Ani lomedit eevrit

Do you know what the above title means? No? Don’t feel alone, I’m learning Hebrew and even I, sometimes don’t know what those words mean.

What is so hard (קשה) one may ask. Well let me first tell you (insert hand waving gesture here) that it’s not really hard at all. It’s me. I learn differently. I am an artist who has styled hair for 20 plus years and for me to be in a classroom (כיתה) all day, whoa, I cant even tell you how קשה this is. Luckily I have some amazing people in my class that make learning fun and an awesome teacher (מורה) that is really good at what she does. Ulpan is very unique in the way it teaches it’s students. It gives us tons of information and we are supposed to apply that to our lives each day. I do better in real life than in the classroom but its extremely helpful and very necessary if I want to survive in my new country.

I would be telling a lie if I said that I enjoyed Ulpan because I don’t. What I enjoy is laughing with an amazing new friend and learning with him. His name is Anthony and he is hilarious and I call him my Colombian secret weapon because together we are a hot mess. We do snack runs and talk about life, relationships (or my lack of one). He has literally helped me step up my selfie game. When I want to give up (which by the way is daily) he slaps the quitter right out of me, so for him, I am grateful. But on the flip side, can I ask you if you have ever peed outside (gasp)? I know that’s a random question and maybe TMI (you are definitely not Israeli if you think peeing is TMI because we pee everywhere). Well; I learned how to pee outside. Can you believe this? I came all around the world to learn to pee in the garden. Yes I know, I know, trust me I’m thinking what you are thinking.
What the hell (insert hysterical laughter here). Oh and here you thought me learning Hebrew was only about the aleph bet. How does peeing and learning tie together? Story time yeledim (kids)…

Once upon a time in a far away land, Ulpan Hadera had a huge sewage back up and school was released early but this day the student came to learn and didn’t want to go home so the teacher agreed to work after hours even with no working facilities. Oh what’s a girl (oops I mean student) to do? Pee in the bushes says the teacher. Oh no says the American (oops I mean student) this is so not kosher. You will be fine says the teacher,Yallah (go). Oh my goodness, my mom’s going to kill me says the girl (oops, I mean student) and this is where the most valuable lesson went down. The teacher expresses that sometimes you have to let go of the things that you are taught and just free your mind. Sometimes we put so much energy into the rules, we forget to just live.To just let things be. We forget to have fun. Fun, did somebody say fun? That was all I (oops, I mean the student) had to hear. Right there I (oops, I mean the student) let it go. I peed the aleph bet and the Hebrew lesson right out of my Vagina. I let it all go and now I am able to learn so much more freely and open and when I am struggling in class, I literally think of that moment because moments like that are those moments when it’s not always pretty but it’s real and real is what I want to continue to experience everyday on my journey.