Banging the "rosh" on the "shulchan"

What. A. Day.

Today was the first day of Ulpan. I pretty much slept the fitful sleep of a child anxious for her first day of school. As usual, the first day of school consists mostly of paperwork, lectures on behavior, etc. The day began at 7:30 A.M. with a ride on the bus up to Mt.Scopus. Upon arriving at Mt.Scopus I had 3 hours to spare. I found out what level Hebrew I was in (Beginner Aleph) to which I replied "Nu-uh." I spoke to the people in the office who bumped me up to Advanced Aleph. Somehow I'm supposed to get to Gimel by October. Hmmmmm....this should be interesting.

Anyway, at 11 a lecture on security was given for about two hours (nothing more depressing than that) and then headed to our classes. In my class there are 6 French kids (foie gras and crudetat, anyone?), a Brit, a Belgian, three Israelis (one a recent oleh chadash from Russia, the other two, Muslims), and three Yankee Doodles (two from Ohio, and moi). The first part of the day was spent with a female teacher and that went pretty fast. The second, a guy, oy vey. Nice dude but spoke TOO fast. Should be interesting.

Shiur Bayit. Homework time. More tomorrow.