Sunday, November 29, 2009

New Pictures and Updates!

I have been very busy these last couple of weeks with midterm exams and different activities. I posted some pictures of the spiritual life retreat with my club from Haigazian. We went up to the mountains to an area called Dour el Chour which you can see is really beautiful. That was two weeks ago. This past Friday I had an actvity with my extreme club. We took a bus to Sur (Tyre) and then rode our bikes back to Hamra. We rode from 11:30pm until 6:30am along the rodes and highways of Beirut along the sea. The moon was big and bright and reflecting off the sea. It sounds romantic but it was really cold and there are no streetlights so we couldn't see the road and thus, couldn't see the potholes. Let's just say there were a few unfortunate accidents but no one was badly hurt. I have been running regularly since I got here so physically the bike ride wasn't very hard on my muscles but my butt is still recovering. I will post some pictures of this trip when I get them from my friend. After riding all night I arrived back home at 6:40am, changed my clothes and then ran back to school for another trip that I was taking with a different group to the North of Lebanon at 7:30am. Oh, to be young and adventurous! We went to see some different monasteries and villages in the North and had lunch and went for a ride in a paddleboat which wasn't really fun after biking for 8 hours. This was also a really beautiful trip. My favorite site was the Kadisha valley which is in most of the pictures below with all the pretty colors in the valleys and mountains. It was the first time I have really seen fall colors since I've been here. Also, Kadish is a Syriac word meaning "holy" and I was really excited because that is the language of my mom's church so I knew the word from the church music I grew up listening to and of course I burst into song.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Lately, I have noticed that I am so relaxed here and I'm almost always in a really good mood. I'm taking five classes, have a student job and am a member of three clubs at Haigazian, but somehow I never feel stressed out and I have been thinking about why. I think people are more relaxed here. People will go out at the last minute rather than having to schedule something. People aren't so rigid about time and addicted to their schedules. Life seems to have a more natural and comfortable flow here which I think has made me a more healthy person. In the U.S., I always felt like I had to be penciled into peoples' lives. Another big difference here, which is something my mom has always talked about, is that in the U.S. you always have to be invited to someone's house. Here, people just drop by and everyone is happy to have you and welcomes you and genuinely wants you stay. When I first arrived here, there were a lot of little things that I thought were rude, but now I realize that most of the things make life simpler and easier because people don't hide what they are thinking/feeling the way that Americans do. In the U.S., you never know if somebody is genuine or if they are just being polite. You never know if someone wants you to stay or if they are just saying that because socially it is what is expected. People don't wear as many masks here. It is also strange that in the U.S., everyone is SO scared of everything. Of everything from processed foods to driving without a seatbelt to terrorism. Here, in a country whose history is ravaged by civil war, occupation, invasion, a presently unstable government and tense relations between religious and political factions, everyone goes about their everyday life without a worry. There is a different mentalityhere because people have not been conditioned to fear, fear, fear and it really shows in everyday life. Compared to here, the U.S. population is so secure yet we have been taught to fear so that we will consume becuse capitalism and the U.S. government can't function unless we are scared.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

My Birthday(See pictures below!)

I turned 21 on November 1! Some of the people who I live with came to my room at midnight with a cake and balloons and surprised me. I spent the day with my aunt Amal and my cousins Samar and Semer. It was great to see Samar because she is doing her medical residency in the U.S. and she was just here for a week. At night, I ate my 3rd cake from Mary Mikhael, the president of the school where I have my dorm room. Then I went and rented movies with my friend. The next day(not my birthday) I was surprised with yet another cake(my fourth) from my Grandma and Grandpa in the U.S. Everybody was very happy to have the cake at lunch. Unfortunately, I did not go out and get drunk on my 21st birthday, as is customary in the good old U.S.A. because my birthday happened to fall on a Sunday and most of my friends had big tests on Monday morning. But don't worry, I will make up for it on Friday night...just kidding, mom.