Beginning of Classes

Classes I am taking: Hebrew, Arab Israeli Conflict, Historical Geography of Jerusalem, and Peace Building and Conflict Resolution. Classes are going really well so far. Hebrew is a much slower pace and I feel that I am finally (!) catching on. I have only had the Arab Israeli Conflict class once, and so far it is really interesting, I haven't had an in depth class about the conflict, and this class focuses in on how documents play a role. Whether the documents created a disagreement, or the documents were created after. I enjoy reading the documents and then discussing the cause or effect. The Historical Geography of Jerusalem is the bombbb!!!!! haha. No seriously, it is great. I love how it is a geography class and I know all the answers....go fertile crescent :) (thanks dad!) So in this class we will have lecture one week and then the other week we will be going down to the Old City and also the City of David which was the originally city of Jerusalem. It is fascinating to learn why the gates are positioned they way they are in the Old City as that is how the five valley's run through the area. The first class was an introduction about the history of the city, and most of the lecture was based off of the Bible. My teacher was pulling versus left and right. I was a little skeptical at first as to how much of it I should believe. But the Bible was the only written document back then, so I'm just going with the flow. But I really really enjoy this class so far.

So the Peace Building class- it got off to a chaotic start because there were more than 25 students signed up for the class. The teacher wanted us to tell her why we want to be in the class and then she chose 25 students. I was chosen (I also went up and told her that Yoel said hello, so that might have had a little pull- :)) and class went as planned last week. Then yesterday many students who were not in the class were upset and went to the director. So there are more than 25 students, and she was just very flustered yesterday. Class was cancelled today, and it just seems a little awkward. The class itself is off to a slow start but there is a lot of ground to cover. I am truly excited to see where this class leads as I want to see how this can relate to Human Rights and Genocides.

I don't get how we can fit all this course material into such a short period! Spring Break is three weeks away! :) But so far, I'm enjoying the classroom environment and just need to stay focused to keep up with the amount of reading I have.