Name My Puppy!!

Ok so I just posted this on facebook, but I think it needs a post. I can add more tomorrow.

When I got home today, I decided to walk around the village a little bit. I ran into a bunch of people hanging out. When I walked in, Roni asked me, "Do you want a dog?"

To which I gave her the only response one can give in that situation, "Of course."

She then brought out this little black puppy that was left at the entrance to the village, which is just the thing to lift my spirits after a really tough week.

So now comes the hard part. I'm not talking about taking him to the vet, getting food or house breaking him. I am talking of course about giving him a name.

I'm not sure if I can really keep him yet, but he at least deserves a proper name, which is where you all come in. I'm looking for a Hebrew/Israeli name for him that is easy to pronounce. No easy feat. So please post your thoughts.





Some names already suggested:
Hatzot
Sahar
Sheleg
Dubi
Kfir

The winner gets a prize to be determined.
So get naming!!

No Class Monday

On Mondays I don't have class, so I took advantage of this by staying in Dimona today and running some errands.

I went to the bank and finally got my bankcard. So now I can buy things and go to ATMs without being worried about ridiculous fees an charges. But of course, since it's a bank, it took much longer than I would have liked.

I then got some new bed sheets. My old ones (actually Sam's old ones) were made for a single bed and now that I have a double, I figured it was time to upgrade sheets as well.

Then I did some very much needed grocery shopping and was able to make myself a nice lunch when I got back.

After that I spoke with someone about getting Internet and I should have that set up by next week! Up til now I've been mooching off the wifi from the village's office since it's right next door, but that isn't so great for skype.

And then I tried to do my laundry. This girl from the village showed me how to use the machines, but then she never came back to get her clothes out of the drier. They're still there now! At least 5 hours later! I was going to just take them out a few hours later but then someone else came and took my clothes out of the only washing machine because they had been sitting there for a little while. So I had to wait an hour and a half for those to finish before I could do my next load. In the meantime I had to find someone with and extra clothes-line hanger-thing, so I my clothes could dry! Very frustrating.

First Shabbat in the Village

Shabbat was really nice in the Student Village. It started raining really hard right as we were all getting ready to walk to shul for Kabbalat Shabbat. Great for the desert but not so great for desert-dwellers! We went to a Moroccan Shul which was really nice, despite the fact that there wasn't as much singing as I would have liked and instead of being behind a mechitza, the women were really in a separate room with an adjoining window.

Dinner was great. We all ate together in the moadon (community center) and everyone had made a different dish (I brought wine, I think that worked out much better). Before we made the blessings, we read from a sheet detailing different points in Zionist history and sang parts of Zionist songs (Lu Yehi...) and some of the other students were surprised that I was able to sing along. I didn't go to 12 years of Jew school and camp for nothing. I got a chance to meet a lot more of the students here and got into a heated debate about Israeli politics, so my Hebrew must be improving.

After dinner, everyone stayed in the moadon and hung out. Some sang songs (zmirot for Shabbat, Israeli songs and some more traditional Zionist songs) some played games and some just sat around talking. I played shesh-besh (backgammon) with Chen and then a bunch of us got together and played Mafia (apparently it's very popular in Israel!) and I finally got a chance to be the killer. It was lots of fun.

The next day we all got together for lunch. We were going to have it in the moadon, but since it was so nice out, we brought all the table and chairs outside.

After lunch, I was going to go on a hike with Boaz and Omer, but then I found out they were planning a really serious 4-hour hike. I decided to sit it out and instead go on a shorter hike with a few of the other students in our backyard (i.e. the Negev). We walked out over some dunes and saw an amazing view of the wadi (which actually had some water in it due to the rain). On the way back, we saw some Bedouin shepherds on horseback driving their sheep along the hillside with their dogs. That was cool.

When we got back we hung out for a while and then did havdalah all together. I had never heard a Sephardi havdalah before. It was interesting, but I still think havdalah at Bronfman is the best.

Now that Shabbat is over I have to get back to work.

Thesis and Building the Village

Yesterday there was a lecture by a former MAPMES student who came in to talk to us about writing a thesis. But I was the only who showed up! So I had a one-on-one with him and got to ask lots of questions and it was good to talk to someone about the whole process. However, he did tell me one thing that is a little discouraging. The whole writing process takes about 6 months full-time! So that means that I would be able to do lots of research and put together my in-depth proposal while studying but I would need a half a year after I finish in order to write the paper. That kind of puts a kink in my plans to finish everything over the summer and start a PhD program in the fall. We'll see what happens.

Last night a bunch of my friends threw a Halloween party at the dorms. It was a lot of fun and since it was at night, I stayed over and came back this morning. When I got to the village, everyone was working and cleaning and building. So I got to work too. Everyone was working. Some people were painting, others were busy laying down planks of wood for a new walkway and I helped build a rock wall that will enclose a garden in front of one of the new houses. It was very cool and while were working it actually rained! When the sherut/van taxi dropped me off this morning, he was surprised, "Wow, this is a giant village. Who built it?" So I said, "We did." Very cool. It's really great that I'll be able to leave my mark on the village.

Right now, I'm about to clean the apartment and Boaz (my roommate) is busy making soup and homemade tahina for our big communal dinner tonight. It smells great. I'm excited.

My Courses

I finally registered for classes today. At BGU the first week is for "shopping" for classes.

I pretty much knew which classes I was going to take already, the only one I wasn't sure about was Arabic. But after sitting in on a few classes, I found one that seems to be just right for me.

