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.