This week’s House episode opened with two police officers chasing an acrobatic, parkour-esque perp, who eludes them by climbing up pipes and jumping across buldings. When one of the cops twists his ankle, the other continues the chase, attempting to follow the criminal across a gap in between two buildings. Unfortunately, he misjudges the distance and falls thirty feet to a bloody, painful collision. Off to Princeton-Plainsboro!

Episode Summary

After being stitched up and brought back to consciousness, we learn that our daredevil police officer, Donny, doesn’t care about his own health; he’s convinced that he’s going to die of a heart attack on his upcoming fortieth birthday like his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather before him.

While Chase, Cameron and Foreman examine the remains of Donny’s dead paternal relatives, a woman comes into House’s office, telling him that she had a son with the patient, who doesn’t know he has a child. In usual House fashion, he forsakes emotion and instead spites the patient, giving him a fake diagnosis and treatment for the illness he doesn’t have.

Alas, four hours after being discharged, Donny dies. The body is brought in for an immediate autopsy; when Foreman begins to cut into Donny’s chest cavity, blood flows out of the incision (an unnatural reaction for a cadaver) and Donny suddenly opens his eyes and screams.

While Foreman and House are dealing with Lazarus the cop, Chase becomes increasingly guilt-ridden over the Dibala debacle (See House: “The Tyrant”). He decides to go to church for confession, but the Father’s advice is not what Chase wants to hear, and so he instead returns home eight hours later, completely wasted.

An additional side story in the episode involves House and his fight for sanity. While sleeping at Wilson’s house, House thinks he hears whispering, making him paranoid of reappearing psychosis. After several days of sleuthing, he realizes the whispering is the sound of Wilson softly talking to his dead girlfriend, Amber, traveling through the vents.

Later, while House is arguing (and flirting) with Cuddy during rounds she forces him to do to help get his license back, he has his usual epiphany, realizing that Donny is suffering from a brain aneurism. Donny and his newly discovered son go in for surgery to remove their respective aneurisms, and everyone returns to relative normalcy.

What Worked

House’s attempt at rounds was nothing short of hilarious. While brief, it completely encapsulated the reasons that we love Dr. Gregory House.

What Didn’t

House’s “hearing whispers” phenomena, while clearly an attempt at continuing the thread of emotional sincerity in House, didn’t fully hit the mark, and ultimately was a waste of airtime.

Predictions

We’ve got a brief hiatus from House coming up in the following weeks, with our favorite doc coming back in early November. I’m expecting a big bang of a return episode, with expansion on Chase’s lies to Cameron and House and Cuddy’s burgeoning relationship.

2. Boston vs 3. Orlando
Orlando isn’t the same team without Jameer Nelson, but Boston is in far worse shape without Garnett, especially after their exhausting series with Chicago. Some may say that the fatigue may kill them, but the Allen, Pierce, Rondo trio has some Irish luck backing them up, also known as their bench. After the way they started stepping up, that help is the key ingredient in the matchup. Plus, the Chicago series was an elightening and invigorating series. Maybe if Alston had more time and Howard started making some free throws for once in his life? Bye bye, Orlando. Boston 4-3
1. Cleveland vs. 4. Atlanta?Come on. Even Joe Johnson’s breakout performance doesn’t keep up with Lebron’s consistent stat bursters. And if Josh Smith misses another dunk, he might as well start his own All-Star competition. Caveliers 4-1
1. LA Lakers vs 5.Houston
This is actually their hardest matchup in the West. Houston has a rabid fan base and match up well with the Lakers. Especially with the Rockets bench seeing its best games against the Lakers. The Rockets will put up a great fight as Artest will definitely show a big game and Yao Ming and Scola will definitely have games to remember. But with Bynum back and Gasol at forward, the Lakers are too talented to lose here. Lakers 4-3
2. Denver vs 3. Dallas
The Nuggets fans are probably happy to be in the second round for the first time since 1994. Even though the Mavs have been on a roll, Billups isn’t going to let his hometown down. Terry, Howard, and Dirk just won’t be able to keep at the end. Denver 4-3

Farrukh Virani

Go back to our prospie database.

