A Special Shout-Out….

I just wanted to give a special shout-out to the following for having a birthday today:

Kenny Rogers
Israel President Shimon Peres
Wilt Chamberlain
Princess Margaret
Kim Cattrall (Samantha from Sex and the City)

….and, oh yeah, ME!

From my favorite E-Card site, someecards.com (I need a referral kick-back from those folks).

Birthday card to myself:

EDIT: I thought it might be fun to post the e-cards I’ve gotten from people here since most of them are soooooo wonderful and hilarious and it’s the closest thing to taping them to my wall as I can get.

From Val

From Les Metz

From Grandma and Grandpap (which was actually a really cool memorization game that I COMPLETELY failed but here’s the end of the card):

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Ulpan Gordon Breakdown

Technically, I’m starting my third week of class today. But with the four day school weeks and last weeks holidays, I’ve really only attended seven class sessions. In that time I’ve learned two things:

1. Foreign languages are both amusing and stressful. (Flashback to my Thai studies in college.)
2. Even though it seems like your classmates know what they’re doing, they are just as equally freaked out as you are.

I’m trying not to let the school completely overwhelm me since I’d also like to have a life. But there are days when I could easily have been walking home with pens jutting out of my eyes and I wouldn’t know the difference. Needless to say, my (English) writing is in a slump. Both americanbabble.com and patriotmissive.com are suffering from lack of updates, I think. I just need to remind myself that I can only do so much.

The schedule for class is as follows:

First hour: Esther (my highly amusing instructor) assaults our ears with conversational Hebrew. (examples: Where are you from? What time is it? Here is a sentence that’s really long and I’m saying very fast so you can’t understand a damn word, etc. )

30 minute break. Bee-line to the coffee machine, bathroom, liquor store…erm…I mean, refill water bottle. Chill with all the cool people in class and interrogate them for strange foreign quirks. Breathe.

Second & Third hours: Learn something new. Weep a little when Esther introduces another verb.

10 minute break. Stumble downstairs (class is on the third floor). Wander outside for a few minutes. Breathe.

Fourth hour: Writing and Reading. Esther says a word, we go up to the board and spell it. Welcome back to Kindergarten! This is the hour I look forward to all morning. I do surprisingly well at spelling Hebrew words. Don’t ask me what they mean though.

Side note about Hebrew verbs, nouns, adjectives…. hell…. just about every word that can possibly be jammed into a sentence. The language is uber gendered, meaning, the words change depending on who you are or who/what you’re talking about.

Since verbs are a special migraine for me, here’s an example: to speak. It’s simple enough in English, right? You speak. I speak. He speaks. She speaks. Nice and simple.

In Hebrew, “to speak” changes depending on if you’re a girl/boy, they are a girl/boy, or if there are more than one boys (or girls). ex: To speak (infinitive) = ledabare. to speak girl singular = medaberete. to speak (boy singular) medabere. to speak (girl plural) = medabrote. to speak (boy plural) = medabreem.

So, instead of memorizing just one verb form like in English, you’re memorizing five.  FIVE forms for one verb.

Care for me to explain the gendered adjectives and nouns too? I didn’t think so. Regardless, all parts of the sentence (subject, verb, predicate) need to be adjusted to form a gendered harmony in order to be correct.

This powerful gendered division seems archaic to Ms. Feminist Studies over here. But then again, Hebrew is one of the oldest language in the world. This is the bit where I think languages are amusing. Can I go so far as to say English has a leg up on Hebrew because of its lack of gender divisions? Is this one more reason why English deserves to be the “universal language”?

I find it pretty cool that I learned all of this plus the complete Hebrew alphabet and can read most words within the first week of class. I guess this language immersion thing really works, eh?

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First Day of Class: Shalom Kita Aleph

I spent three weeks prior to the start of school traveling the country and visiting several Israeli tourist attractions. It was a good decision to arrive early and allowing myself room to adjust and soak in the environment. But now I was about to get down and dirty with Israeli culture.

The Israelis are “famous” for a type of school they run called an ‘ulpan’. It features full language immersion as a means to learn faster and with greater accuracy. Focus on full language immersion, meaning, everything will be taught in Hebrew. Learning Hebrew by hearing Hebrew. This is what makes this type of school special.

