“Namaste!” I’m Ann…

My friend Yuliya and I are researching the topic Family and Gender Relations in this seminar. Aside from that, I am majoring in biology and focusing on my pre-dental education for the next three and half years. I was born in New Delhi, India and moved to Saudi Arabia with my family when I was five years old and lived there for 10 years. I am purely South Indian, and ironically I dislike all South Indian dishes. For most of my life, that is till I turned 15, I wore a Burqa, never had Chinese food, and never studied with the opposite sex in school!

Only after coming to the US did I have the opportunity of listening to songs by varied artists, that is, beyond Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears (both of them being the only secular music artists I had heard of in Saudi Arabia from my friends), in both Christian and secular music, and also falling in love with Korean music. I love listening to So Nyu Shi Dae, Chung Lim, Dong Bang Shin Gi, Wonder Girls, 2nE1, Big Bang, Hillsong United and many more. I enjoy singing in church and in the bathroom…haha!

I have had the chance of visiting Dubai, Jordan, and Abu Dhabi while living in the Middle East. Floating in the Dead Sea was definitely a fun experience when I visited Jordan! I was hoping to visit Israel, but the Jordan-Israel border officers and the border Immigration’s office wouldn’t let us (my family and I) pass through because we were residents of Saudi Arabia. Uggh! It was one of the many setbacks my family and I faced being a resident of Saudi Arabia.

So this was a tiny blurb about my experiences and me. And yes, the first word of this little post means Hello in Hindi! Thanks for reading… Ma salam-ah!