It's Been a Long Time Coming

So it’s been a long time since we’ve updated the blog, and I’d like to catch you all up on the past month or so.

I’ve taken my GRE’s so that I can apply to grad school in the states - I’m particularly interested in the Azrieli School of Education at Yeshiva University in New York. It offers a Masters in Jewish Education that I can do during the summers and student teach here in Israel during the year. I’m currently working on the last part of my application which I hope to submit soon.

Apparently I did well on the test, which is a good sign for my application, but the whole experience was interesting. Since we’re not in the US you can’t just take them whenever you want, so I registered to take them in Tel Aviv. I had to leave home around 9am so that I could take a bus to Tel Aviv and walk from the bus station to the building that has the office I needed. (Strangely the Canadian Embassy is housed in the same building).

Naomi and I also participated in one of the greatest events ever. We voted. While that’s not so cool to most of us, it was an enthralling experience here in Israel. Firstly, it seems sometimes that in Israel if it should take 10 minutes to do X and it could take an hour, it’ll end up taking three hours. Yet, voting was a cinch. The decision process, however, not so much. I’ll leave that out, but once we decided who we’d vote for - you go it, show your ID to the election monitors - and then choose one slip of paper with the party on it, place it in an envelope, and place it in the blue box. That’s it. Simple, basic, and very low tech.

Check out these pictures:

You get these envelopes, signed by both of the election monitors that are present.


Each card is a vote, you choose the card with the letter(s) of the party you want to vote for.


Place the party you picked (not our pictures, we voted for someone else) into the envelope

Place the envelope into the ballot box (made out of cardboard) and then you're done. Like I said, low tech and easy.
Naomi's started her second semester of Grad School at Hebrew University. She's done pretyt well so far, and the second semester is continuing in that manner. She's also been busy with some work she's picked up as well; she's taken on a few clients working online for people in the states, and though it's only party time it helps out a lot financially.
Purim happened here at the Yeshiva, which was great fun, though trying to keep track of the 44 kids was tough. But we dressed up and had a good time nonetheless.

Spring time in Israel is beautiful, not only the desert, but the whole country starts to bloom. We went up north with the Yeshiva recently, for shabbbat in Tzfat. It was beautiful and from Har Meron you can see Har Hermon (still white capped with snow).





We're getting ready to head back to the US for Passover, with a brief stopover in Amsterdam each way. We're hoping to take a few of the sights in our 24 hours there (total). We're planning to see the Anne Frank House, the Van Gogh Museum, the Flower Market, etc. I've been there before four years ago, but I still never got to see all of the things that I wanted to. Anyway, we'll be in Philly for a week and DC for a few days including the Seder. We're hoping to see a bunch of people while we're around and the cherry-blossoms which are blooming this time of the year in DC.

Hopefully the next update will take place sooner since we're on break for the moment.