Frantic Preparation

Preparing for a long stay in another country is inherently stressful. Unfortunately, certain aspects of my personality unnecessarily magnify this pressure. For instance, my inability to turn off the 50" plasma TV dominating my parents living room, especially when there is a Project Runway marathon. Damn you, Heidi. There's also my difficulty conceptualizing things like bills, the practicalities and necessities (or what I consider the dirty laundry) of everyday living. Or my obsession for attending aerobics classes when my time would be much better spent reading about tourism, an industry I have no work experience in, or Jordan, a country I have never visited in a region that vaguely terrifies me, or tying up the millions of loose ends I will undoubtedly leave hanging in space. Sigh.

Perhaps due to these personality flaws (although I'd like to think the fault lies elsewhere or at least somewhere in the middle) I have already run into my first major obstacle of life in a foreign country before I even stepped on or off the plane. I am not in possession of my passport and I leave in a mere two days. My passport is in fact hundreds of miles away in a small, dimly lit office of the Syrian Embassy in Washington DC, apparently gathering dust. Due to a Visa application error, it's extremely important speedy return to me has been delayed. The whole of my energy for the past two days has been dedicated to stressing about this problem and attempting to reach someone at the inexplicably empty embassy. I have now been told it will be overnighted to me and should reach me tomorrow, but for some reason, until I am clutching that beautiful, little blue book tightly in my hands, I still feel like vomiting.

The above picture is of the Advisers who will also be working in Jordan (except for two who are off to Indonesia). We met for a week of training in DC. We had four long, drawn out days of meetings and lectures and for some reason the only information that I retained was that we will all be given a car. The day after learning this there was a front page story on the USA Today staring up at me as I opened my hotel door that morning for breakfast . It declared that driving in a foreign country is the number one killer of ex pats. At least terrorism now pales in comparison to my more pressing death threat.

One thing we were asked to do all week at this training was state our assumed challenges and expectations. This is how I will end my first post and since I am not presenting this information to an audience of donors and employers, I can actually be honest.

Challenges:
1) Working in an office with six men, from a different culture, who's English is decent.
2) Driving in Amman, a city of 1 million, where street signs are in short supply and aggression behind the wheel is standard.
3) Learning Arabic.
4) Balancing work, writing my capstone, writing my case study, meeting people, traveling in the region, staying healthy (i.e. working out), and not going crazy.
5) Language barrier.
6) Cultural barrier.
7) Absolute fear.
8) Making friends.
9) Possibility that my job will be a complete joke.
10) Budgeting.

Expectations:
1) Getting to know the Jordanian tourism industry.
2) Learning about public relations.
3) Volunteering at the Jordan Times to gain some more media experience and by-lines.
4) Teaching an aerobics class at a Jordanian gym.
5) Running the Dead Sea marathon.
6) Traveling and meeting people.
7) Graduating.
8) Publishing a case study.
9) Going a little crazy.
10) Dropping my spare tyre due to a developing world diet (which equates to: there just ain't as much to eat;)