Grad School, Elections, and other adventures of the past few weeks

I must start this blog entry, as promised, by mocking another friend's blog. Not that I find anything wrong about the blog. This can be a spoof, if you will.

The other day in my usual half asleep obstacle course that is getting ready for school I was faced with a critical decision. My lighter jeans or darker jeans? As someone who always cares how she's presented to the world, I quickly pulled out my phone and SMSed 50 of my closest friends and asked their opinion. Clearly I should just sign up for Twitter so frequent issues like this can be handled more easily. No, I did not care what else they could be doing at 7am. This was important. I got a response right away. It was the first cousin of the cashier I met while buying a train ticket in the US. It's not important why we're in touch with each other. He wrote darker jeans, so I did. Fifteen minutes later I was on the bus to school. The first person I saw on the bus got very excited when she saw me and said "You wear jeans? I love jeans! You should join me on this exciting project that has to do with clicky pencils. See, there's a business opportunity at every turn. You just have to be prepared, and social networking can make all the difference.

Okay, now that I've written a ridiculous story of which not one bit of it is true (though I did wear jeans to school the other day) just to make a point (I think), on to more important things...

School has begun! And it did so on time! Thanks to a bunch of politicians getting together and making useful negotiations, the universities in this country received enough funds to open their doors. I was relatively optimistic that it would work out, but considering my general optimism has been severely reduced since I moved here I was prepared for the worst. So on November 3rd, I began graduate school at Hebrew University.

So far so good. I can understand my professors for the most part, and I'm learning a lot of transliterated words that sound pretty ridiculous ("flashbackim" being one of my favorites). I'm just not sure Americans can pull off saying these words in an Israeli accent. I try to write as much down as I can. Not that I'm being told anything I haven't heard before. However since my entire grade relies on one paper or test at the end of the semester, I suppose I should keep track of what we talk about. I write my notes in a mix of Hebrew and English. If I can get the Hebrew words down on paper, I do. Or even if I just catch a phrase. Really my challenge is to pick up on the terminology in Hebrew. Though since it's mostly transliterated words, I just have to figure out how to spell them! My notes are an interesting mix of Hebrew and English. In every class there's someone sitting nearby staring over my shoulder. It's both amusing and annoying. Yeah, I know English, so instead of staring maybe cut a deal with me that you'll explain the terminology and I'll try to explain the reading. That's right-- almost all the reading is in English. I tried reading some of the Hebrew stuff... one article with more success than the other. For every class when my classmates spent up to ten minutes bemoaning the fact that they would have to read so much in English I sat back and celebrating the one thing that wouldn't be a challenge for me.

Who are my classmates? In my particular program it's all married women who have kids or are about to. And there's one guy. Still don't know his story because he kindly keeps quiet. There's a mix of religious and non-religious women, but I only know of one or two others that is not married. Makes sense given the nature of the program, but it definitely adds to my feeling of being the minority. Not that I suddenly wish that at age 24 I was married with kids and felt a desperate need to bring them up as examples for every situation. Or maybe they're talking about their own kids. They speak so quickly I have no idea. I'm just dreading the day my teacher turns to me and says "You've been quiet, what do you think?" While I've considered telling all my teachers right out that Hebrew isn't my first language, I'm trying to let them know in more subtle ways. Because I am in the administration track of my program I am in a few classes with a greater variety of students. Variety meaning there are multiple guys, but also women who may be married but do things outside the education field (like working for non-profit organizations). While the material of those classes is less than thrilling, it's more interesting to sit through. I am taking a class called Introduction to Trauma which in theory will be counted towards my program. My classmates are all involved in superly cool things like working in prisons and shelters and runaway homes and clinics. Maybe one of them can get me a job one day, or at least introduce me to other cool people.

