1st week at Kings Academy

   Well, this first week at Kings been about as hectic as possible! It is only my second Saturday in Jordan, but I am already seeing all of the differences between Jordan and California, as well as between Kings Academy and Castilleja.

Jordan Time. We learned about Jordan time the first day at Kings. We were in my new dorm room just moving around furniture, and making it more homey when one of the legs of my bed fell off. OK then... I thought, we can just put it into the correct place and then have maintenance come and fix it. No big deal. But then, of course, another leg fell off as well. So, my Mom and I were left standing there with a completely demolished bed wondering how on earth other girls completed this feat. We quickly glanced around the dorm and everyone else was happily moving furniture with no problems, some of them without help! So, its just us I suppose. We finally bit the bullet and asked one of the older girls on my hall to help us out and she called maintenance for us. Ah thank goodness, they should be here soon.... hours go by... hopefully I won't have to sleep on the floor.... please?? Finally the maintenance folks arrived and expertly screwed on new legs, while also helping us with a very problematic fan, (but that is a whole different story). 

 Another example of Jordan time is the fact that it took the scheduling office aproximately 1.5 weeks to finally fix my schedule which was completely wrong! It still isn't quite fixed but since I was first placed in a high level of Arabic, (rather than Arabic 1) I'd say we have come a long way. 

My favorite class so far is the American Presidency. I know, I know, an American Presidency class in Jordan? What? But it is a 1 term course that is all about the road to presidency and it is taught by a Professor at Columbia University who lives in NYC. It's pretty cool, and when we make and observant or intelligent remark, he tosses a pice of candy to us! Arabic 1 is also pretty awesome, and I know the days of the week, how to say door, and window and a few other words! My teacher is Mr. Yahya and I think that he thinks we are weird outcasts. My class is made up of all Americans and one kid from Saudi. The other day we told Mr. Yahya that we all wanted Arabic names. So, Mr. Yahya told one girl named Isabel that her name in Arabic was simply Isabel (just said really fast). It took us about 20 minutes to explain what we meant and then he told a boy named Henry that his Arabic name would be Sammi. He couldn't understand why we were laughing until we explained that a) Sammi is a girl's name in America and b) we wanted names like Achmed or Hussein. We finally got it sorted out, and my Arabic name is now Rania. 

As well as learning in my classes I have also learned many things about Kings, Jordan, and the surrounding area. At Kings, all of the kids are very nice, and welcoming although there is a lot of punishment and discipline that must be done because many of the kids have never had that before, and can be rather disruptive. From the other students I have learned:

1. That in the first and second years of the school, the only way that the children could walk on the grass rather than the pathways is if they frolicked. The headmaster's wife would stand in her office which had an expansive view of one of the many grassy areas and she would yell out "frolic!!" if the students were simply walking on the grass.     

2. Kings Academy was built to look really nice, not to be practical. So it is basically a pain to walk  anywhere. For example most kids often cut across the iceplants that are on the hill in front of my dorm because otherwise one must go down this long ramp, and who has that kind of time? :)    

3. Most kids are weekday borders so they go home on the weekend. So, on my hallway there are only 4 people here this weekend, making the school seem like an abandoned graveyard or something. Although, many of the teachers are still  here and I still haven't gotten over the fact that yesterday I saw one of my teachers working out at the gym and today I asked my English teacher a question during breakfast, but that's boarding school for you! 

4. NEVER go to Petra in September or even in October, or you will die. One of the trips this weekend was to Petra, and I was warned that it would be absolutely boiling there. Because of this, I will most likely wait and go in November, since it will apparently be much cooler then. 

5. Scheduling here is super bizarre. Our school days are Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and the weekend is Friday and Saturday. We have school from 8:05 to 3:50 and then a break until 4:30. After that we have co-curricular which is a required activity where everyone picks a minor and a major co-curricular per term. Those end at 6:30 and then we have dinner. After dinner we can do whatever we want until 8:00. From 8:00 to 10:00 we have required study time. Then from 10:00 - 10:30 we can get ready for bed and you cannot leave your room after 10:30. 

As you can probably tell, there are lots of rules here, and I haven't even brought up the uniform! But that will have to wait for the next blog post. I hope that everyone is doing well on the other side of the world,  and that you enjoy my little tidbits of information! 

Kat