First Day of School

Wow.

Now I remember why it is so much better to be a teacher than a student.

I came into my first day of school, nervous as a kid on his first day of school, and tentatively made friends with the people around me in Baylor room 306. We are all at around the same level of competence when it comes to Hebrew, so none of us felt shy about speaking with horrible grammar or long pauses when we searched for words, so everyone quickly got comfortable with everyone else. The class is a mix of Hebrew University students, Olim, and tourists, and everyone has their own background in terms of Hebrew that puts them at an advantage in some area and a disadvantage in others. Talia and I haven't spoken the language in several years and have no background in grammar, but have good(ish) vocabularies. Sergei learned his Hebrew in the army, so has a great vocabulary and very little grammar. And Elazar, a Japanese tourist, has just done the first two levels of Ulpan so has exactly the mix expected by the teacher. Yes, there are more than four students in the class, but no, I can't remember their names (some I've even tried to forget, like the girl who rooms with one of my students from Ulpana. When did 27 years old become 45?).

The classes were all fun - as fun as foreign language classes get, I suppose - and we had a mix of activities that I remember from elementary school: songs, poems, stories, question-and-answer periods, and the like. And we got homework, hurray!

After class, dinner, and homework, I met Ilana (my sister) at the Israel Museum for a wine tasting event. As we entered we found it interesting that most of the people in attendance were driving, but the spittoons scattered around the park were pretty empty. I guess that explains the stereotype about Israeli drivers. Anyways, the event was fun, and we tried a whole bunch of brands I'd never heard of (probably because we didn't realize until we were five booths in that only some of the products were kosher. Oops), but by the middle everything started to taste the same. Still delicious, but the same. Once it was over Ilana made plans to go out with friends, and I staggered home to sleep for a few hours before getting up at 6 a.m. for our first and last Friday Ulpan. Blech.