I'm back in the U.S.

Hello Everyone! It has been a crazy past couple of weeks for me. I am currently writing to you all from my mother’s house in Minnesota. I received notice last friday that my program was being cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak and that I should return home as soon as possible. Upon hearing this news, I packed up my dorm room in Israel and booked a flight back home for Saturday. I was not completely surprised by my home University’s and USAC’s decision to cancel the program because several other students on different programs were being required to return home a couple days prior to their announcement. Additionally, the U.S. State Department had increased the travel warning to a 3 out of 4 at the time. Now the travel warning is currently at a 4. I remember when there were only a few cases of the coronavirus in Israel and then it had drastically increased to a hundreds of cases within a few days. During my final days there the atmosphere of the country was completely different. Everything that I knew and loved was closing and going into a complete lockdown. I am grateful to the University of Haifa International school for allowing me and my fellow colleagues to complete our classes online via zoom and moodle. Taking classes online is not nearly as engaging as a physical class and requires a great amount of discipline and self motivation to complete them. I would prefer to be back in Haifa taking my classes in person but in light of recent events that is clearly not possible. Additionally, my summer program for the CLS in Morocco was cancelled and now I have to find a new plan for the summer. I find it disappointing that they did not even offer us the option to defer our program. They just informed us that we would have to reapply for next years program if we wished to participate in the program again. I am trying to stay positive and continue my language learning despite these unexpected changes in my plans. I still plan on applying for graduate school and have been looking into master degrees in public administration, Arabic, and international relations. I would like to thank you all for reading this week and I will be sure to update you all on my plans for the future. Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures to share with you all this week.