Masaa’ AL. Khayr!

[Mah-sah ahl (fleghm)-hair]
Which means, in Arabic: Good Afternoon!

“It’s a season of firsts…(think JERSEY BOYS and insert music for “December 1963” here…)” We students had a mountain of homework yesterday. The first of many. I did most of it…. And then I fell asleep. At nine o’clock. EARLY. That was okay, because I woke up early and for the first time—I wasn’t tired at all. Yay! I threw my hair up into a ponytail for the first time (it was great. Five people said they hadn’t recognized me—including one that I’ve spent hours with. Hmm. Guess I always have my hair down.) I sprinted up two floors to the oasis (the name of our cafeteria) and for the first time I ate cold cereal instead of cream of wheat. For the first time I had all of my classes in one day. We had “linen exchange” for the first time. We have our first cleaning check tomorrow, so I washed the bathroom for the first time. The Oasis served “lasagna” for the first time. I did my first batch of laundry. We have our first forum speaker tonight.

Pony tail: all three of my roommates want to get their hair cut—none of them got their hair cut before they came. “What was I thinking?!” McCall said. Honestly, I don’t know. Staying in a foreign country for four months… you’d think you’d wonder about how you’d cut your hair satisfactorily. Guess it was just me.

Cereal: Usually the center has granola and corn flakes. Today they also had some random chocolate flaky—thing and cookie crisp. I ate cookie crisp. It was…edible. Barely. Fortified flavorless dissolvable silt. Tomorrow I go back to cream of wheat.

Classes: fun. long. some are boring. blah. (at least only one was boring today.)

Linen exchange: I asked Sister Lee, the lady in charge, how she wanted us to handle it. She said to designate one person per room to bring everything up and get new things. I took our whole room’s stuff upstairs. I was the only one who did. Luckily I was early in the line so I was done fast—and then I carried four sets of sheets and towels back down to my room… while everyone else clogged the line and hallway by filing in one at a time. Made me happy when Sis. Lee gleefully told everyone to do it like room #408 had done it. Tee hee. My idea to ask. Yes! (Sis Lee is also the lady in charge of cleaning checks. I’ve been blatantly asking questions about getting extra cleaning supplies and garbage bags, where I can find a vacuum, and etc… so that she knows I’m trying. That’s right. I’m trying to influence my way into getting preferrential treatment. Maybe it will work. Ah well. If it doesn’t at least I know who to direct all of my questions to.) At this point I walked back out into the hallway, down the stairs, and past the entire line of singletons that “oooh”-ed at me when I walked past with a huge pile for the entire apt. Hahaha. Next time I won’t be the only one that will do that. Guaranteed.
My roommates were all obligingly doing laundry downstairs, so I took advantage of their absence to do a little service—I turned Buble on as loud as my laptop will play it and I made everybody’s bed. Yay. Win-Win situation; I feel better about myself and they don’t have to make their beds. And I listened to Michael Buble. Schweet. Let’s just hope and pray that my roommates will help me clean so that our apt. passes the cleaning check with flying colors. If we keep our rooms clean all semester we get a $150 deposit return. And I want the money! That would pay for my books! And so help me my room will be clean if I have to scrub it all on my own. PRAY that it goes off okay. I want that cash. There’s super hard water here so there is mineral build-up that won’t ever ever ever come off… and the center doesn’t carry lime-away… so I guess we’re stuck with the build-up. It’s even coating the sink counter. … nasty. It won’t scrub off. Permanent water spots. And I was attacking it—believe me, it won’t come off.

“Lasagna”: is in quotations because it was like no lasagna I’ve ever had. Ohhhh boy. Take seven cups of squeaky squash and eggplant, 2 pounds of mystery meat… ONE layer of noodles, and sprinkle cheese over the top. Ouila! Greenish brown slop that looked tentative, smelled great, and wasn’t. I would have eaten something else but I didn’t. I ate as much as I could stand and then ate a roll, potatoes, and bell peppers. I have developed a fondness for bell peppers, as they are usually the only fresh vegetables available that aren’t tainted by vinegar or summat. I miss baby carrots and broccoli. There was steamed broccoli once last week… I’m waiting for it to come around again. Until then… peppers it is.

Laundry: My roommates came back from doing their laundry after lunch, two of the three complaining that the machines had stained their clothes. One had blue streaks all over her white things… either from a bleeding dye or from the powdered soap crystals. The other had a myserious orange stain that looked just like the one my shampoo had made as it leeched onto my skirt durin transit in my suitcase. Only her mysterious stain is permanent. Mine came out after EXTENSIVE pre-treatments. Hard to pre-treat stuff without liquid detergent and ammonia (my preferred stain remover) but I handled it. Took a long time though. ANYWAY… I was cautious about using the machines for the first time. I sorted my laundry before going down, (throwing a really OLD blue towel in with the white stuff so the load would be big enough to use) and then I found newish looking machines and dissolved the grainy soap in the water before dumping my stuff in… and I didn’t get any blue spots. And the orange shampoo stain completely came out of my skirt. I know you don’t care about any of these details…sorry. I got carried away with how proud I was that my laundry turned out better than expected. Anyway. While my laundry was going I ironed some blouses and then played ping pong with Brandon…for over an hour. We never kept score. It was like the Sandlot—just kept going and going and going. Brandon is hilarious—we were quoting movies while we were playing… most notably Star Wars and LOTR. He can do ALL the orc voices (including a freakily exact replication of “just a bit off the flank” and “they’re fresh”), and he can do the Orucai as well. Kinda creepy. I say kinda because it used to freak my out but now it just funny. Anyway, we played ping pong for over an hour and then realized we had class in five minutes… I left my laundry in the dryer (where I will pick it up ten minutes from now as soon as this class is over…ahem. I’m still taking good notes…no reason to give me that look…) and we ran up four flights of stairs and into class. Where I’ve been typing ever since.

Soon it’s time for dinner and to go pick up my stuff. See ya!

--Rachel