Home?

While I’ve seamlessly transitioned back into some parts of being in America, other things hit me in the weirdest ways. For example, it seems like I never even parted from access to a car, carpeting, central air (!), familiar TV channels, and free laundry. Other things, though, have jumped out at me. The hip hop and rap on the radio stations, for example, when I was expecting to hear recycled American hits of the 90’s followed by some nice Yemenite music, maybe with a dose of European techno.

It seems almost laughable that I can hardly buy a few apples and oranges for less than ten bucks, let alone fruit and vegetables for an entire week. Unfortunately, the joke’s on me. My completely American frisbee games make me wistfully think of the Hebrish nonsense that passed for communication back in Be’er Sheva on Wednesday nights, playing on a sorry excuse for a grassy field but euphoric all the same.

In the grocery store today, right as I got in line, I realized I’d forgotten an item on my list. Without a second thought, I parked my cart in line and dashed back to the fruit section. On my way back, I found myself trying to remember if grocery store line etiquette permits a cart to hold place in line. Definitely holds up in Israel.

Still good to be home, but maybe in a bit of denial.

Home

Everything is the same. Even though I am sitting at a different desk this summer, familiar faces meet me in the coffee area, walking by on the way to meetings, in the printer room, in the elevator. “I recognize you from last summer,” they say, “welcome back!” It’s like I never left. I’ve slipped right back into the same routine with the same job in the same city, exactly the same as last summer.


The bustle in the train station is also the same, though the throngs of people weaving between platforms never cease to amaze me. Where are they all going! Where did they come from! Of course, I’m sure their destinations are no more glamorous than mine around 5:30 pm on a work day, but the magic is in the mystery. Everyone sharing the American life: commute, 9-5, commute, start over.


One thing that is not the same: The Boston Celtics! Fortunately, my office is a ten minute walk from yesterday’s parade route, and I stole away for twenty minutes yesterday to participate in the celebration of the much coveted NBA championship. Surrounded by fans decked out in basketball jerseys and smoking cigars, fluttering green and white confetti, and the euphoric ambiance of any Boston championship parade, it was impossible not to get caught up in the excitement. I cheered and clapped as basketball players and their families cruised by on Duck tour vehicles, despite the fact that I honestly didn’t recognize a single one (I have never been one for watching sports…). This is the Boston I’ve known: sports obsessed to a manic degree, full of every accent known to man in one neighborhood or another, horns honking, birds chirping, and unending road construction projects all the livelong day. Did I miss it, or did I miss understanding it?


I feel as though something should have changed! To leave is so jarring, but to come back and acknowledge that everyone and everything I see hasn’t changed a bit is equally unsettling. Of course I knew this was coming; it’s like graduating high school and being surprised that the school doesn’t shut down because you’re not there anymore. Not really surprised, just a poignant reaffirmation that I am one of many, remembering that my life changing event is exactly that – an event that changes my life only.


Being with my family and friends here at home has been amazing. I missed them in a way I didn’t know I could, having been away for five and a half months. I missed the easy comfort of watching tv with my sisters and the support of my parents’ presence. We’re all off to our separate places and plans this summer; every year our time together is more fleeting. I wonder why the fact that Boston is the same as ever is so strange to me, and yet the unchanged family routine I’ve come back to is so comforting. A week before I came home, my mom told me that we’d gotten a pet dog named Milty. I didn’t believe her one bit, since a fake pet dog is definitely her type of joke. But, when she held the phone up, I could hear barking and panting with Marielle cooing “Milty” somewhere in the background. I couldn’t believe it, how could they get a dog without me! Without even mentioning it!


When I got home, we sat in my room, surrounding our new family member, watching her expectantly as though she were about to do a back flip or start speaking English. Due to my jetlag, the next morning I was up at 6 and took her for a stroll around the neighborhood, which almost prematurely concluded when she tried to charge the newspaper delivery guy. I noticed her leash was looking a little raggedy and wondered why (what I assumed to be) a brand new leash would already be fraying.


After a few more clues in the form of slips by Marielle and my dad, I uncovered the truth: we were dog sitting for our family friends’ dog, Nala. Don’t ask me why I didn’t recognize her. Part of me was disappointed, for in the day and a half that I knew her as Milty, Nala and I had gotten along well, and I was also peeved that I fell for one of my mom’s pranks once again. But part of me was relieved that my family had not, ultimately, adopted a new member without so much as an email of notification.


I guess change is a volatile phenomenon; it’s confusing when it rears its head and equally perplexing when it’s nowhere to be found. Either way, it makes me question the present: Am I sure I even left Boston for half a year? Do those people an ocean away really exist? A year from today, will I be half wondering the same things about my reality right now?


So. If you’re wondering, yes, it’s great to be home, and yes, I had a wonderful experience, yes, I missed it here, yes, I miss it there, yes, I will go back some day, but no, I don’t know when or why.


Thanks for reading. I might keep writing here, since it’s somewhat therapeutic and fun for me to read over. Plus, the blog site is not (yet) blocked at work. But I got e-marcus.net, our family web space, blocked last summer by checking it too often after I forwarded my Gmail account over there, so I won’t be too optimistic. Fortunately, I’ve found a way around that this summer (crossing my fingers), so be in touch!


Love,
Ilana

Almost Home...

I can’t believe I’m going to be home in four days. Even though I’ve been mentally preparing for this since my classes ended two weeks ago, part of me is still in shock. One of the greatest things about travelling is the opportunity to simply speak to so many different people. At home, it’s so easy to sink back into the routine of seeing old friends, going to work, and hardly getting out to explore a new place or be exposed to new people.


Here, I’m the interesting one. Maybe it’s a little bit egotistical, but the attention people pay tourists is sort of addictive. Ooh, you’re from Boston? How far is that from New York? You know, I worked in Boston! Yeah, at the Natick Mall, selling lotions. What’s it like in Boston? Do you like it here? Why did you come here? When are you going back? Why so soon! When will you come back again?


I have no idea when I’ll come back again. This is one of the first times I’ve been here without have the slightest notion of when I’ll be back again. This is connected to the larger question of “What will I do with my life?” that I’d prefer not to explore at the moment.


In one year I’ll be graduating and I could go anywhere. Yes, my roots are in Boston, but this is exactly when I should be open-minded about what I’ll do and where I’ll do it. I could come back here to Israel, I could move to California (sorry Mommy), I could stay put in Boston. (I’m not really crazy about New York, which might have otherwise made the “potential future location” list.) The realm of possibilities is so gigantic it’s practically meaningless. A part of me wants to spend the next few years getting really good at a bunch of languages and then doing… something.


At least the next few months are basically set in stone. I’ll be working in Boston, playing lots of frisbee, and reuniting with my friends (whom I’ve sorely missed). It’ll be nice, terrific even, but part of me will pine for the freedom to hop on a train and travel up or down half the country, get off at a beach or wander around a market, talk to some people, then blog about it on the train ride home.

Musical Tunnelling

Imagine wading through about 1.5 feet of water in a narrow underground tunnel with minimal light and a few inches between you and the next person. Now, imagine the same thing while being sandwiched from the front by a bunch of rambunctious Israeli teenage boys and from the back by a chorus of Amish folk in suits, dresses, and bonnets, singing songs about Jesus, led by a tall man with a lantern. It is somewhat reminiscent of a twisted gold panning excursion in the Yukon in the 1900's.


