I did my oral presentation in Hebrew. We were given 5 minutes to speak about anything. I spoke about ice hockey. I needed to get some words from my teacher for the project. Apparently there are no words in Hebrew for puck, hockey stick, or ice skating. When I said puck to my teacher, she thought I was saying something else. I really would like to say the other thing to her. She deserves it. She makes patronizing comments to me and makes me feel stupid.
Arab-Israeli Relations is the most boring class I have ever taken. We turned in our midterm on Thursday. It was 4 questions contrasting the 1922 and 1939 British White papers. People write doctoral dissertations on this. We wrote 25 sentences. What a waste. People were literally falling asleep in class. Towards the end of the lecture, somehow the teacher started talking about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and couldn't remember what his name was before he converted to Islam. I shouted out "Lou Alcindor" because I was really bored. I was right. People laughed and were woken up. The teacher said I would not get extra credit. I know too much useless information. But I guess in this case it was useful.
After class, my friends and I went to a pub for happy hour. It was happy.
Friday:
My friends and I woke up early to go to Tel Aviv instead of going on the trip this weekend to Masada and the Dead Sea. We took the train there and for some reason security was tight. They asked for our passports at the train station. All we had were our driver's license. They asked me questions about mine and butchered all of the Spanish/English words on my license. They let us take the train, but they told me to get a new license because I don't look like I did when I was 16. Mostly because I don't have a beard anymore.
When we got to Tel Aviv, we took a bus to Dizengof center and to the art market. Dizengof center is huge. There is a verb in Hebrew that means to waste time there. We got there just as it was opening, so we didn't do any shopping.
After Dizengof center we went to get some lunch. I made a major faux pas at the restaurant by ordering a "coos mayim" in stead of a "cos mayim". I'm not going to explain what it means because there could be children reading this. Let' just say what I ordered was not a cup of water.After lunch we went to the art market. I got Chanukah gifts there. There was a good ska band playing at the market and a giant tree walking around and juggling. It was a pretty cool market. Afterwards, we went to the shuk and walked around for a while, seeing all of the counterfeit merchandise and smelling the dead fish. It was lovely. Afterwards, we took a sherut to the train station to head back to Haifa. On the way to the station, the driver stopped in the middle of the road and hopped out to help a blind guy cross the street.
We got back to Haifa in the afternoon and missed the last bus from the train station to the university so we had to take a cab. In the cab, I posed an interesting would you rather question to one of my friends who I was covering for the fare: Would you rather pay Streeter 12 shekels or shear the back of his neck? She paid me 12 shekels and lent me her mirror so I could do it myself. Anyways, back at the university, I found a site online that had episodes of "The Office" for free. I doubt it's legal. So I've been watching those for the past 2 days.
We had Shabbat dinner on campus instead of going somewhere. It's provided by the Student Union and it's really depressing. It isn't even close to the experience at Hillel in Pittsburgh, where there's tons of people and energy there. Most Israelis go home on the weekend and the international students are usually there, but a lot of them went on the university's trip to the desert this weekend. I would have gone, but I've already been there and wanted to explore other parts of Israel. Regardless, I was most amazed at how the Israeli who was doing kiddush didn't know what he was doing and none of the other Israelis in the room seemed to know either. But who am I to judge. It was a free meal. That's what counts.
Yesterday I did nothing. Absolutely nothing. I just watched TV online, sheared my neck, and made myself dinner. Afterwards, my friend and I went to the same pub that we went to on Thursday for happy hour. It was happy. Very happy.
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