Sunny Days Are Here Again

So, today's post is dedicated to wrapping up some loose ends from previous posts.

First of all, the final package has arrived! My Christmas gift from my grandmother was on the road for 4.5 months, and I'm hoping that it at least stopped in Italy for gelato on its way. In it, I received some lovely noties, Lindor dark chocolate (yum!), more hand cream (yum!), and an exquisitely hand-made journal. The last in the list arrived at the perfect time since the current journal is nearly full. The almost-full journal makes eight since my arrival in the Holy Land, Gramma's will be nine. And, its arrival proves my point that often what we're waiting for arrives when we need it most and not a moment sooner. Our happy postal shrine has not been dismantled, but it is shrinking. The contributions from Gundula and Bea returned home with them: Gundula returned to Cologne in the middle of February and Bea flew home to Guadalajara, Spain, earlier today. Lily, Kyle and I are on pins and needles to meet our new roomies.

Regarding Shabbat Goy issues, Lily indeed stayed in the kfar a few weekends ago. Can I tell you how exciting it was to have first-hand experience as a Shabbat Goy? - a real, true, appreciated, intentional Shabbat Goy! I turned on kettles, turned light-switches off and on both in the apartment and in the stairwell. It was a beautifully sunny Shabbat, so Lily and I sat outside chatting and picking out which boys in tzitzim and kippa she should marry and when we returned to home on the elevator, I pushed "3" with such purpose! My only sadness on that weekend was not being able to cook for her, since I'm no kosher gal. But, we can't have everything.

The February vacation is nearly at an end; classes officially start tomorrow but I don't have my first class until Monday morning at 8:30. This semester, I will continue with Biblical Hebrew, and start Canaanite Literature and the Bible as well as Ugaritic. True to Hebrew University form, as we've experienced it at least, the course for Ugaritic has been approved but no one knows where or when it will take place. The other thing I have to do is talk the powers-that-be in the graduate office into letting me take a tutorial on Literary Translation.

I know that you've all been quite worried about my tan, and I can't say that I blame you. As it turns out, all disaster was diverted yesterday (+24) and today (+30). Yes, I got a little pink today at 8am sitting outside waiting for my laundry to wash. Yes, my exposed flesh is sunscreened. Yes, I know that you all think I can't get a tan, but my pal, Sofia (who is also Spanish) said that she knows people back home who would be envious of such a tan in March. I stick my tongue out in your general direction.

Oh! Speaking of Monty Python, the Cinemateque is screening The Life of Brian on Tuesday. I know - it's smackdab on Purim, and it's causing a real argument between my different brains. What to do? Dress up as a vampire (is it just me, or is dressing as a vampire a pretty standard costume regardless of dress-up holiday the world over?) OR go conduct research (free with my movie pass) for our family's budding religion? I am, after all, President of Briantology. (No, my father cannot be president of Briantology because he is The Brian.) (Yes, we've already discussed this.) Oh, dear, I have ended on a cliff-hanger after a dedication to the contrary...