Rosh Chodesh Adar

Hello again, surprise! I'm blogging again... for now :)

Rosh Chodesh Adar started off with a bang when we woke up Sunday morning to sneakers hanging from the ceiling. The girls hung shoes from the ceilings throughout the school and turned things upside down, placing construction signs everywhere. Rabbi Meisels office was turned into Dunkin Dougnuts and Mrs. Seruya's office into Starbucks.
That afternoon we went to the 'Million Man Atzeres' and were inspired and suffocated by the multitudes of people that came out to daven, lol... no really- it was inane. On the insane but awesome side- it was wickedly eerie. Imagine the scene: Foggy day, slight chill in the air, hundreds of thousands of people walking quietly through the streets toward the center of the city..... We felt like something big was happening. When they blew shofar toward the end of the davening, I totally froze. I thought moshiach was here and I was so afraid that I hadn't done complete teshuvah yet. My heart was beating so fast... wow. I wasn't the only one who had that thought. Wow. What an experience...
On the insane and OMG side, was just getting through the crowds to and from the Atzeres. Trying to get back to sem was SCARY. I can not even begin to describe it to you if you have never experienced it for yourself. The P'ninim girls and I linked arms and made a chain. We didn't let go no matter what. We pulled each other through the crowd and it took us about an hour to travel across the one street to our sem. Most of it I was looking at the person's back in front of me so I wouldn't hyperventilate by looking around me or focusing on the hundreds of bodies pressing against me from all sides. also Wow. Afterward the girls were joking that we could probably bentch gomel that we came out alive. :) I'll second the notion.

In the second picture, you can see that halfway through the mob of people the picture changes from all black to colored dots. That is where the separation of men and women was. The street on the right going up is Yaffo and that is where the women were standing. I was standing there also but a little further up the street than can be seen here (farther up then those tall buildings).

Sunday night we spent decorating Rabbi Meisels office like a spy/private investigator 'lair'. We put in a computer with all the camera's hooked up to it, all the keys to all the places in this building, handcuffs, guns, gloves, fingerprinting powder, ashtray and cigarette butts, fake passports with all his 'alter egos' (pictures of his past purim costumes that the girls made him), pictures of him on the wall, photos of all the girls on one wall with notes on them as if he is always stalking them, and a wold map with points on the other wall. They also turned his bathroom into a torture chamber by putting a chair in a creepy room and a fake life-size dead girl (using a shaitel head and a giant footy pajama). On the wall behind his desk we put pictures of him in other costume and other funny pictures that we found of him on google. The girls left him a costume- trench coat, fedora hat, sunglasses, ear-buds, and a pipe.
On his desk we left him a randsom note saying "You think you know everything but do you know where we are? p.s. If you ever want to see Daniel again... bring pizza." The note was coffee stained and burned. The letters were cut and pasted out of a magazine, and it was closed and stamped with a wax seal.

In the morning we chartered a bus to the private beach in Ashdod and planned to take his 3 year old son, Daniel with us. We had planned to send him pictures every half hour with Daniel in them and with hints to where we were going. End result- Daniel never made it and Rabbi Meisels never saw his office until after we got back from the beach... so it ended up being a nice day at the beach anyways... and then we tried to kidnap Daniel again in the afternoon and time it for when Rabbi Meisels would arrive by his office. That didn't work either but we did still manage to get ice cream out of him... and a BBQ for another night at his house. :D The bright side is that though our plan was fail after fail, we had a blast at the beach and were able to be proud of what we had done together as a group! :0) Everyone walked away happy.

At the end of the day I did do a little kidnapping of my own... if you can call stealing rabbi meisels credit card kidnapping, and took the other madrichot out for food at shefa mall. I felt we deserved it after all our hard work ;) Thank you Rabbi Meisels for being such a good sport!!

