Great Weekend

For of all the not so great stuff. Finals. Miriam put it very well on her blog:

I've made a great realization.

Finals are still hard, even on the other side of the world.

How true that is. We have finished 3 of our classes/finals: Old Testament, Hebrew (or Arabic), and Field Trip final (except our field trips are FAR from over thank goodness!!! I LOVE field trips!). That was last week. Since those finals we have had 2 short papers to write and a rather long assignment for Chaddy. As of 6:30am this morning I have now finished those. I have all day today to study for our Islam and Judaism finals tomorrow. Somehow I know that today will not be enough time. Good thing me and my roommates are going to take a lunch break to go get some schwarma :)

And good thing I procrastinated in the Oasis today, lingering over my breakfast like it was going to prevent the rest of this awful day of studying. Oh yeah, and the honeydew tasted fermented or something this morning. Oh well...my cereal and fruit bowl and roll was delicious :) Sometimes I really like breakfast. I never eat breakfast at home...now that I'm in the habit of eating at 7:30am everyday I wonder how long that habit will stick. Or if I will continue to get up early...doubt it?

Ok...now the GREAT STUFF! Seriously, where did this wonderful weekend come from??

Friday

I studied a bit in the morning for the Field Trip final. Worried about it too much because when we took it after lunch it was super easy. Glad that's done with. After that I was productive and finished my Islam final paper. yes another paper for Islam...but this one was only 2 pages rather than 13 and I actually rather enjoyed reading the article. It was very interesting and tied some important things together. Dinner. Friday movie night followed and a lot of people ditched to do homework but the rest of us watched Death on the Nile.

Yeah, this movie was weird. Murder mystery, lots of people get murdered. The cool thing was that I've been to almost every place that this movie was filmed at. :) COOL

After that little feature film, me and Megan H. decided to watch another movie since we had been working all day and our brains were fried. 

Megan: "Wow. It looks like you could ride that dog, it's so big!"

Me: "That looks like a donkey."

Megan: "You've been in the Middle East too long."

HAHAHA

This movie was quite humorous and RANDOM. Wow, I never knew suitcases could float that well. And one of the best parts was on the island when the islanders started singing a song in Hebrew that we have sung in my Hebrew class...yeah I laughed really hard.

Then I found in the library that we have part of the Tennis Shoes Among the Nephites series. I used to be addicted to these books, and while I've been here I've been wanting to read the 5th, 6th, and 7th books because they  have to do with the Middle East during around 70AD...stuff that we're studying. And voila...I FOUND THEM HERE!

Hahaha I'm so happy! I checked them out of course, and am in the process of re-reading this book and it's cool cuz oh yeah, I'm there!

Saturday - Fast Sabbath

I love Sabbath. We moved up our Fast week a week early because we have District Conference next week. I bore my testimony in church for the first time during sacrament since I've been here. It was really cool to do that in Jerusalem. It was a great meeting. After sacrament we had Sabbath school for about 15 minutes and then with it being the 5th Sabbath of the month we combined Relief Society and Priesthood and we watched Emma Smith: My Story. 

I had not seen this before. It was incredible and emotional and I cried. It has the same actors as in the Joesph Smith movie. I completely recommend watching this film. Emma was an amazing woman and I hope I can be like her in my life.

After church me and Natalie W. and Megan H. went to the Garden Tomb. It was wonderful to go there. It was really crowded so we didn't go down to the tomb, but we are planning on going in the morning sometime this week so we can go when it's quieter. While we were there we went to a more isolated spot and I wrote in my journal and spilled a lot of good emotions out. It was great.

Then we came back, had dinner. I love turkey Sabbath! After dinner we watched The Nativity Story.

Another great movie. I watched it my freshman year but it meant a lot more to me this time. We watched it in preparation for our field trip for the next day.

It was an emotionally spiritually wonderfully great day. I love Jerusalem. 

