10 June 2011

First, I would like to wish my favorite (and only) brother a happy 25^th birthday! It is crazy to think how old everyone is getting.

Second, I would like to welcome everyone to the Hogwarts Jerusalem Campus. Someone has taken it upon himself to turn the J.C. into Hogwarts. The professors have been rightly named; the office has become the Ministry of Magic. The Oasis is now the Great Hall. The professors have all jumped on the bandwagon as well, for the most part. We were greeted in both our Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern Studies classes by the professors arguing different characters for themselves. Dr. Chadwick did so with music, quotations, and pictures. School will never be the same. I don’t know how I am going to go back to BYU Provo without the laughs that we have here. There is so much that we do that you will never find on any other campus. School is going to be so boring!

What a day. It began much earlier than I wanted. Apparently I shouldn’t have watched Newsies last night. I didn’t get to bed until very late which means that I received much less sleep than usual…meaning that I walked around like a zombie for most of the day. As much as I love having class every day at eight o’clock in the morning, it makes it difficult when it comes to socializing with friends, watching movies, catching up on missed homework assignments, and the like. I almost fell asleep in Old Testament a couple of times. If we hadn’t had a couple of stretching breaks, I wouldn’t have made it! We talked a lot about the fall of Israel and why Israel fell. Basically, follow the Lord’s commandments, don’t forsake him, and don’t worship any false gods, including the false gods of our day i.e. clothing, sports, and cars. It was a good lesson as always. Ancient Near Eastern Studies wasn’t horrible, either. Class began with a quiz, a quiz that I got full credit on. I was so excited! This is the second quiz in a row that I have received a perfect score on in his class. It really made my day that much better! He then discussed a bit about First Temple Period Jerusalem and then prepped us for our Shfelah field trip on Sunday. It got a bit long near the end, but the thought of Cold-Cut Fridays in the Oasis kept most of us trudging along.

I am sorry to say that I spent the afternoon writing the paper for my Islam class. I still haven’t finished exactly, but I am getting there. I am hoping to be able to finish it sometime tomorrow or Tuesday afternoon. It is really hard for me to focus and write on this paper and nothing else. The city calls to me. I can literally hear it say my name: “Michelle, Michelle,” it calls. You can imagine how distracting that could be. I forced myself to stay in the center, though. Luckily it was a Friday so I knew most of the city would be shut down anyway…it was still a very long afternoon. At least I didn’t end up watching a movie instead. Rather, I took an hour nap. It was a very useful way to spend my time.

Ophir Yarden, the Judaism professor, takes 15-20 students to a Jewish church service once during the semester. Tonight, it was my turn. It was a very unreal experience. We participated in an Orthodox service, so they stuck a lot to the prayer book. It was nice because we could follow along for the most part. However, it was all in Hebrew so it was still fairly difficult to understand what was going on. The prayer books we used had both the Hebrew and the English translation so I spent a lot of the time reading the English translations. A lot of it spoke on Christ and welcoming the Lord and things in that manner. It was really cool. I do wish that I could speak Hebrew, though. It would have made so much more sense that way. I guess I will just have to learn Hebrew!

As it was Friday evening, we were privileged with yet another BYU Jerusalem Center Friday Night Movie Premier. This Friday was, as promised, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I will never be able to get enough of Indiana Jones. Harrison Ford plays him so well! It was a fun night. Another late but fun night. It’s a good thing tomorrow is Sabbath!