Tag: university

  • Twenty Years

    Twenty Years

    Political Violence (part 1) It took place in an off-the-beaten path classroom, not a modern lecture hall. We were maybe 30 students, and the few times we had met before – maybe it was two? Three? – we had already covered some ‘basics’: what peacebuilding is, Rwanda, a bit of Bosnia. When I registered for…

  • A degree in degree-getting.

    So a couple weeks ago I shared the latest Bar Ilan update that standing between me and my diploma was a ptur in English. One moment; allow me to rephrase that… Approximately one fortnight ago, yours truly revealed an update on the outstanding situation regarding the university of Bar Ilan, where the accomplishment of a…

  • The lizrael update I've been waiting for.

    Don’t know about you, but I can speak for myself, my husband, my family, some of my closer friends, and probably some coworkers and ex coworkers when I say that this is the lizrael update I’ve been wanting to share for a long, long time… In fact, I can pinpoint the time. It would be…

  • Progress.

    Here’s how you know you’ve developed as a student over years of Israeli grad school: First semester of Israeli grad school, three long years ago, you were told to write an end-of-term paper using the proper guidelines of the university’s thesis policy. You scrambled to find it after being told it was ‘somewhere on the…

  • A little late, but a lizrael update.

    Haven’t done this in a while, but here goes. Aliyah At this point, I’ve been living in Israel for three and a half years. Seems like so much longer… I can now count ‘old friends’ I had when I first came, I have a lengthy list of apartments I’ve lived/crashed in, I’ve been married for…

  • Lizrael Update: school keeps on truckin'.

    I know it’s been a while since I properly updated with the whole fancy ‘lizrael update’ subject line. And this is likely to be quick, since it concerns school. Some days I’m soclose to finishing my remaining projects (which these days numbers three) and some days I feel like I will never finish this thing.…

  • The final final.

    I don’t want to make promises, because you just never know over here… But I’m %99.99 sure that I just finished my last ever final at Bar Ilan University… …And I totally rocked it. Take that, Ethical Dilemmas in Mediation! Here’s a portrait of the calm before the final: It’s not the end of my…

  • Stop playing with my heart.

    Amidst my packing the apartment, my husband calls to me: “Looks like you got too sad too early.” Lecturers’ strike ends “The Coordinating Council of the Faculty Associations and the Treasury have come to an agreement ending the 89-day strike which has threatened the academic school year. After marathonic overnight negotiations, the parties have agreed…

  • Bar Ilan University has shut its doors…

    …and it’s libraries, laboratories and offices. I just got a notice; if you’re a student it might interest you: בשל שביתת המרצים הבכירים הופסקה באופן מעשי פעילות ההוראה של הסגל הבכיר באוניברסיטאות זה כ- 87 יום לאור העובדה שהצדדים למו”מ אינם מצליחים לגשר על הפערים, הגיע ועד ראשי האוניברסיטאות למסקנה האוניברסיטאות אינן מוכנות לקבל מהסגל…

  • An academic lizrael update.

    *Yawn*. *Stretch*. It’s a sunny winter Sunday. Today is as good as any to update about the awful university situation in Israel right now. Basically, I have no idea what is going to happen for the rest of the year because the department heads, university presidents, strikers and government don’t know. Somewhere in this giant,…

  • Now they're taking *our* semester breaks?

    A little ironic after my last post, but: Universities set to cancel vacations to make up strike time There are so many three, four and six-letter words running through my head right now (bilingually), I can’t really write anything else. University officials say that students will probably have to give up their semester break, and…

  • They may take my student card, but they'll never take my curiousity.

    It occurred to me today – in the fifth week of my third and final year – that Bar Ilan won’t always be a part of my life. Ok, allow me to rephrase: I won’t always be a registered student. The only time I haven’t been a registered student – since the early 80s –…