SNOW DAY!!! *yay*

So this evening we are bracing ourselves for the worst snow storms that Jordan has seen in 20 years – or so our teachers and the meteorologists keep saying. It’s been really, really, really cold (or in Arabic: barid jidan, jidan, jidan!). Last night was so windy that I slept in my flatmate’s room – tonight is no different, so I think I’ll sleep there again. We have taken to heating only one room, which we will all then study in because all you want to do elsewhere in the place is sleep – no amount of heating devices can keep the cold out because the windows aren’t properly sealed, you can always feel a draught, even with the external shutters closed as well… In case you didn’t guess, the room that I have taken to sleeping in is the one we are heating (sneaky I know)… Al-hamdoulillah my flatmate doesn’t mind. Actually we have turned her room into a kind of mini-lounge. We have moved all the cushions off the couches in the lounge room and strategically placed them around her room – it’s quite nice al-hamdoulillah.

We are expecting so much snow tomorrow that we have been given advanced warning of a possible “snow day” – so classes may be cancelled, which means I need to learn two A4 pages of form I verbs *shudders at the thought*. To think, only a few weeks ago I wouldn’t have even been able to tell you what a verb/adjective/preposition etc was (but then that’s “whole language” for you – “whole language” is a teaching philosophy that I was (un)fortunate enough to experience throughout school – google it). So anyway (educational rant over), classes are going well Al-hamdoulillah. We got our mid-term exams back (still without a mark) and the teacher said that everyone got over 90% - I think that may be a half truth, but I can’t be bothered to add up the tick on my page because I have found that a tick here does not necessarily equate to a mark. We have started more detailed grammatical work (which for once I am getting al-hamdoulillah) and are doing a lot more speaking (most of the class is now done in Arabic), which unfortunately results in the need to memorise a whole heap more stuff, which is a bit of a struggle.

Courtesy of the expected bad weather, supplies of gas and diesel are being affected. Apparently as of Thursday the prices of both will be jumping substantially – gas will go from 4JD a canister to 7JD a canister! Apparently the prices will not be coming down anytime soon either. We have been warned to expect another price hike at the end of Feb/early March and told that the prices will not come down even if the expected bad weather doesn’t materialize! As a result, I convinced my flatmates to purchase a 50JD unit of diesel now (should get us through March) and a spare gas canister (which means that we will have two spare, which should at least get us to late Feb insha’allah).

I got my care package from Mum al-hamdoulillah (although still my contact lenses haven’t materialized) which included a new supply of vegemite and tetley, so all is right with the world for now (thanks mum *hug*). Still living on mostly Paki food – dhal, rice some vege thing and kafta (not so Pakistani) – and I’ve started to force my flatmate (not the one who’s room I’ve invaded) to make me Paki-rice pudding (kheer?)– which I have just finished a warm bowl of *mmm*…

So, I have done no study as yet tonight – the “snow day” has not yet been declared, but everyone is acting as if it is definitely going to happen, even the teachers… Which means that there is a lot of homework to do al-hamdoulillah.

Snow Pics:



These were taken at midday, it continued to snow all day and all night. Apparently there was even snow in the Saudi desert!