Spring beginnings

Good morning everyone - happy March, and happy Sunday!

Yeah, Sunday. Today's the first day of the third term, and thanks to my brand-new term schedule, I don't teach class today until after lunch. I do have other responsibilities this morning, but not until 11:10 which isn't for another two hours. I feel the need for all this bolding because these changes are still very much bold in my mind. How on earth am I going to spend such a long and empty morning every Sunday for the rest of the year?

Well, I think I'm off to a good start: printing and stuffing envelopes for a hopefully fun and definitely gimmicky start to the new term, and listening to the Yale Glee Club sing major works on Youtube. So uh, nothing to argue with so far.

It seems that Jordan has decided to welcome in the new term with a rather aggressive showing from the weather department: the weekend was beautifully sunny and warm, and when I left my apartment at 8:15 it felt more like noon. Can't say I'll argue with the shift, sudden though it is...but I hope this doesn't represent a general upward trend, because at this rate we'll be downright tropical by mid-April.

So, third term, huh? It feels different than the last new beginning in December, which had me flashing back nostalgically to my earliest days at King's. I'm excited to try some new things with these classes now that I feel like I have my sea legs; to kick off today, they're getting an envelope containing a single piece of paper on which is written "Who are you?" Is that exciting enough? Hope so. Whatever.

I miss my second-term kids, but we had a relatively short time together, especially since it was broken up by the winter break, and now that I've had two groups of kids I feel a bit less attached to the individual ones. I'm also starting to know more and more of the students who make their way into my class, and these groups contain some of my favorite kids (and some who I've heard are pains, but what fun would it be without that). You'll hear plenty about the new classes as the term continues!

So it's a long and leisurely morning waiting for the future to make its way down the tracks. Before then, though, how about a bit of the past:

***

Last week, the last of term 2, was pleasant and uneventful enough. Classes were very smooth as we wrapped up our philosophical explorations, and I taught the Glee Club a spiritual instead of working on the song we've been practicing, because I felt like it. Here's some food.

A meal at Beit Sitti, the cooking class/restaurant that I went to in October. Delicious as always, and stay tuned - I'm planning to do an Official Food Blog Post on a Real Food Blog about this very meal! So consider this a taste, if you will. Sorry about that one.

And here's the fare from a Yemeni place we visited the same day as Beit Sitti; it was a pretty excellent weekend for food overall. Basically you just rip off pieces of the bread and put it in one of those bowls and have yourself a great time. After a somewhat troubling time navigating ourselves through Amman to get to this place, it was well worth it.

And yesterday we built a cardboard boat! The annual Cardboard Boat Race is tomorrow so I thought I'd include a teaser. It promises to be hilarious, if nothing else. Our boat is called the H.M.S. Hubris and looks like a rectangle. We're going to win.

And last but certainly not least in the "The Past" department, I now feel ready to show off the final project that a student partner and I put together for this term of Arabic. Look how much we've improved! It's all in Arabic, but trust me, you'll be able to get the gist. And we didn't even lose points for including exclusively non-Arabic music!

***

As the strains of the Duruflé Requiem continue to waft from my computer speakers, I'm thinking about the impending spring, and how we got here. Two-thirds of the way through the first year of teaching; one week from spring break and the family trip to Istanbul (!!!); done with January and February, which seem generally acknowledged as the toughest months of the school year. Frankly, I thought they went pretty quick.

About 100 minutes to go until my first actual obligation of the day, and look how much has already been done! I can fill these mornings with all kinds of adventures. You're bored now though, because I haven't actually had any adventures yet. Be patient. We've got three months to go, and tomorrow I'm seriously considering getting up at 3 to watch the Oscars. So let's get this March Madness started!

O, February!

I'm lying in my bed right now at the beginning of what promises to be my laziest weekend in a while. After two weeks of trips that began at the crack of dawn on the first day of the weekend, I'm perfectly content to spend the next two days a little closer to home. I'm also glad to have this time because there's so much to write about from the last week. Apologies for the delayed update; I was mired in grading during my usual blog-posting times, and I have enough adventures to share that I figured I'd wait until I had a serious Chunk Of Time in which to share them.

I suppose I can divide this post into two sections: Jerusalem and Everything Else, including my birthday. Are you excited yet? Don't worry, there will be pictures.


