debka_notion

Finally, right?
1. family- we visited with my parents and maternal grandparents yesterday, and it was great to see them, after quite a while not having done so. And we've made tentative plans for my folks to come for shabbos, probably in March.
2. flexibility- I've been a flake lately, and several really wonderful friends have been flexible and gentle with me.
3. Kinetic learning- I learned a new hula hoop trick/skill, after many attempts, and am very happy to see my body finally figure it out, seemingly spontaneously (but I know that it's really a result of the work I put in before).
4. surprise- A. Several classmates have surprised me, in the last week or so, and most of them in positive ways. Also, I got a surprise job opportunity thrown my way, and I took it, and am excited to start. (I'll be teaching again somewhere I used to teach, and will get to co-teach with someone I admire, and look forward to learning from, pedagogically. My last co-teacher was brand-new to teaching, and this will be a nice change. Also a nice supplement to my income, especially given "losing" a day's work in my regular babysitting/tutoring job from last semester. Also, in comparison to that, this is more money for less time, and more professionally applicable.) and B. We had a totally unknown guest at our shabbos lunch, and he turned out to be a really awesome, friendly, and comfortable person.
5. Dictionaries and encyclopedias- context clues only go so far, and nice, reliable source of translation and information are useful. Also, they're fun to refer to during shabbos meals.

1. Friends good enough not to see them for a while, and then have a great dinner together
2. the healing process (I cut my finger, a few days ago, and thought it was a nasty cut, and now, it looks pretty minor.)
3. fun books
4. dance
5. being invited to things

1. anti-virus software (I've been battling a computer-bug, so this is both a frustration and some real gratitude for what has worked)
2. good books (rewarded the babysitting charge with the gift of a one of my favorite young adult books, and he devoured the whole thing today)
3. my hula-hoop
4. "educational" online games
5. that I have a faculty mentor for my senior sermon now

Solomon Schechter:
"One likes to think of the old days when devotion was not yet procurable ready-made from hymn-books run by the theological syndicates... You can see by their abruptness and their unfinished state that they were not the product of elaborate literary art, but were penned down in the excitement of the moment of a "fit of love", so to speak, to express the religious aspirations of the writer. Their metre may be faulty, their diction crude, and their grammar questionable, but love letter are not, as a rule, distinguished by perfection of style. They are sublime stammering at best though they are intelligible enough to two souls absorbed in each other."

This has come up in my reading twice recently, and it's lovely, and worth sharing, I thought. Romanticism, but who cares?

Since I taught a class where we started each session with going around the circle having everyone say one thing they were grateful for that day, I've been thinking about doing a daily gratitude exercise- I liked what it did, for my kids and for me. So- I saw an exercise online where you journal 5 things you're grateful for each day. I'm going to try it, and see how it goes. Expect some (or many) repeats.
1. my husband
2. my mother-in-law
3. my sister's visit last week, however short- it was fun
4. the way my body feels after exercise (we just did a small workout, then a bunch of exercise-play, checking out some different exercises, stretching, and some partner-workout stuff- cooperative push-ups/being the weight for the other one's exercise)
5. naps

Starting a new semester tomorrow, full of requirements, many of which I'm not totally thrilled about taking. Here's hoping that they turn out to be worthwhile classes anyways.

I'm considering adding another (either 5th or 6th, depending on how another situation goes) class, just to have one thing that I really picked myself, of potential practical use. One of those classes is senior seminar, (i.e. very little work outside of class), and a normal course load is 6 classes, usually. How silly would I be to take a full course load my last semester?

My parents are thinking about joining a shul again (they haven't belonged to one for about 5-7 years, longer for my dad), and this time, rather than the Reform shul where I (and my father, the appropriate amount of time earlier) grew up, they're looking into joining the Conservative shul where we held our wedding. It is, by no doubt, by reputation at least, the shul I'd want to go to in that area, if I lived close enough.

ANd this week, my mom went to shul. That's a traditional service, which goes way faster than she can read Hebrew, and she doesn't really know the structure. But she enjoyed it- because people were taking responsibility, because everyone was involved, because the singing was good (the most important thing, for my mom)... It was a big thing to do- I remember how intimidating it was to go to a shul where I couldn't follow the service or keep up, and I'm terribly proud of her for doing it, and for enjoying it.

