable goal anyway. I suppose my real goal was to know everything about a certain something. To be like a master of micropaleontology or something and be like the only consultant for that that NatGeo would ever think of putting on TV because I simply am the leader in my field. You know what I mean?
And because I"ve jumped around so much I feel like that's never going to happen.
Ugh, this is just the most terrible blog post ever. I sincerely hope you're not reading this.
Closing Thoughts
I can't think of any more to say about anything today. I suppose I could tell you about my day but other than a quick mansaf dinner to mabrook my cousin (i think) who graduated from dentistry school in Pakistan, I can't think of anything that happened that's noteworthy enough to make it into the blog. Other than to remind whoever was insane enough to read all of this whining that despite this momentary allowance of negativity, I really do love Amman and have fun everyday. I'm just being a temporary negative nancy/neglectful blogger becasue I'm not actually transmitting any cultural notes or political commentary in this post. As usual, apologies and love. Until next time, enjoy this photo of Anne, whose delightfullness I wish i could emulate more often.
Thinking about the bathroom
This one came to me just now as I went to the bathroom to change from my good ol' everyday wear jeans into my pajamas (one of the more awesome parts of any day, I would say). I know I've discussed previously in a very complain-y annoying way that the bathroom is literally the only time I have to myself. This still holds true. But today I think I realized how much I need to go to the bathroom (not in that whole "I have to pee" way, more in the "to preserve my sanity" way). Today I caught myself doing something that I realized I do in the bathroom literally every time I go in without thinking about it. I take about 3-5 deep breaths and just sort of stare at myself in the mirror before I go back out into the real world. I'm not normally assessing how I look even. I'm just sort of staring into space really. Though I have to admit, every once in a while I do find that my hair has just decided to be especially crazy or something and try (failing every time) to tame it (why I still try, I do not know. That's a lie, I do know, I like it crazy. It's like a physical manifestation of my crazy.).
Anyway, I adore the bathroom. I love it. It's like a crutch. When things get overwhelming or I just need a moment's break to slip back into the comfortable skin of utter independence and non-Jordan Sarah, go pee! Plus before I left the states, I read an NPR article on the psychological calming effects (or affects? I'm so bad about knowing that difference) of washing hands. So I take my sweet time being hygienic. This sort of leads me into my next section so in order to maintain post prettiness I'll go ahead and start the new header...
Wanting Home
Of late, I have been feeling very guilty for missing home. I don't miss home in the "homesick" way really, I'm just sort of ready to be back. Today, as I was running in prep for the Dead Sea half marathon, I sorted through why I felt guilty, what I was actually feeling and how I should think about that. Here's where it went.
First off, I don't really miss home. What I found was that instead, I miss independence. Because when I stopped to examine the emotion, I realized if I had an apartment here in Jordan to go home to, I could stay for another 6 months and be happy. I love it here, I do. (Even with the annoying amounts of smoking, which I abhor). I also love my homestay family to death. I can't even imagine how little I would have learned here had it not been for living with them (what a terribly constructed sentence). Seriously though, they've taught me so much and made me laugh more than I thought possible and fed me very well (apparently my dad's goal is to send me back to america fat so that "they know we didn't starve you here"). Anyway, all of those concessions out of the way, I miss my privacy. I miss waking up and when the mood strikes painting for a bit and reading over breakfast and not feeling watched or rushed or bothered. This all sounds so terrible, and it's difficult for me not to feel guilty about feeling this way but that's what I decided at the gym along with all of this thinking. I will not feel guilty about this. I know I love my host fam and they know I love them and I'm fairly certain it's okay to want to be alone.
Along with this though I've also had to sort through some guilt of being ready to go back because there are some folks who are staying on after the program ends to work here over the summer and I know there's tons of people who would die to be in my shoes now and be able to be here, studying abroad, etc. I don't know where I was going with this.
;lakdjfblvakhjbviajfgv;ioauwre
I don't know- I think more than anything, I don't miss home, I just miss my lifestyle and being able to choose how to lead my life in a lot more ways than I can while I'm here.
One of the SIT Oman staff members said it best in a car ride around Oman one day when we were talking about SIT in general. She said that she is always really impressed with the kind of people who sign up for SIT because you're literally volunteering to live in someone else's shoes for four months and give up how you would normally do things if you were to do any other program and just chill in a country but not stay with a host fam.
Maybe I'm complaining too much, maybe I need to spend more time in the bathroom and just get over it. Maybe I'm not using this blog at all what I thought it would be for and instead I should talk about the ceasefire in Libya or the stuff going on in Bahrain...
While we're at it: On guilt, inadequacy, overthinking everything, and anything else I think of that I didn't put here because I couldn't anticipate in this title where my mind would go
Guilt. I hate it. But it's very necessary to my life. Here I feel very guilty becasue there's a large part of me that looks around at everyone else on the program and constantly thinks to myself "omg, why oh why am I not taking full advantage of this program like they all seem to be" Except I'm fairly certain I am. And I'm fairly certain I need desperately to stop comparing myself to people. In every way. (Comparisons: that should have gone in the title). Nevertheless, i feel guilty for not being so politically minded and aware and not being as excited about everything that's going on here. But then again, I think I get excited about other things. Okay, well this is stopping now. It's just silly.
