Today’s my third day in Damascus, one of the few archaic cities still inhabited by the treacherous, all-consuming race of homosapiens. As some of you may have known earlier, the lovely, gracious Syrian Government (haha, can anyone smell taqiyya, or at least a dash of sarcasm :P), God protect and lengthen their freedom loving (copyright bush?) country. Anyway, i now officially have TWO of the three axis of evil countries on my passport, and in all likelihood, and as logical induction would suggest, North Korea is the next stop :P Haha gotta love bush’s star-wars speeches, and they say t.v. doesn’t fry your minds!
Ooo, I need all your prayers right now. So far things, after seemingly funnelling down a hopeless streak of failed and unexpected series of events, like the rejection of my groups student visas by Syria –which now that we’re here we’re being told was as a result of certain terrorist incidents that occurred by a certain Turkish (saif, you around?) student who was studying as a foreign student so apparently there was a lot of hesitation on the governments parts to admit any foreign students, particularly those of some Islamic affiliation! But alas, like many countries they don’t distinguish between the myriad of Islamic strands of thoughts and instead, when a so called ‘Muslim’ does something horrific it seems to stain and taint the integrity of every ACTUAL Muslim irrespectively. Shame…
R>Anyway, so far so good, but I could still use your prayers. Whether or not we wish to acknowledge it, prayers do have a viable sway in the grandeur hierarchy of causes and destinies; this we have been repeatedly assured by scripture, and as some would adduce, by sheer experience. Certainly, what will be will be, but a prayer might certainly steer the direction of even the seemingly inevitable, perhaps not always in an exceptional, miraculous type of way, but many a times through casual means. That said, please pray for me, especially the prayer of the pure-hearted and the believers (who are supposed to be pure-hearted anyway :P) toward whom God is especially attentive.
Status: Damascus University seems to have accepted my application, they are waiting for one more document which should be ready tomorrow from the Canadian embassy :) other than that all is great alhamduillah. Next obstacle is getting my visa status changed from tourist to student, haha, we were rejected before i pray that that won’t happen again. Damascus Uni seems to really have a thorough, intensive Arabic program. I hope it works out. They have interesting requirements too, lol, like an AIDS test for forigen students (which i tested positive for! Well positive, here means negative lol thank God they had brackets explaining what they ment—i.e. positive for not having Aids). Haha at the placement test (where they decided which level they should PLACE me in) which took several hours, it got really interesting, the last part of the test was a live interview with one of the teachers and they would access your ability to communicate in fushah (traditional arabic). I’m sloppy at my colloquial Arabic let alone my traditional Arabic, anyway, the lady that was examining me seemed to really have a go at me with the best of questions! Could it get any better than this?(in Arabic of course, interviewer in plain text, thoughts delineated by asterisks)
Are you married?
Err noo I am not married.
Why aren’t you married?
Humm, *looks for quick excuse* the time isn’t suitable for me yet *as if it will ever be*.
Why would anyone want to get married anyway?
*hunh? Is she serious! Drop the freaking topic lol!* oh well, *again looks for a quick excuse after a long pause and a perhaps an invisible blush* for love, for… *as she cuts me off, oo good I hope she’s leaving the topic* …
What do you think of the events in Iraq and across the arab world in the name of Islam?
*ooo, interesting topic, but sadly, I can barely speak in such terms in Arabic… and begins another struggle* :P
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