Things I love and things I miss

So... I did intend to write more often than this. Two and a half weeks is horrible. But, I have reasons for being quiet. Midterms. Yup. I've had once a week for the past three-four weeks. I have four classes. The fourth midterm is tomorrow. So instead of studying for it or Hebrew, I'm procrastinating. <_< But, it's only... oops. It's almost 9pm. So I'll try to make this quick, and go back to studying for Rabbinical Thought and Hebrew.

I've been here for almost 9 weeks now, and there are about 6 weeks to go before I'm home. But 6 weeks does not seem like that long. This weekend, I have a field study in Galilee from Saturday to Tuesday. Next weekend I have off. The weekend after that I have a field study in Jordan from Thursday to Sunday. Weekend after that is off. The week after that is midterms, and then I have a week to finish enjoying Israel before I go home.

Aaaahhh!

But it is late October, and I realize that I miss things from home. Things like...

• My family
• My friends
• Pumpkin
• Chocolate
• The crispness of fall
• Changing leaves
• In general, fall-type stuff

There are other things to be sure, but right now I'm really missing the pumpkin. I cannot wait to get home and eat pumpkin pie, and I really want pumpkin cookies right now. My mouth waters at the prospect...

But, there are things I really love here. Things like...

• The new friends here, the friendships that I pray will last a lifetime after three short months of adventures
• Adventures
• Schwarma
• The beautiful Jerusalem skyline
• The warm days and cool evenings
• Pita
• Everyone here would groan at this, but I love bus lunches. It's usually pita with either tuna (with olives), egg salad (with olives) or turkey and cheese. I love them all. And chocolate spread on pita is DELICIOUS.
• Being able to keep my window open all the time
• Being able to walk down the hallway to be on the roof, to look over the beautiful Jerusalem skyline

 One of the things that I LOVE to do at night is to go and sit on the roof, look over the city, and talk with God. During the day, I go out to the garden, but I love sitting on the roof and looking out over everything.

It's getting close to nine, so I'm going to wrap up, get a snack, and then get to work!

Laila tov!
-Sarah

Bug bites, the Temple Mount and absolute insanity

If there was one thing for me to dislike here, besides being away from my loved ones, it would have to be the insect bites. Every day, I find more of them coating my arms and legs, usually by the presence of a very fierce itch. I coat them with clear nail polish, but they usually still itch. Bleh.

High holy days are finally over, concluding with Simchat Torah yesterday/last night. Apparently the guys had a great time dancing with the Torah scrolls at the Western Wall. I didn't go due to having an insane amount of Hebrew homework and work in the library. I think we have on-campus celebration of Halloween (mainly the costumes, hehe), Thanksgiving and Christmas, but as for days-off holidays here (not counting field studies), we don't get any more until Chanukah. Which I will be celebrating in the States. Woot!

We have another field study coming up this weekend - all weekend. We leave Saturday morning and don't get back until Monday night. We'll be doing Philistia, the Shephelah (I will be sincerely impressed if you know where that is), the Negev, the Greater Negev, and the Dead Sea. Pretty excited about the Dead Sea day. :D That day we'll be going to Massada and Ein Gedi. *grin* And playing in the water and in the spring and in the fortress and in the sea...

I realize that it's been a while since I posted last , so here's the basic update of happenings. Oy, this is going to take a while. Let me sum up instead.

Yom Kippur (have post on that coming)
Tel Aviv beach (pictures en route)
Played chess
Learned how to play Age of Empires
Shabbat (post coming and pictures)
We got added to the JUC tribe by hiking the Nahal Amud
Some of us did the ramparts walk on top of the Old City walls
We went to the Temple Mount (definitely have pictures of that)
Enjoyed girl's night at my professor Aubrey's house (She's AWESOME. :D)
I skyped with a very dear friend ^_^ (Also Skyped with my parents and siblings earlier - can't forget that. :) )

And then I got hit by the crazy week.

It's not all that much. I have a Hebrew midterm and a paper due on Thursday. But those two things in addition to some wrestlings I'm now working on, not so good, because I want to be thinking about the wrestling, and not on Hebrew or such, but school is, at this time, more important. :/

So my timer just went off (let myself have a half-hour break), so it's time to wrap this blog post up. Here's a few neat pictures

Ashley got this picture at Shabbat while I was lighting the candles.
Right afterwards, the guys to the right of me realized that there
weren't any girls on their end of the table, and passed their candles
to me to light, since a woman is supposed to do it. :)

I LOVE this pictures of Ashley and I dancing on the beach
at Tel Aviv. I want to go back and actually dance during the sunset
since the pictures of *me* did not end up so well. At least,
as well as I was hoping.

Ashley can pick me up! And she's shorter than
me!

More once this insane week is over. Perhaps I'll have some other things figured out too. We shall see. The Lord only knows.

Lehitraot! (See ya later!)
Sarah