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

Pictures from my trip so far:


http://tufts.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2067757&l=4fa6d&id=1708389

(the link should work even if you don't have facebook)

I feel like I haven’t sat down and documented everything that’s been going on around here for a while, so I’ll try to start from where I left off without leaving anything out. I did end up going to the pickup frisbee game, though it was raining and kind of muddy so even though about eight people had shown up, it was cancelled anyway. I’m still glad I went since I got to meet the people who play and I’ll try to go again this week.

Our head counselor, Liat, organized a volunteering fair for us last week where representatives from local non profits and organizations on and off campus came to the university to talk to us about different opportunities we could sign on for over the semester. One student spoke about the possibility of working with Bedouin students at the university on their English and tutoring in any way that could be helpful. Many of the Bedouin students come from areas deficient in resources (water, hospital care) where the education system is lacking as well, especially in comparison to schools in other parts of Israel. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to learn more about Bedouin culture and practice my Arabic while teaching at the same time, which is something I really enjoy.

Liat also organized a movie night for us where we watched an Israeli film called Yossi and Jagger. The film had been shown in the Boston Jewish film festival a few years ago and I had wanted to see it since then, so I was excited to see it. The story was basically of a group of soldiers stationed on the northern border. The commander/head guy of the unit and one of his soldiers were in a secret relationship (no one knew that either of them was gay). The unit finds out that they must go on an ambush that night, and while I won’t give away the ending, the movie definitely gives you a good understanding of why Israelis call films with happy endings “American movies.” Everyone who comes to Israel comments on the ubiquitous presence of soldiers on the streets, in restaurants, on the beach, basically, in every public place. I should be used to it by now, and to some degree, I am used to guns over shoulders and bag laden Israelis peers heading home for the weekend on the train. The part that I have more trouble digesting is the reality of perpetual war and that the honor of serving in an army, and specifically in an elite unit, means that death is that much more present in a person’s life (how ironic sounding). We just finished a movie in my Ulpan class that sends the point home extremely hard called “Chatsotsra b’Wadi,” or A Trumpet in the Wadi. It is based on a book by Sami Michael about a romance between an Israeli immigrant from Russia and a Christian Arab woman living in the same apartment building near Haifa, a city mixed with Arabs and Jews. I’d definitely recommend the movie (though the subtitles were in Hebrew and Arabic, I’m not sure if English was an option) and I read the book in English a few years ago and I think I liked that too.

One of the girls in Ulpan with us right now is from Iowa and is Baptist. I’ve had a bunch of interesting discussions with her about our respective religions which is pretty cool. I’m basically surprised at how much I have retained from my 13 years of Jewish education (cue parents: sign of relief) but there’s also a lot I suppose I’ve glossed over. I’ve never been great at remembering dates and orders of events so when she started to ask me about when certain texts were written I started to blank out. Anyway, trying to explain Judaism in 20 minute segments has been a challenging exercise but one I wasn’t expecting and one I enjoy.
Speaking of culture gaps, I guess I’ll end with an account of the different ways I’ve been intimidated/screwed by your typical Israeli. A bunch of friends and I went out to a falafel joint one evening and wanted falafel sandwiches in pitot, but the guy had run out of pita (he only had 3 and there were 5 of us). So, he made us a “special deal.” We would get a plate of falafel and a plate of whichever salads we wanted, and he cut each pita in half so that we’d each have at least some, plus he made us up a batch of fries. A regular falafel in pita cost 11 shekels or so (that’s about $3), and somehow he calculated that we each owed him 12 shekels. Something about how he made us all the fries. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t supposed to happen, but none of us were in the mood to argue in Hebrew so we let it go. This is why the Israelis always win. I know I’m helping losing the war of manipulation of the tourists but sometimes arguing over 50 cents just doesn’t seem worthwhile.

I also was originally going to buy an Israeli cell phone so that members of my family who make future trips to Israel wouldn’t have to rent a phone every time. However, when I walked into the phone store and observed the tables lining the walls each manned by a phone representative and took in the animated jabbering coming from both sides of each table surrounding me, I didn’t want to stomach it and decided I’d just buy a sim card before the end of the trip and stick it into a Nokia I’d buy off ebay when I got home. The taxi driver thing I can somewhat handle, but cell phone people are evil even in America.

I still have to write about my Tel Aviv trip from this past weekend but I’ve been sitting in the laundry room for about an hour and I’m kind of sick of it so I’ll take a break and write some more later.

Love,
Ilana

Hi Everyone!

Had two pretty long days today and yesterday so I’ll try to summarize in a way that at least partially makes sense. Yesterday we had some more orientation activities where people came to speak to us about health insurance, security issues, our Hebrew classes, and some other things, I can’t really remember. Wasn’t overwhelmingly interesting.

Note: After I wrote the paragraph above I ended up just making a list of everything I wanted to write about cause I was so tired and ended up having a really busy day. I had full intentions to write again the day after that, but here I am three days later with a really long list of things to write about!

Last Sunday night a couple friends and I decided to check out the pool at the university gym, which is conveniently located right across from the dorms where we’re all staying. On the way to the pool, I peeked into the basketball courts, and my eyes fell upon a magnificent sight: Four GIRLS playing basketball! I didn’t think Israelis even played basketball, let alone Israeli GIRLS! I asked one of them whether they were in some sort of league and whether I could play, and she said that I probably could, I’d just have to get some kind of health stress-test examination. Whatever, who knows. I plan on showing up next Sunday and seeing how it goes, so I’m really pumped for that. The pool was ok, by the way, nothing special, except that it was really steamy in there (it wasn’t exactly indoors, it sort of reminded me of a greenhouse), which hopefully gives you an idea of how cold it gets at night out here.

Right before we’d left to go swimming, we’d stopped by the room of a friend to see if he wanted to come and ended up meeting one of his Israeli roommates (Deedee… I’m probably spelling that wrong), who coincidentally is a friend of one of my roommates (Moran). Later that night as I stood brushing my teeth in my pajamas, who bursts in the door of the apartment, but Deedee. Deedee, Moran and I ended up sitting in her room for an hour or so playing Israeli rock songs on her guitar (this guy is seriously insane but hilarious… I ran into him again at Salsa dancing last night). That was really cool, I swear I’m having the dream-dorm experience, I feel so lucky! By the way, I met Larissa (my last roommate) and she seems pretty cool but I haven’t seen her much since. My second roommate (whose name I still can’t remember! Grr…) is so sweet, she made me tea last night and is always so upbeat and friendly.

Obviously one of my favorite parts of Israel is the food. I just can’t wrap my head around the fact that I can walk into the grocery store and buy the same cheap deli meat as everybody else and it’s kosher!! I’ve been eating this smoked chicken breast for a few days now, I just bought some more this afternoon. I eat it with a cucumber usually (Israeli cucumbers are only about 1.5 inches in diameter on average, I’d say), it’s amazing. Also, their yogurt is way better than ours, I usually have a cup during our morning Ulpan break. It’s so good! I had kiwi flavored today and yesterday I had cappuccino.

Speaking of Ulpan. Quick explanation: Ulpan is Hebrew immersion class, generally for new immigrants, but we’re taking it since we’re spending the term here and need to be competent Hebrew speakers during our stay. My teacher seems pretty cool, she came to Israel from Hungary when she was 4 and has lived in Be’er Sheva all of her life. She recommended a good falafel place to my class so I think we’ll check it out one day when Ulpan ends. We’re in class from 8:30 to 10 then have a break till 10:30, then class again from 10:30 to 12. I’m in the most advanced class so we are each supposed to present something from the news in Hebrew and we discuss it and usually get a good amount of vocabulary out of each topic. The first time I talked about an Israeli version of Restaurant Week (an event in a bunch of American cities where you can get a gourmet three course meal for a flat rate of $30 or so) and today I talked about the popularity of Macs in Israel (found the articles in the newspaper Haaretz). The second session, after break, is spent on grammar. After 12, we’re out for the day! It’s awesome having the whole afternoon to do whatever we want.

I’ve jogged a couple times before Ulpan with one of my friends who lives in my apartment building/section which is nice, it’s a good way to get up and start the day but it can be absolutely freezing! The first time we ran north into one of the nicer areas of the city called Ramot, and the second time we ran south towards the old city but didn’t get too far before we had to turn around so I don’t really know what’s down there yet. Apparently on Thursdays a Bedouin market is open in the old city so I’m hoping to take a look at that tomorrow and maybe buy a rug for my freezing tile floor. Then I wouldn’t have to splurge on slippers.

After a bunch of hassle I have internet in my room! This is good because my schedule now doesn’t revolve around when I can get to the computer lab. (Even when I do get there, I can’t swipe in with my ID because I haven’t yet had to the chance lemagNet, or to magnetize, the magnetic strip on the card. Why they’re not pre-magnetized, I have no idea. Israelis are geniuses, I swear.) We had to go through this whole protocol to connect to the internet and the only instructions they gave us were for PCs. This meant a bunch of Mac users were totally confused on how to connect. To make a longish story short, I figured out how to do it for them and somehow I’m now considered the resident computer expert. This now means that people are asking me all kinds of questions I have no idea how to answer relating to everything from itunes to bit torrent to why AIM doesn’t work (no clue about that one, and it’s really annoying!) so I feel kind of bad/useless now but oh well. At least they got online…

There are all kinds of things to do on campus here. So far I’ve heard about at least one event every night and a lot of the overseas students have been checking them out together. We went to a piano/guitar/vocals performance a few nights ago and as I mentioned earlier, I went salsa dancing last night. Many events are held in bomb shelters around campus. No reason to let a big underground room go to waste, right? Now, what’s funny is that at Tufts, every time there is a free dance lesson, it’s completely dominated by girls. The ratio of girls to guys is probably 2:1. Here, the ratio is the opposite, there were way too many extra guys. Culture gap much? Our teacher was kind of crazy and didn’t like when I translated some stuff into English for my friends but after a while I stopped listening to what he was saying anyway since it didn’t seem to make much sense. This might be why it took me about 8 partner switches to catch on to the dance, and let me tell you: Israeli pushiness does not mix well with beginners’ dance, especially when the Israeli is the leader. Anyway, I’ll probably be back next week to hone my skills. In the way beginning, before everyone split up into levels, they taught us a line dance to warm up. It turned out that it was a slightly tweaked version of the Electric Slide which basically cracked me up once I realized what was going on. As a side note, another line dance they taught us had a move deemed “drunk,” pretty goofy looking.

The other students in the Overseas program are really great. Everyone is just incredibly friendly and up for doing new things and we’ve been having a good time exploring/navigating the university, talking about Israel and religion, and going to different activities together. Some people have had a ton of experiences in Israel and some have only been on Birthright, and some have never been to Israel at all. I’m excited to meet new people and practice my Hebrew, etc., but I’m really glad to have the comfort of English whenever I need it. During our orientation weekend you could see the group start to fracture into smaller social circles but everyone is still friendly and we all spend time together.

Tonight our head Madricha (counselor) planned a volunteer fair where people from different organizations come to speak to us about volunteering opportunities over the course of the semester so I’m pretty psyched for that. Plus, later tonight I think I’ll be making an appearance at a local Be’er Sheva frisbee team practice so stay tuned for updates on that. (I’ve never played a sport in Hebrew!)

I’m basically really glad to be here. I’m probably still on a high from my first week but it’s gone better than I could have imagined so far and I’m feeling really positive about the whole experience. Who knows what it will be like when Ulpan ends and the real semester begins but so far I’m just taking it one day at a time and seeing what Be’er Sheva has to offer (aside from the amazing cheap food and taxi fares). Ani mitgaga’at eleichem (I miss you guys) and I hope everything is going well with you! Drop me a line when you get the chance.

Love,

Ilana

Hi guys!

I just got back from our orientation trip a couple hours ago, STILL no internet, STILL no phone (sorry family!), but wanting to write a little down so I don’t forget everything we did this weekend. On Friday we got up early and got on a bus that took us to Sde Boker, the village where David Ben Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, lived until he died. That was ok, I’d been there before but it was nice to see it again. Afterwards, we went on a little hike to this cool waterfall in the desert, it was really pretty. And a nice easy hike, which was nice.

Afterwards, we headed over to the kibbutz where we were spending Shabbat. The mattresses at this place were WAY nicer than the crap we sleep on in the dorms and we were all joking about stealing the comforters and pillows for here, except I don’t think any of us were really joking. After we settled in a little, anyone who wanted to lit candles and we did Kabbalat Shabbat, which I led! That was my first time leading ever which was kinda cool, except I kinda forgot how to do some parts.

On Saturday we just played some names games and went over this orientation packet they gave us with different kinds of information. I played cards with some girls from the group for a while trying to stay awake to ward off the jetlag which I think is finally under control. We left the kibbutz and could choose to be dropped off in a shopping center where I bought a blanket, a small rug (the floors here are really cold, especially after showering…) and some food. Then caught a taxi with some other girls (thank god my Hebrew is functional enough to do that) and came back to my room, where I finally met one of my roommates. Her name is Moran, she studies sociology, and she’s from the Jerusalem area. She offered to show my friends and I the computer room with internet so we all went down and I got to talk to my family which was really nice and sort through a bunch of emails I’ve gotten. Hopefully I’ll have internet in my room in the next few days (you’ll know when I do… cause you’ll be reading this) and I’ll be able to use Skype to talk to everyone.

Then when I got back from the computer lab, I met my other roommate, oh gosh, I just realized I already forget her name. Great start. She’s religious and keeps kosher which is convenient, except I sort of missed how she told me to use the microwave. Turns out another girl from Tufts who was abroad last year was her roommate then… small world, huh? Anyway, I drank tea with her and Moran and she gave me some cake and they seem really nice. There’s a third roommate, Larissa, who isn’t here right now; they say she’s hardly ever around. I guess I’ll meet her eventually. Ok I’m gonna go shower while the hot water is still on (I learned about hot water hours the hard way on Wednesday) and get to sleep since we have an early day tomorrow. I’ll talk to you soon! Miss you all.

Love,

Ilana

Hi guys,

It’s my first night here at 4:45 am and I can’t sleep for the life of me. I guess that’s what happens when you spent the last week of winter break staying up till 2 then try to go to sleep one night at 9:30. I figured I’d write a little about my first day here though there isn’t a whole lot to say yet.

The flight over was relatively uneventful; save for a few problems I had getting through JFK after flying there from Boston. I ended up sitting right in the middle of a group of Birthright kids which was nice, the two girls I sat between were pretty psyched to be going. On flight movies: Hairspray (amazing!), Ratatouille (also really good), and that movie with Matt Damon where he’s an assassin trying to figure out his true identity. That was ok, didn’t see the whole thing though. Turns out I had packed my headphones with the luggage I checked so had to keep myself busy with movies and attempted sleep. At least the former was successful…

When we arrived in Tel Aviv there was a bus waiting to take us to Be’er Sheva, the city where I’ll be studying. Haven’t seen much of the city yet so I’ll hold judgment on the parts I’ve seen thus far. We got our room assignments and we all have singles in small apartments of four rooms each. I haven’t met any of my roommates yet, I guess they’re home for the weekend. But there is a guitar lying out on a couch in the common area as well as a decorative fan on the wall, so I have high hopes for normalcy and potential coolness. Some of the apartments I’ve seen of other people on my program are much more stark so I suppose I’m in decent shape. But, I will say that I will appreciate American university furniture when I get back, especially the beds. This bed is about 2/3 the area of the beds at school and maybe three inches thick. I’ll send some pictures soon but I’m conserving camera battery since somehow that’s like the one thing I forgot.

Anyway, after we moved in they fed us pizza (I was hoping for some corn pizza, one thing I appreciate about pizza in Israel which inherently disgusts most Americans, but I had to default to cheese) and gave us our rented cell phones. I’m planning on buying one in the next couple days so I don’t have a phone yet. If you want to talk, I’m on Skype at ilana917. Then we “socialized” while eating (whatever conversation could be maintained while wolfing down pizza jetlaggedly).

When we got back from that I unpacked some more and then decided to take a walk. I ran into someone on the overseas program who said he was going over to another apartment to play cards, so I went over with him and hung out with him and two other girls (who like frisbee!) which was nice and definitely better than being alone in an empty apartment. Plus they were as bad at cards as I am so it was a good time.

Over the next couple of days we’re having an orientation Shabbat weekend at some kibbutz nearby to get to know each other a little better. By the time you get this I’ll already be done since they told us we don’t get internet till Sunday (really harsh, since I have an Ethernet cable and a jack but it’s firewalled). I miss you all a lot and can’t wait to talk to you. I hope you’re weathering the snow and cold (oh yeah, the weather was pretty nice yesterday but night gets pretty chilly) and I’ll talk to you later!

Love,

Ilana