PART ONE: JERUSALEM.

Last weekend, King's Academy graced its winter-weary faculty and students with a perfectly timed long weekend. After a typically long and busy Wednesday, we were suddenly faced with the prospect of three whole days of freedom; I'd say it was a novel concept, but in reality we haven't had back-to-back 5-day weeks since the beginning of 2014, so I should probably stop complaining.

Anyway, Chase, Meg, Yasmine, and I had been charting our course for three days of adventure for a while, and early Thursday morning, the journey began. We were going to Jerusalem!

Thursday.
I'm realizing how many pictures I want to put in here. Get ready for a long one.

We were up and out at 6:45am, when a bus from King's took us and a few other faculty travelers to the border. The trip from King's to the Holy Land went something like this (I took careful notes):

6:45 depart King's for Jordanian side of border
7:30 arrive at border, sit around, pay immigration fee, board bus
8:50 bus departs across Allenby Bridge/King Hussein border crossing. This is when I had my first sighting of Hebrew, which made me even more excited than I'd already been:

9:05 arrive on Israeli side of border, wait in long (but fairly efficient) security line

9:35 make it through line; Israeli security/passport check #1. Wait for Yasmine to get double-checked by security. We had always expected that bringing an observant Muslim friend would delay the process a bit; no worries.

10:25 after another wait, make it through Israeli passport check #2. Now, the waiting game: Yasmine doesn't make it, and neither do the two teachers with Lebanese and Syrian passport stamps.

11:00 still waiting for the three to come through the checkpoint. Playing MASH and eating snacks. Taking bets on who'll make it through first.

11:25 everyone's through! Heather won the bet. Let's go to Jerusalem!

After another bus ride, we arrived at our stop near Damascus Gate close to 1pm, for a total trip time of about six hours. This was no surprise or hassle to anyone; we all knew it'd be worth the trip anyway, and to be honest, we didn't know the half of it.

At last, Jerusalem!

This, if you can believe it, is the view from where we were staying. The Ecce Homo Convent is about a 3-minute walk from Damascus Gate, past a well-known and deservedly popular falafel restaurant (of which we availed ourselves). Once you climb to the third-floor balcony, this preposterously gorgeous sight awaits. Immediately we were convinced that Yasmine had made the right choice of lodging.

Here's my "room" (that is, cubby w/curtain) in the convent, in case you were wondering. I didn't actually stay there Thursday night, but more on that later.

And so began our adventure! The first stop was the Wall, and I was grateful that the others gave me a chance to put on tefillin and offer up a few prayers. We wanted to go to the Dome of the Rock, but it was already closed to tourists when we showed up. Next time.

Next, we wended our way to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (no pictures because they're all kinda dark); a real Frankenstein of a building packed with tourists and monks and incense and insanely important religious artifacts. Hadn't been since my first trip in 1999, I think; it was cool to go back.

And then, naturally enough, a food adventure! Yasmine took us to Zalatimo Sweets, a fairly literal hole in the wall in the Arab Quarter at which one vaguely pear-shaped, vaguely sad-eyed man makes exactly one kind of pastry. It can be filled with either cheese or nuts, and it looks like this:

It's doused liberally with simple syrup, and also usually covered with powdered sugar, but we didn't get any this time because he was already closed when we showed up. Somehow, though, we managed to convince him to make one more batch for us, and by the time we left, all four of his tables had filled back up. Understandably so, too: the stuff was delicious. (We went back on Friday).

Never full enough, we met up with Chase's friend Jocelynn and brought her along to our next stop: West Jerusalem. The plan was to meet Micah Hendler (Whiff of 2011; currently directing a choir of Israeli and Palestinian teenagers) for dinner on Emek Refaim, and I trusted Google Maps to get us there on foot, which it did with no trouble at all.

After dinner of impressive proportions at a place called Caffit, Micah sent us back up the street by way of a truly beautiful bike path built High Line-style on old railroad tracks:

As if that weren't enough, the old train station has been repurposed to include shops, restaurants, and (in the center of the frame) a giant and fairly creepy wooden sculpture of a man extending his hand as if to move a checkers piece.

It was here that we ran into the other King's teachers, completely by chance, and arranged to meet them for a tour under the Western Wall the following morning.

Then it was up to Zion Square for waffles at Babette (this isn't my picture, but it's very accurate). This place is well-known, and again for good reason: the waffles, and especially the toppings, were ridiculous. We went all-out with six different toppings to sample; if I had to pick a favorite, it'd be a tie between hot fudge, butterscotch, whipped cream with strawberries, sour cream and applesauce (!), cinnamon cream cheese, and maple syrup. Yes, that's all six. They were all that good.

So I bid farewell to the others, who wanted to make it back to the convent for the 11pm curfew, and met back up with Micah in Zion Square for a little night out. He took me to Mahane Yehuda, the outdoor shuk which at night becomes a seriously hip bar scene. We grabbed Palestine's finest Taybeh beers at a place that was playing Arabic music, caught up about old times, and I crashed on the futon at his very well-located apartment. All told, a pretty fantastic first day, but there was plenty more to come.

Friday.

I woke up on the futon around 7am, and sleepy though I was, I had a feeling it'd be worth it to get moving and see West Jerusalem by morning. This was the right decision. My beautiful walk back up Ben Yehuda and Jaffa Streets to the Old City included this awesome newspaper guy:

And this beautiful view of Damascus Gate:

And this morning market scene as I walked down the Old City path to the convent:

When I arrived at Ecce Homo, Chase had already been awake for hours due to incessant rooster crowing outside the window. I immediately had less regret for my own decision to get up early. And then we were off! First a quick stop at St. Anne's Church, highly regarded for its ludicrously beautiful acoustics. I would be lying if I said that Meg, Jocelynn, and I didn't throw down a little "Amazing Grace," and I would've been happy to keep singing except that some church group came in and wanted to experience the place for themselves. Which was fine, but I wish they'd had at least two-part harmony. Unison? Really?

We met up successfully with the other teachers for the tour under the Wall, but were informed upon arrival that the next tour wouldn't start for another 75 minutes or so. This prompted Matt and me to make a mad dash to get some shopping done Mahane Yehuda (basically retracing my steps from the morning, only further, and we took the beautifully clean and efficient light rail). I had no time for pictures, because we were literally ducking and weaving the whole way from the throngs of people entering the Old City for Muslim Friday prayers to the Friday morning market shoppers preparing for their Shabbat meals, but we got everything we went for: halvah for Matt, and some supplies for my own Shabbat meal (plus a yarmulke and an insanely delicious chocolate rugelach, because I could pay for them with change).

And we made it back to the Wall in time! Here is a picture of what I believe to be Warren's Gate, the closest place you can get to the presumed site of the Holy of Holies. 

This is where I will briefly pause to reflect on the fact that this was in some ways not just a trip to an amazing city, but a trip to the amazing city. To travel with two Christians and a Muslim was a powerful and enlightening experience, and the feelings of wonder, connection, pride, and intense conflict that came over me throughout the weekend deserve more than a few blog sentences to do them justice. Jerusalem is an amazing place on the surface too, but it is inseparable from religious and historical dimensions both ancient and painfully modern, and it was a real privilege to be there and begin to feel viscerally and personally a place that most people aren't lucky enough to visit, and some people aren't allowed to visit at all. I'm always happy to elaborate one-on-one if you want to learn more. 

No pictures from the rest of the day, because as Shabbat fell and we began the deeply Jewish part of the weekend, I wanted to keep electronics to a minimum. Here's what we did, though:

- walk back down the beautiful bike path to a synagogue at the bottom of Emek Refaim, where Micah had invited us to Nava Tehila's once-a-month musical Kabbalat Shabbat. This was a highlight of the trip for all four of us, even the non-Jews: a 90-minute service led by a circle of singers, guitarists, percussionists, and one girl who played the cello. The rabbi, who was also one of the singers, spoke for a total of about 5 minutes scattered throughout the service; most of the time, we (seated in concentric circles around the musicians) listened, and sang, and felt the music. No tunes were familiar, but they were so easy to learn that the whole congregation would join in quickly enough. From sublimely soft, meditative pieces to reggae-inspired nigunim that had people up on their feet, the Nava musicians guided us through a powerful and deeply spiritual service whose meaning was not lost in translation on any one of us, or on the adorable French nuns who apparently come every month. I sincerely hope I get the chance to go back.