Another exciting thing happening in P'ninim is that we are well underway in our 'redesign' the lounge project! :) We have 3 walls painted, 1 couch and 1 rug moved in and a lot of ideas! :)

This week shabbos I will be Imy"H going to Ramat Beit Shemesh for a mini shabbaton by our very own Morning Eim Bayit- Mrs. Sklar's house. I will also be on call as a backup doula for someone who can't make it if the birth is on shabbos. With Hashem's help I will be able to enjoy the shabbaton in relative peace and not have to run off for a birth, but if it would happen it would certainly be an exciting twist. Last week I had an awesome shabbos by Esti Sackton. I couldn't sleep there because there were many girls who had gotten sick and couldn't go out for shabbos. The cook made meals for them and before shabbos I worked very hard to set things up for the girls so that they could run the meals smoothly and nicely and have a nice shabbos even if I wasn't going to stay for them. We set up the dining room beautifully and prepared the small kitchen with everything they needed including setting up the Plata's (electric hot plates) with food on it. I heard it was beautiful and I'm so happy they enjoyed it. I also really enjoyed hanging out with my friends Esti and Anastasia (Zimra)!!! I always do.... :D (Dramatic Happy Sigh), what would we do without friends???

Speaking of friends: 

MAZAL TOV SARAH EPSTIEN! 

For all of you who don't know- my friend Sarah Epstien (who came in for sarah's wedding and the next summer as well, who came to visit me in Israel for a month long in both p'ninim and chedvas, who sent me to p'ninim in the first place, through whom I vicariously went on my first date, who has saved me and advised me probably hundreds of times over) is getting married tomorrow!!!!! She is such a beautiful and special person and I can't help but be bursting with pride and hope and joy for her at this time. I soooooo much wish I could be there with her right now but with Hashem's help there will be many more important and wonderful times together. 
           Shout out to my lovely soon to be Sarah Elbaz!!- I LOVE YOU SARAH!!!! and MAZAL TOV ASHER-although i'm sure you know it- YOU ARE GETTING ONE AMAAAAZING GIRL!!!!!!!!!!! May you two merit to build a true bayis neeman b'yisroel filled with happiness, peace, love, and blessing!!!

Looking forward to lots of good things coming up Imy"H!! :D Stay tuned for more exciting and interesting stories...

A Smallish Post

Hello All,

It's been waaaay too long.... So since i'm an all-or-nothing-type-a-girl, and SO much happens every day over here, I've felt like I the job of writing it all out was super overwhelming... and so I never did it. I kept thinking that one day I'll have a lot of time and just spend it writing and updating my blog... but the more time that passed, the more things happened, and the more overwhelming it became... which brings us to today. :D
So now I'm basically doing Avodas HaMiddos by combating my weakness and deciding to sit down and write a short post with a half hour of my time (all I have today) and force myself not to freak out about not including EVERYTHING. :) ['stop being a perfectionist shayne! Your family doesn't care- they just want to hear from you... 'says the little white angel on the right shoulder]

Without further ado, I present to you my Smallish Post....

Background in one paragraph: Lots of funny, awesome, amazing, cool, interesting and new things have happened since I got to Israel and P'ninim at the beginning of this year. I am working as a Madricha in P'ninim and I take a doula (birthing coach) course also. My P'ninim job is kind of like being a 24/7 mommy to 90 girls at once. Luckily in this very large family there is more than 2 parents so we try to split the responsibility ;) My doula course is amazing and almost done. Aside from attending the classes, I have done 3 births out of the 5 required to graduate, I am in the middle of taking a childbirth ed. class, and I've done 2/3 hospital tours. I really love it and am working really hard to become the best doula I can be, including by putting myself out there in Hebrew settings within the field so that I can be comfortable and fluent with the language.

Right now we are preparing for a massively awesome shtick for Rosh Chodesh Adar on Rabbi Meisels. I'm pretty confident he doesn't read this blog regularly so he won't see this until after its done, but just in case, I'm not going to post yet what we are doing. :)
Also happening today in Israel is a huge Atzeres (gathering of prayer) to join the Chareidi world in protest of the governments attempt to force all men to the army draft even if they want to be learning Torah. Obviously this can be a life altering decision here in Israel. If all boys must be drafted, then there will be no yeshivos. Without the Yeshivos and Torah learning, I can't imagine what the fate of our nation would be. Really, this is a case of life or death for the Jewish people. Taking Jews away from torah is like taking fish out of water. All the Rabbanim are in unanimous support of this Atzeres and are urging all people to come out to the streets to pray and support our cause. We, the Torah valuing Jews of Israel, will march out today to show how important this issue is to us. Men, Women and older children will all join together in the streets at 4:00 pm to pray.
The other madrichot and I are taking the girls and we will walk to meet the rest of the women only a block away from the seminary. Nobody really knows what will be there, but I'm sure whatever the outcome, it will be a life-altering experience for all who will witness it.