Sunday

We had the morning to "study". I was fairly productive and finished Chadwick's assignment. I really dislike that Carta book...I'm glad that one is over. Then lunch. After lunch we had our Herodian field trip! We went to the Herodian which is a fortress built by King Herod. It looks like a dirt volcano today and it was really cool. We were there for a couple hours. Then my favorite part of the day was we celebrated Christmas on Halloween. We went to Shepherd's Field right outside of Bethlehem and had some Christmas musical numbers, had time by ourselves to contemplate about the Savior, and a testimony meeting. I got to publicly bear my testimony a short distance away from where Jesus Christ was born. That was my favorite part. And hearing everybody else's testimony...almost everyone got up I think. It was incredible and I felt the spirit. It was really cool because I could honestly tell the difference between the cold and the spirit. It was such a good experience.

Now I'm on Christmas mode. :) :) :) :) Watching The Nativity Story, singing many Christmas hymns while in the West Bank in Bethlehem (field trip last week) and by Bethlehem, thinking about the birth of the Savior a lot, and being grateful for my blessings. 

Yeah, it's been a great weekend. 

From last week til Christmas I'm listening to those Christmas tunes. Right now I am listening to to Josh Groban's Noel CD. And I'm happy! Even though I'm studying for finals tomorrow! :) :) :)

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I know I have pictures to update from the past week and a half or so...I'm hoping to make it to Hebrew U this week after we have some freedom again. 

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Some funny things I wrote down in my Judaism notes while studying:

"Israel is the only country in the world where the number of trees is actually increasing and not decreasing. It's one of the things they're actually doing right." - Ophir

Here's a joke for you:

Q: How many ultra-orthodox Jews does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: CHANGE?!?!?!

Yeah...thanks for telling us racist jokes Ophir! :)

Registered

Ok, so I'm all registered and everything worked really fast. That is an amazing miracle considering how the internet is here and with all the students on the BYU server trying to sign up.

Problem --> 2 of my classes that I wanted were full. They weren't important classes that I have to have, but they were classes that I really wanted to take. So I won't be taking Guitar or my 1 credit block Philosophical and Ethical Issues class. Yeah, this is sad.

So since I only had 11.5 credits I had to think of another class to take. Since I wasn't originally planning on taking any GE classes this semester, I figured this was maybe a sign that I should or something. So I'm going to take my advanced English class and just get it over with, since I've been putting it off...so I'll be in Persuasive Writing in winter and hopefully not hate it. Now I'm in 14.5 credits again, but my semester is not looking as fun :(

Too bad Hebrew didn't fit with my classes I already had. I would've taken that since I already know the alphabet now! That would've been awesome. I like Hebrew.

DONE :)

Yup! I'm done with my 13 page single-spaced paper! "I couldn't be happier!" Well, I probably could be a little happier just because we have 5 FINALS in the next week...starting Thursday and ending Tuesday. But you know what? Stress doesn't do anything and is a waste of energy. So I'm going to try and follow my own advice and be good and study hard and do well and be happy :) This is completely do-able.

Because my paper is done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YES!

Oh, and we went to Bethlehem today. In the WEST BANK. It felt almost illegal, but it wasn't. There was some very good stuff from today and I will write more about it later. It was a great day! Hope yours is as well!

Olives!

I am lucky to be here fall semester! Not only have we gotten to be here for lots of holidays (especially Jewish ones), but it is OLIVE SEASON! We have olive trees on the JC grounds and over the past week we have been able to pick the olives from the trees and then crush them and make olive oil!

Last Thursday I participated in the olive picking. It was a party.

Pickin' those olives.

Some people got really into climbing the trees and everything. Forget ladders!

Olive CRUSHER. We did this for a long while and it sure makes you tired. Yes we're buff.

Then we pressed the olives. This squishes the olives so the juice runs out. The juice gathers and then the lame unimportant stuff will go to the bottom and the oil will float because it is lighter. Then the oil is skimmed off the top and collected! This is how it was done in the olden days...

It was definitely a cool experience to participate in. And none of the other semesters get to do it because they aren't cool enough to come during OLIVE SEASON. Just kidding, I'm just lucky I guess...

Sometimes me and Ann decide to switch out t-shirt because we are bored of our clothes. It was funny though because its the Lakers colors hahaha.

