First Day of School

Yesterday was, as the title of the post implies, my first day of school for the year.  I was significantly nervous about it beforehand, but it turned out alright.  I had 3 of my 6 classes- Sunday is my longest school day this semester, starting at 7:30 or 8:00 (depending on when minyan starts- usually 8, but of course yesterday and today are Rosh Hodesh...), and running until 6:30pm.  In that time, I start with Talmud seder and shiu, and if the two folks I was learning with this time and I stay together, which I'm hoping for, it could be a really good year for that, on the one hand.  On the other, adjusting to doing Talmud all in Hebrew, and with a teacher who is all for the analytic stuff and not so much the traditional stuff is fine but not ideal for me, and I am the only woman in my class, which is large enough that this is Not proportional to the gender make-up of my class, even of those of us here in Israel this year at all.  Then there is lunch, I have a free period, and then a class comparing the liturgy of different Jewish communities, followed by an Israeli history class.  Both of these were things I was a bit skeptical about beforehand, but at least the first class session of each was quite a bit of fun.  

As we were walking home, we got to our street and there was a police car in the street and lots of loud music- the synagogue down the street was having some sort of celebration, presumably for Rosh Hodesh (we are now wondering if this will happen every month).  They were dancing with their Torahs outside (prompting a comment from my roommate: don't they know that Simchat Torah was 2 weeks ago?), and there were things with flashing lights and all sorts of excitement.  Once I finally came home, I took advantage of it being Sunday to talk to Mom and to jakal88  at times that was reasonable for all of us.  Now, back to school.