Something's coming...

...or rather, someone!  Tomorrow afternoon I will take a bus to Tel Aviv and spend the night in a hostel or the airport (to be determined, hmmmm) and greet my sister when she flies in at 4:20 on Thursday morning!  Recalling how overwhelming it was for me to navigate the airport -- even when I was with a group and had just gotten off a direct flight -- Kat and I agreed that it would be easiest for her if, after her ~24 hours of traveling solo, I met her at the airport to help her find transportation and get her into the Student Village.  (I was lucky enough when I arrived to have a charter bus and two Hebrew-speaking guides -- she'll have to make do with my limited, broken Hebrew and a shared taxi to Jerusalem!)

Highlights of our upcoming adventures in absolutely no order may include:

* visiting Yad Vashem and the Israel Museum

* a day trip (or overnight stay) to Nazareth

* shopping in the shuk and wandering around Ben Yehuda

* meeting some friends of the lovely Jess Deshayes in Bethlehem

* a Shabbat dinner with a local family (thanks to the lovely mother-daughter team of Miriam and Lisa for hooking me up with Danny!)

* traveling to Eilat and Petra, Jordan

* visiting Masada and swimming in the Dead Sea

* a trip to the Old City (of course!)

* hiking in the Golan heights

* a quick visit to Tel Aviv

* who knows what else could lie in store?!?

I couldn't be more excited to see my sister, a little piece of home when I'm 7,000 miles away from those I love!  I may update once or twice while she's here so that I don't forget to share things, but I'm planning to be largely off the grid.

Finally, I leave you with some food for thought.  Hag sameach!  (Roughly translated, this means "have a good vacation!")

Almost break! WOOHOO

Boker tov (good morning), readers!  The last few days have been pretty fab -- here's a quick recap, and then I'll share my excitement of things to come!

On Thursday, I only had one class, Hebrew.  It was my first day in the non-intensive class, and I was delighted to find my friend Charlotte was in the class as well!  The teacher seems metsuyenet -- fantastic -- so far.  And she's still giving us additional vocabulary!  For instance, on Thursday, she wanted to tell us about the recent Israeli Nobel Prize winner, so she taught us the words for "Nobel Prize" and "to win".  At the end of the week, she gives them all to us on a sheet, and says to be a 100% student, learn what's in the book -- but to be a 120% student, learn what's on the sheet too!  I think this is going to be a much more positive experience.

After that I headed home and got a head start on my reading for the weekend -- in sum, I had over 250 pages to get through!  But fortunately, they're all so interesting -- I actually look forward to reading for my classes (although there's a few dry articles that are tough to slog through).  I alternated between that and watching a bit of a movie for breaks.

Friday started similarly, but I was less motivated to get through all of my reading, and I got distracted by an application for an amazing summer job!  I got through some of the reading and most of the applicaiton, but then by afternoon, I was delighted for the distraction of Alison knocking on my door.  Kate and I went with her to her apartment and watched Erin Brockovich and made spaghetti for dinner.  Afterward, I headed back to the apartment to finish up a little more reading.  I also managed to catch my parents on Skype before bed!

Saturday was a productive day -- 2 loads of laundry plus all of my hand-washing, cooking lunch and dinner, and finishing all the reading and homework that I could.  By Saturday night, the only thing I hadn't finished was reading for my Biblical Israel class -- but only because I couldn't access them on the library website (and still can't, rawr).

Sunday I got up at 9ish even though I don't have class until 2:30 on Sundays (yay relaxing mornings!).  I did some cleaning and had breakfast and lunch, and reviewed a little Hebrew.  Eventually I headed down to the housing office to figure out how to get my sister into the Kfar when she visits this week!  I've got most of the paperwork squared away -- tomorrow I'll go down and pay for the extra mattress they'll provide me and we'll be all set for her visit!  After a quick power nap, I went to my Judaism and Islam classes.  Both were wonderful -- I really love the professors, and they make the material so engaging!  Then Arielle and I walked back to the Kfar and decided it was falafel night.  We went and hung out at French Hill Falafel for about an hour, then decided it was finally time to head back and study for our Hebrew quizzes.  After a quick Skype with Ian, that's exactly what I did!

Despite the fact that it took significant effort to drag myself out of bed for my busiest day of the week, my Hebrew class was wonderful again.  I think this class is going to be great (although we still haven't met our second teacher, who is apparently quite ill).  After today's lesson and quiz, our instructor pulled me aside and told me that I'm an excellent student, and asked would I like to do some supplemental work?  I said betach, of course!  So she picked out an article for me to read in the newspaper and said to write a 2-sentence summary, and that after Sukkot break she'll find some short stories for me to read.  I'm so glad that I'll be able to make great progress even without the intensive class!  I am now so sure that I made the right decision in switching into this class; I'm much happier now.

