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spinning and knitting
Sep. 9th, 2008 07:40 pmHere's the yarn I've spun from the alpaca, and the scarf of awesome thus far. And the HRSFA yarn that I gave to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
landofnowhere(made from roving from poppyflowerfibr)
( shiny things )
landofnowhere(made from roving from poppyflowerfibr)( shiny things )
From the train...
Apr. 6th, 2008 05:03 pmIt’s been a while, so an update seems to be a good idea.
Last week I was at Penn. I stayed with GM and AK for the non-Shabbat parts anddr_whom for Shabbat. On Thursday we visited Monge and gave her the Monge Blanket
( Monge Blanket!!! )
She was touched. And she really likes it. Huzzah!
I also did lots of spinning and knitting at GM's place. The night before I got there I had a dream that I had bought a new spinning wheel, which happens to be the wheel GM has in real life, an Ashford Kiwi. ( Wheel! )
I used her wheel to ply the silk I was spinning forcrewgrrl and the last of the alpaca for hatam_soferet's scarf.
( silk and scarf )
On Thursday we also went yarn shopping, and I spent an obscene amount of money on yarn (well, there were also 2 sets of double-pointed needles, but still). The yarn is really pretty, and I'm going to make 2 lace shawls... Eventually. I still have a bunch of projects that I need to finish before I start on the shawls. But I've finished a lot of things in the past 2 weeks. Go me!
We met up withcynara_linnaea and saw the Star Wars exhibit at the Franklin institute, which was cool.
Shabbat at Penn was fun for the most part, though I have serious doubts about the future of the Conservative Movement, though I'm not going to get into that here. Let's just say that I was a bit uncomfortable with some of the things they were doing, and I'm so grateful for the Student Conservative Minyan at Harvard.
Anddr_whom introduced me to Basari, a fun game that involves lots of shiny things. I should play games based on the shininess of the pieces.
That night we saw Iolanthe, whichsuperducky1 and platypuses were in. It was a really good show.
On Sunday night I stayed over in RI, and there was the Providence Hebrew Day School's annual fundraiser event, which is this big raffle with lots of really good prizes. I went in 2005 and 2006, and we won things, and then last year I didn't make it and my parents didn't win anything. This year we won a 65-piece set of dishes (service for 12) silverware (also for 12) wine goblets, and a really nice tablecloth. They'll be put away until I have my own place (since right now we have everything and these are really fancy).
This week was pretty uneventful. HRSFA was pretty quiet (nothing on Wednesday night and nothing on Thursday night) though I did get together with a few people. And on Thursday night MB and I got together so I could sing the Passover songs for him to dictate with his shiny music software. Unfortunately, we will not be doing my/the Penn Chad Gadya. So I’m not sure how I’m going to actually be able to sing it on Passover. Also, I lack plans for second night seder, so I need to fix that. And I only put 2 and 2 together today that I might be missing 2 D&D meetings for Passover, since chag falls on Sunday for both the beginning and end of Passover. And the first one will be during 2nd seder, and I can’t really skip the seder (even if I currently have no seder to go to.) I might theoretically be able to go to the one during the second days, if I prepare my spells in advance and print them out, and either have a really good memory about the spells I’ve used or put some sort of tokens on top of them as I use them. I guess that’s what a lb of dice is good for. Though even then I still have the problem that if I want to write a note to anyone, I can’t. I could pull them aside and tell them whatever, but then it would be really obvious. I should call hKC and talk to him about this, but he’s probably in Noteables right now and I can talk to him about it tonight.
And I guess there was also the conference on Women and Gender in Religion on Thursday at Radcliffe. I had to go for my Religion, Gender, and Space class, and I have to write a 3-4 page response paper on it. It was a good conference (or the part I was at was good. It went through Friday, but I was gone by Friday morning, so I only went to the Thursday sessions) though I have no clue what I’m going to write about considering that the talks were way outside my area of study. If I had been there on Friday I could have gone to the Judaism session, and then I would have something to write about. They videotaped the conference, so maybe it’s on the internet by now.
At the end of the Thursday part of the conference, there was a reception. (Probably the most unkosher reception ever- tons of shellfish and stuff. But luckily there was also fruit.) I spotted Tamar Ross, a famous Orthodox feminist think/writer/scholar. So I introduced myself to her, which was amusing since she has definitely heard of the other Rachel Adler, and obviously I am not that Rachel Adler. And apparently Tamar Ross was at UMD last Shabbat. And I was there this Shabbat.
