Maryam- outspokenarab

So i saw that I haven't really introduced myself yet. I am a rising sophomore at UNC studying International relations and Arabic. I am half Arab and the other half is a mixture of Irish and German. I'm staying in Syria for the summer visiting family and 'relaxing.' But any Arab can tell you that when you add the rest of the extended family in the picture (and mine easily counts to 75) then it is not very relaxing.
Because I wear a scarf, people in Syria automatically take for a Syrian. And it doesn't help that I have become fluent in Arabic slang from my last stay in Syria last year. But sometimes it gets annoying. Like when I'm at a restaurant and I'm getting the Syrian service, which is to ignore you and wait for the foreigners to come and wait so they can make big bucks. At times I want to scream, "Hey! I'm an American!" I'm sure my experiences are unlike the experiences of the rest of the Tar Heels on this blog.
For example, because I'm somewhat smart and pretty (you can see the modesty right?) and because most importantly, I have an American passport, my older aunts and uncles all think of me as (taking the words from Jasmine in Aladdin) 'a prize to be won.' They would give anything for me to marry one of their sons. Thankfully my cousins don't think this way so we just ignore and make fun of the attempts made by older members of the family.
And also, I don't have easy access to the Internet so my updates will unfortunately always be short.

Until next time,
Maryam