When I got out of class, 30 minutes before my Biblical Israel class, a librarian had FINALLY e-mailed me the necessary readings.  I frantically skimmed them, but resigned myself to not being 100% up to speed on them, knowing that everyone in my class would be in the same boat.  I grabbed lunch and some juice to keep my blood sugar up in the 3-hour class and headed over.  We talked a lot about scriptural corruption and other such things that were very familiar from my New Testament class -- they were just being applied to the Old Testament!  Interesting stuff =) But looooong class...

Finally, last class of the day -- my Holocaust class (which is in the same classroom as my Biblical Israel class).  We discussed the interwar period:  the effects of the treaty of Versailles, the Armenian genocide, revolutions and tensions, the National Minorities treaties, and how all of these affected the state of the Jews.  Again, background isn't the most interesting, but I love the "what ifs?" of history, and the professor makes it all so engaging.

Now back at the Kfar and planning on going to bed early -- 10 straight hours of class is tiring!  Tomorrow I'll be sorting out some final details of Kat's visit and stocking up on some groceries for the first day of Sukkot (so that I can feed my sister lunch!) and attending my one Tuesday class.  My darling sister arrives on Thursday and we have a week and a half of travel adventures planned -- I can't wait for her arrival!  I may be somewhat off the grid while she's here, but you can expect at least one massive post about our fun.  She actually likes taking pictures, so you can count on plenty of those!

Week One: Almost Done!

Today unfortunately had a less than stellar start.  Five minutes into my walk to campus with Esther, I suddenly realized that after I went to the market last night, I had never put my wallet back in my laptop bag.  Without said wallet, getting onto campus was trickier (student ID) and I wouldn't be able to eat until returning to the Kfar around 6:30.  So I scurried back, grabbed my wallet, and wound up walking to campus with my friend Sandy.  And I was still on time!

In Hebrew, I was once again unimpressed with Shelley (who was late again -- I wish I hadn't hurried so much after my trip back to the Kfar) and with the content of intensive Hebrew.  Shelley has consistently demonstrated her lack of respect for her students' time (arriving late, letting us out late, taking phone calls in class, etc.), and nine times out of then, she calls on men instead of women.  (Interesting the things that two years at a women's college and as an education major will make you aware of!)  It also seems that rather than advancing conversational and practical skills in the extra time, Shelley was only interested in teaching as much grammar and syntax as possible.  So, I went and spoke with the coordinator of the Hebrew program, and I dropped the class.  All of you readers know how excited I was for the content of this class, and I'm sure you understand how disappointed I am that the class wasn't what I expected and hoped it would be.  I guess I'll have to go find some Israeli friends to advance my conversational skills!  (On the bright side, I learned the verbs for "to Facebook" and "to Google" before I left =P)

Afterward I ran into Rachel, Esther, Rob, and Kate, and we all hung out and chatted for a while while Rob waited to talk to the housing coordinator.  Then Kate, Rachel, and I came to the Forum to visit the bookstore and pick up course readers.  Because of my insanely busy schedule, I was picking up course readers 2.5 hours before back-to-back classes with readings assigned in those readers.  Sadly, I didn't have the time to get through all of the material in my limited time =( I promise to catch up this weekend, professors!  What a great way to celebrate Yom Kippur!  I personally think I read an admirable amount given my limited time -- I managed to finish over half!  Rachel, Kate, and I grabbed falafel from a stand in the Forum (sadly not as good as French Hill, but still good) and I quickly caffeinated to wake myself up after reading encyclopedia articles for my Holocaust class.

I headed to my Judaism class, and accidentally went to the class where the Sunday session is -- and of course, the room was empty.  I headed to the right room...and the room was empty.  Shmeh?  I sat down, and shortly afterward, two others walked in.  Whew!  But then someone came in and told us the class was in the room on the OTHER side of the room where our Sunday session was.  But when we walked in, Rivkah said we were right!  So next Wednesday we'll be in the right room.  Man, that was confusing.  But the class was fantastic -- the way we approach ancient primary sources is very similar to what I've become used to in Michael's classes, and learning about this less familiar material is fascinating.

Finally, I met up with Rachel again in our Holocaust class, my first full class meeting.  I got my petition to waive prerequisites signed, so now I can officially add the class (and in the process, drop the ones I've decided not to take).  Hooray!  I was initially a little hesitant to buy the course reader and the textbook, because the way my internship worked out, Israeli Politics might have worked in my schedule.  The Holocaust class was a better fit in my schedule, but was it the best class for me?  After this class meeting, all my doubts are gone!  I was completely engaged the entire time, and it was only background information of the late 19th and early 20th centuries -- the professor is fantastic.  I cannot wait to get into post-WWI material, and I've already started brainstorming topics for my final paper.

