Ah, school. We’re a couple of weeks into the semester now, and while I’ve been on top of things so far, I feel like any second now it’s all going to blow up in my face. It’s an anxiety thing, I know, but it’s hard right now. I’m not sleeping well.
Most of my classes are online rather than in person, and I’m not exactly the most organized or self motivated person. I’m using Habitica to organize things and it helps, and honestly I have a fairly light schedule at only 13 hours. But my archaeology class has 500+ pages of reading a week on top of all the rest of the work I have to do and I just can’t seem to get through it all every week, and I worry it will hurt me on the exams.
I have to give a speech in the next couple of weeks for my communications class, and I don’t get to pick the topic. I turned in a list of 15 topics I would like to speak on, but either the professor or the TA will be the ones to choose the subject. On the plus side, I don’t expect that anyone else will take any of my topic options. LOL
I am getting on well with my roomie though, we had a late night bullshit session the other night and that was pretty cool, and Nigel likes him, so I feel like we’re a pretty good fit. We’re keeping up with the housework, too — which is something I was worried about — mostly because I was pretty lazy at home with Mum, but we have a clean up on Sundays and it’s been working.
Mum has a boyfriend, which I feel a little weird about as well. I mean, Dad has been gone for a little over a year now, and I’m not opposed to her having someone in her life, but he’s a church member (Mormon) and seems to be angling for marriage pretty quickly. They are going to meet this weekend and I hope she has a good time, but I still worry a bit.
Nigel is adapting well to being on his own, he’s very affectionate and relaxed, lazing around on the floor and my chair and wandering between roomie and I for scritches as needed. We did go back to Mum’s during the hurricane and he was fine with it, but he was ready to go home the next day and hopped right into his carrier without any issue.
On the conversion front I got a message from the Rabbi last night, and it should be over some time in November. We have the 3 rabbis required for the Bais Din (rabbinical court) that will formally question my intent and knowledge of Judaism which will be done on Zoom, and then we will have to immersion at a marina in the New Orleans area early in the morning since it’s a public space. It’s apparently going to be a group conversion, where several of us are finishing up at the same time. There will be a quick meeting with the rabbis on site to confirm we really mean it, then it’s into the dirty water for a dip, and we’re done! So I’ll finally be officially Jewish — that will be nice — and I can continue to figure out on my own what being Jewish means to me. I’m still aiming for pretty observant — it’s just what I’m used to really — but more relaxed about things than I was when I was orthodox.
So — yeah. I’m treading water right now, and it’s a long way to go.