monthly post...

Well, it seems like I only get around to posting on this about once a month, so here's the catch up. School has continued, and I have continued to bear it. With only 2 weeks to go until the end of the semester, I am praying that I will make it without completely combusting. Oddly, as a coping mechanism I have developed the habit of making extremely long term plans- in this case trying to plan out what I will do this summer (where I could live, how I could make money, how I could avoid losing all the language ability that I have worked hard to develop...). This has the strange effect of leaving me with feelings of productivity and at the same time removes any feelings of guilt over my laziness with regard to writing the papers I need to. For some odd reason, the school system here works weird so that they expect people to work on papers for the month in between semesters, making them all due on the day the next semester starts. These two facts (laziness and weird school program) couples with the fact that the library and the IT department at Hebrew U don't like me (in the form of not letting me sign in and use the electronic journal resources) means that I probably will have to set aside some of the time that I am in Utah researching in the HBLL. What a vacation...Thanks HebU!

Otherwise, things are on the up and up. I keep making new friends and having funny experiences. Being here for the war was especially interesting. But I'm going to need to put a post up about that all alone. One of the funnier experiences was wandering around the market and being asked by a random religious Jew if I was Jewish because he said (in Hebrew) "you have a Jewish face." I told him no, but had a good laugh about it, plus a little more of a chuckle at the funny look on his face as he realized that he had just had this conversation with me (a Gentile/Goy) in Hebrew. I wish I could have gotten a picture of his face.

What I do have is a picture of a tile map on a wall at a municipality building here in Jerusalem which is a representation of an 18th Century German religious map of the world- shows how they conceived of the world with Jerusalem at the center.

Catch up...

So, I've been lazy and am finally getting around to putting up a short summary of all the interesting things that have been happening in my life. Ok, so there are only a few.

First of all, school is annoying. That is the only word for it. I go to class everyday almost, and just about all of it feels like a waste of time. Either I am being taught something that I really learned in the first two years at BYU or they are forcing me to take a class in something that I have no real interest in and no real life application because I'm not about to spend the rest of my life planning awful research designs while cackling maniacally on the top floor of the Ivory Tower. Hebrew class is almost just as bad. The language pedagogy here at Hebrew U is leaving about everything to be desired. Basically, I'm learning how to look slightly interested while being completely bored because the only thing that happens is the teachers will stand at the front and talk in Hebrew the whole time without giving us, the students, the opportunity to even speak to one another. In all honesty, I could probably go a week without saying one word in Hebrew if I so desired. After teaching Arabic at the college level for a year, this is painful.

Otherwise, I'm just psyching myself up for a great Christmas season with hardly any Christmas...The BYU center is now empty, the students are gone (as of tomorrow) and that means that I am back to recieving the full brunt of any and all scorn and derision from the Senior couples for not being married, and for apparently letting the best opportunity of my life slip through my fingers by not snatching up one of the BYU kids. How they expect me to even begin getting to know any of them beyond a cursory, "so what do you do at BYU?" conversation I have no idea. It really isn't that bad, but I'm in kinda a bitter mood right now, so I'll put the worst possible spin on the facts as I can.

Anyway, 2 weeks ago, I headed down to Cairo for a regional Young Single Adult conference. It was loads of fun and way too hard to come back here. It was surprising how good it felt to hang out with other Mormon kids and to just be relaxed. I'll include some pictures at the end. It was cool to see a bunch of friends from both BYU and from living in Jordan as well as to meet a bunch of new people. It seemed like we as a group were able to bond really well even though we only had 2.5 days to do it.

Egypt was dirtier than I remember, but it was still fun to hang out at the pyramids and see the Nile. I also finally got to scratch riding a camel off my list of things to do. And it will be good to not have to think about doing that for a long while. They are the most awkward things in the world to ride.

October

So this entry is to prove to you all that I actually did something in October. There is a lot of confusion (and jealousy) out there about the fact that I haven't started classes yet. So here's the deal: I go to school in Israel, a decidedly Jewish state, which tends to adhere to Jewish laws as well as a somewhat socialist view on things. This means that, at the same time the populace observes the standard Jewish holidays, there is also a weird mix of worry about the proletariat and the hoi poloi. This means that 1) I basically have all of October free because of Jewish Holidays (Succoth, Yom Kippur, etc) and 2) there are strikes on seemingly all the time by both students and facutly here. But before you all start thinking that I'm not going to be getting an education here, let it be known that the International school of which I am a part, doesn't close down for strikes, sadly...

Anyway, so since my semester doesn't start til Nov 2, I decided to do some fun stuff from the end of Sept to the middle of Oct. And to prove it to y'all, here are some pictures I took along the way:

My first stop on my trip was Rome. See the Colosseum behind me? Dead give away, huh?

So I saw all the fun stuff in the Vatican and St. Peter's Basilica, which was pretty neat. Problematic though, cause it's impossible to get a good picture anywhere inside the places, cause either you can't use a flash, or the lighting is just bad...


This was an interesting building, it's called the Pantheon, because it was a temple to all the Roman gods before it was converted to a Christian church some time a long time ago...


And this is me at the Trevi Fountain...too many tourists...5 pm is the worst time to go there. It seems like that's what all the tour groups do right after all the museums/churches close...



2nd stop on my Italy trip was Florence.
I really liked this city, it was really relaxed and seeing all the art was amazing. I am now officially cultured.

This is me at an overlook across the river from the main squares of the city. In the background you can see the Duomo, the Ufizzi and a few other towers of churches, etc. Definitely a city worth visiting if you haven't. The art alone is reason enough.


Here are just a few of the pieces I thought were cool:



This last one on the right is my favorite. It is an unfinished Pieta by Michealangelo, that was meant to be on his grave. Pretty cool.

Next stop was Venice for 10 hours while waiting for a train to Slovenia. So I wandered around and saw some pretty cool stuff.


So, first we have Jaws, then we have a gondolla (ps- it's really hard to get a good composition on a moving water taxi on the venetian canals) and then we have the winged lion which is a rather old symbol for St. Mark. All 4 of the Evangelists have symbols such as this, Matthew is a winged angel/person, Mark is winged Lion, Luke is a winged ox, and John is a winged eagle. You can see these 4 symbols all over Christian churches and just not notice them if you don't know what they are. Anyway, Mark is the patron saint of Venice, so the Lion was all over the place.

After that I took a midnight train to Ljubljana. That was an experience. While waiting for the train, I started talking to an Australian girl who was going there, and I ended up showing her some sights in Ljub cause I lived there and all. Which was pretty cool, I think she felt rather intimidated cause I spoke Slovene and it didn't help when we sat down on the train and right next to us were 3 Israelis going to Slovenia on a summer trip and I talked them up for a while in Hebrew. Pretty random to run into them there...

Slovenia was amazingly beautiful as always. I saw a lot of the people I know from long ago and it was great to be there for General Conference sunday, cause it meant that the members from all the other branches came down to watch in the new chapel.
Here are a couple pics of the new chapel. And this is Lake Bled to the right. And below is a view of a valley up in the north, which is part of the Triglav National Park.








So all in all, it was a great trip. Hope that these few pictures will suffice to describe it. Really, you should all just go there for yourselves...