Reflection from Week 11

[Taylor Napier-Runnels]

Last week I met all of my learning objectives and I am feeling very comfortable with household objects and rooms in the house. The verbs in the present tense ing form ended up being extremely easy because it is the same as present tense verbs. Apparently the two forms are used interchangeably. I also spoke with Mona about family life and it was interesting learning household customs such as taking off shoes when you enter the house or having special kinds of shoes to go to the bathroom. Also, we talked a lot about the differences in treatment between boys and girls. Boys are allowed a lot more freedoms than women are because there is so much more at stake for women if something happens to them. If their reputation is tarnished for some reason then it makes their prospects for marriage much less likely. I also watched a movie called "Divorce Iranian Style" which showed a court in Iran and talked about what it took for people, especially women. It was interesting to see what women would say to try and get out of marriages they did not want to be in and how hard it was for them to obtain their bride gift (a sum of money) from their husband. Most women ended up giving up their bride gift in order to get a divorce. It was a very eye opening documentary and I highly recommend it.Last week was extremely interesting because we had cultural project presentations which allowed me to learn about a variety of topics including music, the youth and Iranian food. My two favorite were the presentations on music and food. Up until last week I had only really heard classical music and I liked listening to other forms of music, especially the Iranian rap. It was also interesting to hear about how in Iran the music was extremely censored but outside of the country certain artists had very popular followings. The food presentation was also really great because we got to learn about the main Iranian dishes and the ingredients along with getting to try the food. We tried a flat thin bread that we put sour cherry jelly and a white cheese on. We could also put halwa on it, but I don't like halwa so I didn't. The bread and the sour cherry jelly were great, but I wasn't really a fan of the white cheese. It seems that the staples of Iranian food tend to be rice and meat. The presentations were really informative and I am excited to see the ones tomorrow.