I ran into Arielle after class (her class was right next door to mine) and we walked back to the Kfar together.  Now I'm cooking dinner and preparing to catch up on the readings I didn't finish today and study for the Hebrew quiz I apparently have tomorrow?  This is based on hearsay from someone in another class...might as well study just in case.  Lila tov!

Tired Day, Happy Day

Greetings, all!  I must say, for a day in which I have only one class, I came home surprisingly tired!  However, something that my friend Drew said to me once about work at a summer camp stuck with me:  "If you don't come home tired at the end of the day, you could have given more."  I guess I'm trying hard enough!

I write to you this evening with some exciting news:  I (almost) officially have an internship at AISJ!  I took the light rail downtown this morning and set off for AISJ, map in hand.  Now, I never actually got lost, as I always knew where I was...it just took me a while to know where the school was.  Fortunately, when I spoke to the principal, I had warned her that I was new to the city, and she sai not to worry if I was running late!  When I arrived, we talked for a few minutes, then she showed me around the school.  I was introduced to the instructors and a few of the students in the kindergarten-aged class she wants me to work with.  Pending a letter from MHC's teacher licensure coordinator explaining that I am who I say I am and I'm studying what I say I'm studying (when working with kids, you've got to have your bases covered), I will be joining them on Friday mornings.  Hooray!!!

I took the bus back to the university (and chatted to an Israeli HU student in Hebrew while we waited -- cool!) and grabbed a cup of coffee before going to order course readers for my remaining class.  In the process, I ran into my friends Rachel and Ellen, and Rachel and I met someone else in our Holocaust class, Yael.  I'll be doing a lot of reading between classes tomorrow, as the readers won't be printed until 10AM!  But fortunately I have some reading from a textbook and some from the Bible, so I can get a fair amount done for tomorrow without them.  Following this, I grabbed a quick lunch, then settled in to get some more reading done before a lovely Skype date with Miri-Bea <3 This was unfortunately cut a bit short when I had a coughing attack!

After getting some water to end said coughing attack, I headed off to my Islam class, where we covered some more history of pre-Islamic Arabia.  As boring as I find all the history, I do recognize its importance in providing context for everything we'll cover later in the course.  And Nafez spices up his lectures with funny personal stories and interesting details about his life as an Arab -- what a fascinating life he's had!  Arielle and I walked back to the Kfar together, then I grabbed a few things from the market, ate dinner, and am finishing up reading for tomorrow's classes.  Tomorrow I have my first extra 90 minutes of intensive Hebrew, which will determine for me whether I stick with the class -- so far I haven't been impressed, but hopefully this extra session will be what I hope and expect it will be.  Otherwise, yay for extra free time?  Wish me luck!

In other news, congratulations to my dear cousins Gabe and Daniela who just welcomed their second child, Serina Eve!  It's crazy knowing that cousins in my generation are becoming parents...I am so happy for them =)

Second day of classes: complete!

But not without its fair share of drama...:P

I started off the day with my first meeting of Intensive Hebrew.  I don't know ANYONE in the class...no one from my ulpan class is opted in =P Oh well!  The teacher seems okay so far, although I miss Michal =( Her teaching style seems pretty good so far, which is what's most important, but she was 5 minutes late for both sessions (and subsequently let us out late) and she took a phone call in the middle of the lesson.  I don't like it when I feel like a professor isn't respectful of my time =\ Hopefully she was just having an off day?  So far the people in my class seem very friendly, so I think it will be fun!

After that I quickly grabbed a sandwich and an iced coffee, then headed off to The Emergence of Biblical Israel.  It's a long class (3.5 hour block), but the professor seems great and the material seems quite complementary to my Jews in the Second Temple Period course!  It's about 20 people, so a bit bigger than I usually like, but seems really interesting so far.  Plus my friend Arielle is in my class =D

Then she and I walked over to Israeli Politics, where we were joined by Kate and Carolyn.  Seemed great, lots of friends and an interesting course!  Then the professor walked in and informed us that he had some news.  The course time had to change because he had double-booked this course with a course he is teaching at the university, and Rothberg had suggested Sunday and Tuesday mornings.  I'm planning to do my internship on Tuesdays, so that didn't work for me, and several others in the class had issues as well.  So, he tried really hard to accommodate everyone and see if he could find a time that worked for everyone.  This led to an hour-long session of talking in circles.  Finally, we found two viable options (both of which would have worked out reasonably well for me), and he went to discuss them with the head of Rothberg.  Yoni said no, and to stick with the times they'd already chosen.

