First Day of Class!

Sunday, the 20^th of Feb.

Today was my first day of classes over here!  I have been eagerly anticipating this day, not because I’m pumped about classes but because I’m pumped to meet people. 

The first challenge was navigating the bus system successfully without any clue what the university looked like or if the line even stopped right by it.  I knew which line to get on (either 24 or 25) and I had scouted for a stop near my apartment, but I didn’t know how much a fare cost exactly (I thought it was six shekels and that turned out to be right) or where to get off.  And to quote good old Rumsfeld, those were the known unknowns.  Who knows what else I didn’t know?

Once I arrived at the university I had to figure out where my class was actually located.  I made my way through the main entrance where armed guards checked my bag then started wondering around.  I found a coffee shop, then found the law school but couldn’t find the building where my class was located.  I had written down that it was in “Merkaz 017.”  However, unfortunately for me, Merkaz is the English way to write the Hebrew word for “center.”  So I had written down “Center 017.”  Now as you might imagine there are several centers on campus so no one at the coffee shop knew where to tell me where to go. 

So I decided to head back to the law school building figuring someone there would know or at least let me look up in my email the full name of the building.  When I walked in the building I walked up to the first person I saw and asked her.  Turns out she’s a double major in, get this, law and accounting!  Haha she’s headed to work for KPMG after graduation.  Small world.  She graciously offered to walk me to the class so I made it in plenty of time.

The class itself is really interesting.  It’s a class on intellectual property taught by one of the top experts in the world on the subject.  Because he’s so world-renowned we have everyone from people like me with no IP experience to people writing their doctoral theses (FN1) to practicing lawyers taking it just to learn from him.  It’s an awesome course.

My next class is a land law class.  Not just any land law class though, it’s about how land law has shaped the conflict over Eretz Israel and/or Palestine.  (What you call it depends on which side you’re on.)  This class promises to be extremely interesting.  We’re basically going through the history of the conflict going back to the Ottoman Empire and studying the conflict and the central role that land law has played in that conflict.

The final class for the day is History of English Law which is also pretty interesting, but since I know it won’t interest any of you except the law/history nerds I’ll skip the details.

Boarded the bus with some friends and headed home exhausted.  A great first day.

FN1. Thesis.  Yes, the plural of thesis really is theses.  I know, weird.