However, this is where Avital and I found ourselves on Sunday in Jerusalem, exploring the ancient tunnels which served to bring water into the besieged City of David years ago. It took us at least an hour to snake from the opening to the tunnel to the pool at the other end. There were times when we had to duck in order to walk through and others when the top of the tunnel was feet (meters?) above us.


While the basic premise of walking through a chiseled stone tunnel made over 2000 years ago is in itself amazing, our company certainly added to the experience. It was suggested by site staff that we sing as we went through (as an hour wade through darkness and water can pass kind of slowly in silence), and almost immediately the Amish behind us began a slow harmonious praise to Jesus. It didn’t take long for the Israeli teens in front of us to break out in Hebrew pop songs in response. They then cycled through American hits, Israeli hits, Israeli folk songs, a few prayers, and a few renditions of Halleluyah, all of this over the steady Amazing Grace-like tunes coming from behind us. The Israelis even took requests and suggestions from me and Avital. (We were especially instrumental in filling in lyrics to songs like “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion, though it was confusing to hear a song from Lion King sung in Hebrew.) The combination of Christian prayer and Israeli enthusiasm (for lack of a better term) was overwhelming.


The whole thing just seemed so funny to me, and when we came out into the light at the end of the tunnel, one of the Amish women came over and said that she especially enjoyed one of the Halleluyah numbers we’d put on. I guess these entries are starting to get monotonous, but again, the message here is that these are the sorts of things I’ll miss.


One thing I’m not sure I’ll miss, though, is the Israeli who looks about 15 sitting across from me on the train, wearing a police uniform wielding a 3 foot long gun.



p.s. I've SCHEDULED another post to publish itself two days from now (cool huh?) since I might not be by a computer so check back soon :)

Oops

Today on my way to the train station I passed a store and caught a glimpse of the sign. The name of the store was “Isratool.” I thought, hmm, is this a hardware store? I read the next line, I thought it said something about selling cats (in Hebrew, cat is chatool, which would explain the name of the store). The next line, however, threw me off: “One time use,” which basically amounts to “disposable.” Now, I know Israel has a problem with their cats, but a store selling them for one time use?? That’s just inhumane. However, once I re-read the store name, everything became clear. The word for “diapers” is just one letter off from the word for “cats” (diaper: chitool). I’ll miss these moments of pointless confusion.

Eye Opening

Since classes ended, had the opportunity to visit family friends and do some traveling, which has been really great so far. I spent the past few days in Tel Aviv where I went swimming at the beach (Be’er Sheva needs one of those) and wandered around the open air market and artists’ fair. But the greatest afternoon was spent pretending to be blind.

In Holon, the city immediately south of Tel Aviv, the Children’s Museum is hosting an exhibit called “Diolog B’Chashica,” or Dialog in the Dark. The exhibit has made appearances all over the world, but Israel and another country (I forget which) are the only ones where the exhibit is semi-permanent.

My friend Avital and I showed up and the woman selling tickets offered us a tour in English, which we accepted. We were provided with walking sticks for sensing obstacles in our path, and with that, were told to enter a dark hallway with one hand on the wall, one hand brushing the stick on the ground, walking toward the sound of our guide’s voice. Entering complete and utter darkness is strange. My eyes and brain kept searching for light but to no avail. I think my head was even making up some light to keep me sane, but I really couldn’t see a thing. Normally, groups of fifteen are led through the dark maze of rooms, but for me and Avital, it was a private tour in English. Not a bad deal at all, since the rooms aren’t so big and in all that darkness, people often become dizzy or claustrophobic.

Fortunately, the voice of our guide, Meir, was very comforting and his instructions were clear. We spent the next hour or so wandering through a garden complete with cricketing crickets, trees, grass, and a small waterfall, then a hunter’s apartment (where we felt objects in the room and guessed what they were, including a goat’s skull!), and we even went on a short boat ride, where we felt the letters on the back of the boat and discovered that its name is Hannah. Our destination was an open air market where we felt through some fruits and vegetables, pedaled on a stationary bicycle, and discovered a car. Next was an empty room where we lay on the ground and listened to different music, feeling the base vibrating our bodies through the floor. Finally, we were directed to a small café, where we could buy some snacks at the bar and then sit down at a table. We were told at the start of the exhibit to bring a few coins in with us, and it was entertaining guessing which coins we were pulling out (despite my lesser familiarity with Israeli coins as compared to quarters, nickels, and dimes, it wasn’t as challenging as I expected it to be).

As we ate our snacks, we had the chance to ask Meir any questions we’d been pondering as we wandered through a world of darkness. We learned that he’d been blind from birth, having been born prematurely when medical technology wasn’t exactly what it is today. He did one of his degrees in the States, which is why his English was so good. It turns out that Braille is international and is used for many different alphabets (the guttural letter “chet” in Hebrew is written using three “English” Braille letters, t-h-e). Finally, as the tour came to an end, he asked us if we wanted to see him, or if we wanted him to remain a mystery. I hesitated for a second, pondering the idea of leaving the smooth, comforting voice in the dark forever, just as he would remember ours. We decided to see him, and we emerged from blindness, light sneaking around the corridor.

I don’t know how I was expecting Meir to look. I guess from the confidence he exuded guiding us through darkness, I thought he would be a commanding presence, wide shoulders, arms crossed, dark glasses, something like that. But he was a regular guy, gesturing with his hands, quick smiles flitting across his face every few seconds as we expressed our appreciation and bade him farewell. He hadn’t been using a walking stick at all. He said he views his blindness as a technical disability, one of many the human species experiences, and that he thinks ignorance and stupidity are more debilitating than blindness anyway.

It was a little scary and stifling, having no visual sense of space. The walking stick definitely helped, though I kicked Avital while getting off the bicycle and jabbed her with the stick a few times as well.

If anyone makes it to the Tel Aviv area, definitely stop by this exhibit, it’ll change the way you see blindness.

Pesach!

Pesach this year was definitely a new experience for me. One of my mom’s best friends growing up, Pam, flew out to Israel to spend Pesach with her daughter, Arielle, who is on a gap year in Israel program based in Be’er Sheva. They graciously invited me to spend the first few days of Pesach with them on Kibbutz Ma’abarot, near Netanya, where Pam’s boyfriend Ilan grew up (I know, how everyone is related is confusing. Imagine me trying to introduce myself and explain my connection to the family all weekend…)

Arielle, Pam, Arielle’s friend Lauren, and I almost missed our train since I hadn’t anticipated the crazy long security line due to holiday travel, but fortunately we made it on. We weren’t fortunate enough to find seats however, and we spent the bulk of the ride leaning on our bags right by the door to the car. We were not alone. About eight soldiers were packed around us cheerfully blasting mp3’s out of their cellphones, also sprawled on the floor amidst hiking packs. They were good company – one told me about his brother’s post-army trip to South America, where he bought a donkey and fed it carrots. The things you learn…

Eventually, we arrived at our stop and Ilan picked us up. Our two stops on the way to the kibbutz in the rental car included a lunch break at a falafel joint in Netanya (hard boiled egg in a falafel and pita is surprisingly good). The falafel making guy was a machine, it was impossible to stop him. Hence, we ended up with some awfully unidentifiable ingredients in our sandwiches, but they were good! So no questions!

The second stop was at a small river by the kibbutz known for its soft shelled tuftles. These things were huge – pretty sweet as far as turtles go. (Stay tuned for a future entry about my desert turtle escapade a while ago, haven’t gotten it down in writing yet, but it was awesome.)