With Hashem's help, (to continue to overcome my nature and write small posts) I will continue to update you on all the purim festivities as they happen.

[And maybe one day I'll even fill you in on all the time I left out. :)]

Tata for now!

Quick Wrap on the last 5 months

Hi guys, I'm back in Israel as you all know [or should know- where have you been in my life?! :P] and I now that I have a moment to just sit and reflect, I thought it would be a good idea to update this blog on all my doings of the past 5 months or so. :) lol

So, the reason I haven't had a moment to sit and reflect is because this is what my life has felt like in the past 5 months:
Teaching full time including sundays
Pesach
Going home after pesach for my family when they needed me because Mommy was going to Shoshie's funeral
Back to school- report cards
Siyums, end of the year wrap
Thank you's
Taking last college course whole last 2 months of school. Waking up at 5:00 am to make deadlines.
Shopping for my camp
Planning for my camp
Packing up my whole year and all my curriculum stuff
School ends Thursday
Flying out Thursday
Arrive in Detroit on Friday
Shopping for camp Sunday
Setting up for camp Sunday wiht help of all siblings or else go crazy
Camp starts Monday morning
Camp is a 23/6 job for 5 weeks straight
during which I was trying to get together all my aliyah paperwork
at which I didn't succeed on time
Camp ends and planing for graduation party begins
as well as packing up for Israel
and then leaving to Israel.......

So my short version ends there. So even though i'm not going to go into every detail of all of that, I will pause to let you in my my reflections of the most important aspects of all of what I just said.

During these past few months my priorities became very clear to me even when I couldn't always act on them.
I am a majorly goal oriented person but family is still #1!
B"H and only thanks to Hashem 'Pioneers' [my camp] was successful! Thank you to Rabbi Kaplan and Mrs. Daina, and Leah S, and Rivky and my whole family for all their help and support!!!!! Couldn't have done it without you!
I was super happy and am super grateful for having had the opportunity to spend most of my time this summer with Liba and Rivky even as I was working all day.
I have way to much STUFF to bring to Israel in one shift.
My graduation/aliyah party was BEAUTIFUL- THANK YOU MOMMY AND GRANDMA!!! and Sarah and Rivky and Liba and Aunt Heidi and everyone who helped!! and Thank you everyone who came to see me off!!!
I feel like I was cheated out of closure at the end of my year in Edmonton. I would have loved to spend another few days saying goodbye to the families and the place where I had such a wonderful year....
I want to make a public apology to all my friends just in case they feel neglected because I haven't been answering emails or phone calls or anything else. But now I have some time so everyone should feel free to call or email and I'll be much more available. :)

KK, so ends my quickwrap and I'll start the more in depth saga's in my next post.
Asta lavista and Lehitraot!!
love,
shayne

Winter Break 2

So Day 1 I started a new job. It's a writing job for a website. On the one hand I'm sad because I would want my writing job to be more in the creative writings like writing production scripts and novels and self help books, all of which I have grand ideas and outlines for... but since that is not happening- there is no real motivation, at least I can use my skills to make some money.

It's actually funny because I was at someone's house who I know the father works from home on his website and when they said, come anytime and if there is anything we can do for you- totally call us, I happened to throw jokingly back- yah, if you ever have a job for me that I can do from home then call me.

He laughed and said that if he ever has enough work for himself then great... and then as an after-thought he said the only thing we need is a writer... lol
So I said, well you've come to the right place my friend b/c I am a writer.
So he asked me if I was serious and what qualifies me as a writer. So I mentioned that I write for a magazine, conveniently leaving out that the magazine in question is self managed and not paying me. lol

So that's how I got this job writing descriptions of products, FAQ's, tips, and editing on a website. It's not paying too much but it's a start and next time there is a job available and they ask me about my credentials I will have this to put on my resume. =D which I'm fine with.

Day 2 I helped Mrs. Pinson run her daughters birthday party in the morning and then caught a ride to the mall to go to Galaxy Land with Sass. I went on a bunch of rides with the kids and took some pictures, then we went to lunch at Cafe Levi. We got back at around 5:00 and I went to sleep for a few hours and then did some finishing touches and editing on my work for the site.

Shabbos I was at Sass and went to Weinrach for the day Seudah. I also briefly met the Barak girls in the park but I was wearing flats and it was snowing so I didn't stay long.

Motzei Shabbos I went with Donna and the Barak girls to Levin to play a game [pictionary] and some guitar. I brought my guitar along hoping to learn something but its hard to learn when its not one on one. We had fun either way. I also got to get a real coffee bean coffee from her special coffee bean kurig type of machine.

Sunday I went to Chabad Hebrew School and then came home to do some work.  Of course that means I ended up reading instead :)

Monday was pretty interesting actually. Since it was my last day of vacation I really wanted to get all my work done so I did school prep in the morning a long with answering emails and setting things up to work later. Then I went to Weinrach to help their 3rd grader make a costume. Afterwards I came back and found a message asking me to tutor, so I did that for about an hour and a half and then afterward I agreed to go eat dinner at the Baraks. We were also planning maybe to do something fun. We were making posters for Purim while we ate dinner and then Donna had an allergic reaction to the paint so she left... though I told her not to drive alone, but she had to go babysit so... then I got a call about 2 minutes later from my students parent asking me if she had her epipen on her. So me and Mrs. Barak jumped in the car with nothing and just drove until we found her with the hazard lights on the side of the road. The ambulance was already on their way and she had given herself the epipen. So e/t was fine but the two of us plus Mrs. Kaplan spent the evening in the hospital. We got home around 1:30 after all was said and done.

And Tuesday morning, bright and early, school began again. :)

And that concludes Winter Break 2 in Edmonton, AB

Have a good one y'all

shayne

In the Interim

Hello family and friends... :)

Much has happened between Winter Break 1 and Winter Break 2... and unfortunately I don't even remember half of it.

I do remember that we had 2 different types of Shabbatons. One Menorah Academy did for its 5th and 7th grade girls at Mrs. Segal's house. The theme was Kavod Chavercha and we learned about Friendship. We did a lot of activities in teaching how to be a good friend, how to solve friendship problems, and a bunch of fun games.

One of the activities we did beforehand was that each girl painted a jewelry box for another girl [it was a secret who they were doing it for] and then we had breads to make bracelets where each color bead corresponded to a different character trait. We had each girl choose 4 beads for each girl depending on what nice character traits they thought she had the strongest. With the beads chosen we made each girl a bracelet and placed it in her special surprise jewelry box with a color/trait guide which was given to them when they arrived at the shabbaton on Friday.

A different Shabbaton I attended but didn't attend was the Chabad shabbaton for which I was babysitting a baby in someones house the whole shabbos while they were at the shabbaton. [There is no carrying here... so since the meals were in the shul, nobody could bring their babies...]

We also had a Tu Beshvat Shuk in the school. Each class had to make an informative and interactive display on a different city in Israel. It's mention in Tanach, it's history and what it is in modern times. I chose Benei Brak for my class because I was so moved by the shabbaton I experienced there in Israel and the visits I had with Rebetzin Kaniefsky.
Rabbi Draiman wanted a scavenger hunt done so that each kid is motivated to look at each display and learn about it. I made the scavenger hunt. Each class had 10 minutes to look at the displays and take notes. then they were divided into 3 groups and each given clue 1 for their color. When they figured out the object it was talking about and the city it comes from they got a check and the location of their next clue. The clues were hidden throughout the building. They would come running back with clue 2 to look for the answer before heading out again for clue 3... and etc.
My classes clue was a Streimel because our display was giant 'Tish' with a Rebbe and giant kugel and everything... [no the kugel was not real... although some of the boys really wished it was :) ].
At the end they had to find a secret code phrase that was hidden with numbers among the clues and cities on their sheet once it was filled out.

Everyone liked the scavenger hunt but i'm sure they also liked the special 'shkalim' that they got as a prize for finishing the scavenger hunt- which they were able to use in the shuk for lunch. The shuk was very cool. It was run by all Israelis and it had all kinds of Israeli things like falafel, Israeli fruits, nuts, and candies.

We also have been having much nicer weather lately. It's about 30-32 degrees Fahrenheit. So I haven't used a real coat in a while. Coats are for 0 degrees... lol

The other day I got to go ice skating on an outdoor rink a few blocks away in the park. It was a gorgeous day with sun and everything. I loved it.

