Some differences...

Everyone here is so nice. Someone just came into the office and asked if I wanted anything to eat. Yesterday, we visited the former secretary of the Civil Development Center and she locked the door and turned off the lights while me, katie and 4 others sat around and gossiped while she made us cheese sandwiches (on flatbread of course). Every now and then the door handle would turn, but it was locked so we all turned silent. One of the guys talking with us is a deaf man who is basically the "office boy" of the center. He is soooo social tho and really nice. He's friends with everyone and arguably the most popular man on campus.
The former secretary of the Center(who now works in the school of dentistry)took Katie and me into an empty office to take off her hijab and show us her new highlights and straightened hair. She said she wishes she didn't have to wear it because she wants to show off her new look.
We also shopped around downtown Irbid and that was quite interesting... it was sort of like Chinatown in NY for me (esp the part where no one speaks English). Many people stared! One guy tripped across the pavement because he was staring, lol. C'mon guys, whitey can't be that unusual... whenever we see people staring my sister and i sing "take a pictureeeee".
The wedding was lots of fun, despite the fact that many people didn't understand me. We danced (they drag you onto the dancefloor) and do the dipka. Women celebrate in a different room than the men. The bride was very beautiful, and descended in a clear elevator (which some girls informed me was not traditional). The bride and groom wanted to take pictures with us tho and that was a little awkward. And the groom said after this they are moving to California where he will teach and work on his PhD. Overall, it was very enjoyable.

I made a list of a few things in Jordan that I find difficult to get used to:
-50,000 greetings. When you meet someone you have to ask them "how are you" in about 50 different ways, so greetings take a very long time.
-you can't flush toilet paper. you have to put it in the trash can... ugh.
-horn honking=worse than ny... but apparently people honk in many ways: celebratory honk, taxiavailability honk, and of course the getouttamyway honk.
-King Abdullah and Hussein photographs EVERYWHERE even tho King Hussein has been deceased since 1998, everyone loves the royalty here and there is great amounts of pride, so there's a lot of photos (billboards, in busses, on computers, etc)
-Spoons are a different shape... Katie doesn't believe me but they are tapered in the opposite direction (kind of hard to explain)
-Almost everyone smokes (in fact there is a guy smoking right next to me right now) and they know that it's bad for you but they do it anyway. This trip is taking 50 years off my life... and it just smells bad.
-Clothes of course... i learned how to put on the hijab the other day!
-call to prayer: if you live near a mosque you hear the call to prayer 5 times (at least) every day and it is quite loud, but it kind of fades into the background because it is melodic.
-food: funny cheese, flatbread, and tissues instead of napkins or paper towels.

i think some people were talking in arabic in the hallway last night bc i couldn't sleep and i had a dream about the taxi driver without his nephew.

Everyone was supposed to go to see Lord of War (nicholas cage) and i'm being told right now that they had to cancel it because it was not censored.
first there was a kiss and many conservative girls left (they tried to turn the sound off... as if that would do any good)
then some guy came and put a book in front the projector during any scenes he did not approve of (which varied from a woman in a bikini to a short dress to a man and woman touching... things which probably wouldn't normally be edited out).
Tomorrow's movie is Ice Age 2... which shouldn't be too bad.
I ALMOST taught Katie's english class the word tool during class today bc we were talking about slangs like poser and stuff but my sister said it used to mean something else (dictionary.com it if you want) so i couldn't teach it... but really, that definition is not in usage anymore, right?