Two days ago was my official first day of being a "college" student. I use that term lightly.
I woke up on Sunday (the first day of the week) at 10:00. Seffi and I got ready, and walked out of Beit Nativ at 10:35. Unlike the mini-mester where there was a bus for us everyday outside of Beit Nativ for free, we have to use public transportation to get from base to school and back. We knew we needed to take either but 19 or 4aleph, but we didn't quite know where to pick it up. We walked up Agron street and instinctivly made a right onto King George Street, which heads towards downtown Jerusalem and many bus stops. We firgured it would be that way. After about 10 minutes of walking, looking at bus stop signs, realizing we were wrong, and continuing walking, we called the Israeli staff member who told me. "No no Josh, get onto Gaza street." So we walk all the way back to Gaza (pronounced "aza") street, which happens to be the continuation of Agron, and made it finally to the right bus stop. We arrived at school by 11:40, 50 minutes until Silicon Wadi, our first and only class on Sunday began.
We went to our favorite cafeteria, Frank Sinatra, for lunch. We enjoyed a delicious Frank Sinatra lunch, something we had been deprived of since mini-mester ended, and strolled towards Rotherberg for class with plenty of time. We arrive there at 12:25, 5 minutes before class started. We took our seats, and at 12:29, six of our fellow Nativers run in flustered and out of breath. They made it just in time to the computer lab, where our class for some reason takes place. They left an hour later than we did, and didn't even get a chance to eat. Good planning on Seffi and my part :)
4 long hours later, class was finally over. Silicon Wadi is a double period, so it only meets once a week. After class we went to the forum, the center of campus, went downstairs and caught the bus back to King George. We got back around 5. It was a good first day of school. In Silicon wadi, we learned about our teachers own personal business, a little bit about the economic history of Israel, and what we're going to do in this class.
The next day, I have Ulpan, which is just a continuation of mini-mester ulpan, same book, same class, just a different teacher and a different classroom. Plus, its 1.5 hrs of class as opposed to 4. Nothing special, just a muchhhhhhhh better teacher. Yay!
Talmud as a Cultural Adventure: awesome so far. We need to have a CHevrutza, or partner, with which we do all of the homework and discuss Talmudic ideas with. My parter is my friend Rachel. She's one of the five that I watch LOST with. (Seffi, Rachel, Adina, Debbie and myself) We're good partners so far, and I'm really loving studying Talmud. The teacher, Rabbi Pesach Schindler, is a fabulous teacher so far.
Freshman Writing hasn't started yet.
That's two updates in one day! rock and roll.
With love,
Josh
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