It's been a very rainy day here. The perfect rainy day, actually. As I've been sick with a fever since Wednesday, the weather gave me a wonderful excuse to lay in bed and watch movies all day.

And in honor of Halloween tomorrow, we enjoyed a viewing of Hocus Pocus this evening. It was wonderful as always, and made me miss Trey.

Happy Halloween!

Jordanian-style.

It's been raining on and off since 11 PM tonight :)

Last night we had our second concert of the season. We played Overture to Euranthe by Carl Maria von Weber, Mozart Concerto No. 27 in B-flat with a soloist from America - Bobby Mitchell - and Mendelssohn's 3rd "Scottish" Symphony. I was very pleased with the performance of the ensemble and the positive energy the guest conductor brought to the podium.

Today seemed like 3 days wrapped into 1. I woke up with a fever and went to school in a relatively foul mood. I taught a flute lesson to Samer, ear training 3, and a flute lesson to Rana. By the end of my lesson with Rana, I was feeling much better, and she, Haifa, and Mohanned told me they will take me for Shawarma. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawarma

On the way there, we realized the ramp to Abdoun was closed and there was water all over the streets - a bizarre occurrence here. It was around this time that Mohanned realized that he left his phone at the conservatory, and so just Haifa, Rana, and I went to the Shawarma while he went back to retrieve his phone. The food was delicious but heavy - and felt especially so because I am a little sick. S'okay. No problem.

After coming home, Aggie and I cleaned up our apartment for the Halloween party that we threw in our apartment tonight. Upstairs was "party" atmosphere - food, drinks, music, dancing - while the downstairs apartment enjoyed a viewing of the Silence of the Lambs. Around 6:00, Jonathan and Tomacz came over and helped us prepare pudding for the party, and then we left to attend Bobby's piano recital. What a program! Beethoven Waldstein and other works by List and Debussy. Beautiful. It was so inspiring to hear really fantastic music performed at a high level.

Afterward, we all made our way back to our apartment where we had the ultimate Halloween party - like I said, complete with dirt pudding and a viewing of Silence of the Lambs. After many hours of just laughing and talking, an Iraqi song came onto Maryellen's iTunes playlist. Zaina pointed this fact out, and all of our Arabic friends who were here began dancing or drumming. I asked if I brought my dumbek if Mohanned would play for us. And so he did - and we had a freeze-dancing party. It was wonderful. He then played some traditional songs and many people sang. We were all belly dancing, too. And according to Rana, Dana, and Zaina, I'm not half bad at it. Perhaps I will buy an outfit when I travel to Cairo at the end of the month...

Our neighbors complained of the noise, and somewhere around 1:00 AM, people began to leave from our apartment. Jon and I stayed up until around 3 just talking, and it was so nice to spend time with him again. I love our new place, but I do really miss living with Jonathan. He's crazy and wonderful.

Bookra el "Football Jama3" - and I'm sure it will be a good time as always.

My apologies for the disjunct nature of this post - it's almost 4 AM.

May you have love, kindness, and compassion for all living things

I'm drinking a cup of Yogi tea, and the above is its wise saying for my evening.

Today began as my Sundays typically do here - wake up later than I intend to, go to school, teach classes, come home and make dinner. Today was the first day that I actually had to yell at my ear-training class for being late and then being impossible during class. One of my students said, "but miss, I was only 4 minutes late and you said I was 10 minutes late. Why?" And I said, "Are you asking because you're embarrassed that I called you out in front of everyone? Be on time and you won't have to worry about it." I hate being that teacher. Form was amazing as always. As was my 11-year-old rock-star flute student.

Two months of eating every-which-way is finally catching up with me. I don't think I'm going to go back to strict veganism (I might actually starve to death trying to do that here), but I need to make some changes in the direction of normality. I forget that when I start eating every-which-way I forget to eat for many hours at a time, and then feel anxious and tense. Simple changes will be helpful. Like no more Nutella for breakfast. ;)

Tomorrow, our guest conductor from Holland will run two rehearsals with the orchestra - 10:00 - 1:00, and again from 6:35 - 10:05. I think it's going to be a long day, but I'm excited to meet him.

