Guantanamera

Street art by David Walker. Check out Street Art Utopia for more awesome photos of street art, graffiti and urban art.

Looking back at my previous posts, a whole lot of them begin with my expression of regret over not updating this blog so often. Five posts were written since January last year, shame shame.

New Year's eve was spent in Irbid studying for my Endocrine exam, so was most of the past year really. I've grown rather accustomed to this lifestyle, to the degree that going back to Amman on weekends has become something of a burden for me, as well as spending excess time with the family. It isn't that I'm holding anything against them, it's just that I've become quite fond of the space and peace of mind that come with living alone.

Medical school has been as demanding as ever, and I can hardly say that I'm spending all of my time studying. Grades are barely mediocre in comparison to the rest of the class, and if trends don't change soon, I can't see myself being accepted into any noteworthy let alone competitive residency program. Word on the street is that fourth year may turn out to be somewhat of a better experience being clinically based and all - haven't lost hope yet.

The idea of residency has honestly got me in a state of panic and anxiety, and a quick look at the few medical relatives I have only furthers the troubled thoughts. Two are interviewing for slots in the US, one aiming for general surgery and the other for internal medicine. Both have top notch USMLE scores. The third is currently doing his final year of ophthalmology residency with the Royal Jordanian medical services. All three barely see the light of day. The exponential incline in competitiveness of American programs is also a thought that has me worried. More and more graduates have been considering Germany for specialty programs after their internships in Jordan. Who knows, maybe I'll go for that when my time comes.

The year 2011 was pretty successful - in terms of Arab revolutions that is. Myself, I would say that this year was nothing but a complete failure, achievements were close to nil on all levels. Neither did I live up to last year's resolutions nor did I do anything else worth the mention. What has been happening is quite the contrary; social life and events are getting ever so dull, volunteer work is negligible and I'm barely doing any proper exercise besides walking nowadays. My plans to get back to violin last year have only been postponed over and over again.

On the not-so-negative side of things, I recently ordered myself a Kindle 4 e-book reader from Amazon. It arrived with a cousin on Christmas day, so I can't really complain about the timing. I was pretty lucky, Amazon regrettably does not ship it's Kindles internationally - very grateful things worked out as well as they did. I'll be writing a review once I'm done with exams on Thursday, but all in all it's a pretty awesome gadget. Supposedly it'll be snowing in Amman then, arriving from Irbid to the white capital is something I'll definitely be looking forward to.

Anyhow, avoiding the negativity and self-destrucive bouts of depression is a must for me. Perhaps I should make use of and take pride in the compliments I'm getting - about how spotlessly clean my bathroom and toilet are - to lift up my sense of self worth. Yes, fantastic.

First Blog Anniversary and a Road Trip to Irbid

Who would have known time could run so fast! Browsing through the archive it just struck me that I missed Qahwa Saada's first year anniversary, which was supposedly on the 17th of January, boo. Accordingly, I'm actually six days late, but come to think about it, I guess I had an exam then, can't be too harsh on myself now, can I?

If you're worrying how yesterday went with all the packing, the road trip to Irbid one-on-one with a Jordanian gendermerie personnel, the unpacking, and the cleaning, I would like to comfort you and tell you that I made it back to Amman in one piece, I think.

First of, the guy came about three hours late, which prevented me from enjoying my falafel sandwich the way I was supposed to. Bought it from the Abu Jbara Medina St restaurant, and I payed a good deal more than I usually do for falafel sandwiches. So it turned out breakfast was rushed through for no reason. After I loaded everything into the KIA truck with his kind supervision, we set of on our journey.

Can't say I enjoyed the ride, it took about 45 minutes longer than it usually does, probably because I was in a truck full of furniture rather than a speeding 2011 Ferrari GTO rusty old Daio bus. To add to that, the trip was spent listening to overly loud Qur'an cassettes, traffic horns, and a load of interesting swear words. Plus, the driver had no idea where he was going. Irony. Things progressed pretty smoothly from there, I found out my key to the apartment neither opened nor closed the front door, and all I got was an order to get new keys from the shop around the corner.

As much as I love the city of Irbid, the second largest in Jordan after Amman, and the hometown of my ancestors, one can't help but note how dirty the city is, and by dirty I mean plastic bags and tin cans blanketing the lands all around. This brings me to how clean I found my kitchen and bathroom to be; my stove was drenched in greasy remains, with a lot of grease stains infiltrating the counter top. Stepping into a puddle I also found a leaking pipe in the bathroom, and the best thing of it all was the toilet. No other words would describe it than utterly befouled. Now luckily the water bill isn't on me, and I wouldn't consider myself a person who gets disgusted easily, so I took the situation lightheartedly and started with the cleanups and repairs.

Then it came to me that I should hurry if I was to make it back to Amman, and to add to my luck I was greeted by a lovely young taxi driver who offered to drive me there for 4 JDs, a total rip off. Some stubborn travelers stood by my choice in not taking the taxi, and we found a lad who agreed to drive us to Amman for 2JDs and a half; not too good a price, but it was the best offer I was getting for the night. So we got to Amman, and after walking a bit, I finally made it home at 10pm - stinky and soggy with a broken back and a dead phone that is.