Haval Al Ha'Energia

I walked into Ulpan today - Hey/Vav level (highest, I'm proud to say) and I apologized to the teacher for interrupting (I was late on account of Akiva's bus being late and the bus into town that Ira and I took was slow and schleppy) and she said, "don't feel badly, it's a shame to expend/waste the energy." The Ulpan organizer was delighted to send me to this teacher whom she described as a feminist. She said that we would get along because I still go by the last name Steinberg as opposed to having changed my name to Skop. She also informed that she would list me name as Skop with Steinberg in parentheses. I told her that that was not acceptable. She didn't seem to care. She also felt strongly about the spelling of my name in Hebrew and that I should change it from the way I've been spelling it. Let's keep in mind that the bank has already made one assumption and that I don't intend to go back to the bank, and wait on line just to satisfy this person but she did have a convincng argument.

We read the newspaper (a day late). Olmert wants to let everyone know that the continuation of the disengagement - but the word used last summer to describe the disengagement from Gaza is no longer used. It's a new word now. Anyway, whatever word you want to use, he has called it now, "irelevant." Politics.

We listened to the news, "hadashot," from the word new. As the recording is a day old, we call the news "yishanim," or "olds." The group is very mixed. Young Arabs studying for University, a few Russians, a couple of Americans and a woman from Korea and another gentleman who seems of Asian background but he also wears a kipa so I haven't figured him out.

Eyes closing. Ulpan tomrrow. More to reveal.