Happy 3 Week Anniversary to Me!

Accomplishments since I wrote last:
-Taught two of my friends how to set up blogs
-Took my first Hebrew bochan (test) since I was in college. Not so bad, unless you count the fill-in-the-blank section where there were two words left and I didn't know either. Oops.
-Talked to my mom and dad for more than 7 minutes thanks to the genius of Vonage- special shout-out to Michael (and Rena) for indulging me.
-Had my first voice lesson with Jay Shir (ironic since "shir" in Hebrew means "song"- I think he did it for publicity) He asked me to sing the first song I thought of, which was "Amazing Grace." Yes, I'm studying to be a Rabbi. Confusing, I know. I'll be taking lessons with him weekly.
-Went to Shabbat services at two amazing synagogues, Shira Chadasha and Kol HaNishamah- both I would highly recommend. Saturday morning I got to attend a Bat Mitzvah of a little girl at Kol HaNishamah- it was very moving. Too bad I could only understand about 20% of her sermon!
-Wrote a song (only my second ever original!) about my life here for our class Beit Cafe (Talent Show) next week. It's silly, but was fun to write.
- Have clean clothes thanks to the laundrymat literally 2 minutes from my apartment. For 60 NIS a load ($13) these nice men will wash, dry and fold your clothes. And, its ready the same day! (I don't have a washer in my apartment, I'm not THAT lazy.)

I feel terrible that I've never formally introduced my roommate Lauren to everyone who is reading. So, Lauren, everyone. Everyone, Lauren. (Read the previous post to see a picture of us from the wine tasting) Lauren is sweet, funny and has a wicked Israeli accent. She loves salty cheese, watermelon, the Washington Nationals and the great state of Virginia. We both have brothers who are seniors in college. She'll also be in New York with me for the remaining years of the program. And, she also has a very cool blog which you're welcome to read. As long as you promise to read mine more. Or at least first. http://laurenbpack.blogspot.com

In honor of surviving our first test, kitah gimmel and friends will be celebrating tonight (you may have notices that we do a lot of celebrating here...) at a great cafe off of Emek Refaim. But we can't party too hard because we have Shacharit (morning services) at 8am and a full day of ulpan after that. I know I've said this a million times, but we should be getting our US phone number ("Vonage") this week- if you want to whine about not being able to call, leave a message. Better yet, leave a message on Lauren's blog.

Happy Monday morning to all who are reading in the states and just to whet your blog-reading appetites: the next post will have pictures of my apartment! Love to all!