other notes
The Tanakh I brought with me (JPS Hebrew-English, the larger of the
editions I've seen) is the perfect size for supporting my iBook on
the dorm desk (to get the screen closer to my eyes and the keys up
a little). This feels almost, but not quite, sacreligious. :-)
Thursday night about half of the students (and one of the faculty members) went out for dinner. I had hoped everyone would come, but most of the students are local and thus have other obligations (spouses, kids, etc). It was a nice dinner with those who did make it.
That's turning out to be a key difference between this program and my experience of Sh'liach K'hilah. In SK, no one was local: almost everyone stayed in the dorm on campus, the days started early in the morning and ended late at night, we were with each other most of that time, and there were basically no outside distractions. The group had a real chance to get cohesive. Here, two-thirds of the students disappear soon after classes end at 4 or 4:30, only a few of us are staying in the dorm, and while I'm enjoying my interactions with most of my classmates as individuals, the group isn't really gelling strongly. That's not better or worse, just different. On the plus side, it's giving me time to spend with local friends. :-)
After the dinner tonight I met up with siderea (yay!). We walked around the area near the Hynes T stop, including 15 minutes in the Boston Library (it was near closing time). It's a neat place -- a library with a strong secondary identity as a gallery. Tonight they had a nifty exhibit of miniature books (I mean really tiny; they used coins as size indicators in some cases). Some of the miniature books came with miniature magnifying glasses, which was a nice touch. Some of the books were a little larger and I could imagine one actually holding them and reading rather than just showing off. After we got kicked out of the library we walked around the area some and then spent a while sitting in a cafe talking geekery. :-)
Part of the T is out of service, so for the last few stops heading back to the school we got kicked off the train and transferred to a bus. For all that the trains do a good job of communicating upcoming stops, the bus I was on sucked. There was a banner-style digital sign up front that was dutifully scrolling date and time past us twice a minute. Once I saw a request that people give up seats to the elderly. But it was not used to name upcoming stops -- and since it was stopping at the T stops, not on every corner, that would not have been burdensome. It irked me because I had not memorized the map (hadn't anticipated the problem) and I would not recognize my stop at night from inside the bus. The bus was packed, so walking to the front to ask the driver wasn't going to happen. I had to ask other passengers (characteristically, most did not know what stops we were passing), which was frustrating. I wonder if this was a failure of the system or a failure of that particular driver.
Thursday night about half of the students (and one of the faculty members) went out for dinner. I had hoped everyone would come, but most of the students are local and thus have other obligations (spouses, kids, etc). It was a nice dinner with those who did make it.
That's turning out to be a key difference between this program and my experience of Sh'liach K'hilah. In SK, no one was local: almost everyone stayed in the dorm on campus, the days started early in the morning and ended late at night, we were with each other most of that time, and there were basically no outside distractions. The group had a real chance to get cohesive. Here, two-thirds of the students disappear soon after classes end at 4 or 4:30, only a few of us are staying in the dorm, and while I'm enjoying my interactions with most of my classmates as individuals, the group isn't really gelling strongly. That's not better or worse, just different. On the plus side, it's giving me time to spend with local friends. :-)
After the dinner tonight I met up with siderea (yay!). We walked around the area near the Hynes T stop, including 15 minutes in the Boston Library (it was near closing time). It's a neat place -- a library with a strong secondary identity as a gallery. Tonight they had a nifty exhibit of miniature books (I mean really tiny; they used coins as size indicators in some cases). Some of the miniature books came with miniature magnifying glasses, which was a nice touch. Some of the books were a little larger and I could imagine one actually holding them and reading rather than just showing off. After we got kicked out of the library we walked around the area some and then spent a while sitting in a cafe talking geekery. :-)
Part of the T is out of service, so for the last few stops heading back to the school we got kicked off the train and transferred to a bus. For all that the trains do a good job of communicating upcoming stops, the bus I was on sucked. There was a banner-style digital sign up front that was dutifully scrolling date and time past us twice a minute. Once I saw a request that people give up seats to the elderly. But it was not used to name upcoming stops -- and since it was stopping at the T stops, not on every corner, that would not have been burdensome. It irked me because I had not memorized the map (hadn't anticipated the problem) and I would not recognize my stop at night from inside the bus. The bus was packed, so walking to the front to ask the driver wasn't going to happen. I had to ask other passengers (characteristically, most did not know what stops we were passing), which was frustrating. I wonder if this was a failure of the system or a failure of that particular driver.