The Unpleasant Time Difference

It was midnight when my siblings and I went straight to bed once we came back from the mosque.  I woke up to the annoying phone ringing at two in the morning. I thought this better not have been a joke because my sleeping time was precious. Since my schedule at night was hectic with suhoor* and then waking up a bit later to take Bara to his soccer practice, every minute counts.

I answered the phone so it could stop ringing, not because of the person calling. I was about to shut the phone on the person’s face once I said “Hello?” until I realized it was my dad calling from Jordan. Unfortunately, there’s an eight hour time difference so calling time will most likely be inconvenient for someone at the other end.
“Hello, hello, can you hear me Mariam? How are you doing?”
“Oh, Baba how are you guys? We miss you a lot. Everything is under control, how’s everything?”
“ We’re good. Mama and I are running on no sleep. Everyone’s excited that we’re here. Tell me how are your siblings doing?.....”
The conversation continued for about ten minutes until my dad said, “Okay, I think I’ve talked enough with you, can I speak to one of your siblings, possibly Raneem?”
“Yeah, just a minute,” and I struggled the life out of myself to wake her up but it was never going to happen. I could actually feel with her. For Raneem, as a nine-year-old, going to sleep at midnight and waking up after two hours seems impossible.
My only resort was to tell Baba, “Raneem isn’t waking up, you want to talk to someone else?”
“No, that’s fine. I just wanted to see how she was doing. I hope I didn’t take too long. I’ll call you later. It seems like this is the best time for me to call you. I can’t really call at a later or earlier time because it’s always too hectic.”
My only reply could be, “Yeah, that’s fine,” even though I was exhausted and calling at 2:30AM was clearly a horrible time to call!

I shut the phone and went back to sleep for another hour until suhoor.

*Suhoor: The meal Muslims eat in the morning before starting their fasting. It’s also the time when Mariam becomes the maid:needing to wake up the kids, make the food, and clean up mess that her siblings have done even though they didn’t eat that much.  

Anat/Phys

As the days of summer were slowly flying away (at the same time), the idea of junior year coming to a start hadn’t really hit me. It wasn’t until I got a letter from Parkland giving me information about their Dual Credit Program.

I enrolled in the Anatomy/Physiology class at Uni, which is Parkland offered. In the beginning of the process I wasn’t sure how things were supposed to go. I asked a former senior who had taken the class if she was willing to sell to me her textbook and supplies. As I called Parkland’s office to make sure we would be using the same stuff as the previous year so I could buy it from the senior before she left, the secretary asked a couple of follow-up questions. Among the questions she asked was, “Did you send in your ACT of SAT scores?” I wasn’t a junior yet so I didn’t have any scores to give to Parkland. The secretary quickly replied, “I’m going to need you to go to the testing center and take the Compass placement test. When would be a good time for you to take it?” Her reply was so abrupt, I didn’t know what to say, so I gave her a time in the afternoon after two weeks.

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The night before the placement test, I decided to go on Parkland’s website to know what the test was actually about (yay, for procrastination!). After skimming the FAQs, some phrases that caught my eyes were “study guide”, “tips”, “good night sleep”, “good breakfast”, and “practice tests”. Great, I was supposed to study for this test. And it wasn’t like I was going to have a good breakfast if I’m fasting all day. I had to wake up the next morning at 8 to cancel my appointment with the testing center for that afternoon.

To be continued.......

Ranaynay

The next and last one in line is Raneem, the biggest helper and troublemaker in the house(can that even be possible?) She has a very strong personality and boy, if she wants to do something she’s gonna strive for it whether you like it or not. She's also the type of person if you ever need help around the house just call her and she’ll be more than willing to help. On the other hand, when she doesn't feel like doing something, that usually means she's in a pretty good mood to start a heated argument with you.

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My parents left me to deal with her over the course of their vacation. They didn’t even think about hiring a nanny or sending her off to stay with my uncle or grandpa where they could control her. Her attitude that she carried once my parents left made me quite frightened by her willingness to do whatever she wants. The following happened days after my parents' departure:

Raneem:(has her arms folded across her chest, staring right at me) Okay, so you obviously know that Mama and Baba left and they said you’re in charge of us but that doesn’t mean you can make me do whatever you want me to do. I’m only going to listen to you because I promised Mama I wouldn’t cause any trouble. But you can’t boss me around!

Me: (What-am-I-supposed-to-say-to-this look on my face.)
Let me remind you with some details. I’m the eldest child and I’m about to become a junior in high school and Raneem is only nine years old and going into fourth grade. That just really shows her confidence. But just because I was supposed to be the mature one around and since my parents had only left for a couple of days, I decided to say:
Okay Raneem, I know I’m not the boss and I’m going to try my best not to boss you around. But you also have to cooperate with me. If I need help around the house, I’m not bossing you by telling you to clean the house if I’m cleaning it with you. I’ll do my best to make it really fun though if you do listen to me. Let’s get ready to go to the masjid* soon, I need at least 3 empty parking spots to know how to park the car.
Raneem: Okay, but don’t forget what I told you.

So that’s one of the characteristics of Raneem’s personality. She’s very strong which is something I (sometimes) admire about her but overall she is a sweet girl. Except when I call her Ranaynay, which is her nickname given by me whenever I want to annoy her.

*Masjid means mosque in Arabic