Let us start with Thursday night. Immediately after our tests, we went down to the negev. We went to a "Bedouin" tent. The quotes are because it was not a real experience but a tourist attraction. It was nice anyway. We had a gigantic feast in the dining tent catered by Bedouin hospitality. The Bedouin were real, it is just that they were running a tourist attraction. They made pita for us (there is nothing better in this world than homemade, fresh pita), as well as some other rice and meat dish that I would fail in trying to describe. It was quite tasty though. At the same time, we met the birthright trip for this season. They were mostly nice and fairly impressed that we spoke Hebrew better than they did (not very hard...). We had a nice campfire, complete with pringles, oreos, vafflim, and mooshi (marshmallows flavored like strawberry). I finally got to go to bed. Yes, I was complaining about my bed time The next day was camel ride extravaganza. I have ridden camels plenty of times before in my life. I didn't feel that it was necessary for my well-being. Actually, I forgot my correct shoes... I was wearing crocs. Yea, crocs. I thought I had packed real shoes...How did that happen? Anyway, I didn't go camelling. Instead, I walked with Sam (Participant) and Shira (Madricha/J-Hist teacher) and we talked. It was much nicer than camelling.
Moving on, we went to Kibbutz Yahel for that night. They have a pomelo orchard (the largest in Israel). If you are wondering what that is, it is a citrus fruit bigger than a grapefruit and much tastier. A wonderful fruit, let me tell you. Anyway, we picked pomelo and ate a few also. We also had a little meeting with some of the kibbutz teens regarding growing up in the negev desert, the arava valley, and Kibbutz Yahel in particular. That was nice. One of the girls was locked out of her hotel room and tried the window. She fell and smashed two of her toes. She later claimed that a flower pot fell on her foot. We also went to Eilat for some shopping and R/R.
The next morning we had services and I gave a d'var torah on Joseph and how his story of being in Egypt is related to us and being about to go stateside. We then went for some hiking.
We did hiking for four days. Lots of fun of course. Of note, there was a forecast for rain one night. You may know that rain and desert are an odd combination. Apparently, when it rains in the negev, it FLOODS. We were supposed to sleep in a riverbed that night. We were evacuated. We slept at a field school instead (they teach people how to be guides for touring and hiking etc there). It didn't rain though....When we were driving back north when we had finished, it started raining. It actually started pouring to be more accurate. And flooding. It was somewhat scary. I said the she'he'chiyanu (a prayer said to commemorate a special time). Very interesting. Not only was it flooding in the desert, but it was snowing in Jerusalem. We spent about two hours trying to get through the traffic of Jerusalem. Again I said she'he'chiyanu. I had never before that moment experienced snow in Israel. It was very nice. Amazing and other great stuff.
I came back and checked my email. I got an email from a Yoel Fogelman. Apparently, he has read my blog and is going to be a madrich (counselor) next semester. The following is our correspondence:
Hi,
My name is Yoel and I’m going to be a Madrich in the next NFTY EIE semester.
I found your blog (“YOMAN YISRAEL SHEL TAL”) on Google and read through it all. It was fascinating for me as an Israeli to read about your experience and it’s a relief for me as a future Madrich to get to know a little more about what to expect (I’m a little nervous).
I would appreciate it if you could find the time to give me some advice from your experience about things you think the Madrichim should change from the previous semester and things you think should be kept.
Yoel Fogelman
yoelfogelman@yahoo.com
I responded:
Hi,
I would not mind at all if you called me. My number is 052-653-8063. I am really pleasantly surprised that you found my blog on google. I was worried that it was not able to be found because I tried searching for it and didn't find it. I will be here with EIE until Jan 1. Feel free to call me until then. I would love to help you out.
-Tal
So he called me and we had a nice conversation. I am not so sure if I helped him out at all, but it is possible.
The name of this post is a bit of a pun. As you can see, I did have a packed week, but we are also packing. Very saddening. Magically, I think that somehow all my stuff (aside from perhaps a pair of sandals) will fit.
Finally, we got our "unofficial" transcripts. You will be quite surprised to read my semester grades...
Israel: Land, Culture, and People (Honors) (aka J-Hist on my blog): 100
Hebrew (Honors): 90
AP Calc AB: 95
English: 91
AP Physics C: 90
Latin 4: 97
Phys Ed: A
Are you surprised? I certainly was.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Thursday, December 21, 2006
A final update
No, not the final update. This is an update about finals. The first final was the Hebrew one. It was nice. I enjoyed it. There was all sorts of interesting things on there. Great evidence that I learned plenty on this little trip of mine. Next we had the first half of the J-hist final. I answered everything in hebrew except two questions. That's just a little show-off thing that I do. No one else does that. Next we had the math finals. I am of course AP calc. The test had something like eight questions and all of us had similar qualms at the end about mean-value theorem and local linear approximation. Next was AP physics. That was a toughy. I worked on it and skipped what I didn't know to come back to it later. There were two free response questions with multiple parts each worth 35 points. Then there were eight multiple choice questions. Each was worth 5 points. That is a total of 110 points out of 100. The other AP physics kid compared notes with me afterward. Mind you, she is in AP physics B and I am C (she has Basic math and I have Calculus). In any case, we had a bunch of similar questions. We compared what we had for this question or that and either we both got the similar ones wrong or right but we had the same answers. Finally, this morning, I had the second part of my j-hist exam. Essays. One was Israel themed and the other diaspora themed. I wrote about my theory of the twelve tribes and Levi and Yehuda and other interesting things (that was the Israel one). The other one was about the loss of the Jewish creativity (in America) that tended to identify Jews in exile. That creativity is lost, we remain a creative people but the creativity is American not Jewish. We need a modern day Shalom Aleichem. אוי ועי וחבל
I suppose this was a pretty boring post. Sorry about that. I just wanted to write something now. We are leaving in a few hours for the Negev (the big desert of the south). We will hike for five days or so. I am personally looking forward to it. Oh, one last thing. I have school vacation for about the next month. Heheh.
I suppose this was a pretty boring post. Sorry about that. I just wanted to write something now. We are leaving in a few hours for the Negev (the big desert of the south). We will hike for five days or so. I am personally looking forward to it. Oh, one last thing. I have school vacation for about the next month. Heheh.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
My latest update.
So, it has been a long time since I sat down to have a nice write. I hope you are doing well and that life is treating you nicely. I am going to start with the beginning of December, and if I remember something worth mentioning from November, I will mention it, don't worry.
1/12, we went to Beit Shemesh. The kids who we have been getting to know (we had that scavenger hunt with them a while ago) invited us for Shabbat dinner. What an interesting experience. First we had them over here for Kabalat Shabbat, or welcoming the Shabbat and the evening service. They were all very intrigued by said service. Most had never experienced a Jewish service before. We were all intrigued about their intrigue. We have been going to services for many many many years, and there was nothing new or special there. But anyway, we went to dinner afterwards. I was paired up with Charlotte (in the lowest Hebrew class), to go to Tzvi's house. Tzvi is from a family of Russian immigrants. I learned that Tzvi's family knows only slightly better Hebrew than I, with no English on the side. Charlotte was absolutely lost. The family was very interested in us, and I had to act as translator. Poor Charlotte. It was a lot of fun though don't get me wrong. They offered us all sorts of alcoholic beverages in Hebrew, and I declined graciously in Hebrew. Really it was a lot of fun.
On 3/12, we went on extended tiyul (which is a trip if you had forgotten). This tiyul is called the security tiyul. The goal was to understand the six-day war (1967 war, known in Arab civilization as the second disaster) and the yom-kippur war (1973, known in Arab civilization as the october war), as well as borders to the state, and Druze civilization. I feel that I understand all of that a lot more than earlier. We went up to the Golan Heights to look at fortifications, to see a documentary about a tank-corps, and understand certain territorial issues. We went to tel-dan (which I loved!) to learn about biblical-times Israelite culture. Yes, we did learn that already, but it was a full circle thing. A lot of fun and interestingness. The last part of our journey was Druze learning. First we watched a video called ha'kallah ha'surit or the Syrian Bride. It detailed the journey of a Druze girl in the Golan heights to marry a Druze man in Syria. Lots of trials and tribulations. We later went to visit a Druze village above Haifa. A secular (atheist, also) Druze was our guide into the Druze culture. We had dinner at a Druze house, but never met the people that live there...It was delicious. We learned all about the Druze religion and culture except for the religion bit ;-). Apparently, discussing the Druze religion's ideas is forbidden. Besides, our guide did not know about it. You choose at age 15 to become religious or to be secular. He chose secular and does not regret that decision at all. Once you become religious you start (yes, I did say start) to learn about the religion, and you can leave religious life later if so you choose. On to different things though.
On 8/12, we had breakfast at the houses of our Hebrew teachers. This was a very interesting experience. My Hebrew teacher apparently is a bachelorette, and likes dogs (living, stuffed, and statues). She has this funny looking thing that she calls a dog (though she actually calls it calvah) I think it might be a shitzu (or however it might be spelled). We watched a movie in Hebrew whose setting was sometime in the 70s. It was really odd seeing 70s Israel. They liked spanish pop songs...It was weird. Later in the day, David W and I went to Eitan Chamberlin's house for Shabbat dinner. It was delicious. You remember that name. He is going to be as famous as JK Rowling. He wrote an excellent book (I'm in chapter 4) named Ikkibu and it is the first of four books in his quadlogy. Afterwards, I went with David to Walter Zanger's house. Walter is really an intriguing guy (and he is already pretty famous...or was). Also staying at Walter's that evening was Noam. Noam is the boyfriend of the girl who was my tourguide at Hampshire college. The two of them are doing a semester in Israel. The three of us went 'sploring the next day to all sorts of places and had lots of fun.
10/12 we went to the Israel high court and learned about the judicial system. Much different (and better, in my opinion) than the American one. The next day we went on tiyul around the Kibbutz. Visiting all sorts of places or interest (like an ancient Islamic cememtary, or a mosaic floor, or the house of a "holy man", or even a second temple period collumn). On 12/12, we had mock knesset. Knesset is the parliamentary law-making body of Israel. For the week or so beforehand, we were supposed to research a party (we were assigned to these parties) and make a campaign. I was the Avodah party (Labor party or the Party for the Workers of the Land of Israel). There were five of us in the group. I seized control of the party because no one else could remember the facts and improvise like I can. We were going to have one person know diplomatic issues and one know security and one know socio-economic (that was supposed to be me). However, we found out .5 hours before we were to present that just one person presents and others can add things in. so as I said, I seized control and led our party to almost victory. At the end, we had a vote. The Knesset has 120 seats. Parties get a number of seats based on proportionality. For example if 50% of the population voted for Kadima, they would get 60 seats in Knesset. So the votes came in, and my party got 7 of 28 votes. 30 seats in knesset. The party that won got 11 seats or about 40 seats. This is much different than real life. Since there are so many parties in Israeli politics, getting 40 seats would be quite an accomplishment. So in real life, my party has 19 seats in Knesset and is the second largest party in power. I feel that we would have won if kids didnt just throw away their votes...three kids voted for the shas party- a bunch of ultra-orthodox Jews that have no thoughts on defense other than "let God handle it". Two kids voted for Ichud Leumi which believes in the deportation of all Palestinians by force. These five kids don't actually believe what they voted for...they just wanted to be funny. I think its unfortunate. As we say in hebrew חבל.
We have had our last J-hist class. And boy, is that a depressing thought. I'm on the verge of a biblical breakthrough of Solomonic proportions, too. Again, חבל. We also had our finals in Hebrew. I had fun on that one...I will probably have fun on the J-hist final and even the calc one. The physics one, I will probably be tearing out my hair though.. But anyway, hebrew was good clean fun. I will see ya'll soon....I do miss you. But, I don't want to come stateside. I want to stay here. At home...
1/12, we went to Beit Shemesh. The kids who we have been getting to know (we had that scavenger hunt with them a while ago) invited us for Shabbat dinner. What an interesting experience. First we had them over here for Kabalat Shabbat, or welcoming the Shabbat and the evening service. They were all very intrigued by said service. Most had never experienced a Jewish service before. We were all intrigued about their intrigue. We have been going to services for many many many years, and there was nothing new or special there. But anyway, we went to dinner afterwards. I was paired up with Charlotte (in the lowest Hebrew class), to go to Tzvi's house. Tzvi is from a family of Russian immigrants. I learned that Tzvi's family knows only slightly better Hebrew than I, with no English on the side. Charlotte was absolutely lost. The family was very interested in us, and I had to act as translator. Poor Charlotte. It was a lot of fun though don't get me wrong. They offered us all sorts of alcoholic beverages in Hebrew, and I declined graciously in Hebrew. Really it was a lot of fun.
On 3/12, we went on extended tiyul (which is a trip if you had forgotten). This tiyul is called the security tiyul. The goal was to understand the six-day war (1967 war, known in Arab civilization as the second disaster) and the yom-kippur war (1973, known in Arab civilization as the october war), as well as borders to the state, and Druze civilization. I feel that I understand all of that a lot more than earlier. We went up to the Golan Heights to look at fortifications, to see a documentary about a tank-corps, and understand certain territorial issues. We went to tel-dan (which I loved!) to learn about biblical-times Israelite culture. Yes, we did learn that already, but it was a full circle thing. A lot of fun and interestingness. The last part of our journey was Druze learning. First we watched a video called ha'kallah ha'surit or the Syrian Bride. It detailed the journey of a Druze girl in the Golan heights to marry a Druze man in Syria. Lots of trials and tribulations. We later went to visit a Druze village above Haifa. A secular (atheist, also) Druze was our guide into the Druze culture. We had dinner at a Druze house, but never met the people that live there...It was delicious. We learned all about the Druze religion and culture except for the religion bit ;-). Apparently, discussing the Druze religion's ideas is forbidden. Besides, our guide did not know about it. You choose at age 15 to become religious or to be secular. He chose secular and does not regret that decision at all. Once you become religious you start (yes, I did say start) to learn about the religion, and you can leave religious life later if so you choose. On to different things though.
On 8/12, we had breakfast at the houses of our Hebrew teachers. This was a very interesting experience. My Hebrew teacher apparently is a bachelorette, and likes dogs (living, stuffed, and statues). She has this funny looking thing that she calls a dog (though she actually calls it calvah) I think it might be a shitzu (or however it might be spelled). We watched a movie in Hebrew whose setting was sometime in the 70s. It was really odd seeing 70s Israel. They liked spanish pop songs...It was weird. Later in the day, David W and I went to Eitan Chamberlin's house for Shabbat dinner. It was delicious. You remember that name. He is going to be as famous as JK Rowling. He wrote an excellent book (I'm in chapter 4) named Ikkibu and it is the first of four books in his quadlogy. Afterwards, I went with David to Walter Zanger's house. Walter is really an intriguing guy (and he is already pretty famous...or was). Also staying at Walter's that evening was Noam. Noam is the boyfriend of the girl who was my tourguide at Hampshire college. The two of them are doing a semester in Israel. The three of us went 'sploring the next day to all sorts of places and had lots of fun.
10/12 we went to the Israel high court and learned about the judicial system. Much different (and better, in my opinion) than the American one. The next day we went on tiyul around the Kibbutz. Visiting all sorts of places or interest (like an ancient Islamic cememtary, or a mosaic floor, or the house of a "holy man", or even a second temple period collumn). On 12/12, we had mock knesset. Knesset is the parliamentary law-making body of Israel. For the week or so beforehand, we were supposed to research a party (we were assigned to these parties) and make a campaign. I was the Avodah party (Labor party or the Party for the Workers of the Land of Israel). There were five of us in the group. I seized control of the party because no one else could remember the facts and improvise like I can. We were going to have one person know diplomatic issues and one know security and one know socio-economic (that was supposed to be me). However, we found out .5 hours before we were to present that just one person presents and others can add things in. so as I said, I seized control and led our party to almost victory. At the end, we had a vote. The Knesset has 120 seats. Parties get a number of seats based on proportionality. For example if 50% of the population voted for Kadima, they would get 60 seats in Knesset. So the votes came in, and my party got 7 of 28 votes. 30 seats in knesset. The party that won got 11 seats or about 40 seats. This is much different than real life. Since there are so many parties in Israeli politics, getting 40 seats would be quite an accomplishment. So in real life, my party has 19 seats in Knesset and is the second largest party in power. I feel that we would have won if kids didnt just throw away their votes...three kids voted for the shas party- a bunch of ultra-orthodox Jews that have no thoughts on defense other than "let God handle it". Two kids voted for Ichud Leumi which believes in the deportation of all Palestinians by force. These five kids don't actually believe what they voted for...they just wanted to be funny. I think its unfortunate. As we say in hebrew חבל.
We have had our last J-hist class. And boy, is that a depressing thought. I'm on the verge of a biblical breakthrough of Solomonic proportions, too. Again, חבל. We also had our finals in Hebrew. I had fun on that one...I will probably have fun on the J-hist final and even the calc one. The physics one, I will probably be tearing out my hair though.. But anyway, hebrew was good clean fun. I will see ya'll soon....I do miss you. But, I don't want to come stateside. I want to stay here. At home...
Friday, November 17, 2006
A little bit about a lot a bit.
So, I have not written here in a very long time. I'm sorry. I promise. Let me try to update you. There was of course j-hist, Hebrew, and my other classes, but it was really just a cycle of schoolness. On, say, the 18 of October, parents started to invade our lives. There were parents on their little "Parents' Pilgrimage" everywhere. I (and everyone else on the trip) felt that my independence was invaded and suddenly there were parents breathing down our necks. They were here for about two weeks and were gone. Mind you, it was nice every once in a while to have parents during that time because they would take me out to dinner or shopping for what I wanted or even take me to Hebrew University for a visit. (Just to clarify, I did write this knowing that my parents can see it...but they already know how I felt about the subject)
The parents left, and we had our return to normalcy. When I went to HU, I was very impressed. I really wanted to go there. Right now, I am not positive that is my college because I remembered all the great things about Hampshire. There are both duking it out for first place and its a neck and neck race.
A little while later (sometime in the beginning of November) we went to Poland. Quite the trip. We were not really touring, as we had a true and definite purpose. We were there for Jewish reasons. We had lots of Shoah stuff to see. You may wonder what Shoah is and I will simply tell you that Holocaust is not enough to describe that situation. I really do mean no offense to those that read this, but I dislike Poland greatly. I won't say hate, because one of the girls on the trip does not appreciate such language and she might be standing right over me as I write this. Her feelings aside, I really do not like Poland at all. My reasons for this are thus: Jewish culture there is on show. Like at a zoo. For example, we went to a Kosher-style restaurant. It was a show of Yiddish culture. Yiddish culture is much like Jewish culture, except before the Shoah and (mostly) in Eastern Europe. It of course had no Jews in the restaurant- nothing but a tourist attraction. They played Klezmer music (music in Yiddish, which is also language if you did not know that) and in it they sang a song that should only be sung on a Saturday night or at the end of a holiday...it was a Wednesday. There were other such experiences, but I am opting for not being repetitious and/or boring.
