Love is Pain

Actually, right now I'm thinking love is a crock. Why does it suck so much?

Why am I consistently attracted to guys who are completely disinterested?

Why do I feel the need to have my heart ripped out and dragged across the floor?

This shouldn't be so hard.

I'm trying really hard not to get depressed, but it's hard since I've been fighting it for a while. I didn't want to admit it, but maybe I really do need some help.

Fearlessness?

I am afraid.

I am afraid to defend my beliefs, afraid that they will come under attack and scrutiny from an unyielding populace. Are my fears unfounded? No. Can they be overcome? I think so, but it will require an inordinate amount of work and self-education in order to make it so.

This self-criticism comes from the fact that I have recently posted a couple of follow-up comments on a fellow blogger's site regarding an earlier post of my own, and I am realising how woefully inadequate my own knowledge happens to be on many of the subjects he is sincerely (and quite politely) questioning. How can I claim to be a Baha'i and uphold the teachings of Baha'u'llah when I'm not actively striving every second of every day to fully grasp the messages that the Manifestations of God have brought forth to us in order to help us grow in our understanding of and love for God?

I am afraid I need to work much, much harder...

Final choir performance of the season

Some photos from our warm-ups before our final choir performance of the season at the Naw Ruz celebration.

We got to perform in the Concourse of the Seat of the Universal House of Justice. Again.

Amazing!

Part of our beautiful soprano section

The entire group of us

Fluish

I've been down with the flu again the past few days, and it's not been fun. I hate getting sick, especially here in Israel while I'm trying to serve at the World Centre.
Today was the first day I tried to come in to work in the morning, and I thought I might as well try and get my laundry done at the same time. Well, I must not really be feeling better because as I bent down to throw my laundry in the machine, I smashed my cheekbone into the top of the loader.
So, now I'm still fluish and have a large welt on my face that won't be going away any time soon. So much for hand-eye coordination. Adam suggested today should be the day I go and get my visa pictures done. Yeah, RIGHT. I'm still trying to figure out if he was kidding or not...

Dreaming of John Mayer

Yep, it's true. I had a really weird dream about John Mayer last night. I shall recount...

I was at the house of one of my mother's high school friends, and we were visiting her daughters there. It was apparently also my birthday, so people were giving me presents. One of the girls asked me if I knew John Mayer, because he was a friend of theirs and was invited to the party. I said sure, I knew who he was, so it was cool if he came over.

He showed up and introduced himself, then headed out to the backyard, where I followed. The backyard sloped back under the deck and bottom of the house. Under the slope, he had set up a lounge area, complete with oversized couches and hanging paper lamps. Apparently Mr. Mayer came over to their house quite frequently to jam, so this was his personal lounge area. He was sitting there jamming with a couple of his buddies, and I wandered over to sit on one of the couches. He came and gave me a HMV gift card for my birthday (?), and offered me a cup of coffee. When he brought me my coffee, he gave me a kiss on the nose and then ran back to his seat to play some more. :)

As I got up to leave, he said he had another present for me - pappy wappy kisses. (Huh?) Basically it was just smooching my face on both cheeks. I said I had to leave, but that I had a friend who was a really big fan, and he would love to hear from John Mayer, especially since he's also going to Berklee in the summer. John said he would totally give me his number to pass on, I just needed to find a pen.

My dream ended with me going back up to the house, meeting up with some of the girls who were working on an art project, and grabbing a pen.


Weird, no?

Happy Birthday!

We celebrated Kat's birthday on Monday, the 17th. It was pretty fun, especially considering her birthday falls on St. Patrick's Day.

Good times, good food, good friends, and good balloons. :)

Purim

Ok, I went ahead and found out what the story of Purim is; I was curious after talking to the bakery shop owner yesterday. Here's what I found:

Once upon a time, between the destruction of the First Temple and the building of the Second Temple, the Jews were almost destroyed. In the city of Shushan, Vashti, the Queen of Persia, refuses to obey the order of the King of Persia, Ahasuerus, to appear before his guests. The King then searches the country for a new queen. From among hundreds of applicants, Esther, cousin of Mordechai the Jew, is chosen. The King's Prime Minister was an evil man named Haman. Haman, a descendant of the tribe of Amalek, hates the Jews and decides to kill them. He convinces King Ahasuerus to issue an edict which orders the destruction of all Jews in the land. Mordechai pleads with Esther to save the Jewish people by talking to the King. At the risk of her own life, Esther appears before the King without being summoned by him. She reveals her own Jewish identity to the King and reveals Haman's evil plans. The King is outraged at Haman, and he issues a decree to make Haman the victim of his own infamous plot. Haman and his sons are killed, and the Jews are saved.

For Purim, the children dress up like they do on Hallowe'en back home. It's basically like carnival time for a couple days so everyone reallys seems to get into it, kids and adults!

Merry Purim everyone! :)

Chichewa

My friend Christopher is from Malawi, and today Adam and I have been trying to learn a few phrases in Chichewa, the native language spoken in Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Apparently it's very close to Swahili in terms of phonetics and language structure, and Christopher says they even share a lot of the same words. All vowels are pronounced separately, and I believe every word ends with a vowel as well. And when a noun starts with an m, you simply have to add an i afterwards to make it plural.

mtengo=tree
mitengo=trees

mkango=lion
mikango=lions

I'm having a lot of fun trying to pick up some words that I can use here at the World Centre. How cool would it be to learn Chichewa?

My Favourite Bakery

Mmmmm, my favourite bakery has been decided. It is a tiny little place on Mapu street out in the Ahuza. I have no idea what the name is, but I got a bunch of magnets with the phone number to put on the fridge, so I will remain in the dark as to its name.

Adam and I stopped by today to pick up lunch while delivering linens for new staff orientation. (I know it's still Fast time, but since neither of us are allowed to fast, we leave the office and pick up food so we don't disturb others.) The owner informed us that the apple pies we smelled were freshly out of the oven, and sugar-free, so we each had to purchase one. :)

There were some weird, triangularly-shaped, chocolate-filled cookies all over the store, which we were informed are called oznay haman. It means "ears of Haman", which is apparently a reference to a king in ancient Iraq who had Jews living in the area and heard of a plot to be killed or something, and there was some sort of warning from his Jewish concubine or something like that. I didn't really catch the entire story the bakery owner was telling us - all I know is that they are special cookies for Purim, yet another Jewish holiday to be celebrated with cookies!

I think I like it here. There's always cookies.

I'm Back

I took a little trip home for a couple of weeks at the end of February. It was really nice to have some time off, but I'm still pretty exhausted. Doesn't seem like it was much of a vacation at times...
I got to go to some pretty neat places and see some wonderful old friends. I'm so glad I was able to see everyone again after almost a year abroad here in Israel.
Some highlights of my trip home include:
Going to see Dirty Dancing: the Musical with my sister and cousin in Toronto
Going to see Bon Jovi live in concert with my sister in Toronto
Eating delicious ice cream from the new Marble Slab Creamery in Stratford
Driving to London and seeing my friends' new houses (now that they're settled and domestic)
Getting ALL my pants altered because I've lost so much weight (yay!)

There was much, much more that I did, but I will have to blog about later it when I am not quite so incredibly jetlagged. I am SOOOOOOO tired right now; I may have to leave work early today...