Skip to main content

The New Year

This is my first blog of the new year.
Lots has happened since the last entry. Winter break came and went, we paid a visit to the family in Toronto, I (basically) finished my "synagogue project" and school has resumed and we're back in full swing.
Here's a more detailed recap of the last couple of weeks:
I was really looking forward to winter break. With it being a Jewish leap year, we don't get another break (Pesach) for a long, long time. Unfortunately, plans fell apart pretty quickly.
First, my little brother and his family were supposed to come down to Baltimore for the first part of the break. Unfortunately that plan never came to fruition because, the night before they were supposed to leave, they couldn't find their passports. I mention this only because my brother was worried that I would. In reality, though, I had a ton of work waiting for me with this project that I had to complete for a program that I attended in the summer.
Most of my vacation was spent working on the project. My original idea was to compare Orthodox and Reform synagogue architecture in 19th century Europe, but in the end I only looked at Reform synagogues in Germany, Austria, Hungary and America at that time. I put together a wiki website (spodek.pbwiki.com) for the project.
We headed up to Toronto for the weekend before New Years. We rented a car and drove up on Thursday night. We left at 7 pm and got to my mom's place just before 3 am (We would have been there 40 minutes earlier but we had a long wait at the border as the women in the booth felt it necessary to cross-examine every car that passed her way). We had a nice Shabbat, with dinner at my older brother's place (I really enjoyed it. They have three boys who are all great. We hadn't seen them in some time, so it was nice to touch base again) slept in on Shabbat and had an intimate lunch at my mom's (although there was enough food to have at least 10 more people over) and went to my mom's cousin for seudat shlishit. On Sunday we went to a bagel place for breakfast (where we bumped into my grandfather and aunt and uncle and cousin and his wife and kid), went shopping with my mom at the WORST WALMART EVER, had dinner at my aunt and uncle and went to sleep early. We were supposed to stick around until Tuesday, but with little going on and my project to finish (can you spell p-r-o-c-r-a-s-t-i-n-a-t-e) we decided to head home a day early.
So I'm going to end this blog here because I'm not terribly pleased with it (it sounds as exciting as my vacation was). Hopefully I'll get back into the groove soon.
My apologies to any fans/readers that may be out there.

Comments

David said…
We were wondering if you were ever going to post again. Glad to see you back!

Popular posts from this blog

Leaving Las Vegas

The title for this post is an analogy that says it all...   Much like Vegas, JDSs present their illusion as a reality, enticing people to risk their hard earned money on the promise that their bet will pay dividends. In reality, the house always wins and what happens at a JDS stays at the JDS.   It is for this final reason that I’ve decided to share this post.   Too often, when I share with people that I am leaving the JDS world they talk about how important my work is to the Jewish people and attempt to dissuade me from my decision. Unfortunately, many of these people have no idea what it means to be a day school educator. In this post, I will focus only on the financial aspect of being a JDS teacher… Last year I made $60K teaching six classes at a local JDS. Two of my children attended the school so, while I received the maximum financial aid allowed by the school’s bylaws (40%), about $25k went straight back to the school. In opting for the “subsidized” benefits offere...

Try, try again

It's been a while since my last blog (the Israel trip) and, of course, a lot has happened since then. But it would take me too long to go back and recap the past month, so I'll just take it from the top. Israel expenses keep adding up: I was sick to my stomach for a lot of the time that I was in Israel. When I got back I went to see a GI and he ordered an endoscopy. Needless to say, these things aren't free. And since I got sick on the way to Israel, I decided to add it to the expense of the Israel trip (it's all the same back account, but mentally, it helps). Then came the credit card bills. Well, that was a bit of a shock. When it's on the card, you really don't feel it. Our most expensive days were those "second days" that we opted out of. Maybe G-d is punishing me for keeping only one day of Chag (or maybe I was just too irresponsible with my money). I just remind myself that spending money in Israel is a Mitzvah. Finally, despite trying to figure ...

Rabbi Marcus

My sister called this morning and left a message telling me that Rabbi Marcus passed away. I hadn't seen the man in quite some time (It's been a while since I've been to Toronto, even longer since I've been to Bnai Torah and almost forever since I last spoke with the rabbi - probably at my aufruf a few years back). I did know that he was sick, but I never really process these things well (out of sight, out of mind?). And as inevitable as the news was for some, it really caught me off guard. The first time I met the rabbi I was a five year-old kindergarten student at Eitz Chaim. Over the course of the year we had been learning our Aleph Bet , earning stars for every letter that we covered along the way. I, of course, had procrastinated for most of the year so that, by the end of the year, I had only gotten as far as the fifth or sixth letter (not for lack of knowledge, mind you). With time running out, I tried to corner my teachers to have them listen to me run through a...