almost time to go

so here i am. five weeks later. this is the most dense amount of blogging that i've done. kind of fun. what to tell you?

first, i finished with the program. i got a 90 in the class on the ancient near east. i got something a little higher than that in the core class (but i dont know what). the bureaucracy involved with moving out was not as bad as they made it seem. what it appeared to be was: first, fill out a transcript request form. next, go to the library and get a library clearance ( you have not stolen any books, etc.), then clean out your room and get it inspected. give the key to the inspector and get a housing clearance form. bring all three forms to the registrar. this seemed difficult because after the housing clearance, you would have to bring your luggage all the way to the registrar to be able to leave... amazingly, this was not the case. it was all true up until get your room inspected. you go to the housing office, they ask for your key, and gave a copy of the form. then you can do whatever you want. as in you do not need to go to campus with the forms. they can be faxed. very exciting. so i went to the apartment.

what apartment do you ask? my parents have a timeshare in j-lem. it is pretty much for july. they are not here. i am. i am living in that apartment.

so having time to myself to do whatever i want is really quite nice. i have met up with tom (tohm, one of my madrichim from last program) a few times. i met up with emma (a student with me on the last program) a few times. i also met up with baruch shwartz today. you may recall that he was a guest lecturer. he is one of the foremost experts on the documentary hypothesis. i met up with him to discuss how a person can be modern orthodox in a world of science and knowledge. how can one remain traditional when it is obvious that the bible was not written by god? what a wonderful discussion! i enjoyed it immensely. i think i was there for about an hour though i am not sure. in the first five minutes, he said something that had a very deep impact on me, and i was hooked. he really knows how to direct discussion. an expert in socratic dialog. wow.

ive gone to see walter zanger a final time. had shabbat dinner over there. tasty. two types of salmon and various other stuffs. in the morning i went to see eitan (he wrote that book that i was raving about...). his fiancee soon to be wife made some delicious muffins. i cant come to the wedding because its like two weeks after i leave. urggggh. we went to see the simpsons movie. very funny even for the simpsons. i liked it plenty. apparently there are movie theaters open on shabbat. actually there is a lot open...you just need to know where to look (talpiot might be a start).

so, i leave on tuesday on a 0100 flight. saddening. so really, i leave tomorrow night at 9. the cab picks me up then. i dont know what else to say. thanks for reading!

a funny thing happened on the way to the...

mall. yes the mall. i was on the bus to the mall, and an elderly gentleman sat down next to me. i made friends :) we chatted for a little while, nothing all that special for a while. he asked me where i come from, what i was doing in israel, things like that. i had to ask him to repeat quite a few times (it was all in hebrew) but he was quite willing and patient with me. i thought that his accent was much like other eastern europeans that i have met. yet, when i asked when he came here (thinking he was a new immigrant), he answered 1948. for those of you who don't know, that is the year of founding of the state of israel. he's been here since the beginning. wow. so i asked where he was from before israel, but not really thinking. he answered that he came from aushwitz. well...it was very amazing. i really enjoyed his company. he got off the bus before i did to go to emek rafaim to buy something for shabbat. i got off at the mall, and met up with a bunch of friends. unfortunately, i did not feel that they were worthy of my telling this story...so there it is.

