Why Arabic? (I ask myself this every day)

So since I am having more fun with blogger than I would studying for my impending midterm(s) (I do have more classes than just Arabic!) I thought I would post for all to see my reason for choosing to study Arabic. It is quite a fun story, fraught with danger, adventure (of course!), and, naturally, Jerusalem, so here goes. My first month in Jerusalem was crazy. I felt more emotions than I can even enumerate or talk about, even if I talked about them, say, every day for a year, which I have. One of those emotions, unfortunately for my ever extending graduation date, was a love for the Palestinians, their culture, and especially their language. I volunteered in a Palestinian embroidery shop and we got to hear the stories of Palestinian women, many of them widowed or divorced, and the hardships they go through to try to support their families and give their children a better way of life than what they have. I realized that I wanted to do something to make the average American housewife understand that Palestinian does not equal terrorist, that there are women just like them who live in Israel and Palestine (and in refugee camps in other countries) who want their children to be happy, who want to live in a peaceful country, who want to be alive to see their children and grandchildren grow up, and more personally who want a house of their own that they can clean, who want their families home for dinner, who want their children to be educated, and who want to worship God as they see fit. Basically I wanted to change the world. So I decided that I would learn Arabic and then write a book about the average life of Palestinian women, and maybe one day it would be featured on Oprah and then everyone would read it, and then people would come to love the Palestinians as I have. So I want to change the world. I think it is a reasonable goal, especially since I have given myself a year or two to do it. :)

Oh, and ps, if you want to see my old blog from Jerusalem and some great pics, www.byujerusalem.spaces.live.com