- after the service, I again said goodbye to the other three, and Micah and I went to a potluck Shabbat dinner hosted by some American and British students at the Pardes Institute. It was a slightly more observant Shabbos than my typical ones, which I generally prefer if I'm going out somewhere, and the guests were an amazing mix of students and young professionals with thoughtful and varied perspectives on Judaism. Deep conversation and excellent food carried us into the night; my contributions, an eggplant dish and two boxes of chocolate rugelach from Marzipan bakery in Mahane Yehuda, went over very well.

And then it was back to the convent, and to bed. 

On Saturday I began to understand what Chase had meant about the roosters, but eventually I and my feathered foes agreed that it was time to get up, and after breakfast at the convent and a brief shopping trip, it was back to the bus and back to the border. The trip home took about four hours, and I have to confess that I felt a twinge of what might have been homesickness as we pulled away from the Old City. For all the difficult and challenging feelings that Jerusalem, and Israel, can invoke, I still find myself drawn to it, and I have every intention of going back for our April long weekend (which happens to be during Pesach). I suppose this is a very rambly post already about a trip that happened a week ago, but there's a lot to do in that place, and a lot to say about it. I'll be back to our neighbor in the West before long, so keep your eyes peeled. 

***

PART TWO: EVERYTHING ELSE.

Um...can I say anything about the last week that will be nearly as interesting as last weekend? Not really, no. It was a fine week of class and I'm a little baffled that February is one week from ending and Spring Break is two weeks from starting. Baffled, and also excited. I'm going to be in Istanbul in two weeks!

OK OK but first, a bit about my birthday, I guess. It was a very nice birthday, and my B Block class sang to me, as did my sit-down lunch table, and my advisees the following day. I managed to get my Supervised Study Hall covered so that a few of us could go out for dinner, and Daniel sneakily and masterfully engineered a surprise cake from Abbey Road:

Made from scratch, and they gave it to us on the house! Now that's class.

Even classier, though, might be the cake I got from my advisees at lunch the day after:

I don't think I ever expected a cake that referred to me as "Mr. Ben," and I must say that it was an excellent decision by the advisees. So now I'm 24, and King's did a great job ushering in the day, and having a free afternoon to Skype with the family really brought the whole thing home. I will spend the entirety of my 25th year of life in the employ of King's Academy, and although 23 might have had some splashy moments (college graduation; moving halfway around the world), I expect this year to bring no shortage of adventure, and more likely than not you'll all get to read about it.

Well. It's been more than an hour since I started writing this post, and I feel like I need a break from "responsibility." Today, the birthday celebrations continue with a party for me and another teacher whose birthday was the 19th, preceded by a chili cook-off on-campus at which I'm apparently helping. A Friday of lounging around, party shopping, cooking and eating chili, and then enjoying the company of friends and food and drinks? I'll take it. February wanes; 24-dom waxes; bring on the next step.

(For now, though, I'm gonna stay in bed and watch some TV.)

Wadi Rum, Round Three

Yes, you read that right: I went to Wadi Rum again. I'm currently two months into Operation GTWREMO2014 (Go To Wadi Rum Every Month of 2014), and month three is pretty much in the bag thanks to the impending family visit. Will April happen too? It's not impossible.

If I learned anything from this weekend, it's that you can never really get too much of Wadi Rum. This was a very different trip in some logistical ways: smaller group (3 guys and 3 girls), and camping in the Actual Desert instead of outside. The place itself, though, provided all the magic and majesty it had last time, and knowing what to expect didn't diminish the feeling at all.

Want proof? Here.


We arrived in the afternoon, sun high in the sky, and were greeted by the familiar expanses of desert and towering rock structures as we sped away from the little Wadi Rum town in the bed of a pickup truck.

Lina, Mia, and Moamer exploring one of two (!) thrilling rock bridges we encountered. Check out that backdrop!

The second rock bridge. It was significantly less scary being up there, I promise.

This time, I made sure to take about eight thousand pictures of the sunset. Here's one of them; I'm pretty happy about the way my state-of-the-art iPhone camera caught the light. It was a transcendently beautiful thing to see, and I was sad that we weren't meditatively silent while it happened, but that's what next trip is for!

