Classes begin

Arabic class began yesterday. I don't know yet what my area studies classes are going to be, but they will start next week. I have fusha (modern standard Arabic-the written language) 3 times a week for almost 3 hours a day and ameya (Jordanian colloquial-almost a completely different language) only once a week, for an hour and a half. Personally, I would prefer having more ameya instruction, since fusha won't help me to understand Jordanians much. Most Arabic speakers do understand fusha, because it's taught to them in school and it's what political speeches and most written texts use. However, while they will understand what I am saying (probably), they will most likely reply to me in ameya, so I won't know what they're saying. I have also forgotten almost all of the fusha I learned in Egypt and only remember Egyptian colloquial because that is all that I used. Each country has it's own dialect of Arabic, some of which are mutually incomprehensible, but fortunately for me, Jordanian and Egyptian are pretty close. The little speaking I've done has been in Egyptian, and so far I've been understood and have mostly understood the responses. However, it's been 4 years since I studied Arabic and I remember very little. The placement exam we took during orientation was quite humbling. I didn't realize that the entire test, both oral and written, was going to be in modern standard, and as I mentioned above, I don't remember any modern standard at all. Despite that, I am in beginning 2, which fortunately means I don't have to learn the alphabet for the third time. Our professor, Amjad, speaks to us mostly in Arabic before switching to English if we don't understand, which is a technique that I appreciate. So far everything we've gone over I knew at once point, but since I've forgotten all of it, it's a useful review.

The University campus itself is much greener than I was expecting, and bigger. It's clear that they work pretty hard to make the campus beautiful. I think there are 40,000 students, mostly from Jordan or other Arab countries although I met a French girl yesterday who asked me for directions. The buildings themselves tend to be rougher on the inside, but they're all quite impressive from the outside. Everything is white limestone, which I found out is what almost every building in the city is made of or at least covered with. I haven't taken many pictures of the city yet, I promise to work on that, but here is one from near my apartment: