Orientation

My two weeks of freely roaming Jerusalem are over, I've had some orientation, and classes start Sunday!

Monday (the day after the Tel Aviv trip) was our last full day off. Some friends and I went down a fun shopping street after lunch, just looking in all the random stores. Amy and I stayed behind at a coffee shop to put in some good long work on our Hebrew placement tests, a take home test they gave us a week and a half to do, but which was due, of course, on Tuesday morning. We met up with a big group for dinner, finding a good housewares/hardware store on the way, as well as another supermarket! We spent the evening playing cards and hanging out, not the early-to-bed night as planned. As usual.

Tuesday was fairly uneventful, but the first day (sort of) of orientation. We had a session with our health insurance provider, where he gave us all the details of the plan. The session basically repeated the point that if it's a pre-existing condition, it's not covered. If there's nothing wrong with you, like a check-up, it's not covered. Otherwise it is. Except it took a while to go over all that... I took a trip to the shuk after that, more as a social event than as a shopping trip, but I couldn't go and buy nothing! So I went to the cheese guy and pointed to one and bought some. Israeli cheese is amazing, and I still haven't met a cheese I didn't like. This new one's good too, although I still don't know exactly what it is. That evening, we had a get-to-know-you session with the interns, which I'm not sure anyone was really looking forward to, since most of us have been here getting to know each other for at least a week. But it wasn't too painful:)

Yesterday was the first real day of orientation: a morning service, welcome speeches by everyone, and the like. I was pleasantly surprised though. Although the service was far more traditional than I expected, the speakers during the day were all good! They were interesting and didn't all repeat each other, which can be rare during an orientation! I felt welcomed and overwhelmed and excited to start and a lot of other things.

Today was more orientation, but slightly less well done than yesterday. This morning's service was more upbeat, which was nice. But our first speaker of the day was talking to us about culture shock, and her basic point seemed to be that we'll never quite fit in with Israelis, so we shouldn't really try. Which I don't think was the point she was trying to make, but clearly she wasn't so effective. The rest of the morning was similarly exciting. After lunch we had an "Israel Update," where the Israel professor talked to us about the current situation. Given the craziness of what's going on, he was surprisingly reassuring. The main point: Jerusalem is not close to either Gaza or the Lebanon border. Life is going on as normal here, just with a little more security than the usual, which is already more than at home. Then we had our Security Briefing. For the record, both events have been on the schedule for a while, and it just turned out to be interesting timing. The security briefing was less focused on the current situation and more on emergency procedures and traveling around Israel in general. I think I'll be staying put in Jerusalem for now, thanks:)

The excitement of the day was when our Hebrew classes were posted this morning. They divide us into five levels, based on the placement test and also, apparently, on the proficiency exam we took at the interview. The levels are not broken at pre-determined points, but instead split up by numbers, so approximately the bottom 20% is in Alef, the next 20% in Bet, and so on, up through level Hey. I was guessing I'd be in about Gimel (3) or Dalet (4) if I was lucky. Somehow I ended up in Hey! I'm excited to be in the highest class, but also shocked, since I don't think my Hebrew is that good, and a little terrified, since there are several people in the class who have been living in Israel already for 6 months and a lot longer. I guess I'll be working hard this summer! Starting Sunday, we have Hebrew for about 5 hours a day, 4 days a week, and then some other seminars and trips around the city in the afternoons and on Thursdays. I'll let you know how it all goes once I get started!