theyellowhobbit

So on Friday I went to Akiba for more student teachingness, and afterwards I had a little bit of time before going to New Jersey, so I went to fling with Julie and Ari Gilder. There wasn't much there. Somre really loud music, some drunk people walking around the quad, a lot of unkosher food, and a moonbounce thing [ok- THAT part was kinda fun, but pathetic with only 3 people...] Afterwards Julie and I went to the vendors, and I bought myself a pretty black & white skirt, that has sequins on it.

Then I grabbed my things and went to Summit, NJ. The line for the train was humongous, though it didn't matter where you were in line- the train wasn't there when we got to the platform, it was like 10 minutes late, even though it said it was on time. So we boarded, and there we NO SEATS!!!! I had to sit on the floor for the first 45 minutes. I got a seat for the last 15.

My parent's train was also late, so I had to hang out in the Newark Airport train station for a while. I knitted my scarfy thing.

They finally arrived, and we took a cab. I got dropped off at the place where I was spending Shabbas. I was supposed to stay with the Kotlers, but the wife was sick, so I ended up staying with another family, the Epsons. They have kids. The oldest daughter, Miriam, was turning 18 this weekend, so she had 3 of her friends over. Everyone was really nice and the food was really good.

So Saturday morning I walked to the Bat mitzvah. I had no trouble finding it. It was a very easy hour-long walk. I didn't have a chance to daven before the service, nor did I have any sort of Orthodox prayerbook. So at first I attempted to daven at services, saying things in Hebrew while the congregation was doing responsive readings in English, but I by no means have shacharit memorized [not even the 3 paragraphs of the v'ahavta!] and realized that it was pointless to try, there was no way I could do it without a prayerbook. Plus, my parents had gotten there first and chose a seat, so we were in the front row, so I would have been very noticable standing up davnening the Shmoneh esrei [which i couldn't do because of the lack of prayerbook. I very much dislike Gates of Prayer.]

I guess it was more of an observation of a service for me. I for sure didn't fulfill my halachic obligation of davening shacharis. Though I did at least say the morning blessings before I set out.

After services we had food, which wasn't kosher, but there was a lot of fruit so I felt comfortable eating that. Yay for fruit! All my relatives were happy to see me, and impressed that I would walk an hour to get to shul. My cousin Emily, the bat-mitzvah, thought I was crazy. I honestly didn't expect everyone to know or care that I do my crazy Orthodox thing. After hanging out for an hour, I decided to head back for a more substantial lunch [aka בשר].

I started out fine, and I met this guy whose name I don't remember. Some guy from the Orthodox shul who had been told to look for me. He said continue downhill and take a right at the stoplight. Which I did. In retrospect I realized I should have gone straight...

It took me a while to realize I was going the wrong way, but by then I didn't know how long I had been going the wrong way for, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to find the right way. So I [stupidly] continued on my wrong way. An hour passed, an hour and a half...

After 2 hours of walking, I sat down on the grass somewhere. No one was realy outside, and I figured stopping a car to ask for directions would be breaking Shabbas, because it would cause a person to press the gas again and do a melacha for me. That, and the cars were speeding by anyways. Finally, [after at least a half hour] this nice woman stops and asks if I needed help. I told her I was incredibly lost, and asked where the golf course was, since I knew the Epsons lived right near there, and I wasn't sure which street they were on. She gave me some sort of directions, which I tried following.

Then I saw some people working in a garden outside, and asked them for directions. The grandfather asked "are you going to walk there?" and I said "yes." He thought I was joking. But then the husband asked if I wanted to call the Epsons, and I said that they wouldn't answer the phone, because it was Shabbas. Then he offered me a ride, which I couldn't take, because it was Shabbas. Then he said he would draw me a map [Baruch Hashem he didn't ask, and just decided to do it, because I would have had to say no.] The wife gave me a glass of water. They offered me food, but I told them I wasn't hungry, because I was pretty sure they weren't Jewish [I hope they weren't Jewish, since they drew me the map] and even if they were, they probably didn't keep kosher. It was about 3:30 now, and I really was starving, since all I had in me was fruit, and I had been walking for over 2 hours at this point. So map in hand [I decided I was in the eruv by now, since I wasn't so far away, and if I wasn't in the eruv I was beyond caring, and besides, it's a lot better to carry a map than it is to drive...] I went on my merry way.

At 4:30 I got home. I told the daughters and the friends what had happened, and they all felt really bad. They had been worried when I hadn't come home.