During our stay in Poland, we went to two death lagers (lager is the word for camp as in concentration camp in German). Very moving experiences. I am glad that we went during the heart of the bitter Polish winter. So cold and miserable, and we were so bundled up and still miserable. While we were at Majdanek (my-dah-nik, a death lager), it rained. The rain mocked me. I was there in my layers of warmth with rain protection on top and still not on the cozy side (speaking of, my stomach just gurgled in want of Cosi...). I thought back on my brethren that endured through such awful conditions with just a pyjama top and bottom and maybe, but just maybe a pair of shoes; none with socks. The average time for living through such a a concentration lager (whose sole purpose was not to kill immediately but to work the Jews and others for a little while) was just three months. There were pictures, mugshots even, done by the nazis. They had a date of entrance and a date of death on them. One that I saw of a healthy-looking teenager had a difference of just 16 days. The longest time that I saw was 11 months. Needless to say, it was a very moving experience and I will leave most of the details to myself (we were there for 5 days, all of them chock full from 5:30 in the morning to around 7 at night).
There were two good things that came out of my visit to Poland: a tea house and Esperanto. The tea house was absolutely amazing. If you were unaware, I have this ambition to own a tea house in addition to whatever I end up doing in my life. This tea house was so amazing but mine will be better. I at least know now that my idea of a tea house is possible, plausible, even doable in praxis. Next, we visited the grave of a guy who had the pseudonym Dr. Esperanto. He created a language which is now called Esperanto, after him. His goal was to create an international language based on Slavic, Germanic, and Romance origins. Very intriguing, I know. It has no irregular verbs, and has very simple rules. I am currently teaching it to myself, and if I may so myself, I am doing quite fine. I reccomend that you do some research about it if you do not know what it is.
After Poland, we had a day off of nothingness and sleep. It was quite nice. The day after that, we went to Gadna. Gadna is an acronym in Hebrew which stands for G'dud Noar (Youth Brigade basically). I realize that interpretation meant very little. It was in essence a week of basic training for Tzahal (Tzavoh Hagana LeYisrael- Israel Defense Forces). There was lots of running around and basic training type stuff. Our group was divided into three teams and altogether with two other teams we were were a platoon. It was lots of fun. Gadna is not a program for Americans. It is a program for Israeli kids so that they can get a feel for the army which they will enter a year later. Therefore, our commanders spoke to us in Hebrew. Not the slow, let-the-American-understand Hebrew that I am used to, but fast super Hebrew with slang and everything. I was of course the translator for my team. I had to relay orders to my team from our commander, and it was hard. The first two days, I made lots of mistakes and therefore my team made lots of mistakes. After that, I really had to shape up. We were having lessons about guns and safety and the army and other things that I had to translate, and I needed to have exact translations without missing details. I got pretty good at it. On the last full day, we got to shoot an M-16. 10 bullets each. I got eight on target. Second best in our whole group. We all had a hidden agenda while there: get the commanders to laugh. We were quite successful. It was hard, but we triumphed even in that. It was a lot of fun and it helped my Hebrew tremendously. We of course got to wear uniforms and belts and canteens and stand in attention. It was really like a week in the army except super-concentrated.
That week is over and now I'm here. It has been a tough few weeks. However, I have come out full of experience. I really did enjoy the army and I really did not at all enjoy Poland. That's it. Thanks for reading through!
The parents left, and we had our return to normalcy. When I went to HU, I was very impressed. I really wanted to go there. Right now, I am not positive that is my college because I remembered all the great things about Hampshire. There are both duking it out for first place and its a neck and neck race.
A little while later (sometime in the beginning of November) we went to Poland. Quite the trip. We were not really touring, as we had a true and definite purpose. We were there for Jewish reasons. We had lots of Shoah stuff to see. You may wonder what Shoah is and I will simply tell you that Holocaust is not enough to describe that situation. I really do mean no offense to those that read this, but I dislike Poland greatly. I won't say hate, because one of the girls on the trip does not appreciate such language and she might be standing right over me as I write this. Her feelings aside, I really do not like Poland at all. My reasons for this are thus: Jewish culture there is on show. Like at a zoo. For example, we went to a Kosher-style restaurant. It was a show of Yiddish culture. Yiddish culture is much like Jewish culture, except before the Shoah and (mostly) in Eastern Europe. It of course had no Jews in the restaurant- nothing but a tourist attraction. They played Klezmer music (music in Yiddish, which is also language if you did not know that) and in it they sang a song that should only be sung on a Saturday night or at the end of a holiday...it was a Wednesday. There were other such experiences, but I am opting for not being repetitious and/or boring.
During our stay in Poland, we went to two death lagers (lager is the word for camp as in concentration camp in German). Very moving experiences. I am glad that we went during the heart of the bitter Polish winter. So cold and miserable, and we were so bundled up and still miserable. While we were at Majdanek (my-dah-nik, a death lager), it rained. The rain mocked me. I was there in my layers of warmth with rain protection on top and still not on the cozy side (speaking of, my stomach just gurgled in want of Cosi...). I thought back on my brethren that endured through such awful conditions with just a pyjama top and bottom and maybe, but just maybe a pair of shoes; none with socks. The average time for living through such a a concentration lager (whose sole purpose was not to kill immediately but to work the Jews and others for a little while) was just three months. There were pictures, mugshots even, done by the nazis. They had a date of entrance and a date of death on them. One that I saw of a healthy-looking teenager had a difference of just 16 days. The longest time that I saw was 11 months. Needless to say, it was a very moving experience and I will leave most of the details to myself (we were there for 5 days, all of them chock full from 5:30 in the morning to around 7 at night).
There were two good things that came out of my visit to Poland: a tea house and Esperanto. The tea house was absolutely amazing. If you were unaware, I have this ambition to own a tea house in addition to whatever I end up doing in my life. This tea house was so amazing but mine will be better. I at least know now that my idea of a tea house is possible, plausible, even doable in praxis. Next, we visited the grave of a guy who had the pseudonym Dr. Esperanto. He created a language which is now called Esperanto, after him. His goal was to create an international language based on Slavic, Germanic, and Romance origins. Very intriguing, I know. It has no irregular verbs, and has very simple rules. I am currently teaching it to myself, and if I may so myself, I am doing quite fine. I reccomend that you do some research about it if you do not know what it is.
After Poland, we had a day off of nothingness and sleep. It was quite nice. The day after that, we went to Gadna. Gadna is an acronym in Hebrew which stands for G'dud Noar (Youth Brigade basically). I realize that interpretation meant very little. It was in essence a week of basic training for Tzahal (Tzavoh Hagana LeYisrael- Israel Defense Forces). There was lots of running around and basic training type stuff. Our group was divided into three teams and altogether with two other teams we were were a platoon. It was lots of fun. Gadna is not a program for Americans. It is a program for Israeli kids so that they can get a feel for the army which they will enter a year later. Therefore, our commanders spoke to us in Hebrew. Not the slow, let-the-American-understand Hebrew that I am used to, but fast super Hebrew with slang and everything. I was of course the translator for my team. I had to relay orders to my team from our commander, and it was hard. The first two days, I made lots of mistakes and therefore my team made lots of mistakes. After that, I really had to shape up. We were having lessons about guns and safety and the army and other things that I had to translate, and I needed to have exact translations without missing details. I got pretty good at it. On the last full day, we got to shoot an M-16. 10 bullets each. I got eight on target. Second best in our whole group. We all had a hidden agenda while there: get the commanders to laugh. We were quite successful. It was hard, but we triumphed even in that. It was a lot of fun and it helped my Hebrew tremendously. We of course got to wear uniforms and belts and canteens and stand in attention. It was really like a week in the army except super-concentrated.
That week is over and now I'm here. It has been a tough few weeks. However, I have come out full of experience. I really did enjoy the army and I really did not at all enjoy Poland. That's it. Thanks for reading through!
Sunday, October 15, 2006
Yam le yam, sukkot, and a blessing
We just had the great and joyous holiday of Sukkot. This is a very interesting holiday involving sacrifices at the temple in ancient times. It is also one of the most important holidays of the Jewish year. It happens to be a seven day long holiday. For the first two days, I stayed at a family's house. It was truly an intriguing experience. They have two kids (a boy of age 3.5 years named Ido and a girl of age 6.5 named Tal). They are both adorable and amazing and they understood very good English. Ido only speaks Hebrew but has a slight lisp so many of the sounds sound the same. Tal speaks good English but whenever she was angry, she would yell in Hebrew. The father spoke to them only in English (that would be how they learned it). The father is very super ultra left-wing and showed me around Jerusalem in a leftist sort of way (this part used to be an arab village until Jewish settlers came and swindeled them out of their land and took the rest, or something to that effect). I was taken to the grandparents' (on the mother's side) house and we had meals in their sukkah (a booth, one of the laws of sukkot is to live for seven days in a sukkah). They were very nice and exhausted me. By that I mean that they spoke only Hebrew and therefore I was straining my translation muscles to understand what was going on and to make appropriate replies. As a complete nonsequitor, I have been offered beer like it that is nothing special SO MANY TIMES (this was as good a place as any to add that in).
After those two nights, I was brought to a youth hostel (hotel) to board my groups bus. Another nonsequitor: the words hostel or hotel or hospital or hospice or other such words appear to all come from the word ushpizin in Hebrew. Ushpizin is another law of sukkot - invite the patriarchs to come and dine with you. Anyway, I boarded my bus and met up with most of the rest of my group. We then drove more and more North picking up more and more members of the group along the way (it was required that we stay away from home over the first two nights of sukkot). We drove all the way up to yam kinneret (Sea of Galillee). We had a water hike there. After the hike, we got back on the bus and were driven to a campsite. Mind you, we were not allowed to have wet things on the bus so I arranged a plastic trash bag in which was put all of our various bathing suits. My bathing suit was a pair of shorts because I left my bathing suit (I think) on kibbutz lotan where we stayed for Rosh Hashannah. I was wearing my one other pair of shorts that I decided to pack for this hiking trip. We got to our campsite and I put everyone's bathing suits (and my shorts) out on a stone wall to dry. We were then told about this program (yam le yam or sea to sea) and how it was a survival teaching thing. Therefore, for our first activity (still that first night), we were taught about stress and fear. We were set apart as individuals and were told to sit still and wait for .5 hours. In the dark. By ourselves. I tried some meditation, some reiki, some listening, some watching, some playing with sticks. That 1/2 hour passed by really quickly. I actually had fun during it. Afterwards, they made dinner for us, and we went to bed (there was a campfire, but most of us went to bed). I woke the next morning and found that all of the stuff I had laid out was drenched in dew. stupid tal (it means dew in hebrew). I tied my shorts in a plastic bag and did not use them for days.
