Time to shutter the blinds and lock the virtual doors on the blog. This week I thought I would end with an Israeli satricial show — TheTribal Update. Besides this lets me practice my Hebrew comprehension – but never fear, I found episodes with English subtitles.
Blogging hasn’t made it to my list of top 10 things to do recently as those who are regular readers can attest to. I have let other bloggers carry the load per say. Besides writing, reading, drawing, sewing a summer wardrobe while running a household; I opted to add a new language to list of things to do.
Learning to read, write and speak Hebrew properly is one of those things I always meant to do but for one reason or another I never gotten around to doing. I already have a vocabulary of about 150-200 words and I do, more or less, know the aleph-beyt. There aren’t really many letters or vowels and its a much more direct language than English. The real challenge is to read modern Hebrew which often doesn’t use the vowel signs and to speak it in a way that native Hebrew speakers can actually understand. I suppose I could go around blessing everyone and saying a prayers regularly but if one wanted to find the public washroom the Shema isn’t much help.
I have always had a somewhat elephantine memory but I have grown somewhat absent-minded lately – probably because I have had far too much to do and am constantly running on empty. The tribe sees this as evidence of my decline and living (or aging) around a budding neuro-scientist doesn’t help. She keeps talking about the need for me to keep re-firing my neuro-pathways and other such concepts which I don’t fully understand. I would have opted for someone else to do the laundry but instead I get the lectures without any context. She has nagged encouraged me to finally spend the time and effort to learn Hebrew as apparently one of the best way to keep the neuro-pathways firing is learning a new language. It’s like a total body workout but for the brain. It also helps that she says she will learn too – this way I have someone to regularly converse with. Although I suspect its a case of the blind leading the blind. Besides, I have decided that once the tribe all leaves home, I am opting out for at least a year and going to live in Israel and even though I know just about everyone in Israel speaks English, I want to be independant and be able to pick up a bestseller and read it easily – or go to a movie and not have to look for one with subtitles – or ask where the public washroom is without worrying whether I have accidentally insulted someone’s gentials or parentage.
So if you see me wandering the streets mumbling to myself take note – I haven’t ventured into the crazy bag lady stage of existence but am listening to my lessons on my iPod and am merely practising my Hebrew.
