The Weekend

As promised, multimedia: here's a picture of the snails that greet me every morning on the way to the gym.

I try not to step on them, but I think some people do, because occasionally you see a splintered shell on the path as you walk to class. They disappear after around 7:15 in the morning, though, so you have to be a fairly early riser to get a glimpse.

OK enough about snails. It's the weekend! The way weeks are arranged here works really well for an American schedule: by the time you get to Thursday, it's actually more like Friday, and even though there's school on Sunday, it's not that big a deal because then Monday feels more like Tuesday. Got it?

Anyway but FRIDAY IS THE WEEKEND! So I'm spending it inside, occasionally lesson planning but mostly watching Whose Line and Epic Meal Time to escape the afternoon heat. There was a trip to the Dead Sea for the kids this morning but I hear it's too hot this time of year, and there was a trip to a souk in Amman that I heard was not that cool, so instead I'm staying here (as are all the TFs, I think) and considering trying to get someone to drive us into town tonight. If not, that's fine too; it's plenty comfortable here. And the weekend food spread is particularly good. Pizza for breakfast!

Also, more teaching has happened; specifically, I taught my first two full-length classes on Wednesday and Thursday. The way my particular class schedule works, only one section meets on each of those days, so I haven't yet had to teach two classes in a day, but I have (finally) taught my first 45 minute class, and that is a good thing to have under my belt.

And I think they went well! The first one was a little jumbled and I think we spent too much time on the boring syllabus stuff, but the second one was significantly better, which I'm happy about. Now, of course, I'm realizing that I probably picked the wrong things to cover in that class, and that I'm going about these first two weeks in rather the wrong order, but that seems to be the recurring theme of being a first-year teacher. As well as something goes in 45 minutes, there's always the week, the term, the year to think about, and you can always be rethinking and restructuring (even as you're thinking and structuring for the first time).

Mostly, though, I've been having fun at the front of the classroom. My students have been incredibly engaged in their first one-plus days, both as participants (maybe because I told them it'd be 20% of their grade) and as listeners, and I'm hoping to keep our momentum going as we approach Actual Content. It feels GREAT to not have to deal with the syllabus any more; that's one thing that definitely needs to be restructured.

Off now to take a walk around the running track, which I have yet to explore, so that'll be a way to do something new without leaving my walled citadel. May post again later today? There's always more to write about.

Ben

I should take more pictures

I'm realizing that the first two posts put a lot of pressure on me as far as embedding multimedia, and I haven't been taking nearly enough pictures (by which I mean I've taken zero). But a lot has happened. Here is some of it:

If the last posts came from the cliff's edge, orientation felt like a hundred-foot dive in several ways. First, it was totally exhausting. Second, it was an absolute blast. Unlike a cliff dive, it lasted two days, each of which ended up being nearly 14 hours straight. We played icebreaker games, we had meetings, we made ceramic windchimes, we made art out of plastic bottles, we ate and ate and ate, we played ultimate frisbee but with 5 kickballs instead of frisbees and teams of 50 or 60 people. It was full steam ahead for 48 hours.

But fortunately it was great. Though I live alone in Jumean, I spent all of orientation with the boys of Sulafat House, all of whom are freshmen. They run the gamut from the big, jolly son of a prominent local politician to the feverishly excited student whose last school may well have been a tent in the desert. By and large, they are amazing kids - incredibly motivated, very bright, and rarely without an ear-to-ear smile. Also they look hilarious in their little uniforms. There were, of course, a few stragglers in the bunch, but in general they had a great time all throughout the orientation process and were eager to participate in the onslaught of activities King's provided for them.

On to the most recent news, though, which is TEACHING.

It was kind of a lie to say today was the first day of school, although I did take a first day of school pic because we all had to dress up. Instead of full periods we had little 10-minute chunks of time; the day was structured so that students could get the hang of their schedules. When you're dealing with high schoolers who want to spend the 5-minute passing time hanging out with their friends, 10 minutes ends up being more like 8, so my quality time with my students was minimal.

But it went well, I think! My first class, made up of 10th-12th graders in a relatively even mix, seems like it's going to be an intellectual juggernaut, in addition to being quite attentive and engaged. The second class, which was the last period of the mini-day, is younger - all sophomores (except for one senior who doesn't seem thrilled to be in a class with exclusively younger kids) - and the difference in their critical thinking already felt palpable. But I feel like I got some good face time in with them both in and out of class, and I'm excited to get the actual learning started.

