Return To The Real World

Summer camp has officially ended. I no longer live on the kibbutz. I am no longer in ulpan. I have moved to an apartment in Yerushalayim (in Talpiyot, for those familiar with this marvelous city.) and plan to remain here until mid-May.

I apologize for the total lack of blogging during the month of January. The ulpan computer broke. Blogging should become more frequent, as I'll have more reliable access to the internet. (I'm currently using my roomate's computer, since we haven't quite figured out how to configure mine to access the internet. French keyboards are downright weird. They put letters and symbols in odd places. Like flipping the 'a' and the 'q'. I've never been so aware of just how many words use the letter 'a'.)

I don't really know what to think or feel about finishing the ulpan. When I planned out this year, five months had seemed like a sizable chunk of time. It went by so quickly. I'm more than halfway through my time in this country. It's a depressing thought.

On the other hand, I've already accomplished so much of what I came here to do, and not just the part about learning Hebrew. I've come to realize so much about myself: the person I was when I left Chicago, the person I want to be, the kind of person I want to be with, the kind of person I don't want to be with. I see my Chicago life from an entirely different perspective now, and I know that some of this is going to leave a lasting impression. There are aspects of my life that are going to have to change when I go back to the States, and some of those changes will be difficult and painful. I'm starting to think that perhaps one of the reasons I came here was to give myself the opportunity to sort through some of this stuff. Baruch Hashem.

So here I am, back in a big city, in an apartment, having to pay bills and buy groceries and whatnot. The vacation part of my vacation is over. I will try to give more details in the coming posts about life on the ulpan and life in Yerushalayim. I'm hoping to have the time to make this blog more personal again. Until then, I'm going to do my little happy dqnce and sing my "I Live In Yerushalayim" happy song.