Tuesday was another PD day and report cards are coming up. I'm glad that I have this break now to work on things, though I'm mostly relaxing. I'll write all about my Winter Break 2 on my next post.

Can't wait to come home for Pesach!!! Counting down the days!

Love,
Shayna

Winter Break 1

So this post is to tell everyone what I did in the past week and 2 days before I get too busy and forget to write about it.
The reason I called it 'Winter Break 1' is because there is another winter break that we will be having in February, and when I blog about that one I will call it 'Winter Break 2'. :0)

So the first day was a sunday and I did a bunch of catching up on things. I blogged, wrote, did some homework, bought some stuff on Amazon, and studied for my second to last test for my BA.

Monday I tried to study for the test but I really wanted to do something vacation-like [more like procrastination-like] so I searched all over the house until I found an interesting book to read. Then I went to the Sass's house for a birthday party for their youngest. :0) I'm obsessed with this kid. The Sass boys chose what to do at the party. They wanted to make dinner and a cake for her and play a game. [2 of these boys- twins, are in my 2nd grade class. the other is younger]. They found a recipe in one of the cookbooks for pizza monsters, which in case some of you aren't familiar with these [shame on you] is little pizza's that you decorate with different vegetables in the shape of a monster face. They also made her a cake and we played granny apple. It was really fun.

Tuesday I studied ALL day for the test and then I went to the Sass's house to take it because Mrs. Sass had so generously agreed to be my proctor and by a miracle, they approved of her position in the 'universal educational institute'.... which is basically the kollel.... lol
We read the rules and then Mrs. Sass printed out the test and Rabbi Sass set me up a work station in the basement where it would be quiet, complete with a gatorade feature for brain power. lol. So I got to work and expected it to take me a few hours as my other tests had. I was really really nervous about this one because I learned the information 7 months ago and haven't looked at it since then, I also didn't have the text book with me- just my notes. So I was really nervous about it. I guess I studied a lot more than I did for the the other tests though so I guess it was fair. I was just scared that they would ask a question on one of the sections I didn't take notes on or understand at the time I was learning it. I just davened that it would go well and then trusted Hashem that I was going to be okay.
My first glance at the test made me very relieved and happy because I did know almost everything on it. B"H, I don't know what grade I got, but it only took me 40 minutes to complete and I guess I'm still just trusting that it's all in Hashem's hands.

Wednesday I didn't do much... I was recovering from the stress which led up to the test. That's how I always  had to do it even in Israel.
Thursday I tried to do some work. Not much got done, but it was an honest attempt. ;0} I even tried to create a fairy-tale of my own by going outside with my guitar to sit overlooking the frozen ravine and play and sing... but it didn't work out too well. lol [see the post before this one for pictures and more details].

Friday I woke up at 6:00 am and bunkered down, completing all my writing just in time for the deadline. Then I went over the shabbaton schedule and got ready for shabbos.

Shabbaton... I didn't yet tell you about that. When I got a chance to hang out with the Bat Mitzvah club at the legislature Mrs. Pinson asked me if I would want to do a shabbaton with them as a counselor. So I agreed. Well that was this past week. Most of these girls come from public schools and irreligious homes, but all different ends of the spectrum. The point was just to let them experience shabbos and have a fun time. It was not very intense, but it was a lot of fun. Every minute was had a new game, activity or presentation. Friday night I even gave a little performance. I told a story about a little girl who wanted to keep shabbos in a very dangerous time and the miracle that happened [not a true story], and sang a song about it.
Friday night was very long and the day was much shorter. I did both my meals in one because Chabad doesn't start the meal until like 2:00 pm normally and shabbos ended at 5:00. We didn't start our meal until 3:30 because we had a house hunt where we were split into 3 groups and we had to start at a different house each. At each house we had to present a shabbos poem, eat a treat and make a bracha, and unscramble a phrase. Then we would get our next clue of which house to go to next. The game was a race and my team won!.... but it was a chaval b/c I barely got to eat any of the awesome treats and i was hungry!!! lol

After shabbos we went to a professional rock climbing place called Vertically Inclined. It has rock climbing on every wall and even something called the cave, where you can climb completely upside down.... well, though we tried, none of us were successful at this feat but we watched some really cool spider ppl do it just fine. :) I'll try and get pictures of me on the wall to post at some point.