Olives are fun!

Yad Vashem/Mt. Herzl FT

Our field trip on Monday was not our typical field trip. We have been seeing a lot of Ophir lately, and Monday he took us to a place called Yad Vashem which is one of the best Holocaust museums in the world. It was a somber morning as we were led through the museum and looked at the history of the Holocaust and the victims and survivors and the horrors over those years of annihilation. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside. I don't think I would've anyways. It was an educational experience to see this place, but it is not an experience I would like to repeat I don't think. Everyone should go to a Holocaust museum somewhere in the world if they are able though. Here are some pictures from outside the museum. 

There is a Garden of the Righteous. This is a place where commemoration is given to non-Jews who put themselves in danger to help Jews during the Holocaust. Trees were planted for many of those along this walkway and throughout the grounds of the museum. Most people have heard of Oskar Schindler because of Schindler's List. This is his tree along the walkway.

There were many people who helped the Jews, so this memorial statue is for those who wished to keep their identities anonymous.

A couple statues representing different things. The one of the left is for the proud members of the Zionist movement, those who would stand up for themselves and defend themselves against the Nazis. The one on the right is much more representative as a whole for the Jews, who were mostly submissive and didn't resist to the persecution as a whole. It was very sad to notice the differences.

 We weren't allowed to take pictures on the inside. It was a cool building in a triangular shape and the displays were on either side. It was like a zig-zag course to get through the whole museum. 

The forests of Jerusalem. This is at the exit of the museum.

 Memorial specifically for the children who were killed during the Holocaust. 

In the afternoon we went to Mt. Herzl. Benjamin Herzl was the founder of the Zionist movement for the Jews and this is where he was buried.

Burial place

This is the Arlington of Israel. It has many graves to represent the victims of the Holocaust.

Pretty flowers at the end of the emotionally exhausting day. 

I'm glad I was able to see these things today. It is a good reminder of how lucky I am.

Eilat!

Sunday was our free day and almost every student piled on the buses (I will never want to ride buses again after this semester!) to make our way south to Eilat! This is a tourist town at the southern-most tip of Israel bordering the RED SEA!!! We have been planning this activity since the beginning and it was a wonderful day. There were some mix ups with the people there and someone forgot to mention us that we needed our National Park cards to get to the spot we actually wanted to go to. But that was ok, everyone had a really positive attitude and we just went to a different beach instead. This meant the snorkeling was not as cool because we didn't have the coral reefs to explore, but I bet that just meant less people getting cut up. The day was AWESOME! I've never been snorkeling before, so seeing any fish at all was spectacular! 

Yeah, that's the RED SEA....

Me, Megan, and Megan. Something funny is that Megan is also my middle name. We're so cool! And behind us...those mountains are JORDANIAN MOUNTAINS. Honestly we could've swam to Jordan. Except that'd we'd be deported or something probably...

Happy!!

There are a few fish below us, but this isn't where we snorkeled. This is by the shore. We went deeper and saw some cool fish.

After we spent about 4 hours on the beach snorkeling and swimming and having a grand ol' time, we all went into the city of Eilat. Honestly the only thing to do was explore their mall. It felt like home, and the nice thing was that we didn't have street vendors running out at us asking us if we were Mormons and if we wanted to buy anything. That will be nice about being home. But it was weird walking through the mall in our Chacos and white v-necks and baggy pants...we're all going to completely bring the style back home. And don't forget the fanny packs too.

C'est vrai :)

Eilat!

Israel does make some pretty attractive men

Jordan across the sea! Seriously, it's great here because it is like the 4 corners of nations, not states. We were in Israel. Jordan was across the sea. Saudi Arabia was across the same sea. We are a matter of minutes from the Egyptian border. So neat.

OH, YES!! Except not really haha

Cow kibbutz again! We love this place! We get good food and ice cream, and then I get chocolate milk that is super super good. We have been there twice now and I would love to go again.

Eilat was so much fun! I am becoming less and less of a fan of long bus rides, mostly because it's really hard to fall asleep when the people around you and laughing uproariously. But that's ok. I guess I just like to sleep and some people not so much. I must be weird haha. 

Sabbath (a week ago) - Garden of Gethsemane

I love going places on Sabbath. Sabbath last week a group of us went to the Garden of Gethsemane. This the 2nd time I've been there, but the 1st time was at the very beginning and wasn't that great of an experience because of lots of different reasons. Regardless of that, I was really excited to go this time and have a better personal experience. It was successful, I had a great time. It was the best opportunity to sit and think about life and my Savior. Perfect.

Inside the Church of All Nations next to the Garden.

Across the street from the public entrance to the Garden there is this private area. Here you are allowed to sit amidst the olive trees. On the public side where I've been it is fenced off. I didn't go in here because of time but I will next time.

After we left the Garden there were some other places right in the area that we stopped by.

This is inside the Greed Orthodox church that houses the tomb of Mary. This is where the sarcophagus is.

The outside of the church.

Then we went to the Grotto of Gethsemane.

Our small group that went exploring and found these cool places.

Walking home. Gotta love this place.

I'm so glad that I went there on Sabbath. It was a great afternoon after church. And then right when we got home we had dinner and they had wonderful brownies for dessert. It was so lovely :) Just so you know, that never ever happens here. So it was a good day! We also got to watch the Relief Society broadcast from before Conference today during church. I love church and our leaders. Especially President Monson! Seriously, he’s so great.

Passover Seder

Over a week ago our Judaism teacher gave us a very cultural experience. We were able to put together a Passover meal in the middle of October. For those who don't know, this holiday is usually in April, but it is according to the Jewish calendar so it changes. We were all pretty excited to participate in this during our stay during the fall semester, and it involved a lot of student planning and participation. I was able to help set up the dining room, and I picked flowers and this other plant thing that was all used for table decorations. I was also able to be a narrator for the program and read just a little bit of the traditional text read during Passover, in English of course :) It was really long, close to 4 hours for us actually, but it was definitely worth it and very interesting to eat the traditional Passover foods in remembrance of different aspects of the Exodus of the children of Israel. There were also several songs as well as the readings.

We had "assigned seating" with little name tags. The book I'm holding is the 

one we all read the text from together.

The plants and flowers that I helped cut so we could have pretty table decorations! I thought it turned out pretty good! Props to Sister Muhelstein for picking the stuff out.

Traditional foods to eat at certain times in the Passover experience. Each represents something. The bitter herbs represent the bitterness of slavery. Charoses (the brown blob in the upper left) represent the mortar that the slaves used to build things. The parsley represents hope, but is dipped in salt water that represents tears shed by the children of Israel. These are just some of the symbolisms. You can read more about it online - it's actually very interesting.

Look Mom! I ate the fish! But not the tomatoes hahaha. 

This was like a 5 course meal we thought the fish was the main dish...nope. We had soup, salad, more meat, and dessert after this. It was ridiculous we were all fatties afterwards.

Megan, me, Kylie :)

Pretty flowers :) The room was decorated very nicely. Ascetically pleasing!

This was a super fun night! I felt very culturally enlightened.

Realizations

1. I love Jerusalem.

2. I love the people I'm here with. I believe that our Un-talent Show last night made that a fact. More details to come about that later I'm sure.

3. I am so happy here. :)

4. Time is going by really fast. I'm very excited for Christmas time to see my family, but at the same time I don't want to go home yet. I really need to stop thinking about that though because that can taint the experience of everyday living.

5. I love life! Even though things don't go the way I want them to a lot of times, there are so many little happy things that happen everyday. Like this morning, I got my first 5/5 on my ANE quiz. Yeah, that made me happy :) Getting emails makes me happy, even though it doesn't happen all that often. So when it does, it's super exciting.

6. Learning things is great. Understanding them is even better. I love the moment when the light bulb turns on.

7. I love my ipod. That may be very worldly, but I need that outlet. Especially here where there is no such thing as personal space.

8. I like blogging.

9. I love looking at pictures like this:

10. I really like pumpkin cookies and wish I could have some of them.

11. Oh, and I really like showing off pictures of my nieces and nephews. :)