So at the beginning of the week I dragged my sorry little self back to the ulpan to see if there were any summer courses that I can take, given that I’ve got to start preparing to teach some upper-level psych courses in the dreaded language. They made me take an exam and I was thinking it was going to be along the lines of the first exam I took upon my arrival in the country –yah know, about 2 pages of fill-in-the-blanks and multiple guess. I got, however, a Gila-exam. Gila has been put in charge of testing people this summer and she created the tome she placed before each of the approximately 80 people. It was 12 pages long and included an essay. Then there was to be a spoken component afterwards. Yep, things have changed at ye olde ulpan.

Personally, I was wanting to go into a Bet class again. I’ve done gimmel way back when, well, half of gimmel before work made me quit, and know from experience that it is mostly reading and writing and I need help (still and always) with speaking. At least, speaking under conditions where I do not feel intimidated or as if I am being judged or where I could care less what the other person thinks of me. Under those (infrequent) and happy conditions, I can chatter along like a lark.

The test took me about an hour and a bit for the written part and then I had to sit about waiting my turn for the spoken part for about 3 hours. My turn finally came and Gila first checked my exam and marked the two I got wrong –smeekhoot, I hate those things and never have gotten them down. She read my essay. We had a nice, relaxed chat about what all I’ve been up to in the two years since she’s seen me and then pronounced, “You need to go into Hay, which we don’t have. If you take my dalet in the fall, I’ll give you additional advanced work but you might consider taking Hay through University TA.” Noooooo. No, Gila this is me, remember, the girl who can’t speak. I want in a bet class. “Yaeli, anyone who can write like this can speak. You’ve been speaking to for 10 minutes and you can speak perfectly well. It is psychological.” (Yes, I’m perfectly aware of that fact, thank you, but it does me no good when I’m unable to get out a sentence when speaking to my boss). It took another few minutes of pleading my case and then she caved. “Fine, the Bet plus class is full but you’ve got protekzia and you can start in it tomorrow. On condition you move into Dalet when it starts in September.” YES!!

And I’m loving the bet plus. I’m now one of those people who intimidated me into not speaking back when I took bet. I know all the words (well, almost all, we learned “malaria” today and I was equally clueless) and am happily defining them for the class when the teacher, Daniella, asks does anyone know this word…I’m taking an active part in the speaking parts of the class. I’m actually speaking without fear. I’m still making mistakes but, because I’ve got a sense of one-upmanship, knowing that my mistakes are fewer than the majority of others, I’m not afraid to go ahead and blurt out responses with mistakes in them.

And tonight I’ve made a pact with my new little ulpan friend Laura (pronounced lah’oo’rah since she’s Israeli-Italian) that we will start getting together and I will help her with deekdook (grammar) and she will help me with speaking (since she’s always spoken Hebrew in the home, she is fluent but doesn’t know grammatical stuff at all and has only just learned the written alphabet). Yeah, one-upmanship. I like it.