Disclaimer: While all of these events are unlikely to occur on any ONE given day, they are things that I am likely to see or experience at any given time.
1. Walking to school in the rain. Up hill. Both ways. Not even exaggerating. Oh how I hope it snows this winter!
2. Night-time field studies to the Israel Museum. This includes
a. Catching a taxi near the school with three other people, trying to haggle for a decent price, and hopefully managing to end up at the Israel Museum by 6pm
b. Once the whole class trickles in, in groups of four, entering the museum (at least the part that is open) and the proceeding to stand and/or sit outside for well over an hour. Fortunately it had stopped raining. Still cold.
c. Looking at the Second Temple period model of Jerusalem. It is a pretty sweet model, I have to say.
d. Reading about odd Rabbinical-type-people. Like Choni the circle-drawer. Or about the disagreements of Shammai and Hillel.
e. Sitting inside in warm, comfortable chairs, and watching an interesting movie about the community at Qumran. And by interesting I don't really mean "informative" but more "rather odd."
f. Going inside the Shrine of the Book and seeing artifacts from Qumran, including several Dead Sea Scroll fragments.
g. Trying to catch another taxi home...walking to the bottom of the hill to try to find one that will give us a better price...and saving maybe 12 NIS in the end, in exchange for walking further.
h. Gathering my things from school, and then walking home. Up hill. At least it wasn't raining, and the walk did warm me up.
3. Playing board games as part of my upper level graduate class...
...Yeah, I suppose I should explain this. For this week, we were each assigned a country or region (Edom, Moab, Ammon, Syria, Phoenicia, Israel, Judah, Philistia, and (my region) the raiders of the Greater Negev). We were to research sort of the political and economic type pressures and desires of our area during the 9th century BC. What was their resource base? What were they trying to gain? Who were they trying to trade with? Who would be natural enemies and who would be natural allies? All that sort of thing. In class we laid things out on the map and talked about what DID happen during the 9th century and why, as well as what COULD have happened (and maybe did happen during a different time period).
4. Watching beautiful sunsets from the roof of a building built on the remains of a tower from the Hasmonean period.
5. Trying to take care of and keep track of several visitors coming and going and coming again in my flat...and also trying to keep track of the coming and going of my flatmates.
6. Cooking. Lots of cooking. Including experimenting with new-to-me foods, such as quinoa and kohlrabi.
And that's all for tonight! Tune in next week for more adventures in the life of a JUC Grad Student! *cue music*
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