Update: 4/29/09:

After more than three weeks of waiting, Jeffrey Cattel is finally a Northwestern student.

Although the Medill prospie said he was “99.9 percent in the door for NU” for several weeks, he did not receive financial aid information until Friday — giving him only a week to decide on a school.

“That was the only con in the entire process of applying,” he said. “It was so slow on their part.”

Cattel said the delayed financial aid information is due to his parents’ taking longer to file this year’s taxes. While other schools offered him at least an estimate for financial aid, Cattel said Northwestern was the last school to send him a financial aid letter.

During the application and decision process, Cattel and his parents worked with a local college planner to make sure they filled out financial documents correctly and understood the financial aid awards Cattel received.

“We just wanted to make sure we don’t make any missteps,” Cattel said. “Sort of to make sure we’re going through the process correctly, since it’s my parents’ first time.”

Cattel and his parents submitted the tuition reply Tuesday. He said it felt good to be done with the decision.

“It’s nice to think further,” he said. “There’s an end to the SATs, to the application process.”

Cattel, who participated in the National High School Institute Journalism “Cherub” program, said he knows of about 20 of his peers from the program who will be attending Northwestern next year. Having close friends among that group, he said, will make starting college more comfortable.

“You’ve been around the same people for 12 years, so it’s a little scary going somewhere new,” he said. “It’s like starting first grade again.”

Cattel said he is looking forward to having a roommate and taking classes in Medill.

“It’s nice to have a happy ending,” he said.

Go back to our prospie database.

Update: 4/28/09:

With the start of the 2009-2010 school year now only a few months away, early decision admitted student Elise Butler is looking forward to studying journalism at Medill and having a change of pace from high school.

“I’m excited to take more specific classes geared towards what I’m interested in because in my high school there are some electives junior and senior year, but there’s such a wide range of classes [at Northwestern] that I can pick and study,” Butler said. She added that she is also excited to meet all her classmates.

Although Butler has not yet decided which track she will pursue, she said she will most likely focus on magazine or newspaper.

“My school only has newspaper, that’s our only publication, and yearbook, so we don’t have any broadcast or radio or anything, so that’s what I’ve known for my years in high school,” she said. “I know that even if I go through the print journalism track, I’ll still learn about the other types of media.”

She also has begun thinking about where she wants to live on campus next year, and is currently deciding between between Communications Residential College and Allison Hall.

Go back to our prospie database.

Jeffrey Cattel, a prospective Medill student from Canton, Mass., was introduced to Northwestern as a rising high school senior in Medill’s National High School Institute “cherub” program, a summer journalism program at Northwestern.

The five-week stay was “better than any college tour,” Cattel said, and now has him leaning heavily towards Northwestern as his college of choice.

The news and opinion editor of his school newspaper Spectrum, and a contributor to a local newspaper, Cattel had his eyes set on journalism, and especially Medill, as he began the college application process.

In fact, Cattel applied only to colleges that offered a journalism major or a separate school of journalism.

“I’ve known for a long time that journalism is what I’m passionate about,” he says.

In addition to Northwestern, he was accepted at Syracuse University, University of Maryland at College Park, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, University of Wisconsin at Madison and University of Missouri at Columbia. He was rejected from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and waitlisted at New York University.

The rejection, he said, is hard for anyone, but “for me it was a little bit easier. “I was trying to stay on the bright side.”

Cattel says that other friends who applied to Northwestern received their decision e-mails several days before he received his. Getting the e-mail after days of waiting, he said, felt “surreal.”

“I waited for so long — at that point I had kind of accepted that I’d wait for a letter,” he said. “I was going to go to bed, and then I saw [the e-mail].” But Cattel is waiting for his financial aid package before he commits to Northwestern.

