"To" and "To" in Hebrew; and The Big Felafel

Since Murphy's Law is currently operative in this universe, it stands to reason that this week, when flu shots are available at our health plan, I already have the flu......and of course, one cannot get a flu shot if one is sick, ergo, I'm locked out of flu shots this season. I can only hope that the flu I have will protect me from whatever the shot was designed to guard against, but in the world governed by Murphy's Law, that's probably too much to hope for....

This bug starts with a sore throat. First, just a tickle, followed the next day by the feeling that someone has just taken a backhoe to your throat. That's the easy part. Next comes the fever and chills, coupled with the worst sinus congestion I've ever had (which is saying something because I'm the champion of sinus infections). Instead of sinus cavities, I felt like I had boils getting ready to burst around my eyes and alonside my nose.

The Boy also got a version of this, so we both tramped up the street to our Meuhedet clinic, met with the doctor, got throat cultures (Mom has a phobia about strep), and were blithly informed that "it's just a virus."

If this is "just" a flu virus, then I never want to meet the mutated ones bred for WMD deployment. I'm usually pretty tough when it comes to colds, flu, sinus infections, etc.....very few judges in my career ever allowed a continuance because one of the lawyers was sick. Our standing joke was that the only way to get a delay in one's case was "to call in dead." But this flu virus knocked me silly for a week--it started last Monday and has progressed through the sore throat/inflamed sinus/running-like-Hoover-Dam nose to what is apparently the final stage--chronic coughing.

I staggered into ulpan this morning because I dislike missing two days in a row, and I missed Thursday's class......so today, I alarmed almost everyone by coughing through the first half of the class, and I felt badly because I didn't know how to say in either Hebrew or French, "I'm not contagious any more."

I stayed until the break, which was good. Before Break, we explored the intricacies of "L...." versus "el...", their conjugations and when/how they're used. I suppose this will one day be second nature but having to think of two different ways to say "to" depending on if it's a person, a place or the name of a place, AND conjugate it correctly, was almost beyond me this morning.

NB non-Hebrew speakers: Hebrew conjugates its prepositions! Arrrggghh!

For example:

to me = li .......... OR .......... to me = alai

to us = lanu .......... OR.......... to us = aleinu

to him = lo .......... OR.......... to him = aleiv


I'm sick enough that I don't have the energy to really get confused about his--I just wrote it all down and simply decided to memorize it, which in the long run will probably cause me less grief than trying to figure out the how and why of it.....

On another note, I took up Rebecca's invitation and went to her and Molly's blog, The Big Felafel (http://www.thebigfelafel.com/). Listen up, everybody-- READ THIS BLOG! . This is the blog I wanted to/wished I could have written about life in Israel. This is the best new blog (in English) in Israel, and may turn out to be the BEST blog in the Anglo community.

Why can't I write like this? We won't even talk about amazing graphics, links, etc.....

Check it out!