2+ weeks later

Not much has changed. Some friends have come home from reserve duty. Other ones have left. One left, came home for a day, got engaged, and went back again. My best friend's boyfriend is going into Gaza any day now. Yonatan Netanel z"l was killed by friendly fire and left behind a four month old child. His sister is a student in my department (there were signs at school announcing his death). I was holding a four month old baby when I saw the news on TV. This country is really small.

I am at the point in my semester where I actually have to do work. Teachers are finally telling me what the assignments are that my entire grade will be based on. They will be due over the next two months. A couple are due during the beginning of the next semester. I have 3 1/2 weeks left of class. The end of this semester technically means I'm a quarter done with the program (thesis not included). I still sit quietly through most of my classes. Lately I've been overtired on Mondays and space out a lot (no thanks to a certain Harriet the Spy). Today I got to hand in my own copy of the statistics homework. Okay, it was because my partner couldn't make it, but it was still exciting. Usually we use hers because her Hebrew is actually understandable. Little by little I am speaking more at school but only when I have to. I'll figure it out one of these days.

Everything feels very different. The students are more subdued. My Introduction to Trauma class has been taking on a lot more meaning. Even the professor is expressing how hard it is to be somewhat academic about a topic that's been so real these past couple of weeks. Hebrew U, like other universities, has opened up it's available space in the dorms for students and their families from the south who need a safe place to stay. Families all over the country are opening their homes to total strangers. At the supermarket you can get half price candy and snacks to be delivered to soldiers. I'm hoping to bake cookies for my friends coming back from reserve duty. It's therapeutic. And a way to procrastinate. But mostly therapeutic.

It's hard to complain about how much work I have plenty of time to do but can't get myself to even start when all this is going on. With rockets falling in both the north and south it is hard feeling safe in Jerusalem which is smack in the middle. We are not physically effected at all, but the war is on all our minds. My friend was going to host a movie night last week then sent us all a message saying he just couldn't do it. Not until our friends come home safe. None of us were about to argue.

I kind of wonder how this experience compares to that of students my age in the US when their friends were being sent to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. Except I know it is definitely different in this case where our friends are two hours away and rockets are falling miles from where the actual fighting is.

The Big Lebowski movie night sounded like fun though I was just happy for an excuse to go out and hang out with friends. Now that it is on hold until everyone comes home, I am really looking forward to it.