Overthinking everything. This one is sort of self explanatory as the theme of this post is that I just need to calm the hell down and stop thinking so much about everything. I was skyping with my dear mother yesterday and she reiterated how true this one was as I went on some sort of anthropological rant about something or other (can't even remember what now) and she told me something along the lines of:
"Sarah, you just need to stop thinking so much about everything and you won't be so tired all the time".
To which I always reply, "well yes, if I could turn my brain off for a couple of hours everyday, I would. And I have a feeling be a little calmer of a human being."
I, however, have not mastered my brain and there's no button for me to press to accomplish said task so instead I'm forced to just think and think and think and think and think. And normally end up right where I was to begin with, not knowing how I feel about it, or not being able to give a definitive conclusion or opinion on anything becasue let's face it, with most things, you can't. And then I think about why I'm thinking about it, or think about how I'm thinking about it, or think about thinking about it.
Do you empathize at all with this? Isn't your brain hurting just the tiniest bit yet?
Anyway, this post is really me, trying tow rite all of this down so I can, maybe, hopefully, Insh'allah, stop THINKING about it!
And now time for inadequacy. My favorite because it bundles up all of the above (thinking too much, comparing too much, and feeling guilty too much). At SIT Oman, this feeling was in the spotlight for most of the day when we discussed the US response and the response of the EU to the protests and stuff that are going on over here. Someone brought up changing the immigration quota and letting more Libyans come to the US. Maybe I'm more of an idealist than I think so I don't even look into these sorts of things becasue i just don't think they should exist, but I immediately responded "What, we have immigration quotas?!" To which everyone looked at me as if I was some sort of alien. And then on top of that, we're not willing to change the numbers to let more Libyans come over when they're leader is literally having them killed right and left?!
I find this disgusting.
And the SIT Oman students (and I'm sure some Amman ones) found my lack of knowledge disgusting. And then the thought occurred to me that all this time, maybe I've been excused for my lack of knowledge in many areas because of the good ol' Texas "they don't know anything" stereotype. Or maybe I've been excused for this lack of knowledge about so much becasue even I don't take myself too seriously. All too often I'm very willing to look like the idiot in the room and ask very simple, stupid questions. This is normally never a problem. But then every so often, people do indeed laugh at me. At which point I want to die. It takes a lot to air out how utterly stupid you are about certain topics by asking what to others is common knowledge already. And then to have people confirm your stupidity by laughing is nearly impossible to handle. I think up until SIT Oman, I had been fine with being stupid. It's a good place to be when you think about it because it means that you can only ever learn more and ask more questions. But my breaking point was that room. And now I'm still thinking about how completely terrible it was. I wanted the slightly scuffed tile floor to eat me up so I could disappear.
And that's enough of that. If I think about it too much again I'm going to feel like a complete dunce again and that just won't do because I know I'm not. Maybe...
There's a very large part of me that feels that I royally screw myself over at every turn. For instance, languages and majors. I took french for 6 years, then quit to take chinese because I was bored and wanted to try something new, hated chinese and then couldn't go back to french becasue I'd forgotten too much so I'll take arabic instead right?! GENUIS!
And then majors: Major in chinese because I think it will be the end-all, be-all of my college career, then switch to geology for lack of any other ideas when chinese falls through then switch anthropology when I find out I could care less about rocks. So now I'm left knowing nothing about china or chinese, very very little about rocks, and am just beginning to learn things about anthropology (and am still focus-less to both my and my advisor's dismay).
Well.Done.Me.
So now I know nothing about anything and all I've ever wanted to do is know EVERYTHING. fail.
But then again, that's a very unattainable goal anyway. I suppose my real goal was to know everything about a certain something. To be like a master of micropaleontology or something and be like the only consultant for that that NatGeo would ever think of putting on TV because I simply am the leader in my field. You know what I mean?
And because I"ve jumped around so much I feel like that's never going to happen.
Ugh, this is just the most terrible blog post ever. I sincerely hope you're not reading this.
Closing Thoughts
I can't think of any more to say about anything today. I suppose I could tell you about my day but other than a quick mansaf dinner to mabrook my cousin (i think) who graduated from dentistry school in Pakistan, I can't think of anything that happened that's noteworthy enough to make it into the blog. Other than to remind whoever was insane enough to read all of this whining that despite this momentary allowance of negativity, I really do love Amman and have fun everyday. I'm just being a temporary negative nancy/neglectful blogger becasue I'm not actually transmitting any cultural notes or political commentary in this post. As usual, apologies and love. Until next time, enjoy this photo of Anne, whose delightfullness I wish i could emulate more often.
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