I have had two weeks of school. The first week I tried to blend in. I wore what I thought were nondescript clothes. The second week I wanted to be very obviously American so I wore my UMD sweatpants. It's just interesting what makes me so... I guess WEIRD to the people I meet. "What's your first degree in?" "History" "What?" "History" "So what are you doing here?" "Learning to work with young children" "That's a dramatic change in fields." Unfortunately Israelis don't really get the concept of a liberal arts education. I can involve myself in the education field AND educate myself in worldy issues. Crazy, I know. The History geek in me is bigger than I thought. I'll get to that in a second. My other experience was with my homework partner for statistics class. Oh statistics... I told my sister (who just got a PhD in the field) that maybe statistics is more interesting in English, and she said she always assumed it was more interesting in Chinese. Anyway, my partner is a Russian immigrant who made aliyah as a kid. I met her on my first day and ran into her on my second day. She invited me to hang out with her on the grass and offered me a candy bar. This made me happy for lots of reasons. I'm interested in how my social integration into an Israeli school will work out. She asked me how I knew Hebrew, and I said I was taught it since I was 3. She assumed I had Israeli parents or something and I said no, I went to a religious school. She looked down. "But you're wearing pants, you're religious?" I responded that I don't like skirts. She looked confused. "I don't see religious girls who wear pants." Throughout the conversation she occasionally came back to this point. I told her about when I started UMD and was thinking that if people were really going to label me as non-religious that maybe I would decide to always wear skirts. Of course this didn't happen, for so many reasons, and I guess going to minyan every day was a fair indicator that I'm serious about what I do. I just wonder how my other classmates react if they knew that this crazy American with a BA in History who's trying to do an MA in Social Work in Hebrew just one year after arriving in the country is also religious but wears pants. So they think I'm strange. I think they're all really strange too. I told my roommates that I feel like the real Harriet the Spy (from the books) sometimes in class when I don't get what's going on so instead I look around and jump to fun and interesting conclusions about the lives of everyone there.

Me as the History geek. Deep down inside a part of me just wants to go onto an MA in History and somehow come up with the stamina and intellectual whatever to delve into research and teaching for the rest of my life. Really can't see that happening, but in the meantime I am already missing what I switched majors for at UMD. One of my classes is called "Leadership in Education." The professor said that most of the material is History-related and that we will be taking what we learn and applying it to being leaders in education. My face lit up. History, yay! Humanities! I also started reading Barbara Tuchman's "Practicing History" in between classes. I finished the novel I was reading the first week. My mom was always trying to get me to read this book so obviously I didn't for awhile. Then I found it in the house in September and opened it up. It's awesome, highly recommended. It increases the number of weird looks I get, but gives me an important fix. I also wandered through the History section of the campus library. I could have done something practical like check out what Education and Social Work materials they have, but I couldn't resist. Maybe one day in like forty years I can be one of those old people taking history courses at a nearby university.

Elections. I don't know much about politics, but I am truly amazed at my friends' reactions towards Obama's victory in the US. Never saw much hope and enthusiasm among my peers like that. Here in Jerusalem we're also experiencing an exciting period of political change. Nir Barkat, a secular businessman, is going to be the next major of Jerusalem. His victory depended as much as his own supports coming out to vote as it did on the ultra orthodox staying home and not voting for his opponent (who posed a striking resemblance to Santa Claus). Jerusalem is a mess and a lot has to do with too much attention being given to some things and not enough attention to others. Nir Barkat's term will be five years. While I hope that by the end of the term I have been out of Jerusalem for awhile, what he accomplishes in this city is very important to me. Whether it be creating more affordable housing or fixing cracks in the sidewalks. It is so important for Jerusalem to live up to its potential.

And last but not least, though there are probably so many anecdotes I have to share that I can't remember at the moment... Speaking of Jerusalem, I've been doing a lot of reading about it. In Tanach that is. Probably in about an hour or so I will be reading the last chapter of Malachi thereby completing all of Neviim. About a year ago I set out to complete the Nach Yomi project, learning one chapter of Neviim/Ketuvim every day until I complete it. Most of the time it turned into seven chapters every shabbat, but for the most part I kept up. Many things inspired me to do this. Tanach is where it all begins. It's our first account of Jewish history. Last week we read Parashat Lech Lecha in which Avraham leaves his home and family to come to Israel (clearly something I could relate to this year-- more than ever). I'll probably write another blog post about this after shabbat because I think it's deserving of it's own space, but I am excited to share this accomplishment with everyone. Tomorrow I will start Tehilim, and in a year or so I will have finished Ketuvim as well. When I was at HaRova for the year I read through the Chumash, so when I finish Ketuvim I will have read every single word of the Tanach. As I said the rest of my thoughts will be in a future blog post. I didn't even get to write about celebrating various friends going into the army. Some are friends I grew up with, others are ones I met here. I'm so proud of all of them. But shabbat is creeping up on me, and I have to get to Raphi's house!