I had a huge meal of leftovers for lunch- cold cuts, chicken, challah, a muffiny thingy, and lots of potato kugel. Then I took a nap, because I was more than exhausted.

After my nap, I had shalshuddis, and hung out with Debbie, the younger daughter. I felt bad, because I missed Miriam's surprise party [it was at 5, and I was too dead to walk to the park, even though it was only a 10 minute walk]. I also felt bad missing the Rabbi's talk and davening since it was Shabbat haGadol. But I think G-d will forgive me.

After shabbat ended I went [drove] to the bat-mitzvah party. I had originally told Rona that I didn't need a kosher meal for it, because I would have eaten a lot on shabbas, and usually I'm not so hungry motzei Shabbas. But I was starving, and the dessert looked really good, but it wasn't kosher. So again I ate the fruit- from my dessert and also from my parents. But even when I went to bed I was still starving.

This morning we had brunch at Chuck and Rona's [Emily's parents] house. When my mom had talked to Chuck last night, he said that Rona hadn't gotten anything especially kosher, because there was a miscommunication. So we went grocery shopping first. But when we got there, it turned out she had gotten me English muffins, cream cheese, and had even set aside some strawberries. Though I was fine eating the fruit salad. So I had a huge brunch, because I was still starving after the insanity of yesterday.

I went home on the train, and had the row to myself, which almost makes up for having to sit on the floor on the way there. Except that it doesn't really make up for it. I'm never taking Amtrak again when there's another option.

At 2:30 [really 2:45] I worked with Adam on the Stern presentation.

At 4 we had the OCP BBQ. I won the Ari Levine potato kugel [which ended up being really expensive because Avi Berkowitz also really wanted it, but I asked him if I could have it, and so he stopped bidding...after it had gotten to 65$!!!!] I also won chicken from Daniel Schoenbrun. I think I'll use it for my next Shabbas meal.

My deli rolls went for more than Ari Gilder's [but then again, I had 2, and he only donated one]. Meira won them for 40$. She and Yoni were bidding against eachother, until I realized that Yoni didn't realize that he was bidding against his sister and went over to him and told him. I think they're splitting the deli rolls.

They also wanted to donate pesach cleaning, though no one had volunteered it. I figured that since I don't have Ruth's class this week, I could donate my services as a pesach cleaner. So I did. 603 won [for 60$], and I'm cleaning their kitchen, common room, and halls sometime Wednesday night.

My kippah was the last item, since Meir forgot about it. It went for 40$ to Eric the grad student. I ended up making 140$ for the OCP with my donations!

Then we watched Yosef cut Lawee's hair. And then I had SNL.

I'm going to be on the SNL committee next year, which shall be fun, and a lot of work on Sundays, but oh well. Livia is the one with the really hard job of ordering the food. I just have to set it up. I also want to be the person to write the crazy e-mails, but they assigned it to someone else, even though I've been asking for it forever, and I'm better than any of the other SNL people at writing crazy e-mails. Oh well. I guess it means I have to make lots of meals next year so I can send out crazy e-mails.

So now I'm back in my room, and I've just wasted an hour online. I'm stressed because I have a TON of work due Tuesday [but it'll be over by then, so I wasn't too much of an idiot for volunteering the pesach cleaning. I just need to lock myself in the library tomorrow. I wish I could get something done tonight, but the paper [5 pages] seems too massive [and it's 10:30, so I can't get it done tonight] and I can't do the Hebrew alone, because I have no vocabulary, and I've forgotten all my grammar in terms of verb conjugation. I have no clue what binyan anything is in, and I forgot how to conjugate hifil and hitpael and hoofal in the future. And we have to interpret a poem, and I don't know what the poem means, and I have 3 old assignments to make up. Normally I just do what I can and hand the rest in late since she doesn't care when it's handed in, as long as it gets handed in. But this is the last week of classes, so I really have to get it done for Tuesday. Otherwise I'm doomed [even though I've been to all of Ronit's classes since the time she yelled at me. But still.]

Stupid stress making me not work. Stupid not working making me more stressed. This is a vicious cycle, and there's nothing small I can actually get done tonight to make me feel better. And everyone else is working, so I can't hang out. And it's too late to lock myself in the library and pull an all-nighter. I probably have the energy for it, but I actually have to get up for minyan tomorrow, because I have a chevruta with Simone...Unless I stayed up past then, and then went to sleep all day. That might be doable. Let's see if I can get myself on an adrenaline rush. If I get inspired for the paper, it will work.