Woohoo! Diary Entry!

Hi there!

It has been while since I lasted posted a diary-like entry here, so I will warn you now. This post will be long, random and my thoughts will be ultimately scattered. 

Let's start out like the typical movie format. Start all the way from the back, and make my way to the front. At the beginning of the summer, I didn't do much. I swam often, drew a painting and went out with my friends multiple times. When Ramadan came, everyone became lazy and woke up at 3 PM. However...In the middle of July, my family and I went to Canada for two weeks, and it was super fun!

We went to an amusement park (Canada's Wonderland), which was superb! There were so many frightening and exhilarating rides. Multiple rides we rode flipped us over, so we were upside down. Then there was another one that we had to ride standing up, and so when we went on a loop, we were dangling from our feet. Although ALL of the rides were supertastically awesome, my sister and I both favored the ride called Canada's Mine Mountain (I think, it had 'mine' in the name anyways) above all the rest. 

We also went to the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum, which was full of great and interesting facts, and the best thing was that a lot of the wonders were presented as wax figurines. An example of wonders being molded from wax, there was a section about the people with the most extreme facial features, and so they modeled the guy with the biggest nose, and the one with the most ability to push his eyeballs of out of his eye sockets. There were also some fascinating art works hanging around the museum. There were some paintings that were made in the Victorian era from butterfly wings! There was also a collage-like painting made of Scrabble pieces of different shades that were put together to appear like Frankenstein's monster (my friend has always pointed out the difference between Frankenstein, the doctor, and his monster, so I try my best to differentiate between the two when I'm talking about the matter). There were also paintings displayed on ostrich eggs, that were very meticulously detailed, and very awesome. 

When we visited Niagara Falls, we enjoyed the falls in the day from the boardwalk, as well as right up close near the falls themselves, where we were constantly surrounded by a beautiful rainbow, and constantly sprayed by the falls. In short, we looked like cone-heads, but we were surrounded by a very beautiful view, so it didn't even matter. We also saw it at night, when there was a magnificent fireworks show. 

During our stay at Niagara Falls, we went to Ripley's, a very fun arcade (where we won a bunch of tickets, which we traded in for computer stickers, butterfly magnets, a bouncy ball and several plastic soldiers), an XD theater (where we watched a safari movie, and the experience seemed very realistic, especially in the scene where the helicopter kept crashing on the side of a mountain-super scary!!!), we also played dinosaur-themed mini golf (which was also fun - and yes I have to put brackets with every entry in this paragraph), AND we went on the SkyWheel (where we could see all of Niagara , twice, and the view of the Falls themselves was the most beautiful. However, there was a part where all you could see was a wall, and we stopped there often, so yeah...).

Also in Canada, we went and watched a movie called...The Edge of Tomorrow. It was such a great movie. There are so many great things about the movie, the first being that it is so smart, and everything about it is so detailed and obviously thought through, so even after you watch it and think about it, it all makes sense. Another great thing is the bad-assery of Emily Blunt in the movie. Oh my, she was magnificent, and so was Tom Cruise, but my feminist instinct has made me very bias.

Besides all of these amazing trips, just hanging out with my family on this vacation was also a lot of fun, and the vast difference between Canada and Jordan is shocking, but so comforting as well, which was a very welcome change. The atmosphere of the country is so inviting and pleasant. So thank you dear, dear father for taking us and spoiling us on this trip. 

Now, on to Jordan. When I got back from Canada, there was a week left of Ramadan, and so laziness ensued, and then Eid came, which was fun and we all dressed up and saw our family members and ate a lot of Eid-related pastries. 

After Eid, my friends and I went to the Jordan color festival, and according to the banners for the event, they're planning to make this an annual thing, but I assure you I won't be going again. Did I have fun? Yes. But Yara, why won't you go again? Because dear Mr./Mrs./Ms. Hypothetical, it was a very unorganized event that just isn't worth it. So...yeah. No more intel on this matter, MOVING ON!

After the color festival, I went to work for the first time. YAY! I now work as a volunteer in the Hakawati Bookstore for Books and Art. It is very fun to work there, because I get to help customers, and if little kids come in to work on crafts, I help them with the painting process. The other volunteer and I also helped organize some of the messier sections of the bookstore, and helped them prepare for the parents looking for books for their kids for school. If there aren't any customers, we get to read the books, so that's AWESOME! I also went with the bookstore to the King Hussein Cancer Center, where I got the opportunity to read to some of the kids, and it was a great experience there. All of the staff and all of the kids were friendly, even when I messed up reading, they corrected me, but very politely. I did read to kids personally, two kids to be exact, both who have just underwent the surgery. Allah yeshfeehom.

Tomorrow will actually be my last day there, and I had such an awesome experience there.

Now...I will unleash the random. One day, we went to my cousins' house, and there they had a trampoline. My sister, my cousins and I jumped for about two and a half hours, nonconsecutive, of course. There, my younger cousin had a toy that she continuously held as she jumped around. At some point as we were jumping, we heard a little squeak, and it turned out to be from the toy, which was a surprise to my cousins, because they hadn't noticed that, although they had had that toy for quite a while. Then we played a game where we had to jump around with it on the floor, and we got points every time we got the toy to squeak.

Another bit of random and a little thought cookies (what?), I recently joined a new gym, and I have been thinking a lot about how impatient people are these days. People expect to get quick results off of minimal effort. My friend, who will remain anonymous, had joined a gym for about one-two months, and she continuously complains about how she can't see any results that she's satisfied with, and she wants to quit. Today was my third day to the gym, and I half-expect a six-pack every time I look at my stomach. Whenever I think about this, or get sad about this, I remember an article I read a while ago that was complaining about all of those diet and life hacks. In the article, the writer said something that really stuck with me, and he said that whenever somebody sets a goal, they just focus on the end result, but as he said the real joy of getting to the end result involves the person dedicating themselves to the journey and all of its uphill struggles, so they can savor the end result, because they earned it. 

I guess that's all of the things I have to say now. I am planning on making a blog post dedicated to the art that I made over the summer, maybe even a post with some photos from the summer. So check around for that later on. I was also thinking to upload more poems of mine on the blog, and even short stories, and since I have been constantly surronded by children's books during the summer, I have a bajilion thoughts of children's stories swimming in my head.

Have an awesome night/day you lovely human being, 

Yara :)

P.S.: On Saturday, I am reading in the Hakawati bookstore, so wish me luck and pray with me that I won't mess up in front of the kids and their parents. Fingers crossed.