I'm so sorry for not posting more, but I've been doing so much (actually its mostly me sleeping and studying and working on college apps)..hence I haven't really been able to post.
So now that I'm with my host family, life is a bit more like it is back home. Given, it's nowhere near the same, but I do feel like I'm in a family. After the first three days (in Oman, after three days of living with a family/someone Omani, you are no longer considered a guest), i was able to wash the dishes, help out around the house, and feellike I actually belonged. We went to visit various family members/friends, because one thing Omanis love to do during Ramadan is go out and visit people. We went to one of the host sisters friends house for Iftar, and we ate SO much. The food was delicious, but it was also alot. Then two days ago, their ama (aunt from the dad's side) came to eat Iftar at our place. They have three sons, one is 17, he wants to either study chemical engineering or medicine, and the other is 15, he doesn't know what he wants to study. And two daughters, one is 13 and will begin high school this year, and the other one is about Joud's age (my youngest host sister), so about 10. The older brothers went to England to study English during one summer I believe, so their English is really good, but they REFUSED to talk to me. OK ok, you can say it's cultural, meaning that they rarely interact with girls that aren't family, but still! It's so strange for someone who has guy friends, because I don't see them as any different. In the end, the 15 year old started talking to me, and we talked about the US and what he wants to study, what I want to study and so on.
Yesterday, out FGLL (facilitated group language learning) teachers brought us ice skating. One thing you have to know about me and ice skating: I used to be really bad, meaning I couldn't and wouldn't let go of the wall, but then one day I did, and fell. So now I'm more comfortable and really like to ice skate, when I get a chance to, which is very rarely. Anyways, yesterday we went ice skating. At first it was fun cause it was only us on the rink and in the center place, but about half way through this group of guys came in and just started watching us. OK, I would understand watching some strangers ice skate for a couple minutes, but not for like an hour. It was very b'nefsegi (awkward) because they weren't even pretending to look at their phones, they were just straight out staring at us. Oy vey. But it was fun nontheless.
Oh also, as we were driving back home, I asked our driver (all in Arabic) if maybe today we could stop by the hotel to pick something up because I forgot something there, and he understood me...after about five minutes of me repeating myself :)
Also, regarding post cards, I have them...but I will not send them because they will arrive..maybe if we're lucky in december. So I will mail them from my house when I get back.
School. School. School. We haven't gotetn back our midterms ( :( ) so I have no idea how I did, and we got a new teacher!!! His name is Sultan, and he only speaks Arabic to us, which is better than Wafa (aka Wafooy), who got fired last week....awkward...
She was a good teacher, but she had never taught before so despite her attempts to have us learn different words, no one ever remembered them. So our new teacher is pretty much a boss, also because he acted with Faisal (our other teacher) in college and today we saw a clip of him acting...it was way too funny. So I really like our teachers, and in all honesty, they are the best language teachers I've ever had..in any lanugage.
Sleep. I feel so sleep deprived sometimes. Here it's normal to stay up until odd hours of the night beacuse people have to eat suhour (my host mom wont let me fast if i dont :( ) which is at about 3.30 am. And then they sleep until 2pm the next day. Due to the fact that I have school, I can't sleep in that much, so as a result, I've been getting very minimal amounts of sleep. Yay. AND OHMYGOODNESS COLLEGE APPS YOU ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY. Yes, I am one of those people that needs to start them early because if I don't, I will never finish them. So I;ve started, and as I'm attempting to write my personal statements, my host sister Ola asks me if I'm done, because in her mind I should be done writing an essay in one night. Who wouldn't? She also thinks it's absurd to have to go through this extremly intense process of applying to college, and then having to pay for it as well (take note, American colleges)! In Oman, you make a list of about 40 colleges and majors you would like to do and send that in to the government. If you have the higher marks in your classes (aka A students), the government hands out scholarships to go abroad. FO instance, my host sister Ola is going to the UK to study translation. This wasn't her first choice, but she still has a completely paid scholarship to study in the UK. She will stay with a family, so room and board are covered, her books are covered, everything is paid for by the government. Now, when I'm posed with the question "why doesn't the US do this?", I always have to explain that the US, unlike Oman, has many people. Not almost 3 million people, but way way more people, so the government would go into ENORMOUS debt paying for all of our schools.
Oh Oh the day before yesterady, we had a lecture on Omani politics. It was perhaps the most interesting lecture I've ever had. I cannot sum it up in a few words and I have to get to class soon, so I'll jsut tell you that we were lectured by a political science professor and he also used to work in the government, so he for sure knew what he was talking about.
So that's what I've been up to. I'll try to remember to write some more later on.
Ma Salama!
On a side note, EVERYTHING I own smells like frankincense. No joke.
