The Cold's 'Acomin... sniffle

So 2 weeks ago, there is nothing interesting to write about other than the fact that I begun studying for a psychology clep which was really interesting. I love random things like the fact that infants are correctly termed "neonates". And seeing silly and obvious truths like children in the age between 5 and 10 years of age are in the "Identity vs Inferiority" stage according to the great psychosocial theorist Erik Erikson. :)

Anyways, I also had a bad cold and besides for that it was cooooold outside! Brrrrrr!!!!! lol- we have the funniest situation actually... so the heat hasn't been turned on yet in the school (as we were told 'we are waiting for people to start complaining') But our room in particular seemed to be so very much colder than anywhere else in the dorm and it was driving us crazy. And particularly one roommate of mine simply could not sleep for how cold she was! Anyways, one fine morning we were all sitting around talking and one of the roommates was sitting on this girls top bunk bed when she suddenly calls "Shaaaayne" I came hurrying over to find out what she could be looking at... turns out she could see Angels bakery through the wall over this girls head. :)

I'm not joking about this one. There is a palm sized hole from the drywall all the way through the jerusalem stone of the outer building structure which had been plugged up with tissues and tape. I guess it was lucky the tissues began to disintegrate when they did, and that someone saw it- otherwise we might have freezed our tushes off all winter!

No wonder our room couldn't get over our sick!

shabbos [Oct. 29]

Here is the beautiful, and inspiring thing that will probably stay with me throughout the rest of my life...

Friday the girls and I propped 2 bed boards across garbage cans and covered them with a white sheet before shabbos. Then we put a vase of flowers [donated by a friends family in honor of her birthday] in the center and lit our candles there. I also donated my new shabbos Challa cover to the mix... It looked stunning. We really felt like we were getting ready for our own shabbos! we ran around all friday cleaning and making the place sparkle with a Taam of home. We cut toilet paper and taped lights, ripped wrappers and tried to be ready in time to take shabbos 40 minutes before shkiah as per the minhag yerushalym.

Friday night meal I had the seuda in Givat Shaul with my P'ninis.... and Shabbos day i went with the seminar crowd to a classmate in Har Nof.

But Shalosh Seudos was something to be witnessed... A bunch of groups of girls had bought little amounts of food to eat at shalosh seudos without realizing that anybody else would be doing the same thing. But by shalosh seudos time we all found ourselves around our beautifully set shabbos table... the one made out of garbage cans, bedboards, and bedsheets... Our humble little shabbos table. Combining our food we found that there was more than enough to go around- and how! Really it was a feast. We brought up song books and sang and sang, and I said a dvar torah since I was the shabbos tatty :) We also realized that we could do a Mizumenet.

And as we were told- Al Pi Halacha, its a machlokes whether or not its obligated, but its certainly a nice thing to do. And that's how i found myself leading the Mezumenet- "Chavroti N'varech!"

By the time we were ready to let shabbos out we discovered that it was past Rabeinu tam! We did havdala but were on such a shabbos high that we decided to go straight into Melave Malke. Someone ran to put on Melava Malka music on her laptop and I got a Chanukia and 4 candles. We lit candles, rewashed, ate a czais of bread, and sang some more.

And that was probably the most meaningful shabbos of my life.