Happily I have been busy lately. For a while I was overwhelmed with things and so ridiculously tired that I would fall into bed and sort of wait around until I thought I should really drag myself from bed.
So when I haven't been constantly buying and haggling over items in which to put in my house, I have been attempting to clean my house. Today I even put down a carpet and for some reason that makes my bedroom feel more like a bedroom and less like a room I sometimes use. Little by little I am buying things. One day I may even buy a dresser for clothes! Who knows what the future has install for me? It's funny how fast your emotions can change here too. This morning I was feeling somewhat blue, so I began to clean. While I cleaned, I put my music on shuffle and on came Paul Simon's "Born at the Right Time," and it filled my heart with joy. From then on, the day was a breeze.
I went to work a bit later and I have picked up a new teacher who wants to help me. He watched me in class and spoke with me afterwards and told me I was too nice to the students. So I thought to myself, "What the heck? How? What? Mafhmch! (I don't understand!)" So I decided to watch him take charge of the class for a while and see what he did. He kicked two students out of the class! I couldn't help but feel awkward, but after discussing this with him, it seems to me that this was sort of a necessary step in me learning how to develop dominance over the students. I never thought that I would end up quite literally forcing students from the class but the rest of the class now understands that I mean business when it comes to teaching. I was proud of myself today when I forced students who were disrupting the rest of the class out. I talked to the other teacher who watched the whole episode and later he told me he was happy. Finally! Someone is happy with something I do! I can't help but feel the irony though. It's weird to feel happy about making someone suffer.....schadenfreude anyone?
After work, I went to my host family's house. I can't help but gush over them. They always make me feel sort of normal in a culture where I am constantly stared at. I am superbly thankful that my host father is interested in history and religion. Today he was asking me about what was haram (Arabic for forbidden) for Christians? I immediately thought of the Ten Commandments and then proceeded to list off all of them except for the last two commandments. Wait? What? What were the last two commandments? How could I possibly forget? So of course, I did the natural thing, which is to ask google. Wikipedia tells me that the last two commandments I had forgotten (For those of you who care, I didn't list them in a particular order)was the commandment to take the Sabbath as a holy day and the commandment not to lie. So simple it slipped my mind. Ah well, si c'est la vie!
Then my host father asked me which was closer to the true Sabbath day, Jews, Muslims, or Christians. I felt it important that I go with the historical answer that I know of. Jews have one of the oldest religions, so they have the oldest mark on the Sabbath day (which the holy day is Saturday). In fact, Saturday in Arabic (and I'm sure in Hebrew, or at least it's close) is sbbt. We have the Gregorian calendar to mark how old Christianity is. Also, I'm pretty sure that the last time I checked, Islam didn't begin a calendar until at least after the 640s c.e.
I've also been holding out on you. I began a new book which is a great read, called, The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova.
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