So now that I'm with my host family, life is a bit more like it is back home. Given, it's nowhere near the same, but I do feel like I'm in a family. After the first three days (in Oman, after three days of living with a family/someone Omani, you are no longer considered a guest), i was able to wash the dishes, help out around the house, and feellike I actually belonged. We went to visit various family members/friends, because one thing Omanis love to do during Ramadan is go out and visit people. We went to one of the host sisters friends house for Iftar, and we ate SO much. The food was delicious, but it was also alot. Then two days ago, their ama (aunt from the dad's side) came to eat Iftar at our place. They have three sons, one is 17, he wants to either study chemical engineering or medicine, and the other is 15, he doesn't know what he wants to study. And two daughters, one is 13 and will begin high school this year, and the other one is about Joud's age (my youngest host sister), so about 10. The older brothers went to England to study English during one summer I believe, so their English is really good, but they REFUSED to talk to me. OK ok, you can say it's cultural, meaning that they rarely interact with girls that aren't family, but still! It's so strange for someone who has guy friends, because I don't see them as any different. In the end, the 15 year old started talking to me, and we talked about the US and what he wants to study, what I want to study and so on.
Yesterday, out FGLL (facilitated group language learning) teachers brought us ice skating. One thing you have to know about me and ice skating: I used to be really bad, meaning I couldn't and wouldn't let go of the wall, but then one day I did, and fell. So now I'm more comfortable and really like to ice skate, when I get a chance to, which is very rarely. Anyways, yesterday we went ice skating. At first it was fun cause it was only us on the rink and in the center place, but about half way through this group of guys came in and just started watching us. OK, I would understand watching some strangers ice skate for a couple minutes, but not for like an hour. It was very b'nefsegi (awkward) because they weren't even pretending to look at their phones, they were just straight out staring at us. Oy vey. But it was fun nontheless.
Oh also, as we were driving back home, I asked our driver (all in Arabic) if maybe today we could stop by the hotel to pick something up because I forgot something there, and he understood me...after about five minutes of me repeating myself :)
Also, regarding post cards, I have them...but I will not send them because they will arrive..maybe if we're lucky in december. So I will mail them from my house when I get back.
School. School. School. We haven't gotetn back our midterms ( :( ) so I have no idea how I did, and we got a new teacher!!! His name is Sultan, and he only speaks Arabic to us, which is better than Wafa (aka Wafooy), who got fired last week....awkward...
She was a good teacher, but she had never taught before so despite her attempts to have us learn different words, no one ever remembered them. So our new teacher is pretty much a boss, also because he acted with Faisal (our other teacher) in college and today we saw a clip of him acting...it was way too funny. So I really like our teachers, and in all honesty, they are the best language teachers I've ever had..in any lanugage.
Sleep. I feel so sleep deprived sometimes. Here it's normal to stay up until odd hours of the night beacuse people have to eat suhour (my host mom wont let me fast if i dont :( ) which is at about 3.30 am. And then they sleep until 2pm the next day. Due to the fact that I have school, I can't sleep in that much, so as a result, I've been getting very minimal amounts of sleep. Yay. AND OHMYGOODNESS COLLEGE APPS YOU ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY. Yes, I am one of those people that needs to start them early because if I don't, I will never finish them. So I;ve started, and as I'm attempting to write my personal statements, my host sister Ola asks me if I'm done, because in her mind I should be done writing an essay in one night. Who wouldn't? She also thinks it's absurd to have to go through this extremly intense process of applying to college, and then having to pay for it as well (take note, American colleges)! In Oman, you make a list of about 40 colleges and majors you would like to do and send that in to the government. If you have the higher marks in your classes (aka A students), the government hands out scholarships to go abroad. FO instance, my host sister Ola is going to the UK to study translation. This wasn't her first choice, but she still has a completely paid scholarship to study in the UK. She will stay with a family, so room and board are covered, her books are covered, everything is paid for by the government. Now, when I'm posed with the question "why doesn't the US do this?", I always have to explain that the US, unlike Oman, has many people. Not almost 3 million people, but way way more people, so the government would go into ENORMOUS debt paying for all of our schools.
Oh Oh the day before yesterady, we had a lecture on Omani politics. It was perhaps the most interesting lecture I've ever had. I cannot sum it up in a few words and I have to get to class soon, so I'll jsut tell you that we were lectured by a political science professor and he also used to work in the government, so he for sure knew what he was talking about.
So that's what I've been up to. I'll try to remember to write some more later on.
Ma Salama!
On a side note, EVERYTHING I own smells like frankincense. No joke.
Postcardspostcardspostcards.
ReplyDeleteI found a list of colleges that are free to apply to and on that list there were about five of my maybe schools so I was like oh hey may as well apply.
I wanna hear the politicy stuff. Que fascinating.