Livre d'Or

This week P'tite Soeur organized a family trip to London. All four siblings and Dad, which is quite a feat of logistics even if we didn't manage to also include partners.

( London )

Another thing I was able to do due to not being in Israel was to visit the community I'll be spending Yom Kippur with, the amazing Kehillat Kernow, a peripatetic community covering most of the Cornwall peninsula. (Yes, that's me in the news article at the top of their website, they are very prompt at reporting!) The long train journey was not as wonderful as I had hoped, because the trains were very very overcrowded in peak season, but at least I had a seat and got to enjoy the lovely views. And read a bunch of novels, which is definitely making my brain happier.

They invited me to dinner Friday evening, and had a very Liv conversation about dealing with racism in education and medicine, with the other guests having direct professional expertise, not just setting the world to rights. And put me up in a super nice hotel in a neo-gothic pile that used to be a convent, and were gracious enough to invite me to stay Saturday night as well so I even got a little bit of time in Truro, which is where they held this particular service. I walked along the river a bit, I found a teeny-tiny Pride festival in the town centre, but it was packing up by the time I had finished dinner at 7 pm, so I wasn't able to get dessert from one of the sparkly rainbow doughnut stands.

In between I lead a Shabbat service, with very enthusiastic participation from the community, and they even appreciated my somewhat political sermon about whether we can still be Zionists in this moment. Because it was the new moon of Av, I got to read from their super-exciting Historic scroll. Well, actually I chanted the verses about the creation of the sun and moon; it's still a big deal for me to do that in public. I'm pretty pleased with how all that went.

And now I'm back and I have another month of relatively uncrowded schedule. It's very nice.

My extremely awesome girlfriend managed to get us tickets for the stage production of Ballet Shoes, a book we both imprinted on. Which meant we actually managed to do the thing I'm always hoping for of a proper date-date Friday night on a weekend when I'm doing community work Saturday.

( review and weekend notes )

Anyway, we managed to catch the last show of the run, but apparently there is going to be a reprise later in the year, so if this review makes you want to see it you still have a chance!

The reason it made sense to go to the theatre was that Saturday I was working at Mosaic Liberal in North London. ( student rabbi dealing with responses to Gaza )

I'm not even going to apologize for how long it's been since I last posted here. In roughly reverse chronological order, this summer:

• I'm going to Glasgow WorldCon in person next weekend. I am not at all sure whether this is a good Covid risk, and I dithered for ages, but I'm going. I have made no plans for the con, haven't even looked at the programme, but I'd like to meet up with people, especially those of you who are usually in a different continent from me. Or if you're in the London area on the way to or from the con I'm around - no classes at the moment.
  
  ( it's been a summer )
  
  
  Lots of people write about their 'biggest failure' in the end of year meme. Mine has been keeping in touch with people I don't see in person. I used to have regular conversations with doseybat and rysmiel and angelofthenorth and I've just entirely lost the habit. And I've not at all contacted anyone I don't have a regular arrangement with, and I've more or less dropped off DW and Discord. It's not exactly that I've been "too busy", there is in a literal sense enough time in the week for talking to people I care about, but I just haven't quite found enough spare brain to make it happen. In theory, next year should be a bit easier, since I won't be couch surfing or house hunting and will have my own place, but a month of vacation from college hasn't fixed my bad habits so I'm not entirely optimistic.

So. I took two months "off" between quitting my job and starting my course on Monday. I've now reached the end of that time and I'm nowhere near as ready as I hoped for the start of my new life. Anyway, for logging purposes:

( tada )

It's hard to express just how not ready I am for the start of term! But I think a lot of that is psychological, if I just turn up and go to classes I think it will all settle down within a few weeks.