Jukebox Taxi

Taxi rides are a part of my daily life here in Amman. I mostly enjoy them. And I mostly get made fun of for my "shway shway Arabi"- or if my driver happens to speak English particularly well, am asked if I'm married (YES! ABSOLUTELY!) and how old my children are (when they ask, I have two - Sarah and Marcus). But tonight when Joe, Maryellen, and I piled into a taxi, the driver was singing to himself. It even took me a while to realize that he wasn't actually listening to the radio he was singing so loudly. And every time Joe would give him a direction, he would pause for a second, repeat the direction in a questioning tone, and not even wait for confirmation before continuing to sing. He had a nice voice, too!

This morning I had my first group lesson with the "SOS" students. These students are orphaned children anywhere from ages 6 to 14 who are interested in music and want to learn a wind instrument. I have four students. Only two of them had instruments to use today - and only one of them speaks English. This (in complete sincerity) made for a really amazing hour. One of my girls is an advanced beginner, and her English is really quite good. She helped me show the other students the names of the notes and their fingerings, how to hold the instrument, etc. And I had to laugh, because under pressure, even the Arabic that I am completely comfortable with goes out the window. After asking each of them "Shoo is mik?" I said "Ana min Aimee" instead of "Ana Aimee" - "I'm from Aimee", not "I'm Aimee" And especially since Rand's English is so terrific, I really felt like a moron. She didn't really seem to mind, though.

In other flute related news, Maryellen and I had a private sectional tonight - and it was so wonderful to just play duets! I feel like we got more accomplished tonight - and are now more motivated to practice - than we've achieved in any of our large-group sectionals so far. I'm just wishing that I purchased more flute duets in college! (And am missing Cora something awful).

I am very Ithaca-sick these past few days. If you're there, please deeply breathe the Autumn air for me. And look at the leaves. :)

Fractions are fun

The mosquitos are winning this war. It's been unseasonably hot here in the past week - highs around 95 and lows somewhere in the mid-to-low 70's. This would be fine with me if it did not cause a significant spike in the mosquito population. I've always been one to wake up and have many mosquito bites, but this is border-line ridiculous. This morning, Maryellen helped me count, and there are 28 bites (that we could find), and 2/3 of those bites are on my feet.

Two nights ago the Amman Sinfonietta played a concert at the Roman Amphitheater downtown. I went there only by mistake one day with a taxi driver who misunderstood my directions to the conservatory, so this was the first time I'd gotten a chance to walk around and really see the ruins. It was fascinating. The most fun I had, though, was getting to watch Salarios walk around and examine every inch of the theater. The concert was for a group of Italian diplomats who were having some sort of business dinner at the amphitheater - and like at the Dead Sea concert - didn't really seem to care that we were providing them with cheesy music (we played arrangements of marches and My Way...). It might sound like I'm complaining. I'm not - It's 9/10 amusement and 1/10 complete shock that I'm actually here. I'm really blessed that I'm able to take all of these exciting side-trips I am able to take because of my job.

Today I'm teaching my form class which really makes me smile. I think these girls believe that I only listen to Bach, because that's all we've looked at so far. We're working on fugue analysis now. :)

Mumtaz! It's Nadeen's birthday :)

This evening after a walk to the local flower shop with Tomacz and Maryellen, an entourage in three separate cars drove out to Humam's farm, which is (with my very limited understanding of the layout of the city of Amman), somewhere in the direction of the airport. And Aqaba if you decide to drive another 400 km or so. It's Thursday night, so traffic was totally insane, and for the first time since being here, I was almost car-sick. When we arrived at Humam's farm, it was already dark and many people were already gathered preparing for a party. As per usual, hummus and pita adorned the table along with cognac and wine brought especially for this birthday celebration. After eating and drinking a while, Humam played many traditional songs on buzuq and his sister played nay and danced. And had many of us dance with her. How wonderful and ridiculous! We also all tried to play the nay - equally ridiculous and so difficult! I was unable to make a sound - but Yoo-Jin was a rock-star!

Dinner consisted of roasted chicken (rubbed with vinegar and stuffed with rice, cashews, and spices), kusa (stuffed squash), stuffed grape leaves, a variation on fatoush, and another type of rice. Oh my goodness - how delicious! The farm is far enough outside of center-city Amman that you could see more stars than usual. The birthday cake was divine. And we sang happy birthday to Nadeen in at least 3 languages.

The hospitality and sense of family I felt this evening was totally overwhelming and wonderful. It made me nostalgic in a way that I've not yet experienced: thinking about coming home next year and realizing how much I'm going to miss many of the people I've met and grown fond of here in Amman. And the beautiful city. And this warm, welcoming culture.

