2nd edition of "A Piastre for your thoughts":
These are things I overheard while thinking to myself...
There are few public clocks in Jordan, does this contribute to the lateness that everyone seems to accept as culturally acceptable?
It's springtime but there are no lawn mowers. That is most likely because there are no lawns. I'd never thought I'd miss them.
That being said, there is a different sound that overtakes all other sounds: close-proximity HONKING. I walk a minimum of 30 minutes along the side of the road each day and for some reason whenever a semi passes close to me, it honks. I nearly die of an MI each time. They must just love to watch people jump.
I've been here long enough to notice commonalities in the flaws of ESL speakers here:
"Since 2 years" or "Until 2 years" means "2 years ago"
"My brother is Canada" means "my brother is Canadian"
"She speak Germany" means "she speaks German"
On the classification of four-legged animals:
I also made a breakthrough regarding my understanding of Arabic. I was always under the impression that Arabic was difficult because most words sound the same hence my spinach vs. full and bathroom vs. pigeon disasters. However, I realized today that English-speakers learning Arabic is just as hard as Arabic-speakers learning English. Shabana is different from Sabaneh in the way that poetical is different from political. We have an equal amount of close words. In my interview the other day, the woman kept saying what sounded like "owed" instead of "odd" and she had to write it down in order for me to capture her meaning. I also recall my first breakthrough with Spanish and then Arabic where you begin to recognize the breaks between words in fast speech. That is a precursor to this understanding. Once you begin to recognize root words such as "poem" with suffixes or verb endings or prefixes, the language becomes a beautiful web rather than a broken window.
I watched a documentary where a child was shown any four-legged animal and recognized it as a dog. Then he was taught that four-legged animals do in fact differ from each other, and he was shown how to differentiate them. This is what happened with me and the Arabic language over the last semester. I am proud to say that after 3 months, I can tell one four-legged animal from another! WOOOO. Web of wisdom.
Did you know the capital of Slovenia is Ljubljana?
I'm beginning to think that the reason for much of the strife and conflict in the world is because it is way easier to see the differences between people and it often takes some effort to uncover the similarities. Language, religion, ethnicity, culture all stand in the way.
It took me 3 months to accept the fact that this program does not allow me to travel. Yet, Nolan and Lauren Lutz came to me!
Arabic words learned as a result of my research:
heka-it was said
wakaeea- reality
al garb-the West
foreigner-ajnabee
Now for some #strugglesJO...
I still haven't mastered getting in and out of cabs gracefully.
I got incredibly lost on the way to two of my interviews. The former was the fault of an address that can be misinterpreted as a location almost half an hour away from my destination. The latter "lostness" was due to the simple fact that Amman and most Middle East cities only recently got house numbers and only recently paid attention to the names of streets (rather than operating by landmarks). I got dropped of in front of a building numbered 10 in Marj al-Hamam. I called my interviewee, a young mother with a Masters in Islamic Studies, and she reported that I was not in the front yard of her building. hmmm...I proceeded to walk 40 minutes and I found 3 different buildings labeled with the number 10 in a 4 block radius before finding hers. I also found a supermarket called "supermarket for you". Priceless. My last interview of the day was with Khulood Allozie, Professor in Islamic law at the University of Jordan and she took so much silent joy in tearing apart my questions with "what do you mean by that term??" bahhhh "western influence". And those are my #ISPstruggles.
By the time this information gets to my word document of transcribed interviews, it has already passed through 3 minds and been reinterpreted twice . In essence, it the thoughts are triple distilled, holding the rocks of course (because Jordan lacks ICE).
These are things I overheard while thinking to myself...
There are few public clocks in Jordan, does this contribute to the lateness that everyone seems to accept as culturally acceptable?
It's springtime but there are no lawn mowers. That is most likely because there are no lawns. I'd never thought I'd miss them.
That being said, there is a different sound that overtakes all other sounds: close-proximity HONKING. I walk a minimum of 30 minutes along the side of the road each day and for some reason whenever a semi passes close to me, it honks. I nearly die of an MI each time. They must just love to watch people jump.
I've been here long enough to notice commonalities in the flaws of ESL speakers here:
"Since 2 years" or "Until 2 years" means "2 years ago"
"My brother is Canada" means "my brother is Canadian"
"She speak Germany" means "she speaks German"
On the classification of four-legged animals:
I also made a breakthrough regarding my understanding of Arabic. I was always under the impression that Arabic was difficult because most words sound the same hence my spinach vs. full and bathroom vs. pigeon disasters. However, I realized today that English-speakers learning Arabic is just as hard as Arabic-speakers learning English. Shabana is different from Sabaneh in the way that poetical is different from political. We have an equal amount of close words. In my interview the other day, the woman kept saying what sounded like "owed" instead of "odd" and she had to write it down in order for me to capture her meaning. I also recall my first breakthrough with Spanish and then Arabic where you begin to recognize the breaks between words in fast speech. That is a precursor to this understanding. Once you begin to recognize root words such as "poem" with suffixes or verb endings or prefixes, the language becomes a beautiful web rather than a broken window.
I watched a documentary where a child was shown any four-legged animal and recognized it as a dog. Then he was taught that four-legged animals do in fact differ from each other, and he was shown how to differentiate them. This is what happened with me and the Arabic language over the last semester. I am proud to say that after 3 months, I can tell one four-legged animal from another! WOOOO. Web of wisdom.
Did you know the capital of Slovenia is Ljubljana?
I'm beginning to think that the reason for much of the strife and conflict in the world is because it is way easier to see the differences between people and it often takes some effort to uncover the similarities. Language, religion, ethnicity, culture all stand in the way.
It took me 3 months to accept the fact that this program does not allow me to travel. Yet, Nolan and Lauren Lutz came to me!
 |
| JHU Abroad Students. International Symbol of Peace in bortherly Mustache-hood. Enough Said. |
heka-it was said
wakaeea- reality
al garb-the West
foreigner-ajnabee
Now for some #strugglesJO...
I still haven't mastered getting in and out of cabs gracefully.
I got incredibly lost on the way to two of my interviews. The former was the fault of an address that can be misinterpreted as a location almost half an hour away from my destination. The latter "lostness" was due to the simple fact that Amman and most Middle East cities only recently got house numbers and only recently paid attention to the names of streets (rather than operating by landmarks). I got dropped of in front of a building numbered 10 in Marj al-Hamam. I called my interviewee, a young mother with a Masters in Islamic Studies, and she reported that I was not in the front yard of her building. hmmm...I proceeded to walk 40 minutes and I found 3 different buildings labeled with the number 10 in a 4 block radius before finding hers. I also found a supermarket called "supermarket for you". Priceless. My last interview of the day was with Khulood Allozie, Professor in Islamic law at the University of Jordan and she took so much silent joy in tearing apart my questions with "what do you mean by that term??" bahhhh "western influence". And those are my #ISPstruggles.
By the time this information gets to my word document of transcribed interviews, it has already passed through 3 minds and been reinterpreted twice . In essence, it the thoughts are triple distilled, holding the rocks of course (because Jordan lacks ICE).
Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit.
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