So as of October 15, 2012, I am now officially a University student. (Sorry Mom, I forgot to take a picture!) And to be perfectly honest, thank God. It is fun to bounce around a country with freedom, but at some point, you need a rhythm in your life, and that rhythm was going to be school. So now I am going to classes, reading readings and stressing about time management.
Our classes are only twice a week; either Monday/Wednesday or Tuesday/Thursday. After that we have perpetual 3-day weekends. We are required to take 5 classes a semester and they meet for 10-12 weeks. I'm taking the following classes: The Struggle for Palestine-the roots of the issue, Introduction to the Religion of Islam, Radical Islamic Movements, Business Ethics, and After Auschwitz-Contemporary Views of the Holocaust. So as you can tell, the majority of my classes are either Israel or Middle East related, which makes the whole experience of being in Israel more enlightening.
And what I mean by that is the relations people have to the topics they are learning. The best example I can present is when we read a poem in our After Auschwitz class. The poem was beautiful and very heart-wrenching. It was a list of what The Holocaust "is". This varied from movies to emotional connections and it started out light and ended on a heavier note. It wasn't the poem itself that was the interesting part of the class, but how people reacted to it. As the list got more and more intense, people became more and more emotional, to the point where several people left the class because they were crying.
Along with students' connections to the subject material, it is interesting to see how classes are taught. I went to a class on Thursday to try it out and left feeling somewhat bad because I had to correct my teacher. The class was focusing on the trials of Jesus and how it affects how people view the Jewish population. Long story short, my teacher got a lot of the basic facts of Christianity completely wrong, or was presenting theories as facts. I have nothing against theories being presented and discussed because that's part of life and how we challenge our intellect, but not when they are not prefaced with the idea that they are disputed theories. My participation grade was really good that day.
Today is Monday and after a much needed weekend, i'm back to readings and lectures. Yesterday was the first day for the Israeli students, and I can't stress how stereotypical the campus looks. Students are sitting on the grassy areas, people walking around with coffee, backpacks everywhere and more. It's refreshing to see random people all over campus because for the last 3 months, it's just been us.
I'm sure by the end of this week, i'll be completely sick of school, but for now it's nice to finally feel productive. This is my passion; here, Israel, Palestine, the people, the peace opportunities and studies, and what better place to learn about it. Alright, I gotta finish my homework before the Cards are on tonight! There aren't any Chicago people here, so I found the next best thing, a person from St. Louis! They better win tonight, or they're gonna have a sad fan here on the other side of the world! (look at ma pants)
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