Nahsholim

Posted on August 18, 2010 by sondy

After emerging from the desert covered in a thick layer of dust and salt, we made for the seaside kibbutz of Nahsholim, which means “tidal waves” in Hebrew. With a beach and ruins dating back to the time of the Canaanites, Nahsholim was resplendent with plumeria and numerous other flowers.

The northern beach had a sign admonishing us to not swim in the clear green Mediterranean water.

In the evening, we drove up to the town of Zikhron Ya’akov and wandered off in search of dinner. We came across a pub called “The Hobbit”, complete with wizard decorations and not very low ceilings. The drink menu was in English, but the food one was in Hebrew, which made ordering somewhat difficult. We managed to get pretty good burgers and enjoyed listening to 1990s rock in the dark room of the pub.

The next morning, Mor and I went to the restaurant in search of the breakfast provided by the hotel. I’m always timid about kosher dairy meals, but this was perhaps one of the best I’ve had: scrambled eggs; halva; fresh, stewed, and dried fruits; olives; and pickled fish. The 12 types of labane, yogurt, and cheese didn’t really appeal, but I was incredibly pleased with the food selection.

Later, some of us decided to explore beyond the resort beach. A small knoll stood to the north end of the cove, where we could see ruins from an ancient fortress. Excavations in the area have apparently found items left by Napoleon’s armada, and a group of archeologists were hard at work (not pictured) recovering relics and old pottery shards. When you have a site that’s been inhabited for roughly 4,000 years, you’re pretty likely to find all sorts of artifacts!

Where the rocks meet the water, pools had been carved into the stones. Was this part of an ancient palace or fortress?

Timid exploration of the rocks yielded to jumping into the deep pools, mostly protected from the waves.

After splashing around, it became apparent that the pools were deep enough to accommodate jumping, so Ben climbed a rocky knob and sprang into the water.

Kathleen followed suit.

We spent the rest of the morning jumping off the rocks and exploring the small grottoes of the area.

Reluctantly, we loaded up the vans and headed back to Jerusalem.

Dome of the Rock and Church of the Redeemer

Posted on August 2, 2010 by sondy

I’d been wanting to go to the Dome of the Rock on Mount Moriah/Temple Mount/Noble Sanctuary for months, and when Ted suggested that I ask some of my students to take the instructors, it seemed like I’d found the best way to visit.

In Judaism, the Temple Mount is where G-d rested, gathered dust to create Adam, and called Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. The two Jewish Temples were built here as well around the Foundation Stone. In Islam, the Noble Sanctuary is the third holiest site for Muslims, and it is where the prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven by stepping on the Foundation Stone. The Dome of the Rock, on top of Mount Moriah, is one of the oldest Mulsim buildings in the world.

There’s a very rickety staircase descending from a parking lot by East Jerusalem/Damascus Gate, which has graffiti of which I’m rather fond.

We met Sandra, Jumana, and her sister Lamia outside of Damascus Gate this morning and began making our way along the crowded cobblestone alleys of the Old City.

The guard at the first gate told us that only Muslims could go that way, not tourists, so we pressed onward, opting to cut through the plaza at the Western Wall, then head toward the ramp at the southern end of the Kotel (Western Wall) up to the Temple Mount/Mount Moriah.

Apparently you can’t enter the Western Wall if you’re wearing a hijab, so Jumana and Lamia left the group to go through a Muslims-only gate and rejoin us at top of the mount. We passed through security and emerged into the courtyard in front of the Western Wall/Kotel. I didn’t know if it’d be appropriate to bring Domo-kun into the women’s section, but he did properly morn the destruction of the Temple.

We exited the Kotel plaza, did a U-turn, and entered the security queue for taking a ramp to Mount Moriah. The security fellow tried to give Sandra some hassle, but she stood firm and we were able to pass through the metal detectors. The ramp appears to be temporary: it’s a wooden scaffolding with tarps on the first portion.

Prayer at the Kotel.

From the ramp, you can see to the south of Jerusalem.

At the first turn of the ramp was stacked numerous riot shields. I really don’t want to think about what the Jerusalem police expect here.

We emerged into the relative quiet and calm of the Sanctuary’s plaza, portions of which were covered in remnants of old columns.

Further in, we saw the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which we are not allowed to enter as non-Muslims.

Beyond some pine trees and a fountain, we saw the Dome of the Rock in all of its glory. The dome is made of 24 karat gold. The architects did an amazing job creating this building.

Like the rest of Jerusalem, there was even a feral cat.

The detail at the shrine was amazing: the tiles were incredible beautiful, and the marble used was out of this world. It makes sense that a shrine for a holy rock would include some pretty phenomenal metamorphic rocks!

The doors were constructed from copper.

Sandra, Ben, and Jumana posed for a photo, and I got one with all three students.

We left Mount Moriah, passing by other gates.

The Old City is always full of surprises.

Sandra then took us to the Church of the Redeemer, built by German Lutherans.

We had to pay 5 NIS to get in, and the church initially seemed a little plain, but Sandra held open a nondescript door and smiled, so I followed her directions. Inside the door was a very narrow spiral staircase going up to the top of a very tall tower. Climbing in the heat was a bit of an adventure, but we eventually emerged to the top of the tower and were rewarded with an incredible view.

Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Our dorms on Mount Scopus

Mount of Olives

Church of the Redeemer

South of Jerusalem and the Security Barrier

We made our way back along the vendors hawking spices, dresses, lingerie from China, cheap plastic toys, men’s clothing, and candy, including a mountain of zatar with a model Dome of the Rock on top.

MEET: the end of teaching

Posted on August 2, 2010 by sondy

The last week of MEET came and almost went with the instructors, especially in year 2, feeling a little overwhelmed. Despite some brief breaks for Greek dancing and other shenanigans, we were a bit worn down.

The projects weren’t going as well as they could have been; we were constantly being interrupted by visitors; and it didn’t feel like we’d really taught the students what we’d set out to do at the beginning of the summer. A circle of students had formed during lab one day, channeling “ghosts from the underworld” and all chanting “Java sucks, Java sucks, Java sucks…”

I’d been up past 1 am for two consecutive nights trying to debug my students’ code to no avail. Something worked at one point, and Ted managed to capture the “it compiles!” moment. Probably the happiest I was all week.

Even the year 3 instructors were having trouble focusing during the end-of-the-day meetings: their goofing off escalated into a full-scale card-throwing war that enveloped several year 2 instructors in their skirmish.

I know you’re thinking, “This place has really gone to the dogs!” And you’re right. It was a balagan, without the positive connotations. Then, one afternoon, one of our board members came by and started telling us what the visitors had been saying. Who’d been visiting MEET? You know, the usual suspects: The ambassadors from Norway, Japan, and Germany; Ethan Bronner of the New York Times; Warren Spielberg of the New School; Ben Reis; Dan Ariely… and that was just the beginning. Anat began telling us how impressed the visitors were with what MEET had created: “normal” interactions for our students in both the lab and outside on the field during snacks. Even Media Line did a nice piece on MEET, available here, as well as a video. After a particularly taxing few weeks, it was nice to hear some external encouragement and validation for the work we’d been doing.

The program ended on Thursday with the students’ final presentations and class council elections. After a few delays, we all made it down to lunch and an inflatable water slide. Some of the year 1 girls decided that this would be an excellent opportunity to ponytail Justin’s hair.

“More about the water slide,” you demand! My students thought about trying to dunk me, but I pre-empted them by changing into a year 2 t-shirt and shorts and going down head first. Eyal decided that since he was so soaked that it would be a great opportunity to provide some very damp hugs to Veronica, who appeared very dry and happy with her current state.

Veronica, as expected, wasn’t not terribly enthusiastic about this idea.

Eyal persisted. Veronica was about to relent when…

… two more friends of Eyal, also sopping wet, decided that Veronica needed more than one soaking wet hug. Needless to say, Veronica was non-plussed. But then she went and hopped in the slide, all smiles.

After cleaning up epic amounts of trash, the instructors piled into vans and headed into Jerusalem for MEAT BURGER. It is what it sounds like. And not kosher, so if you want cheese and bacon on your burger, you’re set.

The next evening, after writing evaluations of my students, updating the wiki, and filling out more surveys, I went into Jerusalem to meet my (distant) cousin for dinner. I passed through the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and encountered a gathering of protesters. I wasn’t entirely clear what they wanted, but the signs in English said, “Jerusalem will not be Hebron”, and “Co-existence in Sheikh Jarrah”. They also had a pirate flag.

Jerusalem will not be Hebron (complete with pirate flag)

Further down Route 60, I walked past the Museum on the Seam (the 1949 Armistice Line) with its sign that reads, “OLIVE TREES WILL BE OUR BORDERS”.

All I knew before meeting my cousin was that his name is Mario Baras, and that he immigrated here at age 16 from Brazil after his family fled there from Europe before the Holocaust. He and his son Yoav picked me up and we drove almost down to Tel Aviv, where they live on a moshav (a community of ~100 families, several of whom farm the land). We stopped to get gas, and I saw a Haredi man filling up his motorcycle’s tank. On the back seat there was a specialized holder for his black hat!

Mario’s moshav is very quiet and is in a lovely area south of the road to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. I ate figs directly off the tree Yoav planted when he was tiny, as well as passion fruits from the neighbor’s tree. Sababa! We then headed into Rehovot for dinner, and the pasta bar had GLUTEN-FREE PASTA. Granted, it tasted sort of like cardboard, but it was still EDIBLE PASTA.

It’s been incredibly hot here: ~100˚F/38˚C, with more humidity than usual. I’ve been brave and have been wandering the Old City and East Jerusalem in search of postcards, ceramic pomegranates, scarves, and other souvenirs, but I sort of feel like I’ve been swimming when I return back inside.

Tonight is the year 3 students’ graduation, and then we’re leaving early in the morning to hike Masada at sunrise. We’re also supposed to head to Eilat tomorrow for a few days of R&R on the Red Sea, and the weather seems to get hotter and hotter every time I look at the forecast.

On top of that, some folks have decided that this morning was an excellent time to fire rockets at Eilat, which missed and injured some folks in the neighboring city of Aqaba, Jordan. ~~I hope this doesn’t cause MEET to cancel our retreat down there.~~ It’s only acceptable in my mind to lob rockets at inanimate things like the moon, Mars, asteroids, Neptune, Trojan asteroids, etc. And by “lob at” I mean “carefully design a mission to”. We clear on that? Thanks.

EDIT: okay, we’re now not going to Eilat. Nothing can abate the strength of my displeasure.

Sounds of Thursday

Posted on July 22, 2010 by sondy

We returned to the apartments tonight to the sound of wedding celebration fireworks and the evening call to prayer from East Jerusalem, Shu’afat, and beyond. The fireworks have continued for the last two hours, as have the prayers sung out from the minarets.

In the midst of this cacophony, Shiri and I decided to make something with the vast quantity of lentils that I acquired last week and eventually settled on this recipe (though only the soup part). We didn’t have fennel, ginger, cinnamon, saffron, parsley, bay leaves, sugar, or chickpeas, but the stew turned out pretty fabulously. I know what I’m having for breakfast tomorrow! I’ve never had standby dinner plans beyond “steam chard; cook rice; heat chicken sausages”, so it’s incredibly satisfying to find robust recipes that can be easily made night after night.

The next culinary goal is handmade tortillas, perhaps for a Mexican-inspired birthday meal on Sunday (we’ll see how perky the instructor team is after returning from four-wheeling around the Negev Desert all weekend). We’re doing pretty well without an oven, though I’d be curious to hear thoughts on no-bake dessert recipes.