This Shabbat I went and visited MT for Shabbat. I ended up leading pretty much everything at the Conservative minyan (well, not everything, but 2 out of the 5 services, and they had me do Kiddush on Friday night as well) and I read Torah for them.cynara_linnaea was also around this Shabbat. We were both there for the same reason- Gymkana, UMD’s traveling show gymnastics team had their annual home show. cynara_linnaea’s younger sister is in Gymkana, so that’s why she was there, whereas I was there more because I had seen home show 2 years ago and it was amazing, and I hadn’t seen MT in almost a year. And this was the last weekend I would be able to get away for the next month or so.
I’m riding the train home as I write this. The train has been running really late, and I’ll be getting home (to South Station, not even to my house) at 6:40 instead of 5:15. Which means I’m probably skipping the general meeting tonight, since I need to drop off my stuff and eat dinner/grab something that I will pretend is dinner. Even then, I need to be back on campus at 8 for hKC’s D&D campaign, which will require taking the 7:30 bus. Either that, or I go straight to Harvard (since I’ll be riding the T anyways) but the problem with that is that I’d be missing dinner, which normally would not be such a big deal, but today I did not eat breakfast or lunch. In fact, I’ve only eaten chocolate today. And water. I know, I know, I should have packed food or something. If I had brought some granola bars, it might be a different story. Though even then you’d all yell at me for not eating real food. Thus food trumps the HRSFA meeting, since every one at the meeting would also yell at me for not eating all day if they knew I skipped dinner to come to the meeting.
Last week I was at Penn. I stayed with GM and AK for the non-Shabbat parts and
dr_whom for Shabbat. On Thursday we visited Monge and gave her the Monge Blanket( Monge Blanket!!! )
She was touched. And she really likes it. Huzzah!
I also did lots of spinning and knitting at GM's place. The night before I got there I had a dream that I had bought a new spinning wheel, which happens to be the wheel GM has in real life, an Ashford Kiwi. ( Wheel! )
I used her wheel to ply the silk I was spinning for
crewgrrl and the last of the alpaca for hatam_soferet's scarf.( silk and scarf )
On Thursday we also went yarn shopping, and I spent an obscene amount of money on yarn (well, there were also 2 sets of double-pointed needles, but still). The yarn is really pretty, and I'm going to make 2 lace shawls... Eventually. I still have a bunch of projects that I need to finish before I start on the shawls. But I've finished a lot of things in the past 2 weeks. Go me!
We met up with
cynara_linnaea and saw the Star Wars exhibit at the Franklin institute, which was cool.Shabbat at Penn was fun for the most part, though I have serious doubts about the future of the Conservative Movement, though I'm not going to get into that here. Let's just say that I was a bit uncomfortable with some of the things they were doing, and I'm so grateful for the Student Conservative Minyan at Harvard.
And
dr_whom introduced me to Basari, a fun game that involves lots of shiny things. I should play games based on the shininess of the pieces.That night we saw Iolanthe, which
superducky1 and platypuses were in. It was a really good show.On Sunday night I stayed over in RI, and there was the Providence Hebrew Day School's annual fundraiser event, which is this big raffle with lots of really good prizes. I went in 2005 and 2006, and we won things, and then last year I didn't make it and my parents didn't win anything. This year we won a 65-piece set of dishes (service for 12) silverware (also for 12) wine goblets, and a really nice tablecloth. They'll be put away until I have my own place (since right now we have everything and these are really fancy).
This week was pretty uneventful. HRSFA was pretty quiet (nothing on Wednesday night and nothing on Thursday night) though I did get together with a few people. And on Thursday night MB and I got together so I could sing the Passover songs for him to dictate with his shiny music software. Unfortunately, we will not be doing my/the Penn Chad Gadya. So I’m not sure how I’m going to actually be able to sing it on Passover. Also, I lack plans for second night seder, so I need to fix that. And I only put 2 and 2 together today that I might be missing 2 D&D meetings for Passover, since chag falls on Sunday for both the beginning and end of Passover. And the first one will be during 2nd seder, and I can’t really skip the seder (even if I currently have no seder to go to.) I might theoretically be able to go to the one during the second days, if I prepare my spells in advance and print them out, and either have a really good memory about the spells I’ve used or put some sort of tokens on top of them as I use them. I guess that’s what a lb of dice is good for. Though even then I still have the problem that if I want to write a note to anyone, I can’t. I could pull them aside and tell them whatever, but then it would be really obvious. I should call hKC and talk to him about this, but he’s probably in Noteables right now and I can talk to him about it tonight.
And I guess there was also the conference on Women and Gender in Religion on Thursday at Radcliffe. I had to go for my Religion, Gender, and Space class, and I have to write a 3-4 page response paper on it. It was a good conference (or the part I was at was good. It went through Friday, but I was gone by Friday morning, so I only went to the Thursday sessions) though I have no clue what I’m going to write about considering that the talks were way outside my area of study. If I had been there on Friday I could have gone to the Judaism session, and then I would have something to write about. They videotaped the conference, so maybe it’s on the internet by now.
At the end of the Thursday part of the conference, there was a reception. (Probably the most unkosher reception ever- tons of shellfish and stuff. But luckily there was also fruit.) I spotted Tamar Ross, a famous Orthodox feminist think/writer/scholar. So I introduced myself to her, which was amusing since she has definitely heard of the other Rachel Adler, and obviously I am not that Rachel Adler. And apparently Tamar Ross was at UMD last Shabbat. And I was there this Shabbat.
This Shabbat I went and visited MT for Shabbat. I ended up leading pretty much everything at the Conservative minyan (well, not everything, but 2 out of the 5 services, and they had me do Kiddush on Friday night as well) and I read Torah for them.
cynara_linnaea was also around this Shabbat. We were both there for the same reason- Gymkana, UMD’s traveling show gymnastics team had their annual home show. cynara_linnaea’s younger sister is in Gymkana, so that’s why she was there, whereas I was there more because I had seen home show 2 years ago and it was amazing, and I hadn’t seen MT in almost a year. And this was the last weekend I would be able to get away for the next month or so.I’m riding the train home as I write this. The train has been running really late, and I’ll be getting home (to South Station, not even to my house) at 6:40 instead of 5:15. Which means I’m probably skipping the general meeting tonight, since I need to drop off my stuff and eat dinner/grab something that I will pretend is dinner. Even then, I need to be back on campus at 8 for hKC’s D&D campaign, which will require taking the 7:30 bus. Either that, or I go straight to Harvard (since I’ll be riding the T anyways) but the problem with that is that I’d be missing dinner, which normally would not be such a big deal, but today I did not eat breakfast or lunch. In fact, I’ve only eaten chocolate today. And water. I know, I know, I should have packed food or something. If I had brought some granola bars, it might be a different story. Though even then you’d all yell at me for not eating real food. Thus food trumps the HRSFA meeting, since every one at the meeting would also yell at me for not eating all day if they knew I skipped dinner to come to the meeting.
( my costume! )
This was my Purim costume. I couldn't get the cats for Crazy Cat Lady, so last minute yesterday I askedcurrentlee, "Can I borrow your wings?" "Sure." Then I thought: Ok. So now I have red wings. I need to wear something that goes with them...Hmm...Here's some red and some black. And I have red roving! Oooh! I'm going as sin.
And thus this costume was born. Everyone liked the wings.
This was my Purim costume. I couldn't get the cats for Crazy Cat Lady, so last minute yesterday I asked
currentlee, "Can I borrow your wings?" "Sure." Then I thought: Ok. So now I have red wings. I need to wear something that goes with them...Hmm...Here's some red and some black. And I have red roving! Oooh! I'm going as sin.And thus this costume was born. Everyone liked the wings.
Mixed Dancing!
Mar. 12th, 2008 11:00 pmCan be found here:
Note that there are not actually any pictures of mixed dancing in the album. I was too busy dancing to take pictures of people dancing (mixedly).
Yay for the Chinese Dress of Awesome.
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| mixed dancing |
Note that there are not actually any pictures of mixed dancing in the album. I was too busy dancing to take pictures of people dancing (mixedly).
Yay for the Chinese Dress of Awesome.
I haven't posted in a while
Mar. 1st, 2008 11:38 pmI've been bad about posting, and I should catch up.
First of all, from last Saturday, there was the Settlers of Catan cake:
adlight and currentlee are awesome. All the awesomeness of the cake comes from them. I just ate it.
