Sunday, August 31, 2008

Last day before school's back aaaand... anniversary!!

The air is starting to take on that back-to-school feel!

Ok, it's not the air, for sure because this is the desert and I've never gone back to school in the desert, but I'm definitely getting that feeling. And that feeling makes you take deep breaths and go, "ah, it feels like fall" even when it doesn't.

Today is the last day before the Elul Zman (next semester) starts up. We have an AMAZING schedule and I'm really excited to be back in learning and filling my days up with thinking and growing and learning and fresh new notebooks :) Ok yeah I'm a huge dork.

Here are my favorite hilights (let's see if they end up being my favorite classes): Maharal (with our Dean), Chassidut, Ulpan (spoken Hebrew class), Hilchot Shabbat (the laws of Shabbat), Intro to Mussar (character development) with Rabbi Shurin (our Rosh Midrasha), Issues in Jewish Contemporary Society, and our Chessed project! I'm definitely excited about this schedule.

So, a few days ago I sent a message to my friend Maayan, an Israeli, who recently moved to Jersusalem. Maayan is a brilliantly artistic kinda gal who I was fortunate enough to room with last summer. I told her I desperately wanted to do something artistic.

Be careful what you ask for.

The festival was at the Jerusalem Theater. It was open-air, with a stage and screen. On stage was a clown (who was not really a clown) doing something like clowning... or interpretive dance? In this picture he is at the lefthand side of the stage, rowing in a large hat. The audio is a littleish girl reading nonsensical Israeli children's poems. The screen (this was really cool) is the projected board of a woman off-stage who is "painting" the images of the story with what seemed to be sand. You can see her hand, along with the boat and dolphin she drew. After a scene, she'd just smear it all away and start again.

After the sand-clown-poetry show, we had a band which everyone seemed to like, although I was very quickly losing altitude since I was midway through a cold I picked up on Leadership. The last act was sortof like a marching band... but awesome. An exuberant drummer, lots of brass, and a big ol' tuba. You can't be sad when someone's playing the tuba. Afterwords, Maayan, Shay, Omri and I went out to have cake and drinks (apple cider and rum is amazing when you're sick!).

Yesterday was Shabbat. It was really lovely. Omri gave all the details in his blog so I'll just add my favorite details. After lunch, Rebecca, Omri and I went to the park and went through a book I bought recently called Awareness which is about the Enneagram, but tailoring it to the Jewish reader. We went through and found out what our types were (Omri's a Seven, Rebecca's a Nine, and I'm a Four) and then read to eachother what that meant. It was really fun and took up a whole afternoon anybody needing a shluff! During our third meal picnic in the park, Rebecca brought Rays of the Sun and gave a lovely D'var Torah about the importance of giving tzadakah (charity) by speaking kindly in addition to the literal giving. Kudos Rebecca!

I actually got up without hitting the snooze button ONCE today! I'm really excited about that. I went out and did a whole session on Yoga Today. Now if I can just maintain this during the school year...

Shavuah tov!

2 comments:

Omri said...

Ha ha ha bless your soul
You really think you're in control

Well, I think you're crazy
...
Just like me

olga k said...

Kate! I never responded to your comment (how long ago it was I don't even know...), but I just wanted to say congratulations and it seems like you are having quite the adventure. Keep updating here because I love to read your accounts of life in the holy land...I hope you're doing wonderfully and that it is a sweet new year for you!

Olga

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