While browsing the store tonight for chicken and watermelon tonight, Shiri and I encountered a display of my favorite local snack: Bamba (בַּמְבָּה‎; corn poofs that look like large Cheetos, except flavored with peanut butter instead of cheese). Not only did they have the chocolate nougat-filled Bamba that my students had brought to MEET today, but also halva (חלבה)-filled Bamba. Sababa! Will we be able to find strawberry-flavored Bamba (“Red Bamba”) before we leave in a few weeks? Stay tuned for more…

Games

Posted on July 15, 2010 by sondy

Weeks begin here on Sunday, and rather than starting off this one with lectures and labs, the year 2 students piled into a bus and we drove down to Caesarea, a former port city conceived of and built by King Herod on the Mediterranean Sea. Caesarea, named for the obvious ruler in Rome, has changed hands a number of times in the last 2,000+ years since its founding. Ruled by the Romans, Christians, Muslims, Crusaders, refugees from Bosnia and the Caucasus in the 19th century, and finally the Caesarea Edmond Benjamin de Rothschild Foundation, Caesarea remains standing watch over a relentlessly blue sea by a coal plant between Tel Aviv and Haifa as it has for thousands of years.

Mustafa divided us into three groups and I set out with nine students to build a scale out of ropes and pulleys. We then created a catapult out of crooked sticks and rope, solved pattern puzzles as a team, crossed 50′ of sand using boards on top of blocks, poured water from a jug to a bucket 30′ away using bamboo slats to carry the water, and even got to dabble in archery for a few minutes.

What an astounding place to have such easy access to: Roman ruins of a stadium and racetrack; artisans’ shops; great SCUBA diving; and lots of lush grass. Did the year 2 students come down here often on their own? One remarked that he couldn’t visit the sea unless he was with MEET due to where he lived and the permit process. Couldn’t we have a bit more unstructured time with our toes in the sand, watching the waves and skipping stones?

We split on Monday into project groups to build the different components of our instant messenger client. My group is developing a plugin that lets you play games against different buddies, regardless if they’re on Google Talk, Yahoo, or Facebook chat. We didn’t start building until today, but I’m really excited to see how the students will run with the project and make it their own.

One pair in lab has all but implemented the graphics for their own version of Pong (complete with paddles and a moving ball); the hard part for them is understanding the underlying “physics” of how to make sure the ball doesn’t go through the paddle. We’ll see how it goes playing collaboratively over the network!

Earlier this week I was playing a theater game with a number of year 1 students, the one where you point at another person in the circle and say either “zip”, “zap”, or “zop”. The next person in the circle then decides whether to continue zipping or zapping around the circle, or opts to point at another player and choses one of several actions. My favorites from high school include “viking” (the selected person uses their fingers to form viking horns and the two people standing next to the viking begin paddling and chanting “Viking! Viking! Viking!”); “impersonation” (the selectee has to act like a celebrity, a mutual acquaintance, or even an animal); and “baroogah!” (everyone jumps up and shouts “baroogah!”).

The students had some other variations: “Charlie’s Angels” (three folks do the Angel pose); “astronaut” (selectee pretends to be walking in a spacesuit; folks on either side make alien ears and go “beepbeepbeepmeepbeep”); and “toast” (people on either side pretend to be a toaster oven; person in the middle hops up and calls out “bing!”). My favorite one, which almost had me falling over while laughing, had a distinctive Middle East flair: “schwarma”.

Around here, schwarma is meat of either the lamb or turkey variety roasting on a big spit rotating vertically in an oven. At the schwarma shop, the fellow behind the counter uses an electric shaving device to cut off little bits of the meat into a pan, transfers the shavings to your pita, laffa, or plate. The game version? The student in the middle rotates while the folks on either side make sizzling noises and hold their hands up, pretending to be the heating elements of the roasting oven. A fourth person begins making shaving noises and pretends to trim pieces of schwarma off of the rotating “meat”.

One of the Y1 students was having a bit of a rough day, so Michaela asked her if the student would feel better and work in lab if the student got to draw a mustache on Michaela’s face. Believe it or not, it worked.

Dvir and Rene were horsing around a little too rowdily before lecture the other morning, so I had the taller of the two carry the smaller up the stairs to our lecture hall. At the very least, we were all entertained.

We had Sports Day yesterday, with lots of soccer (that’s what American Football is called here), Ultimate, basketball, volleyball, paddleball, and a mysterious game involving acting like a ninja. I lost on the first round every time, but the Y2 students managed to hold their own against the other instructors and Y3s. For lack of photos of the game, here’s one of Tiny Cat from two weeks ago. See his white-tipped tail?

Tonight marks the beginning of the weekend, as well as the parent event. We leave tomorrow at 7 am for the north to see the Golan as well as Nazareth. Afterward, we’re going kayaking on the Jordan! Next week we’re having some visitors from the Japanese and German embassies (the former sponsors MEET; the latter is considering doing the same), and our students will start having enough time to make great progress on their projects. We’re really looking forward to the results.

This week’s questions:

What are you most looking forward to this weekend?
Did you have any opportunities to “play” this week?
What was something you did with unexpected results?

Thanks for reading!

Mediterranean Sea

Posted on July 12, 2010 by sondy

We drove down the hill to Tel Aviv-Yafo on Friday morning, leaving behind the dry heat of Jerusalem and our first week of teaching for a weekend of humidity along the coast.

Jaffa/Jappo/Yafo/Yaffa has been around since at least the time of the Ancient Greeks: it’s where Perseus rescued Andromeda from the jaws of a sea monster. Even the Egyptians had a gate on the hill dedicated to one of their pharaohs.

The Ottoman Empire built fortresses in the city overlooking the transparent ocean, as well as fountains for caravans with elaborate inscriptions in Arabic.

On a clear day you can see to the snow-capped mountains of the north and the Gaza Strip to the south; alas, Friday proved hazy.

The most incredible part of the tour was a citrus tree suspended in air growing out of an egg. Seriously.

We found the flea market in Jaffa, next to which a pickup truck was overloaded with watermelon. At 1 NIS/kilo, these things are incredibly cheap and tasty.

We had a lovely tour through Old Jaffa with a hilarious tour guide recommended by the American Embassy, then headed to the beach in Tel Aviv. Warm, decadent water. Big waves. Lots of wind. Random catamarans and paddle boarders bobbed by as we played in the surf.

More photos here.

Saturday morning I rolled out of bed at the youth hostel and ate the breakfast provided by the hostel (yay, free food; boo, kosher dairy meals), then went back to our room to take a nap. I woke up to find out that several of the other instructors had gone out to get brunch at a place with gluten-free bread. And didn’t bring me any. Oh, the injustice of it all. Woe.

We drove over to a beach north of the power plant in Tel Aviv for the afternoon where I spent as much time as possible swimming in the incredibly clear water. Eric and Shin got stung by jellyfish, and I still have water in my ear four days later, but it was incredible to be somewhere with no deadlines, no computers, and just sunlight, sand, and water.

In other news, teaching is going pretty well: the year 2 students adore Domo-kun, and only 24 hours after being introduced to the idea of interfaces I was able to convince an anti-interface student that this concept is awesome. Labs are occasionally a bit chaotic (big balagan), but I think for the most part our students are getting the ideas we want to convey. Hopefully week two will prove to be even better.

Students arrive tomorrow!

Posted on July 3, 2010 by sondy

Our lectures are prepared, our labs are tested, but we’ll still have to check our classrooms for cats tomorrow. Twenty-nine year 2 (Y2) students arrive tomorrow, and we’ll get to introduce them to the wonders of software engineering as well as abstraction and modularity. (And no, I haven’t been having dreams about model-view-controller, why do you ask?)

But! Before my life becomes all IM client all the time, here are some more images from around Jerusalem taken during the last week.

Parking

I’ve driven about 80% of the time we’ve been here, and it’s actually a lot of fun. Aside from no right turn on red, it’s like driving in Boston, except you’re a lot more likely to get cut off by someone driving at warp factor nine. One of these days, Eric and I are going to take the standard transmission van out and try to refresh our memories on how to use a clutch. Adventures in transporting eight or so people from point A to point B aside, here are some images of the stunning parking jobs we’ve witnessed in the last few weeks.

You see some pretty epic parking jobs around here, namely this sedan neatly positioned under a staircase in the Old City. How did they do this? Three hundred-point turn? Your guess is as good as mine.

Mr. Timmons is just as befuddled as I am at this parking job at Mount Scopus.

Cats

Remember Tiny Cat who hid in the classroom? I finally got a photo of him, scared to death. Unfortunately, you can’t see his adorable white-tipped tail.

Around Hebrew University

We spent a lot of last week preparing for the students’ arrival. Domo-kun couldn’t wait to take notes.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sF3xGjEag7A&hl=en_US&fs=1]

As part of the teaching workshops, we got to teach anything we wanted for five minutes. I did my usual instruction on how to tie a bowline knot. Justin taught us all about vampires. I’ll give you a hint as to which presentation made it on to YouTube.

Eventually we became bored of working in the lab known as the Aquarium and migrated out under the trees on the lawn. Thank you, Hebrew University, for having such lovely, shade-providing arboreal specimens as well as strong outdoor wireless!

In Search of Food

Since I haven’t eaten gluten in over a year, getting proper nourishment around here is a bit of a challenge since almost everything is made of wheat. I know you’re about to say, “try the hummus!”, but you are most certainly incorrect: that stuff is like spackle and turns one’s stomach into concrete. We maintain our rating on the stock of Middle East Hummus Producers Unlimited as a STRONG SELL. Put your NIS toward raw materials instead.

Things here on Mount Scopus shut down on Friday afternoon, and don’t generally reopen until Saturday night at the earliest, though usually it’s Sunday morning when most businesses resume commerce. Thus, everyone does their shopping early on Friday afternoon, so by the time I make it to the grocery store on Sunday it’s like a Soviet supermarket with nothing left on the shelves. Since prepared food doesn’t do much for me, I’m generally good about buying my own food and cooking for myself. The vendors at the Damascus gate have great prices on fruits and vegetables, and Mahane Yehuda’s sellers have good prices on Swiss chard and peaches, though the dried fruits and nuts are a bit expensive. Too bad I haven’t found a source of gluten-free bread yet.

Domo-kun tried some falafel and chips in pita bread. Verdict? “Domo domo domo…”

Last night we decided to head out for dinner, heading vaguely for a schwarma place that George recommended in East Jerusalem. After a long and slightly exciting stroll down Wadi Al-Jos (horses! no sidewalks! accosted by street kids who punched Ben!), we found the place to be closed, so we decided to press on to the next street, where we encountered a wedding celebration. The groom was lifted onto another man’s shoulders while another man played the bagpipes. Everyone was dancing, chanting, and clapping. Fireworks kept being set off further down the street. We later passed the women of the wedding party, hanging out in front of a building further down the street and watching the men dance. The groom, however, did not look like he was particularly enjoying the merriment.

We, on the other hand, promptly discovered the nearby wonders of Azzahra Hotel and Restaurant, and did we ever enjoy that experience. Reasonably priced menu for an upscale place (dishes starting around $14), great service, lovely atmosphere (huge windows surrounded by trees and ivy), and tremendous lamb dishes. Kim and Larisa reported the pizza to be amazing. Our rating on this establishment is a STRONG BUY.

Finally, you’ve reached the end of this installment with a dose of this week’s questions. Respond via email or comment if you so choose, and thanks for reading!

What’s the strangest thing you’ve eaten in the last week?
What made you laugh the hardest in the past few days?
Anything particularly awesome you’ve seen on the roads?

Old City

Posted on July 3, 2010 by sondy

Last Saturday morning, we trundled out of bed and headed for the Old City, a section of Jerusalem that’s about one kilometer square. Separated into the Jewish, Muslim, Armenian, and Christian quarters, the Old City surrounds Mount Moriah (the Temple Mount), a site holy to both Muslims and Jews. We stated on the Mount of Olives and descended toward the Lion Gate, taking a route purportedly walked by Jesus into the city.