So there was a party, and I introducednavelofwine to Settlers (I think she was the only one in the game who had never played before). We were all on teams, except for adlight. I placed badly in the beginning (I should have listened to my instinct- always start with wheat) and thus did not win. But I did have dsKC to help me with the dice-rolling a few times, once where if I had rolled a 7 I would have lost a city. Apparently he has magical dice rolling powers. There were other games being played as well, though I didn't get to participate because the Settlers game took forever.
The leftover cake made it to non-constitutional nominations on Sunday night. Though before that my parents took me out for lunch for my birthday, and my brother even came down for the occasion, though he got lost and gave up and started to go home, but then got reverse lost and ended up in Brookline. That takes talent. My Grandma felt the need to give us all Valentine's day presents, and thus I ended up with a nice sum of money (in addition to my birthday present from her). If I were to spend it in the spirit of Valentine's day I would blow it all on expensive chocolate, but Valentine's day is passed so I no longer feel the need for expensive chocolate. (That, and she gave me a box of Godiva chocolates anyways.) I suppose I could spend it all on yarn and roving. I can always use more yarn. Right now the majority went into the bank, and I'm thinking maybe I'll spend the Valentine's day money and keep the other money it the bank. Then again, it will all disappear from rent and utilities and stuff, so maybe I should just spend it. Anyone want to go yarn shopping with me?
Back to non-cons. They were long. I got a lot of spinning done. Andpastwatcher nominated me for rabbi. After a year of JTS wanting my soul, I had finally escaped to Div School, only to be nominated for rabbi. And since no one else was nominated, I probably will win. Not that non-cons mean anything. They're just for fun/hazing new co-chairs. Here are last year's non-cons, so you can see what I mean:
Non-Cons!
This year we decided to nominate people/things for the seven deadly sins, 4 horsemen of the apocalypse, and also of note is that "no cartwheels in the con suite" was nominated for the category of rule #1. (Apparently I didn't mention this is my entries on Vericon. I wrote on the blackboard in the con suite "No Cartwheels in the Con Suite." This generated a lot of questions. But it's not like there's much room to do cartwheels in there anyways.) And when Randall Munroe was nominated for "fuzzy" I squeed, and then was nominated for fan-girl. So I, in turned, nominated hKC, since he is definitely a fan girl and not a fan boy. My projects are also nominated for "fuzzy." And I am nominated for famine, since I don't eat real food. And I nominated "your mom" for lust. Etc.
Then we had the first meeting of the Sunday D&D campaign. And it was shiny. Sadly, it was rushed because non-cons took forever.
Then there was a week of stuff. I had a massage on Monday, which was good since my back was dying a horrible death. On Tuesday there was ice cream with EY and the actual hot-chocolate with hKC, as opposed to last week's kinda hot-chocolate. Wednesday was full of class. Thursday included some hanging outness late at night. And my 3-5 seminar was cancelled, which was shiny. And Friday was gaming. And Shabbat. I led ma'ariv, and then I led psukei this morning because I was super-early (silkspinner's clock on the microwave in her common room is really fast, and I didn't know this until I went into her room and saw it was 9 and not 9:30.) I messed up my Torah reading because there were tons of vowels (elfsdh says that there are always vowels. This is true, but in this case the vowels were not what I expected them to be.) I realized this morning as I was reading the English translation that the portion I read (aliyah 2 of Vayakhel) talked about the women spinning wool and spinning flax of shiny colors for the tabernacle. This made me happy. The perfect aliyah for me (except for those vowels). Also, it was only 9 verses long, so that was nice (but it still had vowels!)
There was nothing going on this afternoon, so I decided to walk home, since it was nice enough. I took a bit of a nap until Shabbat ended.
E-Hobbit might be coming to visit me this coming Shabbat. This makes me happy. And I can introduce her to HRSFA. Yay!
