school and a broken finger

I attended my first class of the semester today...Hebrew ulpan level 4. Oh shit. I have no idea what's going on. I've been assured that a lot of it will come back to me once we get going, but I'm wondering if what was never there can come back. I'm wondering if there's such a thing as adhesive for the brain...to make new material stick. I should be taking some interesting courses this semester, and if I can remember anything I learn in them by the end of the day, I'll let y'all know.
Apart from that, I got a call yesterday from the dreaded ex, Boaz, back from the army for the weekend. We went for dinner and to his parents' house so I could say hello to the members of the family I actually like. He was insanely kind and apologized for being an ass. At midnight, I went with him to the army doctor to get a sick day for a broken finger he got a couple days ago when a tank door closed on it. The nurse wakes up the young base doctor who looks grumpy as hell coming down the stairs and waves Boaz into his office. All I could hear behind the closed door was a lot of screaming and a fist repeatedly banging on the table. Still, Boaz came out with a grin. "This asshole, he say to me, 'You cry like baby! You don't need sick day!' He know my finger is broken but he say it's nofing. I try to tell him tomorrow is Sport Day and I don't want to make it worse, but he tell me, 'Shut up! Behave like a man!' He write the note anyway. I want to tell him he can't treat me like this, to yell at him, to tell him he is f**king crazy, but then I think, maybe he can cancel the note."
We climbed back into his father's van and he starts to snicker. "You know how many times I do this? Everybody do it." And it's true--every Israeli I've ever known has used some excuse or another to get a sick day here and there. His finger really was broken, but apart from a little pain, it was working just fine.
A few years ago, while he was in basic training, a miserable time for young soldiers, a friend told him that in order to get a sick day, he should go to the doctor and say that a soccer ball had hit him in a very sensitive place. After a great deal of howling and crying, the doctor sent our charming little actor to the emergency room where a young, embarrassed Russian nurse gelled him up and performed an ultra-sound on his "smashed" testicles. "Well," she says to Boaz, who is terribly amused at seeing his balls up on the screen, "you can see that there is a bit of fluid here from the hit." And confident that she had done her job, or something close to it, wrote him a note for a sick leave of one whole week.
How can you fault the guy? Or any soldier who drinks four cups of steaming hot coffee before sweating his way into the doctor's office and having his temperature taken? These kids are put in the most dangerous of situations on a daily basis for 3 or more years (before they reach the legal American drinking age). Now, don't get me wrong. I can fault him for being an ass, but that's a whole other matter.