Soooooo Carolyn, Kate, Arielle and I all left!  I headed down to the library to research alternatives.  I was hoping to find a class at that time, because I really liked the timing of my schedule.  At first I only saw Foreign Policy of Israel, which a) doesn't really appeal and b) I DEFINITELY didn't have the background for.  But then I found Issues in the Study of the Holocaust: Perpetrators, Victims, and Bystanders.  I quickly scanned the syllabus and then dashed up to sit in on the last 10 minutes of the class.  Afterward I rushed the professor, put my name on his sign-in sheet, and discussed the prerequisite.  He said background in European history or modern Jewish history was required.  I told him about my final project for Multicultural Education last year (MoHo friends may remember it as my baby!) -- writing a 3-week unit plan on teaching WWII and the Holocaust to middle school students from a multicultural perspective.  I did extensive research on the period to prepare, and the professor said he thought that would give me enough background!  I think the class will keep me on my toes, but I think it will really be worth it...although it'll end my Mondays and Wednesdays on a rather low note.  The course culminates in a 6-hour field trip to Yad Vashem, which I'm sure will be incredible.

Finally I headed home to make some pasta and curl up in bed.  It's been a long day!  Time to veg with TV for a while, get ahead on my Hebrew homework, do my reading for Islam, and head to bed at a reasonable hour.  On the menu for tomorrow:  interview at AISJ, maybe a trip to the shuk, heading to campus to buy my textbooks and course readers (and hopefully take some more pictures), then my ONE Tuesday class!  Wish me luck =)

First Day of School! First Day of School!

Hello, my dear readers! The title of this post is not just a Finding Nemo reference...today was my first day of classes at Hebrew University! With MEN O.O Sooooo interesting. And exciting :)

I started the day with a walk around campus with Alison and Martina. We wandered about, taking some pictures, and wound up in Rothberg, the international building. Martina wanted to see which classrooms her classes were in, so Alison and I tagged along. There we ran into Rob! Happy 20th birthday to him! Fun fact: because daylight savings ended today, his birthday is 25 hours. Awwww yeah! Then Martina disappeared, so the three of us continued and wound up circling the outside of the entire campus. Sadly, because of our detour, I didn't get all the pictures that I wanted because it was time for me to go to class. Dear readers, this means you must wait for the campus tour blog post!

So I went to my first class (The Battle Over the Bible: The Eyes of Jews, Christians, and Muslims) and met up with Kate. We're both pretty sure that we're going to drop this class because we've heard that it actually presents a very unbalanced view, but as I have mentioned, my adviser encouraged me to visit as many classes as possible during shopping week, because who knows what surprises I might find? But having found courses that I think sound more appealing, I needed to be impressed to commit to taking this class. We had a great chat with another girl in the class, Ellen, a former psychology and religion major (woohoo!) about religion's role in public policy and the relevance of ancient sacred texts to modern life. Hello, reason I came here :) The chat wound up being quite long...I got to class about 15 minutes early (which was good because there were NOT enough chairs) and we got to talk for about 45 minutes. Why? OUR PROFESSOR NEVER SHOWED UP. (Remember what I said about needing to be impressed? Not so much.) Eventually someone went and got Arlene, the fabulous administrative assistant, and she said that the professors had plenty of notice that classes begin today, and they'd been trying to get a hold of him but he wasn't answering his phone. We're welcome to have one extra day to check out the class (because shopping week is supposed to guarantee us two days to make a decision), and she was extremely apologetic. She handed out the syllabus, and we left.

An hour and a half before my next class...what's a girl to do? I grabbed a sandwich from the cafe in Rothberg, then Kate and I were going to walk over and explore the campus store. But it was closed :( So we came back to Rothberg and I sat down to eat my sandwich, look over the syllabus, and obsess over my iCal. Around 14:10, I headed back to the cafe, grabbed an iced coffee, and walked to my next class -- in the same classroom as the first one!

