still here

I’ve been real busy beating myself over the head trying to finish these essays for the Pardes application. No matter how much I try to convince myself that it’s ok, there’s no rush, I’m just a little sick of myself about it. Today my deadline to finish them is midday Sunday, partially because we’re going to a talk Sunday evening at Pardes about Post-Zionism.

Some highlights of the past week:

• Spent an hour yesterday falling and being kicked, punched, and otherwise pummeled at Jerusalem Dojo – actually, being taught Jujitsu (or Jiu jitsu, or 柔術) by Akiva. I liked it, and I think I’ll be going back. Thanks to Joey for finding the place!
• Spent two hours last night at a discussion group in a coffee shop kinda place called The Living Room, it’s in the windmill in Rehavia, on Rehov Ramban (yes, in the windmill). The topic was “Are Men & Women Created Equal?” I guess I should have realized from the title, the discussion was focused mostly on the creation story of men & women from the Torah, while what I’m really more interested in these days is contemporary feminism and gender issues. But it caught my eye so I checked it out. The format has potential, but I felt that somehow the discussion was a bit Orthodox- and “Frum”- centric – can’t explain exactly what I mean, but it bugged me a little.

  I spent some time chatting with Yossi, the owner (who also owns Wolf & Lamb in NYC) – he and his wife are hoping to make The Living Room into a spot for english-speaking 20-30-somethings to sip some coffee while discussing Torah, Judaism, philosophy, etc, or hearing some live music or a poetry reading (I think). Interesting idea, has potential.

  Lest I forget: I also met another fellow Pardes student at this thing: Luke, who’s from Chicago and seemed like a real nice guy. Looking forward to hanging out with him again.

• On Sunday evening Elina and I took a short trip to Tel Aviv to check out a stereo that someone had posted on Janglo – turned out to be a decent set, a Teac receiver with some KLH speakers. I was pretty dubious about KLH, but after hearing them I decided that they were acceptable. It’s really nice to have music in our place, it was the biggest thing missing at that point. Now we’ve got it all hooked up to our Airport Express, streaming music wirelessly, and lovin’ it!

…I’m sure there’s more, but it’s not coming to me – right now, the rest of the past week seems like one big blur. Oh well, Shabbat Shalom!

!שבת שלום