that was last thursday. i have wanted to write about it since then, but i have had very little computer time since then. at the mall, i saw the transformers movie. amazing! pretty cool. the love interest was a little corny, but it was transformers! my whole childhood of collecting toys culminated in this film, and it was live-action. pretty cool. i went home after that (it being almost one in the morning). The next day (or same day depending on how you look at it..) i was going to tel aviv and leaving at 8:30 in the morning. so we (my cooking group and i) went to tel aviv. we were on a harry potter mission...the whole time in tel aviv was dedicated to HP. we went to three malls in order to see the new harry potter movie. it came out the night before, but because i was transforming, we saw it the next day. we hung out for the rest of the day at stav's house. stav is an israeli who lives in tel aviv and is a friend of dana (in the cooking group). stav offered for us to stay at her house during our escapades. our real reason for being in tel aviv was a harry potter book party. the last book was coming out that night! we were going to this party (with stav and some of her friends) to be among the first in the country to get the book. the book came out at two AM here, but we didnt get it until about 3:30...but then again, so did most of the other people at the party. because it was shabbat, most of the book stores of the country were closed. so we still got the book very quickly. we got back to stav's place and read until perhaps 6 am. we all started dropping like flies so we went to bed. two of us were up at like 10:30 (me included) and we read again. we read pretty much the whole day. poor stav is such a slower reader in english. when the three of the rest of us were already past page 300, stav was only around 90. we came back to jerusalem eventually, and the other two had already finished, and i had about 75 pages left. i went to dinner with my parents and said my goodbyes (the last time i would see them for the next two weeks), then got back to the dorm and got back to reading. i finished around 12 am. the culmination of this series! this series grew up with me. i was in fourth grade when i got the first two from my grandmom (before they were popular, mind you) and now it's over! it was not the best literature that i've read, but she does know how to weave a story.

sunday we had a field trip...masada, qumran, ein gedi, and the dead sea. i was considering asking if i could skip it because i'd done everything except qumran and it was gonna be a blazing hot day. i decided against it. it was blazing hot. lot of fun though. more people-wise than anything else. qumran was not all that special. we got back and the cooking group made some dinner. dont remember what it was though...maybe sweet-chili chicken and pita but that may have been another meal.

nothing all to special recently. i had my first college final today. that was fun. not difficult at all. it was about the ancient near east. took about an hour and a quarter to do. 95 or higher? i have done two papers in the other class and have gotten both back. the first was 20/20 and the second 18/20. i am quite fine with those. the final exam for that class is tomorrow.

afterwards, i will move out of my dorm (plenty of bureaucracy there, i'll let you know how it goes), and move into my parents' vacated apartment in center-city. very exciting. i will have dependable internet there. i'll keep ya posted!

a little late....

this now being wednesday, i obviously missed my deadline of sunday for a new post. but what happened? since i don't have class on fridays, i decided i would go to the shuk (machane yehudah, the marketplace) with my parents. oh yes. my parents have decided to visit israel while i'm visiting israel. no surprise there. so i was to go to the market with my parents; our date was for 10 in the morning. needless to say, i woke up at 9:30. i called, apologized, etc. my parents were meeting someone else there as well so it was not so bad. i ended up taking a cab because the bus timing is so unreliable; i could have gotten there as late as 12 with a bus. * i do in fact take busses. i enjoy them. i bought a bus pass. my pass is a "youth card" which you buy for 55 shekalim (something like 13 dollars) and it has 20 rides. apparently, i am too old to have one :( but the driver said [in hebrew], "just this time" i use it a lot because it is so much cheaper (2.25 shekalim) to get places than with a cab. a cab to the 'downtown' area would be about 30. * so i ended up being like 20 minutes late for our meeting, but i am unsure whether anyone really noticed. we had fun. bought lots of nuts. my mom said 100 grams of whatever, and the mean shopkeeper just took a large scoopful every time. what should have been less than 10 dollars spent on nuts became over 20. but thats how it goes. we went to a great cafe for coffee break (no one planned on having lunch there). my father and i naturally had lunch there as a side for our coffee. i had a double espresso, but it was served with soda water...and boy what an amazing combo!

so we continued at the shuk, etc. all in all, lots of fun. we left the shuk and the other lady-person that my parents met up with there. we went and walked around. my couple of hours with my parents turned into a whole day affair. regardless, i stayed at my parents apt. that night. saturday, we went into the arab quarter of the old city, and got lost a-plenty. fun in retrospect. i was really pissed at my mom though. she would eventually ask directions but then insist that they were wrong. of course, it was she that had been wrong. it happens. we had delicious hummous for lunch though.

