![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Well, the first day of orientation has come and gone. Much of it wasn't so bad- a nice walk there, without getting lost (and leading one of the roommates, so not only was it a pleasant achievement, but it was a moment of competence within the sight of someone else, too), to start out the day. Furthermore, the Hebrew was slow and simple enough that I understood the vast majority of it- and much of the day was done in Hebrew.
One of the early things that we did was a Hebrew placement exam (because of course you want to take your placement exam before you're at all comfortable, much less adjusted.) At first I was really freaked out, but as I went, the written section, at least, wasn't so terrible- although not easy either: I'm definitely rusty. My essay came out rather stream-of-consciousness and very, very emphatic, but considering that I put across a few actual ideas, if they were a bit too strong- well, I can live with that. The oral exam- I was clueless. I did what I was told and didn't do horridly, but I felt off-balance and off-kilter, and didn't feel comfortable- and I really could have done better, I think. It just left me feeling very uncomfortable.
We did this rather interesting imaginary mapping activity before lunch that will either be really interesting or really horrid as it continues. First there was this rather new-agey (New-age, rhymes with garbage, as the joke goes) introduction that was pretty tacky and went on for far too long. In my opinion, it would have been better to introduce the idea more clearly, give a few examples and let us get to work, as it were, rather than the elaborate audio-visual drama thing that they did which had rather little useful information and mostly just harped on the same things over and over again. Really, one can only show the word Ayeka (biblical Hebrew: Where are you?) moving on the screen so many times before it loses any effect that it had at first. They passed that point several times over. However, the notion of the map as metaphor, and drawing metaphorical maps of our experience as we go could be really interesting. We were each given a journal for our "map-making"- I imagine that looking at them at the end of the year, if we actually work on them, could be quite interesting. We'll see if I manage it.
The awkward moment was that when they gave out our cell phones, mine wasn't with the group and the guy had to go find it, somehow. Not a major thing in the long-run- I had it all of an hour or an hour and a half after everyone else, but it was not a great moment.
A remarkably large amount of time was spent telling us about the Tali schools, which are a project of Schechter. Tomorrow morning I need to be up unpleasantly early to get to school in time to go see one. I don't know why we're spending so much time on this, rather than on stuff actually related to our school and school work. However, that said, I still have to be there, so I had best start heading towards bed.
One of the early things that we did was a Hebrew placement exam (because of course you want to take your placement exam before you're at all comfortable, much less adjusted.) At first I was really freaked out, but as I went, the written section, at least, wasn't so terrible- although not easy either: I'm definitely rusty. My essay came out rather stream-of-consciousness and very, very emphatic, but considering that I put across a few actual ideas, if they were a bit too strong- well, I can live with that. The oral exam- I was clueless. I did what I was told and didn't do horridly, but I felt off-balance and off-kilter, and didn't feel comfortable- and I really could have done better, I think. It just left me feeling very uncomfortable.
We did this rather interesting imaginary mapping activity before lunch that will either be really interesting or really horrid as it continues. First there was this rather new-agey (New-age, rhymes with garbage, as the joke goes) introduction that was pretty tacky and went on for far too long. In my opinion, it would have been better to introduce the idea more clearly, give a few examples and let us get to work, as it were, rather than the elaborate audio-visual drama thing that they did which had rather little useful information and mostly just harped on the same things over and over again. Really, one can only show the word Ayeka (biblical Hebrew: Where are you?) moving on the screen so many times before it loses any effect that it had at first. They passed that point several times over. However, the notion of the map as metaphor, and drawing metaphorical maps of our experience as we go could be really interesting. We were each given a journal for our "map-making"- I imagine that looking at them at the end of the year, if we actually work on them, could be quite interesting. We'll see if I manage it.
The awkward moment was that when they gave out our cell phones, mine wasn't with the group and the guy had to go find it, somehow. Not a major thing in the long-run- I had it all of an hour or an hour and a half after everyone else, but it was not a great moment.
A remarkably large amount of time was spent telling us about the Tali schools, which are a project of Schechter. Tomorrow morning I need to be up unpleasantly early to get to school in time to go see one. I don't know why we're spending so much time on this, rather than on stuff actually related to our school and school work. However, that said, I still have to be there, so I had best start heading towards bed.