The Dome of the Rock on the right, looking west toward the center of Jerusalem

Church of All Nations

Gethsemane

Lion Gate

Rooftop overlook

Calvary (Golgotha), Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Aedicule, Church of the Holy Sepulcher

The “immovable ladder” under status quo, Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Gate cat, perhaps a descendant of Ceiling Cat?

I wonder if the people who built some of these walls and streets thousands of years ago knew that these structures would still be in use in 2010.

Always check your classroom for cats

Posted on June 30, 2010 by sondy

Jerusalem is overrun with feral cats. In December, one came up to me in the Old City and just began nuzzling my legs. They’re everywhere on the Hebrew University campus, fishing falafel wrappers out of trashcans and eating leftover chips. This morning on a walk, I encountered a man who feeds the same four every day, including a rather pregnant female. One feline regular outside of our apartments is at the trashbins every morning at 9 am, going through the dumpsters in search of first breakfast.

This morning during a teaching workshop, I began hearing a soft “mew” in the classroom. Was it Mor’s chair being squeaky? The mewing stopped, then started again. Was it my chair? No, I wasn’t moving. Were Mustafa’s shoes making that squeaking noise? That really sounded like a cat. Ben got up to inspect the corner of the classroom. Was it a cat? Nothing behind the lectern.

Mustafa got up to check behind the curtain, revealing an incredibly tiny, scraggly black kitten with a white-tipped tail cowering on the windowsill behind the curtain. I tried offering it a bit of my turkey sandwich, but Tiny Cat huddled further into the windowsill, anxiously eyeing us humans.

After a long pause, Tiny Cat hopped up and tried to running out of the classroom. A combination of high kitten velocity (v_k) and a low coefficient of kinetic friction (µ_k) foiled Tiny Cat’s attempt to flee via the door, resulting in a mass of ruffled black fur, various limbs, and the white-tipped tail splaying out in all directions from Tiny Cat’s body as the feline slid along the slick tile. Reversing course, Tiny Cat decided to re-enter the classroom, realized there were 20 absolutely terrifying humans in the room, made an about-face, and scuttled its way out the door and down the hallway past some confused-looking students.

Thus, today’s lesson from the discussion on education versus instruction: always check your classroom for cats before teaching in Jerusalem.

Hebrew via cereal boxes

Posted on June 29, 2010 by sondy

I took Spanish in high school, and recently I’ve been teaching myself a little Japanese (written Hiragana and some common spoken phrases). Arabic and Hebrew, however, seem scary—both appear to be a series of squiggles that all look the same! Hebrew is written in about five or six different fonts, several of which (the handwriting one in particular) look nothing the same. With Hebrew, however, you 23 letters and vowels generally thrown out the window—how hard can the language be?

I’ve learned a few spoken words of Hebrew so far (slicha = excuse me/sorry; toda (raba) = thank you (very much); be’vakasha = please; le’hitra’ot = see you later; tov = good; ken = yes; lo = no; sababa = awesome; lilah = night; boker = morning; hamesh = five; nana = mint; batata = sweet potato), but thankfully most everyone speaks English (Anglit) at the grocery store, which makes getting 500 g of ground turkey reatively easy. When it comes to reading, I can recognize roughly four random sounds so far in Hebrew: alef (א), reish (ר), shin (ש), and zayin (ז; relevant in some interesting slang).

Tonight, Business Ben came in with a box of Honey Nut Cheerios, labeled in a mix of English and Hebrew. The bottom of the box looked somewhat like this:

Shrek in Hebrew

My first reaction was, “That letter that makes the sound ‘s’ has little ogre horns on it. Cute!” Second thought: “I think that next sound is an ‘r’.” Third: “That must say, ‘Shrek’!” Anna confirmed that indeed the final letter makes a “k” sound, and there you have it.

Our teaching assistants are teaching me food words in Arabic, so perhaps grocery store literacy for East Jerusalem will not be far behind. Unfortunately, MEET has an English-only policy, which means I can’t ask the students to teach me their favorite words in either Arabic or Hebrew until the summer ends. Now if only my suitemates would bring home cereal boxes labeled in Arabic!

Sondy – Alessondra Springmann

Boulder-sized Boulder

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