So tomorrow I see my first class, the D Block group, at 8:30am and then am free the rest of the day (my G Block class doesn't meet on Wednesdays). Spending 45 minutes with them is going to feel pretty different from the 10 I had today, and a fair amount of it is just going to be class protocol and such, but I'm excited to get to the actual learning and see how our class environment begins to develop.

The rest of the day's been great: we finished up the inter-House olympics with some very impressive music and dance performances (seems there are more talented singers here than I'd realized, which is exciting), and it's been more or less free time since then. I don't think we'll have this much down time during the semester proper, but I think I'll be able to find times to relax once we've settled into our schedules.

Much, much more to come: in addition to my first real class tomorrow, the music faculty is having a meeting with interested students to see who's signing up for what. So I'm going to get a sense of what my choir will look like. Fingers crossed that those girls who absolutely killed it this afternoon will all be interested in trying out. Stay tuned.

Ben

There were a few clouds in the sky when I left my apartment this morning and I was suddenly struck with fear and doubt. Until today I had never seen clouds from the King's campus, in the morning or at any time. I am not too embarrassed to admit that the first thing that comes into my head when I step outside is this video (skip to 3:05 for the relevant part). The weather is just too good here.

Fortunately the clouds seem to be burning off and it's going to be another perfect day. Not much has changed since my last post: this past week has all been meetings, planning sessions, more meetings, and surprising amounts of free time. But it's all going to change tomorrow when New Student Orientation begins, and after that there's no stopping us. So I thought I would write a little something today as we creep ever closer to actual school.

In the past few days, the student proctors have been arriving. They're 11th and 12th graders who serve as dorm supervisors and mentoring presences for the new arrivals, and they are just unbelievable kids. I have already met one who builds model planes from scratch in his spare time, one who practices capoeira, and many who make fun of me for looking like a student (although I have a fellow teacher to blame for getting that one started). These kids are brilliant and hilarious and obviously the cream of the crop, and while I certainly don't expect all of them to be like that, meeting them has been a good way to ease into the experience.

Today, more meetings, and a few of us are getting together to rehearse a song for the upcoming Open Mic Night (how better to get kids interested in singing than for a bunch of faculty to sing a silly song to them?). As I wrote that last sentence, we got an email with the full details for tomorrow's orientation. It's all about to happen.

From the edge of the precipice,

Ben

Ahlan wa Sahlan

Today is the fifth full day of my school-year-long adventure at King's Academy. Having recovered from jetlag and finished the first whirlwind round of orientations, I finally feel like I have enough energy (and enough material) to begin chronicling my experiences in Jordan. So ahlan wa sahlan! That is, welcome; I don't know much Arabic yet but I do know that. Although I had to look it up to make sure.

At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, the last five days have been utterly amazing. I am surrounded not only by stunning scenery, but by accomplished and inspiring people, and I already have the sense that this is not an institution that takes its mission lightly. Probably some specifics will help:

This is a little slice of King's Academy on a nice day, which is every day. The weather is flawlessly beautiful about 85% of the time: always sunny and clear skies, and except for the heat of the day (around 2-4pm), it's pleasantly warm, with a light and consistent desert breeze. At night the temperature dips down to Perfect, though I hear I may actually need a coat during the winter months. Which just sounds even better.

The building to the right in this picture is my building, Shafiq Jumean House. It's a smaller dorm that's currently unoccupied except for me and Joe Silvestri, the Dean of Admissions, and in fact it's going to stay unoccupied for the entire time I'm here. King's is an expanding school that aims to increase enrollment by 25 kids a year until they reach 600, but right now they're only at 475, so Jumean is empty until the school gets bigger. This means I basically have a building to myself; I already have big plans to make use of all the facilities that wouldn't get used otherwise (read: turn on all four dorm-bathroom showers at once).