Our camp, the morning after. It was really freaking cold at night and Chase kept stealing the thick quilt (we were sort of sharing a bed), but there's something so comforting about sleeping in many layers of clothing and under many soft blankets. And waking up to this sight made it so, so worth it.

So a very successful trip, I'd say - our evening in the camp was a pleasant one, with a hearty dinner and tea and ghost stories and a serenade by a remarkably talented oud player and singer. I liked our guide/driver, Suleiman, and I think I'll get in touch with him about leading our March trip as well. Thanks for some beautiful memories, Wadi Rum; so glad I'll be back so soon.

Since then, a thoroughly normal week; my classes are getting pretty pumped about our politics unit, so it's been fun to jump into that together, and there are some dinners and parties later this week to keep things interesting. Most exciting of all, though, is our long weekend, because early Thursday morning, we're going to JERUSALEM!!!

I don't think I realized how exciting this was until this week. I've been here for an awful long time without crossing our western border, and it's going to be really nice to be back in the Old City to see sights and explore and even catch a Friday evening service. From everything I've heard, it's impractical to go unless you've got a long weekend on which to do it, so we jumped at the chance and I really can't wait. Two more days.

You may not hear from me before then, because this is my only Supervised Study Hall of the week (hooray!). Until next time, enjoy these pictures, and get ready for stories of what is sure to be a blast of a weekend.

It's February!

Hello from supervised study hall, everyone! I once again find myself whiling away the hours as a bunch of dejected-looking boys stare at their laptop screens and wait for the clock to strike ten. It feels like it's been a while, so I found some pictures that could help illustrate my recent Exciting Experiences.

1. Chinese/Korean/Lunar New Year/Spring Festival

No one could really figure out what to call it, so I'm gonna use every name we came up with. But this past weekend I was on duty, and glad of it too, because I got to once again experience the amazing cultural diversity of this school. We put on a hell of a weekend for our Chinese and Korean students (and everyone else as well!), centered, naturally enough, around food.

One of our teachers, a Singapore native and fellow Yale grad, literally co-opted the dining hall kitchen, and it seemed the staff were as excited as he was to be putting their skills to use on something new. But our feast was also very reliant on student helpers, who put their culinary skills to work and crafted a truly unbelievable meal. Highlights included the Korean kids' bibimbap and dukbokki (delicious rice cakes in a spicy sauce that I last had on the street in Seoul), and the dining hall's renditions of beef with broccoli and fried fish weren't half bad.

Here's my own masterpiece: Vietnamese spring rolls! I was somehow put in charge of making them, and after about a zillion tries, got pretty good at it.

I have to say, making spring rolls was definitely not on my list of expectations before coming here. But this place is full of surprises.

We finished off the evening with some hot-air balloons:

And here they are heading skyward. It was a pretty beautiful sight (23 of them in all), and a great end to a busy and thrilling and very culinarily exciting day.

2. The Khalayleh House!

Fewer pictures here, but still fun: on Saturday evening, my teacher friend Moamer invited a bunch of us young folks to his family's house, about an hour outside Amman in a town called Rusaifa. Moamer is one of 7 brothers, nearly all of whom either work at, attended, or are about to get accepted to King's. He's the physics teacher; one brother is an admissions officer; and another brother is a current junior (and Glee Club member!).

And their house was super cool. Up in the hills in a middle-of-nowhere type place, it was beautiful and nicely decorated and his parents were awesome and served us delicious food. Even better, we ended our evening by visiting the school that they founded (?) and on whose board they serve. Here's a picture of the recently-completed second floor:

Really awesome to see a slice of Jordanian life outside the King's bubble. Hope I get to go back someday.

3. The Present

What's left to say? There are some things I left out last week (eating more delicious things when we celebrated Africa Night on campus; going to an awesome concert by a super-popular Jordanian band), but those feel long ago and there are plenty of exciting things on the horizon.

This weekend, it seems I'll be making my way back down to Wadi Rum, this time with more teacher friends to spend the night under the stars. And next weekend is a long weekend, which means Jerusalem! Plenty of pictures and musings and updates certainly to come after that.

Until then, though, February moves along steadily. Pumped for the weekend tomorrow, and for some good discussions in class (we're talking about the problem of evil which is always a good conversation starter), and for the adventures yet to come. And only 40 more minutes of study hall! My, how the clock keeps ticking.

