The Laughlins

CLICK ON THE PICTURE OF ZIZEK BELOW TO VIEW VIDEO OF HIS LECTURE!!!

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, Mark and I went to the Jerusalem Film Festival last weekend and watched two movies. They were both good, but the most interesting part was probably after the second movie, at which time Slavoj Zizek (who was the narrator of sorts in the movie) came onto stage and gave over an hour-long lecture. To most of you, this name probably doesn't mean anything, but the whole reason that we chose to attend this movie is because Zizek is someone that I studied in my Literary Theory and Literary Criticism classes in college. He is very well-know in literary circles, so I was quite surprised when he showed up on stage after the movie (...and all for about $10 each!). He brought over 20 pages of notes with him, and the only reason that he stopped lecturing was because they basically kicked him out of the theater so that they could start the next movie. I met him afterwards, and when I told him that I had studied him in my college English classes, he told me that I must hate him because I had to study him; he told me to buy a voodoo doll of him so that I could get back at him. Anyways, it was a fun experience - one of those "once in a lifetime" experiences, of which we are having many here in Israel... Before the movie, we ate in the German Colony at a place called the Coffee Shop. The food was delicious - I got a penne pasta with a creamy pesto sauce...yum yum. After the movie on Friday night, we walked around Ben Yehuda Street and Zion Square. We went to Steve's Packs (the famous backpack/bag store of Israel), and we both got little wallets.
Mark and I both finished our 3rd week of ulpan; next week is our last week of the Jerusalem Ulpan. After it ends, we get about one week off, and then we start the Summer Ulpan (two months long). We are thinking of going to Petra (in Jordan) with some friends during our week off. We'll see though. Jordan is our friend - Jordan is to the East :) I feel like I am learning a lot, can read much faster, and definitely understand the grammatical aspects of Hebrew. Mark and I both want to work on our vocabulary a lot more (supposedly we know over 1,000 words already), and I need to work on my spelling as well. Mark is very good at spelling in Hebrew, but I am still learning to recognize the words by sight. (I am still better at spelling in English, so we trade off). That's about it!
We are going to see Pirates of the Caribbean this evening in Talpiyot (near the German Colony). After that, we are going to come home, go to bed right away, and wake up at 1:30am to take a trip with the university to Masada. We have to leave early because we are going to see the sun rise (and we have to hike to the top first). Check out BiblePlaces.com on my links to read more about Masada. Needless to say, we will be tired on Friday, but it will be worth it. It will be nice to be physically tired for a change instead of mentally tired!