“I’m really interested in Northwestern because of all the places I applied, it’s on a different level,” he said. “Not that I wouldn’t be happy at another school, but it’s just at the top.”

Go back to our prospie database.

When Kirk Vaclavik came to Chicago in September, it was initially to visit the University of Chicago. It was almost by accident that he found out about Northwestern through a friend.

“She had told me to visit Northwestern. She told me I’d love it, and it turns out I did,” the Carrollton, Texas native said.

Vaclavik initially applied to Columbia University early decision, but was deferred.

“[Columbia] was the one that I was so in love with at first, but after the deferral, when the actual rejection came it didn’t hurt as bad as if it had been when I got the deferral,” he said.

Although he is currently accepted at four universities — Northwestern, Cornell, University of Texas and Southern Methodist University — Vaclavik is only really considering two.

“It’s come down to just Northwestern and Cornell,” he said. “I’m very torn right now, it’s pretty much fifty-fifty.”

Vaclavik said that he was really motivated by the idea of leaving Texas.

“For me, it always has been one of my goals to go to a school that is not in Texas,” he said. “I wanted to go far away from that kind of experience to a complete different kind of ideology.”

Although his parents both graduated from Cornell, Vaclavik said that “they are completely supportive of going to either so long as the financial aid is not a huge difference. Other than that, it’s completely up to me.”

The criteria Vaclavik is using to decide between the two include the programs offered in each university’s school of communication — “ Northwestern wins that part, undoubtedly” — as well as location and campus.

For the Carrolton Christian Academy senior, the choice may come down to the wire, all the way to May 1.

“I never expected that it would come down to such a tough decision. I always thought it would be clear all the way,” he said.

Go back to our prospie database.

Update: 4/28/09:

For Seana Peterson, deciding where to go to college was a matter of recognizing and vocalizing feelings that were already there, but not quite conscious. The Foxboro, Mass. senior had narrowed her choice to Northwestern and the honors program at the University of Virginia.

“I’m decided on Northwestern,” Peterson said, although she said she hasn’t paid her deposit yet. “I realized that I’d been talking to a lot more Northwestern students. I was always checking NU stuff. It seemed really natural.”

Peterson said she became aware that she was spending significant time on the Northwestern Web site and was barely even visiting the UVA site.

Before she can commit her deposit to Northwestern, though, Peterson is waiting to hear the results of her financial aid appeal. “Since I didn’t get any money, my parents are working on trying to get us evaluated” again, Peterson said.

Her interest in Northwestern built in the month or so since she was accepted, Peterson said. “When I went to NU for the first time, I had a really amazing tour guide.”

Peterson stayed overnight with a family friend who lives in a sorority and decided she “likes sorority life at Northwestern a lot better than what I saw at UVA.”

Another pull was the music program. After meeting with lecturer Chris Madsen and talking to music students, Peterson “felt really comfortable. It was everything I was looking for.” Peterson plans to stay in Weinberg for now, but take classes and potentially double major in the Bienen School of Music.

By any measure, Peterson was in a good position to choose a college when the admissions dust settled: she got into 12 out of 12 schools and did not require (or receive) significant financial aid from any of her schools. But with so many choices, and so little to distinguish them in terms of cost or viability, Peterson has had to make a few sacrifices to simplify her decision.

She decided not to visit Georgetown, a school that deferred her early application. Peterson is confident in her decision and didn’t want to unnecessarily complicate it by visiting another school. “I’m so set on NU,” she said.

Go back to our prospie database.

When Vail Kohnert-Yount saw the admission e-mail from Northwestern in her inbox, she debated whether or not to grab her parents before clicking the fateful link.

