We have become old!!!

Hello all... salaams.. hope you all are doing well, Alhamd we are doing great here in Damascus!!! As you can tell by the title, we are getting old!! lol, it seems that by the end of the day we are so exhausted that we are in bed by 10.. lol, thats never happened before.. but it is really a long day... as we mentioned in previous blogs we have 10 classes in a day, and by the end of it and after we finish our homework, go for a walk to practice our Arabic, or watch some tv (in arabic) we are pretty exhausted. Its good though cause we are well rested for the next day...

Our classes are going really well, we finished the first book of Arabic and have started the 2nd, which is much bigger then the first, so this one will take some time...and there are no pictures in this one! lol .... But according to our teacher, we are ahead of schedule which is great. Today in our tutorial class we did something interesting... the teacher turned on the tv and we started watching the news. Then he timed us for 3 minutes and told us to write down as many words we could recognize. It was a lot of fun and something different then our regular tutorial. The great thing was that we actually could recognize quite a few words, though because i was writing so fast, I could hardly read my own writing...lol...

So our reading and understanding are getting better, but we are striving to speak better. Though i have to say, for learning arabic for 2 months, we speak quite well, we just need to keep getting and finding more opportunities to practice our speakin... though far from good..we're progressing well :) Sabiha and I went out yesterday and bought little note books that we can carry around and write new words, to practice them in our conversation. Sabiha and I try to speak to each other in arabic at home, though our grammar is terrible and a lot of times we just throw in words in english if we dont know the arabic word.

It is getting colder now, we have started wearing jackets and more layers of clothes, and i hear its only going to get colder. The heating system here is different then what we have ever seen before, obviously...lol. There are these radiator things in every room but the main power switch for them is controlled by the building management. Yesterday they turned it on but unfortunately the heating system doesnt work in our apartment. So the manager said he would come by today to take a look at it, but ofcourse, he didnt. lol.. oh well, hopefully soon, but its not that cold yet, iA they will fix it before it gets much colder....

besides that, all else is good here, pray that we learn well, i know all your prayers are definitely helping us. we still cant believe that we are so close to the Honorable Lady Sayyida Zainab AS. Each day we are amazed and feel lucky that we are in her proximity. They call her the untaught Scholar, because of her wisdom, even though she was never taught. We pray that she will bless us so that we can learn and make her and her family proud, which in turn, most definitely will make Allah SWT pleased with us.

Take care for now and GO LAKERS!!!!!

Missin the Lakers!!!

Hello all, pretty cool, much frequent updates...lol... now that we have internet, we check our email every two days and we have decided to take turns updating the blog.. so somedays our blogs will be really short cause not that much to talk about... but atleast updates will be there... btw, leave msgs cause we def read them and appreciate them.

anyways, as the title says, missing the lakers man!!!! since we have been here, the only thing we have missed is family and friends... i used to love watching football, but dont miss that at all, but now that the lakers season has started, really missing the lakers... im more excited to check the scores of the games then i am to check my email..lol. but im glad to see they are off to a good start, especially with Lamar Odom being injured...

as Sabiha mentioned, last friday we had a bbq with all the teachers and their families there, and it was really cool. but the best part of the evening was that we had Camel meat.. lol... they bbq'd camel kabobs and I really enjoyed them. They definitely had a different taste to them, but meat is meat...lol. Being here in Syria, we eat alot more bbq meat then we did back home, its the safer thing to order i think when we go to restaurants... and the Syrian ppl love their french fries, every rest. we have been to has had fries, and it works great for me cause I am a potato and meat man!!! lol.

ALSO.... we watched American Gangster last thursday... yup thats right, last thursday, and it came out in the states on Friday..lol..LOL.. thats soo cool... it was a good movie... as sabiha has mentioned in a previous blog, there is a store here that sells movies, so someone we know picked it up and we borrowed it... pretty cool...

AND... we bought our first Shisha (hooka) today..lol about time huh...lol, i know... it took us two months but we got a really nice one today. We went out with our friend Ebrahim today and he took us to Damascus to buy a good quality one. So we bought everything... the actual Shisha, three flavors of tobacco, foil paper, coal, coal holder... the works.. and for much less then we would have spent for a less then deceent quality shisha back home.

