Another Week Gone By

Again, it's been a while. In order for me to write I need a combination of time and will to write, so sometimes I'll write every other day, sometimes it'll take a week.

Monday was the usual long day. When I got home I had a lot of work to do, specifically Hebrew that night.

Tuesday after Hebrew I put in time on my Freshman Writing work, and then it was Erev Nativ. For Erev Nativ we met by track and had a program. The Kehillah program was Share or Dare. We sat in a circle and tossed a ball of yarn around. When the yarn reached you, you grabbed hold and either shared an experience from Nativ so far or vocalized a dare for yourself for the weeks and months to come. It was a fun program, and at the end we all walked away with a yarn bracelet, so it was nice.

On Wednesday after school I had Mark Lazar's JET course again. We really are learning a lot about education, formal and informal. This week we focused on Teachable Moments and how to harness them and use them as they pop up. Everything we learn is so interesting and Mark teaches it in such a fun way. After Mark Lazar, I was up late finishing my Freshman Writing assignment for the next day.

Thursday we had Freshman Writing and it was great to hand in what I'd been working on. There's still more to come though, one more class for that six-class course and then I need to wrap up my paper and then I'm done.

Thursday night a lot of my friends were at the B'yachad program for returning staff members to Ramah and other camps. I wish I could participate, but I didn't staff Ramah last summer and even if I had, Wheels is my first choice this summer and you need to commit to Ramah to be in the program. Joshy, Jacob and I went out to Fruit Bar (a Pinkberry-type frozen yogurt place) and then came home and watched The Illusionist.

There were (was? Anyone know the grammatical rule here? Feel free to help me out in the comment section...or comment there - that's what it's there for.) probably about 4/5 of Nativ home this past Shabbat. Joshy's family is here so he was staying at David's Citadel with them. Friday night I walked to Shira Hadasha with Brian and his parents and then had dinner at Beit Nativ. We went to the tisch for a little and then played Risk. I went to bed pretty early. On Shabbat morning I went to Shira Hadasha again, and after davening Gabe, Gabe, Meir, Nadav, Lainie, Ilana, Seth, Adam, Jesse, Shira, Tyler, and I walked over to our friend Josh Goldberg's house. Josh was on Nativ 26 with Gabe's brother Simeon and the two of them have been friends for a while. He is in Hebrew and Isaacs with me, plus we have similar USY backgrounds and he knows Navah - we get along really well. He is a genuinely hospitable guy who loves Nativers. He and his roommate have a beautiful apartment and are wonderful cooks and hosts. After lunch we sang zmirot (Josh taught us some new ones) and played a board game called Settlers that I'd never seen before but really enjoyed. As Shabbat was winding down, a number of people went home, but Gabe, Gabe, Meir, Tyler, Josh, Nadav and I went to a small vacant lot by Josh's apartment and played 9 innings of wiffleball. I can still throw a wiffleball pretty well because it's lighter than a baseball, and the bat is light enough that my hand isn't an issue so I'm pretty good. My team lost though, on a walk-off homerun by Josh. We all had a great time. Once we got home, I had a little time to get ready and then it was time for dinner with Joshy's family. Josh's parents took Jesse, Joey, Tyler, Seth, Jordana and me out to dinner along with their family of five to a beautiful and delicious steakhouse called La Guta on Derech Beit Lechem. They are all very generous and the food and dinner conversation stimulating and engaging. In particular, Josh's father and I had several great discussions about Conservative Judaism, Israeli politics and business, and I look forward to talking with him more over the rest of their trip.

On the way back to Beit Nativ, we took the Sacks' past the Gilad Shalit tent, and then we took Steven (Joshy's 9th grade brother) to Ben Yehuda street because he wanted to go. I came back pretty quickly (Joshy and Steven headed back to the Citadel) and then I hung out with Adina and Rachel for a while before bed.

Today was Silicon Wadi (aka the most recent installment of the Spectacular Adventures of the Silicon Seven) so the seven of us had our Frank lunches and four hours of class. We just got home so I have some time for work before Beit Midrash.

Talk to you soon,
Seffi