Day 53: A sense of accomplishment

My cousin celebrates her birthday tomorrow. She was born a few months after me and I tease her about being older and wiser. We grew up together in Israel until I was eight years old and my family moved to the U.S. She and her mom accompanied my mother and me on the boat trip to the U.S. Two weeks of uninhibited fun aboard a fancy cruise ship.

But I digress...
In a moment of inspiration (or insanity...I can't quite make up my mind) I decided I would write her a birthday greeting in Hebrew. Now, to put this in context, I finished all of third grade before we moved and the last time I attempted writing more than my name and perhaps shalom in Hebrew was many decades ago. I had installed the Hebrew keyboard on my iPhone so I could at least see the letters. For the uninitiated, Hebrew has a non-western alphabet. To complicate matters even more, some of its vowels are letters while others are symbols that are placed below or inside letter as an aide to pronunciation.

It was a good reminder of the challenges faced by young children when they are first learning how to read. Having to learn to associate those squiggly lines with a letter and each letter with a sound. Not to mention the idiosyncrasies of spelling.

She was able to decipher what I wrote though...and guess how proud I was!

Until tomorrow...