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Reflecting back on my classmate's presentations throughout the semester, I found that I have learned so much, not only about the cultures they were studying, but about my own culture and my own cultural/political opinions. I am not sure if it was only because we were all females in our class, but we spoke a lot about gender issues, and I found that these weighed heavily on my mind, even when I was not in class. There was so much variation between different countries and cultures and their gender norms/practices. I think this is wrong. I was shocked by Shiksha's awesome presentation on the history of arranged marriage. It makes sense to me after seeing the start of her presentation as to why arranged marriage began. However, it is one of the most power-stripping practices that there is for women. To have no control over who you marry is something that I can literally not even imagine. One must feel like they are doing it for their community, their family, etc... but to not be able to marry for love, that is bad enough. However, to potentially be forced to marry someone who is a bad person, abusive, or even just someone you don't click with, that is horrible to me.

Sweden was on the other end of the spectrum. I enjoyed hearing about the new pronouns they are creating to represent gender non-conforming individuals or people who simply wish to not be identified in speech by their gender. I also thought it was super cool to hear about the different movie ratings that are now coming out to rank movies more highly if they have strong female roles and high levels of feminism. This is so cool! However, it made me wonder what the real reaction to these movements is in Sweden. It is all fine and good if people in other parts of the world approve, but how do people in the actual country feel? Do they really like these changes or do they resent them? I loved hearing about the different directions that gender relations can take depending on the conservative status of a country's history and a country's level of modernity. Israel, I think, is in the middle. Most of it is very modern and westernized, but the very religious parts are probably more like India. Tel Aviv, however, is known as one of the best cities in the world for gay couples. It is fascinating to me that the rights of women - the simple human rights and liberties of more than half of the citizens in the world!!!! - differ across the globe. What a long way we have to go in securing the status of our global citizens.

One of the first things that I thought of when I read this article was the definition of "smarter". Does smarter mean a wider array and variety of knowledge? If that is the case, then bilinguals are definitely smarter. There is no doubt that people who know more than one language know more words, more grammar, have a higher amount of cultural competency, and are just generally a larger wealth of knowledge. However, I object to this NY Times article because I think smarter is not just about how much you know, it is about how quickly you ascertain something and retain something. Obviously I am biased because I am not bilingual, and it is insulting to think that people are automatically smarter than you because they had the privilege of being raised in a home where more than one language was being spoken. However, I do not think that this is just my bias shining through. I really believe that people who are bilingual are not more intelligent, they simply know more. I understand the article's point that the brain is stretched more and is used to moving and being used in different ways. But does that make one smarter, or simply more adaptable? I think people who are bilingual have more agile brains, because they are used to exercising their minds in ways that monolingual people just don't. But I just do not think this makes them smarter. More adept, maybe, more practiced maybe, and certainly more mentally "in shape", but not more intelligent.

Cultural Competence is a fascinating concept. The idea that people can be competent and aware of a specific culture, understand its cultural nuances, and become fluent in more than just a language is important. There is more to learning a language than just learning how to speak. You have to learn the other parts of a language, which are speaking in a certain way, understanding the dress and physical aspects of movement and appearances, and knowing physical and social interactions. For example, in Israel, to be "culturally competent", one has to understand that Israelis are tough and abrasive even though they do not necessarily mean to be. It could be very off-putting to be in Israel because one could just think that everyone is really mean, negative and harsh. Israelis are not any less nice than anyone else, they just are blunt and they do not mince words. This results in a certain type of culture, and this mixes with the language as well. Israelis rarely say please or thank you, and their body language rarely suggests that they mean please or thank you. Understanding this cues is a type of cultural competence. One cannot just know how to speak the language, you must understand how to speak the culture as well.

The following was my Learning Plan

1. Enrich vocabulary
2. work on pronunciation
3. work on reading without vowels
4. work on speaking with Emily
5. learn to construct correct sentences
6. work on spelling and texting

 To do this we will:

     Read short stories (once Emily can find a couple online)

     Watch youtube videos in Hebrew about something

     Work through my workbook

Lessons will be:  15 minutes of talking in Hebrew about:  our day, school, life, the weekend, and trying to incorporate words that we are learning in the workbook and the short stories.

