getting cultured.

Wednesday night we had Arab Culture night! It was SO fun! First we went to the forum and the guys who say the call to prayer were there and read (sang) some of the quran for us. They are so good. It is their job and they started reading the quran since they were little. It is kind of a family thing. If your dad reads it then that will become your job if you have a good voice. They have the whole quran memorized which is amazing. It took them around 5 years to memorize. We then had dinner and it was pretty good. Some of the things were a bit authentic for me but I guess I'm just a little picky. There was SO much food! I didn't know what half of it was. The cooks were cooking all day for us. They are the best. So we got to dress up for it as you can see. My roommate got the dress from Shaban but didn't want to wear it so I got to! It was pretty ugly but super cool right? It was made out of velvet. We then had dancing and that was my favorite part. There were these teenage girls who taught us. They were pretty good. It was so fun we got in circles and danced. We then had our own dance party of our own. Dance parties in the JC is the best. I love all the people here. We tried to get Dr. Whitchurch to dance with us to "Get Low", it was so funny. It was a great night.

So I didn't get to go out into the city all week cause I was busy with classes and we had a big old testament midterm today. It was SO hard. I was trying to study all week for it. There was just so information that it was hard to know what to study. Only a few people did really well. I got a 79% so not bad. We also had an ANE quiz today. I have 3 midterms and a paper due next week...ahh i love midterms. School here can be hard but it is all worth it. It is so cool being out in the city and seeing things you have learned about in class. I feel like all of the classes relate and I use a lot of the same information for all of it. Jerusalem is just and amazing city with so much culture. I love all the people here in the program. We are getting so close it is ridiculous. The Jerusalem Center really feels like home. I still need to get the city better though.

Today after classes and lunch we had a humanitarian service project. It was actually so fun. We made hygiene kits and put them in boxes. We had the music blasting and we were just singing along while putting it together. I was in charge of putting the boxes together. It was fun cause we made it into a race and everyone was doing it so fast. We had like 409 boxes! After that we went into the city and just did some shopping. I picked up my ring and necklace that I had made. My ring says CTR in hebrew and my necklace says my name in Hebrew. They are pretty cool. Tonight was chill. There was ballroom dancing but I didn't go to that. We watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics. I was fun. Friday nights here are so chill. I like it. Cause we always have busy weeks. I have never been so busy in my life! They give us so much homework! Anyways I am still loving it here. I never want to leave.