We did lots of hiking and climbing and such. It took four days. I got scratched by two trees over two days in the same place and now have a nice battle wound. We had some REALLY good eating on the trail. Everyday we had to make breakfast and lunch for ourselves everyday at some stop on the trail. We had porridge with various additives for breakfast everyday and stir fry with various (or without various) ingredients for lunch. Very tasty stuff. I was actually put in the vegetarian group for whatever reason. I was given meat (a nice big thing of salami) but never ate it. On the first day of hiking (the day after the night activity), I was in charge of the peanut butter for the vegetarian group. It of course exploded. All over my bag. And my socks. And various other things. And it was gross. After the great long day of walking, I had to clean that thing. And it was dark. I was not having a good time with that, but it did not make my day bad. I got to hike many many miles that day, and it was good. There are really way too many experiences to relate even an iota (in relative terms of course). After a lot of hiking, we finally made it to the mediterranean sea. My pants that I had used as a bathing suit during that first water hike still were not dry! So I went into the med in boxers and changed boxers after getting out and put the same shorts on over the clean boxers. I in fact wore the same shirt and pants the entirety of the four days, with no access to showers. To enhance the effect, I didn't wear deodorent either. Amazingly enough, there were no complaints.
Enough about yam le yam. We got back and had two days off from school to recuperate. They even ordered pizza hut pizza for us last night (I only had four slices I swear!). I had green olive, black olive, cheese, and onion. Really it was all very nice.
At the end of Sukkot, there is another holiday going by the name of Simchat Torah or Shmini Atzeret. Simchat Torah is the celebration of the completion and restarting of the Torah cycle while Shmini Atzeret is when we start praying for rain in Israel. Normally, the rains begin some time after two weeks from when rain is first prayed for. What if I said that it rained today (a day after Shmini Atzeret)? It did. Not just rain, but downpour. It was wet. The sky was black. It was truly a remarkable moment. That is why I just remarked about it. I have actually never been in Israel while it was raining. It was so amazing. I can't describe the power of the moment in words. So I'll stop.
I think that is all that I have to say for the moment. I hope all is well in your comings and goings.
After those two nights, I was brought to a youth hostel (hotel) to board my groups bus. Another nonsequitor: the words hostel or hotel or hospital or hospice or other such words appear to all come from the word ushpizin in Hebrew. Ushpizin is another law of sukkot - invite the patriarchs to come and dine with you. Anyway, I boarded my bus and met up with most of the rest of my group. We then drove more and more North picking up more and more members of the group along the way (it was required that we stay away from home over the first two nights of sukkot). We drove all the way up to yam kinneret (Sea of Galillee). We had a water hike there. After the hike, we got back on the bus and were driven to a campsite. Mind you, we were not allowed to have wet things on the bus so I arranged a plastic trash bag in which was put all of our various bathing suits. My bathing suit was a pair of shorts because I left my bathing suit (I think) on kibbutz lotan where we stayed for Rosh Hashannah. I was wearing my one other pair of shorts that I decided to pack for this hiking trip. We got to our campsite and I put everyone's bathing suits (and my shorts) out on a stone wall to dry. We were then told about this program (yam le yam or sea to sea) and how it was a survival teaching thing. Therefore, for our first activity (still that first night), we were taught about stress and fear. We were set apart as individuals and were told to sit still and wait for .5 hours. In the dark. By ourselves. I tried some meditation, some reiki, some listening, some watching, some playing with sticks. That 1/2 hour passed by really quickly. I actually had fun during it. Afterwards, they made dinner for us, and we went to bed (there was a campfire, but most of us went to bed). I woke the next morning and found that all of the stuff I had laid out was drenched in dew. stupid tal (it means dew in hebrew). I tied my shorts in a plastic bag and did not use them for days.
We did lots of hiking and climbing and such. It took four days. I got scratched by two trees over two days in the same place and now have a nice battle wound. We had some REALLY good eating on the trail. Everyday we had to make breakfast and lunch for ourselves everyday at some stop on the trail. We had porridge with various additives for breakfast everyday and stir fry with various (or without various) ingredients for lunch. Very tasty stuff. I was actually put in the vegetarian group for whatever reason. I was given meat (a nice big thing of salami) but never ate it. On the first day of hiking (the day after the night activity), I was in charge of the peanut butter for the vegetarian group. It of course exploded. All over my bag. And my socks. And various other things. And it was gross. After the great long day of walking, I had to clean that thing. And it was dark. I was not having a good time with that, but it did not make my day bad. I got to hike many many miles that day, and it was good. There are really way too many experiences to relate even an iota (in relative terms of course). After a lot of hiking, we finally made it to the mediterranean sea. My pants that I had used as a bathing suit during that first water hike still were not dry! So I went into the med in boxers and changed boxers after getting out and put the same shorts on over the clean boxers. I in fact wore the same shirt and pants the entirety of the four days, with no access to showers. To enhance the effect, I didn't wear deodorent either. Amazingly enough, there were no complaints.
Enough about yam le yam. We got back and had two days off from school to recuperate. They even ordered pizza hut pizza for us last night (I only had four slices I swear!). I had green olive, black olive, cheese, and onion. Really it was all very nice.
At the end of Sukkot, there is another holiday going by the name of Simchat Torah or Shmini Atzeret. Simchat Torah is the celebration of the completion and restarting of the Torah cycle while Shmini Atzeret is when we start praying for rain in Israel. Normally, the rains begin some time after two weeks from when rain is first prayed for. What if I said that it rained today (a day after Shmini Atzeret)? It did. Not just rain, but downpour. It was wet. The sky was black. It was truly a remarkable moment. That is why I just remarked about it. I have actually never been in Israel while it was raining. It was so amazing. I can't describe the power of the moment in words. So I'll stop.
I think that is all that I have to say for the moment. I hope all is well in your comings and goings.
Friday, October 06, 2006
Quick update
I am writing this now in Hebrew class. We just finished our midterm (or at least I did) and this was the last of three installments of it. We again have this double hebrew/no j-hist nonsense and it sort of upsets me. We had to pack up last night because we are moving out today. We are to stay with a family (each of us with a different family, or if you are nice you might bring a friend or two along) for two nights and then we will go on yam l'yam (sea to sea hike). Yesterday, I had my first infusion for Crohn's disease in Israel. It was a very different experience from the two other experiences that I am used to (Stamford and Greenwich hospitals). The Isrealis who were in the infusion center did not know each other but yet started bickering about politics and this last military conflict (everyone has their own opinions of what to call it). It was really very intriguing. Becasue of the poor planning of that appointment, I missed the j-hist exam that was yesterday. I therefore had to make it up sometime after dinner yesterday. After dinner was packing though, so it was a whole balagan. On top of all that, I am on toranut (duty). This means that I am supposed to clean the office, zula (our hangout room thing, student lounge), and the classrooms. I only got to clean the classrooms that we packed our stuff into (we put all of our stuff in classrooms when we move out and then lock it up). I had to take the test at some point and did, but it was very hard to do from 9:30 to 10:30...my brain had already begun its shutdown sequence.
In other news, I have added Hebrew University in Jerusalem to my college list. That's about it. I hope you all have a chag sameach, and sorry for jumping around a lot and being hard to follow this time.
In other news, I have added Hebrew University in Jerusalem to my college list. That's about it. I hope you all have a chag sameach, and sorry for jumping around a lot and being hard to follow this time.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Yom kippur and the past 5 days
It is now 5 days later after I said that I would continue my update after dinner. Oops, is all I can say. No, that's a lie...I can also say busy. The past five days have been jampacked with a whole slew of occurences, so I'm going to conveniently forget about the second part of that update, and just talk about the last five days.
Friday was slightly special. For whatever reason, we did not have j-hist (I was simply heartbroken). Instead, we had three hours of hebrew lessons. Yes, that is in fact speaking my favorite language ever non-stop for three hours. This is not as easy as one might think (if you did not think that it is an easy feat, than congratulations). I was so exhausted by the end of it, that I was memutzah (I am always ayef here because of lack of sleep, but after something that straining, i must be memutzah). At 12:45 we had lunch (super very exciting). Before lunch but after Hebrew (from 11 to 12:45) as well as after lunch but before 1:30, I watched Israeli children's shows on television. Amazing stuff. One of them happened to be Blue's Clues, and the others were not American. I understood nearly all the words, enough to understand what was going on but enough to miss a joke or some such thing. Afterwards, the four of us who happen to be best at hebrew were to meet so as to finish the plans for the meeting of Israeli kids (for about three weeks we [the highest hebrew class] have been planning a meeting between us and the 11th and 12th grade honors kids of a neighboring town, Beit Shemesh [house of the sun]. It has been very difficult and awkward at times, but we finally decided that we would have a bingo, a scavenger hunt, and a pool party). We had to hide all the clues (we also made them, and cleverly if I might add). So we hid the clues and all was good in the world. Or Kibbutz Tzuba. Tzuba is our world. Anyway, we played bingo with the Beit Shemesh kids and it was nice and icebreaker-ish, and then split to do our scavenger hunt. The scavenger hunt was a lot of fun, and naturally the group that I was leading made it to the pool (our destination) first. We did not cheat, but other groups did. Regardless, it was lots of fun. I became friendly with one particular Israeli kid, Shmuel (not to be confused with the Sam who is in my EIE group that we call Shmuel or Shmuli). He is the son of the counselor of the kids from Beit Shemesh. He graduated last year and is currently doing the compulsory military service. He is working in the Computers and Communications unit in the army, so we got along just fine. In fact, when he asked for my email (talinuxactly@gmail.com), he gave a good laugh because he actually understood it. For those of you who don't it is Tal Linux Xactly (exactly). He gave me a high compliment saying that I am very Israeli. I did not quite understand what he meant so he explained; I have an Israeli sense of humor and personality. No need to reiterate (but I will anyway), I took that as a high compliment. That was Friday in a nutshell.
