almost over

...my cold, that is! I went into the JPost today and felt really lightheaded. That feeling always freaks me out. I haven't recalled feeling like that since April of senior year, when I donated blood and almost passed out afterwards. (I feel a bit bad, not donating. I'm O+, a universal donor, so I should probably hit up the red blood donor van when it's on campus.)

So, I quickly translated a press release from Hebrew to English (I haven't heard from the copy editors yet, which could mean they haven't found any problems!) and left. As I was on Yaffo Rd, I had the quintessential Israel experience--bumping into somebody I knew.

Since I don't have any family in Israel, I'm somewhat at a loss for this. Sure, I've seen people who I know from home or school, but they were planned meetings. When you randomly bump into someone in Israel, it's sort of a testament to the fact that you belong to the Jewish people, that you're a legitimate member of the Jewish community.

Either that, or that you know Jews who are also invested in Israel. Whatevs.

I'm taking it easy today, but I do have some touristy plans:

Monday: Jerusalem Botanical Gardens--they're right by my apartment, so I figure it can't hurt to check it out. A good chance to take photos!

Thursday: Maybe I'll actually make it to Tel Aviv? I really need more pictures! Also, it might be nice to actually go to the beach, despite the fact that I don't really like the beach? I want to have a full day, since it'll be my last time in Israel for the indeterminate future. I also want to check out the Biblical Zoo. It's in Jerusalem and supposedly has all these animals that lived during the time of the Bible. Basically, it's a zoo. And zoos rock. And it's something I've actually never seen. I figure I can bum on the beach in the morning/early afternoon and then hit the zoo on the way home.

I've been thinking a lot about how I want to be back in HP/NYC, but I haven't been thinking about what this means...that I'm going to be leaving Israel and that my summer is almost over. I'll really miss it here. This summer has been good for me. While I would've loved to have been able to spend more time with friends, summer has been productive. I think my writing has gotten better (at least, I've learned how to write newspaper articles), and I've been making tentative plans for the future. (These entail talking to the Nefesh B'Nefesh people about how student loans from undergrad/(free) grad school work for people who make aliyah, as well as studying for the LSATS, to see if I need to take one of those horrible classes during spring semester.)

Also, in a weird mood last night, I ended up coming up with a tentative schedule for the Spring '10 semester. Yes, I'm just that anal. This involved me cursing out JTS for scheduling classes to overlap with Columbia's, as well as for only offering required classes a very limited amount of times. Even though I've arranged it so that I'll theoretically have the time to take every single class I need to graduate (and not one more), if JTS doesn't offer a specific Bible class during Fall '10, I'm going to have to go to the Dean and beg to take the JTS core out of order, or I won't be able to graduate/finish all of my classes on time. There are other JTS core classes that I still need to take, but only the Bible classes have specific prerequisites.

I also still need to fit MusicHum into my schedule, but worst comes to worst, I can go to the Core office and tell them that I'm in the Joint Program and blahblahblah. I'm no so worried about that...if I managed to fit ArtHum into my schedule, I can probably make MusicHum work for me too.

I have no regrets about doing JTS/Columbia, but fitting the JTS classes in is a huge pain. One MAJOR benefit of being in Columbia's School of General Studies is that while I have the same number of classes in my Core Curriculum, I have MUCH more freedom in what I can take. For example, I don't need LitHum, CC, Frontiers of Science, or any of those classes. Instead, I have a certain number of literature, humanities, social science, and science classes that I need to take, but I can take essentially anything that falls under those categories. I still have to take ArtHum and MusicHum, but at least I can pick the other classes. For example, instead of CC, one of my social science classes I'm taking is an anthro class that also counts towards my major. Nifty!

Unfortunately, the JTS core is very specific...and way larger that the infamous Columbia core. A seemingly infinite humber of Hebrew classes (7 for me, and that's relatively average), 3 Bible classes, 4 history classes, 3 literature classes, 2 Jewish thought/"philosophy" classes, and 3 Talmud classes. That's 22 classes, y'all.

I know, I chose this. And for the most part, I do enjoy the classes I've taken. At least, sometimes.

I just hope that in May 2011, I can graduate with my class and be permanently done with my undergraduate career.