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Ulpan Addendum

And the number of women in my class with an Israeli significant other has climbed to five this morning. A woman from Amsterdam is the most recent addition to the club. We’ll see what happens tomorrow.

In class yesterday, we read a paragraph about a couple who has a dilemma: the husband was offered a promotion which requires him to work abroad* for a year. However, the wife was also offered advancement in her job so she doesn’t want to leave. Our homework was to write the dialogue as if the couple were talking it out. When I got to class this morning, some of the girls nearby were comparing their creations: “I had him talk to his boss to see what could happen.” “Mine went through an amicable divorce.” What a soap opera! Boy, I was boring in my story. I’m going to rewrite it with the husband discovering that the wife is having an affair with the chumus dealer at the shuk. “Next…on As the Falafel Turns…

And as long as we’re talking about Hebrew, I stopped in a hardware store yesterday to buy a new adaptor. I struck up a conversation with the couple who owned it (when you’re playing Taboo in Hebrew to get them to guess what you want, it’s never unusual for it to lead to questions). Whatever country you’re in, you can’t seem to tell people you’re from Texas without it eliciting some kind of reaction, related either to the fact that 1) you must ride a horse, or 2) you must have some kind of connection to George Bush. The shopkeeper then told me that Bush ohev milchamot (Bush likes wars) and that he also likes petrol. That was funny.

*Anyone know how to say “abroad” in Hebrew? If you’re talking about outside of Israel, it’s chool, an abbreviation which stands for CHUtz L‘aretz. It means exactly that, outside of Ha’aretz, or Israel. Funny how it is used as if it’s a location. Like, translated into English, I’m going to chool this weekend.

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