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Tomorrow I go back to school. The parents are taking me- a good thing, as, as is usual it seems for my vacations, I now have more clothes and stuff (the stuff category is mostly gifts though) to take back than I came home with. I'm as usual, somewhat ambivalent about this whole transition thing. I love school- but being home has been more peaceful in some ways than anythign else has been in a while- at least during daylight hours. At night, lately- well, besides a sort of evening-mope thing that's been happening lately, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for no reason what-so-ever. I hope that doesn't keep up into the semester- it would make getting homework done, well, difficult, to say the least. In general though, my internal clock is sometimes too flexible. It means that I have to really decide to go to sleep/wake up/nap at a certain time, for a certain length of time, otherwise I'll just sleep, if I need it, or stay awake until my eyes start complaining. Usually that's my signal that I need sleep- if my eyes start burnign and it's about the right time, or switching glasses doesn't help.
My computer glasses are wonderful things- I can use them for reading too, and they're in some ways less stressful than my current prescription, since Dr. Liu changed the direction of my prisms this time around. I needed it- my eyes weren't converging really well before I got this set of lenses, but my eyes do get tired more quickly this way. It's frustrating. Hopefully after a few years with this prism, I'll end up going back to the other ones- that's what happened originally: I had this (I forget which ones are base up and which base down. I have my prescription in my wallet, but that's all the way downstairs. so...) sort of prism for a while, then they changed it, I had the other orientation of prism (same strength) for quite a number of years, and then this last time they swapped it again, but made it weaker.
Another of my worries for this semester is scheduling. I don't have a 9:00 class this semester, or even (I seem to remember) a 10:00 one. Now, I'm nominally a morning person, when I get myself in that mode. But I rarely feel actually tired, any time but the afternoon. (Tuesday I have class straight from noon until 4:30- that's not going to be easy.) So I'm going to have to start figuring out some nicely disciplined schedule so that I can still get up for minyan, and shul on Shabbos, etc, without it being like getting up in the middle of the night. I've thought about just getting up for minyan on a daily basis, and then getting work done- but I'm not sure if that's honest. I mean- I don't like the idea of praying just because it would be a good way to get myself going in the morning: that isn't good prayer. I tend to fall on the kavannah side of the keva vs. kavannah issue a bit too strongly. (That's the question of "intention", which is used to mean the feeling, desire, etc for and in prayer, versus "form"- being required to pray.) Maybe I'll compromise and get up for minyan a set of days, and sleep somewhat later on others, to start with. It'll take some balancing, and figuring out when good naptimes are. The latter has happened every semester, but- I'm just not used to not having morning stuff to get me rolling and busy. I tend to idle around and do personal, but useless stuff in the mornings, otherwise. I guess this is when I learn to change that- but it may be a bit of an uphill struggle at first.
More interesting stuff from talking to and about Nathan- funny how the left-overs of a relationship provoke all sorts of responses: it was something that didn't happen so much with Efi and I. But then, Efi is one of the world's easier people to be around: he's so devoted to the people he cares about, and to caring about them. It's hard not to give him the same back- something I'm glad for: giving to Efi is just not something I can resent, unlike some other friends of mine, who sometimes/often frustrate me to the point of kvetching. But back to this latest set of ideas. The first is that he suggests that my Judaism is "self-imposed". Both I, and my mother, would argue with that- my family is a Jewish one, and that's never been in doubt. I practice more traditionally than they do, and more in general, but it's a difference in variety, not in belonging. I understand that other people would see this differently- but I still stick to my guns (as much as I can) about my way being right for me, not necessarily for anyone else. The only time I run into internal conflict with that one is issues of intermarriage. There are probably other issues that would test me, but that and dating are the ones where I have to restrain myself, with more or less (unfortuantely, often less) success.
Dating is another one of those borderline subjects. Ok, I don't have to personally worry about dating non-Jews: I settled that issue internally during high school: I decided at about 15, and the only time I've been really tempted to break that decision was the end of the next school year. (Aside:
My computer glasses are wonderful things- I can use them for reading too, and they're in some ways less stressful than my current prescription, since Dr. Liu changed the direction of my prisms this time around. I needed it- my eyes weren't converging really well before I got this set of lenses, but my eyes do get tired more quickly this way. It's frustrating. Hopefully after a few years with this prism, I'll end up going back to the other ones- that's what happened originally: I had this (I forget which ones are base up and which base down. I have my prescription in my wallet, but that's all the way downstairs. so...) sort of prism for a while, then they changed it, I had the other orientation of prism (same strength) for quite a number of years, and then this last time they swapped it again, but made it weaker.
Another of my worries for this semester is scheduling. I don't have a 9:00 class this semester, or even (I seem to remember) a 10:00 one. Now, I'm nominally a morning person, when I get myself in that mode. But I rarely feel actually tired, any time but the afternoon. (Tuesday I have class straight from noon until 4:30- that's not going to be easy.) So I'm going to have to start figuring out some nicely disciplined schedule so that I can still get up for minyan, and shul on Shabbos, etc, without it being like getting up in the middle of the night. I've thought about just getting up for minyan on a daily basis, and then getting work done- but I'm not sure if that's honest. I mean- I don't like the idea of praying just because it would be a good way to get myself going in the morning: that isn't good prayer. I tend to fall on the kavannah side of the keva vs. kavannah issue a bit too strongly. (That's the question of "intention", which is used to mean the feeling, desire, etc for and in prayer, versus "form"- being required to pray.) Maybe I'll compromise and get up for minyan a set of days, and sleep somewhat later on others, to start with. It'll take some balancing, and figuring out when good naptimes are. The latter has happened every semester, but- I'm just not used to not having morning stuff to get me rolling and busy. I tend to idle around and do personal, but useless stuff in the mornings, otherwise. I guess this is when I learn to change that- but it may be a bit of an uphill struggle at first.
More interesting stuff from talking to and about Nathan- funny how the left-overs of a relationship provoke all sorts of responses: it was something that didn't happen so much with Efi and I. But then, Efi is one of the world's easier people to be around: he's so devoted to the people he cares about, and to caring about them. It's hard not to give him the same back- something I'm glad for: giving to Efi is just not something I can resent, unlike some other friends of mine, who sometimes/often frustrate me to the point of kvetching. But back to this latest set of ideas. The first is that he suggests that my Judaism is "self-imposed". Both I, and my mother, would argue with that- my family is a Jewish one, and that's never been in doubt. I practice more traditionally than they do, and more in general, but it's a difference in variety, not in belonging. I understand that other people would see this differently- but I still stick to my guns (as much as I can) about my way being right for me, not necessarily for anyone else. The only time I run into internal conflict with that one is issues of intermarriage. There are probably other issues that would test me, but that and dating are the ones where I have to restrain myself, with more or less (unfortuantely, often less) success.
Dating is another one of those borderline subjects. Ok, I don't have to personally worry about dating non-Jews: I settled that issue internally during high school: I decided at about 15, and the only time I've been really tempted to break that decision was the end of the next school year. (Aside: