This, according to my fabulous Zilberman dictionary, is the Hebrew word for cranky.

The little I’ve read about culture shock seems to indicate that after an initial phase of being all bubbily and excited about the new country one has entered, there’s a big chunk of time where external reality is pretty much considered the enemy and one wants to hide under a rock as much as possible. Unfortunately, this description approximates one (not all, but certainly one) of my natural states anyway. I’ve been told to expect about three months before this wears off. Feh.

Probably part of the other reason I’ve been Having A Week is that ulpan (Hebrew language-intensive) started on Tuesday, and that’s taking some, er, getting used to. On a good day foreign language aquisition is about my seventh circle of Hell, so being in an ulpan classroom for 5 hours a day, with then a number of hours’ homework each evening, is not how I would ever choose to spend my time. Granted, the instructors are very good and I’m sure I’ll learn a lot–especially as this will go on, 6 days a week (and on the seventh she rested fell over) THROUGH Rosh Hashonah, ending just before Yom Kippur. And I may even add some supplimentary stuff to that, in September–all of our classes will be taught in Hebrew this year, and it’ll take some work to ensure that I am sufficiently up to speed to play in the deep end. So basically I’ll be working like a dog on this until Yom Kippur, get a short break (2ish weeks) in which to make Yom K, the 7-day holiday of Sukkot and the 1 day of Simchat Torah happen, and then classes at Schecter start up in earnest.

I’m sure once my body gets adjusted to this new schedule and such I’ll figure out in which pocket I left my good attitude, but for the meantime I’m going to be spending a lot of time doing homework and yearning for a nice, solid rock far, far away from everything and everyone that wants me to conjugate.

For those of you who are inclined towards this sort of thing, this would, btw, be a great time to get some love in the mail. Actually, anytime would. Anything of any tangible sort–a crayon drawing, a poem (by whoever), just three lines saying hi. (I’d also never say no to mix cd’s or the latest Bitch magazine, but you know.) I love email and stuff too, of course. Of course.