“I remember thinking, ‘Well, it’s just Northwestern. If I get rejected, it’s not a big deal,’” Kohnert-Yount said. She opened the email by herself and saw a bold-lettered “Congratulations!” on the screen. While she quickly realized that her initial response to Northwestern was silly, Kohnert-Yount had yet to “fall in love” with the school, and hadn’t awaited its reply with as much anticipation as she did for letters from other colleges.

Kohnert-Yount’s good news from the Medill School of Journalism followed similar acceptances from the University of Texas, Wellesley, and Georgetown’s prestigious school of Foreign Service (where, she points out, Madeline Albright teaches). A deferment from Stanford’s early decision applications had come earlier.

After four acceptances and an acceptable deferment, the senior from Houston was feeling particularly pleased. Her mood shifted the following day, when she received rejections from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a wait listing from Brown.

“That was pretty harsh. I was kind of expecting to get in to at least one or two of those places, [and] I was really hoping for Stanford,” said Kohnert-Yount, a newspaper editor, soccer team captain, freelance journalist and D.C. intern when not a student at St. John’s School. “I cried for maybe seven and a half minutes … then I got over it. I’m so excited about the four of the other schools I got into.”

Kohnert-Yount is now faced with choosing between four very different college experiences. She has already ruled out Wellesley because she feared it wouldn’t give her a classic college experience. “If the guys at MIT are what you get excited about,” she said, then it wasn’t the place for her.

“Georgetown is kind of what I’m leaning toward right now,” Kohnert-Yount said. After interning for a Democratic congressman in Washington, D.C. last summer, she became familiar with the area. Kohnert-Yount is tempted by the Science, Technology, and International Affairs major. “Georgetown is a great fit for me,” she said.

But the politically minded senior has yet to pass judgment on Northwestern, a school she knows very little about. “It’s not a place where Houstonians flock to,” she said. Kohnert-Yount intends to visit soon and see for herself. In a car conversation, Kohnert-Yount recounts her mother saying, “I can’t think of a reason why you shouldn’t go to Northwestern. Besides the fact that it’s very very cold.”

Go back to our prospie database.

Update: 4/28/09:

Fida Mohammad has put in a deposit at Northwestern, but he’s leaning elsewhere.

Cambridge university in England offered him a “very generous” scholarship of £13,000 (about $19,000) per year, “so that’s kind of [tilted] me towards Cambridge more than anything else.”

But Mohammad won’t know exactly what he’s doing until August. British universities give conditional offers, so he must ace his “A-Level” entrance exams in order to be allowed in at Cambridge.

He did choose Northwestern over Brown. “I blame the emails that Northwestern’s been sending consistently,” he said. “They just make me want to go there!”

Go back to our prospie database.

Emily Hittner received her Northwestern acceptance the classic way.

It was one of the top schools on her list, and one of the last she had yet to hear from. She hadn’t been checking her acceptance status online, and reached into her mailbox one day to find a large, smooth Northwestern envelope.

“I was so excited,” the Smithtown, NY high school senior said. “I was not really sure if I was going to get into Northwestern.”

She immediately began calling her friends and parents to share the excitement.

While this letter was good news, it didn’t mean that Hittner, who is interested in biology or chemistry, could make her final decision. She still had to wait for another letter — the one with her financial aid offer.

“My parents reminded me I couldn’t go [to Northwestern] unless I got a good financial aid package, which kind of brought down the moment a little bit,” she said.

Hittner has plenty of options. She applied to a total of 12 schools and got into the State Universities of New York at Binghamton and Buffalo, Pennsylvania State University, University of Pittsburgh, Cornell University, Boston University, University of North Carolina, University of Virgina, University of Chicago, and Northwestern. She was waitlisted at Duke and rejected from Johns Hopkins.

While Hittner said Northwestern is her top pick because of its strength in both science and music programs, the financial aid package she recently received is making the decision a difficult one. Her aid award was lower than offers from other schools. There is a gap between how much Northwestern will foot the bill, and how much she can afford, whereas the University of Buffalo, for example, offered her a full ride.

