Winter Break

Yesterday I had my last final. I feel really good about all of them. We had a speaking final where we had to just talk for a few minutes about the positives/negatives of Jordan so far; since it was such an open topic it wasn't too hard. Speaking has been my weakest point though, but it was the best speaking presentation in Arabic I've done so far. Other classmates even said I did a good job! Then I had a listening test where we listened to a story/paragraph from our book for 10 minutes or so on the Language Center's state-of-the-art tape players, and then answer questions. We had a small reading test for pronunciation and then finally, the hardest of all, the written. The written final, like the midterm, was a hit-or-miss since we learned countless words throughout the entire semester. Anyway, I put a lot of studying in for all of them and it definitely paid off. I'll get my grades in a few days. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do for the break now that school is out.

I went to the Bethany on the Jordan (the Baptism site) last Friday. The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem was there, along with the Vatican Ambassador to Jordan as well as other major religious figures. There was a service followed by a procession to the river itself. At first it was closed to everyone but the Patriarch and some higher ups/alter boys who processed there; they came back with water from it and anointed everyone with branches dipped in the water. Omar and I waited and then they finally opened it up and we went down to it. It was a really nice place and amazing to think Jesus was baptized there so long ago. Here are some pictures: