HaUlpan Sheli

La'Ulpan sheli shalosh pinot, shalosh pinot la'ulpan sheli...(My ulpan has 3 corners...)

Oh wait, that's a song about a kova (hat)! Strike that from the record, Your Honor!

Soooo, I have ulpan on the brain. (In case you don't know the meaning of this odd word that I keep referring to, 'ulpan' is an intensive study of the Hebrew language with the objective of fluency in reading, writing and speaking.) It's my new obsession because I just started on Tuesday! This coincides with my moving into a sublet in a great location in the German Colony, so for the first time in a loooong while, I have some blessed stability in my life.

I just adore having a routine again.

Nevermind that I keep getting lost on the way to the #8 bus. I'm not sure this bus stop actually exists in real time - I think it is an apparition that shifts places for the sole purpose of tormenting me. Today's bus debacle involved me getting up at 6:30am to make an 8:30 class, huffing and puffing in search of the mystical Derech Chevron, finally finding the stop after harrassing a number of innocent passerby - and being late.

My being tardy (to the party) had nothing to do with the 20 minutes I spent fiddling with the sublet's amazing cappuccino machine...nothing at all. But dang, that cappuccino was tays-tee!

How I digress. So, they actually placed me in the Ulpan's Rama Daled, their highest level of Hebrew. I still can't believe it! I know that I understand most of what I hear in daily conversation and can speak with some fluency, but I didn't think I was that advanced since I cannot follow the news or radio at all. The funny thing is that on the placement test, I made a number of mistakes in the easiest section and got 100% in the hardest section.

I've always been an odd egoz (nut) to crack.

Anyhoooooo, my classmates are from all over the world (Australia, Russia, South Africa and of course, America) with some 'foreign' haircuts to match, and my teachers are adorable. I am re-learning all the Hebrew grammar, male/female tenses and vocabulary I have forgotten over the years. It's in there somewhere!

I am particularly enjoying the vocabulary part. Here are but a few of the words I learned to translate into Hebrew today:
-Nuclear weapons
-Hips (we had to add an adjective so I chose 'fat' - tee hee)
-FBI (are they focusing on my hips???)
-Ankles
-Chaos
-Socks (don't ask me about the state of my sock drawer)

I did learn other words in a wide variety of categories but I thought you would enjoy this mixed array. (Admit it, you did, didn't you?)

After my second glorious day of ulpan, I trucked on over to Rami Levi, a discount supermarket that appears to be Jerusalem's version of Costco. The fact that you can only buy a pair of heads of lettuce, and not a single one on its own, attests to the warehouse-like atmosphere.

Hmmm, maybe it is Costco, but the people there are crazier than the meshugennas at Fairway. Ah, New York...