even more random thoughts about my experience so far...

1) At the beginning of our trip when we were living in a really depressing two star hotel called "the Ambassador Hotel", the shampoo seemed rather odd. A few people were having some serious skin problems, and their hair was drying up. I ended up just buying some from the store so I didn't have the problem. A girl in our group was watching one day when the guy came to clean the room, and she says that the guy filled the little shampoo bottle up with not shampoo, but Ajax. Ajax is a chemical used to clean kitchen and bathroom surfaces. It's lucky that nobody got that in their eyes while trying to wash their hair.

2) The most popular show on Jordanian T.V. right now is a Turkish soap opera called "Noor". T.V. sets all across Jordan turn on around 10 O'Clock every night to watch Noor and Muhannad live out their troubled and complicated lives as rich fashion designers. The Turkish name of the show is "Gumus", so I'm not surprised that they changed the name of the show and the main character to the much nicer sounding "Noor". I'm honestly surprised though that they haven't already run out of ideas because just about every thinkable thing has happened. During the last week, Noor and her evil business partner Abdeen took a trip to Eastern Turkey for a store opening. Before they left though, Abdeen lights fire to the factory where the clothes for the family business are made, killing several workers and only injuring the members of Noor's family that happened to be there. Muhannad calls Noor but can't bring himself to tell Noor about what has happened. The evil business partner burned down the factory apparently so that he can kidnap Noor in a helicopter and take her to France. But add to that that Noor finds out she is pregnant, but can't bring herself to tell Muhannad. Eventually Abdeen takes Noor to a cave where he ties here up and beats here. Muhannad comes looking for her and finds the cave minutes after Abdeen and Noor have left for the Helicopter. Eventually Muhannad finds them, but Abdeen shoots Muhannad in the leg and drives of with Noor trapped in the back seat screaming. The Helicopter comes a few minutes later and takes Muhannad to the Hospital. After Muhannad tells the Helicopter pilot about what is going on. He helps Muhannad escape from the Hospital. When Abdeen calls the pilot to tell him to meet him at some other place, and he takes Muhannad with him. When the Helicopter lands, Muhannad jumps out of the Helicopter and starts fighting Abdeen. But Noor picks up Abdeen's gun and shoots him six times. It is one intense show. Interestingly enough though, the series has sparked some domestic conflicts between wives and their husbands in the Middle East. We read an article in a newspaper where a women murdered her husband because he wasn't nice to her like Muhannad on the TV show was.

3) Since the summer term started here at the University of Jordan two weeks ago, they have been selling notebooks out in front of the University. They think for some reason that having a notebook with something written in English on the cover is way cooler than in Arabic. But the English never makes any sense. For example: A notebook with a picture of a kitten reads "The key to creativity is always hiding your sources"; A notebook with a unicorn jumping in the air reads "Funny Day"; a notebook with a boy eating an apple reads "It is easy to enjoy red apple when you be small child like me"; another notebook with a picture of a baby on the cover reads "Small Human".

4) One of my Arabic teachers now pronounces my name as "Broysh".

5) Arabs believe that their language is the hardest language in the world, and therefore impossible for a foreigner to learn. Everywhere I go, people say to me "oh, you are trying to learn Arabic? But it is too difficult". While this may be true to some extent, it really isn't as bad as they say it is. It is possible. Arabs might be the only people in the world who think that English is an easy language to pick up. This may not be true, but it seems to me that people think about Arabic this way because of it's holy nature. Muslims believe that God actually spoke the words of the Quran, through the angel Gabriel, to Muhammad. Therefore, it must be a very difficult language if God speaks it.

6) In my colloquial Arabic class, we got a brand new teacher about a month ago. The guy is nice, but really disorganized. At first I despised the class but now I look forward to it every day. Why? Because we, the students, have taken over, and we decide what we talk about in class each day. Before hand, we were talking about obscure cultural things that weren't interesting. Now we talk about things that we find interesting. For example, over the last few days we have talked about Stereotypes, Urban Legends, Drugs, Cancer, ect. There is really not much of a reason for the teacher to even be there.

7) The Western idea of a "line" or "queue" where people line up for their turn to do something is somewhat foreign here in the Middle East. All the time when I walk into a restaurant or a bank, I'll be standing there behind someone waiting for my turn and some other guy will just walk straight up to the front and lay down his money in front of me. When we were in Egypt, there was a relatively large group of us standing in line to buy tickets for the subway, but people would just stare at us like we were blocking their way to get tickets and they would totally walk in front of all of us. An interesting cultural difference.

8) An interesting observation I've had recently at the University of Jordan has been the difference between Women and Men. The vast majority of Women where the Hijab (Islamic head scarf worn by most Muslim women) and a long dress kind of thing. There are some women who wear jeans and a Hijab, and even less who dress like western women. But interestingly enough, all the men here are dressed in Western clothing except for the occasional Saudi wearing a long white gown. I think this is interesting because most of the women are expected to keep the traditional modest clothing, but the men can wear tight jeans and muscle shirts. Very interesting.