The past few days have been fairly quiet, but I'll go ahead with a quick run through. Tuesday afternoon was one of the most exciting moments on Nativ so far. We had our semester orientation and received our course catalogs. I decided to flip through the courses available to us and circle those that looked interesting - I circled at least fifteen classes. Realizing that I would need to whittle that down to three, I settled on a plan of attack. I typed up the name of each course, the professor's name, and the time of the course. I then highlighted in the same color the courses that conflicted timewise. I was able to see that with three blues, two yellows and three greens, I would only be able to take one from each time slot (not to mention the assorted ones that didnt conflict with anything). With much agonizing and advice from friends and family (Eemah, Navah and Kari in particular) I finally settled on four courses (in addition to the mandatory Hebrew [level Gimmel with the best Hebrew speakers of the Nativers] and freshman writing [ugh] and my Magen David Adom training course, more on that later): Holy Life and Holy Death: Medieval Jewry, Belief and Ritual in Islam, Talmud (with Rabbi Pesach Schindler), and Silicon Wadi: Global Entrepreneurship in a Middle East Economy. Reina Lavi, the academic advisor, told me that I would need to drop one of those four by the end of the first week - we'll see how things go. Advice or suggestions, informed or otherwise, are of course welcome.
That night we had Erev Nativ. We were divided up into four groups and we discussed Shabbat. I didn't really get anything out of the discussion itself, but I thought it left a lot of loose ends that I look forward to resolving later. After Erev Nativ, several of us were grabbed by Elkana and told to go to Yossi's office. Once there, Yossi congratulated us on being accepted to MaDA training and asked us if we wanted to accept. I said yes, for many reasons. One, it is an $800 (yes, $ not NIS, at least according to Yossi) course, and Nativ is paying, might as well get the most bang for my buck. Two, I really want to volunteer for MaDA second semester, and this is the only way to do it. Three, I really want to staff USY on Wheels in the near future, and this would more than qualify me to be the medic for my bus. Speaking of volunteering by the way, I have been in contact with JNF here in Jlem and I think I will be volunteering for them during the semester, which is fairly exciting.
We had our first meeting of Kol Nativ, the Nativ a capella group that I am running with my friends Tyler, Judah and Jon. We only met for about ten minutes because we were meeting after Erev Nativ and it was late, but we made a little progress on our first song.
Yesterday we studied all day long (it was really cute, our staff set up a study session by providing snacks and a room, and told us that it was BYO-Notes but they would be there to help) and today was our first minimester final: Jerusalem Through the Ages. I thought the exam was very fun and not too challenging; time will tell.
I noticed that on the front of the busses (which is an acceptable spelling of the plural of "bus" despite what my spell check is telling me), now that RH has passed, the traditional greeting of Gmar Hatima Tovah is displayed. Almost. There isn't actually room for the full thing, so the busses either say "Gmar Hatima To" or "G. Hatima Tovah" both of which I find equally funny.
After school today we came back to Beit Nativ and had a little down time (aka Gossip Girl time) before we headed out for Kaparot. This one probably needs some explanation. When I first walked into the tent where Kaparot were being done, I had every intention of trying it. Then I took my first breath and thought I would "chicken" out. Without getting too graphic, there was a lot of slaughtering going on. I finally decided that this was an opportunity that I don't usually get and I split the cost of a chicken with my friends David, Jesse, Josh and Seth (10 NIS per person). We did our swinging and handed the chicken over to the shochet who did the deed and began getting it ready to be donated to Jerusalem's poor.
We came back to Beit Nativ, washed up, and had a delicious poultry dinner (turkey - I checked). Then the boys went out to play basketball for a few hours, which was fun, but not really my thing.
Now I'm in bed about to go to sleep. I am waking up at 4 am for a Selichot tour. I'm not entirely sure what to expect, but I'll be sure to let you know how it was.
Talk to you soon,
Seffi
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