It also makes me feel like my folks are making this movement to get to understand me and my world, and that makes me feel very special. I don't need them to meet me where I am, or do what I do. But having them check it out, build some understanding and get comfortable with some more of it? It's amazing, just the idea of it. And the notion that it felt good? Just rocks my world.

Yesterday, at shul, the rabbi praised H's grandmother for her ability to both teach her children and to learn from them, and to see how they've affected all different parts of the Jewish world. (Seeing an Orthodox rabbi praise the whole spectrum of the Jewish community is pretty lovely too, but that's off topic.) Seeing my parents work on the same things, (seeing that my sister and I are in very different places, too) is really inspiring.

The result of checking facebook, while in between/avoiding various finals:
Why should Israelis stop smoking? It's discouraging prospective Olim from coming to Israel, because it's primitive and dangerous. This is a paraphrase, but well- read between the lines yourself.

Yesterday I was low-energy, and barely got done what I felt like ought to be done that day, in terms of working on my various papers. Today was a much higher energy day, for some reason, and I'm now nicely a little ahead, in some ways, of where I thought I'd be able to be. I'm very pleased. It should make Sunday a lot easier (or I could keep on getting a little farther ahead, and make next week easier- it just keeps on transferring forwards). Either way- this was a good, useful evening. Now just to keep it up tomorrow.

This was a very intense weekend. H and I were with my parents for shabbat, in order to be there Saturday night, for my grandmother's wedding. Shabbat was fairly quiet- we continue to make inroads into making it a comfortable and worthwhile experience for both us and my folks, although it's still a work-in-progress... (Next time: remember the shabbos clock.)

The wedding itself was an interesting event. Very special and lovely- one doesn't get to go to many weddings of 80+ year old people. It's a very different experience. It was also the smallest wedding that I've been to: about 20 guests, and clearly with a very different dynamic than the wedding of young people, or of any first marriage, I think. The rabbi who did the wedding, the rabbi of the shul my (what do I call him now- my step-grandfather?) has been going to for many, many years, had a very different style from what I prefer, or what seems to speak to my contemporaries, but it was clearly very affective for them. It gave me a little more of a palpable sense of the ways that Judaism has changed over the last decades (for all that this gentleman is about my parents' age, not my grandparents' age.) I was privileged to say the sheva brachot under the chuppah. Afterward, we went out for dinner- at a place that was kind enough to cook some fish double-wrapped in foil for H and me, so that we could participate in the festive meal without compromising our religious standards. The party was a little smaller than anticipated, as my uncle and his wife and daughter weren't able to be there, and Eli's son and his wife and their kids did not come. Still, it was a very cheery event, and I really found spending time with my grandparents quite special. (although H had a rather nasty either very short cold or very random allergy attack.)

It also came right on the heels of hearing that my aunt's mother passed away. Jinny was a lovely lady, a very special person. One's aunt-by-marriage's mother is not someone you tend to know well, but we saw Jinny and her husband, Pierce, fairly often when I was a kid, and she in particular was always an especially loving person. H and I were very grateful that she was able to make it to our wedding- she was diagnosed with cancer shortly after my sister's wedding. She wasn't someone I saw often, it's hard to say that my life will be dramatically altered in its day-to-day experience- but the world is poorer for her loss. We all knew that the end was near, but I'd been hoping to be able to go see her a last time, today. Clearly that didn't happen.

She asked for them not to have a memorial service for her. I don't know what the decision will be, but the idea of having no service seems a very empty ending...

On the train back to the city, today, I spent a bunch of time talking to H about my grandfather. I suppose it's reasonable that my grandmother's remarriage would bring him to my mind, especially coupled with Jinny's death. I find myself really considering his death from a different light now, from the perspective of an adult, rather than a 9 year old, to whom 63 was Old. It's a little unsettling, to be upset now over a death that happened 18 years ago, but it really hit me, today, in a different way than it has before.