Studies Update!

It is so nice having Fridays off. It's even nicer when my last class on Thursdays ends before noon, and so my weekend begins at noon on Thursdays!

Last weekend was so nice; got to see a significant portion of the fam - though I missed my daddy. :( We lost some people on the subway but made it to Four & Twenty Blackbirds for some tasty fall pies! A long day of walking around, but all in all a very nice time - even if the teenage boys were acting like....teenage boys. haha. It was nice to see them, though. Made me laugh and miss them.

Working my butt off on homework Friday and Saturday really worked in my favor. Katy, Rachel, and I spent literally at least 7 hours on our Bible homework. Pulled off, though, because class topics have fallen a little behind and the only homework he assigned for next week is the optional homework we did last week! This means we have all weekend to work on our group project! haha. In fact, I have to go meet with that professor soon. He wants to get to know everyone in the class so he had us all set up meetings with him to discuss what we each want to get from the class - and so he could learn our names. haha.

My Texts in the Jewish Liturgy class is getting really fascinating. I may not know much about the liturgy but I am learning how various Bible passages made it into the liturgy - which a few times has come as a horrendous surprise to some students in my class. Almost appalling them. Just how, well, some things maybe were copies wrong and so changed the meaning, but the rabbis thought it was awesome and so included it. I don't know, I can't think of a specific example. But I also love it because the professor pulls in Near Eastern parallels to explain the possible origins of the texts! He even gave us a copy of a Dead Sea Scroll to compare how it was different to what is found in the modern Masoritic Text (the texts eventually accepted into the Hebrew canon). That is what I want! I want to study what is found outside and see how it compares to what we have. This also happens to be what I'm doing in my Bible class...

Grammar is getting pretty tough, but I'm learning more words and becoming quite proficient in writing in Hebrew script! Even when she explains everything in Hebrew, I'm still understanding it! yay! Baby Hebrew has reached a point where I'm falling behind in vocabulary, so I bought myself some index cards. Time to start studying some flash cards!

After going to a lunch last week for the Bible program, I have decided what I'm going to focus my studies on...for now. I didn't know where I was going to start, but now I do: UGARITIC! Oh yes, I am going to get myself some Ugaritic books, teach myself some Ugaritic, and start reading Ugaritic texts!!!! I don't know where I'll go from there, but I just know that I want to learn about as many ancient Near Eastern cultures as I possibly can - and I now have a starting point! I'm sure after I've done some sufficient study into Ugaritic, I'll find my next stepping stone. I'm going to check out classes at Union and Columbia for next semester and see what culture classes they offer. SO EXCITED!

Tonight the roommies and I are going downtown for an exhibition opening on "The Jews of Morocco"! I'm pretty stoked. However, my dear roommies don't get out of class until 5 and the exhibit starts at 6:30. Since I am finished with class, I'm going to be making dinner tonight! :) I'm such a good roommie.

Tomorrow night, we're still debating, we might go to a showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show!!! I've never been to one though I know a lot of what the audience is supposed to participate in, so I'm pretty excited. If we don't do it this weekend, we'll be going next weekend. We found out it happens every Friday and Saturday, so we have plenty of opportunities to go. It's more fun (or so I've heard) to go around Halloween.

And THEN a huge number of JTS students are going to the Rally to Restore Sanity in DC and taking the FREE Huffington Post bus!!! We have to be at the Mets Stadium at 5:30 in the morning. We're wondering if all of us packing into a taxi would be better than the hour plus subway+bus ride we'd have to take. hmm....