A Full Day and A Concert

I left the apartment today at 7am, so as to get to school in time for minyan.  At minyan, one of my classmates, who was leading part of the service, slipped into Orthodox liturgy- which is in fact what is printed in the book they expect one to use at school, rather than the changes the Conservative movement generally uses.  He corrected himself, and all was well.  Then, at the end, one of our administrative types made an announcement that since we haven't been given gabbay sheets yet (except that we got them in our folders, and I read the frickin' thing, or at least most of it, because I'm dutiful and interested in fiddly details) we should know that we change those blessings.  I thought that making that announcement in public like that was lacking in compassion, and also not how I've learned is the appropriate way to give corrections.  I mentioned this to the relevant person later, who basically said that "this is a learners' minyan and the best time to make a correction is when the thing happens, so people don't presume that it was correct".  This just felt like it was lacking in a sense of caring about not embarrassing the person who made the error, to me. 

I proceeded to have a good solid and full school day, with minyan, gemara, time to do the History reading, then liturgy, then history.  From there rather than going home, I went out to eat with 3 classmates and the administrative person at school (who is probably more competent and nicer than the people "in charge", and who was giving us a ride to the concert that evening).  We went to a very pleasant restaurant and ate outside, rather quickly since we needed to get to the concert. 

The concert itself was a huge crowd (it was an opening event for this program that gives you money to study in Israel for significant periods of time, and the band was the Idan Raichel Project, so...), and quite loud, but the music was pretty good.  The only down side was that the seats were set, and mine ended up quite a ways away from everyone else I knew.  For a good chunk of it I made the best of things and had a nice conversation with the guy sitting next to me, but eventually the people around me got up to go dance and stand at the front of the room, so I was sitting there feeling rather alone.  At the very end, some classmates saw me and I joined them, which made for a nicer ending to the event.  I then ran into a few of the non-JTS folks also doing various programs here whom I know, although as I was getting a ride home, I didn't have a chance to talk to them much- but I'll see them again soon, I'm sure.  

Tomorrow I don't have Hebrew class, as my teacher is out sick, so I have all morning free.  Currently the plan is to grocery shop and then head to school, but we'll see how it plays out...  I could use a bit more sleep, since it's significantly later than I've been usually going to sleep.