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.
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.
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