“Financially, Buffalo would be the best choice for me,” Hittner said. Attending Northwestern means taking out private loans, and paying them back herself. “Northwestern has a stronger science program, so I guess I have to weigh the benefits,” she said. Hittner would like to attend medical school, and leaving college with fewer loans would make medical school easier to finance.

Depending on her decision, Hittner said she might be “upset initially, but I’ll move on.” She said she would be happy wherever she ends up.

“Once I go to college, I’m not still going to be crying about it,” she said.

Charlotte, we’ll miss you. Photo courtesy ABC.

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS MEGA-SPOILERS

Note: Theresa Spencer is obviously “that poor girl” and Faraday’s mother is Eloise, the woman in the church at the end of the episode (I’m pretty sure). I regret the confusion but make no excuses – it’s a confusing show.

Summary

The show opens right where the last episode left off, with Sun staring creeply at Benjamin, obviously about to kill him. First, though, she has to talk to her adorable daughter, Ji Yeon, who misses her. (Cue the first awwww of the night – also, does Ji Yeon have to come back to the Island, too, or just the people who left willingly? Aaron, too?) However, instead of killing him, Sun gets convinced by Ben that her husband is still alive – and Ben can “prove” it.

We get back to Jin and young Rousseau on the island, prompting wondering how much it must have sucked for Danielle to live on the island if it turned that round, adorable baby face girl into the wrinkly, stringy women we meet sixteen years later. Shudder. Anyway, Jin hangs out with the French people, tries to convince them that he knows the island, they don’t listen to him until Big Smokey comes. Jin saves Danielle’s life, basically.

After Jin watches the story unfold that we’ve heard before from older-Danielle (they had the sickness so I killed them) and then runs away from Danielle and then FLASH – there’s Sawyer! Yay! Never have I been so happy to see Sawyer, who runs and gives Jin a huuuggeee hug, sooo adorable, I love Sawyer. Jin asks where Sun in, requisite awk silence, and we move on.

Back on the ranch, aka L.A., Kate freaks out when she finds out they’re trying to go back to the island and drives away with Aaron. Sayid also storms off in a huff. Boo hoo.

We go back to the Island, where Faraday watches over Charlotte until she dies from the stress of all the flashes. We don’t know exactly why it affects her so badly, but it probably has something to do with how she’d spent the most time on the Island out of everyone, having grown up there. John goes down into the well, and Sawyer once again surprises me by trying to dig John out when the flash comes and the well disappears. Awww Sawyer, trying to save your friends, don’t make me cry.

The episode ends with two bits of suspense: first, Locke pushes the wheel, “fixing” something – but what did he fix?

Second, Eloise says, “Let’s get started…” but with what? Could next week be any slower in getting here?

WTF Moments

Smoke monster pulls off French guy’s arm. WTF.

Charlotte speaks Korean fluently. WTF. It’s not that easy to speak another language fluently, where could she have learned it?

Charlotte: “He told me if I came back, I would die… Daniel, I think that man was you.” WTF. I think this means that we’re supposed to eventually see a scene where Daniel meets young Charlotte, but that means that the time travel doesn’t stop, despite John’s turning of the wheel. WTF’s going to happen?

John’s bone comes straight out of his leg. WTF.

Quotes

Best Parody of Racism. Jin yells something in Korean, everyone turns to Miles and yells, “Translate, translate!” because he’s the only other Asian guy there. Miles: “He’s Korean, I’m from Encino!” (Part of L.A. I had to Google it. Too subtle?)

Biggest Appeal to Fanbase. Faraday to Charlotte: “Speak any other languages?” Charlotte: “Just Klingon.”

Scariest Quote Ever. Charlotte: “Don’t let them bring her back, no matter what. This place is death.”

Closest Hit to Home. Sun: “You said we’re be there in thirty minutes.” Ben: “I didn’t account for traffic.” (Story of my life).

