May 3, 2007

PS to May 2 - Taralyn! During the tour of the Jerusalem Center, I found out we have a squatter here! Haha! Is it sad that I'm actually a little excited about it? I'm definitely going to have to use it a few times... just for memory's sake.

Now back to May 3, 2007

The day started bright and early. My alarm went off at 5:30 so I could shower before breakfast at 6:30. (Knowing I had another roommate, Theresa, showering after me, too.) Oh, this is probably an appropriate time to tell you that I hate my converter. It doesn't work. Really, I only needed an adaptor, since all my appliances convert on their own. Bother. Needless to say, I keep borrowing adaptors from roommates and other people on the program to keep my computer going. I foresee this being a giant pain.

Breakfast was divine. Eggs, french toast, fruit, plus this amazing cinnamon mush/oatmeal kind of thing. The walnuts in it were a problem, but the mush itself was heaven. Then we headed to the forum (an auditorium) for yet another orientation that was supposed to last until 8:30, but went until 9. Here we re-met everyone, learned a bunch of new rules, etc. Then we split up into groups to do a reader's digest tour of Jerusalem. Get this. It rained. It never rains here during this time of year. At least, that's what we were told. But alas, it was definitely raining. Oh well, my hair hadn't looked so great when I left. (I really need to get used to using a curling iron as opposed to a flat iron. The burns on my neck, ear, and forehead will testify to that.) So the rain gave me an excuse to have crazy hair. :) And an excuse to wear my windbreaker! :D Half of our tour guides disappeared, so we joined forces and had extra large groups. Carli told me that you go down a hill, then up a hill to get to the city. I guess I hadn't realized that it was the Kidron Valley. That's quite the hill. Man, if I don't have calf muscles by the time I leave here, it will be no fault of my own nor the Center's. :) By the time we reached the top of the hill, the rain had stopped, the sun had come out, and I was sweating profusely. I took off my never-before worn jacket and had to laugh at the water spots all over it. I can testify that the rain in Jerusalem is dirty. Haha! Having gotten a late start, we had to be speedy. We took several detours so that we could walk by the favorite merchants who showered us with business cards, promises of good business, and here and there gifts. I got a pottery lamp (come back for oil and a wick!) as well as some really good orange drink. Really, they love us here. It's brilliant. Then we went through the Old City and saw the sights. Apparently the rain scared everyone off, because everyone was shocked at how few people were there.

I said it before, and I'll say it again, our guys are great. They have taken it upon themselves to be our protectors. I ended up walking with one guy, Daniel, that I had never talked to before and he took good care of me and a few other girls around. He picked about three of us and made sure we were there at all times. All the guys are ready to step between us and any threat at a moment's notice. It's really sweet and makes me feel very safe. It's nice to know that there are guys here that are willing to stand up for me, even if they don't know me. Nothing happened, though. But it's still nice to know for future. I ended up teaching Daniel a little bit of Hebrew. We'll see if he remembers. Mostly, I taught him the letter ש and the masculine plural ending, ימ, (except, for those of you who know what I'm talking about, make that a mem-soffit. I don't know how to do that on this keyboard and I'm too tired to look. :D) That took us to a conversation as to why Jerusalem is in the plural form. (It ends in -im) Our Israeli guides didn't know. They finally just told us that not everything ending in -im is plural. Look at Eloheim, for example. It's a tragedy that we can't talk religion here, because then I couldn't argue the point. I simply had to step back and accept his answer. So I emailed Carli today, and she told me that no one really knows. haha! I love it. So now this poor kid is even more confused. Oh well. He's trying to learn, and that's what's important.

On the subject of Hebrew and the -im ending, I saw a couple of signs that were amazing. I'll have to remember to get pictures of them later. (We weren't allowed to take our cameras today because the tour was so speedy.) Seriously, they were amazing. For example, McDonalds. It is perfectly transliterated into Hebrew, except instead of the 's' at the end, it has -im. So it's pronounced McDonaldim. Haha! Or, there was another one for a spaghetti restaurant. Also transliterated. This one, however, actually had the English spelled out as "Spaghettim" ... oh boy. The worst part about this paragraph is that maybe 3 of you will actually understand what I'm saying and laugh. The rest will just roll your eyes and say, "Oh, Tianna... we don't know what you're talking about, nor do we really care..." :D But oh well. For the sake of you three or so... (and for my own future record and enjoyment)... I am including it.