I live by myself in a studio apartment. Here is most of it:

There's also a kitchen (in which I stood to take this picture), and a hallway with closet space that leads to the bathroom. And that's all. Most of the other Teaching Fellows live in doubles with about a thousand times more space than this, but I really don't need any more room, and I think the trade-off is worth it to get a whole apartment to myself. It's lonely occasionally, but getting to kick back after the long days we've been having feels like a real luxury. There's fast internet, a cutting-edge TV (see above), and my fridge came pre-stocked with all the essentials: eggs, milk, frozen lasagna, and an enormous jar of mulberry jam. Really, what more could I ask for?

***

So that's the basics. As for my day-to-day life, the past few days bear no resemblance to what my actual schedule will be like, but here's the gist. I highly doubt I'll get into such specifics of each day ever again, so savor these moments.

WEDNESDAY: arrival. Mona Sami, the impossibly friendly HR director, met me in the airport before I even got my visa, and took care of all the payments and logistics. Along with a few other new faculty members, we went out for dinner in Madaba, the suburb closest to King's, at a restaurant called Haret Jedoudna. Everyone calls it HJ and apparently it's all the teachers' favorite; given that I've already been twice, I'm inclined to believe them. The food at HJ has come to be very familiar, because it's the same at most restaurants: plates on plates of mezze, usually including bread, grape leaves, hummus and other similar spreads, and once you're ridiculously full, a huge plate of grilled chicken, lamb, and kebab (which is more or less meatloaf). Suffice it to say our stomachs are well cared-for.

THURSDAY: a free day. Lunch in the staff dining hall and a tour courtesy of the Dean of Faculty, John Leistler, who is an institution around here and kind of reminds me of Cam from Modern Family. This is taking too long so I'm going to put the orientation all together.

FRIDAY-SUNDAY: NEW FACULTY ORIENTATION

A packed weekend of meetings, trips, and incredible meals. This weekend was less about Learning To Teach and more about Getting Our Shit Together: shopping for groceries and apartment essentials; getting our electronics figured out; and sightseeing around the region. Our first day was the biggest trip, up north to Jerash, which is allegedly the most complete Greco-Roman ruin in the world or something like that. Here's the stage of the theater:

And me in front of what I believe to be the Temple of Artemis:

On Saturday we hit Amman for a few of the city's highlights:

- Rainbow Street, the hippest part of town, where I revisited a cafe that the Whiffs went to last year

- Hashem, the famous falafel restaurant, which deserves its renown

- Habibah, a dessert place that makes knafe/kunafa/however you want to spell it. This is the best dessert I have ever had. Picture melted mozzarella cheese topped with a crispy, sweet, oily corn flour dough, with a few crushed pistachios on top. I understand that that is probably hard to picture. But trust me, it was incredible.

- Hamudeh, the bootleg (sshhh) DVD store. I bought season 1 of the West Wing and Breaking Bad, and Fear and Loathing, and Snatch, for 9 JDs (about $12). Score.

And yesterday we bussed up to Mt. Nebo, where Moses looked across into the Promised Land and breathed his last breath. Pretty wild to stand up there and think about how important this dusty patch of desert has been in world history and how much ink has been spilled, and blood shed, on its behalf. More on the politics in a later post, I imagine; I've learned a whole lot already and there's plenty more to come.

***

Finally to the present. Today the full faculty orientation began, so I got to meet most of the rest of my department and start thinking about the actual teaching part of the job. As far as the people and the academics, I'll just mention my department head, Mariam Attar, who said the following thing to me regarding my department of Ethics, Philosophy, and Religion:

"Our department is like a little family, and you can think of me as a colleague - or if you want, habibi, as a mom!"

So that's going to be great.

I'm realizing that all that stuff I said about the people and the institution didn't make it into most of the above novel, and I'm feeling like this post is dragging on forever. Good thing the people and the institution aren't going anywhere. You'll hear plenty about them in the months to come.

I'm going to try to update this at least weekly, though it's hard to say how much I'll be able to do with the hectic schedule I'm about to take on. Either way, thanks for reading, and don't hesitate to comment if there are particular things you want to know. So far the thing I like most about this blog is that it saves me from having to write separate emails to everyone who wants to know what I'm doing here, so tell me what you want to know and I will happily oblige.

It feels right now as if I'm still standing on the edge of the precipice, and I won't really take the plunge until the students arrive next week. There's so much more to come in this year of teaching and learning, but if these early days are any indication, I've found myself somewhere very special and I have an awful lot to look forward to. Talk soon!

Ben