Worst Last Words. Charlotte: “I’m not allowed to have chocolate before dinner.”

Those wacky Brits are at it again. England has a squirrel problem according to The New York Times (including some sort of war-like situation in “Squirreltown”), and to deal with said problem it’s becoming more popular to eat squirrels. Not all squirrels are getting devoured…only grey squirrels. Red squirrels are spared from the dinner table. Oh, and here is another Times article about eating squirrel. Finest newspaper in the land, folks.

Feeling depressed? Well, lets bust out videos of squirrels living life to the fullest to turn that frown upside down. Just look at this guy, not being eaten.

Here, a squirrel interacts with a cat, and isn’t the cat’s meal.

This squirrel faces off against a tribe of turkeys. Again, not gobbled up.

One last squirrel, not in an oven or in a frying pan or pressed under a George Foreman grill.

Props go to staffer Dagny Salas for finding the article about this great practice.

Friends, family members, colleagues and students of Charles Moskos gathered at Alice Millar Chapel Thursday evening to pay tribute to the sociology professor, who passed away last May at the age of 73. After more than 40 years at Northwestern, Moskos’s contributions to the community were celebrated by six tribute speakers, plus President Henry Bienen and University Chaplain Timothy Stevens. “This is a man who will be remembered for all the right reasons,” said his son Peter Moskos at the service.

Izzy Boncimino contributed reporting.

Laura’s abroad in Amman, Jordan until Dec. 19.

Still smelling the salt of the Dead Sea on my skin, I’ve returned from a trip through the south of Jordan. This is the Jordan of legends: the awe-inspiring Petra, sunrises over Wadi Rum, sunsets over Aqaba’s sparkling aqua water, quiet valleys in Dana, and the salty depths of the Dead Sea. I fell in love with Jordan during this trip and I don’t know how I’ll ever leave in just two more months.
Here are the top 5 best adventures from this week:

1. Exploring Petra:

I can’t believe I’ve lived in Jordan for two months and only just now visited its most famous attraction, the rose-red city of Petra, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. My friends and I hit the Siq just an hour after sunrise and blearily made our way through the long, narrow passage that serves as the entrance to the city. The rock’s marbled colors shone in the early morning sun and I don’t think my photos do it proper justice. After a while we came to the most-photographed place in Jordan, the Treasury, which is an ancient temple carved straight into a rock face that was featured in an old Indiana Jones movie. Inside we saw the carved bowl where they collect the blood from sacrifices. As we made our way through the valley, we were flanked by hundreds of massive tombs carved into the rock face. We passed the massive amphitheatre and walked along the colonnaded Roman street. Finally we crossed a creek and started the steep climb up to Petra’s second most-famous monument, the Monastery (which is another misnomer because it was also a pagan temple). Along the way, we passed Bedouins who had set up camp in caves and were hawking their wares to exhausted tourists fighting off the morning heat. Out of breath and out of water, we finally reached the Monastery, only to be tempted to continue on to the edge of the mountaintop just beyond it. There we clambered over the rocks to see the sweeping, desolate valley below, with some of the most jagged and dramatic rock faces I’ve ever seen. There I sensed the captivating mystery of Petra and I left the mountaintop very humbled.

2. Sunset and sunrise in Wadi Rum:

Just before sunset in the vast desert of Wadi Rum, all my classmates and I climbed in the back of Jeeps and held on for dear life as our Bedouin drivers tried to out-run each other across the sand dunes. The drivers took great delight in pitching the Jeeps over steep sand dunes and listening to us scream as if we were on roller coasters. We stopped to watch the sun drop between the rock formations and cast the entire desert in a golden, reddish glow. The next morning, my friends and I got up at 5 a.m. to summit the mountain behind our Bedouin camp. I’m glad it was pitch black because I don’t think I would have had the courage to rock climb if I had been able to see what I was doing. I blindly followed my goat-footed friends as they shimmied up the rock face. From the top, we shivered in our fleece jackets and watched as the distant horizon began to glow yellow. The black and blue desert turned rosy orange, and we saw a herd of camels silhouetted against the rising sun as they were being driven across the valley floor. When the sun finally crested and our stomachs began to growl, we decided to head back down the rock face. Going down, however, was much more terrifying than the scramble up. If it hadn’t been for the bravery and patience of my friends, I think I’d still be at the top of that rock praying for the tour bus to magically appear and take me down.

