HA, plans.

At the end of orientation back in mid-February, the administration had us each write down a goal for our semester. Since we only have a month left in the program, today we got back what we had written. The thinking was that if we hadn’t already achieved our goal, then we could focus the rest of our time on trying to before we left. To be honest, I’m always really bad at thinking of anything to write down, and even worse at remembering what I actually wrote. The second part isn’t so bad though since you’re not supposed to consciously think of what you wrote. But for once, I had something that I did want to say and definitely achieve.

I wrote: اريد ان اتكلم مع اسرتي اكثر وخاصة بالعامية.

Direct translation- I want to talk with my (Jordanian) family more, especially in dialect.

This is more than a little funny for several reasons.

The first is that this was written in such an incredibly fushaa way. It’s the first real, concrete testament I’ve seen of how much my Arabic has changed. Just reading this to myself made me giggle a little. No matter how much I’ve resisted it, aamiya has snuck into my life and I’ve begun to accept some of it.

The second, more serious reason is that I’m no longer with my Jordanian host family.