Shabbat!

I always find it ridiculously hard coming up with things to blog about. I also tend to blog solely on Fridays when I am at work, have finished/given up on all my homework and am waiting for 5:30 to roll around so I can get my Shabbat dinner on and then sleep for fourteen hours. Basically, it is when I am at my most bored and uninspired. And the constant rainfall that I only catch glimpses of on my security monitor doesn't help any to pep me up. 

Buttt anyways... While I feel like I have had a really interesting past couple of weeks, I cannot for the life of me remember anything remarkably special. I have had some pretty good parties and nights out, a few fun Saturdays, some nice Barcelona matches, a night at the Israeli Embassy eating the most amazing noodle kugel (like life changing)... All in all, I really think my senior year has been the best year in my college career. I've think I've also had enough shenanigans for some good "remember when" catch-up sessions with friends and a few dozen more "Never have I ever" games. 

This weekend is shaping up to be a pretty good one as well and is especially needed after the chaos that was Monday through Friday. It felt like I just never came up for air this entire week. While speaking to my parents last night after coming home from the Israeli Embassy event, I remember nodding off so much that my mother finally gave up on trying to maintain any sort of conversation. As soon as my head hit the pillow  I was out. And then by some miracle I clothed myself and got to work where I then spent the remainder of the day studying Spanish (literally five hours) until I decided to ditch the salad I had brought with me in favor of a burrito from California Tortilla. And I bought it fully knowing I now have $20 on my debit card. I just convinced myself it was cultural immersion and part of my quest in becoming fluent and thus being quadrilingual so therefore, one day the pay-off would ultimately pay for the cost of this lowly burrito. I could rationalize plundering convents to myself if I had to. Although I imagine there would not be very much to plunder... 

And for the sacrifice of my dip into Spanish culture via burrito, I now am the proud baby of a five pound food baby and a very upset stomach which has been crying out for a heatpad and Tums for the past two hours. 

Which also makes me excited to head home, cook a beautiful Shabbat meal and rest my satisfied and possibly new morbidly obese body on my bed and call it a week. 

Ever since New Years I have been making a conscious effort to not go out on Friday nights. And it's been pretty successful. The lines have been a little fudged- I did go to a house party one Friday night but it was on campus so I didn't have to pay anything so I'm okay just calling it an oneg and absolving myself of any guilt. I have also been hitting up the Shabbat dinners around DC and finally realized what I have been missing these past four years. Seriously, Shabbat dinners are where it's at. Free food. Free alcohol. Drunk rabbis dancing on tables. As long as you can will yourself to not roll your eyes every time someone talks about their Birthright bus and how "life changing" Taglit was for them and make sure to keep your comments to an inaudible whisper whenever a short, excessively hairy Jewish guy tells you about his work at the DOJ (you can really put any acronym here), you can survive a DC Shabbat dinner.

But Shabbat, in its essence, is truly something special. It's a time when you get to just put the entire world on pause. You've had an insanely busy week? You put on 2 different pairs of earrings (happened to me twice this week)? No worries- today you don't need to stress about anything. All you need to do is sit, relax, have a glass of wine, have some post-dinner shots, hang out with friends and sleep. Tomorrow, wake up when you do, eat another meal, and hang out. No stress. 

I think Shabbat should be something universal. Or if not universal, then at least DC. Especially with this budget nonsense. I think if everyone took 24 hours to just chill out, we would be a lot more productive. And with that wisdom, I leave you all. Shabbat Shalom