First Day

As with any first day, I'm ending this day with a sense of major overwhelm coming over me.

I went with my roommate and a couple of other girls to the campus.

We had a reception and a short orientation this morning. I met with the director was a fellow at Michigan last fall and thanked her for inviting my old professor from Smith to lecture here (I am so excited to see him tomorrow). We were given bags with program booklet and a map of the university (oh gee, thanks, I could've used it yesterday). I walked around a little. It seemed like everyone knew each other.... probably because of similar languages. I was surprised to see a number of Israelis that ultimately made up a good portion of the program. Even more shocking, there was also a good number of Eastern Europeans as well. Those whom I talked to wanted to take Yiddish to study their countries' Jewish history. I was impressed. I hope to learn more from them to see why it mattered to them.

I was placed in Intermediate 2 but the material in the book seemed right to me. But oh... my god. I thought my Hebrew would be good enough to handle the classroom but the teacher spoke rapid-fire Hebrew and Yiddish. I could not follow anything except for a few short moments when she did slow down. Even as we did some translations for the short story, they were translated into Hebrew. I had to admit that it would have been helpful to do a refresher class in Hebrew to jog my memory. But that's not the case. Luckily, I could follow the Hebrew in the book for instructions, some vocabulary, and guidelines. I kept thinking, "God, you had damn better know your Hebrew in order to do this program." My Yiddish instructor at Michigan had warned me but the e-mail from the program when I inquired said that the teachers were multilingual and would accomodate to the class. Well, since my class was mostly Israelis, the majority ruled.

I felt pretty shooked up during the second half of class. I couldn't concentrate. I had never felt so left out or lost that I began wondering what could I do to get out of this situation. I couldn't wish to be in New York at YIVO because that's just totally out of my hands now that I was already in Israel and everything's been paid for. I approached the teacher afterwards and explained that I couldn't follow that much Hebrew. She mentioned one other teacher who was an American and might speak more English in her class.

I spent the rest of the day getting my medical insurance card and gym membership. And of course, I ran 6 miles. First run in 2 weeks! It felt good even though it was hard being on the treadmill. It definitely did not help that I had a lurker at the end who did the follow things:
1) Stood right next to it that that I felt my personal space as a runner was being invaded that I tried to motion for him to stand away.
2) When he stood close, he rested his hand on the railing and *accidently* placed it over the emergency button, stopping my run just shortly before I was due to finish.
3) After I had gotten off, I saw there were other empty treadmills behind me! Why me?!
4) Within 3 minutes, someone else was on it, not that lurker.

So I ended up leaving the gym with ambivalent feelings.

Later, I took a bus to Levontin 7 Club for a buffet dinner for the program. The room was so loud that I could barely hear anyone. I had several glimpses of my old professor milling around but I decided it would better to approach him tomorrow in a quieter room. After dinner, we all headed downstairs to the basement to watch klezmer band. I liked it but I wasn't a big fan of music so I stayed for 15 minutes. The bus ride back took about 30 minutes anyway....

I was able to get ahold of Mor when I got back. It was really good to hear her voice and talk again. I might be mad with my Blackberry screwing up with my calls sometimes, but the call quality was wonderful. It was as if she was sitting next to me. She hopes that she'll be able to come in Wednesday.

Tomorrow, I will try again. I'm not real happy about all of this. Bad luck seems to follow me wherever I go and I must flip it over for the better. It didn't help much either to have learned that the program can end on July 23rd, not the 26th. And I had booked my flight for the following Shabbat. Given the circumstances at home nowadays, I would really have liked to leave then.