First of all, from last Saturday, there was the Settlers of Catan cake:
 |
| The Settlers of Purim Catan |
adlight and currentlee are awesome. All the awesomeness of the cake comes from them. I just ate it.So there was a party, and I introduced
navelofwine to Settlers (I think she was the only one in the game who had never played before). We were all on teams, except for adlight. I placed badly in the beginning (I should have listened to my instinct- always start with wheat) and thus did not win. But I did have dsKC to help me with the dice-rolling a few times, once where if I had rolled a 7 I would have lost a city. Apparently he has magical dice rolling powers. There were other games being played as well, though I didn't get to participate because the Settlers game took forever.The leftover cake made it to non-constitutional nominations on Sunday night. Though before that my parents took me out for lunch for my birthday, and my brother even came down for the occasion, though he got lost and gave up and started to go home, but then got reverse lost and ended up in Brookline. That takes talent. My Grandma felt the need to give us all Valentine's day presents, and thus I ended up with a nice sum of money (in addition to my birthday present from her). If I were to spend it in the spirit of Valentine's day I would blow it all on expensive chocolate, but Valentine's day is passed so I no longer feel the need for expensive chocolate. (That, and she gave me a box of Godiva chocolates anyways.) I suppose I could spend it all on yarn and roving. I can always use more yarn. Right now the majority went into the bank, and I'm thinking maybe I'll spend the Valentine's day money and keep the other money it the bank. Then again, it will all disappear from rent and utilities and stuff, so maybe I should just spend it. Anyone want to go yarn shopping with me?
Back to non-cons. They were long. I got a lot of spinning done. And
pastwatcher nominated me for rabbi. After a year of JTS wanting my soul, I had finally escaped to Div School, only to be nominated for rabbi. And since no one else was nominated, I probably will win. Not that non-cons mean anything. They're just for fun/hazing new co-chairs. Here are last year's non-cons, so you can see what I mean:Non-Cons!
This year we decided to nominate people/things for the seven deadly sins, 4 horsemen of the apocalypse, and also of note is that "no cartwheels in the con suite" was nominated for the category of rule #1. (Apparently I didn't mention this is my entries on Vericon. I wrote on the blackboard in the con suite "No Cartwheels in the Con Suite." This generated a lot of questions. But it's not like there's much room to do cartwheels in there anyways.) And when Randall Munroe was nominated for "fuzzy" I squeed, and then was nominated for fan-girl. So I, in turned, nominated hKC, since he is definitely a fan girl and not a fan boy. My projects are also nominated for "fuzzy." And I am nominated for famine, since I don't eat real food. And I nominated "your mom" for lust. Etc.
Then we had the first meeting of the Sunday D&D campaign. And it was shiny. Sadly, it was rushed because non-cons took forever.
Then there was a week of stuff. I had a massage on Monday, which was good since my back was dying a horrible death. On Tuesday there was ice cream with EY and the actual hot-chocolate with hKC, as opposed to last week's kinda hot-chocolate. Wednesday was full of class. Thursday included some hanging outness late at night. And my 3-5 seminar was cancelled, which was shiny. And Friday was gaming. And Shabbat. I led ma'ariv, and then I led psukei this morning because I was super-early (
silkspinner's clock on the microwave in her common room is really fast, and I didn't know this until I went into her room and saw it was 9 and not 9:30.) I messed up my Torah reading because there were tons of vowels (elfsdh says that there are always vowels. This is true, but in this case the vowels were not what I expected them to be.) I realized this morning as I was reading the English translation that the portion I read (aliyah 2 of Vayakhel) talked about the women spinning wool and spinning flax of shiny colors for the tabernacle. This made me happy. The perfect aliyah for me (except for those vowels). Also, it was only 9 verses long, so that was nice (but it still had vowels!)There was nothing going on this afternoon, so I decided to walk home, since it was nice enough. I took a bit of a nap until Shabbat ended.
E-Hobbit might be coming to visit me this coming Shabbat. This makes me happy. And I can introduce her to HRSFA. Yay!
Happy Birthday to me!
Feb. 13th, 2008 11:26 pmI got home tonight to a package, which I first assumed was one of my books I ordered online, but then when I looked at it, I realized it was a package from AS:
( I can't believe this even exists )
Is that not amazing? I burst out laughing when I saw it, and it totally reminded me of Monge. It is Monge.
In related news, my Grandma called me tonight and asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I have no idea what to ask for (I assume the spending range is somewhere between $100 and $250). Any suggestions?
( I can't believe this even exists )
Is that not amazing? I burst out laughing when I saw it, and it totally reminded me of Monge. It is Monge.
In related news, my Grandma called me tonight and asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I have no idea what to ask for (I assume the spending range is somewhere between $100 and $250). Any suggestions?
