Things pretty much on a roll now

So I had my placement test today! It went pretty well, I’d been scared of the exam because my roommates had all taken it and said that it was really hard, but none of them had the same classes I’d had and they’d also been away from Arabic for a while whereas I had the advantage of only having been away from Arabic for about two to three weeks, so the exam wasn’t completely horrible. There were five parts to the exam—listening first, then writing, then reading, then grammar, and then a speaking part. By the time of the grammar part of the exam, I was getting a little loopy and so I just started guessing on some of the questions, and really, there’s only so much Arabic grammar that I can remember in the half hour they allowed us to have to answer all the questions. I was able to answer all of the questions in the time given though so I think that’s good.

After the placement test, I went to Souq Sarouja, to the bank, to get money to pay for the classes so I could register for class. Having gotten the money, I went back to the university to pay the money, and learned then that I’d got into Level 6 of the program! Which made me really happy, because level 6 happens to be the highest level in the cheaper set of classes, so, yay. So I paid the money, gave the application and the letter that I’d gotten from the embassy, and thus only had the AIDS test left, which technically I was supposed to get today but the lady said I could just turn it in tomorrow so I’m going to do that insha’allah.

Having turned in almost everything, I ran back to the house because I was going to meet with the landlady for my house at 2 pm. She didn’t come, so I just took nap for a while and then went shopping again for some necessities and also for fruit and vegetables. I also figured out where to get bread, and the old man who works there and I have hit it off so it’s good.

I walked back to the house afterwards, dropped off the stuff, and then went to the internet café to talk to my parents and also to check email. I’m meeting with some friends from the past tomorrow insha’allah, so more adventures to come tomorrow!

I had to take taxis today, again, and that just annoyed me, as per usual. The first taxi I took didn’t even turn on its meter, but I knew how much it would be so I just gave the guy 50 lira, and what does he do? Turns around and asks for more, at which point I just said “Look, I’m sorry, I don’t have any more money, I’m going to the bank right now to get money” and then he had to say okay fine. After getting money from the bank, I walked to the hotel because I didn’t have any change, and that is just annoying when banks don’t give you anything smaller than 500 lira and taxi drivers don’t give you your change either so it doesn’t make sense to hand them a 500 lira. So I complained about this to the lady at the reception, and she agreed sort of but she’s Syrian so she doesn’t exactly suffer from the same constraints placed on foreigners. However, the second taxi driver I had was an absolutely wonderfully pleasant surprise. I was taking this taxi from Souq Sarouja to the university again, and when we got to the university, the meter read 23 lira, so I just gave the guy 50 lira because that’s what you do. What happened next made my jaw drop. He told me to wait, put his hand in the money box, and GAVE ME CHANGE. I was bowled over. Completely surprised. And absolutely happy to have been proven wrong with regards to Syrian taxi drivers.

Hokay. A little bit of an unorganized post, but that’s it for today, May 19, 2010. See you all soon!