The Laughlins

If you didn't get/read the email update I sent to my "Israel email group," it is posted here. If you want to be added to my Israel email group, just email me at markandaubrey@gmail.com and let me know!

"Hello Again,
I have realized that in the past few months in general, I have gotten much more infrequent in my communication (by email, website, and phone).  However, summer is around the corner, and this will free up some time for us, so I hope to be on top of these things again soon!!
In the meantime, Mark and I have both been staying very busy.  I have been adding new students to my tutoring schedule and have "capped" my numbers, so that I won't be taking on new students for a while.  I will briefly introduce my students to you.  I am tutoring Hun Kwang from South Korea who is a 31-year-old student at Hebrew University.  He speaks English well enough to communicate in most every-day conversations, but wanted to use this "free" semester in his schedule to study English more intensively.  We meet 8 hours a week, and he is hoping to finish the program here in one year and apply to PhD programs in the U.S..  I am tutoring Springstone (this is the English translation of his Korea name), a father of two, who is around 40 years old(?).  He is also from South Korea and is a student at Hebrew University.  His level of English is about the same as Hun Kwang's, and I have been helping both him and Hun Kwang edit their academic papers in English for the university.  I tutor him 3 hours a week; I will soon be tutoring his two children also, as soon as their summer break begins (in about two weeks).  This next scenario will make some of you laugh...Mark and I have become such good friends with our fafafel guys that we see every week, that I recently started tutoring three of their girls!  Samir is the father (grandfather) who owns the falafel shop, Allam and one other brother (can't remember his name) are Samir's 30-40-year-old sons who also work in the falafel shop, and I tutor three of Samir's granddaughters, ages 3,3, & 6 who, besides the 6-year-old, don't speak English at all, and I don't really speak Arabic at all.  I wasn't sure how this situation would work out (this was my first week teaching them), but I think that it will be good, and I really like the families.  They are from Israel, and I tutor them about 3+ hours a week.  I have also been teaching Jew Heon and Yenah for a little more than a month now; they are 13 and 8 (from South Korea), and their father is a student at Hebrew University.  Yenah was born in Israel, and Jew Heon has lived here since he was 4, so they both speak Hebrew and Korean perfectly.  Jew Heon can use very basic English to communicate verbally, and Yenah - not much at all yet, but she is getting there.  I tutor them about 3+ hours a week as well.  Ppohey (pronounced Boohey), who was my first original student from many months ago is returning from South Korea in one week!  She went home for the last few months to have her baby in South Korea, but she is back (for good) in about a week, so I will be tutoring her 1+ hours a week.

So, as you can see, my tutoring has kept me busy (which is great), and this doesn't even include the travel time by bus, walking, or car (Allam's) required to get to each of these meetings, which makes the schedule even more crowded.  In addition, I am still doing Modern Hebrew, and just had my final test on Wednesday.  I am very happy for the work though (I am a "do-er"), and I like all of my students (and I'm learning so much culturally from them as well).

Mark has been busy finishing up his semester (done in two weeks).  I went with his archeology class to Tel Hazor yesterday, where his teacher, who is the lead archeologist for the dig there, walked us around and gave us detailed explanations of everything.  Mark and I have been there before (in February), but he was very excited to have her there and to be able to ask questions and get detailed information.  He has established a rather fun, bantering relationship with his Biblical Hebrew teacher, Dr. Ford.  They both have the same sarcastic, dry humor and write each other emails in terms like Master Ford, and Your Humble Servant (H.S. for short)...dripping with sarcasm, of course.  It is nice to see that he has made that connection.  Mark also turned in (and received back) his first seminar paper for his Book of Jeremiah class, which he got a 98% on.  He has to write three seminar papers (20-30 pages) in the two years he is here, and this is the area that he excels.  He already arranged his second paper with his Hazor archeology teacher, so he will be writing that over the course of the summer (due in Sept).  He also set-up his first individual tutorial.  These are highly encourgaed for his degree and a time in which a student can choose his/her own area of interest, ask a professor to be his/her advisor, and then meet one-on-one (weekly or bi-monthly) to engage in detailed research and study in this area, which will lead to a final paper.  Mark asked his Book of Jeremiah teacher, Taria Philips, to advise him on the topic of parallels in Ancient Near East Literature to the story of creation.  He will meet with her during the Fall 07 semester, while engaging in research, and will spend the Spring 08 semester writing his final seminar paper for this class.

As for this summer, Mark and I both changed our summer plans and are very happy with our prospective summer.  Instead of doing Modern Hebrew (in a formal classroom), Mark will be taking his third year of Biblical Hebrew for the month of July.  I will be keeping up with the tutoring schedule that I listed above, and then for the months of August and September, Mark will be studying Modern Hebrew on his own (as will I), and he will be writing papers, studying for his GRE exam, and applying to PhD programs.  We have been choosing potential PhD programs to apply to, and Mark is requesting letters of recommendation from his professors right now.  Most applications are due by Nov/Dec 2007, so he needs to take his GRE exam (required for PhD and most MA programs) by October at the latest.  Instead of registering for a full-time summer Hebrew class (as I was originally planning), I decided that I would much rather see Europe before we leave, so that is what we are doing for part of Sept.  I am going to (hopefully) complete a level of Modern Hebrew study on my own (and tutor Mark in his Modern Hebrew, because he loathes this class and has a big weakness in the "learning spoken languages" area - mostly vocabulary), and then we will do a spontaneous trip to anywhere we can get to on a very limited budget.  That's right - I am buying tickets in Sept., two weeks out (or less), because that is when they are cheapest from Israel ($150-$175 round-trip to somewhere in Europe...usually Germany or Greece).  Wherever we land, we'll hop cheap flights from Ryan Air between countries, and see what we can see within a budget.  We currently have good friends living in England (London), Germany (Bavaria), the Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Austria, Norway, and more.  It may work out to stay with an number of them if we end up in their countries.  I'll let you know :)

So that is the very long update.  This will probably change and shift (as most things seem to do here in Israel), but I will let you know how things go as our summer progresses.  In the meantime, Mark and I are celebrating our 3rd anniversary on Tuesday, we still like each other a lot, and we are enjoying all that we are getting to learn and experience while we are here!
Love you all,
Aubrey and Mark"

Happy Mother's and Father's Day to our wonderful parents, grandparents, family and friends!