     Reflection:  I believe that this semester was 100% successful.  Emily and I know each other, we are friends now and we can understand each other.  I had difficulties with Emily's method of speaking Hebrew, she was a little fast and would stop me in mid-sentence to correct me if I used improper grammar.   I found this initially very irritating because i would then lose my train of thought.  However, this really helped me because I am making much less mistakes in the present tense.  In the past tense I am still making some mix ups, but also the words begin are jumble a bit.  The past tense begins to have lots of consonants, which make it very difficult to speak.   

    I over the semester my reading has truly improved.   I have been steadily working through my workbook and I can usually understand every prompt and work through it.  However, reading through the story at the end of my Final showed me how much I had truly learned this semester.  I was able to slowly make my way through the long paragraph and understand most of the sentences.  I had difficulty with some of the questions because there were a few sentences that didn't make full sense because I didn't know three or four words in a row so I would lose the meaning behind the sentence but I knew the overall gist of the paragraph.   

   i still struggle with listening and comprehending.  That will come with more time listening to Hebrew and more speaking.  I will most definitely get better at that while abroad, because everyone will be speaking Hebrew around me and I want to be able to understand them.  

    My typing skills have most definitely improved this semester, I can type on my personal laptop without the onscreen Hebrew keyboard.  I know relatively where every letter is located on the keyboard to type words.  I am still much slower typing Hebrew than English, but that will come with time :)   

This has been a great semester for learning about something cultural.   This past summer when I was in Israel I learned that the refugees were a problem in Southern Tel Aviv.  I walked through Levinksky Park and I saw people sleeping on benches, I saw some stores closed with signs stating that the business was illegal.   I also talked with some of the asylum seekers and heard their stories.   Listening to their stories made me want to learn more about the situation.   I mentioned the problem and what I learned about it to a friend in Israel and he had a totally different viewpoint on the situation.   He identified with the Israelis who state that if they give them refugee status then they will settle in Israel and it will be a drain on the resources.  I found his viewpoint very narrow minded at first, but because I respect him, I decided that I would look into the situation myself and read up on what was happening.   

Having now been informed on the situation, I believe that both sides have very valid points.   It is true that Israel has a limited amount of resources and giving refugee status would drain the resources tremendously.  However, if the asylum seekers are given refugee status then Israel can send them to other countries.  Nonetheless, the other countries have to be willing to take in those refugees and every time Israel has tried to send them to Germany, Spain, Italy or any other country they have been denied.  The US has not offered to take in the refugees when asked.   I find this very sad.  It's tragic that we do not help our fellow human.   I understand both sides of the story, I just wish that things were better and other countries would open their arms to the refugees.  History always repeats itself, refugees have never been welcome to any country, there has always been discrimination against refugees.  

However there is hope, the story about how Israel is sending aid to Jordan to help the Syrian refugees warmed my heart and showed me that there is some hope.  Israel is playing the political game, but staying morally right by helping those in need.  

 By knowing this information about the culture of Israel, it enlightens me to know about another political situation that is not often heard of.  It is another source of tension.  I always believe it is best to be aware of all of the tension spots so you can avoid them.

Korean Presentation

Gaming in South Korea presentation.

Swedish learning plan

Section 1:

Learn:

• Alphabet
• Hard and soft vowels
• Pronunciation
• Numbers
• Colors
• A few animals

Outcome: I thought this was our easiest section. I still find the vowel rhyme to be helpful because it shows me how to pronounce certain words. Something challenging about this section though was that I learned that in Swedish the way you write a word doesn't always correlate with the way you colloquially say it. For instance, the word for monday is måndag but you say it moooondahhh. I got a 65/60 on this quiz because knew extra credit words.

Section 2:

Learn:

• Basic greetings
• Pronouns
• En vs ett
• Family words
• Description of ourselves
• Basic question to start a conversation

Outcome: I found this section to be really practical because they are the words and phrases I am going to need to know when I spend time with the Andersson family. I think a bulk of the information I will be sharing for the final will come from this section because I know a lot of words and sentences to talk about myself and my family. I got a 40.5/40 on this quiz because I missed some points for grammar related issues like pronouns and word order.

Section 3:

Learn:

• Weather
• Transportation
• Directions
• Time

Outcome: This part of the semester got challenging because we started learning very long lists of vocabulary. I probably know a few hundred words combined in terms of weather, transportation, directions and time. The most challenging is time because Swedish people use military time which we don't and they have a very precise and complicated way of telling the time to one another that isn't very similar to here in the U.S. at all. I got a 41.5/40 and the issues I had were with prepositions, per always!

