One Month.

I’ve been in Israel for 32 days now, and they have been some of the best of my life. I’ve made new friends, seen new places, and learned new things, both inside and outside the classroom. A lot has happened, especially in the last two weeks, and its about time I started blogging about it all. So here it is:

I love my classes, even though we’re only one week in. Here’s my weekly schedule:

Sunday:

Emergence of the Modern Middle East 12:30-2:15

Perspectives on Islam 4:30-6:15

Monday:

Modern Hebrew 8:30-12:00

Foreign Policy of Israel 4:30-6:15

Tuesday:

Theories of International Relations and the Middle East 8:30-12:00

Emergence of the Modern Middle East 12:30-2:15

Perspectives on Islam 4:30-6:15

Wednesday:

Modern Hebrew 8:30-10:00

Foreign Policy of Israel 4:30-6:15

Thursday:

Modern Hebrew 8:30-10:00

If you’ll notice, I have classes on Sunday, which has been kind of strange. Having class at 8:30 four days in a row is also a bit rough sometimes, but I’m slowly getting used to it. My classes are made up of all international students, and I think none of them are larger than about thirty students. The professors are all great so far, and it doesn’t look like they will be too much work (aside from reading). Finals week is going to be rough, but I prefer not to dwell on that right now.

In addition to my classes, I was also recently hired as an intern at an organization called the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education, or IMPACT-SE. Here’s their website:  http://www.impact-se.org/

Basically what they do is analyze school curricula of Middle Eastern countries, looking specifically at the cultural ‘other’ (i.e. the West for Iran). Their goal is to promote tolerance in Middle Eastern education, in the hopes that by changing the way different cultures view one another, it will be easier for them to peacefully coexist. They hired me both to do research, and to work on fundraising, so look for some shameless promotion in my coming blog posts!

On top of the internship and classes, I’ve also been asked to blog for Masa Israel, which is a group that helps students (specifically Jewish students) fund study abroad trips to Israel.  So about every two weeks or so, I’ll submit a blog post about my experiences to be posted on their website. Here are links to two posts I wrote about how I spent Rosh Hashanah here in Jerusalem:  http://tinyurl.com/6gcjhb6  http://tinyurl.com/6anqlxy

Finally, I want to end this post with somewhat of an announcement. I recently became aware of an intensive Arabic language program offered through Hebrew U in the spring. As I was planning to study the language anyways, I decided to explore the program, and see what it offered. It consists of 14 credits of Arabic classroom instruction, tutorials, workshops, and related field trips and activities, as well as a 3 credit course on Islam. Not only would this be the best introduction to Arabic that I could get, the program also makes financial sense as well. So after several weeks of weighing the pros and cons, I finally made my decision. As of this week, I’m officially staying in Israel for the year, meaning that I won’t be back until sometime in June. It’s a big decision, but I’m confident that I’ve chosen correctly.

I promise that my next post will have more pictures, so check back often!