And it hits. I sure am paying the price for overexcitement and little sleep. Today was sloppy, and while I felt like a lame puppy, still eager to please and overly happy, I just couldn’t quite make it through. Not to mention a couple little setbacks. I suppose it can’t always be romantic. Today started out early, as it will for the rest of the semester, at 630am for class. Arabic was great, I feel like I’m going to pick up so much more learning it here than any school in the U.S. learning not only modern standard but colloquial dialect too. I had a full conversation with a cab driver on my way home today. There was some sputtering, but that’s still acceptable I would say…after a week…Otherwise I began my two other classes today, and when I found out that my second class was 1) Environment and the Politics of Water in the Middle East, and 2) given to me fifteen minutes before the class started, 3) also delegated the moment I was scheduled to have my blood drawn to receive my resident card for Jordan, I was a little put off.
Now, I’ve never had a fear of needles, and there’s nothing about blood that makes me queasy, but I just thought I’d let the nurse and the faculty supervising know that I have a tendency to pass out when getting blood drawn. “Are you afraid of needles?” No… “Are you afraid of blood?” No… “Ahh! Tsss, you’re fine!” One minute later, my last words before I hit the floor were “uh oh”. I scared half the student group in the waiting room (the same room where the blood was being drawn) and apparently was lifted and propped up by a couple friends who were waiting to see the show after I had told them of my tendencies. Thank goodness. The descriptions are never pretty “Man! Like your eyes rolled back and you were WHITE, I mean WHITE. You looked dead!”… On that happy note, I was running five minutes late to my first class. Now, upon arriving to the University, an orientation to our classroom buildings was apparently too much to ask. Knowing full well that our campus is a ten minute CAR ride from one end to the other, I asked a local student where the class was. She, as all Jordanians do, did not point me in the direction, but took the time to walk me the TWENTY FIVE minutes to my building…Arriving at 11:30 for an 11am class is excellent, especially when the professors ends it at 11:50pm for afternoon prayer. Momtaz (Excellent). This was my introduction to the Environment and Politics of Water.
When I walked in, the conversation was heating up about the drought in the Dead Sea and the flooding in Egypt and hydrology and it was around then that I realized that never in my life would I be in a class like this again (inshallah). I’m not sure how to justify this in my academic career, but on the other hand, I am here pretty much only because it is an experience I needed to have and see and smell with my own senses to understand, and if it takes putting up with a class on the water patterns of the West Bank, so be it. Did I mention that there is one book for the class of 25? One book. Technically there are five separate books we are to read, but only one copy of each. This means we, as a class, have to FIND the book (because Lord knows it may not even be in this country), chip in and pay for an Arab Kinkos to photocopy 25 copies of 5 books. Now, this might not seem like a big deal, and it actually is, but the bigger problem is that we have been told it is a violation of copyright laws in Jordan to make more than one copy of any text by the program. The head of the program teaches a class under the same conditions, and told her class “Here is one copy, take it, and do with it “what you will” so that you all can read it…wink.”
Good start. The next fun fact is that now, while I am half dead, exhausted, nauseous, migraine-y, and walking twenty five minutes after passing out at 12 noon in the heat to a class I can’t believe I’m actually in, I find out that while this class ends at 3:30, my next class, twenty five minutes away (only if you keep up a sharp pace) begins at 3:30 also.
Resplendently, when I arrived at my next class…a half hour late, again, I fell asleep at the table and was contemplating throwing up on the floor in my dream. The notes I took in class are laughable…there are swigglies all over the place where I fell asleep before I could finish a word or a thought and there are marks all over my shirt. I kept trying to wake up, but it is just the most painful feeling. I realized that every time I had passed out in the past, I took a nap afterwards. This time, I chose to walk 25 minutes one way, have class and then walk 25 minutes the other way, in the desert, during the sustenance-less holiday season. The great thing about this class is that half of them are people with whom I bragged about my addiction to the gym, and who signed up with me the day before (did I tell you I joined a gym in Amman? It’s really quite stunning). As such, I received more than my fair share of “READY TO GO ??? It’s GYM DAY!!! Get your stuff we’re out of here!” As a slave to peer pressure, Alex picks the puddle of a corpse she left on the desk and shuffles to the gym for a less than desirable work out on a machine I’m embarrassed to say ellipticalled me into another world. The environment was very comforting, on the other hand, and I had a free, long, shower which was extraordinarily refreshing. I’m glad I went, and the temptation to pass out now (voluntarily) is excruciating. Unfortunately, it is 6pm here now and much too late to nap and still sleep soundly tonight (not to mention the 90 pages of reading I’m supposed to do from this packet I don’t have with an Arabic quiz tomorrow, again). Oh life.
It was amazing, though, how quickly I felt like resigning myself over to Allah today or taking a plane home for the afternoon, or semester. When things go wrong and they are out of your control, it seems sometimes just impossible to pick yourself up instead of wallowing in self pity. It is so easy to forget why you came, what you are doing and to keep inconveniences in perspective. It’s a feeling of insecurity, which I have to say I am not used to feeling. When I found myself in this spiral of overwhelmed physical exhaustion, being worn out from the lack of direction this program offers and the overabundance of independence, I sat in the cab on the way to the gym overlooking the 4 o’clock sun on the city. I realized had two options. I could psychologically quit, drag my feet and increase my emotional load, or I could swallow my pride a little bit and go back to that place that lead me here. I reminded myself what I was doing, why I was doing it and thinking that my potential goals for this trip are actually inconclusive. I can’t set them because they will fulfill themselves when I’m looking back when I arrive home. I will realize that there are so many other things I could have been doing, so many other places I could have been and so many other people I could be staying with in order to feel comfortable. But would any of them be good enough to give up what I have now?
Not one.
