Class

So I felt like giving a preview of the classes I'm taking here. Because we can sit in on classes somehow I ended up in 6 classes instead of 4 so I had to decide which to register for, but that has no bearing on which are the most enjoyable, so I'm still going to all 6 :D

1. The Production of Everydayness in Israel

Typical Gallatinesque class. I spend most of the time updating my blog and talking with the other people in the class on facebook chat. Still it could be an interesting class. We are talking about literature, music, culture in Israel and we take field trips. Would be better if the teacher wasn't so scatter brained.

We went to an alternative concert in the courtyard outside the art museum where we heard Hebrew slam poetry, an amazing drum concert that wrenched your heart into your throat and took you through the narrative story of Israel without ever saying a word, and this weird multimedia song/video/acid trip preformed by a guy with a blue beard and hair who looked cracked out. Later we went to his studio and tried not to sleep through his artistic bullshit. Still its good to know artists are crazy everywhere.

2. Arabic

What can I say, its Arabic. Our teacher is a bad ass named Avi who is amazingly racist/chauvinist/everything offending yet he doesn't offend. He is like a caricature of himself. The first time we met him he told us he had to go to his physical therapist (who's family we would later have Ramadan meal with) for an old knee wound from being in a terrorist attack when a bus was bombed. He survived by jumping out of the window and saw the bodies of people burning around him.

3. Conflict Resolution

Dates and numbers, so many wars in the short history of modern Israel. What more is there to say.

4. War Reporting

I LOVE THIS CLASS!!! The teacher, Sylvana Foa (spelling??) is this amazing women from the '60s who is one of the most famous war reporters in modern history, worked for the UN and married one of the richest men in Israel. She chain smokes, drinks like a fish and bakes us brownies that "don't have grass in them yet" She loves war and thinks its better than sex and wants to take us to the Ariel crossing into Gaza and a bombed out village near the wall. When 12 helicopters (2 black hawks) flew over her house in Jaffa, heading towards the south, when we were having class/lunch on her roof she wanted us to jump in a caravan and follow them. She intends to tear gas us at sometime during this class so that we will know what it feels like.

5. Israeli Cinema

Taught by Eton Fox one of the most famous Israeli directors of the past few decades it is the class where we are learning the most about Israeli culture and its progress. The movie we watched yesterday, Song of the Siren, his first full length movie, was the Israeli version of a "beach read" but it was just as concerned with war as it was with romance. Shows the difference between our opinions of romantic comedies.

6. Electoral Politics in Israel

Amazing class, probably our most informative and interesting class. Great teacher who has worked with a lot of important people. I'm excited for it.

Thats it :)