checking in on a sick day

My lack of posting might make one think that nothing in the past few months has been as exciting as the birth of my niece. Well, that's pretty much true. Hodaya is now four months old, unbelievably cute, and a joy to have around. I love how alert she is when I read her books and how adorable she looks in her Red Sox clothes that finally fit.

But besides having the cutest niece in the world, plenty of else has been going on. I just had a brilliant five week streak of not being sick. That streak ended two days ago, which is how I have the time to sit down and write a blog post. Working in a gan has essentially destroyed my immune system. At the end of January I took a much anticipated trip to Eilat with Lisa and Alan which combined with drugs brought me back to 100%. This time around we went down on a Friday and stayed through Tuesday. For shabbat we stayed in a studio apartment in one of the residential neighborhoods of Eilat. It was cool being around the real people who live there. It's such a gorgeous area. Our apartment had a view of the Red Sea and we basically spent 25 hours eating and sleeping. None of us had a non-cellphone clock, so we had absolutely no idea what time it was all day. We are convinced it was 4pm for at least three hours. Our trip included ATV-ing (a skill that for me could really use some more practice), eating steak, and being pulled through the water crazy fast on this big round blow-up thing. Most of all I enjoyed being away from the kids and having time to put my feet up.

Work at the gan is going great. Since my last post we've celebrated Chanukah and Purim in gan. Gan makes holidays so much more exciting. Purim was like a week long celebration which started with us turning the dramatic play area into a beautiful castle. The Erev Purim celebration was particularly good because no parents were there and the kids could just enjoy themselves without forty strange adults in the room. The kids are still insanely obsessed with me. When I come into the gan they barge at me with hugs and shouts. When I come before lunch time they are often in the middle of a story and I create a huge disturbance. It's awesome. I am starting to feel less of an assistant to the assistants as I get a better sense of what to do throughout the day and am given more responsibilities. For example, I am now in charge of making challah on Fridays. Pretty neat.

At the beginning of January I finally handed in my last paper for last semester (Spring 2009)... only ten weeks late, without consulting the professor for an extension. Thankfully he gave me a 91. I also finally retook the test I failed last Spring and got a 76 so I am now officially eligible to write a thesis. Now I just have to actually meet my thesis adviser in person, come up with a topic, and get started. In the meantime I am trying to finish off first semester which this virus is sort of impeding on.

Purim in Jerusalem was fabulous as always. I dressed up at Max from Where the Wild Things Are. A fair amount of my friends recognized my costume immediately. It was fun walking around in a crown all day. My shadow looked really neat. I went to three seudahs and delivered mishloach manot all over the area. It's always a good excuse to visit people I don't see often.


I'm looking forward to my next trip to the US which is in three weeks. Sadly it's going to be a short one, but I'm looking forward to seeing everyone... and to being away from the germy little ones for two weeks. This year is flying by. I can't believe I have known those 22 kids for six months now. Some of them have come a long way, and some of them cry even more than they used to. Being two and a half is tough.

I feel like there are a zillion other stories I wanted to share over the past few months but made myself wait until my schoolwork is done. Well, it's more or less done. Now maybe I'll remember the stories. I have a goal to be caught up on life my Pesach. We'll see how that goes.