Finally we arrived at the kibbutz, which is absolutely gorgeous. Green and flowers everywhere, ripe fruits waiting to be plucked off trees, small ponds and fountains scattered around the community. Garden of Eden wannabe, easily the most beautiful kibbutz I’ve ever seen. I spent a good chunk of the weekend studying for my computer science final, though a good chunk of “studying” was really taking in the gorgeous surroundings and chilling with Ilan’s great niece, Yarden.

Yarden is a funny kid. As a nine year old, it took her a while to acknowledge my presence at all, but I guess my sister Marielle trained me well since she finally decided I was interesting enough to talk to, and once she opened her mouth, she didn’t stop talking for two days straight. She told me about all kinds of things about the cool kids and the uncool kids, how it is rare to be both popular and [gasp] nice, and how obviously, she is a cool kid. It was kind of sad to see how someone so young has such an ingrained and nuanced grasp on social hierarchy, but funny to hear such a familiar construct explained by a kid more than ten years younger than me, and in Hebrew, to boot.

Me and Yarden at the Seder

The Pesach Seder itself was also far removed from anything I’d ever experienced before. Actually, no. Imagine a cross between your typical elementary school milestone play, and a meal. That’s what the Seder was like. Kibbutz youth of different ages sang and danced, older kibbutz members performed as well, and some of the Haggada reading was call and response. Not what I’m used to, and didn’t feel exactly like Pesach, but the gefilte fish was SO GOOD. It was made of carp grown on the kibbutz, and yeah, I know gefilte fish is really hit or miss with most people, but if you’re into it, a trip to this kibbutz during Pesach just might be worth it. The Seder was followed by dessert and Israeli dancing outside the dining hall. How nice to discover the dances I learned in Jewish school and camp aren’t the choreography creations of American Jews, as some may suspect. They exist in Israel too! Woohoo!

After the Seder at the kibbutz, Pam, Yarden, Ilan, Ilan’s son Alon, and I (Ilan, Alon, and Ilana in one room was basically disastrous; Pam would ask one of us a question, and we’d all simultaneously answer) drove over to Ilan’s sister’s house in Netanya to drop in on the end of their seder. We got there around 12:30 AM (!) and by the time we left around 3, I was about to pass out. I had a really nice time there though; Ilan’s nieces and nephews are around my age and the group of us talked for a while then played some Hebrew and English songs on guitar.

The rest of the night and weekend wound down quickly after that, and before I knew it, I was on my way to Tel Aviv to play in a frisbee tournament! More to come…

A Nice Chat

I got an email about two weeks ago from the coordinator of the Bedouin student center on campus, asking if I’d be interested in meeting with one student a few times to chat a little bit and practice her English. I said of course, and we exchanged a few emails to coordinate a time to meet up. When we did meet, she really was no what I expected. She wore a head covering, though she was dressed in jeans and a jacket, which, according to my understanding, is pretty progressive, seeing as I don’t think many of the ankle length dress clad Muslim women walking around campus are trying to make a fashion statement. I guess I was expecting a quiet, reserved, introverted girl, hesitant to speak English, Hebrew or even Arabic with me, but the girl who met me at the door of the student center had a wide smile and greeted me enthusiastically in Hebrew as soon as she saw me.

Chanin studies medicine at Ben Gurion (similar to a pre-med program) but when I mentioned that I study computer science, she confessed that she’d love to study computers are well but her parents want her to become a doctor (again, unexpected from my end). She told me that she took a year off after high school during which she started small business where she bought computers wholesale in Tel Aviv then sold them locally for a profit. Talk about entrepreneurship! This girl really surprised me. We talked about our families (she’s the youngest of… a lot) and she said she’d be happy having anywhere between 3-10 kids. Yeah. Also, that a family like mine (4 girls) would never fly in the Arab world. We’d turn into the x Marcus girls and the x+1^th boy, I suppose, eventually.

After speaking for a while, she had to get going to class so we walked over to the medical studies building together and agreed to meet up again sometime soon. Haven’t seen her yet since, as the Pesach break and finals have made things a bit hectic around here. She really did a number on my stereotypes, which was really cool. By the end of the conversation we were both speaking mostly Hebrew. Maybe next time it’ll be mostly Arabic, in which case the only things we’ll have been capable of talking about will have been the weather, shopping in the Shuk, a future career in the UN, or Ramadan. Could talk about Ramadan forever, thanks to chapter 2 of my textbook. I can not wait until I start learning some, any, speakable dialect. Fittingly, if I will it, it is no dream.

(Further) Down South

Link to facebook album of this trip: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2077166&l=769df&id=1708389

First of all, thanks for the comments on my last post, every one of them made me smile. I miss all of you guys...


This weekend the Overseas Program went on a trip to Kibbutz Ketura, a little bit north of Eilat. We picked up a member of the kibbutz at some bus stop on our way down south, then after a few more minutes, we pulled over off the side of the road again. Lugging 1.5 liter water bottles and donning hats, we hiked up a short but somewhat steep incline of rocks and sand, and on the other side, were greeted with an actual sand dune! If you associate Disney movies with real life as much as I do, picture the opening scene from Aladdin, where the Arab guy is pulling his camel through a sand storm right before he starts to tell the story. That’s the kind of sand dune I’m talking about. This isn’t the dune we were on, but it looked pretty similar:

So it turns out that one of my favorite activities in life is running down sand dunes. It’s like running down grassy hills, which is also pretty fantastic, except better, since you can take off your shoes and socks and come to a sliding halt or fall to your knees wherever you see fit. Minus a few points for the sand that inevitably flies into your eyes at any given point, however. Anyway, after we played around in the dunes for a while (climbing back up is not nearly as fun as running down), we spread out in the valley below us and took a few minutes to reflect on the desert itself. Here’s a part of what I managed to get down on my piece of paper flapping in the wind:

“Yeah, I guess this is making it hard for me to not confront myself and my faults here – the desert is so big and old and I’m so young and small. It makes me see through myself. The desert is a place where you could hide from the world, but never from yourself.”

We were summoned from our reflections by the sound of the Shofar, which I thought was very fitting. We gathered our shoes and water and started walking back to the bus via an alternate route. I had a fun time trying to find a place to pee in the wide expanse of flat and visible that is the valley between mountains of rock on both sides.

Once we all made it back to the bus, we rode the final leg of our trip to Kibbutz Ketura. Ketura was founded by a group of what our Kibbutz tour guide deemed, “every Jewish mother’s worst nightmare.” Meaning, a group of Jewish teenagers who spend what is meant to be a gap year touring around Israel, having an eye-opening, inspiring, life changing, blah blah etc. journey, and then decide to stay. These kids turned one of the most meteorologically unforgiving parts of the world into a blooming oasis. Here is a picture of the Kibbutz and the surrounding area:

If you click on the picture and look closely, I know it was kind of hazy that day, but the mountains you see in the background are actually of Jordan, that's how close this kibbutz is to the border.

We spent the rest of the afternoon and

night settling into our rooms, eating a barbecue dinner (prepared by kibbutz volunteers of our age), and hanging out in the kibbutz pub before passing out for the night.

The next morning during breakfast, I was headed towards the salad bar to complement my eggs with some red and yellow peppers, when I passed someone who made me to do a double take. We eyed each other perplexedly before I suddenly realized who he was. For those of you who were on New Jew Nesiya Israel trip 2004, guess who. You’ll never guess. Give up? … Yonatan!! Yonatan, my madrich (counselor) from my 12^th grade trip to Israel, of whereabouts unknown for the past four years, is now clean shaven with an afro, living on Kibbutz Ketura. Guess who else I ran into? Laura Robbins of the class of ’02! She’s doing some work down there as well. Totally bizarre seeing people I haven’t heard from in so long.

Anyway, I’ll try to shorten the description of the rest of the weekend since this is getting unbearably long and there are still some cool things I need to write down to combat my future bouts of nostalgia. We went on a hike after breakfast on Friday and then drove down to Eilat for a few hours to cool off at the beach and do some shopping on the Tayelet (promenade). Ran into some more people I know on the beach… precisely, six of them, all from New Jew! Josh B. ’04, and Marissa, Tomer, Sophie, Jessie, Packer all ’05, were splashing in the water just as we showed up. It was a huge surprise and great to catch up. Also, I bought a skirt, it is pretty. End of Eilat.

Back at Ketura, we showered and prepared for Shabbat and got a quick tour of the kibbutz. Oh man, I just realized I forgot to take a picture of the laundry system at the kibbutz!

I thought it was totally revolutionary… labeled flaps on an outside wall of the laundry room lead to chutes which slide clothing into large baskets sorted by type and color (examples of labels: dark socks, light socks, jeans, non-dryer clothing, light shirts, dark shirts…). No family on the kibbutz has their own washer and dryer, and clothing is labeled with numbers corresponding to family cubbies to which they are returned, cleaned, ironed, and folded. Ok maybe nobody else thinks that’s cool, but I was impressed.

Edit: As you can see, I have a picture of the laundry! My high school friend who spent part of her gap year on the kibbutz sent me one as a gift! Thanks Leah!!!

Later that night, after a really nice Kabbalat Shabbat service (mixed seating and singing!) and communal kibbutz Shabbat dinner, we had a discussion with students from the Arava Institute which is located on the Kibbutz. In short, “…the Arava Institute is working towards peace and sustainable development on a regional and global scale” (from their website) by bringing Jewish and non-Jewish Israelis together with international students (including Jordanians, Americans, Europeans, etc.) to study the Middle East from an environmental perspective. It was great to learn about the institute and talk about the students, but for me, the experience was really my first opportunity to have an actual conversation in Arabic!

In case you’re wondering, I’m currently taking my fourth term of Modern Standard Arabic, known in Arabic as “Fus’ha,” or in Hebrew (translated to English) as “literary Arabic.” This is the rough equivalent of Shakespearean English, except that it’s slightly less archaic as most Arabic news stations present the news in Fus’ha. Despite this fact, it is rare to come across an Arab who can understand my Arabic, and rarer still to find someone who can respond in a way that I’ll understand as well. Many Arabs can understand Fus’ha but have trouble transitioning from their own spoken regional dialects to the standardized one that most foreigners learn.

To my surprise and delight, I was able to carry on a perfectly functional conversation with Anton, a student from Bethlehem, and had basically no problems until I tried to express why I feel as though all Israelis should learn Arabic. The sentences started to get too complex and convoluted… What was really interesting to me was how Hebrew slang had become integrated into his vernacular such that another Arab student, from Jordan, had no idea what he was talking about (I think he had used the Hebrew word for “traffic light” as he complained about traffic or something…). Arabic is a language that just keeps getting harder as you get more advanced, and I really needed this kind of pick-me-up at this point in my studies to boost my motivation.

The rest of the weekend passed by quickly (probably cause I took a three-ish hour nap on Saturday; the desert can really drain me) and before I knew it I was back at the university. Pesach is right around the corner, so I have to get cleaning/studying sometime soon…

Reflection

I think that I’ve reached what I’m going to refer to as my “mid study-abroad crisis.” I’ve definitely settled into a sort of groove and routine here – classes are well underway, I tend to go shopping and do laundry on the same days every week, my cooking repertoire has basically leveled off at six or seven items, and Hebrew everywhere isn’t as exciting anymore. I’ve been to the doctor twice, am expected at weekly frisbee games, don’t mind running my mouth off at Israelis who give me attitude… I guess in short I’m trying to say that in terms of my daily and weekly activities, from the outside this is starting to look like real life. But, in the back of my mind, I can’t help thinking, every time I meet a new amazing person or consider buying something semi-permanent for the kitchen, “Who am I kidding, this isn’t my life, why invest in anything here?”

People come to study in Be’er Sheva so that they can get a better understanding of the real Israel. You don’t hear English here while you’re walking down the street – in fact, half the time you’ll hardly hear any Hebrew, between all of the Arabic, Russian, and Amharic floating around. At other study abroad programs in Israel, students often complain of the “little America bubble” in which foreign students find themselves; between living with Americans, studying with Americans, and running into Americans at all the local nightlife destinations, it hardly feels like they’re in Israel at all. A part of me (ok, granted, a pretty small part, but still…) is starting to think that’s not such a bad deal. Hardly any assimilation required, less conflict concerning the people you let into your life, no problems expressing yourself in your native tongue! It’s like summer camp! Everyone is there for the same amount of time, no looking back in another few months and wistfully realizing that the life you were part of for half a year is still there just… without you in it.

Oddly enough, becoming more and more attached to this mirage of reality has made me homesick. Maybe because I’ve held off from making my room feel completely homey and since, as I mentioned earlier, the kitchen is still lacking in dishes I’d use at home (today I bought a carrot grater!), and probably partially because I’m SO SICK of the pseudo-cooking I’ve been doing since I got here, and partly because as I realize that this place isn’t my reality and my life, I’m sad to be missing out on important events in the lives of my friends and family back home. I know I’m not the first person to leave home for six months and half way through, stop and wonder, “What on earth am I doing here??” I guess this is just part of the process. Knowing I’ll have to leave is simply another truth in my currently murky reality. In the meantime, I’ll try to keep things in perspective (unfortunately, this never has been my strong suit). My friends and I are having a Shabbat dinner tonight and I made the potatoes my mom makes every Friday, so our apartment here smells like home! Shabbat Shalom.

Dead Sea/Ein Gedi

Alright faithless readers, you win, you have no reason to trust that I’ll actually post anything on this blog since… I haven’t in about a month. Things have been happening here in Be’er Sheva but unless I write about all of the excitement my times here will fade into that all-encompassing sentence when I describe my study abroad experience half a year from now, “Yeah it was really amazing!”

Last I left off I was going to spend the weekend at the Dead Sea and Ein Gedi with the overseas students. Our Madricha, Liat, led us on a gorgeous hike through the desert by the Dead Sea up and down some somewhat terrifying cliffs, which culminated at an abandoned Israeli bunker built for a war in years past. Afterwards, we bussed over to the Dead Sea and I went in! This is a major accomplishment of strength and perseverance on my part since my lone immersive experience concerning the Dead Sea occurred when I was around 8 and it burned so bad that I was traumatized for life… until now. Since then I’d only subjected toes and ankles to the hyper concentrated minerals, but I was inspired by and curious of the floating phenomenon, and did it! It was kind of gross though, the minerals are so concentrated it feels like swimming in oil.

That night we had Shabbat at the nearby kibbutz/guest house where we stayed then in the morning went on a day hike in Ein Gedi. Ein Gedi is a nature reserve nearby with naturally forming fresh water pools scattered through the sandy mountains. We hiked for about an hour, then spent an hour swimming and eating in the shade. It was so gorgeous, and amazing to swim after hiking. I had the chance to talk to lots of people in our group whom I haven’t been spending much time with, which is always one of my favorite parts of these hikes. We’re walking up and down these inclines on paths wide enough for one person, so we basically don’t have much of a choice but to chatter with the people right next to us. Of course, I suppose one could note that the walking order is somewhat self-sorting (in O(n) time, it’s a selection sort) (just kidding, I have no idea what I’m talking about) (if you got that, I’m really not that nerdy, let this one go) but I’ve always been inspired to get to know different people during the hikes.

Couldn’t sleep much on the bus ride back to Be’er Sheva after Shabbat since the bus driver was pulling some truly theatrical turns and we even had to stop once since one girl had to throw up on the side of the road. All in all, it was great to get outside for an entire weekend!

Testing 1 2 3

I had my computer science midterm today! I was pretty nervous going in, showed up 45 minutes early to choose a seat and go over material. Of course, it turned out I’d sat in an off-limits seat, which only became clear when student after student tried to sit in seats that weren’t well spaced enough for the exam.

Actually, most of my trouble during the exam had to do with verbal and written instructions. I had a lot of trouble understanding the proctors, two older woman, and their instructions, plus I was confronted with the following guideline on the first page of the test:

“First solve in the scrap book, then copy into the designated place on the answer form."

Now, if you don’t have the slightest idea what a “scrap book” or “answer form” is, you’re probably out of luck. So I spent the first few minutes contemplating writing complete answers in both the test packet and the blank blue book I was given, but fortunately a professor came by and I had it all clarified. Everyone around me was asking questions about depth of explanation, which assumptions to make… there I was asking about the test instructions. I never thought about the extra level of stress that gets added on when being tested in a foreign environment. Familiar sheets and rules bring about a small sense of calm, at least for me, and I guess that was missing today. Fortunately, the test itself wasn’t too bad and I feel okay about it.

This weekend I’m going to the Dead Sea and Ein Gedi with the overseas students so more to come!

Caught ya

I must say, friends and family, I’m a little disappointed in you. Since I sent my shameless self soliciting email with recent blog entries attached, readership has grown by 400%. So. Even if you all don't remember that I exist, I haven’t forgotten, and continue to write, if not to give you a small window into study abroad, then for me to look back years down the road (assuming the servers storing my thoughts haven’t crashed and burned by then) and think about how great it was back when I could just pack up and spend half a year on the other side of the globe.

Last night I had the chance to meet up with two family friends who are spending a year between high school and college in Israel. We’ve all been here for over a month but just now got together. To all of our parents: I have proof in the form of a digital photo of the fact that we did meet up! I’ll send it to you at some point. (I haven’t been so good about the picture thing lately.) Anyway, it was really great to see them and hey, if you two are reading this, you owe me a trip to the university so I can show you my… um… kitchen.

Actually, I had an idiotic moment as we were walking into the restaurant for dinner. Getting used to the bag checking phenomenon is a pain every time I come back to Israel, but I’ve had it down pat lately, especially since I hesitated every time I entered a building in Spain, expecting someone to tap my purse a few times with a black stick. Anyway, as we walked into this restaurant, I automatically held my bag out to the first guy dressed in black I saw by the door. Turns out it was only a waiter standing outside with a couple friends to smoke. He just looked at me, probably wondering what on earth I was trying to offer him out of my purse, and I looked at him, wondering why this useless security guard didn’t even have a black stick. Figured it out pretty quickly as soon as we walked through the doors and saw the real security guy stationed on his stool, black stick included. I’m dumb.

That’s all for now folks, but amazingly enough, there will be more later this week, and even more after that, so please do come back :).

Foreigner

One of the times I miss home most is when I’m calling my house from my cell phone or from Skype. No, it’s not the thrill of hearing the voices of my beloved family members, but the much anticipated American dial tone that graces my ears as I wait for them to pick up. That “beeeeeep…. beeeeeeeep…,” sounding like more like a growl, or a long burp, than its European cousins, never fails to bring a wistful smile to my lips. I guess I could say the same of the crunchy Pepperidge Farm goldfish and thin mint Girl Scout cookies I delightedly discovered in the family carry-on and quickly devoured during our first few hours settling in together in Spain. The fact of the matter is that no matter how Westernized Israel becomes, it’s still no America.

Most people would say that’s a good thing, and many would say that the extent to which it actually has Americanized during the course of the past few decades has all but destroyed its character and charm. I can see both good and bad in Israel’s metamorphosis, but that’s not my point. Maybe I’m too sensitive to the very, very… verrrrryyyy… specific differences (i.e., shape of toilet flushers, style of traffic lights, aesthetic of prescription medicines, the way Hebrew looks on a receipt), but despite all my blabber about how nice it is to integrate into the Be’er Sheva university community, sometimes I feel completely lost.

The truth is that while succeeding to do things the Israeli way and not being the sucker most of the time makes me feel pretty good, sometimes I stop and think, do I really want to be hanging around a place where I always have to be on the defensive/have to be a total jerk to get what I want? The other day I arrived in the laundry room, and after sticking my first load into the machine, started putting the rest of my clothes into a second washer. The girl at the machine next to me looked up and said, “Oh, I was going to use that one.” Now, she hadn’t actually touched the thing, and it was clear that she had two other washers under her jurisdiction (granted, it looked like she was sharing them with someone else, for some reason). I kind of looked at her with exasperation, but before formulating an argument, someone else sitting in the room pointed out that two other washers had finished their cycles and the clothes owners should be on their way over. I turned to the girl and said, “Do you want to wait, or should I?” She shrugged and said, “Well, I guess you can take it.” So in theory, I won! I got the washer which I had claimed by creating a reality on the ground (i.e., my clothing in it). Still didn’t feel so good. She had gotten there first, after all.

Maybe I’m hyper-obsessed with the notion of fairness – everyone should get their share/their turn/what they deserve. (Could be backlash of being one of four siblings, though I’m the oldest, so I should be more okay with the equality thing by now, so maybe I missed something in my mental development.) I just wish I didn’t feel like I have to gear up for battle every time I need to get something done around here.

(For the record, it did feel good to stand up to a woman at the grocery store last week who claimed to have been in line behind the guy right in front of me despite her seeming to have appeared out of nowhere, by frowning, mumbling some words of semi-comprehensible argumentative Hebrew, and blockading her with my torso. That was cool.)

Marcuses go to Spain

I spent the past two days in Spain with my family, as as usual on Marcus family vacations, we saw the good, the bad, and the hilarious. I flew into Spain a night before the rest of the family and met Laurel in the airport. She was flying back in from Madrid where she’d been on a trip with her Dartmouth program. We spent the night in a youth hostel (as her host family isn’t expected to host the student plus five family members at any point in time) and arrived back at the airport the next morning to welcome the rest of the Marcus clan to Spain. However, as we arrived, it became clear that another welcoming party was waiting for the same flight. Reporter after reporter shoved right in front of me with the chutzpah I didn’t think I’d see again till I was back in Israel. Turns out they were waiting for some big shot European soccer player who jetted out of the airport as soon as he could, bringing after him the crowd of pushy Spanish reporters. This left the coast clear for us to properly greet our family, who had arrived just prior to the soccer hype, along with the requisite slew of color Marcus family suitcases. Finally, after peeing, gabbing, and exchanging money, we headed into the bright Spanish sun and into two taxis to take us to our rented apartment (Tali, Ilana, and Alan in one taxi, Laurel, Marielle, and Sheryl in the other). After happily discovering that our high school Spanish wasn’t useless after all, Tali and I struck up a halting conversation with the driver, Jose. After some fairly typical small talk, Tali decided to get more creative.
“What music is popular here?” she asked.
“David Bisbal,” Jose answered. Tali, who recognized the artist, promptly shouted, in true Tali form, “Te amo!” intending to express her fondness for Bisbal’s music, but instead proclaiming her love for Jose [lit: I love you]. We all burst into laughter and just about then we arrived at our apartment, which forebodingly was located inconspicuously on a street that resembled an alley.


Fortunately, the inside of the apartment was pretty nice, except for the smell of garbage issuing from the washing machine and sink. The landlord didn’t really know what to do about that.


For the most part we spent the two days I was there walking around, buying fresh squeezed orange juice and café con leche (coffee with milk), being confused about how to pronounce the letter “x” in the regional dialect, Catalan, and appreciating eachother’s much missed company. Most of the time. Our communications skills were on par enough to order a local favorite, the Bikini sandwich (ham and cheese) without the ham. (My dad preferred the menu pointing slow English speaking method, which was pretty entertaining since it hardly ever worked.) We ate a lot of bread, basically.


Sadly, after two days of Marcus happiness, it was time for me to return to Israel. We took the metro to the airport bus stop (the metro is no small feat with a party of six and only one person who knows where we’re going…thanks for your tour guiding, Laurel) and I said goodbye. Digital cameras were snapping at the bus window as it pulled away. (Part of me hopes those pictures came out just as reflections of themselves).


Right now [this post was written by hand] I’m sitting in the Rome airport waiting to board the Rome-Tel Aviv leg of my journey back to Beer Sheva. On the Barcelona-Rome part, I had a whole row of seats to myself! I’d like to take this opportunity to mention how Italian is driving me crazy. On Alitalia, the flight attendants make the announcements first in Italian, then in English. If I, a native English speaker, can’t tell when they are switching into English from Italian, I think there’s a problem. Earlier I thought an attendant was saying to me, “Say I love you?” but he was really saying, “Are you going to Tel Aviv?” which became clear when he pronounced it the third time as though I were hard of hearing. As a side note, the thing about flight attendants in general is that their intonation seems to have no connection whatsoever to the words they’re saying. Doesn’t help the current predicament.


So far the flight is about half an hour late to board. The check-in person calls a different list of passengers up for “information” every five minutes. It’s pretty funny listening to her pronounce Hebrew names with her accent (imagine “eh” being appended onto names like Aharon and Ben Moshe, producing calls for Misters Aharon-eh and Ben Moshe-eh to come up for information).


I’ve been sitting next to two older Israeli couples who appear to be traveling together. To pass the time (I’m assuming), one of the men chooses something new to gripe about every so often. Every time a list of people is called for “information,” he grumbles about how idiotic the employees here are since the loudspeaker only has a fifteen foot radius of sound. Now he’s complaining about how the seats in the waiting area are metal, therefore cold and uncomfortable. I think he said he was hungry too. Hope he’s not next to me on the plane… Ooh, looks like we’re boarding. Back to Israeli concept of a line. YES! Ciao! I mean, Adios!

Ski Trip!

Two weekends ago I went skiing! A group of us from the university got up at 3:30 for the four hour drive up north so that we could hit the slopes around 8:30, joining a group of students from Hebrew U and Tel Aviv U for a weekend of skiing and Shabbat. Hit the slopes we did… at least I did. I don’t think I had a single run where I didn’t hit the ground or another person. Fortunately, this meant I met tons of other nice friendly horrible skiers. Between lift rides up and very VERY slow stops to return a stray ski or pole to stranded owners, my Hebrew was definitely put to a good use.

Eventually, I let myself be convinced by some friends (experienced skiers—that should have been the first warning bell) that another trail, aside from the nice easy straight path I’d been attempting to conquer for the past four or five runs, was “just as easy, this is nothing like America!” As I sat in the lift, I realized that the lift… just… didn’t stop going up! As I helplessly watched the mountain pass by below, I started mumbling, “I’m gonna die…” Believe it or not, the mumbling just got louder as we disembarked from the lift and prepared for the descent.

We finally reached the top of the mountain, and for the first relatively flat stretch I did okay. As soon as a steep curvy monstrosity loomed ahead, however, I knew that the honeymoon was over. I have to say that the guys up there with me were amazing. Clearly none of them went up intending to slowly coach a beginning skier down a non-beginning mountain, and despite my frequent falls and declarations of unavoidable imminent death, they stuck with me, applauding me when I didn’t fall (oh let’s be honest—most of the applause was when I got back up), never abandoning me, even though I repeatedly told them to go ahead and let me tumble down on my own.

After that run, bruised and exhausted, I headed into the lodge where most of the group was gathered for some lunch. I’d had it with skiing at that point and headed up a scenic lift ride to the top of the mountain (same view as before, plus joy of taking the lift back down as well). Supposedly on a clear day, from the Mt. Hermon you’re supposed to be able to see all the way up north to Lebanon and Syria and all the way down South to Eilat. Imagine being able to stand somewhere in the US and see north to Canada and south to Mexico. Never gonna happen. I’m honestly not sure exactly what I was able to see from the top, but it was beautiful nevertheless.

On the way back down he lift, my friend Avital and I were fooling around with our cameras and I yelled to the people we passed in the lift going up, “You’re on video!” One Israeli yelled back, “Do you have facebook?” Talk about globalization…

After skiing, the whole group headed back to buses and traveled to Tsfat (Safed) where we were to spend Shabbat. Tsfat is one of the four biblically holy cities in Israel and is the hometown of most Jewish mysticism as we know it today. On Saturday we had a walking tour of some old synagogues which are intricately decorated and each very unique. On the way I had some interesting conversations about Judaism with different people I met on the trip, easily inspired by this kind of Shabbaton. After hearing about other American students’ experiences at Hebrew U and Tel Aviv U, I’m really glad I chose to come to Beer Sheva. Though the city itself has less to offer than Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, partly due to its smallness, it’s really offered me the chance to integrate more fully into the population, from the ample volunteer opportunities to the Hebrew around me every day. People seem pretty good natured (by people, I mean taxi drivers). Avital and I tired to pass on some Israeli politician jokes at frisbee told to us by one taxi driver but our delivery must have been less than perfect since the reaction we got (raised eyebrows and rolling eyes) isn’t what we were going for. Oh well, you win some you lose some. Anyway, I hear that at other universities the Americans basically exist in a little American colony and I’m glad I’m in a place where it’s easier to branch out.

My computer science midterm is in a week and a half and who knows how that will go, first I have to get through assignment 2. I enjoy lectures and my TA has been great about re-explaining things I’ve missed, so overall I can’t say I regret the class—yet. (If I fail, I won’t get the credit, which means I’ll have to do some credit finagling with my home university.) But it’s too early for failing right now!

Now, a week after skiing, I still have a bruise on my leg and a spot on my ribcage that hurts when I sit up, but at least my intense cheek to cheek sunburn has faded (pathetic, my first real sunburn here was due to brightness of snow) and I’m in one piece. Can’t wait to do it again. Just kidding.

The weather here has suddenly gotten much nicer so I’ve taken to spending the hour and a half following ulpan sitting in the sun in one of the (few) grassy areas at the university for lunch. I think I actually burned a little today! Definitely a welcome change to the winds and rain of last week. Good weather changes my entire outlook on life, puts a bounce in my step, if you will.

Also, a few developments food-wise. I bought some really good Indian style white rice (at least that’s how the package translates) which means I’ve now found a new use for my instant chicken soup broth… seasoning! What I’m eating now actually resembles real people food so I’m pretty excited about that. Today I bought a “toast” for lunch, which basically comes to a panini’d bagel sandwich. You can fill it up with your typical salad bar options then squish it in a Panini machine until it’s flat and toasted and it’s basically amazing.

To be continued after frisbee tonight…

This morning there was a suicide bombing in Dimona, a different city in the Negev in Israel. There was definitely at least one casualty. One bomber succeeded in blowing himself up and another was shot dead before he had the chance to detonate his explosives. One of our counselors texted us all to come meet with the head of the program right after Ulpan which is when I first heard about the attack (we ironically had been just speaking about the implications of the Gaza-Israel border breach) and he told us that we might notice more sirens around the area since the central hospital for all of southern Israel, Soroka, is right next door to the university, but that otherwise we shouldn’t expect anything else out of the ordinary.

Sure enough, as I was walking back to the dorms after the meeting, a siren was blaring and I turned to see an ambulance speeding towards the hospital. A few minutes later, there was another one. Aside from that, things here are basically normal; there were policemen/women on the corners of an intersection right by the dorms and the hospital, probably in an attempt to facilitate the passage of the ambulances.

I’m going to work on my problem set and wait for some more news. I can’t believe I’ve been freaking out so much about that one homework… I wish a bombing hadn’t been the thing to put it into perspective for me though.

Link to article on the terrorist attack: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/951028.html

After a week long hiatus I went running again this morning and I passed a few kids on their way to the bus stop. As I ran by one of them, I saw that he was grinning and saying something to me, and when I slowed down to listen, I heard him chanting, “echad shtayim echad shtayim!” [one, two, one two!] It was really cute… shows, dare I mention it again, how much the military has pervaded Israeli culture. Oh by the way, what do you think his race was?

So later today I was sitting in a study room in the campus center and I overheard I conversation of Hebrew interspersed with Arabic half-sentences. I looked over and saw an Israeli girl (I’m assuming Jewish) and an Israeli Arab trying to explain different things to each other in both languages. It was kind of heartwarming in a sentimental American-movie kind of way. (See, I’m picking up the local expressions! Definition: American Movie: Movie far too sentimental and/or kitschy to come close to the reality of something that would take place in Israel.)

Finally, I went to another computer science lecture and was able to follow everything except the proofs proving why everything else was supposed to make sense. I’m starting to think I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, but I’ve decided if I fail and end up having wasted hours of time in class/note translation, it won’t really have been a waste cause I actually enjoy sitting in the class, listening to the professor explaining in Hebrew and the Israeli students shouting out interpretations. Also hearing the professor say “nu…?” to students’ comments is much more gratifying than hearing “so where are you going with that?” in English. Actually, the lecture is quite diverse, more than the computer science lectures I’ve been to in the US at least. Lots of women, lots of people of all races and religious observances (at least from external appearance). The problem set appears to be impossible so far and it’s due tomorrow, so I should probably try to work through that some time soon. I also saw on the class forum a question from a student asking if we’re allowed to turn in the problem sets in English (since the questions are in English), and an administrator answered with a defiant, “NO.” This means, in true Israeli fashion, that I will still submit mine in English and deny any association to the forum in the first place.

That’s all for now. By the way, the little kid was black, the absorption center where I’m hopefully volunteering is right around the corner from there. He reminded me of one of my City Year kids, really adorable and goofy.

What was i thinking...

Days like today make me wonder what possibly could have been going through my head when i declared a major in computer science. I think I was in denial of the fact that it is in essence math based and that yes, eventually I'd have to move past "Hello World" into what I'll deem "Hello Ilana's worst nightmare parallel universe." (This rant is brought to you by the evil construct of "inductive proofs" in conjunction with my two hour review session). I have had one positive observation, fortunately: What I don't understand in lecture and practice sessions has nothing to do with Hebrew; it would go straight over my head in English too! I hate proofs. All of the givens make sense, then it seems like the proof suddenly jumps to some conclusion that comes out of nowhere. אין לי כוח!

In related news, my Ulpan teacher wrote on one of my latest vocabulary paragraphs, "Why are you studying computers? Have you ever taken a creative writing class?" Just what I needed to hear.

The computer science class I'm in has a reputation for being pretty difficult so I'll try to take the past week or so with a grain of salt and read through my notes a few thousand more times since that's helped before. I'm meeting a lot of different people in my class though, which I think might make this worthwhile. Coming soon: The first homework assignment.

Lots of stuff today. Ulpan in the morning, whatever. After Ulpan, I ran into the girl I met at the computer science lecture on Sunday and bombarded her with questions about supposed practice sessions I read about on the course website and the assignment we have due Monday. She showed me a bunch of material on the website then brought me upstairs to a study room packed with students, where two other students in the course showed me how to access online notes from the lecture when it was taught previously as well as scans from a student who’s taking notes in lectures this term. SO helpful, as I’m reading them over now, even though they’re in Hebrew, everything from class is starting to come together. I’m hoping if I wear my glasses tomorrow I might even be able to absorb more than every other sentence! That’s the ideal I’m working with here.

Also this afternoon, three friends and I went over to the Ethiopian absorption center to talk about volunteering there. It’s looking like we’ll split into pairs and teach English classes to the new Ethiopian immigrants. I’m teaching with my friend Rebeccah and our students are around 12 or 13, and my other two friends are teaching 14-15 year olds. As soon as we walked in, the kids clumped around us and the teacher in a sort of circle of wonder asking completely random questions, mostly Hebrew with a few arbitrary English words thrown in. Rebeccah and I were talking to each other about what kinds of things we should teach and when we turned back to the kids, they had written a list of English words with their Hebrew equivalents to show us what they knew. It was a strange group of words too... the ones I remember are blood, forget... that's it. They seem really excited about English in general. A lot of these kids are still getting a handle on the Hebrew language so this will definitely be a challenge. After so many years of learning languages from Hebrew to Spanish to Arabic I feel like I should have a whole repertoire of language games and activities to draw from but it’ll take some deep probing into my history of elementary and middle school to fish them out of my memory. I’m pretty excited though I’ve had enough classroom experience to know that this will not be a walk in the park by any means. Disciplining in English is no fun, in Hebrew is hard, and in Hebrew when it is the second language of both the teacher and the students is something I have yet to experience.

I’m off to a Hapoel Be’er Sheva basketball game in a few so I gotta go…

Ilana

A few days ago I went to a lecture in the regular university. (Most of the courses for overseas students’ courses are offered separately and in English). There’s a computer science class here that it would be convenient for me to take since otherwise I’ll have to take it next spring. Unfortunately, the class has a reputation of being pretty difficult here, and oh yeah, it’s taught in Hebrew.

Fortunately within the first few minutes I made a friend who let me look at her notes when I lost track of what the professor was talking about (and I’d also forgotten my glasses so I couldn’t really read anything…) and she basically thought I was a pretty entertaining sight, squinting at the board, shaking my head, and rolling my eyes every minute or so.

I learned all kinds of interesting math words, and right after the class I went straight to the library where I checked out four ENGLISH books on the topic and spent as much time as the lecture had taken trying to make sense of my balagan of English-Hebrew-math-symbol hybrid notes (they were written both from left to right and right to left…) One of the four books is due back in two days but I forget which one it is (oops) and the librarian was kind of a jerk.

Also, I’ve upgraded my cooking repertoire from chicken broth noodle soup to omelets! Also, my Hebrew teacher said today (jokingly) (I hope) that she uses the paragraphs I write using new vocabulary as bedtime reading material. If anyone wants a translation of my horrendous plots that so far have incorporated words such as “space heater,” “organ implant,” “stapler,” and “targeted assassination,” you’re welcome to email me, but you might not want to put yourself through it.

