It was thirty minutes into a seminar on Critical Theory on Planning when I realized with relief that I was not the only one drowning in the Hebrew discussion on relative and absolute space. Another student raised her hand and flat out told the professor, "Excuse me, please slow down. I have no idea what you're saying."
But there was no such sense of sympathy in the school supply store.
The Academon is in the basement of the student union and is filled with the usual paraphernalia for studying - stationery, pens, pencil cases...and then loads of computer goods, an entire corner devoted to backpacks, and racks of toiletries. Really, Ben Gurion U. students? You can't find shampoo at your corner grocery?
What confounded me was how I would organize my papers in the land of no Five-Star notebooks with multiple subject areas and convenient built-in pockets. How to deal with A4 paper, which is narrower and longer than my old mainstay, A3? What to do with a standard filing system of two holes to a sheet, instead of one? Or with the national love for "nylons" - transparent plastic pockets with two holes designed to be placed in binders to hold onto the non-punched sheets.
I stared at the wall of binders and nylons, bewildered at the prospect of re-thinking the way I take notes. After ten agonizing minutes, I bought pre-holepunched loose leaf paper (which comes bound on one end, so it can be easily used in a clipboard) and two binders. I also picked up colorful pens to get excited about writing reams of Hebrew which may be indecipherable to me when I look at them later. I think I'll wind up taking notes on a clipboard, ripping the sheets off at home and filing them away in the two binders, which I'll divide into subjects using nylons.
This information may not be Earth-shattering, but it is just one more way in which I am realizing that studying in another country has many consequences beyond just the language. Foreign students everywhere, I salute you.
4 comments:
When I was an Israeli student my secret was this: don't bother taking notes in class at all, nor organizing them in binders. Just wait until a week before the final and then photocopy the notes of the girl who bought colored pencils in the academon the first week.
One thing you will NOT have to worry about as a student in Israel is buying textbooks. Can you imagine Israeli students being asked to pay $100 for almost every course they take? Strike anyone?
Oh and by the way, A4 rules! Death to letter paper!
This is a brilliant plan; however, if I don't take notes I tend to doze off. As for the no books policy - it's crazy to think of how much money I spent in the States buying books, but then again what am I going to do with all these printed articles when the year is over? At least a book can be sold online or treasured as a resource for many years.
I doze off *while* taking notes.
I am TA-ing a class next quarter and I just learned that students will be asked to buy a $35 "clicker" so they can vote on multiple choice questions during lectures instead of showing hands. Imagine *this* at an Israeli university. Forget strike, this has riot written all over it...
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