Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Ahh, it's close!

I'm still not up to writing about the conference yet. I have pictures galore (most up on my facebook, for anyone who remotely cares), but just haven't found the extended period of time or patience to write about it. So give me a bit o' time. I'm still recovering!

Tomorrow morning at 9:30 I'll hit up the bells and whistles of conversion. Friday night is the ceremony, which I finally invited my mother and family to, though I know not if they'll be coming. In the rush and nervousness of not precisely knowing what to expect, I've been rereading the Anita Diamant book on converting, as well as browsing around the Internet. In my search I came across an Open Letter to Jews By Choice, by a Dr. Lawrence Epstein. It's uplifting, inspiring ... encouraging. I'm meeting with my rabbi today to talk about what all will go down at this little shindig tomorrow, and I'm nervous just about that. I have my Hebrew named picked out -- it's an extension of my given name. The name? Chaviva. Hence the name of the blog.

My undergraduate career more or less ended last night at 8:15 at the closing credits of Crossing Delancey. It was my final Jewish-American Fiction class and the end of my general classes. I'll be missing Mass Media & Society tomorrow for conversion stuff and then there's photography, but I may not making it there either. In reality, all I have left to do is my photography portfolio, which to be frank, I don't care much about. I've put a lot into some of the photos and the ones he's praised have been my five-minute escapades. Anyhow, the movie we watched was pretty ridiculously hilarious. It was about a Jewish woman named Izzy (Isabelle) who falls for this French author who turns out to be a jerk, and instead realizes her love for Sam, the pickle salesman on Delancey Street. Sam and Izzy are set up by a marriage broker hired by Izzy's bubbe. Izzy is disgusted (she's so modern in the late 1980s), but then finds out Sam has been watching her for years. Anywho, she falls for Sam, who is a shmuck, but is a wonderful shmuck. In fact, even I fell in love with him. Now to find me a man like that. I'd go for a pickle salesman ... hands down.

Anyhow. If I'm correct, the prayer that will be recited during my conversion (in addition to the sheheheyanu), goes a little something like this:

Baruch atah Hashem Elokenu Melech Haolam Asher Kidishanu be Mitzvotav Vetzivanu al Hatevilah.