This year, after only attending services once at Stanford, I decided that I wanted to go again. I found a temple in Melbourne, which is no easy task given the small group of Jews in the area. Thursday morning I woke up, put on a nice dress, and went out in the rain. When I arrived, my shoes were soaked and I had to sit for three hours with wet feet. Needless to say, not pleasant. The service was really nice, though it's always a little intimidating to be alone in temple where you don't know anyone. I quickly learned that the women were to sit upstairs and the men downstairs, which I found a bit strange. When I told my mom about this later on in the afternoon, she said that my grandpa experienced that kind of thing in his congregation growing up. Apparently, he would come home with stories about how the women would sit upstairs and gossip while the children ran around and the men tried to keep some sort of order down below. The thing that bothered me most about this was the fact that the women didn't get the chance to embrace the Torah (when it is taken out of the ark, it is walked around the congregation...it is customary to touch your prayerbook or tallit (prayer shawl) to it, and then kiss that object). Even though I was a little out of my comfort zone, the temple was beautiful and I have to say that I enjoyed listening to all the Hebrew (my attempts at following along were somewhat "successful"). The rabbi gave a nice, short sermon in English, and blew the shofar (a ram's horn which is blown like a trumpet) at the end. When I looked down at my watch, I was surprised to learn that three hours had passed.
To keep up with the spirit of the holiday, I decided I wanted to make matzah ball soup for dinner (perfect for the rainy weather). I went to two different grocery stores in the city, and neither had the matzah meal I needed. I ended up having to take the metro to Balaclava to find it, and when I got there, there were only two boxes (so I took them both). I got home, got the recipe, and got cooking. It's pretty easy to do, though I found out that making the actual matzah balls is quite a messy task. I watched with anticipation as they plumped up in the chicken broth and mixed with the vegetables. I have to say, for my first time cooking it, it turned out pretty well (I'm hoping my mom would approve).
On another note, it is now officially October, and we are getting ready to change our clocks tomorrow. It's time for daylight savings, though there really isn't a sign of Spring anywhere! Ugh. I'm planning on having a cozy day tomorrow, resting up before school starts again on Monday. I just finished reading The Help this morning (and would highly recommend it to those looking for something to read), so I'm thinking I might go tomorrow afternoon and see the movie. Besides that, I just have to get my brain back into study mode for the final push. One more month of classes before finals, and in that time there is a lot to get done. I feel like I'm in a decent place, but I also know that things are going to pick up quickly once we get going again.
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