13 May 2011

I go to school. I go to more school. And oh wait, I go to more school. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it is beginning to wear on me. Sitting in class for two hours at a time is a lot more difficult than it sounds; or maybe it does sound difficult. The worst part is that once you start to nod off, you can’t do anything to wake back up. The entire rest of the class you are fighting your eyelids to remain open so you miss a lot of what is said. When it’s an interesting class or when you are sitting in front, you feel really bad about it! Luckily, that wasn’t the case for me today. I was just freezing. But I had a good friend by the name of Fenton who let me wear his jacket during the class. It was a dress on me (it went down to my knees!!) but it kept me warm. Classes went well today. In Old Testament we discussed how the Law of Moses relates to the Savior, Jesus Christ. In Ancient Near Eastern Studies, we discussed the history and geography of Turkey in preparation for our field study next week. In Islam we discussed the British Mandate over Palestine. I really enjoy these classes!

Unfortunately, we were unable to leave the Jerusalem Center to go into the city today. There is some unrest in Israel (as I am sure you have heard on the news) so we had to stay inside. I got a bit of homework done which was nice, but it was a very long day! I had big plans in the city today. Hopefully things will calm down by the time we get back from Turkey. For those of you who are worried about this, we are completely safe here. Our security has a lot of inside information and receives word of disturbances and demonstrations before they happen. We have been assured that these demonstrations will not affect us, nor are they directed at us. They are in reaction to Israel’s Independence. For the Palestinian inhabitants, Israel’s Independence is a day of mourning, a day when they lost their own Palestinian state. You can imagine what kind of hard emotions that would draw.

Every Friday night at the J.C., there is a movie that is shown. After dark, no matter what day it is, we are unable to travel into Old or East Jerusalem, and because it is the beginning of Shabbat at sunset on Friday, most of West Jerusalem is closed down due to its heavy Jewish population. Tonight we watched The Ten Commandments. For those of you who have never seen this film, I would highly recommend it – five stars, without a doubt. It was chosen because it relates to what we are currently studying; we kept watching it (the movie runs for over three hours) because it is the best movie in the world. Five minutes rarely passed before there was laughter from someone in the theater. It was a lot of fun to watch a movie with everyone. Although… I really wanted a cherry Icee. That is something that the J.C. should consider looking into.

We may not have been able to go into the city, but it was a good day. The Center has everything we need and more.