Sorry its late and for the uncreative title (Week 13)

Compared to the eventfulness of last week, this week seemed pretty mundane. On the bright side, that makes for a nice short blog post. One of the highlights of the week was definitely Erev Nativ. We split up into boys and girls, and did separate activities. The girls read and discussed a poem about different things every woman should be able to do. The list ranged from knowing who her true friends are, to owning a hammer, to being able to move out if necessary. The discussion was really interesting, because some people saw the poem as placing unreasonable expectations on women. I didn’t see it this way at all. I saw it as helping women to have a better life. I didn’t feel like anything in the poem placed expectations on women, I took it more as a list of advice and if you follow it you’ll be better off and if you don’t your loss. After the poem we watched a video about a girl who wrote love notes to strangers and placed them around New York City. She then wrote about this on the Internet, and made a promise that anyone who needed a love letter should email her and she would write one no questions asked. Inspired by the video, we all picked two names of other girl Nativers and wrote them “love letters”. I got letter from Ilana and Laura. It was really nice because I’m close with Ilana so she had a lot of meaningful stuff to say, but I’m not as close with Laura so she talked a lot about us getting closer. That night after Erev Nativ I ended up hanging out with Laura for a few hours and just talking. It never would have happened without the letter she wrote me.

Another highlight of my week was reading Torah. I love reading, but I get really stressed out about learning the portion, so I don't do it that often. This week was the portion I read for my Bat Mitzvah, however, so I already knew some of it. I volunteered to read for Nativ on Saturday, Monday and Thursday, and was excited about that. Then the Yeshiva also needed someone to read for them Monday and Thursday, so I also volunteered to do that. So overall, I read 5 times in a week. It felt really good, and I hope to start reading Torah more frequently.

By far the best part of my week, however, was getting a Birthday package from my best friend Shannon. When anyone asks me about it I describe it as our friendship in a box. There was a picture of us in a decorated frame, a painted quote saying “true friendship isn’t about being inseparable… It’s about being separated and knowing nothing will change”, a brownie mix in a bottle that you just add water, shake and pour into the pan, a new nose stud, and other snacks. It was a really cute and thoughtful gift, and made me realize that no matter where I am Shannon and I will always be best friends.

My Shabbat this week was very different then most other people on Nativ. Everyone on the Yerucham track spent Shabbat in Yerucham, while all the K’farmers (our nickname for the kids spending second semester in K’far) went to Modiin. Instead of going, however, I spent the weekend in Jerusalem. I decided to stay behind because Angela has been REALLY sick all week, so she couldn’t go for the weekend. She couldn’t stay here by herself, and she had nowhere else to go. I was able to stay with her and take care of her. Even though it was just the two of us, it was still an amazing Shabbat. We had time to just talk and get caught up, and I was even able to make her laugh (for the first time in a week). Overall even though this was a boring week, it was still a fun one.