I want to roll you up into my life
Dec. 31st, 2007 04:57 pmToday we did a bunch of touring, and we were at Mini Israel for a bit, which seemed to be geared towards younger children (the youngest person in our group was 19). So at first I thought "oh great, another model" (since we had seen a billion models of ancient Jerusalem yesterday at the David Citadel Museum). But then I looked around and realized that the models reminded me of Katamari. Jon agreed. Then we searched for something round, and took some photos of us rolling up Mini Israel.
The Katamari pictures made it all worth it.
And now I have the Katamari soundtracks on my computer. Huzzah!
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| Katamari Israel |
The Katamari pictures made it all worth it.
And now I have the Katamari soundtracks on my computer. Huzzah!
Entry written on Thursday
Dec. 30th, 2007 06:30 pmWe left kibbutz Lavi this morning. Unfortunately, it was too early in the morning to get another ice café, since the machine wasn’t ready. (Yes, I’m addicted.)
After leaving the kibbutz hotel and driving to Tel Dan we took a Jeep tour through the Golan Heights. I took a billion pictures, though it was hard with the movement of the Jeep and the sun being in my eyes. Eventually I realized that sports mode would be perfect since it’s made for bright light and has a fast shutter speed. You can see the results of my excursion.
The Golan Heights is such a beautiful area, and I haven’t been here since 2003. I was glad to be able to visit.
Then we went to Tzfat (Safed) and met up with my cousins L. and J. They’re in the car with us now, heading to Jerusalem. We visited the Tzfat candle factory and bought lots of candles. I’m now all set for Chanukkah next year. (And so are two other shiny people who might happen to be my current housemates but forget that I said anything.) Then we got lunch, which involved climbing a lot of steps. (Still no ice café.) Then we went shopping in the galleries, though I didn’t buy anything.
We were going to go to Beit She’an and Beit Alpha, but we were behind schedule. Alas, no shiny archaeology. We talked about Beit Alpha in Shaye Cohen’s class, so I’m sad that I can’t tell him I went there (he’s told us in class a few times that we should go and visit certain places in Israel, and this was on the list. I’m sure he doesn’t expect anyone to actually go and visit these places and tell him about it, which is why it would have been amusing to come into the final and say “I went to Beit Alpha!” So I can tell him I almost went to Beit Alpha.)
So now we’re on the road to Jerusalem, and unless I find wireless here, this will be posted from Jerusalem. I’ll be in Jerusalem for the rest of the trip.
In other news, Shabbat is all set. I’m staying with M. and A., and they’re going out for dinner, so it works out perfectly since I’m going torachinisrael’s for dinner. And that means in all likelihood I’ll be davening somewhere fun.
I love how no matter how bad of a situation I’m in, I always manage to pull together Shabbat plans at the last minute. Once I even figured things out on Friday afternoon. Usually I tried to get things settled by Wednesday when I’m staying at other people’s houses. When I’m making plans on Thursday that’s close to last-minute for me, and that’s when I start to get nervous. Many people feel relieved when Shabbat starts and the working week is over, but for me the relief comes when my Shabbat plans are set.
And the shawl is almost done. Hopefully I can find a pin for it tonight or tomorrow and can wear it on Shabbat.
After leaving the kibbutz hotel and driving to Tel Dan we took a Jeep tour through the Golan Heights. I took a billion pictures, though it was hard with the movement of the Jeep and the sun being in my eyes. Eventually I realized that sports mode would be perfect since it’s made for bright light and has a fast shutter speed. You can see the results of my excursion.
 |
| Golan Heights |
The Golan Heights is such a beautiful area, and I haven’t been here since 2003. I was glad to be able to visit.
Then we went to Tzfat (Safed) and met up with my cousins L. and J. They’re in the car with us now, heading to Jerusalem. We visited the Tzfat candle factory and bought lots of candles. I’m now all set for Chanukkah next year. (And so are two other shiny people who might happen to be my current housemates but forget that I said anything.) Then we got lunch, which involved climbing a lot of steps. (Still no ice café.) Then we went shopping in the galleries, though I didn’t buy anything.
