The beginning

I am about 23 days away from my departure to Jordan and since I just received and read my orientation packet (all 119 pages of it) today, I thought now would be a good time to start this blog, which is called "Heather fii al-Urdoon" or in English, "Heather in Jordan."

For those of you who don't know, I will be traveling to Jordan for 2 months this summer. I'm going to be studying Arabic at Yarmouk University in the city of Irbid with the University of Virginia-Yarmouk University Summer Arabic Program. Considering I've never been out of the country nor west of Tennessee, this is going to be a very interesting and undoubtedly a life-altering experience for me. I plan on updating this blog when I can with pictures, stories, etc. to publish my memories and share them all with you.

I am slowly coming to terms with the fact that as a woman, my experience in Jordan is going to be somewhat different than that of my male counterparts. I'm going to have to dress much more conservatively than I'm used to for starters. Not like I dress like a whore by any means, but tank tops and shorts are pretty much forbidden, as well as anything form fitting whatsoever. Shirts should be down to near elbows, etc. And apparently, it is relatively common for American women to fall victim to catcalling and harassment and the like. All the accounts from past female participants say you get used to it, but I'm a little worried about how I'm initially going to react.

My orientation packet has also told me that there are inexpensive internet cafes as well as a university computer lab. I think this implies that my dorm will not have internet access, meaning I will not be available for chatting just whenever. That's going to be difficult for me considering my obvious addiction to Facebook, but that'll be part of the adjustments I guess.

And so ends my first Jordan blog post.