These are the courses I'm taking:

Milestones in the Zionist-Arab Conflict 1881-1949 by Benny Morris (woo!)

The 1979 Iranian Revolution: A Thirty-Year Perspective by Haggai Ram

Studying the Modern Middle East: A Historiographic Review by Ursula Wokoeck

In the Shadow of Fear: Freedom of Expression in Intellectual Writing in the Middle
East by Alon Fragman (my Arabic course, cool name right?)

Beginner's French by Igor Dreer

New Photos

First, I'd like to post a better picture of me and Erica from the London Eye.

Well, it's more a better a picture of Erica, I don't look so good in pictures... I should work on that.

I also think it's about time I posted some photos of my new place in Dimona.
Here is my new house:


And here is my backyard:

Pretty awesome, no?

Oh, and these are my neighbors who just walked right in my front door the other day:


I'll be sure to post some photos of my room when it's all set up.

A New Post For My New Place

So, it's been a while since I last posted. So here goes a quick summary.

London was awesome. I had a really great time with Erica. We went to the London Eye - the huge Ferris wheel on the Thames (see right) - and saw "We Will Rock You" a musical with all of Queens music. Lots of fun.

I was supposed to fly out Thursday night but when we got to the airport, they asked me if I would agree to be bumped to a flight the following day for 300 pounds. I said I couldn't because it would get in after Shabbat, but Erica quickly asked if I could take a flight Saturday night instead. They said yes and that's the story of how BMI paid me around $20 to fly to London (they paid me more than the flight actually cost!). Hooray for England!

But that meant that I got back to Israel at 4:45 am Sunday morning; which happened to by my first day of class. Not the best idea, but it was totally worth it all things considered.

After finally making it all the way down to Be'er Sheva, I crashed for a wonderful 2 hour nap - my first sleep all night - and then ran to campus for Benny Morris' class: Milestones in the Zionist-Arab Conflict 1881-1948. Since it was the first class we didn't go over anything so controversial but it was still pretty cool to be there.

Then I had French. Since I'm going to have to learn French or German in a PhD program, I thought I'd get a head start and audit one of them here. So I sat in on the class, taught in Hebrew, and I really liked it. The next day I sat in on a German class and that was good too so I decided I would ask Benny Morris which one he thought would be more useful to me, given the area I want to study. So the next day I started to ask him and before I could even finish he said, "French!" So that sealed it. Auf Wiedersehen.

Back to Sunday. After class, I went over to Andrea's to pack all my stuff up and called a cab to take me to Dimona! Considering the fact that I had barely slept and had only half a falafel for lunch, moving wasn't probably the best thing for me to do. Oh well.

I was told that the student village was only 20-25 minutes from Be'er Sheva. Untrue. It is a good 40 minutes. That was really annoying. But the place is really beautiful and all the people here are really friendly. I think I'm going to like it here.

Later that day (Tuesday) I had my class about the Iranian Revolution. The professor is really animated and you can tell he really likes the subject. Someone asked him if he had ever been to Iran and he got a little annoyed. He said he had a whole trip planned as part of an NGO but then Ahmadinejad stole the election and there was rioting so it was canceled. Maybe we can do a class trip!

After class was over I took our little bus back to Dimona where we all had a big meeting about the village and volunteering. I didn't understand lots of it and it was frustrating because I still don't know most of the people here since I missed orientation while I was in London. But it's still early and I have a whole year to work on my Hebrew and make friends.

And that brings us to today (Wednesday October 21st). Wednesday is a really busy day for me, especially today since I had two Arabic classes to check out, back-to-back from 10-2pm.

The first one I went to turned out not to be an Arabic class, but a class about Islamic art and architecture taught by a professor who also teaches Arabic. I decided not to leave since the professor was also teaching the other Arabic class I was going to take today. It was really interesting and I understood everything! There were a few words here and there I didn't catch, but other than that I followed the whole class. So that made me feel pretty good.

The after class, the professor told me that the next class was indeed an Arabic class. Phew. So I went to that class and instead of just being a straight-up Arabic Language class, it's called "The Prophet Muhammad between Literature and History." So we learn Arabic by studying the life of Muhammad in Arabic. Very interesting. I'm not sure if it's the right level for me, but it's still cool.

It's a little weird that classes here are all pretty much either 2 or 4 hours long on the schedules, but they all start 15 minutes late and end 15 minutes early. I don't know why they don't just say that on the schedule but it is nice that there is always a good break in between classes. That also means that I had time to eat lunch today! Hooray for Kabobs!

Then it was time for my second French class (the professor said it was fine for me to audit!). I've got to work on my snooty accent. But I was called on to clear up some differences in cognates in English.

After that I had my class on the Historiography of the Middle East. Not the most exciting class, but it has potential.

When I got back to Dimona, I was on a mission to get furniture for my new place. I had mentioned the fact that I needed a few things to some of the students here and they put me in contact with this married couple who own 2 apartments and are selling one and need to get rid of their furniture there. So I walked over to their place, which was only about 5 minutes away and got a big bed and a desk with lots of shelves (thanks BMI)!

While I was there, the wife came home and asked if I wanted something hot to drink. Not wanting to impose, I said no. The look of horror on her face was awful. "Why?! Why won't you drink something?!" I quickly told her I would have some tea. Note to self: don't refuse offers of food and drink from Israelis. When I took a sip, she was so happy. She told me that if I needed anything while I'm here I should call right away, that I was a like a son.

What a great country.