Holy F#%$, I forgot all my arabic.

Post to follow...

12/31/10 Update: Ok, so it's not as bad as I thought. When I got off the plane, no one understood any of my attempted gibberish at all, which was, needless to say, depressing and scary. But, after a few days, Jordanians been striking up conversations with me that are more along the lines of "Where are you from?" and "I have family in Missouri," than "Are you stupid?"

I'm not dumb! I just haven't been here in two years!

Amman is more or less the same. Some new restaurants have opened, and some old ones closed. Everyone still uses unleaded gasoline and looks angry all the time. I have already found the Amman version of Bucktown (which is where I'm looking into living), and I landed a gig teaching conversational English twelve hours a week at a language academy near the University of Jordan. Not bad for three days in the Hashemite Kingdom!

This is more like what I was doing in Chicago after getting back...

I'm gonna be looking at apartments over the next few days. If anything interesting happens, I'll put it on here. But probably not.

Either way, Happy New Years!

I'll see something way less beautiful eight hours before you guys. Bittersweet.

All Systems Go

It's official.

I bought my one-way ticket to Amman. I leave December 27th.

Let sanity reign over me.

Rumble Rumble...

Post-Graduation

Well, the time has come. Being broke and jobless at college has transitioned into being broke, jobless, and uninsured at home. Yes!!!!

So, it is with a heavy heart that I close out this travelog. I will carry the memories I made during my study abroad semester with me for the rest of my life, and hopefully the things I learned there will help others better understand the Middle East for what it is:

Just another place in a crazy world.


*cue inspirational 80's music*

St. Elmo's Fire!

Back Home

I don't want my account with Blogspot to lapse, so I'm posting this to remain on teh Internets [sic].

As for things I've learned:

-Everyone who is an armchair diplomat/economist/general/president doesn't know a goddamn thing. Including me. But especially other people. An aide for John McCain came and spoke in Jordan during the election, positing that "Why don't the Palestinians just turn Jordan into Palestine? There's already so many Palestinians in Jordan..." so I asked "Why don't the Mexicans just turn California into Mexico? There's already so many of them there..." Idiot.

-Palestine/Israel is not an impossible situation. Anyone who says it is never saw the impossible situations of horseless carriages, electricity, defeating the Nazis, coming out of the depression, sailing West to find India, or sinning against God and not being struck down by a bolt of lightning. There are elements on both sides that want peace, just as there are elements on both sides that benefit from conflict and war. The peacemakers just need to be louder. And richer.

-The differences between Arabs, Muslims, Shi'ite, Sunni, Christian, Israeli, Jewish, Orthodox, Bedouin, Kurdish, and every nationality of Middle Eastern are the MOST important thing to understanding the Middle East. After demographics.

-The only real anti-American sentiment I received while abroad was from drunk Jordanian college students (which is haram in the first place) and from Israelis. Everyone else was either ambivalent on the subject, passive aggressive (which I consider normal toward foreigners in any country), or completely hospitable. Many instances of the latter stick out as pleasantly surprising, such as being invited to tea in the middle of the desert about a half-dozen times and being taken to fantastic dinners by complete strangers.

-Anyone who was raised in an urban environment has enough spidey-sense to survive in strange new places. A dangerous neighborhood in Cairo looks pretty similar to a dangerous neighborhood in Chicago (murder capital of the US). The indicators of a dangerous situation in an urban enviroment are the same. So for those astounded that I didn't get beheaded on the Internet, it's probably more dangerous going to the Taste of Chicago then it was going to Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Although I did miss the rocket attacks by mere hours...

-The toxic social bubble of Champaign is nowhere near a fair distribution of the types of people in the United States. I met more varied, amazing people on this trip from America in four months than I met in Champaign in 4 1/2 years. It just goes to show you that staying inside your safe little bubble and never venturing into the big, bright world can stunt your growth.