sunday, i had class again. my mother wanted to visit though. she came for the last 20 minutes of the first class. in that time she already found something to dispute with my professor. i think she was right though... she argued that it seems more likely that deuteronomy was written after certain writings about solomon. it made complete sense, and if you are lost i forgive you. both parents sat in on my second class which was guest lectured by one of the most-highly renowned scholars regarding ancient near eastern law. that lecture was terribly boring and interesting at the same time. they wanted to see my apartment so we took the half hour walk back. i showed them. then they left. i walked back (having shown them where the bus stop is) and took a nap...for 2.5 hours. i then had dinner with my dinner group. * i started up a three person dinner group. our goal is to make as many dinners as possible rather than go out to eat all the time. we have had stir-fry, pasta, corn frittery things, and pita filled with hummous, israeli salad, sweet chili-marinated chicken. and the appropriate left-overs. every time, it has been tasty. sometimes there are issues because of lack of attendance or late classes or something like that, but all in all it is a money saver.* i was not feeling so well. i did not eat anything but sort of sat there and moped. they dismissed me, and i went back to bed. i slept relatively continuously until 8:30 the next morning. i had about 14 hours of sleep in total. i felt fine during the day on monday, but was so exhausted by the end. i again went to bed early (not nearly as early though). yesterday we had a field trip. again. i was not so excited because (a) i had done the WHOLE of it the last time i was here, and (b) our tour guide was the teacher whose course i dropped. i dropped her course for a number of reasons only one of which being that she doesn't speak up. she does not seem to have a passion for what she was teaching. a complete opposite of reuven, my j-hist teacher from the last time i was here. speaking of reuven, when we were at the israel museum to see the shrine of the book (dead sea scrolls and aleppo codex), i saw reuven! it was wonderful. he spoke to me in hebrew! he never did that. always spoke to me in english because i suppose i was with an english speaking group. but he spoke to me in hebrew, inquired about me and it was great. i want to visit him sometime (probably next week) to discuss with him.

now for today. nothing really special. i am looking for a masseuse in jerusalem. my back has been killing me for over a week. i just want a nice hour treatment. so i am going to go searching. talk to you later!

PS. I am not going to promise a time for the next post because you know i would not keep it anyway!

a pause

admittedly, i dont blog with any regularity. its unfortunate i suppose. i have been online only three or four times since my last bloggery. it is amazingly difficult. i have internet sometimes in 3x3 corner of the common room of my apt. as in, it is not in my room. i get wireless on campus (where my apartment is not), but that means i have to bring my computer on the .5 hour walk to and from campus (and all the time in between). basically, i have difficulty with finding time to update you. and i am sorry.

that being said, i still love it here. we have apparently passed the half way point in the courses. there are 15 courses to a semester here, and tomorrow is class nine. time has been flying. somehow, i am still not behind in school work. in fact, i might be at the top of my class. it's funny that any course that i enjoy, i magically do well in.... we have had our first field trip also. we went to gezer (i blogged about that about 10 months ago...), to neot keddummim (a biblical agricultural reserve--namely they farm like in ancient times) and herded goats (one of the coolest experiences ever), we also went to lachish. lachish was an ancient city that was the last stand fortress that the assyrians encountered on their way to destroy jerusalem. at lachish they built a huge ramp up the almost vertical mountain (hill). they were successful at lachish, and the king (sennacherib) was very proud. as it turns out they lost at jerusalem. my professor had some of us role-play as defenders and some as attackers (that's me). as attackers we were supposed to run up the ramp and "attack". very difficult. it took us nearly 20 minutes to find a viable route. when we finally got to the top, we were covered in thorns and prickly things. we looked around, and our class was nowhere to be found. so we stormed the city with no resistance (this role-play was not true to form). we left the city through the ancient gate. we finally caught up with our class and asked what happened. dr aster said that he had not expected us to actually be successful in scaling the walls, so they had left the city expecting us to be outside waiting for them. he was very impressed at our wall-scaling skills. maybe i should consider a career in ninja-ing.

it was all good and fun. what else to say? i am currently very tired. i had a day off today. three of my bible classmates and i went to the biblical zoo in j'lem. i havent been to zoo in sooooooo long. i had so much fun. i actually took pictures today (very rare!), and a few videos (more rare, but camera ran out of batteries so i used the hand video cam that noa and daniel gave me). i will upload all that sometime....maybe....if you are lucky. again, very tired. am going to bed. good night!!!


EDIT: let's say that before sunday, i have another post for you.

Back in Israel, back in blogging

I am back, and boy does it feel good. The same rules apply here; namely, i don't really care about spelling, or grammar, or even capitalization. i hope you enjoy, and please leave comments or email me (talinuxactly@gmail.com). you can call me if you want at 011-972-52-450-8455.

I am taking two courses at Hebrew University in j-lem. i now have much more freedom and independence than last time. its amazing. i am really enjoying myself.

as i said, i am taking two courses. the first is simply an introduction to the books of the bible. this includes authorship, accuracy, peculiarity, and general learning of those books. it is taught by Dr. Sean Aster. A kippah wearing jew. and he is very good. he really knows his stuff and is a pretty good teacher. we have already had two guest lecturers in that class- Rabbi Robbie Harris, and Dr. Baruch Schwartz. Harris spoke to us about what are called type-scenes- a scene that has certain conventions that are expected and the author of a story keeps that in mind but tries to introduce different elements to further his story. an example of this would be the betrothal at the well. Harris really knows how to direct a discussion...absolute genius. he would lead us perfectly like a conductor would an orchestra. Schwartz spoke to us about sources of the bible and documentary hypothesis. While i've heard this lecture before, he presented it stupendously, and also lead brilliantly. he pushed us to ask the right questions and to find the answers ourselves. again, it was a amazing.

the other class is about the impact of the ancient near east on the writing of the bible and vice versa. we've learned about the history and religion and geography of mesopotamia so far. the teacher for that class is Professor Wayne Horowitz. He is so organized that it seems he rehearses his lessons. He takes one glance at his notes and can run for another ten minutes or so without looking again. there are no umms or "where was i"'s. even if someone asks a question or he takes a tangent (very short ones) he can be back on task nearly instantly. basically, i have very good teachers.

i've been into town a few times, and i am pretty good at convincing people that i speak hebrew. sometimes, i think too long about obvious things or try to say an idiomatic english phrase but in hebrew. then they say, "say it in english.." most of the time is hebrew for me. at the same time, it is strange for me to be in an atmosphere where a lot of the people around me (who are non-native) speak better hebrew than i do... which brings me to another point, almost everyone is older than me. never before in my life have i been the youngest, and never before have i been not among the best in some language. very new experience for me.

i've been to visit kibbutz tzuba (where i studied the semester before last) and its current residents. there are 32 kids on the summer semester of that program. there were only 31 for my semester, and its the first year they are running the summer one. i actually knew 8 of the kids. i also went to visit walter zanger for shabbat dinner. i installed his printer :)

i dont know what else to tell you. i am having fun. and all is well. and im not yet behind in school-work.

A little sicum

Sicum, roughly translated means a summing-up. I feel that after a week of being stateside, I might as well give a sicum on my blog. I really want to go back to Israel, and I don't have much else to say. I would like to go to Hebrew University and perhaps Aliyah is in my future. Who can say? All I know right now, is that I am tired of the silly Christmas Lights. I want to be able to speak Hebrew with anyone (not just the guy in the Shawarma restaurant in NYC- yummy-shawarmy.com). I miss Israel, and I hope that she misses me as well. This blog will only be started up again when I return to Isreal. This is Tal, signing out.