I don't recall much of shabat because it was pretty boring. However, in the evening for motzash (motzaei shabat, end of shabat, return to normalcy, allowed to buy stuff time), we went to a super exspansive mall. It was really big. I bought mouthwash if you are curious. If not, I did not buy anything :) .
Sunday, another slightly special day. Again, we had three hours of Hebrew and no j-hist (and again I was heartbroken). I don't think you understand. J-hist is the greatest, most informative, and interesting class ever (sorry to all of you who are current or former teachers of mine). Until today (the third), I did not have a sit down j-hist class in 6 days!!! That is a lot of heartbreak... Back to the topic at hand. Again, Hebrew was so physically exhausting. Again I was memutzah. Lots of agains. But a new! For Yom Kippur, we went to Beit Shmuel (the house of Shmuel, not to be confused with Shmuel the Israeli kid or Shmuel aka Sam in my group), a youth hostel that is connected to the Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. Let me explain that in slightly more simple terms. Beit Shmuel is a hotel where kids who are on trips like mine or others stay. It is in a very good location (as I will discuss later) and is a part of HUC (the graduate school for Reform rabbinic studies). We unpacked and were told to be ready for dinner at 15:45 (aka 3:45). 3:45 you ask? Why, yes, I did in fact say that. After dinner we had a little get together (this was about 4:30).
I feel that I must give some background. If you know what Yom Kippur is, feel free to skip this paragraph (although it may be funny anyway). Yom Kippur is a very important day to the Jewish people. Very important. It is the tenth day of the month of Tishrei. Tishrei is the seventh month in the Jewish Calendar, but for whatever reason, we celebrate the new year in Tishrei. Between the new year and Yom Kippur (ten days if you were paying attention), we must repent for our sins between man and man and then on Yom Kippur we try to finish with a good seal in the book of life. Slightly too metaphorical for such a serious thing if you ask me. Despite that, we Jews feel that Yom Kippur is a very serious day. If you did badly in the past year and are not forgiven for you wrongs, then you will not be written in the book of life and will die in the coming year. Lots of forgiveness, and I sinned and similar things. To commemorate all this, we are told in the bible to aflict our souls (that is my own translation). The rabbis have decided to interpret this as giving ourself really mean torture. For instance, we are not to eat, drink, wear comfortable shoes, put on perfume (or deoderant or brush teeth or whatever other nice things strike your fancy), and no sex. Oh, I forgot the biggest torture of all- staying in synagogue the entire day (that was some humor).
So we went to synagogue that evening after our very early last supper (Jewish days start in the evening so dinner is actually the first meal of the day). This was the Kol Nidre (all the vows) service. A very solemn occasion and usually very boring. However, the service was all in Hebrew (as in no English prayers) although it was led at the HUC (an english speaking institution). It was probably half as long as it normally would be at home. We then walked for a while (maybe three minutes) until we were in front of a Blockbuster (apparently we have those in Israel). We were then told "explore, but be in groups of at least four and be back at Beit Shmuel at 10 PM." This was really something. Especially because it was about 8 at the time. So we went 'sploring. We found two temples (The GREAT SYNAGOGUE, and some little conservative one) and lots of strangeties. For instance, there were no cars. Not only was there a lack of traffic, but all of the traffic lights were turned off! People were dancing in the street to no music at all, and there were plenty of bicycles. It is from this and some other experiences of Yom Kippur that I feel people should say "Happy Yom Kippur!", instead of this "have a fast fast" or "may you be sealed for good in the book of life" stuff. I really enjoyed Yom Kippur, and it was the easiest fast I have ever done. However, this 'sploring bit got old eventually. There is only so much you can see and do when everything is closed and its dark out. My group of seven ended up back at the hostel a half hour early (at least half an hour after I wanted to go back). We then had lights out at 11 and optional services were at 10:30 the next morning. That is too much sleep. I havent gotten more than 9 hours this whole time, and it was a shock to my body that 11.5 hours was possible. I of course (with the rest of my room) woke at 8:30. Since that is only a day after we fell back an hour for daylight savings, it was to my body only 7:30. I got 9 hours of sleep that night (went to bed about 11:30) and felt that it was too much! We had optional services the next day and I went to a sephardi orthodox shul (very interesting experience), we had a torah study at HUC (in english), then afternoon services, then memorial service, then the concluding service and we broke fast at say 6:30. Again, it was a very easy fast because everything was so engaging and interesting. I had a lot of fun this Yom Kippur so I hope that you had a happy Yom Kippur as well ;-) . We went to Emek Rafaim for our real dinner and I had a 150 g burger with lots of fries and a coke. It was very delicious but i couldnt finish the burger (I had about a bite and a half left) because my stomach had shrunk from fasting. The only thing of note at Emek Rafaim was the graffiti. One such graffiti (plastered on a burger place) said "basar = retzach" , which translated means "meat = murder". Another one was on a trash pail and it said (in English) "Welcome Americans, but speak Hebrew". I loved it.
I hope you had a happy Yom Kippur!
Friday was slightly special. For whatever reason, we did not have j-hist (I was simply heartbroken). Instead, we had three hours of hebrew lessons. Yes, that is in fact speaking my favorite language ever non-stop for three hours. This is not as easy as one might think (if you did not think that it is an easy feat, than congratulations). I was so exhausted by the end of it, that I was memutzah (I am always ayef here because of lack of sleep, but after something that straining, i must be memutzah). At 12:45 we had lunch (super very exciting). Before lunch but after Hebrew (from 11 to 12:45) as well as after lunch but before 1:30, I watched Israeli children's shows on television. Amazing stuff. One of them happened to be Blue's Clues, and the others were not American. I understood nearly all the words, enough to understand what was going on but enough to miss a joke or some such thing. Afterwards, the four of us who happen to be best at hebrew were to meet so as to finish the plans for the meeting of Israeli kids (for about three weeks we [the highest hebrew class] have been planning a meeting between us and the 11th and 12th grade honors kids of a neighboring town, Beit Shemesh [house of the sun]. It has been very difficult and awkward at times, but we finally decided that we would have a bingo, a scavenger hunt, and a pool party). We had to hide all the clues (we also made them, and cleverly if I might add). So we hid the clues and all was good in the world. Or Kibbutz Tzuba. Tzuba is our world. Anyway, we played bingo with the Beit Shemesh kids and it was nice and icebreaker-ish, and then split to do our scavenger hunt. The scavenger hunt was a lot of fun, and naturally the group that I was leading made it to the pool (our destination) first. We did not cheat, but other groups did. Regardless, it was lots of fun. I became friendly with one particular Israeli kid, Shmuel (not to be confused with the Sam who is in my EIE group that we call Shmuel or Shmuli). He is the son of the counselor of the kids from Beit Shemesh. He graduated last year and is currently doing the compulsory military service. He is working in the Computers and Communications unit in the army, so we got along just fine. In fact, when he asked for my email (talinuxactly@gmail.com), he gave a good laugh because he actually understood it. For those of you who don't it is Tal Linux Xactly (exactly). He gave me a high compliment saying that I am very Israeli. I did not quite understand what he meant so he explained; I have an Israeli sense of humor and personality. No need to reiterate (but I will anyway), I took that as a high compliment. That was Friday in a nutshell.
I don't recall much of shabat because it was pretty boring. However, in the evening for motzash (motzaei shabat, end of shabat, return to normalcy, allowed to buy stuff time), we went to a super exspansive mall. It was really big. I bought mouthwash if you are curious. If not, I did not buy anything :) .
Sunday, another slightly special day. Again, we had three hours of Hebrew and no j-hist (and again I was heartbroken). I don't think you understand. J-hist is the greatest, most informative, and interesting class ever (sorry to all of you who are current or former teachers of mine). Until today (the third), I did not have a sit down j-hist class in 6 days!!! That is a lot of heartbreak... Back to the topic at hand. Again, Hebrew was so physically exhausting. Again I was memutzah. Lots of agains. But a new! For Yom Kippur, we went to Beit Shmuel (the house of Shmuel, not to be confused with Shmuel the Israeli kid or Shmuel aka Sam in my group), a youth hostel that is connected to the Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. Let me explain that in slightly more simple terms. Beit Shmuel is a hotel where kids who are on trips like mine or others stay. It is in a very good location (as I will discuss later) and is a part of HUC (the graduate school for Reform rabbinic studies). We unpacked and were told to be ready for dinner at 15:45 (aka 3:45). 3:45 you ask? Why, yes, I did in fact say that. After dinner we had a little get together (this was about 4:30).
I feel that I must give some background. If you know what Yom Kippur is, feel free to skip this paragraph (although it may be funny anyway). Yom Kippur is a very important day to the Jewish people. Very important. It is the tenth day of the month of Tishrei. Tishrei is the seventh month in the Jewish Calendar, but for whatever reason, we celebrate the new year in Tishrei. Between the new year and Yom Kippur (ten days if you were paying attention), we must repent for our sins between man and man and then on Yom Kippur we try to finish with a good seal in the book of life. Slightly too metaphorical for such a serious thing if you ask me. Despite that, we Jews feel that Yom Kippur is a very serious day. If you did badly in the past year and are not forgiven for you wrongs, then you will not be written in the book of life and will die in the coming year. Lots of forgiveness, and I sinned and similar things. To commemorate all this, we are told in the bible to aflict our souls (that is my own translation). The rabbis have decided to interpret this as giving ourself really mean torture. For instance, we are not to eat, drink, wear comfortable shoes, put on perfume (or deoderant or brush teeth or whatever other nice things strike your fancy), and no sex. Oh, I forgot the biggest torture of all- staying in synagogue the entire day (that was some humor).
So we went to synagogue that evening after our very early last supper (Jewish days start in the evening so dinner is actually the first meal of the day). This was the Kol Nidre (all the vows) service. A very solemn occasion and usually very boring. However, the service was all in Hebrew (as in no English prayers) although it was led at the HUC (an english speaking institution). It was probably half as long as it normally would be at home. We then walked for a while (maybe three minutes) until we were in front of a Blockbuster (apparently we have those in Israel). We were then told "explore, but be in groups of at least four and be back at Beit Shmuel at 10 PM." This was really something. Especially because it was about 8 at the time. So we went 'sploring. We found two temples (The GREAT SYNAGOGUE, and some little conservative one) and lots of strangeties. For instance, there were no cars. Not only was there a lack of traffic, but all of the traffic lights were turned off! People were dancing in the street to no music at all, and there were plenty of bicycles. It is from this and some other experiences of Yom Kippur that I feel people should say "Happy Yom Kippur!", instead of this "have a fast fast" or "may you be sealed for good in the book of life" stuff. I really enjoyed Yom Kippur, and it was the easiest fast I have ever done. However, this 'sploring bit got old eventually. There is only so much you can see and do when everything is closed and its dark out. My group of seven ended up back at the hostel a half hour early (at least half an hour after I wanted to go back). We then had lights out at 11 and optional services were at 10:30 the next morning. That is too much sleep. I havent gotten more than 9 hours this whole time, and it was a shock to my body that 11.5 hours was possible. I of course (with the rest of my room) woke at 8:30. Since that is only a day after we fell back an hour for daylight savings, it was to my body only 7:30. I got 9 hours of sleep that night (went to bed about 11:30) and felt that it was too much! We had optional services the next day and I went to a sephardi orthodox shul (very interesting experience), we had a torah study at HUC (in english), then afternoon services, then memorial service, then the concluding service and we broke fast at say 6:30. Again, it was a very easy fast because everything was so engaging and interesting. I had a lot of fun this Yom Kippur so I hope that you had a happy Yom Kippur as well ;-) . We went to Emek Rafaim for our real dinner and I had a 150 g burger with lots of fries and a coke. It was very delicious but i couldnt finish the burger (I had about a bite and a half left) because my stomach had shrunk from fasting. The only thing of note at Emek Rafaim was the graffiti. One such graffiti (plastered on a burger place) said "basar = retzach" , which translated means "meat = murder". Another one was on a trash pail and it said (in English) "Welcome Americans, but speak Hebrew". I loved it.
I hope you had a happy Yom Kippur!
Thursday, September 28, 2006
long time no post...
It appears that I have not posted since September 7. For this I apologize. I really am very sorry, but I have been so amazingly busy. There were some days where it was slightly on the edge of possibility that I might blog, but I ended up taking a nap or reading or going for a swim or writing a college paper or some other such more creative use of my 45 minutes. I am going to try to be as concise as possible about any particular thing that I did, and if you wanna know more, just email me talinuxactly@gmail.com.
On 8/9 (we read the date backwards here), we had a charity project called "Table to Table" or m'shulchan l'shulchan. We went to onion fields and picked over 850 kilos of onions to donate to charity. I almost envy those poor people, because those were really tasty onions. For services we went to kol hanishama, the premier progressive (reform) temple in Israel. My friend David plans on being a rabbi in the future, and is at the moment trying to tackle how his Judaism looks and feels. He was hoping that kol hanishama would be amazing, and he was really excited about it. He was really turned away by it thought because intelectually/spiritually he is a litvak (this means that he does not believe in religious hocus pocus- just cold hard rational approach to religion) and kol hanishamah is spiritually hasidic (the opposite).
On 11/9, we went on tiyul to a whole slew of places: Sataf, Har Adar, and the Tayellet. Sataf was an ancient Israelite village (moshav) that used terrace farming and had two types of agriculture (spring and ba'al [dependend on the rain god]). We went inside the caves of the springs, and learned A LOT. Har Adar was nothing special. The Tayellet is a promenade that overlooks Jerusalem old and new. We learned there that the biblical city of Jerusalem is not in fact the old city that we know and love but what is now an arab village. On that note, the next day, we went to the ancient city of David. We explored some nuances of the bible there regarding the capture of Jerusalem from the Jebusites and other interesting things. We also explored Hezekiah's tunnel (the Gichon spring which watered ancient Jerusalem was deferred from the pool that it usually went to and was led into a tunnel that wound for over 500 meters [this is solid rock mind you] into a different pool so that if Jerusalem was besieged, they would not capitulate because of lack of water). That was also a lot of fun, and for future reference, I always try to be right next to Reuven (my j-hist teacher) during these tiyulim so as to absorb his knowledge. So far so good. The first tiyul of this paragraph took the whole day while the second one was only in the morning and we came back for general studies.
Skipping now to the 14th, we had a study session for the first j-hist exam. It was on the entire bible period minus the second temple times. The exam was the next day, and we were given from 8:30 to 12:45 to complete it (it was supposed to be a tough test apparently). I completed it at about 9:45. All of the questions were short answer and you didnt have to answer with Reuven's opinions. If you had an opinion that you could back up as well as he backed his up it was still correct. There was also an essay: Write about any topic of interest in the bible. My essay was about the Babylonian influence on the early stories of the Torah (I was flying by the seat of my pants. He had told us that that was the essay prompt, and I hadnt thought of anything. When I got to the essay, I had an epiphone and all of this evidence was suddenly overflowing from my head). We also had to hand in a homework essay on the topic of "What is the author of the book of Jonah trying to show his audience?" We got the grades for all that back today (27/9) and of course I got 100% on the test and an A on the Jonah paper. Pretty proud of myself...Reuven seems to have noticed this affinity, and often suggests "Oh, Tal you could write your doctorate on this." By my count, I have 43.628 doctorates to write...
Later on the 15, we did another tzedakah project (we do them on most Fridays). This time we went to an old folks home and sang shabbat songs to them and gave them roses and shannah tova (literally, good year) cards. It was really very awkward because many of these venerable people were senile or deaf or parapalegic or other things. Sometimes they were pretty healthy but then they didnt speak languages that we understood. No one knew English, and some knew Russian, French, Spanish or Hebrew. Afterwards, David and I went with Walter Zanger (he deserves an entire entry all to himself) to Ein Karem where we stayed with him for Shabat. He had many guest over for shabat dinner and during shabbat day, many guests came through just to say "hi" (most often unannounced). One such guest was an Eitan Chamberlin. He is currently trying to publish a book by the name of Ikkibu. It is much like Harry Potter but with Babylonian and Sumerian mythology. I've read the first three chapters, and it is simply incredible. Don't be surprised if it replaces Harry Potter. The next day David and I went off through Ein Karem and did some 'sploring (much like 'splodey but with a ring instead of a dey). We went to knisyyah yochanan ba'harim (birthplace of John the Baptist, now with a church/monastery over it), ein miriam (mary's spring), and knisyyah haorcheut (church of the visitation). If my Latin was better, I would be able to tell you what the last one actually is, but I know it has a burial crypt, a HUGE sanctuary, a tabernacle, and some amazing artwork. For lunch, David and I went to the Pundak Cafe (pundak means inn). We had an absolutely amazing pizza with some coke (coke is a shabat ritual for David. If he doesnt get coke on shabat, he becomes very grumpy so I've made sure that it can happen every shabat). Somewhere during this action packed shabat, David and I watched Serenity with hebrew subtitles, pausing every so often to check the meaning of a word.
19/9 we had no 5th period and went to the Israel museum to learn about Roman Jerusalem (there is a HUGE model of her with lots and lots of detail and you can walk around [its not to scale] so as to tour in the first century CE). The next day we went back to the Israel museum to learn about the dead sea scolls and the writing of different alphabets (a very popular subject in j-hist). We also went to visit a Herodian mansion underneath the Jewish quarter of the old city of Jerusalem. Also Spectactularifous.
I will continue the rest of your update after dinner.
On 8/9 (we read the date backwards here), we had a charity project called "Table to Table" or m'shulchan l'shulchan. We went to onion fields and picked over 850 kilos of onions to donate to charity. I almost envy those poor people, because those were really tasty onions. For services we went to kol hanishama, the premier progressive (reform) temple in Israel. My friend David plans on being a rabbi in the future, and is at the moment trying to tackle how his Judaism looks and feels. He was hoping that kol hanishama would be amazing, and he was really excited about it. He was really turned away by it thought because intelectually/spiritually he is a litvak (this means that he does not believe in religious hocus pocus- just cold hard rational approach to religion) and kol hanishamah is spiritually hasidic (the opposite).
On 11/9, we went on tiyul to a whole slew of places: Sataf, Har Adar, and the Tayellet. Sataf was an ancient Israelite village (moshav) that used terrace farming and had two types of agriculture (spring and ba'al [dependend on the rain god]). We went inside the caves of the springs, and learned A LOT. Har Adar was nothing special. The Tayellet is a promenade that overlooks Jerusalem old and new. We learned there that the biblical city of Jerusalem is not in fact the old city that we know and love but what is now an arab village. On that note, the next day, we went to the ancient city of David. We explored some nuances of the bible there regarding the capture of Jerusalem from the Jebusites and other interesting things. We also explored Hezekiah's tunnel (the Gichon spring which watered ancient Jerusalem was deferred from the pool that it usually went to and was led into a tunnel that wound for over 500 meters [this is solid rock mind you] into a different pool so that if Jerusalem was besieged, they would not capitulate because of lack of water). That was also a lot of fun, and for future reference, I always try to be right next to Reuven (my j-hist teacher) during these tiyulim so as to absorb his knowledge. So far so good. The first tiyul of this paragraph took the whole day while the second one was only in the morning and we came back for general studies.
Skipping now to the 14th, we had a study session for the first j-hist exam. It was on the entire bible period minus the second temple times. The exam was the next day, and we were given from 8:30 to 12:45 to complete it (it was supposed to be a tough test apparently). I completed it at about 9:45. All of the questions were short answer and you didnt have to answer with Reuven's opinions. If you had an opinion that you could back up as well as he backed his up it was still correct. There was also an essay: Write about any topic of interest in the bible. My essay was about the Babylonian influence on the early stories of the Torah (I was flying by the seat of my pants. He had told us that that was the essay prompt, and I hadnt thought of anything. When I got to the essay, I had an epiphone and all of this evidence was suddenly overflowing from my head). We also had to hand in a homework essay on the topic of "What is the author of the book of Jonah trying to show his audience?" We got the grades for all that back today (27/9) and of course I got 100% on the test and an A on the Jonah paper. Pretty proud of myself...Reuven seems to have noticed this affinity, and often suggests "Oh, Tal you could write your doctorate on this." By my count, I have 43.628 doctorates to write...
Later on the 15, we did another tzedakah project (we do them on most Fridays). This time we went to an old folks home and sang shabbat songs to them and gave them roses and shannah tova (literally, good year) cards. It was really very awkward because many of these venerable people were senile or deaf or parapalegic or other things. Sometimes they were pretty healthy but then they didnt speak languages that we understood. No one knew English, and some knew Russian, French, Spanish or Hebrew. Afterwards, David and I went with Walter Zanger (he deserves an entire entry all to himself) to Ein Karem where we stayed with him for Shabat. He had many guest over for shabat dinner and during shabbat day, many guests came through just to say "hi" (most often unannounced). One such guest was an Eitan Chamberlin. He is currently trying to publish a book by the name of Ikkibu. It is much like Harry Potter but with Babylonian and Sumerian mythology. I've read the first three chapters, and it is simply incredible. Don't be surprised if it replaces Harry Potter. The next day David and I went off through Ein Karem and did some 'sploring (much like 'splodey but with a ring instead of a dey). We went to knisyyah yochanan ba'harim (birthplace of John the Baptist, now with a church/monastery over it), ein miriam (mary's spring), and knisyyah haorcheut (church of the visitation). If my Latin was better, I would be able to tell you what the last one actually is, but I know it has a burial crypt, a HUGE sanctuary, a tabernacle, and some amazing artwork. For lunch, David and I went to the Pundak Cafe (pundak means inn). We had an absolutely amazing pizza with some coke (coke is a shabat ritual for David. If he doesnt get coke on shabat, he becomes very grumpy so I've made sure that it can happen every shabat). Somewhere during this action packed shabat, David and I watched Serenity with hebrew subtitles, pausing every so often to check the meaning of a word.
19/9 we had no 5th period and went to the Israel museum to learn about Roman Jerusalem (there is a HUGE model of her with lots and lots of detail and you can walk around [its not to scale] so as to tour in the first century CE). The next day we went back to the Israel museum to learn about the dead sea scolls and the writing of different alphabets (a very popular subject in j-hist). We also went to visit a Herodian mansion underneath the Jewish quarter of the old city of Jerusalem. Also Spectactularifous.
I will continue the rest of your update after dinner.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
First off, I dont like photobucket....It is not very tasty....It said that I could upload 19 photos at once and so it proceeded to do that...It only managed to swallow 6. It made me unhappy. So, my uploading of photos will be a slow process.
In other news, we had our first official tiyul today. It was of course to a tel. We went to Tel Gezer, one of the first excavated cities of modern Israel. It was once a canaanite city then became an Israelite one, and all good stuff. It was very cool, and I took a whopping 6 pictures. I will post them once photobucket stops being a butt.
Speaking of photobucket...it sort of goes backwards. So the fortress stuff that is on there (as well as the fortress stuff that will be on there is from our tel not tel gezer).
Extensively tired, so signing off. Good night!
In other news, we had our first official tiyul today. It was of course to a tel. We went to Tel Gezer, one of the first excavated cities of modern Israel. It was once a canaanite city then became an Israelite one, and all good stuff. It was very cool, and I took a whopping 6 pictures. I will post them once photobucket stops being a butt.
Speaking of photobucket...it sort of goes backwards. So the fortress stuff that is on there (as well as the fortress stuff that will be on there is from our tel not tel gezer).
Extensively tired, so signing off. Good night!
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
The tel
Somehow I neglected to mention that on Saturday, we visited a tel. But not just a tel, our tel. We have our own crusader fortress on location (as well as ancient pagan temples and other amazing things). A tel is a mound where a civilization that used the remnants of an old city as a foundation for their own. For example, Stamford would be a tel if if was built on the location of an earlier city. That sort of thing. Our tel's latest civilization was the crusader's and we have a very nice fortress/castle there. It has four cisterns, very strong defenses, secret rooms, and of course cohorts and ramparts (every castle needs them). I decided that it was finally time to take pictures so I did. You can view them at my photobucket (the link is to the right on this page).
Some other interesting things...with a sched
So yesterday, I was updating my blog, and the computer went to sleep. It, however, did not wake up from said nap, so I lost all that I had written :'-( So i will start again, and hopefully you will like this version more.
On friday, we went to on an archeological dig. I have done this before, but nevertheless it was still fun. We excavated the ancient site of Marisha, now called Tel Marisha. We found a signet ring, an intact amphora, lots of chicken bones, and a whole slew of pottery shards. We had to dig, then sift through everything with metal screens. We put all of the interesting things in "finds buckets" and handed those over to the real archeologists. We also went spelunking (climbing, crawling, and careening through a non-excavated cave), and I thought (as I did last time) that it was the best part. In the evening, we went to the old city of Jerusalem to shaar tzion where we were given sprigs of rosemary as our personal shabat spice. It was all very nice. We then went to the southwestern portion of har habait, the temple mount. We had our shabat services there, and then went to hakotel, the western wall. We had curfew at 2 in the morning that night (usually at 11 at night) which i spent getting to know some of the more interesting personalities on my trip.
We got to sleep in on saturday. Yay. Breakfast was optional wand ended at 9:30. I decided that it was utterly necessary to have breakfast or else I would be unhappy for the rest of the day. I woke at 9 and went to breakfast. They had some of the tastiest things yet, and I was the only kid on EIE that actually had breakfast that day. Crazy.... I went back to bed because wakeup was at 11. I woke at that point, took a shower, and went to tefillah (prayer). It was a very nice service, and I had an aliyah to the torah. The afternoon was just nice rest and relaxation. In the evening for motza''sh, we went to a mall nearby. I bought a fast-food schnitzel (chicken-cutlet), and it was really gross. I also bought a cheap watch because I was unable to read the time on my phone. All in all, good clean fun. We went to bed knowing that soon school would start...
Sunday was the first day of classes. First was hebrew, and that was exactly what we did. The whole class, not a word of English was spoken, and I learned a lot from it. If it keeps up like that, I will be infinitely more proficient in hebrew by the end of these four months. Next was Jewish History; the coolest class ever. As I've told you, I like Reuven's teaching style, but this class is truly my kind of learning. We are currently studying historical Judaism using the bible as an analytical text. We have come to many conclusions most importantly that the bible is a religious document and not a historical one. It was probably compiled more than 1000 years after the time of Moses. Remarkable. There are lots of other things in that class, and it is certainly the best class I have ever taken. i will have to take a few bible clases in college... J-Hist is 2:45 long so there is a break in the middle and at the end is lunch. Lunch was pretty uneventful.
After lunch, I had AP Calc AB. We had homework, but otherwise, nothing special. I then had the next two periods off, only to have AP Physics C afterwards. Also pretty uneventful, and with no homework. Then I had the next period off. Then dinner and announcements then homework time. I of course finished my homework pretty quickly having had two free periods to help with that. Most everyone else stayed up very late trying to finish theirs. I DID have a LOT of hw for hebrew, and it was very hard (the other three in the class thought so too). We finally finished it with help from Tom our Israeli counselor. All in all, a very tough first day of school, but much harder for everyone that had a real schedule.
On monday, we had basically the same nonsense though with more hw. I also had a meeting (a one on one class) with my Latin teacher and she basically convinced me that my Latin knowledge is absolutely horrendous. All sorts of splodey stuff. In the evening, I had a meeting with my English teacher. He is having me write a paper about sillynesses. I don't remember what though. I also was assigned a paper in J-Hist: Read the book of Jonah and write a paper on what the author is trying to tell the reader. Very nice, eventful day.
Today, tuesday, is pretty boring...I had hebrew and j-hist in the morning and have had calc. I am in the second of my free periods, and will have physics later today (we had wierd hw last night).
My schedule is as follows:
1 Hebrew 8-9:30 (1-2:30 AM EST)
2 j-hist 10-12:45 (3-5:45 AM EST)
lunch -1:40
3 AP Calc 1:45-2:30 (6:45-7:30 AM EST)
4 (mon) latin 2:45-3:30 (7:45-8:30 AM EST)
5(thurs) latin 3:45-4:30 (8:45-9:30 AM EST)
6 AP Physics C 4:45-5:30 (9:45-10:30 AM EST)
7 Free 5:45-6:30 (10:45-11:30 AM EST)
Dinner 6:35-7 (11:35-12 EST)
HW time 7:30-11:00 (12:30-3 PM EST)
Light's out 11:30 (3:30 PM EST)
Some interesting tidbits: We do have school on Sundays! On Wednesday, there is almost always a tiyul (trip) so it's best not to call on Wednesday unless its after noon EST. 4 and 5 periods are only applicable on mon or thurs respectively. Now for the important one: to call me dial 011-972-52-653-8063, but please be courteous as to the times I've provided. I look forward to hearing from you.
On friday, we went to on an archeological dig. I have done this before, but nevertheless it was still fun. We excavated the ancient site of Marisha, now called Tel Marisha. We found a signet ring, an intact amphora, lots of chicken bones, and a whole slew of pottery shards. We had to dig, then sift through everything with metal screens. We put all of the interesting things in "finds buckets" and handed those over to the real archeologists. We also went spelunking (climbing, crawling, and careening through a non-excavated cave), and I thought (as I did last time) that it was the best part. In the evening, we went to the old city of Jerusalem to shaar tzion where we were given sprigs of rosemary as our personal shabat spice. It was all very nice. We then went to the southwestern portion of har habait, the temple mount. We had our shabat services there, and then went to hakotel, the western wall. We had curfew at 2 in the morning that night (usually at 11 at night) which i spent getting to know some of the more interesting personalities on my trip.
We got to sleep in on saturday. Yay. Breakfast was optional wand ended at 9:30. I decided that it was utterly necessary to have breakfast or else I would be unhappy for the rest of the day. I woke at 9 and went to breakfast. They had some of the tastiest things yet, and I was the only kid on EIE that actually had breakfast that day. Crazy.... I went back to bed because wakeup was at 11. I woke at that point, took a shower, and went to tefillah (prayer). It was a very nice service, and I had an aliyah to the torah. The afternoon was just nice rest and relaxation. In the evening for motza''sh, we went to a mall nearby. I bought a fast-food schnitzel (chicken-cutlet), and it was really gross. I also bought a cheap watch because I was unable to read the time on my phone. All in all, good clean fun. We went to bed knowing that soon school would start...
Sunday was the first day of classes. First was hebrew, and that was exactly what we did. The whole class, not a word of English was spoken, and I learned a lot from it. If it keeps up like that, I will be infinitely more proficient in hebrew by the end of these four months. Next was Jewish History; the coolest class ever. As I've told you, I like Reuven's teaching style, but this class is truly my kind of learning. We are currently studying historical Judaism using the bible as an analytical text. We have come to many conclusions most importantly that the bible is a religious document and not a historical one. It was probably compiled more than 1000 years after the time of Moses. Remarkable. There are lots of other things in that class, and it is certainly the best class I have ever taken. i will have to take a few bible clases in college... J-Hist is 2:45 long so there is a break in the middle and at the end is lunch. Lunch was pretty uneventful.
After lunch, I had AP Calc AB. We had homework, but otherwise, nothing special. I then had the next two periods off, only to have AP Physics C afterwards. Also pretty uneventful, and with no homework. Then I had the next period off. Then dinner and announcements then homework time. I of course finished my homework pretty quickly having had two free periods to help with that. Most everyone else stayed up very late trying to finish theirs. I DID have a LOT of hw for hebrew, and it was very hard (the other three in the class thought so too). We finally finished it with help from Tom our Israeli counselor. All in all, a very tough first day of school, but much harder for everyone that had a real schedule.
On monday, we had basically the same nonsense though with more hw. I also had a meeting (a one on one class) with my Latin teacher and she basically convinced me that my Latin knowledge is absolutely horrendous. All sorts of splodey stuff. In the evening, I had a meeting with my English teacher. He is having me write a paper about sillynesses. I don't remember what though. I also was assigned a paper in J-Hist: Read the book of Jonah and write a paper on what the author is trying to tell the reader. Very nice, eventful day.
Today, tuesday, is pretty boring...I had hebrew and j-hist in the morning and have had calc. I am in the second of my free periods, and will have physics later today (we had wierd hw last night).
My schedule is as follows:
1 Hebrew 8-9:30 (1-2:30 AM EST)
2 j-hist 10-12:45 (3-5:45 AM EST)
lunch -1:40
3 AP Calc 1:45-2:30 (6:45-7:30 AM EST)
4 (mon) latin 2:45-3:30 (7:45-8:30 AM EST)
5(thurs) latin 3:45-4:30 (8:45-9:30 AM EST)
6 AP Physics C 4:45-5:30 (9:45-10:30 AM EST)
7 Free 5:45-6:30 (10:45-11:30 AM EST)
Dinner 6:35-7 (11:35-12 EST)
HW time 7:30-11:00 (12:30-3 PM EST)
Light's out 11:30 (3:30 PM EST)
Some interesting tidbits: We do have school on Sundays! On Wednesday, there is almost always a tiyul (trip) so it's best not to call on Wednesday unless its after noon EST. 4 and 5 periods are only applicable on mon or thurs respectively. Now for the important one: to call me dial 011-972-52-653-8063, but please be courteous as to the times I've provided. I look forward to hearing from you.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
First real post
Today is of course my first real post. The airport was first, and I met everyone and found that they are a good crowd. I was so pumped for the semester. We all had mini conversations and almost played cards...and it was all good fun.
The in flight movie was "Failure to Launch". It was a funny movie but really silly and predictable. There was also XXX 2, but I saw that one on some other plane some other place. So I did not watch. The girl who was sitting next to me, Hannah suggested that we watch a movie on a laptop, and so we did. We watched "Walk on Water", and it was a superbly amazing movie. Highly reccomended and all that jazz. I walked around a bit, got to know some people, etc.
I found that I had already known or known of many people. I had known Elana since we were very little. I knew Noa Nissim from Camp Harlam, and we were apparently good friends back then (3-5 years ago). I also knew Carina Lee from Camp Harlam, and at the time I thought her quite annoying, but is now a real person. Nathan Zeplowitz has done a couple NFTY events with me. Mattihas also done a few events and is very good in hebrew; we are in three classes together. My roommates are currently Jacob and David. David wears tzitzit. Jacob is simply awesome and has hair about as long and crazy as mine was about a week ago :( .
My madrichim (counselors) are absolutely amazing. Ray (female) is amazing in hebrew, with a native's accent and everything. She used to work in admissions at Wesleyan (or however you spell it), and seems like a very helpful, nice person. Josh moved to Israel exactly one year ago. He is also great and helpful and all is good. Tom (almost rhymes with home) is our security guard/madrich. He stays up late at night watching out for baddies and is therefore allowed to wake up late.
We had Jewish History orientation today, and it seems like the kind of learning that I will enjoy. It is fully interactive and the information is presented in a riveting manner. My teacher is Reuven (reh-oo-vein). He presents info in a simply emphatic way. The other teachers are Shira and Josh, but they teach the other class together.
We also had the Hebrew orientation. That was actually a placement test, in which I excelled (I am amazing....don't forget it). There was hard stuff on there, don't get me wrong, but I got an overwhelming majority correct. I also did well in the oral part of it although I forget how to say that I was touring (tiyalti). I am therefore in the top hebrew class, and I was happy.
Our final orientation was the general studies. My schedule currently has two classes on it....AP Calculus AB, and AP Physics C. English is a part of Jewish History while AP CompSci and Latin IV are currently independent studies (Latin may end up becoming a regular part of my schedule but we don't know yet).
The photos are a comparison for you....I'll put up more, don't worry.
I know that was a lot, but those who have read to the bottom are the ones that I like most. Shalom chaverim, ve'lehitraot!
The in flight movie was "Failure to Launch". It was a funny movie but really silly and predictable. There was also XXX 2, but I saw that one on some other plane some other place. So I did not watch. The girl who was sitting next to me, Hannah suggested that we watch a movie on a laptop, and so we did. We watched "Walk on Water", and it was a superbly amazing movie. Highly reccomended and all that jazz. I walked around a bit, got to know some people, etc.
I found that I had already known or known of many people. I had known Elana since we were very little. I knew Noa Nissim from Camp Harlam, and we were apparently good friends back then (3-5 years ago). I also knew Carina Lee from Camp Harlam, and at the time I thought her quite annoying, but is now a real person. Nathan Zeplowitz has done a couple NFTY events with me. Matti
My madrichim (counselors) are absolutely amazing. Ray (female) is amazing in hebrew, with a native's accent and everything. She used to work in admissions at Wesleyan (or however you spell it), and seems like a very helpful, nice person. Josh moved to Israel exactly one year ago. He is also great and helpful and all is good. Tom (almost rhymes with home) is our security guard/madrich. He stays up late at night watching out for baddies and is therefore allowed to wake up late.
We had Jewish History orientation today, and it seems like the kind of learning that I will enjoy. It is fully interactive and the information is presented in a riveting manner. My teacher is Reuven (reh-oo-vein). He presents info in a simply emphatic way. The other teachers are Shira and Josh, but they teach the other class together.
We also had the Hebrew orientation. That was actually a placement test, in which I excelled (I am amazing....don't forget it). There was hard stuff on there, don't get me wrong, but I got an overwhelming majority correct. I also did well in the oral part of it although I forget how to say that I was touring (tiyalti). I am therefore in the top hebrew class, and I was happy.
Our final orientation was the general studies. My schedule currently has two classes on it....AP Calculus AB, and AP Physics C. English is a part of Jewish History while AP CompSci and Latin IV are currently independent studies (Latin may end up becoming a regular part of my schedule but we don't know yet).
The photos are a comparison for you....I'll put up more, don't worry.
I know that was a lot, but those who have read to the bottom are the ones that I like most. Shalom chaverim, ve'lehitraot!
Sunday, August 27, 2006
The first of the Israel Blog
Today is Sunday, Aug 27, and I am so pumped to go. My mother is having me do plenty of busywork. This includes: making a cd bookshelf, making my room spic and span (not racial), cleaning the monster, installing a printer, and plenty of other nonsenses. Did I mention that I am excited?
I will update this blog as often as possible while in Israel, and then you dont have to wonder about me.....
I will update this blog as often as possible while in Israel, and then you dont have to wonder about me.....
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