We were going to go to Beit She’an and Beit Alpha, but we were behind schedule. Alas, no shiny archaeology. We talked about Beit Alpha in Shaye Cohen’s class, so I’m sad that I can’t tell him I went there (he’s told us in class a few times that we should go and visit certain places in Israel, and this was on the list. I’m sure he doesn’t expect anyone to actually go and visit these places and tell him about it, which is why it would have been amusing to come into the final and say “I went to Beit Alpha!” So I can tell him I almost went to Beit Alpha.)
So now we’re on the road to Jerusalem, and unless I find wireless here, this will be posted from Jerusalem. I’ll be in Jerusalem for the rest of the trip.
In other news, Shabbat is all set. I’m staying with M. and A., and they’re going out for dinner, so it works out perfectly since I’m going to
rachinisrael’s for dinner. And that means in all likelihood I’ll be davening somewhere fun.I love how no matter how bad of a situation I’m in, I always manage to pull together Shabbat plans at the last minute. Once I even figured things out on Friday afternoon. Usually I tried to get things settled by Wednesday when I’m staying at other people’s houses. When I’m making plans on Thursday that’s close to last-minute for me, and that’s when I start to get nervous. Many people feel relieved when Shabbat starts and the working week is over, but for me the relief comes when my Shabbat plans are set.
And the shawl is almost done. Hopefully I can find a pin for it tonight or tomorrow and can wear it on Shabbat.
 |
| Noah Meal |
adlight did all the baking and conceptualizing of the ark, though we helped her decorate. currentlee did all the baking of the challot. I washed dishes, handed people things (which sometimes required me standing on the counter, which I actually enjoy) and ate frosting. I was on a sugar high by the time we were done. (After all, there was a bowl of yellow frosting and a bowl of green frosting and they needed to be licked. You can't waste good frosting...)So dinner was fun. We sang shir hama'alot to "Rise and Shine" (I thought of it, suggested it jokingly, and didn't expect us to actually do it...)
And then I went to sleep. Prawn Salad (see pictures 2 and 3) was in my room, so I had the door open so she could leave. But she ended up sleeping on my bed.
I woke up at 8 this morning to get to SCM, since I was leading Hallel. I ended up arriving at the end of psukei d'zimrah. But even when I showed up we lacked a minyan. Luckily, Hallel does not require one. And I did a good job. Yay Hallel!
Then there was a kiddush. Afterwards, MZ and I headed to Tremont Street for their kiddush, which was this huge thing in memory of their late Rabbi, who was this amazing man who was really welcoming. Originally he did all of the high holiday stuff (like all the davening and leining and organizing) so the shul gave him a surprise kiddush to honor him. And then it became an annual thing. And since it's parsha Noach we sang "Rise and Shine" [again for me]. And there were 2 verses that were extra (at least in that I never learned them growing up.) One was about the dove going out to find the olive branch and another was the animals leaving in threes (as in they had an offspring. But many animals give birth to more than one baby at a time. So it wasn't so accurate...)
In the afternoon a bunch of us hung out at
gedalia's house. elfsdh and I got into a discussion about egalitarianism and the ridiculous situations that could come up. Of course, he had answers for most of my ridiculous questions, so I couldn't out-egal him.And then after a game of scrabble and lots of schmoozing and some eating of challah, we all went home. There were only a couple of hours of Shabbat left at that point. So I read. And then Shabbat ended. And then we did havdallah. And now I'm upstairs typing this and eating a turtle-cupcake. It is joining 2 other turtles, so it won't be lonely.
(no subject)
Sep. 5th, 2007 08:22 pm( My room and campus. )
In other news, I met with my advisor today. He's a really nice guy. And he likes my idea of studying purity in comparative religions. I had printed out a list of classes I was considering, and he thought they were good options, and that they had enough variety. So I managed to make him think that I was on top on things and knew what I was doing.
In other news, I met with my advisor today. He's a really nice guy. And he likes my idea of studying purity in comparative religions. I had printed out a list of classes I was considering, and he thought they were good options, and that they had enough variety. So I managed to make him think that I was on top on things and knew what I was doing.
XKCD!!!!!!!!
Aug. 23rd, 2007 10:55 pmFor those of you who are fans of the webcomic xkcd, read on. You'll like this post, guaranteed.
Some of you may know that my brother,lopaanre is the president of the SFS at WPI (i.e. he's head nerd). And lopaanre got Randall Munroe to come speak at WPI about his webcomic, xkcd.
