Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Working it through the week

Basically, this week, I decided to take an easy since I have been busy traveling and will be traveling again this weekend for some major excitment. The Jeff Siedel Student Center is hosting a trip to Tsfat along with skiing all day Friday at Mt. Hebron! It's only for 200 shekls- or $50 for lodgings, food, transportation, tour around Tsfat, and all the meals. Pretty sweet deal for skiing and a Shabbat in Tsfat. I know it's going to be soooo amazing since Tsfat is where Jewish mysticism began. I'll tell a lot more once I come back.

Yesterday, I met with David Bankier, my professor for Contemporary Holocaust Issues. We had lunch (which was a bit surprising for me considering that this is a huge university and the reputation for professors being scarce.....) in the meat cafeteria. I stuck with a tuna salad since like I said earlier, everything looked rather unhealthy. We discussed a possible internship with Yad Vashem. When he told me that I wouldn't be working at the museum since it's a hour long bus ride and he doesn't want me to bother with it, he'd give me some translation proofreading work. Only because I'm fluent in English. We decided to meet again in two weeks since he wanted more time to think about what I could do and to bring me some examples. When I left, I didn't know what to do with myself. It wasn't what I had expected but I had to remind myself a couple things:
1) From my experience at USHMM, translators and proofreaders are always needed for making foreign language works accessible to the English speaking public. For Israel, the language is Hebrew and the people need English speakers so they can publish things for the readers of English.
2) The Army's attitude is: Even if the job isn't what you wanted, it's still important, you're still doing something for the state.

My new friend, Melissa, seemed to think that I should do it anyway because it's Yad Vashem. She worked the USHMM as an intern in the spring before I first started so she understands.

I took a spinning class last night. It was.... different. It was good but just different. First, the instructor (a female) shut off the lights and turned on the disco ball and its lights so it's basically like a disco/dance floor. The spinning bikes are different- which made my ride a lot more challenging that I was literally sweating like a pig within 20 minutes and dying after 40 minutes. Also she switched around a lot of different music (which was very good and really upbeat) and mostly concentrated on long, steep hill intervals. Not my favorite thing as I like to stand on the bike. What was also surprising was that the front desk told me that I had to pay 10 shekls and book in advance. They let me get away with it but I still owed them 10 shekls (I don't bring money with me to the gym). Well, overall, I thought the class was worth taking only maybe once a week or just a couple times a month, not twice a week every week.

Tomorrow, Melissa and I are going to Yad Vashem!!! Expect a good post.

No comments: