Classes started yesterday, which was exciting! Ish. Exciting-ish. It was great because I don't have class until 12:30 on Sundays (which, okay, class on Sundays? Class on Sundays?? I still can't get used to it) so I got to sleep in a bit, although I was so exhausted last night after getting back from the Negev that I could hardly stay awake anyway.
The Negev was great! We went on a five hour hike along a dried out river trail the first day, which was also, incidentally, the day I peed outside for the first time in probably fifteen years or so. It was an exciting day, what can I say. The hike itself was very long but fun. Most of it was not too strenuous so we could look around at the incredible emptiness of the desert. Some of the views were absolutely stunning. At the end we basically climbed a small mountain and looked out over the most vast expanse you can imagine. We talked about the flash floods that can come through the area and carve out the rock formations you can see on the ground. At the top of the mini-mountain we saw the path of one of these flash floods, which ended in a waterfall. Right at the edge of the fall was this great tree (what is it with me and trees these days? Maybe it's because there are so few here!), all grown in funny angles and wizened and just stuck there, like no way was some flash flood going to get the better of it! Or maybe that's me doing that English major thing and anthropomorphizing. Whatever.
The second day was another hike, this time only three hours, about half an hour of which consisted of bug hunting. I stayed far away from that one, let me tell you. It was stupidly hot so I mostly hid in the shade while my fellow hiking people oohed and ahhed about a scorpion and a centipede getting in a fight to the death. Which is cool I guess, if the thought of scorpions doesn't make your skin crawl. The rest of the hike was good, we learned about porcupines and did a lot of walking in the sun. A lot. Boy am I sunburned. But it was good.
There was also a lot of eating, and the food at the hostel we stayed at in Arad was delicious. DELICIOUS. Man. I miss that food. We drove back in the evening, and I basically fell asleep as soon as we got back.
Yesterday's classes were...a mixed bag. My first class, Religious Trends in Judaism, was sort of interesting but sort of not. I'm not sure if I'm keeping it, although the professor was very nice and told some good stories. My second class was a required class for my internship (which is still, unfortunately, up in the air) and the professor, though nice, was really very boring. My last class though, was awesome! It's late, at 6:30, but I still think I'll keep it because my professor was engaging (and adorably British) and the class was by far the most interesting one I've taken. We'll see how it goes today, I have my children's literature class in Hebrew in about an hour. I'll keep y'all posted.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Bibleosity? Bibleness? Biblicality? Whatever.
Thursday is my last day of Ulpan (or Intensive Language Program). Tomorrow I have my class final, and then the day after I'm taking the level final, so that I can test out of Hebrew. Then hopefully, I'll be freed of the never ending confusion of Hebrew verb conjugation and the (seemingly) eternal question, "Does a yud go here or not?", usually asked with a few more question and exclamation marks and accompanied by a tearing out of the hair. Which actually, can only help right, seeing as I already have too much hair for my own good. But moving away from hair (incidentally, today I realized that my motto these days, and by these days I mean since I cut my hair right before leaving for college in a totally cliched "Let me be freeee!" move, is "Hair before sleep." I wonder what that says about me), let's talk about how happy I will be to say goodbye the cursed (and this is said, a la Shakespeare, with emphasis on the second syllable) Ulpan.
It's not that I don't like learning Hebrew. I really do. Honest. My brain has just reached capacity. Yesterday I learned Hebrew from 8:30 to 4, pretty much straight. I seriously thought my brain was going to slide slowly out my ear and land on the ground with a disgusting splatting sound, waving a white flag. "I give!" my brain would say. "Just speak English to me!"
And yes, I am aware that brains do not a) move on their own or b) talk. But you know, given the level of Hebrew inundation I was suffering from, I don't think you can blame me for this one.
On a much more interesting note, I learned something cool in class the other day. Apparently this Israeli composer/poet type person was trying to invent a Hebrew word for "illusion" which we pronounce "iloozia" in Hebrew. He came up with "אילו זה היה", which means "if only it was so," and which we would pronounce "eeloo zeh hayah." Awesomely, this sounds a lot like iloozia. I dunno, I thought it was cool. And so creative!
Moving on from my dorkitude. This past weekend the university arranged a trip to the Dead Sea and the Ein Gedi springs nearby. I am mentioning this because, obviously, I went. The hike to the springs was the most intense thing I've done since Half Dome in Yosemite a couple summers ago, and not nearly as long thankfully (seven hours to get there and back! It was nuts!). But the thing I remember most, besides the truly incredible waterfalls, the overhanging cliffs and caves, the intense greenery, the fascinating colors of the rocks, and the view of Jordan across the water, is the feeling I got when I was sitting by the spring itself, with my feet in the cool water, hearing the water gushing from underground and filling the pool up. Our guide told us that no one is sure how long it takes the water to reach the springs, but they estimate that the water coming out now is 400 years old. I find that unbelievable. There was this stunning tree that grew right by the water and its branches reached over and across from both sides, meeting in the middle and hanging down low over the water, forming this sort of roof over the spring. The wood was pale and there were no leaves, and I couldn't even tell if it was alive at all, or if it was just dead wood, but there was this intensely beautiful, peaceful feeling about it, despite the thirty-something students gathered around it, talking and taking photos and generally being bothersom. When I was looking at the tree, and the blue blue sky you could see between the branches, it was like there was no one there, just me and the spring, and maybe Abraham or someone about to come around the corner.
And that's what I feel whenever I see the landscape in Israel. It's so...biblical, if that makes any sense. There's this feeling, when you look at the green hills and the brown desserts and the boulders scattered everywhere, that Israel has been, and always will be the same. It's not going to change for anyone, especially not its current, transitory, and constantly argumentative tenants, be they Palestinians, Israelis, or somewhere in between. Israel is the land of ancient stories, old beliefs, and older spirituality and the permanence is comforting.
But maybe I'm thinking about it too hard. Most likely I am. The Dead Sea was incredible too, and pretty much just as salty as you would expect from water that's 33% salt. Let me tell you, friends, that is a lot of salt to get in the little cuts in your feet from the hike and the pointy, salt-encrusted rocks. But I'm happy to report that the stories are indeed true. You can float in the Dead Sea and it just carries you along. It's the most relaxing feeling in the world. Except maybe getting out and eventually getting your feet to stop stinging.
It's not that I don't like learning Hebrew. I really do. Honest. My brain has just reached capacity. Yesterday I learned Hebrew from 8:30 to 4, pretty much straight. I seriously thought my brain was going to slide slowly out my ear and land on the ground with a disgusting splatting sound, waving a white flag. "I give!" my brain would say. "Just speak English to me!"
And yes, I am aware that brains do not a) move on their own or b) talk. But you know, given the level of Hebrew inundation I was suffering from, I don't think you can blame me for this one.
On a much more interesting note, I learned something cool in class the other day. Apparently this Israeli composer/poet type person was trying to invent a Hebrew word for "illusion" which we pronounce "iloozia" in Hebrew. He came up with "אילו זה היה", which means "if only it was so," and which we would pronounce "eeloo zeh hayah." Awesomely, this sounds a lot like iloozia. I dunno, I thought it was cool. And so creative!
Moving on from my dorkitude. This past weekend the university arranged a trip to the Dead Sea and the Ein Gedi springs nearby. I am mentioning this because, obviously, I went. The hike to the springs was the most intense thing I've done since Half Dome in Yosemite a couple summers ago, and not nearly as long thankfully (seven hours to get there and back! It was nuts!). But the thing I remember most, besides the truly incredible waterfalls, the overhanging cliffs and caves, the intense greenery, the fascinating colors of the rocks, and the view of Jordan across the water, is the feeling I got when I was sitting by the spring itself, with my feet in the cool water, hearing the water gushing from underground and filling the pool up. Our guide told us that no one is sure how long it takes the water to reach the springs, but they estimate that the water coming out now is 400 years old. I find that unbelievable. There was this stunning tree that grew right by the water and its branches reached over and across from both sides, meeting in the middle and hanging down low over the water, forming this sort of roof over the spring. The wood was pale and there were no leaves, and I couldn't even tell if it was alive at all, or if it was just dead wood, but there was this intensely beautiful, peaceful feeling about it, despite the thirty-something students gathered around it, talking and taking photos and generally being bothersom. When I was looking at the tree, and the blue blue sky you could see between the branches, it was like there was no one there, just me and the spring, and maybe Abraham or someone about to come around the corner.
And that's what I feel whenever I see the landscape in Israel. It's so...biblical, if that makes any sense. There's this feeling, when you look at the green hills and the brown desserts and the boulders scattered everywhere, that Israel has been, and always will be the same. It's not going to change for anyone, especially not its current, transitory, and constantly argumentative tenants, be they Palestinians, Israelis, or somewhere in between. Israel is the land of ancient stories, old beliefs, and older spirituality and the permanence is comforting.
But maybe I'm thinking about it too hard. Most likely I am. The Dead Sea was incredible too, and pretty much just as salty as you would expect from water that's 33% salt. Let me tell you, friends, that is a lot of salt to get in the little cuts in your feet from the hike and the pointy, salt-encrusted rocks. But I'm happy to report that the stories are indeed true. You can float in the Dead Sea and it just carries you along. It's the most relaxing feeling in the world. Except maybe getting out and eventually getting your feet to stop stinging.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
In Which Jasmine Talks Family
Whoops, it's been a couple days. My bad. I kept meaning to updated but I'm afraid my blog posts will revert to their former incarnation of: This is what I did today and then I did this and then I did this. For the sake of updating about my life: class is boring and homework is tedious. Today we read a sad story about a little boy who gets a piggy bank and fills it up to save up for a toy. But he ends up totally loving his piggy bank (he names it and everything), and then his father tries to smash it to get the money out, and the boy gets upset. He ends up going out and leaving the piggy bank (still full of money) in a field so his father won't get to it. It was really depressing! He was never going to see his best friend the piggy bank again. And yes, I realize how silly this sounds but seriously. It was sad. Anyways, now I think I have something much more interesting and important to write about, and that is how awesome my cousins are, plus the rest of my family.
I have two first cousins and they are both great! I have a small family in general: my dad is an only child and my mom only has one brother, hence the two cousins. I have some other second cousins or something but we're not close and I actually don't even know how they're related to me. My entire family besides my parents and my siblings (plus some distant family in Brazil - random, right? Apparently they moved there right before World War II) lives in Israel. When I was younger, my family would fly over every summer to spend about a month here, staying with my grandparents and seeing old family friends. My cousins would come visit once or twice during that month, and when we were younger it was great. My older cousin (who is turning 23 on Friday) and I would make scavenger hunts for my brother, my sister, and my younger cousin, now 19. We wrote the clues in Hebrew and English so everyone could understand and hid them throughout my grandfather's apartment. The prize was always something small we could scrape together on the spot - a handful of chocolate coins, or some candy from my grandmother's cabinet, where she kept the sweet things she liked to give us. We made human pyramids in the dirt backyard under my grandfather's apartment, surrounded by all the stray cats Israel is so well known for. We were great friends in the easy way young children have.
When I started my sophomore year of high school, I got busy. I had homework and summer work and a volunteering job. There were things I had to do during the summer that couldn't be put on hold to go away for a month and bake in front of the air conditioning. I missed my own brother's bar mitzvah because I couldn't make it to Israel - and that's something that I will most likely never stop feeling guilty about, although I'm pretty sure at this point he could care less. But the main idea is that I was busy all the time. So the summer before my junior year was the last time I flew to Israel with my family. I didn't go back until last winter, during my second year of college.
By then, quite a lot had changed. My grandfather had been living alone for about ten years by that point (my maternal grandmother passed away in 1999 and she was, I'm convinced, the greatest woman I have ever met), and he was about to turn 90. Fortunately, he was still in good health. My other grandmother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and the disease had been taking a serious toll. By that point, she didn't know who I was. My father's father, while still mostly sound in mind, couldn't walk without a cane and someone holding him up.
Then I saw my cousins. Without my noticing, they had sprung up about ten feet, cut their hair and become young men. They were soldiers: my younger cousin does something to do with tanks and support teams and my older cousin is a paratrooper and an officer. When I met them for the first time in four years, everything for all of us was different. I realized that I wanted to be their friend again like I had been, but now I had no idea how. I think that that, along with not seeing my grandmother before she lost her memories of me completely, is one of the things that I most regret about not making it back to Israel during those four years, and when I flew back to the States, that new distance between my cousins and me stayed with me.
But now things are changing again. I'm here in Israel, and I'll be here for the longest time I've ever spent in the country: just about four months now. I saw my cousins last weekend and it was weird and a little awkward and generally amazing. The idea that I can see them in about two weeks again is mind-blowing for me! The fact that I could get on a bus and go visit my grandparents is unbelievable.
What's the point? The point is this: I love my family to death, but it's always been death at a distance. Now I have the chance to make it up to them and to myself by actually getting to know them and being around them. And I can't wait.
I have two first cousins and they are both great! I have a small family in general: my dad is an only child and my mom only has one brother, hence the two cousins. I have some other second cousins or something but we're not close and I actually don't even know how they're related to me. My entire family besides my parents and my siblings (plus some distant family in Brazil - random, right? Apparently they moved there right before World War II) lives in Israel. When I was younger, my family would fly over every summer to spend about a month here, staying with my grandparents and seeing old family friends. My cousins would come visit once or twice during that month, and when we were younger it was great. My older cousin (who is turning 23 on Friday) and I would make scavenger hunts for my brother, my sister, and my younger cousin, now 19. We wrote the clues in Hebrew and English so everyone could understand and hid them throughout my grandfather's apartment. The prize was always something small we could scrape together on the spot - a handful of chocolate coins, or some candy from my grandmother's cabinet, where she kept the sweet things she liked to give us. We made human pyramids in the dirt backyard under my grandfather's apartment, surrounded by all the stray cats Israel is so well known for. We were great friends in the easy way young children have.
When I started my sophomore year of high school, I got busy. I had homework and summer work and a volunteering job. There were things I had to do during the summer that couldn't be put on hold to go away for a month and bake in front of the air conditioning. I missed my own brother's bar mitzvah because I couldn't make it to Israel - and that's something that I will most likely never stop feeling guilty about, although I'm pretty sure at this point he could care less. But the main idea is that I was busy all the time. So the summer before my junior year was the last time I flew to Israel with my family. I didn't go back until last winter, during my second year of college.
By then, quite a lot had changed. My grandfather had been living alone for about ten years by that point (my maternal grandmother passed away in 1999 and she was, I'm convinced, the greatest woman I have ever met), and he was about to turn 90. Fortunately, he was still in good health. My other grandmother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and the disease had been taking a serious toll. By that point, she didn't know who I was. My father's father, while still mostly sound in mind, couldn't walk without a cane and someone holding him up.
Then I saw my cousins. Without my noticing, they had sprung up about ten feet, cut their hair and become young men. They were soldiers: my younger cousin does something to do with tanks and support teams and my older cousin is a paratrooper and an officer. When I met them for the first time in four years, everything for all of us was different. I realized that I wanted to be their friend again like I had been, but now I had no idea how. I think that that, along with not seeing my grandmother before she lost her memories of me completely, is one of the things that I most regret about not making it back to Israel during those four years, and when I flew back to the States, that new distance between my cousins and me stayed with me.
But now things are changing again. I'm here in Israel, and I'll be here for the longest time I've ever spent in the country: just about four months now. I saw my cousins last weekend and it was weird and a little awkward and generally amazing. The idea that I can see them in about two weeks again is mind-blowing for me! The fact that I could get on a bus and go visit my grandparents is unbelievable.
What's the point? The point is this: I love my family to death, but it's always been death at a distance. Now I have the chance to make it up to them and to myself by actually getting to know them and being around them. And I can't wait.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
In Which Jasmine...Philosophizes?
Today in class we had a lecture on Parashat Hashavuah (which means basically the interpretation of the week from the Tanakh). Every week on Shabbat a new section of the Tanakh is read and discussed in synagogue, and so we got a glimpse today. We read a section about Moses and God that I loved and had interpreted to us. In essence, it's about the 10 Commandments that Moses receives from God and how Satan tries to find where them to destroy or taint them in some way. He goes around asking the earth and the sea where the commandments are and each time they say that they don't have them. Then he goes to man and asks Moses and Moses tells him, "Who me?! (literally, they wrote ?! in the Bible, it was so exciting for me) I'm nothing. That God should give the Commandments to me?!" etc and obviously he's lying but Satan believes it and goes away. Then God basically says, "Dude you totally lied" (and I'm translating only somewhat liberally here) and, as we discussed, where most people would say "Yeah, I'm sorry, I did lie, my bad. But I was doing it to save the Commandments from Satan!" Moses says, "But I didn't lie. The very idea of someone so insignificant like me having such a sacred thing as the Commandments is ridiculous." And then everything is happy.
The lesson, I think, is one in humility. These days, humility means sitting on the side and not saying anything about yourself which, most "humble" people hope, only highlights just how humble they are. This is pretty cynical, I know, but I think we live in a much more passive aggressive world than in the past, and I'm just calling it how I see it. Of course not everyone is like this and thankfully there are still truly humble people in the world, but I just think the passage highlights the difference. To Moses, humility means truly and completely believing in his inferiority to God and in his general unimportance--which is what makes him so important! Our lecturer talked about how in being so humble, in considering himself to be nothing, he was always an empty vessel, and an empty vessel is always ready to receive things. If we consider ourselves to be full (as in someone important, with no room for God to add anything) than we're missing out on the great gifts that God can give us.
And while I may not believe in God (or let's say, the vote is still out), I think the lesson in humility is one that transcends the religious. I do not need to believe in God to know that I don't know everything, and to know that the small amount I do know can only be added to and supplemented by being ready to listen and to accept the gifts that others are so eager to offer. God is just, maybe, to some of us, the most eager of those gift-givers.
The lesson, I think, is one in humility. These days, humility means sitting on the side and not saying anything about yourself which, most "humble" people hope, only highlights just how humble they are. This is pretty cynical, I know, but I think we live in a much more passive aggressive world than in the past, and I'm just calling it how I see it. Of course not everyone is like this and thankfully there are still truly humble people in the world, but I just think the passage highlights the difference. To Moses, humility means truly and completely believing in his inferiority to God and in his general unimportance--which is what makes him so important! Our lecturer talked about how in being so humble, in considering himself to be nothing, he was always an empty vessel, and an empty vessel is always ready to receive things. If we consider ourselves to be full (as in someone important, with no room for God to add anything) than we're missing out on the great gifts that God can give us.
And while I may not believe in God (or let's say, the vote is still out), I think the lesson in humility is one that transcends the religious. I do not need to believe in God to know that I don't know everything, and to know that the small amount I do know can only be added to and supplemented by being ready to listen and to accept the gifts that others are so eager to offer. God is just, maybe, to some of us, the most eager of those gift-givers.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
In Which Jasmine Is Scatterbrained
Today was pretty much like yesterday, and the day before, etc. We had an improv hour in class today, which was excellent. In one part, we had to memorize a couple short lines from Waiting for Godot and then act them out for the class in different styles. My partner and I were very angry, boxers, and opera singers, and we got thunderous applause after each little part because we were totally great! I was shaking when I sat down though; getting up in front of people never ceases to terrify me (when I was in choir in high school I had the solo for a song that we performed and I spent the entire song trying not to show how much my knees were knocking together. Literally, knocking together). But it was fun too, and I was glad I did it and didn't punk out or just half-act.
I got a good grade on my test too, which sort of made my day. It's nice to know that despite the fact that I suck at grammar, I am still awesome at Hebrew.
Tonight I have to write an essay, and tomorrow I have an interview to help match me with an internship. I found some truly incredible places I would love to work with this semester: one of them is a bilingual school on the border of the Palestinian territory that teaches both Israeli and Palestinian kids together in the same classroom and I would get to tutor them in English. The other really awesome one is another tutoring gig, but with adults who need to improve their English before getting a degree in Education. And the last one is as a teacher's aide at a school for autistic kids. I'm so excited! I love teaching so much.
I got a good grade on my test too, which sort of made my day. It's nice to know that despite the fact that I suck at grammar, I am still awesome at Hebrew.
Tonight I have to write an essay, and tomorrow I have an interview to help match me with an internship. I found some truly incredible places I would love to work with this semester: one of them is a bilingual school on the border of the Palestinian territory that teaches both Israeli and Palestinian kids together in the same classroom and I would get to tutor them in English. The other really awesome one is another tutoring gig, but with adults who need to improve their English before getting a degree in Education. And the last one is as a teacher's aide at a school for autistic kids. I'm so excited! I love teaching so much.
Monday, February 1, 2010
In Which Jasmine Is Crazy (Part I)
The title of this blog post is Part I because I have no doubt that there will be many such posts in the future.
Nothing much has been happening, to be quite honest. The night before last I had a crazy dream in which Adam Lambert was a good vampire who rode a big, black, fluffy dog and I was Kris Allen, his trusty sidekick (who kept hitting on him, whoops). It was a good time and then I woke up! Damn having to get up at 7 to go to class.
Today my friend Adina got some bad family news and was upset all day. We went to the Kotel (Western Wall) tonight and prayed. I don't know, I always feel so "blah" about it until I actually get there and then I just feel sort of speechless and impossibly reverent. It felt particularly special because we got there just as the Muslim call to prayer was sounding, which I think is completely gorgeous. We prayed with the sounds of so many others praying with us echoing in our ears.
Now, on a much less reverent note, I'm doing homework and listening to the Jonas Brothers. They are the best thing ever and I don't care what you all say. Trust me. No, really. I hope you all are having good Mondays!
Nothing much has been happening, to be quite honest. The night before last I had a crazy dream in which Adam Lambert was a good vampire who rode a big, black, fluffy dog and I was Kris Allen, his trusty sidekick (who kept hitting on him, whoops). It was a good time and then I woke up! Damn having to get up at 7 to go to class.
Today my friend Adina got some bad family news and was upset all day. We went to the Kotel (Western Wall) tonight and prayed. I don't know, I always feel so "blah" about it until I actually get there and then I just feel sort of speechless and impossibly reverent. It felt particularly special because we got there just as the Muslim call to prayer was sounding, which I think is completely gorgeous. We prayed with the sounds of so many others praying with us echoing in our ears.
Now, on a much less reverent note, I'm doing homework and listening to the Jonas Brothers. They are the best thing ever and I don't care what you all say. Trust me. No, really. I hope you all are having good Mondays!
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