The First Day of School

I haven't had a "first day of school" in a long time that wasn't either at Centennial High School or the University of Maryland. Nonetheless, I think it went ok. Today was actually the first of a four-day orientation designed to help us get acclamated to the campus, schedule and staff. Today consisted of:

8:30 Services
10 Intro to the Program and Ulpan
11:30 Security briefing
12:30 Lunch
1:30 Small group discussions

Rabbi Naamah Kelman who is the director of the Year-In-Israel Program (and who is awesome, by the way) outlined the goals of this year:
1. Learn Hebrew
2. Live a Year in Israel
3. Build a foundation of Jewish texts and rituals
4. Begin to form our "Professional" selves
5. Build a community of Rabbis, Cantors and Educators

How do I feel about the goals? Well, I'm practically fluent in Hebrew so thats no big deal. I've spent about 5 years in Israel already. I'm a master of Jewish texts and rituals. I'm super professional. We have a super community already. (I'm totally and completely kidding, by the way...)

Seriously, it was a lot to hear at 9:30 in the morning, and it is a lot to take on. But for now, I don't need to worry about 95% of it- On Sunday morning we start Ulpan (which is a series of intensive Hebrew language classes. We take 6 weeks of Ulpan- 4 days a week, 5 hours a day) I'm very excited and a tad nervous- we shall see what happens.

After 8 days of being off-line, I'm finally back. Yes readers near and far, this means that I will have an opportunity to update my blog more often and share the funny and interesting details of my year in Israel. I promise to write a long post about my apartment, life, friends and school, once it starts. Until then, it's 11:25pm and I should get some sleep...tomorrow is the second day of school.