In most of my classes I feel sort of like a tiny little fish in a sea of Hebrew occasionally squeaking out a "help" that no one really hears. I have class two days a week. On Mondays I start with "Creativity and Mental Illness". The professor is mostly understandable and since we are talking about history right now I am pretty much following what is going on. Plus it is fascinating, so that makes it easier to pay attention to the Hebrew. Next I have "Psychotherapy" where we are learning all about... therapy. The teacher, in an attempt to make it easier for all the students but me, has assigned only Hebrew articles this semester. It took me over a week to read 10 pages. She also believes that all therapists should have a very high vocabulary- which she uses in class. I am still having to have a normal vocabulary, so I get lost a little more easily in this class. Then the fun starts (I am dripping sarcasm right now). I have 3 hours of qualitative research methods with a woman who talks like she is stoned. She really loves research methods but I basically have no idea what is going on, because I cant pay attention to her for more than 6 minutes at a time. Then I have 3 hours of quantitative research methods with a woman who talks faster than any human being or cartoon character I have ever heard. Its like getting hit by a tsunami of Hebrew. Luckily the program she is teaching us is in English, so I can actually keep up with the class. Plus, she is entertaining, which is much appreciated at the end of the day.
These classes are all 60+ people lectures for the whole creative therapies program. (There are 4 tracks, music, drama, movement/dance, and visual art. Art is the biggest, with 60 people starting this year). I am generally too embarrassed to ever speak out in class and reveal my grammar mistakes and American accent, plus I am afraid that someone might have already said what I wanted to say and I just didn't realize it. This is a little hard for me because I am one of those kids that speaks up in class (not the annoying Hermione-hand kind of kid, but still, I am a talker). So the only chance I really get to do this is on my second day of classes, which in my head I call "art day". On art day, I start with a 4 hour class on art therapy. There are 20 women in my class (there is one man in the entire program) and we alternate learning art therapy theory and drawing/painting/sculpting. The women in my program all seem to know who I am from the few occasions where everyone had to introduce themselves (Apparently my Americanness and strange name make me rather memorable), and are all very nice to me. So I can speak up a little in this class, but I frequently lack a word or feel like I am not properly expressing myself which gets a little frustrating. After this class I have a second art class. This one is my smallest- there are only 10 of us- and is focused on giving us a support group through the program, a place where we can really connect with other students and talk about any issues or questions we might have. Nava, our professor, is wonderful, and two of the other religious women that I have befriended are in the same group. We tend to start class with some sort of individual project and then come together to create something as a group. And then we sit around and talk about it.
This class is my favorite because I feel like I can express myself without necessarily talking. For example, this week we started class with everyone drawing a tree for themselves. We then put each one on one large poster paper and Nava told us to create a forest. This is always the awkward point, where no one really knows where to start. Some people put out an idea or two but no one will make a decision. Since this drives me crazy in almost all situations, I ended up just getting up, picking up a paintbrush, and saying, I am going to paint a "______" now. Which is how I earned the lovely compliment from my teacher.
So school is hard but wonderful. I am generally excited and interested in what I am learning (even research methods has its moments) and though there are days when I feel like Im drowning in Hebrew, I think I am going to be okay.
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