Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!...Or, why I *strongly dislike* my University

So most of you folkies out there have probably already shlepped your kiddies off to school and have heard the weather reports for those of us who live where the weather is, how shall I say, not so kind in the winter. Where I live we have winds blowing North at upwards of 25 m.p.h. and have already seen 5 inches of snowfall since last night. The temperature (without windchill factor) is 20 degrees Farenheit. There is a Winter Storm Warning in effect (um, DUH). And that's just what the Weather Channel says. Now let me give you the weather report as seen from my dorm room window:

Icicles have formed on my window---how does that happen? My window is a FLAT PLANE OF GLASS and I don't have any awning of any kind....wtf, mates?

Snow appears to be very icy and is blowing in an almost horizontal fashion. Wind gusts swirling up snow repeatedly look as though a tornado is about to start. Snow falling is indistinguishable from snow blowing on account of aforementioned gale force winds. Winter Storm conditions have been confirmed and all personnel are advised to seek shelter. Do not engage the enemy weather demons at any cost.


*Ahem*
Moving on...



Have I mentioned lately that I love my Mom? Because I do. If it were not for her, I would have bundled myself off and shlepped off to class--only to find out that today's classes are canceled and my frozen appendages suffered for nothing.

You see, I arose at 8 this morning (an amazing feat for a college student when he/she doesn't have class for an HOUR AND A HALF--15 minutes prior to class is considered plenty of time where I go to school)

I checked my e-mail, hoping against all hope that my professor would have written to say that he was canceling class, but no such luck.

I turned on the local news channel to see if my college had been listed as closed, but alas, my hopes were dashed yet again.

I then decided to mute the t.v. and give up hope of having any miracles occur--I didn't have much hope to cling to in the first place, as my university has only canceled classes once in twenty---yes, twenty---years. But thanks be to God, a miracle indeed has occurred. And at precisely 8:56 am, the Chancellor of my beloved university proclaimed, via email, that classes for today are, in fact, canceled.

Which is great, but now it negates my awesome rant that I was going to post around 8:30 when I emailed my poor father to rant and rave about, among other things, the fact that I would have to go to school today while my lil' brudder wouldn't have to.

But maybe I'll post it anyway, just because it was so nice and rant-y...We'll see. For now, it's time to sit back, relax, and enjoy the fact that I don't have to go outside.

Sending you warm thoughts from the Midwest,

-Hila

School is Poopy...and other fun things!

Hey there, peoples! Many apologies for the lack of posting this week. I have been super busy with school...*sigh*...Why doesn't anyone understand that I'm a COLLEGE student? Don't they know I'm too busy to do any work? :-P Jk jk, of course!

Not much new here...I have been invited to be a guest of the Rabbi & Rebbetzin Elana for Shabbat this week, so that is exciting. This will be the first time that I will have spent Shabbat with someone's family, in their home, so I am so thrilled. Up until now, I have just gone to our campus Jewish centers (we do have two), which are perfectly wonderful and I enjoy them, but I know that it is nothing like actually having Shabbat at home.

Let's see...What else is new? Classes are frustrating---I just wanna graduate already! Dang it! And of course the real kicker is that, while I'll be pretty much done (save for 3 hours for a Senior Capstone Course) with everything for my degree and my general education requirements after this semester, I technically don't have enough "hours" to graduate. Stupid university just wants to suck more money out of me. Harumph! Oh and wouldn't you know that the Senior Capstone Course is only offered in the spring, and it conflicted with the rest of my schedule this semester so I couldn't take it, so instead of being able to take a couple of summer classes and next semester, I will be at this place another year. Pffft to that!

Ok, I promise to stop being bitter now. I just want my freaking DEGREE already! Grrr...


At least it's only -7 with the windchill today. Hooray for the little things ;-)


Shabbat Shalom, everyone!

