Yom Kippur and the rest of that week

Monday I woke up, having decided that I would try to fast. Normally, it's not a big deal, but because I walk about a 5k on Mondays just going to and from classes PLUS set dance and step dance classes, I didn't want to faint or anything trying to fast. I wasn't comfortable skipping classes to go to services, so I decided to try to make 'it 'til at least I got home from classes, at which point, I could see how I was feeling. I made it through classes ok, though I was drinking water.

I went to closing services that night along with one of my flatmates. Again, we went up to the balcony and sat through services. It was really interesting - the man who at home would be the president of the synagogue (I don't know if he has an official title here) spoke during services about the future of their congregation - basically, that they didn't have one. He spoke of a day, not far in the future, when they would no longer have the money to turn on the lights, when they would no longer have even HHD services. What was so shocking to me was the way he spoke of this: as an inevitable fact, sad, but not something that could or even should be fought. I couldn't - and still can't - imagine the Jewish community back home being so accepting of this, but here in Cork, it was simply a sign of the times, of people moving on and leaving for better places. Since Yom Kippur, I've learned more about local opinion towards Jews, which in Ireland, is intimately connected to feelings on Israel. A lot of media attention here comes down in condemnation, at least to some extent of Israel, probably due to Ireland's awareness of its own history. What the man was basically saying was, how could they expect their children or grandchildren to remain in a community where they couldn't be among other Jews and live Jewishly? It seems obvious, but where I would expect people to stand up and fight for their right to stay, the Jews in Cork don't seem to feel a need to encourage the young people to come back - rather, they seemed to encourage them to go forth and live where there were greater opportunities. To me, the whole situation seemed very sad - as though I were witnessing the death of a community, which, I could have been.

Tuesday was the first meeting of Chorale Society, which many of my Copley Court friends and I were planning to get involved in. At rehearsal, we worked our way through 3 songs, one of which was a liturgical Latin piece and another of which was a choral arrangement of Lady Gaga's "Pokerface" - clearly, this was not a group run by Mr. Pressman! It was lots of fun, and we were all excited to be involved - the Christmas concerts in particular sounded like a blast!

Wednesday, I got home from classes and got a call about a movie party. I'm pretty much always game for movie parties and since it was still early, I figured I could go and still get to sleep at a reasonable hour. Of course, I had forgotten that when movie parties also involve having to choose a movie, they don't always start right away. Eventually, Across the Universe was chosen and everyone agreed NOT to sing through the whole thing (half the room was thrilled that the other half wouldn't be singing, the other half seemed somewhat put-out, but oh well), since I still hadn't seen it. We finally started watching the movie, which was truly beautiful, but seemed rather jumbled plot-wise. I got about part-way through before I realized I really should go back to my room and go to sleep. I still haven't seen the whole thing, so don't tell me what happens!

Thursday was sort of a landmark day for me. I had been hanging out almost exclusively with IFSA-Butler people up 'til now, but on Thursday, I went to lunch for the first time with Hope and Quinn, two of my flatmates. I can be kind of shy, to say the least, so it meant a lot that they asked me to come with them and seemed to really want me to go (Note that this was about 2 months ago and sounds rather ridiculous to me now, but that was then, this is now, etc.). I had a lot of fun and felt much less like the awkward youngest kid in the flat (which is only fair, since I'm not quite the youngest). Yay for flat bonding!

Friday, I had asked Kathryn to go with me to pick up my shoes for step class. She and Samm had gone together on Wednesday while I was in class. First, though, I had to print out my papers for Early Start that were due. Kathryn had classes Friday morning, so I was planning to go to campus to print out and turn in the papers while she was in class, so we could stop to pick up the shoes on the way home. As always when technology is involved, things didn't go quite to plan. I got to campus on time (having finished writing my papers that morning), but the first computer I tried to log in on didn't have a working mouse. Fine. I tried another computer, but it took me LITERALLY 20 minutes to log in and then wouldn't let me print out. I tried a third computer and it finally let me print. I was now running behind schedule and I had to find a stapler. I had forgotten that I would need to staple my pages after printing them out and, unfortunately, had left my mini-stapler (which usually lives in my purse specifically for occasions like these) in Los Angeles. I called Kathryn to explain why I was running a few minutes late - and naturally, her class had gotten out early. Lucky for me, it was a beautiful day and Kathryn was reading outside and in no rush. Relieved that for the moment nothing was irrevocably ruined, I dashed to the shop on campus and bought a mini-stapeler, stapled my papers, and dropped them off at Mary Breen's office. With the papers done, I had nothing to worry about related to Early Start until the final exam, which was still a couple weeks away. (In case you were wondering, one of the papers was an adaptation of my blog entries about Inis Meaín and the other was about the subversion of genre in two of the Irish films we watched in class.) It was all done, and I could finally go pick up my step shoes.

We got to the store without a problem. I wasn't sure which size I would need, so I tried on one size which seemed rather large to me and the salespeople. Unfortunately, they didn't have the next smaller size, but they said they could get it from another store if I would just wait 10 minutes, which I agreed to do, telling Kathryn that she didn't have to stay if she had things to do. She didn't so we just hung out looking at the other shoes in the store as we waited for the smaller size to arrive. When it did, of course, that size was too small, so I ended up getting the bigger size - which was the biggest size you could get and still pay the cheaper price for the smaller pair. Finally, a real benefit for being unfairly short - I saved 5 euros!