Waning Long Weekend

Hello again, world! Apologies for the two-week hiatus; frankly, not much happened last week to warrant an update, and also it was midterm week so all of my free seconds were hijacked for grading and comment-writing. But now, my comments are done (at least the drafts of them), and my grading for the weekend is done, and my lesson planning is more or less done, and here I am with some seconds to spare!

I think this job is making me more of a workaholic: in weeks like this past one, during which I had next to no free time, I actually wanted to spend what free time I did have on more work. It just felt like there was so much to do, and every minute I spent goofing off was a minute wasted on the other end of things, so my days were pretty much crammed full of typing and circling things and inputting things into Engrade, the magical online tool that calculates everything for you. It can feel kinda nice to be so jam-packed, even if the days sometimes end up being 10-12 straight hours of activity with barely a dinner break in between. Today, which was a long weekend Professional Development day, a fellow teacher made a joke about barely getting 5 hours of sleep, and I laughed collegially on the outside but my brain was saying "PLEASE DON'T LET THAT BE MY LIFE WHEN I DO THIS FULL-TIME."

Because that's the big news from the week, I suppose: I'm coming back! My contract is signed for the 2014-2015 school year and I'm getting more and more excited for what's in store. Here are some very very fuzzy details:

- I'm hoping to move into an actual dorm and be a dorm parent, partly because it'd be fun and partly because my salary would get a significant (10%-ish) boost

- I will probably rent a car from the school and share it with Chase

- I will have my own advisees! Which is a little scary, honestly, because it feels like a big responsibility to be the "here" at which the buck stops for 4-5 students. But I'm looking forward to really connecting with some kids and feeling like I have a group to call my own...

- As for the classes, I thought you'd never ask. A lot is still not set in stone: generally teachers do 4 or 5 classes each, so at least double what I'm doing now, which I think is the usual load at schools around the world. However, I have the distinct honor of inaugurating a brand-new and super-exciting King's Academy class: Big History.

Created by some kind of super-curriculum-designing-squad and funded by none other than Bill Gates, Big History is about grand designs and big-picture thinking, which when I consider it makes it sort of a meta-class. See, I'll be teaching one section of 9th graders here at King's, but only twice a week - the rest of the time, I'll be leading online seminars and discussions with students from every other school that's implementing the course - that means America, and maybe Japan, and maybe beyond!

There's a lot to learn about the course, and in order to learn it all, I'm going to be attending some PD sessions, which means travel, which is thrilling. The first is in February (which is very soon, not that I'm counting) and will be in America somewhere; location TBD so I get to be on tenterhooks for at least a few more days. The next is in August in San Rafael, CA - an excuse to spend some summer days in California? Sign me up.

And what, you may ask, will I be teaching, exactly? Well, a little of everything. The point of Big History is to start at the very, very beginning (i.e. the Big Bang) and take the students all the way up to the present day. Every lesson has been meticulously planned, down to the specific seconds at which I should pause each video to ask the predetermined discussion questions. I'm interested to see how this plays out; on the one hand, of course, it's such a relief to have all the planning taken care of, but I wonder how much it'll feel like an impediment to my autonomy in the classroom.

More than anything, though, it's a fairly wild new experience, which only makes the prospect of next year more exciting. There's plenty more to come as the next few months sort themselves out; you'll know the details just about as soon as I do.

Other than that, it was a weekend of relaxing, cooking, eating things other people had cooked, and playing board games, which seems like just the right way to unwind after a busy busy week. Four (far less hectic) school days stretch out between us and February, and I'm showing The Matrix on Tuesday and Wednesday, so let's get this party started.

Wild Wadi Weekend

Hello again from Supervised Study Hall, where it seems I'll reliably have time to blog as long as I'm not grading or forcing the children to be quiet. They seem to have gotten the hang of things by now, and I usually kinda look forward to the 2.5 hours of mandated quiet sitting time. Productivity goes through the roof when you can't really do anything or make any noise. At least it does for me; can't really speak for these layabouts.