Till I have something else to write about,

Ilana

I spent last weekend in Jerusalem with my friend Talya, who has been in town for the week. The bus ride there was pretty uneventful (fyi: inter-city buses are statistically much safer than intra-city buses) except that it took about two hours and I thought it would only take 1.5. Not the end of the world. So obviously the requisite Israeli soldier took a seat next to me about half way through the ride (there were several stops) and we talked a little about why I’m here, America, other small talk… Eventually I asked what he’d been doing in the southern part of the country since he’d said earlier that his base was in Jerusalem and he lived further north.

Conversation:

[Hebrew]

Ilana: So what were you doing in the south?

[English]

Soldier: I was at the funeral of one of my friends, the Arabish killed him.

[English]
Ilana: [pause, stare out window, mumble in English “that sucks” or something else that wasn’t really fitting]

[Hebrew]

Soldier: I didn’t understand.

[Hebrew]

Ilana: … I’m sorry.

[Hebrew]

Soldier: I appreciate that (he really looked like he did appreciate it).

Ilana: [smile and shrug, few seconds silence]

[English]

Ilana: It’s Arabs, by the way.

[English]

Soldier: What?

[English]

Ilana: The people, they’re not Arabish, they’re Arabs.

[Hebrew]

Soldier: Thanks, I need to fix my English.

[Hebrew]

Ilana: You should watch more TV.

We then launched into a conversation about his ambitions to be an actor and about how nice it is to be able to find kosher food in the supermarkets in Israel (I know, good stuff). He got off a few stops before me, and as he left, I sort of regretted how quickly I ended up changing the topic. It was the perfect opportunity to try to wade through one of the biggest gaps between Israeli and American society, but I’m still not sure where I could have gone from there. I feel like something slipped away from me but I’m not sure why.

It seems as though every day I write about everything that’s been going on around here, a few hours later something cool or exciting happens but then I’m too tired to write even more. Then when I’m ready to write, another cool thing happens…

So the senior staff university strike is still ongoing, and the heads of the universities are planning on closing down all of the universities across Israel on this Sunday, assuming that no compromise is reached by Friday. (This is mostly a tactic to put pressure on the striking professors since if the university is closed down, they can’t do their research, which has been ongoing since it is unrelated to the teaching salary.) Basically, the summary of the strike (as far as I understand) is that the salary of the senior professors has been depreciating in value for the past few years and they’re requesting a 35% salary hike. My Hebrew teacher explained that the problem isn’t really that there are so many professors employed by the universities, but that professionals in a lot of other scientific fields have salaries tied to those of the professors. If the professors were to get the raise they’re asking for, the decision would have a rippling effect on the whole economy. The strike started in October, which means that for most Israeli students, an entire semester has been lost. If a conclusion isn’t reached really really really soon, the entire academic year will have to be cancelled, which means that basically everyone will be behind. A lot of people have been saying that they can’t believe it would actually happen and that there isn’t yet extreme cause for worry, but no one really thought that we’d get to the point where the universities themselves are being locked down so it’s hard to say what’s in the realm of possibility out here in Israel.

Anyway, as a result of the strike, students here at Ben Gurion have been demonstrating and the other night a few friends and I went over to the university senate building (at 1 AM) to observe the sit-in that was taking place. Downstairs, there was a deejay from a local club playing heavy metal and Israeli students were jumping around and rocking out, it was a pretty hilarious sight (I’ll try to post a few pictures). Upstairs, the floor was packed with students who had brought sleeping mats and cards to keep themselves busy, with a movie running as well. It was a strange sit in… There is a tension between apathy and legitimate worry about the semester here. On one hand, people seem pretty certain that the semester won’t be canceled since it would be so catastrophic for so many faculty and students, but on the other hand, as the strike gets longer and longer, we’re seeing more signs of frustration from the student body. As I said before, it’s a pain to be in limbo not knowing how this will be resolved, but it’s also an interesting time to be here to observe the power struggle of the different parties in the strike.

Last night I finally made it to a frisbee game! It turns out it was a really good night since they had a pretty good turnout of 11 people. Experience levels were pretty varied with a few people who had played ultimate before, a bunch of people who were mainly beach frisbee players, and a couple who hadn’t really played at all. Everyone was really cool and it was nice to get out of the university and see a little more of Be’er Sheva. One nice thing about frisbee is that that people who show up end up being anywhere from ages 20 to 40 but you really can’t feel the difference while the game is going on. Anyway, I’m glad the game finally took place and I hope I can make it there next week (assuming it doesn’t rain).

I’ve been seeing more of my roommates lately which is really cool; usually they’ll be doing work or something when I get back at night so I’ll talk to them for a little while. Yesterday Moran, Didi (turns out it wasn’t Deedee) and I made fun of each other’s Hebrew/English for a while. Everything is in prepositions. If you don’t get the prepositions in a foreign language right, you’ll sound like a six year old no matter how many big words you know. My presentation in class went well, we ended up talking about national service in America (my topic) for a good hour and I think that I’m having an easier time forming thoughts in Hebrew without translating them from English first.

That’s what’s been going on around here lately. The strike thing should be clearer in the next few weeks, but they said that a few weeks ago, so maybe by the time I’m coming home I’ll know what the hell is going on with that. Love you and miss you : )

I had my first quiz in Ulpan today! I think it went okay, could have studied a little more but had more important things to do like… sit and talk to people all night. Every week in Ulpan one person has a presentation on any topic they want, and I’m going first on Thursday. Wish me luck…

On Sunday I went to the basketball practice I wrote about last week. It was awesome!! At first I was a little lost because the coach kept shouting instructions in Hebrew and it took me a while to figure out what on earth she was talking about, but I learned the words for “bounce,” “backboard,” and “pick” (as in, setting a pick/screen). In case you were wondering, “pick,” or chasima, comes from the words lachasom, which means to block or create an obstacle. So you’re literally making a blockage so that someone can’t pass you. Hebrew is cool : ) Anyway, it was nice and comforting to hear this coach yelling the same things that Coach Josh used to yell at us, but in Hebrew – another example of how sports are a universal language. Some of these girls were really good; I enjoyed playing with them. My problem is that practices are twice a week, Sundays and Wednesdays, and I still want to check out frisbee this Wednesday. So I guess I’ll make a decision in the near future about which one I’ll do. Maybe basketball only on Sundays, if the coach doesn’t mind.

This afternoon I went food shopping again and learned how to say “crushed garlic” and bought a Teflon pan so that I can start attempting to feed myself with food that is not straight out of the refrigerator. I’ve progressed from sandwiches in cafes to cold cuts and hummus with cucumbers to instant chicken broth to vegetable stir fry with frozen vegetables to stir fry with fresh broccoli. Personally, I think that’s a good amount of positive improvement. I bought some noodles today so at least I can have chicken noodle soup minus chicken, and I got some carrots with one of my friends so they might make an appearance in the soup as well. Stay tuned for
more thrilling updates on my Israeli diet.

I still have to write about my trip to Tel Aviv! But I have to do my homework before our next salsa dancing lesson tonight (I think about a quarter of the beginners level will be comprised of American overseas students this week…) so hopefully in the near future I’ll have the chance to give a better explanation for the pictures I linked last post. Oh, also my amazing space heater is making a strange clicky noise which is upsetting me. I might have knocked it over or something.

Hope everything back home is going well (and in Spain, Laurel) and I’ll talk to you later!

Love,

Ilana