Does anybody besides me think that’s funny?  Actually, a funnier picture would have been the three full-grown men having a snowball fight in the street in front of the shops.  Or the forty-something year-old man asking my opinion of the snowman he’d just made.  But I guess taking a picture of that would have been kind of rude!

My thesis has been bound and safely delivered to the IU Graduate School.  Right on my deadline.  I’d been going completely nuts hoping and praying that it would be done on time.  I think the first sigh of relief came when my defense date was set, because it meant that my adviser probably liked my work and thought it was ready to defend.  The next came when I passed my defense and exam.  And then when my modifications were approved.  Unfortunately, this wasn’t done in time for me to receive my signature page and do my printing and binding in the US, so I made a quick decision to have the Grad Secretary send the page to Jordan, so I could have the remaining printing and binding done there.  BAD DECISION! 

First, it took awhile for the signature page to arrive (the next sigh of relief came when it did arrive) because of the Eid holidays, and all the office supply stores and binderies were closed for awhile.  When I was finally able to visit the office supply stores, I found that none of them had the kind of paper I needed, even the University bookstores and the largest office supply store in Amman!  So I mailed the signature page BACK to the US, to a Kinko’s in Indianapolis, who then copied it, printed the rest of the material I emailed to them, and delivered the whole lot (for free) to National Library Bindery Company (a bindery I HIGHLY recommend; their service was excellent), who made sure the pages were all in order and delivered them to the Folk/Ethno department, and the Graduate Secretary delivered two of the copies to the Graduate School just on time!

Thanks to God, my family for supporting me through the long process, the musicians who allowed me to interview and survey them, Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah also for letting me interview him, my department, Kinkos, the Bindery, the American and Jordanian mail services, and all of you for your comments and prayers!

Now, how does teaching English relate to my degree again?

I love this video.  One of the best I’ve seen in a long time.  It’s directed by Lena Khan, set to Kareem Salama’s “A Land Called Paradise.”  Check it out!  Oh, and it’s part of a video contest, so vote for her if you like it.  You can only vote in the US, though, so I haven’t been able to vote.

You can hear more of Kareem Salama’s music here.   I don’t normally like country music at all, but I think he’s fantastic!  Evidently I had just missed him in Atlanta when I was back in the States last time; it would have been a great concert!

This is a delicious, and very healthy, Iranian soup of beans, barley, rice, and herbs (ash means soup; joe means barley or grain). It takes awhile to cook, but mostly you just leave it on the stove.

Ingredients:

½ cup garbanzo beans

½ cup red kidney beans

½ cup lentils

½ cup barley

¼ cup rice

1.5 lb mixed herbs (spinach, parsley, cilantro, chives, dill)

2 cups plain yogurt (or kashk if you can find it)

salt and pepper to taste

1 tbsp dried mint

Soak all beans together overnight. Preferably, boil them for a couple minutes, leave them in that water overnight, and then discard the water before cooking. This will soften them up for cooking and should remove some of beans’ “antisocial side effects.” Soak the barley separately overnight. Cook beans with enough water to cover them for one hour over low heat. Skim off as much foam as you can. Add barley and rice, cook 30 minutes more, stirring occasionally. Chop the herbs and add them. Add more hot water if necessary, but the soup should not be too watery. Simmer 2-3 hours more, until all the beans are tender. Stir in yogurt (keeping a bit for garnish if you want), and season with salt, pepper, and mint.

Optional, and good if you want a nice presentation (this soup isn’t too attractive; it’s grey!): Transfer soup to serving dish and garnish with a bit of yogurt. Thinly slice 2-3 onions, fry them until golden, and color with 1 ts turmeric. If you include this step, add the 1 tbsp mint to the onions instead of directly into the soup. Garnish soup with these onions.

Speaking of Persian stuff, does anyone know where I can listen to recitations of Rumi’s poetry online in Farsi?  Or any other classical (such as Saadi) or modern Persian poet (such as Forough Farrokhzad), for that matter.  It’s been a long time since I’ve heard Persian poetry recited and I really miss it.  I know YouTube must have some stuff, but it takes awhile to load the videos here, so I’d rather find some clips somewhere with only audio.

There have been two or more cats fighting outside my window for at least a week now.  Sometimes they sound like kids, but then they make distinctly cat-like yowls.  If I catch another mouse, I’m going to throw it out the window to add some fun to their party!

Oh, I start teaching English tomorrow!  I hope I can do a good job.

Speaking of cats…

“At the beginning of her introduction to Lorraine Chittock’s book Cats of Cairo, Annemarie Schimmel wrote: “When the British orientalist E. W. Lane lived in Cairo in the 1830’s, he was quite amazed to see, every afternoon, a great number of cats gathering in the garden of the High Court, where people would bring baskets full of food for them. He was told that in this way, the qadi (judge) fulfilled obligations dating back to the 13th-century rule of the Mamluk sultan al-Zahir Baybars. That cat-loving monarch had endowed a “cats’ garden” where the cats of Cairo would find everything they needed and liked. In the course of time, the place had been sold and resold, changed and rebuilt; yet the law required that the sultan’s endowment should be honoured, and who better than the qadi to carry out the king’s will and take care of the cats?”  Continue reading “Cats in Islamic Culture…”

Actually, I’ll write a post of my own later, but I thought this article was important.  As usual with the site it came from, ignore the comments.

To My Neighbor

“I don’t blame you for having a skewed image of me. Every day, it seems like there’s another story that undoubtedly affects your perception of the Muslim community. Whether it be the ridiculous response to offensive cartoons, or the nearly daily attacks that take place in our war-torn countries, it must be difficult for you not to think we’re just a little bit suspicious. The Aqsa Parvez murder case in Canada, which has dominated headlines this past week, certainly does not help our case.

I know that all of our condemning doesn’t change a thing. I’d like you to know how much I am sincerely saddened by what is happening. Whether or not our sister Aqsa was murdered for hijab or not is hardly even relevant to me; she was killed nonetheless, and this is something that cannot be accepted under any circumstances. Please don’t think we are lessening her death because the hijab link is, at best, tenuous. She was meant to be loved and cherished as any daughter should, and it pains us that we could not be there for her when she needed us.”  Read more…

When your gas heater runs out of gas, have any of you ever continued sitting in front of it with your hands outstretched, as if it would do any good?

There’s GRASS in Amman!  Nice GREEN grass!  Must be from all the nice rain we’ve been getting.  I’m shocked!

In Jordan.  The trip was short and busy!  I passed my defense and exam, so that’s done!  I still have to have it bound and shipped to IU.  It was nice to see grass after so long, and all the autumn leaves.  And some birds besides sparrows and pigeons.  And my family.  And Hersheys chocolate!  I did make it to Bloomington Bagel Company for breakfast before my exam, but decided not to go to Jiffy Treet (for them, I’ll suppress my annoyance regarding intentionally misspelled words) afterward since it was cold.  Now I’m back in cold Jordan, trying to force myself to leave the study (the heater’s in here right now) and go clean the kitchen.