B'ivrit (in Hebrew)

I attended my very first class at Gordon Ulpan and already I know how to say orgasm in Hebrew! If this is any indication, the next five months should be a blast. My teacher, Edna, an attractive woman in her 60’s, bubbles with enthusiasm and has a great sense of humor (which is essential given the ridiculous stuff that comes out of the students’ mouths). She seems to have boundless energy and patience and also exhibits a great talent for explaining the meaning of unfamiliar words in Hebrew without actually translating them into English (or Spanish, French, etc.). The class of about 30 is a virtual U.N. with representatives from Germany, Brazil, Columbia, China, Uzbekistan, New Zealand, Italy, Poland, Australia, the U.S. and several other countries I didn’t quite catch yet. I sat next to Vivian, the cultural attaché at the Columbian embassy. We struck up a conversation and discovered that we both have children in Washington. Her younger son is a student at American University while her older son graduated from Johns Hopkins and her daughter lives in New York. She is repeating Aleph Ploos because she didn’t feel that she achieved her goals last time. She said that Edna is fantastic compared to her last teacher so I feel very lucky to be in this class. More later on this topic but now I must prepare my shiur bayit (homework) for tonight’s class.