Things...

Salaam,

Things which tell u ur becoming a sufi:

1) you refer to everyone as "sidi"
2) you kiss peoples hands when u see them
3) you own a tambourine
4) you start growing ur hair long and start to wear one of those hats (u know the ones im talking about...)
5) you own a huuuge tasbih (rosary bead) - a small one just wont do


Things about Amman :

1) All the things in shops have price stickers on them so u wont get ripped off (unlike Egypt or Bd)
2) All the taxis have metres in them so u wont get ripped off (unlike Egypt or Bd)
3) There's no "stray dogs and cats which will kill u even if u go near them as their That diseased problem" here (Again unlike Egypt or Bd)
4) Their equivalent of the ice cream van is the gas van. Yes the gas man. ALL day he goes round and round in his van playing the SAME tune OVER ad OVER and OVER again selling those gas cainsters for portable heaters. But no, children dont run out and jump onto the back of the van and get a free ride with it...(ahhh, burnley days..)

Unfortunately my USB cable seems not to want to work so im not able to put up pics of my trip to the Salahuddin castle and the masjids of the sahabi Abu Ubaida and the prophet Shuraim but iA i will buy or borrow one soon.

Alhamdulilla my lessons are going well so far in terms of im really begining to appreciate why people keep going on about the beauty of the arabic language. My grammar teacher, Ustadh Faisal, is an absolute legend. He's only still around 26 but has studied arabic in the US, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Mauritania and so many other countries. I think this isnt because he was a bad student and kept getting kicked out of the institutes but to go and seek knowledge with the best guys in that particular field...

I thought i would never say this, but im enjoying arabic grammar. The best thing about the lessons is that it isnt just grammar straight up, but its given its full context; the stories behind why things are the way they are, what this implies wrt the qur'an and hadith and examples of how these rules are used in islamic literature. He also throws in lots of random anecdotes which keep the class lively. And the Best thing about the grammar class is that its taught in English ! Yes. I have no idea why all the other arabic institutes i know try and teach newcomers to the language grammar in arabic. This was the case when i was in Cairo. I mean how on earth is the teacher supposed to explain to me tenses, pronouns, ordering of words etc in arabic when i dont speak a word of the language..??

Also, since admittedly my english aint too good to begin with, by learning arabic grammar im having to learn english the way it was supposed to be with terms like "intransitive", "indicative" and "parallel conjunctions"...(5 points to whoever knows what the last one is...)

Anyway must dash now. Thankfully tomorrow is Friday so no lessons = can sleep in. So far iv been getting around 6 hours of sleep on average per day. For anyone who knows me this is not good. Basically i try and be in bed by 10pm everyday, but this always becomes 11pm or later and i end up waking for thahajudd as an azaan goes off for it when its close to fajr. And since my classes start at 8am, i cant go back to sleep after fajr. So yes, Only 6 hrs per night so i try and make the most of Fri and Mon mornings.

Salaam