My instinct is to say that it must be impossible to learn anything without translation. But this sort of school has been relatively successful. In fact, several other countries around the world have emulated this style of teaching; Wales, New Zealand, Scotland, Catalonia, etc.

And most importantly, it takes guts to throw yourself into this sort of situation. This is where I enter.

(above) Ulpan Gordon, Tel Aviv, Israel

(above) Entrance to Ulpan Gordon, Tel Aviv

When I walked into my classroom, there were already four classmates making introductions with each other. To my great pleasure, they were all speaking English although none of them with an American accent.

This is where my mind gets totally blown away by the diversity that is my ulpan class. My initial introduction to those first four people revealed that they were all from European nations; England, Switzerland, Italy, and Belgium. Very soon the room filled with the 35 or so students that had signed up for the class. I quickly learned that all of the students arrived from all over the world; Japan, Brazil, Australia, Russia, Uganda (no joke!), Korea, the United States…. I’m sure there are more countries to name but you get my point. Mind blowingly eclectic!

And the one unifying language we all spoke to each other with was English. Lucky me.

One of the girls from Switzerland sat next to me as the class started to settle for the instructor and we both admitted to being very curious and apprehensive about the courses teaching style; total language immersion.

From prodding E for Hebrew words plus a short lived language study course while I was in Iraq, I managed to pick up a few things of the language. But I wouldn’t admit to know enough to form a correct sentence. Talking with others on the first day, I could tell that most of the students were at the same level as myself.

The instructor, Esther, entered and greeted the class with a hearty Hebrew, “Boker tov!” (Good morning.) It was a decent start. A phrase a knew. Although the remainder of the day wouldn’t be so seamless.

For the next four hours, the class mimicked her words and paid close attention to her hands that were pointing and gesturing as a means to explain what she was saying. It was the most intense game of charades I’ve ever played.

This is what I comprehended the first hour:

Esther: “tfdk fwo djfiow jfdsl. YES, jkfd. fjdks YOU fjdks kfdjs NO dfjkwo UNDERSTAND fdjkofw.

Me: ………. blank stare.

But an interesting thing happened after the initial shock. We all started to comprehend. And soon enough, we were all telling each other our names… in Hebrew. After that, we were describing ourselves as students who are learning at Ulpan Gordon with the address of the building. It was strangely impressive!

Of course, I still felt blind to most of the words she was saying, but it’s amazing how quickly your brain can soak information when it has no other choice but to do so.

….more next time.

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The Fourth (and final) Exam

Tomorrow is my final (final) exam. But instead of studying….

I think I’m having some sort of existential crisis. After my Shakespeare exam today, I had an anxiety attack that would make Edvard Munch’s paintings look downright placid. After a few hours of being absolutely useless (I couldn’t eat, sit, stand, read, or sleep), I decided to think about my condition logically. After gnawing my fingernails to a nub and blowing out a bucket of fresh tear snot, I realized that since I joined the military seven years ago, my life had been planned. No matter if I agreed with those plans or not, it was decided. When a semester of school ended, I started another one. When I got deployment papers, I went to Iraq (or Kentucky, where I was banished to on my first deployment). But army or school obligations won’t exist anymore after tomorrow.

Now that they’re over, I want to take advantage of this time. I don’t want to start carting my resume/CV around yet. (Or do I?) This is my time to explore by my own free will and not the military’s will. (Right?) Instead, my head is in the toilet trying to puke up food that my nerves won’t stomach. For the first time in a long time I’m feeling very insecure and unsure of myself.

(I’ve used an awful lot of parentheses in this entry, by the way.)

I still can’t help feeling pressure to make the right decisions. I know that it’s perfectly natural to be overwhelmed after college graduation. But damn it! I haven’t graduated yet and I can’t study for my last exam in the state I’m in right now.

Note to self: Philosophical torture shouldn’t be scheduled for another 48 hours. Get a grip.

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The Third Exam

I’m losing steam. But good ol’ Shakespeare is here to make me laugh. Oh, you naughty Willy. Thou art such a cad!

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