Section 4:

Learn:

• Food
• Silverware and utensils
• Cultural differences with dining
• Clothing
• Parts of the body

Outcome: This section was fun because we were able to learn these words and concepts while making our Swedish dinner. This was also the first time we really talked about Swedish culture! Towards the end of this section I found that it was harder to learn all of the words because the semester had gotten pretty crazy. Before the final I want to go over clothing and parts of the body so I will know those words too! I got a 75/80 on this quiz, again related to the prepositions I used incorrectly in the essay portion of the quiz.

Final: The best part about this final and also the most challenging was that Louise didn't want it to be just a review of vocabulary so we spent the bulk of the final writing our own sentences about the categories of words. I got a 161.5/200.

Notes from this semester!photo-3.JPG

We had four quizzes and a midterm/final to show what we had learned, keep us on track, and help us construct sentences from the vocabulary we learned!photo-4.JPG

I did a lot of reading this semester to try to learn new words and understand Swedish grammar/syntax. The examples here are TInTIn in Swedish and Män som hatar kvinnor which is the first dragon tattoo book in Swedish!photo-1.JPGphoto-2.JPGphoto.JPG

We made Swedish meatballs! We talked about the ingredients in Swedish and made sentences about who we were eating with and what we were eating as a part of our food section.IMG_20131102_183352263.jpgIMG_20131102_180713631.jpgIMG_20131102_180704616.jpgIMG_20131102_181737446_HDR.jpgphoto-5.JPG

Swedish%20Culture%202.pptx

David Stevens Hebrew Culture Presentation on Refugees in Israel

The following link is a link to a Children's TV show.  This is for children.   The songs are very basic, but go over very good verb conjugations and belongings to.   Also, it brings up basic vocabulary.  In this list of songs is the song "If you're happy and you know it".   It was great to hear this song and start trying to learn it :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSddhdC_FzA&list=PLla4dPBUV93ETsCZRwRTvT5jX47NHtz--

http://www.dw.de/israels-open-refugee-detention-centers/a-17261176

   This article written on November 29, 2013,  The subject of Refugees is a very hot subject in Israel.  This article was talking about how hard it is for people seeking asylum to arrive in Israel.  Only 34 people have crossed into Israel since the border walls were erected in January.   All 34 were detained in an asylum center and spent numerous months in the detention center.   This article follows the story of one of the refugees from Africa and his story.   Even though his reason for coming to Israel was because his home country was unsafe and he was fleeing from the persecution, the police when they released him put on his identification card that he was in Israel for work.   He was then put on a bus with the other 34 refugees and driven to South Tel Aviv, Levinksy Park.   This park is the home to hundreds of refugees.   Because the refugees are seeking some way to sustain themselves, they turn to petty crimes for food.   Legislators have been working to try and get work for the thousands of refugees in southern Tel Aviv.  However, all policies have been knocked down and vetoed because if Israel allows the refugees to work, they will settle, have children, and more refugees will come to Israel seeking shelter.  Israel is a small country, although it is very prosperous, the resources are limited and Israel is already strained without trying to be self-sustaining and accommodating the refugees.   Legislation was passed to shorten the detention the time of refugees in the asylum camps and quicken the deportation time.   

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.554153

http://www.timesofisrael.com/dahlan-israel-agreed-to-absorb-200000-refugees/

http://refugeesinternational.org/policy/field-report/hope-hold-african-asylum-seekers-israel

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/imig.12070/pdf

Yesterday, legislation was passed to shorten the detention time in asylum camps to one year, but detention camps now have an indefinite time.   Legislators fighting for the rights of refugees have vowed that the political battle has only begun in Israel.  

http://prezi.com/w0fsvr91efmg/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

In my final week of study, my language partner and I addressed the Ukrainian culture and its perception of other cultures. I learned country names and language names of different major countries, which to my surprise were actually very different from the names of those countries and languages in Russian. I then learned how to talk about where I am from, my family background and my travel experiences in Ukrainian. As my language partner and I both walked back from the library to the dining hall, he made me point out and describe the things we see on the road there and apply them in conversation. I felt confident addressing what I saw and conversing in Ukrainian with my language partner. This semester has been a success and I am very pleased with what I have learned and how I was able to apply my knowledge in Russian in a constructive way for learning another language. 

