...

So right now I should be studying for finals. Buuuut, I don't want to. So I'm taking a break.

I don't really have anything too insightful to post at the moment. I'm stressed about school and everything, sad about the fact that many of my friends are graduating and will be moving away, and in general in a sort of ticked-off mood.

However, that being said, I do know that I have much to be grateful for (this seems to be a recurring theme on my blog :-))

I am excited that one of the staff members at my university's Hillel has agreed to help study with me under the supervision of an out-of-town (but not Out Of Town) rabbi so that I can finally get this whole conversion thing underway. This year has been so busy that I have not been able to organize any sort of formal classes or anything, and I have been frustrated to say the least. A big problem, as I have mentioned before, is the fact that I live in the middle of the cornfields and therefore don't have access to a large Jewish community. But I am lucky because the woman that I am going to be learning with is in the process of becoming an ordained Cantor in the Conservative movement, and has been teaching Bar/Bat Mitzvah and Hebrew classes since she was an undergraduate, so she has a very in-depth knowledge of Judaism. Okay, so she's not an Orthodox Rabbi, but she just about could be...Y'know, if there were women rabbis in Ortho Judaism ;-)



Anyhoo...so yeah, that's a comforting thing. I can't express how much I love learning about Judaism, how much time I spend looking through bookstores at all the books about Judaism and adding to my library, and how much joy it brings me to be among all of the members of the small but vibrant Jewish community here in the Midwest. I thank Hashem every day that I am able to learn and grow more, even if it is unconventional ways.

In other news, the JLIC couple that has been at our campus for the past three years is leaving, and I sad to see them go. I have grown very close to them and will miss them immensely. They won't be too far away, though, so hopefully I will get to visit. The potential, for lack of a better word, "replacement" rabbi was in town for Shabbos this past weekend and it was very nice to get to visit with him. What a funny man! He was able to relate to us students so well that it was if we had all known him for a long time already! He was making jokes with us and telling stories as if he were a college student himself, yet he had plenty of insightful questions and comments. We were sitting around after Shabbos lunch and somehow the topic came up about my conversion, and it was just so awesome how enthusiastic he was about talking to me and learning about my "story." I felt like he was genuinely interested in talking to me and getting to know me, as well as all of the other students, and that was really touching. We are all crossing our fingers that he chooses to come to our Hillel and not somewhere else!

Well, I think that's about it for my random, brain-dead ramblings... Time for my mush-brain to get back to studying!

-Hila