Second Semester Life. . .

Phase II begins.
The almost half-way mark of my time overseas is approaching. My mom has come and left- Josh Goldberg has arrived- marking second-semester Hebrew U. Phase II rings in. My mom's visit was really nice. Spoiled for a week, stepping into places I wouldn't dare without her, solid Argentinian steaks and delicious funky dinners, a trip to Eilat and a journey across borders to Petra (Jordan), a trip up north to Herzliya to a Kosher Zen Spa (rockin' location), and some quality mom time. It went quickly, and now i'm back in Jerusalem.. still sittin' at that Cup O' Joe. The Cappuccino is gone, and i'm just trying to catch up on life. In two weeks I begin work, not really sure how I feel about it. On one hand, I'm looking forward to starting something new, and hoping that maybe some kind of work may give me insight of where I want to go work-wise from here.. but i'm also a bit nervous to begin and anxious for what i'll be doing, what it will be like, and I think i'm kind of awkward in office-like settings.. or I make it that way. In any event, i'll be working for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs in one of their research departments. I suppose i'm finally doing the "real person" thing for a bit.. we'll see how it goes. Not much else to say for myself. This past week was really nice and relaxing. Jordan was pretty cool, Petra was beautiful, and Aqaba was funny. I felt a bit of Egypt in the dealings with the locals, but overall it was a pretty different vibe than my experiences in Egypt or elsewhere. One bummer from that trip might be that when I got to border control, they told me that crossing over would cancel my visa, then proceeded to tell me that I may not even be allowed back in- in the end I clearly got back in, but am currently not on a visa and have to go back to the office of the ministry of interior... not going to be a fun adventure for the second time.
Nice "O-H" props to Santonio Holmes.

8 days of light . . . 8 days a week.

“A little light dispels a lot of darkness.”

Every Joe and Sally in America knows about Chanukah. Christmas = Chanukah. Oh you're Jewish? Happy Chanukah. When you ask an average Jew about it, he'll tell you he celebrates it, but in reality, its not our "big" holiday. I love latkes, and presents, the great Chanukah memories, but I don't think I ever fully felt Chanukah until this Kislev in Israel. The Mitzvah (act) of publicizing the miracle (displaying the Chanukah menorah) literally filled the streets with their flames. Narrow winding streets draped with dark Jerusalem stone in the nights glowed of shinning oil lamps lit and placed outside each and every door and window in the crowded neighborhood. Souvganiot (jelly-donuts) sold and handed out all over the streets and in every corner-store. Shoe-shop? Menorah in the window. Holy-bagel? Workers lighting their menorah in the window as you sit down for dinner. The spirit can be felt all over. Chabad-niks driving around with giant menorah's on their cars, 20ft menorahs in the center of every park, street, and circle. Chanukah music blasting from the city center, and menorahs being publicly lit at the bars as you sit down for a happy hour. Light is filling the streets and also the hearts of people across the country...no signs of christmas, but the spirit of Chanukah can be felt deep within. It's said that the light, happiness and warmth of Chanukah are meant to warm the rest of the cold winter, and I can truly say that this year, my Chanukah might have accomplished this...

The Computer Complication Chronicles.

(Should be the name for the past 5 months of my life.)
My promise to become a steady blogger slowly failed, but as one of my roomates here, Marcy, insists, I can justify just about anything- and in this case, I'll take a few minutes to justify myself for the four entries I have posted in my five months of living overseas so far...
The computer complication Chronicles actually began about five and a half months ago right after my arrival to Israel, where my computer decided to dim itself, not allowing me to see ANYTHING on the screen, but just enough to see there was something there if I tilted it and held it upside down in the right light. I called my apartment manager Nachum (who Marcy, Gina and I like to refer to as Dad) and asked him for some friendly recommendations for a computer guy...little did I know this computer man and I would soon form a long term friendship. Yechiel the Window's man became my most frequent caller on my cell in my first month here. My computer is fixed, its not, it needs this, it needs that, pay for it, get it back, breaks again, take it back, cant fix it, can fix it, gives me my money back, DRIVES me to another computer man upon his recommendation- things get messy. This new guy fixes it again, replaces a piece, charges me a ton, and I walk out sighing, thinking I would be done with this whole mess, money aside, it was worth it.. WRONG AGAIN. Wrong prognosis,computer stops working about a week later, and i'm fuming. Take it back once more.. they tell me that I have to pay over 1,000nis (after what I previously paid) and I say I don't want them to fix it, i'm through, I'm mailing it home, not dealing with any more hole-in-the-wall shady computer stores filled with piles of hard drives, wires and laptops. I go in the next morning to pick up my broken computer, having paid them two weeks prior for nothing, and i'm taking it to the post-office. I walk in, they replaced the part! And i'm expected to pay. I refuse to pay explaining that I told them not to do anything to it, and I was done, they already didn't fix it once, and I wasn't paying- I didn't give them permission to fix it- so the man grabs the computer from my hand, ready to re-break it, ripping the new piece out. I freak. I grab my computer, my hebrew turns into fast pace english screaming (not a word of it they understood) and I storm out the door, computer under-arm.
I'm fuming, but also quietly laughing because they just replaced the computer piece, made me tell the man who did it to his face I refused to pay telling me it was my fault this man won't get paid, and here I am, finally with a working computer, and felt like I got away with something.. although I didn't really because I had already paid for what they didn't fix prior.
In any event, this short story might seem like enough reason to forgive my lack of blogging... but then it gets better. My lovely dell goes blue-screen. Virus attack. Nothing works.
I decide my mom is coming in a month, I put my computer in a closet in my apt. and se la vie. Lilah tov machshav.
So, here I am, sitting at Cup O' Joe. My mom just left Israel this morning, and I now have her computer, she took mine to have it fixed.. and for some reason, hers isn't working with my apartment's wireless.. not to mention, if you think she brought me her computer and all was simple,it didn't end happily quite there.. this computer was thought to be gone for a moment when my mom and I arrived in Herzliya and she realized she left it in her hotel in Jerusalem....
I suppose this starts chapter I of the sequel to the Computer Complication Chronicles... The Computer Complication Chronicles II.. What will Sarah do to break her mother's laptop now that it is in Israel?

Peace & Love