On the Taglit Birthright website they call this experience an "educational journey". "One of the primary objectives of our trips is to motivate participants to explore their Jewish identity through a peer educational experience of historic and contemporary Israel".

Birthright is not about brainwashing people to think or act a certain way but to educate them on their religion and state. This is not a mandatory trip in any way, it is a privilege to have this opportunity and it is up to the individual whether or not they would like to participate. In fact it is not always easy to get on one of these trips, most people are rejected the first time they apply because spots are limited and you have to meet the eligibility requirements. There are a lot of factors taken into consideration that decide if you are eligible such as age, previous Israel experience, whether or not they are involved in a Jewish studies program and of course Jewish heritage. Since religion in our present time can be a complicated thing to define for an individual, Birthright lays out a guideline on how they define having a strong enough Jewish heritage to be eligible for the trip: you must identify as Jewish without practicing another religion, have at least one Jewish birth parent or have completed Jewish conversion and be recognized as Jewish by one of the denominations of Judaism. 

The program was first founded to address the growing divide between Diaspora Jewish youth and the land and people of Israel. Judaism is unlike most other religions in the way that is not only a faith but also a culture. If people of a culture are spread all across the world how can you keep that culture as one? To preserve our culture it is necessary to bring our people together to learn, grow and form bonds that keep our culture and loyalty so strong. 

"Taglit-Birthright Israel aims to change the course of Jewish history and ensure the continuity of the Jewish people by strengthening Jewish identity, Jewish communities, and solidarity with Israel via an educational trip to Israel for Jewish young adults around the world". So does this disturb the natural evolution that Borris speaks of? Perhaps. Did the Holocaust disturb the natural evolution of the Jewish people? Absolutely. 

Borris compared the natural progression of people losing their Jewish identity to the fact that more and more Muslims are moving into France and the number one religion is changing from Catholic to Islam. So what he is trying to say is that if Birthright did not exist, the number one religion in Israel would not be Judaism, or not for long at least. These are in fact two very different situations. First of all people in France are choosing not to practice religion which is driving the population of Catholics down drastically. Second of all there are more Muslims moving in who practice another religion. The difference between France and Israel is that France is not based upon a religion while Israel is. So if the number one religion in France changes that does not directly change their politics but it would in Israel. Another difference is that the people who go on this trip do not live in Israel so do not affect the population of the country unless they decide to move there (which sometimes happens but is not the main purpose of the trip). Also it is extremely difficult to continue a culture if the people are not physically together, making this trip a necessity to keep it alive.

Israel is the state of the Jewish people - the only country built off of religion. This puts Israel and its people in a very different category than most other countries. The Jewish people are also fortunate enough to have this unique opportunity to learn about their heritage and religion which is fantastic. Can you really disagree with a people for wanting to educate their youth and pass on ancient traditions? 

Section 1:

Learn:

• Alphabet
• Numbers
• Colors
• A few animals

Outcome: Learned everything we set out to do. I received a 64/60 on our first quiz. Although had extreme difficulty with the vowels especially the three Swedish ones that were introduce. Also had difficulty with vowel rhyme we memorized.

Section 2:

Learn:

• Basic greetings
• Pronouns
• Family words
• Description of ourselves
• Basic question to start a conversation

Outcome: Successfully learned everything on our list, received a 36.5/40 on the quiz. I continue to still get the pronouns confused but with practice I am getting better. Greetings were particularly easy for me.

Section 3:

Learn:

• Weather
• Transportation
• Time

Outcome: Learned a majority of things. This was the most difficult chapter for me yet. I prefer not to share the grade I received on this test. I think the difficulty was there were a lot of words, too many for me to handle. The reason being I had all the words from the topic and then tried to add in random words I found and it was too overwhelming.

Section 4:

Learn:

• Food
• Silverware and utensils
• Cultural conation with dinning

Outcome: Successfully learned all the words in the section, with a 74/80 on the quiz. This section was interesting because we did not only focus on the words but also the cultural components of eating at a Swedish dinner.

Final: Cumulative review of everything we went over. Extremely helpful because it made me go back and review the words I had forgotten or started to forget. Good set up. Consisted of 10 words that we had to translate from each section and then a portion in the bottom where we had to write in Swedish about the topics we had learned.

To practice what we had learned, molly and I would sometimes have text conversations in Swedish.

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