So I started this entry …… 2 weeks ago. heheheeheheh. I know, I know, I should be updating more, this is like a journal, I should write daily, etc. But due to: 1) the shitty subpar internet provided by the oh-so-lovely 1 star Horus House Hotel (it’s a love and hate relationship), and 2) the busy days we’ve been having, it’s really hard to sit down and let myself just write. This also kind of shows that I’ve been doing a lot here, so that’s a good thing (or this is just an excuse for my abysmal blogging-ethic).

The original purpose of this entry was to talk about starting Arabic, but since the final is this week, I’ll just talk about the general progression of Arabic. To start off, I love the language. Love. I always listened to an Arabic song every now and then and loved how beautiful the language was. It flows off the tongue but is also punctuated by erratic glottal stops and noises that you’ve never heard before. I love it.

Learning it….is a whole different experience. It’s both harder and easier than I expected. On the one hand, I realize that I grasp words and vocabulary relatively quickly, but then re-learning how to read and write from right to left (in a completely different alphabet) is pretty difficult. (Italian, I’ve never appreciated you more.) But I also feel super-cool when I read a sentence. Or write one. (I have terrible handwriting. Arabic is like art because you have to let your hand be free and yet in control. I’m a failure. My writing looks like chicken-scratch written by a drunk chicken). But I still feel very proud of myself every time 😀 (until I find out that what I wrote/read was completely off. Whatever).

I definitely want to continue studying it when I get back to the states; perhaps in the form of a class or just reviewing myself. (ruhroh we know what that means 🙁 ). I just don’t want to waste the work I’ve put in here, and Arabic is so beautiful (and spoken in so many places) that it’s only a win win for me to continue studying it. My dreams of being bajillion-lingual are a small step closer to being realized.

I’m also thinking about coming back here for the summer for the St. Andrews Church internship. I still have to think about it though; and I don’t know how my parents are going to react at all. But it seems like a great opportunity. And I love this city…and maybe there’s other reasons for coming back too. Es posible.

This hasn’t been an exciting entry (it’s late. I need fresh material). I’m just really grateful for all things we’ve done and seen in this SHORT time (I don’t care what anyone else says, this ~month went by really fast :/). I have to sit down and run through everything and write about it, because it’s all been a great blur at some points.