Well, it wouldn't have taken much to improve on my first class, but this one (Jews in the Greco-Roman World in the Second Temple Period: Assimilation, Adaptation, and Resistance) was amazing! There are only ten people currently registered for the class (half of them male!), so it'll be a nice small seminar :) The professor Rivkah Duker-Fishman, is fantastic so far! She also has twin baby granddaughters, awwww. As each person came in she asked them where they go to school, what they major in, what other classes they're taking, etc. She said she wants the population of the class to guide the direction of the class, especially because there are so few of us. She also has an advisee in the Imadi program (one of the freshman programs) who was recently admitted to MHC -- she passed along the girl's e-mail address so I can meet up with her and tell her about how awesome it is :D How cool is that?!? The way that she teaches, based largely on primary sources, reminds me of Michael. (She told us, you can't make wine without grapes -- you can't study religious history without the sources!) I am absolutely keeping this class. (Something my friends from Michael's classes will appreciate -- I'm going to try and do an oral report on Paul at the end of the semester! D-d-d-diva!)

Finally I scurried off to my last class of the day, which also happens to be one of the classes I have been most excited about since my father and I found it in the course catalogue this summer -- Perspectives on Islam: Religion, History, and Culture. This, too, did not disappoint! First of all, my dear friend Arielle is in the class with me -- and will also be in my Israeli Politics class, yay! The professor is an older Palestinian gentleman who lives in Jerusalem and Ramallah named Nafez Nazzal, and he has had a very interesting life: he was stranded as a student in the US during the Six Days' War (he was raised in East Jerusalem, so he was a Jordanian citizen when he left, but now home was in Israel -- yikes); he taught for some time in the US, helped found a university in Libya, and then spent over twenty years teaching half the year in Israel and half in the United States (Harvard, UPenn, UCLA); and he has two very American sons with very Arab wives and four grandchildren. His goal for the class is to promote understanding and acceptance of Islam, and to help people distinguish between Islam and individual Muslims. He's not afraid to share his opinions (which I LOVE), and has promised to do his best to distinguish between opinion and fact. The first few classes are providing context for the rest of the semester: pre-Islamic Middle East and the advent of Islam. It's a bit dry, in my opinion, but I recognize that it's important to our understanding of issues we'll discuss later. He's also VERY funny!

At 18:15 I walked back to the Kfar with Arielle and we met up with Alison, Steph, Kate, and Karen, our new roommate. Kate and I had agreed that the first day of classes meant we had to celebrate with falafel, and the others tagged along as well. (We'll celebrate almost anything with falafel, especially since they've been closed for the holiday and Shabbat since last Tuesday!) When we got back Kate, Karen, and I at together and chatted about our lives :) Now I'm planning on spending my evening Skyping with Ian, watching How I Met Your Mother, writing this post, and gearing up for tomorrow's busy day. What's on the schedule?

8:30 - 12:00 -- Hebrew
12:30 - 16:00 -- The Emergence of Biblical Israel
16:30 - 18:15 -- Israeli Politics

I will come home TIRED. I barely have time for lunch! But fortunately, Tuesday is light: interview at AISJ in the morning (eek/yay!), then probably a quick trip to the shuk, more campus photography, and one class from 16:30 to 18:15 :) I'm glad to have such a light, easy day in the middle of my week!

In other exciting news, I just got an e-mail informing me that enough people are interested in Intensive Hebrew for them to create a class. Huzzah! The extra 90 minutes that constitute "Intensive Hebrew" are between other classes that I have, so I'd be spending that time on campus anyway -- might as well spend it productively :)

Well readers, it's time for me to rest now to gear up for tomorrow's crazy day...I'll hopefully be going to sleep quite early! I promise a post later this week about the rest of my classes and, at long last, a photographic campus tour <3

Shana Tova!

Hello readers! I apologize for the lack of posts recently; honestly, there hasn't been much to say. My big plans for a fun long weekend of travel were thwarted by the lack of public transportation over Rosh HaShana and Shabbat, and also by the fact that I got sick :(

Since last I posted, here are a few highlights:

* I celebrated Rosh HaShana by cleaning my room...since it's the Jewish New Year, Alison informed me that this is a great way to get a fresh start for the new year.
* I passed my ulpan Hebrew class with flying colours!
* I visited Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial museum. There's not much of anything I can say about it; it's a very powerful, personal experience. There's an incredible vista when you walk out of the museum, and it makes it ten times more heartbreaking to remember that the British wouldn't allow Jews to immigrate to Israel after WWII. Here's a shot of the amazing view:
* The semester begins today! I am going to try out about seven different classes this week, and I need to work that down to four or five by next Sunday. Wish me luck =P
* Daylight savings time ended last night in Israel, so I'm one hour closer to US time now! Also, Talk-n-Save phones don't change the time unless you accept changes. So I woke up at 8:30AM instead of 9:30AM. Oh well.
* Today Alison and I are going on a photo journey around campus. I have been plotting a blog post about campus for some time now, so that's something to look forward to!

Well that's all for now. Expect a post very soon sharing some photos of campus and my thoughts on the first meetings of my classes!