9/11 happened, and what did I do? Did I rant and rave, and starve and protest? Nope. I was certainly sad, and fearful of what further attacks may happen. However, you can only go on so long with that before you need to run to the grocery store, and your husband has to go to work. Within an hour of the towers falling, I was out running errands. No matter how bad your homeland gets, you still have to continue to function.
What's going on here and Palestine is pretty much the same thing. Many of Jordan are of Palestinian decent, and so whatever anger they feel about the increased fuel prices seems to be augmented by the fact that war broke out again with their most hated enemy. I don't blame them. I am not an Israel supporter.
However, even though we've just had a 4 day weekend full of all kinds of protests and angst, the world does have to keep spinning. The people need to eat, and they have to go to work. The students can still keep hitting the streets, but grown ups have to think about the practical aspects of tomorrow.
Taxi drivers are especially accommodating these days. I've not ever been much of a tipper since it is not expected here, but with the rise in prices I've chosen to pay a little more. A few piaster may not mean much to me, but it's a big deal for these people who on average make 250JD an entire month with a family to feed. I've already had a couple try to rip me off, but I've just chosen not to tip them and give them exact change. Those who are honest are rewarded for it.
My program has also changed how it does things. I'm still getting a couple updates a day, as we are into day 6 of protests. UJ was open today, by my program decided it was not a great idea to have us there. I've mentioned this before; UJ students have killed each over over less. So, now we are only in the Khlefah Plaza building. I've always had half of my classes there, but they have rented an additional floor in this building for us to accommodate those classes which were previously in UJ.
It's kind of an awkward set up. The walls are glass between the rooms. This means that we can see whatever goofy thing students walking by do, and so it is pretty distracting. Luckily, my professor does not take his class too seriously, and when a first year student was making faces behind his back, he spun around and did it right back to her. I swear, he's the Arab Michael Scott, destined for a spot on The Office. Probably one of my all time favorite professors. Imagine also the inappropriate things Michael Scott says, and then he all the more fills the role, albeit without the "that's what she said."
Our first day back was pretty boring...just the same old, same old. I went to two classes and then went to my internship. I don't really have anything to do right now until I get management review of the work I did this weekend, so I did homework.
When I got home, I found that my landlord had come in and "fixed the toilet." She and I are no longer friends because she wouldn't turn on the heat because she said it was too expensive. I thought that was a load of crap since I'm paying 14k for the privilege of being here, and I worked out the math, and even with the extravagant trips, they are still making around 4k profit on me at the very least. I talked to the program about my dissatisfaction, and it turned out she was being a big fat liar. So now she hates me since she got called out on it. The toilet had acquired a small leak, and I told her about it, but she did not bother coming up to see it for days. It's not my subflooring, so I let her do what she was going to do. Evidently they came in today while I was at school, and ruined all my toilet paper, and removed the handle to flush the toilet. Seems like a petty, stupid thing to do, since the leak was in a completely different part of the toilet, and just needed some plumbers tape. Petty, petty woman. She also pitched a fit because I've had a female friend here overnight, which is not against the rules. I think she forgot that she rented an apartment...I paid for the right to be here, and as long as I'm not damaging things, that's really my business. I am too old to be treated like I am a twenty something college student!
So overall, I'm safe. There are 3 new protests going on tonight, and since there was a general strike, I expect people will be really well rested and can protest well into the night. Since they didn't make any money today, they ought to be nice an angry when they think about paying for gas all this next week.
What's going on here and Palestine is pretty much the same thing. Many of Jordan are of Palestinian decent, and so whatever anger they feel about the increased fuel prices seems to be augmented by the fact that war broke out again with their most hated enemy. I don't blame them. I am not an Israel supporter.
However, even though we've just had a 4 day weekend full of all kinds of protests and angst, the world does have to keep spinning. The people need to eat, and they have to go to work. The students can still keep hitting the streets, but grown ups have to think about the practical aspects of tomorrow.
Taxi drivers are especially accommodating these days. I've not ever been much of a tipper since it is not expected here, but with the rise in prices I've chosen to pay a little more. A few piaster may not mean much to me, but it's a big deal for these people who on average make 250JD an entire month with a family to feed. I've already had a couple try to rip me off, but I've just chosen not to tip them and give them exact change. Those who are honest are rewarded for it.
My program has also changed how it does things. I'm still getting a couple updates a day, as we are into day 6 of protests. UJ was open today, by my program decided it was not a great idea to have us there. I've mentioned this before; UJ students have killed each over over less. So, now we are only in the Khlefah Plaza building. I've always had half of my classes there, but they have rented an additional floor in this building for us to accommodate those classes which were previously in UJ.
It's kind of an awkward set up. The walls are glass between the rooms. This means that we can see whatever goofy thing students walking by do, and so it is pretty distracting. Luckily, my professor does not take his class too seriously, and when a first year student was making faces behind his back, he spun around and did it right back to her. I swear, he's the Arab Michael Scott, destined for a spot on The Office. Probably one of my all time favorite professors. Imagine also the inappropriate things Michael Scott says, and then he all the more fills the role, albeit without the "that's what she said."
Our first day back was pretty boring...just the same old, same old. I went to two classes and then went to my internship. I don't really have anything to do right now until I get management review of the work I did this weekend, so I did homework.
When I got home, I found that my landlord had come in and "fixed the toilet." She and I are no longer friends because she wouldn't turn on the heat because she said it was too expensive. I thought that was a load of crap since I'm paying 14k for the privilege of being here, and I worked out the math, and even with the extravagant trips, they are still making around 4k profit on me at the very least. I talked to the program about my dissatisfaction, and it turned out she was being a big fat liar. So now she hates me since she got called out on it. The toilet had acquired a small leak, and I told her about it, but she did not bother coming up to see it for days. It's not my subflooring, so I let her do what she was going to do. Evidently they came in today while I was at school, and ruined all my toilet paper, and removed the handle to flush the toilet. Seems like a petty, stupid thing to do, since the leak was in a completely different part of the toilet, and just needed some plumbers tape. Petty, petty woman. She also pitched a fit because I've had a female friend here overnight, which is not against the rules. I think she forgot that she rented an apartment...I paid for the right to be here, and as long as I'm not damaging things, that's really my business. I am too old to be treated like I am a twenty something college student!
So overall, I'm safe. There are 3 new protests going on tonight, and since there was a general strike, I expect people will be really well rested and can protest well into the night. Since they didn't make any money today, they ought to be nice an angry when they think about paying for gas all this next week.
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