Hello

Hey Journal!

I left y'all on Shabbat afternoon. And a lot has happened since that, even though it hasn't even been a week. Its all been a ton of fun. 

After Shabbos ended we went to Ben Yehuda Street to be tourists. Ben Yehuda is your basic tourist/American/over priced part of a big city. The only things I bought was a San Antonio Spurs and a Dallas Cowboys Kippah and a falafel. As soon as I got the falafel though it started raining. Pouring. My shoes are just now finally dried. (I wore my mocasins which are like socks they are so worn.) We all kind of freaked and ate our food under an onning of some random Israeli shop on a side street of Ben Yehuda. But the best part of the night was seeing my cousin Mordechai. We talked about meeting up sometime because he's studying in Jerusalem and I was going to be in town. So we met up and hung out for an hour. It was really cool. We took pictures of random Chinese people singing and talked and caught up on things. We were only together for an hour and a lot of it was under an umbrella trying to not get too wet (epic fail). But I think he's going to try to come to Tzuba next week. We're still figuring it out. 

One of the big differences between Israel and America is that school starts on Sunday and ends on Thursday here. Its taking some getting used too. For instance, it is Wednesday and I only have one more day of classes. So, on Sunday I started my first full week of school and it has been nothing short of tiring. I have 8:30 to 1:15 of Judaica and 2:10 to 6 of general studies which adds up to a lot more school than in America. Anyways, this week has been marked by getting into a routine for school. After my 6th period I usually fall asleep or shower but today I'm doing the blog. Then everyone is done with school and we have dinner. But I've been trying to find time to do homework and people to do it with so I won't get too distracted. Its difficult. I do a lot during lunch but teachers here understand its difficult to get homework done with the amount of time we have so they don't assign as much as in America. But in return we have a lot more time in class. I was about to say "in school," but there is no school, just buildings so I had to go back, in case you were interested.  This is just the way EIE has worked so far. I suspect it will change becuase this is the longest stretch of school we have. Three weeks with virtually no breaks. It must sound nice to everyone in American and I think I sound kind of strange complaining about three straight weeks of school everyday. 

We had our first tiul in class format this week.  In Jewish History class we start with Adam and Eve because starting at the beginning makes the most sense, even if you don't have to accept that Adam and Eve were the first people or whatever. But the next part of the TaNaK is Noah and then Abraham and that is where people can start debating the accuracy of the stories. The Torah mentions peoples and cultures that actually existed and in class we have been comparing these people (Mesopotamians) to the original Jews and early Jewish history. For instance we compared the story of Noah to a Mesopotamian flood story. Anyways, we focused on Abraham and Sarah as the first monotheists and why they would only have one God so we went to Gezer, an ancient Canaanite City that was polytheistic.  We went there to learn about how its culture worked compared to what we know about Abraham and his lifestyle and why he could choose it.  If that sounds boring, its much more exciting when you see it then read about it in a text book. It was very interesting, and I'm not a huge fan of ancient history. I think that was yesterday. Individual days are hard to remember.

Those are the big things that have been happening since my last post. We also had someone from the army come talk to us about Gadnah (a week in the army). I cleaned up my room. Now you can get to the balcony. People have been getting sick so I'm trying to eat healthy. But when I don't like what they are serving I don't eat that much and show up late to breakfast sometimes and have recently discovered oreos dipped in white chocolate. But I also like the pita, salad, and at least one of the dishes too. I'm also trying to sleep more but I have to do homework at night because we don't get it done in class. I've also been milking the whole Texas thing a lot which is a lot of fun. I sing Willie Nelson and Pat Green, and wear my boots and my UT hat. People get a kick when I say y'all which I don't try to do. I have fun with it and keep it in proportion. 

So ya, I'm going to try to post soon. Probably won't be till after Shabbat. And right now I have to go to dinner so... Bye! I love you!

Joey B.