Sunday..... I didn't leave the house but I did get to talk to a bunch of my friends! One of my friends that I go way back with- all the way to camp in middle school, just got engaged and she called me to tell me all about the excitement going on there. So it was really fun catching up with her b/c we haven't spoken in a while.

Monday  I woke up early and got some work done and then I went to drop off my guitar to get fixed at the pawn shop. The man there asked me if I was born in Israel and for once I was able to say 'Yes!' :0D
Usually I get asked if i'm Lebanese. Apparently there are a lot of them here. In Detroit I get asked if I'm Caledien. And on my way out Yona called me and we got to speak for the first time in months.

Today I woke up early and prepared for school all morning. I still have a ton to do but it was a good start. I was supposed to pick up Donna from the airport in an hour but in the end, someone who is less likely to end up in California trying to get there, is going to do it. And I was invited out for dinner. I figured its good to go and break the routine of eating only peanut butter and jelly melbatoast, coffee, soda, and ice cream for over a week. Because notice- the only time during this vacation that I ate out was the night of the Sass baby's birthday part, and shabbos. lol
Although I did try heating up frozen shnitzels on Monday that the Pinson's sent me home with after shabbos and it was a small disaster but I did eat them anyways.... lol. I had just washed the pot and then i put the clump of frozen shnitzels into the pot [all stuck together] and then i thought of oil because that's how you make shnitzels. So i put some oil in the pot and put it on the burner on medium heat- [since the past few times i tried warming things up on high heat, Donna usually comes running downstairs b/c she smells something burning and my food is disintegrated]. So medium heat. Then I realized that there was water in the pot with the oil so I covered the pot with the lid and left it to cook. Then it started making really funny noises and I was scared to open it. So I called Mindy on skype for some culinary advice.
She confirmed my worst fears and told me that when I felt brave enough, i was going to have to open the pot and try to pry apart the shnitzels or else they would suffer a similar fate to all the other foods I've tried to warm up which ended up inedible. So I put her on the counter while I braved opening the pot and then cautiously proceeding to seperate the pieces. With her expert guidance I emerged from the experience unscathed. In the end, the shnitzels were dripping oil and black but they were edible and hot so I did eat them.

That's all for now. Until next time!
love,
shayne

Pictures

A piece of the Chanukah project I did with My 5th Grade. We glittered the 2 opposite corners of the mirror in beautiful pictures like this one and then I wrote in gold in the center "HaNeiros Halalu Kodesh Hem" in a circle shape to go around the base of the Menorah that would stand on it. In this picture you can see me in the mirror taking it, lol. 

My Menorah at home. This was on the first night. 

The Chanukah mural I painted for the preschool Chanukah performance for the community. It was too big to get a shot of the whole thing at once but the next picture is also part of it. There were also decorations that the kids made hanging on top of it and on the sides. 

This is just another piece of the mural. 

This is the Ravine outside my house. When you go out the front door and cross to the other side of the street, this is what you see. I have a bench overlooking this so I went outside during vacation to play guitar in the snow, looking out at this really pretty scene. It was like a dream. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a picture of myself doing this but I did take a picture of how pretty my guitar looked up against the snow. That is the next picture.

So this is the picture of my guitar against the snow. Unfortunately  as pretty as it looked and as much of a fairy-tale it was to go play guitar in the snow, that's just what it was- a fairy-tale. Within 2 minutes of taking my gloves off to play, my fingers were so stiff from the cold that I actually couldn't manipulate my fingers into the position of any new cord from the one I was in when they froze. So I was stuck in C. Contrary to this my strumming hand was doing quite nicely. As it turns out, its easier to strum when your hand is frozen and numb so I still had some hope. The last straw really was that the guitar needed to be fixed either way because I had major buzzing on my strings so it really sounded like a dying animal and I was forced to stop for the sake of my own ears. Somehow in movies everything looks so languid and natural,easy and perfect......But still it was a good dream. :)

Me and the Bat Mitzvah club all geared up for the performance at the Legislature. This was taken in the hallway  just a few minutes before we 'went on'. 

I have so many more pictures but these were the ones I felt I could put up on my blog for public viewing. I can try and send pictures to anyone who writes me a personal email request. Enjoy!!
Love,
shayne