Rainy and Cool and an Update

The weather is definitely changing. It's been somewhat rainy today and has been intermittently sunny and cloudy. It's getting cool enough that Jen decided she needed to find a winter coat so this afternoon and evening after classes, we went to the big mall to find some winter clothes for Jen. We were successful but getting there was half the fun.

Our taxi driver on the way to the mall was the rudest we'd had thus far. When I pronounced "malcha" as my intended destination, I didn't pronounce the "ch" with a guttural enough sound for him so he was criticizing my Hebrew-speaking skills all the way to the mall. He told me to tell our Hebrew teacher that she hadn't trained us properly to speak Hebrew because if we didn't get the basics down correctly, there was just no hope for us. Needless to say, his tip wasn't very big. Up until tonight's ride, we hadn't had any rude drivers.

Besides the news about our pending trip (below), there isn't much going on. Yeshiva has been interesting and educational and I'm still learning a great deal. I did sign up to lead the afternoon service on November 15 so I've been practicing a lot in anticipation of my big day in front of my fellow students and the faculty.

We haven't hosted a Shabbat dinner in a month and we're booked for the next two weeks as guests at fellow students' homes so it's nice to have Fridays free, for the most part.

The third-year rabbinical students who are here have begun classes so we don't get to see people like Eve as much as we'd like to (check out her blog for a nice rundown of her classes - interesting stuff!)

I grew tired of running to SuperSol every day to pick up lunch for myself so last night I got my act together and made myself peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Everyone who had to waste time standing in the long lines at SuperSol was jealous.

Tomorrow we have a trip out of town and it involves riding on a train. I'll take the camera and blog about it afterwards.

I take classes during several lunch periods each week and this week I started a new lunchtime class on Wednesdays that is about chaplaincy and how to develop the skills to work with people when they need it most.

As part of our Talmud class on Tuesday, we took a walking field trip to the Old City to see the places and understand the marketplaces as described in the Mishna. It was a great trip but we didn't get a lot of studying done. I couldn't concentrate because I was absorbed watching groups of tourists look at the Old City. It was really the first time I've watched tourists in the Old City and interesting to see how tourists perceived things I've become accustomed to seeing.

That's all I can think of for now...