Language House

9/17/12

So yesterday was a rather long day. The day after being thrown off a horse is rarely fun but I managed fine. I left to return to campus around 10 in the morning and was back at the campus by 1:30. I spent my afternoon relaxing with Lisa and Phil before watching the Salt of the Sea with the other people in the Arabic House at 3 in the afternoon. While I missed the ending of the movie because I had to leave for work at 4:30, the part that I saw was really good. The main character was from a part of Palestine that Israel had occupied and her family had moved to Lebanon and then to the US. She visits the area as a United States citizen but she receives a lot of hassle even though she only tells the people in the Israeli airport that her family was Lebanese. They would only grant her a two week visa and she was determined to find a way to stay as well as to get the money that her family left behind in Palestine. The British bank denied her claim because the particular branch that her families’ money was in had been closed down and she gets rather upset because that money was left to her. She makes a few friends and is determined to get residency based on her parents and grandparents being born there, but she was unable to do so because she did not have their birth certificates. She and two Palestinians who were not permitted to leave Ramallah rob the bank with a gun without any bullets and then disguise themselves as Jewish Americans to get into Jerusalem and to be able to visit Jaffa, where her family was from. She also goes to visit what was once her families’ house and meets the new resident. At first, it was nice but she gets really angry when the new resident will not admit that her families’ home was stolen from them and is very rude to the lady. Then they visit the home of another Palestinian she went to the city with and find that city is now in ruins. The movie was very sad but it made an interesting point about the state of affairs in Israel and Palestine in the world today.

After the movie, I had work at the language lab and then went over to Academic Hall to work on homework and relax. It’s nice working in the classrooms sometimes, there is a lot of space and you can listen to music more easily than in the library. We had drinks from Casey’s Corner, which were very good, before returning to my apartment and showing on of my roommates some of the music that I enjoy listening to and having a very late dinner at almost midnight. We went to bed soon after that because most of us have early classes, although I was admittedly worried about my weight training class in the morning because of the sore muscles and bruises from being thrown.

Thankfully my gym teacher was really cool about the fact that I had been injured over the weekend and did not mind that I took the day off in order to go to the doctor after waking up having more pain and issues getting around. The Emergency Room was thankfully able to help and give me medication so I am feeling much better tonight. While they are never the fastest choice in the world, they did a really good job making sure they found all of the damage caused by my fall so that I should be fine to go to my classes over the next few days and to take care of myself and heal. Tonight I have my Monday conversational hour for Arabic, which should be fun. I am taking a kaleidoscope my friend’s father made to show everyone. His dad makes them out of pieces of stained glass and they are completely gorgeous. I am curious what my housemates will think about the kaleidoscope because it is certainly not a typical one but it is also very artistic and pretty. After my conversational hour, a few friends and I are getting together to watch a movie and then trying to get an earlier night before my 8 am class tomorrow. Nevertheless, even with the trip to the Emergency Room, I had a really good couple of days and really enjoyed relaxing and just getting little bits of homework done with friends over the weekend.