What a weekend, though! First off, it was a surprise 3-day weekend: we were going to have class off on Monday, but they switched it to Sunday last-minute, so all of a sudden the world was our oyster and we made the most of it. In brief:

THURSDAY: A return to Burger Shack for delicious burgers in celebration of a fellow teacher's birthday. TONS of students milling around and dancing; they were super embarrassed by our presence but we mostly thought it was kinda hilarious. Then a return to King's for adult refreshments and silly card games.

FRIDAY: A trip to the brand-new Carrefour in Madaba, which is a huuuuge game-changer for the grocery fanatics among us. It's closer by a factor of 4 than any grocery store was before, and has a giant selection (including home goods and kitchen supplies and rugs and shoes) at lower prices than the other grocery stores. It was PACKED with King's people when we were there, and Yasmine and I took full advantage to host a dinner party at which we served baked ziti and Noor baked cookies and a truly delightful time was had by all. And then out to Amman to hang out with Joanna's brother, who was in town, and we got back at 1:30am which wasn't great for what ended up happening the next day.

SATURDAY: See below. Ridiculous.

SUNDAY: Relaxed, prepped for class, watched Downton Abbey, the usual. Back to Saturday.


Really this post is about Saturday, because my threshold of crazy adventures in Jordan keeps getting bumped up. Now that I've piqued your curiosity, here's the deal:

Saturday was going to be a pleasant day: Alli had planned a trip to the art gallery, and my Arabic teacher was hosting a gathering afterwards at a nearby cafe. Normal, pleasant weekend day. But Jordan had other plans: on Friday afternoon, just before the Carrefour shopping trip, Alli sent the following email:

This was somewhat surprising. Immediately I knew I was doing it, and so it was that four hours after falling asleep at 2, I was back up and ready (-ish) to hit the road. The adventure unfolded as follows:

Four teachers (Alli, Meg, Jimmy, and I) gathered at 6:30 to drive to Amman. A bizarrely thick fog had settled over the highway as we drove, and it took us a little while to make our way to the mall at which our "charter bus" planned to meet us. Said bus ended up being a rickety powder-blue affair - I wish I had a picture - whose windows kept getting jostled open, exposing us to the surprisingly cold morning air. I had a hat and a scarf and I wore them the whole bus ride, sleeping fitfully and reading my book as we bumped and screeched our 3-plus-hour way to Wadi Rum.

The only other travelers on the bus were Americans, Russell and Allie, who had gotten the same call and had similarly adventurous spirits. Around 11, the six of us arrived at our destination: Wadi Rum station, a roadside museum of sorts dedicated to a truly beautiful train:

                                      

I had been smitten by this train the last time we went to Wadi Rum, and was more or less beside myself to finally be in its presence now. (Check my Facebook profile picture for proof). Not only that, but there was a reasonably big crowd milling around, and some professional-looking equipment, and a lady who introduced herself as Diala and told us she'd be taking care of us. This seemed like enough to go on, so we went into the exhibit for respite from the cold.

Hours and hours we waited. As promised, they served us lunch, which very unexpectedly was a quite tasty chicken tikka take-away that was, even more bafflingly, still warm. How they shipped it out to our desert outpost may always be one of the mysteries of this day. We passed the rest of our time by standing, sitting, pacing, and exploring the nearby railway offerings:

                                                      

Tracks to nowhere.

The part of the train where the coal gets shoveled. Boiler? Guess Thomas the Tank Engine didn't teach me that much.

Wadi Rum, beautiful even in the clouds. If you look closely you can see Meg wandering across the lower right of the image.

But at long last, that is, at about 3:30, our time finally came. And what a time it was.

The star of the music video was Jaafar, a pop singer of apparently modest fame and allegedly nephew of the king. As far as we could tell, the gist of the video was that he was performing a concert on the flat bed of a train car, and we (along with about 30 others) were to be his audience. This involved dancing, flailing our arms, and looking extremely excited, and we were good at it.

We were so good, in fact, that we were singled out from the crowd to be focal points in almost every shot. When they shot the crowd from behind, we stood at the back. When they focused on the front row, we were the front row. When they needed to surround the lead female concert-goer with excited-looking audience members, we were the go-to gang. And so we listened to about 90 seconds of awfully catchy pop music over and over and over and over again, dancing up a storm all the while and having a blast. Jaafar proved a somewhat unpolished performer, not really heeding the director's instructions (mostly "dance!" and "energy!"), but we did a plenty good job providing our own enthusiasm.