Back in Business

Well hey there, folks! Sorry for the lack of updating lately. Just got back to school after a nice long break and I'm really not looking forward to the workload this semester. I'm taking 18 hours and I have 7 classes. Yikes! I am excited, however, about my History of Judaism class. You see, each week we have to write two "diary" entries about anything related to Judaism that we want to. They are informal and can be as long or as short as we want. So I thought, cha-ching! Blog material! Woohoo! And it's good for all of the 4 of you that read this thing because I'll actually have something oh you know, interesting to say, at least twice a week :-)


Ok, now it's time to get some homework done! See you all soon!

-Hila

Thank you, thank you---I'll be here all week

A big thanks to RaggedyMom for mentioning me in her post "International Promote-a-blog Week"

You definitely should check her blog out, if you haven't already. She's definitely one of my new favorites! And I just happened to read her latest post, and it has inspired me to write my next one--hooray! Too bad I probably won't get to write it until next week.

I have a final this week and it's also the last week of class before finals, so it's time that I hole myself up in the library fowevew (*Homestar voice*)

In other news, today is indeed my Birthday. Gratis på födelsedagen to me :-)

Hope everyone had a good Shabbat, I know I did! Until next time, as we say in Sverige, "Vi ses" ("See you later", literally "We will see eachother in the future")

More on all that stuff next time, though! Ta ta!

--Hila

learning Hebrew...etc...

Nothing much new going on here. Still recovering from a MAJOR sinus infection (gross!) but feeling much better... School pretty much consists of reading, reading, and more reading. Which is ok, since that's something I'm actually good at. Ha ha. Better than having to do chemistry or something awful like that.

Rosh Hashanah is coming up, and I'm excited for all the holiday festivities. I'm even taking the Rebbetzin's crash-course in how to read Hebrew (since I definitely don't know how right now) I have to say that I'm picking it up pretty quickly---I missed the first class last week and I still managed to pick up and follow along tonight at class! I think it's easier for me than for a lot of students because of my extensive knowledge of languages, especially ones that have different alphabets (and no, I didn't give myself away there, there are LOTS of languages that use different alphabets). Of course this class doesn't focus on actual understanding of Hebrew, but it's ok because a good portion of the text in the book is taken from the Siddur so I can follow it already anyway (I've been reading portions of the prayers with the transilterated Hebrew). Anyhoooooo.

I really need to daven now, my famliy is going through a bit of a rough time. A close family member is not doing well, health-wise, and we (my family and myself) are all quite afraid we may lose her soon. But I know HaShem will look out for her and all will be as it should be.

Well I hate to end on such a sour note, but I really am tired now and must get some reading done before bedtime. Plus, I want to watch re-runs of Project Runway :-)

Hope everyone is well!

~Hila~

back to school....back to school

back to school...back to school

Definitely have the song from "Billy madison" in my head...

School started last week, and already it feels like I've been here for 2 months! So much reading to do, I think my eyes are going to pop right out of my head. Guess that's what being an upperclassman is all about...:-
Missed Shabbat services at shul last week, which was sad. The first Shabbat back @ school is always so exciting, so I'm disappointed that I couldn't go, but I had to go home-home in the afternoon so oh well.

Loving where I'm living so far this year, so that's a plus :-) I also like my classes (for the most part) which will make actually going easier. LOL. I'm taking a really interesting class all about Jewish culture & customs, which is going to be fabulous. I loved the professor from a class I had with him last year, and I can tell I'm really gonna love this class because it's everything I've been wanting to learn about but haven't had the chance/resources to do so. And hey, what a great excuse to buy a Siddur and a great book all about the Jewish Holidays??? I even splurged and bought a book I saw that was listed as required reading for another one of this particular professor's classes, the Jewish Study Bible: TaNaKh Translation :-D heheheh *chuckles gleefully*

I really wish I knew how to actually put links to things in here like Chana and RenReb and Shifra and all the other "cool" J-bloggers do. Hmmm....Cha-na! *calls to Chana for help* heheheh sorry girl, you got suckered in! JK JK


Anyway, time to get back to the reading...Take care, everyone!!!


~Hila~