Trio's lemon-mint smoothies have been overthrown

There's a place on Third Circle called "Fruit Salad" that has absolutely the most fantastic lemon-mint smoothies I think I'll ever taste. I think it's fantastic that I'm counting this as the biggest success of my day. I followed it up with falafel. And I FINALLY purchased some notebooks so that I can keep track of my lessons. And a notebook for Arabic phrases. And tonight, ASO started rehearsing Mendelssohn's Scottish Symphony.

I'm procrastinating planning classes by listening to flute music? I've never done this in my life. I think it's funny how my priorities are changing.

A jumble of catching up

I've been terrible about writing in this blog recently, but it's been really wonderful to be so busy. I started teaching college-level classes two weeks ago, and we've just entered our third week of school. I have three classes: Ear training 1 and 3, and Form and Analysis. Side note: I love Form. I would seriously consider teaching theory if my piano skills were better and I was promised that I could teach only Form classes ca. 1650 to present. We've been hanging out in Bach invention land, and we're finally moving on to actual Fugues on Wednesday. Once Joe arrives here on Friday and I have my official Ithaca College Form and Analysis binder, I'll be much happier about preparing for class.

My flute students are still wonderful and actually showing a good bit of improvement. It's refreshing. It makes me feel as though I'm actually making a difference here. Even if it is "only music".

Our first concerts went well. After the Symphony concert, a party of 18 went out to eat at this restaurant called "Trio" that has the best shi-sha and lemon-mint smoothies I've had yet. Side note: smoking shi-sha is terrible for flute-playing lungs and after not being able to make simple phrases in rehearsal on Saturday morning, I've officially quit smoking save incredibly special occasions.

Since my last post I've ventured to both Mt. Nebo and the Dead Sea, and they are just as beautiful as I imagined they would be. We played a concert at the Dead Sea, and I watched the sun set over Palestine. It was incredibly really powerful. When we arrived, the orchestra had a sound check. And then we waited. For hours. This wouldn't have been bad if the dinner party for which we were providing music found it fit to feed its musicians, but instead, we all sat around enjoying pleasant conversation and occasionally (okay, pretty consistently) complaining about the lack of food in our stomachs. No problem. I learned a good bit of Arabic that night from twin 14-year-old girls named Dana and Lana. And from Heifa. I also met a man that evening who is so funny that I couldn't help but crack up at his jokes - that were told entirely in Arabic. Wonderful people.

I've moved into a new apartment in a house near Allyss, Artie, Tim, and Christina. The location is really amazing, and the apartment is beautiful. Three big bedrooms, three porches, a giant living room (that happens to be very conducive to dance parties), a nice kitchen, a working washer for laundry, a dining room, and excellent company. Maryellen and I moved last Monday, and Aggie moved in on Saturday. We had a house-warming gathering on Saturday that was overall a success. Maryellen made chicken (that I was told was very delicious), and I made some lentil soup. Other food brought to our party included really delicious home-made hummus, green bean salad, fatoush, fried rice (Taiwanese-style) and a plethora of alcohol and sweets. Nadeen made this chocolate mousse pie that was so delicious - and I am thrilled to know how to make it! We danced and played charades. And I can't really explain to you how funny it is to see a room full of adults - some of whom have never even heard of charades - get up and try to act out movie titles. And try to dance to American pop music from the 1990's. And then your conductor is one of those people. It made me happy.

This morning Andrew taught me some new Arabic phrases and encouraged me to buy a notebook so that I can keep this new language glued to my hand. "It's the best way to remember new phrases!" he keeps telling me. I agree. I'm excited to start learning how to write, too. I think the script is so artistic. And since Arabic is phonetic, it will definitely help with pronunciation.

I had a hilarious cab-ride back from lunch at Abdoun Circle today with Artie, where the driver put on dance tunes with a pumping bass. Including Jock Jams. And then I started singing and dancing in the back of the cab, and that just made all three of us laugh. I can really appreciate when an event (even as silly as this) is understood so cross-culturally and in spite of a language barrier. And actually because of a language barrier. It happens to me so many times in a day, and it's a wonderful reminder to me that we are all the same despite our heritage, language, or location.

I think that's all for now. I will be better about keeping regular updates here - there are too many events for me to possibly remember without writing them down.