Shooting wrapped up as the sun set, and we took a long cold sleepy rickety ride back to Amman, and cranked up the heat in the car on the way to King's. Exhausted and victorious, we arrived back in time for a full night's sleep.

I have no idea when this video will get released, but I am fairly certain that I will feature in it to some degree. Rest assured that you will know as soon as I do. Most importantly, it was every bit the adventure I hoped it would be, and I feel validated once again in the "never don't go" ethos. No regrets, as they say. 

Life goes on, though, and now it's time to wake up the sleeping girl in this study hall. Again. See you soon!

Back for 2014

I am sitting here in Supervised Study Hall, which provides all the joys it did way back in December, and thinking about how soon I'll be able to go to sleep. I got back to Jordan on Friday night and slept for eight delightful hours, but that appeared to be a fluke, as I've since woken up at 4:13 and 3:18 respectively (funny how my seriously exhausted brain chooses those kinds of specifics to remember).

But I got back to sleep last night, and I'm approaching the point of being so tired that I have no choice but to sleep through the night. I hope.

Mostly, though, it's been a couple days of reacquainting myself with the routines of life here. Classes, meals, co-curriculars, lesson plans and grades and free evenings - slowly but surely I'm sinking back in, and enjoying the little differences that have so far separated this week from three weeks ago.

First off, I'm taking tae kwon do as a co-curricular. I say "taking" because I'm not at all in charge; there's a professional instructor, the genial and surprisingly flexible Coach Mustafa, and all I have to do is take attendance and reacquaint myself with martial arts. Can't complain; with very little responsibility, I get to exercise and punch and kick three times a week, and ever since the Great Capoeira Experiment of senior year ended after one session with black blood blisters on both my big toes, I've been hankering to get back in the game in a way that doesn't leave me immobile for a week afterwards. So that's been fun.

I'm also about to start individual voice lessons with a handful of students. But I haven't yet, so that one can be a cliffhanger for now.

And of course, the new classes, with whom I had less than two weeks before the break. We're definitely still feeling each other out, but both of them have continued to be sharp, hardworking, and good-natured, and if they keep that up, I can't imagine I'll have much to complain about these winter months.

Except the cold, because it's cold. Often in the low 40s at night, and 50s during the day, which wouldn't be terrible except that they're still getting the heat worked out. So far it's been safe to assume that the outside temperature will be equal to (or sometimes even greater than) the inside temperature. I don't usually mind 42 degrees when I have a jacket and am only outside for 10 minutes, but my hands are just a tad numb as I write this, as if winter is just giving me a frosty little nudge to remind me it's there. Plenty of heat in my apartment, though, plus a new fitted sheet (cause I sure know how to treat myself), so I think I'll manage.

***

I almost published this post and then I realized I didn't really talk at all about the last three weeks. I guess most of you reading this saw me at one point or another, but in case you were wondering, it was truly a wonderful vacation. Highlights included:

- seeing family in NYC, Woodbridge, DC, and Vermont (all of these instances were largely focused on eating, except one where we watched The Hobbit)

- celebrating my first-ever Christmas at Sam's house (also almost entirely food-centric)

- taking Sam skiing for the first time, and introducing her to the crucial 2:3 ratio of skis per day:huge meals per day

- reuniting with Spizzwinks up and down the east coast. Managed to get nine of us together in Brooklyn one evening, which was an absolute joy. Can't wait for my crazy jaunt back in April

- I'll remember some other things and talk about them later maybe. It's late.

Basically, I had a blast, and the readjustment period has passed full swing but definitely isn't over. I guess I miss those folks back home, and as much fun and excitement as there is every day at King's, it's certainly impossible to jump back in as if those three weeks didn't happen. As I've reiterated countless times to myself, I should mostly feel glad to miss people because it means I'm lucky enough to have people to miss, which of course is easier to say than to actually feel but I'm doing my best. Don't cry for me, America; this place is still a lot of fun, and I can only look forward to getting back in the groove for the coming two months.

Twenty minutes until I leave this room of disgruntled teenagers, and hopefully twenty minutes after that I'll be sleeping for the next eight hours. Wish me luck. Happy New Year!