I was smart and brought a camera. And thenlopaanre needed a camera, so I lent him mine. Thus, I got pictures of the event without having to put any effort into it. They aren't perfect, but there are a bunch of good ones in there.
And afterwards,lopaanre said that I could print out a comic and he'd get it signed for me. So I'm going to have a little contest- if anyone can guess which comic I printed for Randall to sign, you can have one of my authentic xkcd red spiders. (Well, authentic inasmuch as lopaanre's craftsmanship counts as "authentic" xkcd merchandise. He and his friends made like a hundred of them and threw them out into the audience. So I kept a few.) And lopaanre is disqualified, but I don't think he'll mind, since he made all of the spiders. Why would he need more?
*edit* 3 hints:
It's not the Cat Proximity comic, since that was used for the facebook invite already.
It's not the one I posted below.
It's not any of the spider ones.
There are a lot of pictures and they might take a while to upload, so I'll put the album in my next post so I can post this now.
And in the meantime, this comic was really amusing:
Perhaps I should marry him, since my name is Rachel.
Nevermind. The pictures are here:
Some of you may know that my brother,
lopaanre is the president of the SFS at WPI (i.e. he's head nerd). And lopaanre got Randall Munroe to come speak at WPI about his webcomic, xkcd.I was smart and brought a camera. And then
lopaanre needed a camera, so I lent him mine. Thus, I got pictures of the event without having to put any effort into it. They aren't perfect, but there are a bunch of good ones in there.And afterwards,
lopaanre said that I could print out a comic and he'd get it signed for me. So I'm going to have a little contest- if anyone can guess which comic I printed for Randall to sign, you can have one of my authentic xkcd red spiders. (Well, authentic inasmuch as lopaanre's craftsmanship counts as "authentic" xkcd merchandise. He and his friends made like a hundred of them and threw them out into the audience. So I kept a few.) And lopaanre is disqualified, but I don't think he'll mind, since he made all of the spiders. Why would he need more?*edit* 3 hints:
It's not the Cat Proximity comic, since that was used for the facebook invite already.
It's not the one I posted below.
It's not any of the spider ones.
There are a lot of pictures and they might take a while to upload, so I'll put the album in my next post so I can post this now.
And in the meantime, this comic was really amusing:
Perhaps I should marry him, since my name is Rachel.
Nevermind. The pictures are here:
 |
| xkcd!!! |
( Friday night )
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
( Saturday )
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
( the family )
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
( Sunday )
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
( graduation )
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
( Monday morning )
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
( after the ceremony )
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
( going home )
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
( today )
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
( pictures! )
Overall, graduation was an amazing experience. And I'm one of few people in the world who got to graduate with their advisor. Which was pretty darn awesome. I'm not Ben's equal yet, but for the most part he treats me as such. He's definitely the reason I'm actually going into archaeology and am getting a PhD eventually. And he's just a great person (well, except for when he gave me incomprehensible edits and then was unreachable and I had no clue what to do on my thesis...but that was only a few days in this semester. They were just badly timed days!) I'll miss him and Janet. Hopefully there will be just as amazing people at Harvard next semester.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
( Saturday )
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
( the family )
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
( Sunday )
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
( graduation )
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
( Monday morning )
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
( after the ceremony )
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
( going home )
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
( today )
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
( pictures! )
Overall, graduation was an amazing experience. And I'm one of few people in the world who got to graduate with their advisor. Which was pretty darn awesome. I'm not Ben's equal yet, but for the most part he treats me as such. He's definitely the reason I'm actually going into archaeology and am getting a PhD eventually. And he's just a great person (well, except for when he gave me incomprehensible edits and then was unreachable and I had no clue what to do on my thesis...but that was only a few days in this semester. They were just badly timed days!) I'll miss him and Janet. Hopefully there will be just as amazing people at Harvard next semester.
(no subject)
May. 9th, 2007 03:09 am |
| OCP BBQ |
There. Happy everyone?
I'll also post when I have my naturey pictures from today up. I went to tree-land with L.L., I.L. and A.M. So much fun! So pretty! And we were in the sun and played frisbee!
And tonight we had a star-wars marathon. For some odd reason I'm still awake. Must be the lack of internet today, and needing to make up for it.
And I'm out of cookies. I have more ingredients . I might use them up and make more cookies, if there's demand.
