beginning again

Finished week 1 back at school. Completed Chapter 12 of my Arabic book and took a test on Thursday. I think I did well...I understood the material and thats good! I went to tutoring on Wednesday with my bubbly tutor, Batool, who I really want to be BFF's for life with this girl because she just makes me laugh and smile so much! I might just start following her around everyday and hope she doesn't notice.

She was great help and gave me so much positive reinforcement in between our laughing and dancing (which of course my ADD started, since I was on hour 6 of Arabic classes, but she's awesome so she joined in) while sitting in our seats at the coffee shop to make Arabic a million more times fun!

So far so good at my school! My class is big with 11 people, but so far everyone is pretty much on the similar pages as far as ability goes...so its good. Its challenging but not painful. Its still a lot of work, but this week we only tackled 1 chapter rather then two so it was feasible. I'm betting the pace will speed up, but I've learned to be vocal at my school and I'll do my best to be proactive about my studying and speaking up if it's too much for me. This week was great as far as pace and Arabic work load..but I didn't go to work all week either.

I went to work last Sunday for my first day back to find that my boss had extended his trip and will return to work on the 13th. Since the project I'm working on requires meeting with him to discuss the next steps...there wasn't really much for me to do. I need to get a few things together this weekend, but I took the week off to focus on Arabic. So we'll see how getting back into everything work out, but I'll figure it out.

This week was a realization that while I have lived in Jordan for about 4 months now, I'm starting over again in the same place in many ways. A good portion of the people I became friend with last term and hung out with left in December. So, I'm starting over in the finding friends department. I'm starting over in a new class with new professors department. I'm starting over in the having a new roommate department and needing to help her find places, see things in Amman and explain how things work. I'm starting over and having to act like a newbie again in many ways.

While these things are not huge life changing things...there so very much alter my life here. Its feels weird. Not bad, but weird. I was talking to my friend Colette yesterday after class (one of the few that remained after December) and she was saying how she feels weird for not having more people to hang out with...and I was feeling the same way. I mentioned how we just need time because its only the first week, but then I realized, it's not our first week. Its our fourth month and now we have to find mostly all new friends again just regain and resemblance of a social life. Thats weird. Its everyone else's first week, so they all need to time to settle in and adjust, but we don't need that as much. I'm in very much the same boat as the new people and yet not.

Friends exist for comfort, for knowing you and keeping up with your life, for caring about you, for knowing your likes and dislikes, for helping you laugh when you're tired, etc. To have to change friend every 3 months gets exhausting and a bit lonely at times in the transition period. I'm not trying to come off as whining cause in many ways its really fun to meet and get to know so many new people and have these experiences. It's just tiring and weird feeling to be starting over again in the same place. Usually when I move to a new country, I start over once and build a life there until I leave.

Here, I this experience. I moved, built a life for 3 months and now am doing some reconstruction on that life for the next three months. I imagine I'll be adding some additions to my life and fixing the pipes of my life a bit more in another 3 months. not a bad thing, just a new feeling. New experience. Something to get used to. haven't done this pattern before.

I went out to dinner last night on Rainbow St. with Colette, my new roommate (Julianne) and a few others from Qasid. It was fun and had an amazing view of the Citadel. It was nice to get out and laugh with some new and old friends. Its a good combo.