Shalom to all our loyal readers,This is my first appearance on the blog and quite honestly I am not sure where to begin. There is much going on in Israel and around the world these days that I would love to vent...or blog about but don’t have the time right now to do so. So I will limit this initial blog to a few thoughts about living in Israel, which is, as you well know, our current “adventure”.
To say that our time here has been an adventure is not exactly accurate. Living here feels as normal as anything I have ever done. Trying to force my brain to accept a new language which is composed of new letters, new sounds, and is written from right to left THAT is the adventure. I can honestly tell you that I have never done anything that has tapped me more physically, emotionally and intellectually. Yet I can also tell you that I truly love learning the language though I confess to spending too much time day dreaming about a better way to do it or at least an easier way.
Next week we have an oral exam. Hmmm, that should be interesting. We did a class practice run yesterday and it wasn’t too bad. Basically we have 6 "situations" that involve circumstances where you thank someone, complain about something, request or order something, invite someone to something, apologize for something, or make a recommendation about something. The situations are on cards and we will be required to select two of them and respond to it with three or four sentences. We also have to answer questions about one of the papers we have written over the course of the class and also answers questions from an interview sheet.
Getting past the stress of the upcoming oral test and the final written test will be a welcome moment. But I am certain that when it is all said and done I will leave the ulpan with more fond memories than bad. We have made many new friends from our class which we will enjoy visiting on our future trips to Israel. Albeit most of them are female as I am apparently the ONLY surviving male in our class. All others have given up, changed classes or just moved on to other endeavors in the Land.
So that’s it for my first ever blog, which to be honest just feels like a mass email but oh well.
Thanks for sharing our adventure.
Shalom from Tel Aviv,
Brent R Avery
3 comments:
Welcome to the blog world, Brent. You'll be addicted before you know it!
Shalom and Top o the mornin' to ya. (Irish roots mixed with the love of the Jews)
Glad to hear from you! Bring me somthing home that Jewish (hee hee)I told Tonya to find me a ginormous star of David. She said they're hard to come by and would be difficult to bring home on the plane. Oh well, just having her back will be good enough.
Way to perservere. I only regret the subject matter you may now be forced to entertain in a room full of women...
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