Well, folks….it’s Shabbat. Time for another moment of country music.
Today’s song? “Just Another Day in Paradise.” Why? Because it reminds me of home. It’s not a very recent song (I think it’s from 99), so I’ve been hearing it over the past few years and it is very familiar to me.
(it’s another one of those capitalist things where you can’t embed but you can post the link)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yakW10rgKX0&feature=related
This week I’ve had too many moments where I’ve felt like too much of an idealist for my own good. I’m thinking I need to watch a good movie which features idealism or dreams or something….”Jesus Christ Superstar?” “Goal! The Dream Begins?” “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat?” “Camelot?” “The Prince of Egypt?” “Liverpool FC: No Heart As Big?” (Yes, I own an official Liverpool FC movie) “Team America?” “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen?” “Monty Python and the Holy Grail?” “Braveheart?”
Have I told y’all lately how much practice I’m getting in French? Seriously, I’m gonna come out of this ulpan with absolutely no Hebrew but with fluent French. And, as I’ve mentioned before, when I come out of here my English will be accented. It’s already starting to sound weird…
It’s been making me wonder what I want to do, what I want to study, etc etc after I get out of here. My immediate plan is to keep learning Hebrew and continue with Arabic, but I’m thinking I want to learn EVERY language. I’d want to continue with French, and I want to learn Italian, Russian, Czech, Welsh, Finnish, Swedish, German, Romanian and basically everything else in between. And shit, I want to continue with Latin!
It is the biggest ego boost in the world to have people be like, “Shit son, you can understand what that French girl is saying???” Today was awesome because I was eating lunch with my French friend and my Chilean roommate. The French girl would say something in French and I would have to translate it into Hebrew for my Chilean roomie. Then my roomie would respond to the French girl in Spanish, and I’d have to repeat it for her in Hebrew/English to make sure I understood what she meant correctly, and then I had to say it in French for the French girl. It was seriously the coolest thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. Seriously, I think my entire life was building towards that moment.
What’s especially cool is that I might be swapping rooms. The two French girls (one is a bitch, one is my friend) are fighting a lot and so my friend wants me to move in to create a sort of buffer. (Also, my friend thinks I could get the bitch to leave ulpan if i just play my country music collection non-stop.) How cool would that be? I leave the room and everything is in Hebrew, but I come back to the room and everything is in French, and meanwhile everything in my head is in English! SHIT SON, THAT’D BE FUCKING AWESOME!
I need to remind myself of something. Yes, I may hate folding towels. I may miss my family. I may be in the middle of a war with “The Americans.” But you know what ulpan is? A language lover’s dream! This place is incredible because I get to hear French, Spanish, Russian, German, Hungarian and Hebrew. Every single day is exciting because you get to try to figure out what the hell everyone is saying. I’m especially loving German because it’s basically just accented English. Like, the other day I was in the German boys’ room, and we were talking in English. Then I got bored and started fidgeting with my phone for a while, but the boys continued to talk amongst themselves. They were talking shit about one of the boys here, saying this and that about him, and without looking up I let out a weak, “Hey, that’s not very nice…” And then there was silence. I looked up and found both German boys staring at me. “What?” I said. Then one of them said, “How the hell did you understand what we were saying?!??!?!” Turns out they were shit talking the boy in German. Fuck, isn’t language incredible????
I have to prioritize I guess, since it’s not possible to know everything I want to know. Maybe I’ll start by learning Hebrew, then move on to (in this order) French, Italian, German, Romanian, Czech, Russian, Welsh, Finnish, and Swedish. I know I’ll never know all that, but a girl can dream…
I mean, fuck it, I don’t care if I have the strongest American accent in the world!
P.S. Have I told you how I got back at my Aussie roommate for making fun of my American accent in Hebrew? She makes fun of my accent and then I look for a random object and then I yell in my most ridiculous Australian accent, “THIS is a _____.” Example: “THIS IS A TAYYYYYYYBLE!” Like Crocodile Dundee yelling, “That’s not a knife, THIS is a knife!” And it pisses her off to no end. And she’s pretty much stopped making fun of my accent…
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