Anyhow, thats it for now... will write more later.

take care!!

nahnu nuhib suriya...

here we are again..from jaffer's post you know our exams went well, definitely a relief that they are over and that we all did well in them...i'm glad the first set of 6 exams are over, though these are probably the easiest one's we'll ever take in terms of content...but at least now we know what to expect...we wont be as anxious anymore...we'll just have to study harder because i'm sure the content will be more intense...

as a 'reward' for our 'mumtaz' test results...we had a bbq last friday...we had a great time and it gave us an opportunity to meet all the families of our teachers...Dr. Hassam (president of the World Federation) as well 'Am Jaffer were here visiting, so it was nice to all get together...there was some really delicious food...and we all (the four of us students) gave a small speech in arabic...they were all pleased to hear us speak quite well, just after 2 months...yes they actually understood us lol...

here's what i had to say (grammar not 100% lol but we're getting there):

s'uhaawil an ataqallam qaleel bil arabiya
i will try to speak a little in arabic

ismi sabiha wa ana min america, wa qablahaa kuntu fi canada - lakin aslan min africa
my name is sabiha and am from the states, but before that i was in canada...originally from africa

ana mutazawwije, wa zawji ma'ee huna fi suriya
i am married, and my husband is here with me in syria

nahnu nuhib suriya jiddan
we really like syria

ana lam urid an akhudh katheer waqt lianna arabiyatee laysa jayid, inshallah fil mustaqbal saufa takun mumtaz.
I dont want to take to much time, because my arabic is not good, but Allah willing it will be excellent in the future.

most of the people there...ie the families of our teachers didn't speak English and so we were forced to practice our arabic...always jump at that opportunity as it is the best way to learn.

anyhow, i still have some wadhifa (homework) that i need to finish up - so i shall pen off...

m'a salaama...with peace

Apologizing once again...lol

Hello everyone... long time no write again, i know... even though we have internet, we still havent been able to update as frequently as we would like. Though this time we have a great excuse... we had EXAMS!!!! such a scary word, but we made it through, Alhamd, but will discuss that in a bit... first a few things to clear up...

On my last blog, I had mentioned about our teachers and the administrators, but it looks like one of the comments was blown out of proportion... so first off, let me explain what a blog is.. it is a place for us to write our experiences and have our families and friends stay in touch with us... secondly, it is a place where we write in a humorous and sometimes sarcastic way, as it is meant to be informal, to keep our readers interested. Can you imagine if the whole blog was serious and boring.. who would read it???? lol...anyway...

so we did have exams this week.. 6 exams over 6 days, one a day... really rough schedule... all exams were in 100% arabic... no english at all... that was challenging but we did great... you want our results??? ok... here they are....

Our first exam was in Arabic - I got 19/20 and Sabiha got 19.5/20.

Our second exam was in Imla - Dictation - I got 19/20 and Sabiha got 19.5/20 (see a trend...lol)

Our third exam was in Qur'an - I got 17/20 (i know, i know, thats the exam i went in the most confident..lol..) Sabiha got 20/20 - Amazing!!!

Our fourth exam was in Hadith - I got 19/20 and Sabiha got 19.5/20

Our fifth exam was in Fiqh - the toughest one I think cause it was all major and long sentences we had to write in arabic and know the rules of religion (which isnt bad, but in arabic its something else.) I got 19.25/20 and Sabiha got 19.75/20.

Last exam was in Comprehension... unfortunately, we havent got the results back. The other couple did really well as well, but its not my place to mention their grades... but they did do really well, Alhamd...

Before i hear any comments, let me be the first one to give props to Sabiha and agree with all of you that she is smarter then i am... thats why i married her :)

Last thing to mention, I have officially stopped shaving and trimming my beard... lol.. dont panic, every week i go to the barber and for 2$ i get a trim and a nice shave.. lol... and if i want a haircut, just another $2... lol.. ok, thats it for now.. ttyl... Sabiha should be writing soon...