We finished our speedy tour and came back to the Center for lunch. Again, amazing food. But by now I'm starting to get all of my meals mixed up, so I shan't tell you what we had. Only that it was really good. Because, thus far, it has all been really good. Oh wait, after discussing it with my roommates, it was some sort of tomato sauce covered pasta that was absolutely divine. I discovered, however, that I don't like the salad dressing. I don't know what it is, but it's gritty and nasty. Someone suggested it might be blue cheese. Bleh.

After lunch, it was time for class. We started with our Modern Near East class, taught by an Israeli. It was interesting, but I was so tired. It didn't help that I already knew a lot of what he was saying. By the end (ironically, when he started talking about stuff that I didn't know), I was fighting not fall asleep. I'm pretty sure I didn't make it. Though, the moments of sleep were really brief. They were just one right after the other. My roommate, Kathryn and I were both exhausted, so we went down to our room for a 15 minute power nap between classes. Then it was off to Archaeology in the Ancient Near East. Again, a class I knew a lot about. But I was prepared with sleep, so it wasn't too bad. The part that shocked me, however, was when he asked how many people knew what a tel is. I and one other guy raised our hands. Out of 88 people, only 2 know what a tel is! That's crazy! (Oh, and Jess, he spelled it tel. And he even talked about the spelling. Apparently Arabic (? I think) is tel and Hebrew is tell. Or something like that.) I guess that's what happens when department lingo become so common place that you forget not everyone else has the same vocab. Huh. Then, after a 15 minute break, came Old Testament. Two hours. Ahhh... It was horrible. The class itself was really good. And I was grateful that I knew most of it, so I felt less guilty about falling asleep. But I definitely fought with sleep the last 20 minutes or so. But apparently everyone else was too, because Bro. Merrill commented on it at the end of class. He complimented us all for being real troopers and sticking it out even though we were all half asleep. :)

Then came dinner. Carli, I don't know how it's possible that I won't get fat here. Sure, I walk a lot, but all it does is make me hungry. I eat more here than anywhere else. Ever. And for every meal. This meal I chose the chicken (there was also Hungarian Goulash and some type of fish). It had some sort of sauce that tasted like BBQ... but not quite. (Two of us came up with that definition at the same time.) I'm not a huge fan of BBQ, typically, but this was really good. Add on this pasta with herbs and shredded cheese, beans with sesame seeds, cucumbers, fruit, etc., and I was again in heaven. Really, I don't know how these people are so creative with every single meal. I think the only thing we've had a duplicate of is the bread and salad. And perhaps the drinks. The rest is something brand new every day. And we have all sorts of choices for each meal.

After dinner we got our new cell phones, our insurance cards, and our proximity cards. (The proximity cards are basically ID cards with a magnetic strip that allows us to enter and leave the Center. They also record when we come and go so that they know where we are at all times. Esp. since our cell phones have a GPS unit in them.) Then we finally had a bit of free time. I knew if I started to do homework, I would fall asleep. So I took my laptop up to the 6th floor—the only place that gets wireless—and caught up on my email. Goodness! I had something like 16 new messages. And that was after my 17 new messages I had last night. Y'all love me. :D Wahoo!

Interrupting my email was yet another meeting. This was our committee meeting. We're each on some type of committee to make our experience here better. I'm on the snack bar committee, in charge of finance. Basically, I get to play with money and excel sheets. How much better does it get? :D So every day, for one hour, we open up a snack bar to sell treats to our fellow students. Then, all the money we make goes towards a party or memory book or something at the end. I think it'll be fun.

Then it was back to email and catching up in my blog. I felt a little guilty as everyone around me was doing homework, but I figure that documenting this is equally as important as re-learning stuff I already know. :D So I felt justified. But tomorrow needs to be focused. I can't get behind. Bother. :) While I sat there, in the little commons room, on a couple of nice and comfy bean bag chairs, Paul limped in, ankle bandaged up, holding a bag of ice. Poor kid. Apparently he sprained it using an exercise machine. Though, he told me it was spiking a volleyball and he landed on someone else's foot. Haha. What is it with boys and their need for "manly sporting accidents" ?? (Yes, Joe, that was directed at you.)

And now, it is 11:40. I have to be dressed and at breakfast by about 6:30 and ready to go on our Geography field trip tomorrow at 7:30. So I should probably go to sleep. Even though this won't post until tomorrow, seeing as how I'm down in my room now and I'm too lazy to go up to the 6th floor simply to hit post. So sorry, everyone, you'll just have to wait one more day for this one. :)

PS - Anyone have a cure for a really bad cough? Meh...