on me, here.

classes started- taking
Hebrew Gimel (ie how to fail hebrew)
From Zionist Idea to Israeli Society with Mendelsson
The Emergence of the Modern Middle East with Nisan
The Bible and English Literature with Besserman
Learn How to be a Canadian with Shira, Avi, Tamara, and Keren in 581

and doing some other things-
Shatil internship
Beit Midrash program
Sunday night learning and lectures
Living in Israel


so, I am in Israel. How do I relate?

What is Lovely

We return to our permanent dwellings, our daily lives
Sukkot passes by and another year begins
with chilly air and a feeling of fall
and light early morning rain that doesn't last long enough to rinse the dust off the window,
but still it rains.
The first day of class is tomorrow (today),
what should I wear?

______________________________________________

I cannot be awake for nothing looks to me as it did before,
Or else I am awake for the first time, and all before was a mean sleep.
(Walt Whitman)

be here now

on sukkot, from dad:

Maybe if you get some time to spend in a sukkah while it is sleeping time here, our night-time freed spirits can pop in for a visit. I hear the sukkahs in Israel are all paved with golden floors and diamond and ruby and jewel bedecked roofs, and beautiful tables and the best of chairs, and the most excellent china and well-crafted silverware.

And that the estrogs have a wonderful vibrant and vitalizing scent that is found in hints of a whisper of a smell everywhere throughout Jerusalem.

Vanity, all is vanity, but for that whisper of the estrog and the whistling of the lulav, passing conversation in a temporary hut under the stars.

----more from me later.

duck duck CROC

things of note:

- I can only understand Hebrew when spoken by my Ulpan teachers,
- Ulpan is over,
- and I'm working on it.
- If you spend a Shabbat in the Old City, Then you will see everyone you didn't know you knew.
- Shabbat in the Old City is "hachi tov"- the most best.
- I am leaving for Tzfat tomorrow morning,
- Rebuilding bomb shelters, exploring the city, making candles, and singing lecha dodi.
- Ramah people are everywhere.
- My brothers seem to be incapable of calling me.
- I seem to be incapable of sending a mass email
- and this seems to upset my friends,
- who are also not capable of answering their phones when I call.
- I am addicted to buying scarves.
- Inevitably, every class I want to take will be scheduled for the same time.
- I miss Old Navy.
- When I was young, I thought that Old Navy was a thrift store, like Salvation Army (similar name, nu?). I was so confused as to why the clothes were in such neat piles and everything was clean.
- Todd is getting married in a year.
- I need to renew my visa in a month.
- Petra is a viable option.
- Jerusalem and Pittsburgh are both really hilly. Pittsburgh has a bit more bridges, but Jerusalem has its own syndrome.
- I don't think I'll ever get enough sleep.
- On Yom Kippur in Israel, most of the streets are closed down, and the Infamous Israeli Biker Gangs come out. It gets pretty dangerous out there.
- Crocs are the new black.