First Impressions

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Hello my lovely friends, family and occasional stalkers. In this blog I’ll be documenting my two months in Jordan, studying Arabic on the Critical Language Scholarship, courtesy of the State Department. I’ve been in DC for the past two days for orientation. Excuse the silly blog name, I was a little short of ideas. The header is a picture I took of Petra last summer.

Anyway, so far, so good. To my surprise, I really like DC. We’re staying near Dupont Circle, and I’ve loved walking around and people-watching. There’s an interesting mix of people here from all over the world, and a disproportionate number of well-dressed good-looking young people. I spent my first evening here walking for miles with my roommate and just exploring. We found a great nail place that served white wine and champagne, a perfect combination to my mind ! I’ve also seen the WWII memorial, the giant obelisk, the White House and the Lincoln memorial. Is it weird that I envy Abe’s cheekbones? I’ve also discovered fireflies! They’re amazing! They’re like little rave bugs! Tons came out around the monuments and I freaked out and started running around, catching them all. I’ve never really seen them before and was surprised that everybody was so blasé about these mobile glowstick creatures.

Orientation took all day yesterday. We heard from the woman who runs the government exchange programs, who urged us to represent America favourably and engage in “local diplomacy.” We heard from people who have made their careers working in the Middle East with the Foreign Service. As it turns out, if I went for a government career I wouldn’t have to give up my UK citizenship, which makes the idea more appealing. We’ll see. There were also talks from a Jordanian embassy representative, from the former program director and CLS Amman alumni. All this happened from 9 to 4 in a Marriott conference room, in the basement, with no windows. A little claustrophobic. However, allow me to reassure you that I won’t be coming back as Jason Bourne. They do seem to be trying to recruit us, but in a good-natured rather than an aggressive way. I’m getting a greater sense of how much of an honour this award really is – the government is spending thousands of dollars on each of us, so we can learn Arabic. No pressure!

It’s been interesting to hear more about Amman from people who’ve lived there. I’m getting increasingly excited, it seems like it’ll be easy to meet’n’greet with the local yokels and actually, you know, learn Arabic. I’m really going to try and force myself to speak as much Arabic as possible, even if everybody laughs at me all the time. Which they probably will.

I’ve enjoyed meeting the other students as well. They come from a massively diverse range of institutions and disciplines, including biochemistry, nature conservation and art history. There are a decent number of grad students as well as undergrad. It’ll be fun to hear everybody’s different perspectives on Jordan, and I don’t think I’ll run out of people to chat to! Everybody seems interesting, and there are a lot of ‘characters.’ Funnily enough, there is something like 36 women and 20 men on the program. This might sound odd, but I’ve noticed here and at Brown that Arabic and the Middle East attract strong personalities, and also good-looking, adventurous and intelligent women. I’m not trying to awkwardly compliment myself here (honest) but that’s just what I’ve noticed in my peers!

Anyway, I just checked out of the hotel and have a few free hours so I’m going to trot off to the Smithsonian to mainline some cultcha. We’re being bussed to the airport at 4pm, although our flight isn’t until 10pm. Since Uncle Steve lives near Dulles Airport he’s going to come and pick me up so I can spend a few hours with him, Aunt Carla and my cousins. I’ll be in touch from Jordan!