A blogger is born every second...

So, I just sat down to a plate of too-salty couscous and peas to tell you that I am going to Israel. That's right,

I AM GOING TO ISRAEL.

In the sense of using the progessive present to describe events in the near future or events pretty much certain to take place, because they have been planned or scheduled, or because the seeds of their occurrance have already been sown. I am not there yet, but I think it's going to happen.

I guess I've been thinking about tense so much because I've been reading Gesenius. (Sidenote--very complete but very poorly organized book. He starts with all the exceptions and slowly proceeds to the rules, finally reaching the basic verb paradigms in the last few pages.) The ability to speak of future events in the progressive present tense I think indicates a certain hubris about the future. As though merely scheduling things makes them so--like in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure: "Remember to stash the keys here when we go back in time--Wyld Stallyns Rule." When really I am not, at this moment, right now, going to Israel. I don't even have a plane ticket. I have a backpack and a camelback, but they still have tags on them, so I could still return them. I have a Let's Go guide. That's about as much real committment as I've put into this thing so far, except that I now tell people: "I'm going to Israel (plan accordingly)." In a way, just saying it feels like a committment to do it.

I'm not sure if Hebrew has these kinds of statements. For a long time the Jewish Agency told me, "We are finding you an internship." But they haven't found one yet. And that's really all they meant: "We have not found one yet, so it could still happen;" not, "The seeds of your internship have been sown, and you should now feel so confident that it will happen that you may speak of the internship as though it is already happening." Hebrew does not have a future tense. Since the idea of speaking with certainty about the future is absurd, the closest Hebrew comes is an imperfect tense--a way to say, "It hasn't happened yet."

But I really do think I'm going to Israel now.