Lucked Out!

I lucked out!!! I went to school today---finally! I was a bit worried b/c I had missed 4 days and 1 test (we have 1 test per week in 2 of my classes). I was shocked to see that not very much new material was covered!!! Yay I really lucked out! We only covered one new lesson and everyone is still I a little shaky on it b/c there is so much new vocab. This buys me time to catch up over the weekend and no new grammar was introduced. I just need to master the new concepts introduced before the break, which everyone is solid on but I'm still a bit shaky. I just missed out on a lot of drilling in grammar over concepts introduced before i got sick, which stinks but it could be worse! And I have great news! I got back my grammar test from the day before the break and I got 100%!!!! I whispered I guess rather loud 'I am the man!' My friend Kumar laughed and said wow that is really great; we've missed you usef!

I took our Thursday exam and did perfect on the page I knew, but not so hot on the 1st page which was some new vocab. I hooked up with a friend after class and he loaded me up with the vocab., which is fun vocab I've wanted to have! It's all about families! There is much more family relationship vocab in Arabic than in English!!!! I'm shocked! I wonder if extended families are just not so important to us like in some other cultures. My class friend Brimha Kumar is from a pretty affluent family in India he is an Indian Diplomat studying Arabic as his diplomatic language at AUC. When we talk about families he is shocked it's the norm to move out of the home around age 18-20. I said it's logical really. People graduate high school go off to college and move in with roommates then eventually get married and start their own family. He was so shocked and said why? are families not important to you? It was surprising. He was filled with so much joy when he explained to me, with a huge smile and happy twinkle in his eye, about living with his family and how family remain very close and eat together and always have large gatherings that are so enjoyable. Extended Aunt, Uncles, Cousins are all important and close which makes it a large happy family. When he was explaining it to me I thought to myself if I even knew the branches of my family that extend outward. I don't really know my Aunt Margot's side of her family really well. I know she has a brother named Mark that I really like a lot! But when I spent time 2 thanksgivings ago the extended family on my Aunt's side where there and I only new a very small handful. It was really great to meet them and get to know them a little, but even now i couldn't tell you their names, where they live in the U.S., or their exciting life stories. That's just on my aunt's Margot's side of the family. Even with my Aunt Nancy I don't even know her children's names or their children or their stories, I feel kinda bad thinking about it! I love Aunt Nancy and enjoy the few times we have been able to get to know one another, how could it be I neglected her side of the family? Also, I have no idea about the extensions of my fathers side it's as if they have been cut off. Brimha would be so shocked to hear that from me. For me, it's an important lesson to be learned from Arab and Hindu culture.

In Arabic there are different words for Maternal Aunt and Paternal Aunt, Maternal Uncle and Paternal Uncle, etc etc. The words are very precise which triples and quadruples the vocab but makes it very easy to be able to speak about family relations. The problem for me is thinking hard enough about the relationships in English to be able to translate into Arabic is get a bit confusing sometimes. It took me a few minutes to remember what maternal and paternal even meant! Our teacher must think we are crazy! She told the class that when she was learning English it took her a sometime to figure out we didn't have distinctions for maternal and paternal aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and different generations of family. She couldn't believe there was no distinction for English speakers. At least since we have a teacher that understands we are having the reverse of her problem she can help us out to get it all straight.

My final writing project is about most of you who are reading this blog, my family. I have to fill pages and pages with Arabic, that is in my simplistic understanding of of this language so far. For this daunting task I chose to write about my family(that includes extended family) I will talk about what you study, where you live, what you do everyday, your ambitions, and interesting quirks I love, esp the fun stories of all the wonderful little ones on Casey's side. I'm sure I will have no problem writing 600 words about my family! Y'all are so interesting and I love you! (and I'm starting to say y'all more b/c it's used in proper Arabic! there are even 2 forms of Y'all: 2nd person plural masculine and 2nd person plural feminine so there is plenty of opportunity to throw a good y'all in there!)

I'll keep you posted on the excellent writing assignment, of which my 1st rough draft is due monday so I better get writing!

Kurt and Crystal I threw you out there in class today. The teacher asked me about my family and I told her about Crystal and how she works at the Pharmacy(everyone giggled cause I'm sniffling when I'm saying it) and is a student in Norfolk and is married to Kurt who is a Phd student studying---i got that all out in Arabic then Kurt you made me pause for a while dumbfounded!--- I finally broke a said sorry usteeza(professor) I don't know the word for Industrial Organizational Psychology. Then, I and everyone laughed and Grahm(our Tennessee boy) said Usef lets keep this within our spectrum of understanding I doubt they even have that in Arabic. The teacher said lets just stick with Psychology and gave me the word. She then asked me if I had a brother and I said yes I younger brother named Ammon (that name is not strange at all here since Amman is the capital of Jordan!) she asked me what he does and I couldn't describe it in Arabic so i said he studies. she asked what does he study and I thought of all the Time, People, Economist magazines he's subscribed to and I said Koolo Haga--Everything! He studies everything! There followed another burst of laughter and Brooke said Joe you just like saying Kolo Haga. I replied Taban--yes of course!

Maybe that was a bit more than you wanted to hear and it wasn't quite as entertaining to you as it is to me, but no you feel Casey's pain as I explain fun times in Arabic to her everyday. Sometimes I'm laughing so hard and she stands there with no change in facial expressions like she's still waiting for the funny part. Then I realize it wasn't really that funny it was just a little cute or sassy, but the fact I could express silly emotions in Arabic made it SOOOOO funny to me.