Wednesday February 23rd & Thursday February 24th

I feel like ive never gone to more classes in my entire life. Shopping week is very stressful-- theres so many classes to "try" and its so awkward leaving early if you dont like them so you end up sitting there for the full 2 or 4 hours even though you know you're not taking the class. The brave souls are the ones who get up and leave but its sort of rude.

I hate my hebrew teachers and class. We have 2 teachers again-- still dont understnad why. I cant understand what they are saying because they dont fully announciate their words- they like slack at the end of the word so I cant understand them and they are sort of rude. I hate that its basically a brand new class other then the other 4 people. Its weird being with new people, we've alll been in the same ulpan class for 4 weeks straight, spending 25 hours a week together so its weird not being all together. The new class is weird. Since we all came from all different classes we all know all different things, its confusing. They are stilllll trying to make an intensive class which is apparently an extra 15 minutes befre and after class every day- so an extra 1.5 hours a week. A lady in charge came intoday and asked how many people would want to do it so like 5 people from my class signed up, and 4 people from danielles class signed up (including danielle yayayaya)--- but apparently you need 10 to make a class, so we made this innocent kid Dan Cohen go sign up so now we have 10, hopefully they will make the class. They said maybe--- ughhh Israel.

The Next class was the American Jew and The Israeli Jew: A comparative Analysis. It actually seemed reallly reallly interesting. We watch movies, read books, do a group presentation about a book and write a paper. It seems really really interesting but its at such a bad time--- tuesday 230-415 (fine) but thursday 2:30-415 grrrr.... Everyone triesss to leave thursdays and sundays free to travel-- some people have thursday class until 215 but most try to have it end by that time. It sucks but it seems interesting.

Neuroeconomics: The Brain in Decision Making----could not be any more boringg ohhhh my godddd! This man with a giant beard taught it for 4 hours straight, never been more bored in my life, had nooo idea what he was talking about. Its weird-- it was supposed to be one of the easier psychs here but it was so hard and boring. I think I have to stay in it though for my Psych credits. The good news is- its only a presentation and a paper! wooo and I dont think he took attendance

Spring break: Its official Jodi and I are going to Greece from March 27-April 6th!! We justtt booked out flight last night. We were both really overwhelmed by all the possible travel plans and the millions of people going on each trip so we decided to just go together. We are flying into Athens, going to spend a few days there--- then traveling around. We have a lot of work to do until then- our parents want us to have a route and alll of our hotels researched and booked, so we have lotsss to do but we are very excited! Shes in my sorority at binghamton and shes great, im really happpy not to go with like 20 people and wander aimlessy.

Cooked last night with Karen HAAA... I was trying to cook this rice thing and she came in and taught me how to make it the Israeli way with all these funky spices. Then she started telling me about her meatballs and she pulled some out of the refrigerator and made me eat them, I dont even want to know how old they are! She says we are going to make them together one day.

The Nature and Nurture of the Social Brain: Its a graduate school course taught in the main school of Hebrew university. Kids in the honors program in the study abroad program are allowed to take it but everyone else needs special permission so I got it. It was realy interesting. Im in it with lauren and ethan and all Israelis + our madrichem rotem which was funny. Its definitly going to be hard because its a graduate school course but it seems really interesting and it got my attention. Its only 1 time a week and for only 2.5 hours which is suprising andddd it ends May 28th which is not typial for the main university, usually these classes end Jun 29th- but this one is in May which allows me to take it. Its a paper plus a few article summaries which is good.

Ethan told me about this other Psych class that is apparently SOOOO goood. He went to it the other day. Its called The Brain in Decision making--- its different from Neuroeconomics. Its also a graduate level course taught in the main University--- BUTTTT at the Givat Ram campus which is a bus ride away. There are shuttles from the main university there. He said its the best class hes ever taken- it meets once a week for like 2 hours. Me and Lauren really want to take it but we both have class until 400 and that class starts at 430 so we wont have time to get there, it is across town. They are trying to maybe get the class to move to this campus so hopefully it will? thats an option

Internship: starts tomorrow and so far its really pissing me off. We have to intern for atleast 8 hours per week. We were supposed to meet last sunday for training but she cancelled it and she insisted that all 5 interns meet together--- so the only time we could meet is on thursday morning for 2 hours before my 230 class- from 11-1. Soooo already we will be behind 6 hours this week and the internship advisor says we need to make these hours up sometime throughout the semester. Then this sunday and monday we have off for purium so we wont get to intern then so we are going to be behind sooo many hours. Also-- the worst of it is. The lady at the Rape Crises Center whose in charge of us, Gal, sent out this email the other day that says she wants ALL the interns to intern together at the same times and the only times that work are sunday morning at 10:00 am and Thursday mornings at 10:00 am--- 2 travel days. I was steaming!! Theres not many classes offered here on sundays and thursdays because the school knows people want to travel and if they are going to travel they want to go for 3 or 4 days- so EVERYONE makes their schedule the most feasible for traveling. So this internship is already a huge problem--- no on travels and comes back saturday night, they come back sunday late day. SO this is going to stop me from traveling. So I emailed her and explained it, she like doesnt want to change it, she was just like bring me your travel dates and we;ll see what we can do. I spoke to some of the other interns and they seem really upset tooo- they said we will talk to her tomorrow at the meeting and try and do something about that but I just hope they are as upset as I am and will really try and make the switch. I dont want this to stop me from like doing things in Israel.

Went to my first gym class at the gym tonight: Sculpt. I seemed to have forgotten the fact that the WHOLEEE thing would be taught in hebrew. No one in the class spoke english-- could notttt understand what the teacher was saying, what anyone was sayinggg and I was the youngest one in there. For a college campus-- there were wayyy toooo many old women. They used all this really strange equipment I have neevr seen in my life. One thing was like a human rubberband that we used to stretch out eevrything and there was something else but i dont know how to describe it. It was very strange.

Its supposed to Rain and be cold in tel aviv the whole weeekend--- boooo--- So we cancelled the hostil for friday and are just going Saturday night to sunday instead-- so 1 night. Then we bough these tickets for sunday night--- its a hugeeee circus party downtown, we bought tickets for that, should be fun.