3. Snorkeling in Aqaba:

After worrying about modesty for months, you can imagine how excited the other students and I were about slipping into our swimsuits to enjoy the aqua waters of Aqaba. As Jordan’s only sea port, it’s a bustling commercial zone, but also a major tourist destination. After leaving the deserts of Wadi Rum we piled into glass-bottom boats and scooted around the beautiful waters of the Red Sea. We saw amazing coral reefs and even a sunken Lebanese ship. My attempt at snorkeling, however, was a bit of a failure. I gashed my foot on the boat as I jumped off, and then proceeded to swallow copious amounts of salty water. Nevertheless, it felt amazing to wash the desert sand off in such wonderfully warm water. I felt like I was in Hawaii! I did feel awkward, however, when we returned to the beach because all the local women were floating around fully clothed and wearing hijabs. I tried to wrap my towel around me as best I could, but I could still feel the stares.
4. A night at the eco-lodge in Dana:

After leaving Aqaba, we bused over to the Dana Nature Preserve south of the Dead Sea. Upon reaching a tiny village, we left the tour bus behind and piled ourselves and our luggage into truck beds. We bounced for 10 kilometers until we reached the Feynan Eco Lodge, which looked out of place among the simple Bedouin tents that dotted the hillsides. With it’s creamy adobe walls and graceful archways, the lodge would have been right at home in the glossy pages of Sunset Magazine. The lodge is a relatively new experiment in sustainable tourism. I enjoyed the delicious buffet of gourmet vegetarian food. There is no electricity in the lodge (except in the bathrooms), so at night we lit our rooms and the back deck with candles. We sat and played cards, enjoying the darkness. Around 9 p.m. our program director led a group of us on a night hike up the Wadi. After hearing howling in the canyon, he advised us to carry a large rock with us in case we are attacked by coyotes. I thought he was kidding at first, but when he started searching on the ground for a sharp one, I quickly did the same. Despite the scare, we made it back alive to the lodge several hours later. I felt bad though because on our way back we lost the trail and ended up trudging through a Bedouin camp. We saw men curled up in sleeping bags guarding their flock of sheep. That night I fell asleep to the lovely smell of candle smoke.

5. Floating in the Dead Sea:

As a California girl, I’ve been to dozens and dozens of beaches. But the Dead Sea is nothing like I’ve experienced ever before. When I took my first step into the water, I instantly became aware of its high salinity because the gash on my foot (courtesy of the boat in Aqaba) started stinging immensely. My friend splashed water into her eyes was blinded (and cursing) for the next five minutes. But, the amazing thing was that as I walked further out, my feet just floated upwards. It was impossible to stand in the Dead Sea. We just floated on our backs like we were swinging in hammocks. It took absolutely no effort at all to just bob around, but it was extremely difficult to make any headway swimming mainly because I couldn’t keep my body submerged deep enough to fully swim. After enjoying the novelty of such a salty sea, we all headed to the beach to slather ourselves with mud. The Dead Sea mud is famous for its therapeutic properties, but mainly I just felt dirty and itchy as the black mud dried on me. I will admit that we all looked rather ridiculous as we stood around awkwardly on the beach for 20 minutes waiting for the mud to harden. I’m not sure if the mud worked any miracles on me, but I think my skin may have been a tad softer when I returned home that night to Amman. The only change my host family noticed was that I was a bit tanner and smelled like salt.

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