...so that he may deign to bestow it upon me. The weather has turned cold. Cold. (Which is colder than cold) And yesterday, on an already dreary Yom Kippur day, it began to rain.
The elements don't typically bother me much so long as I have a warm, dry house/apartment/cardboard box to return to when I finish my business with the Outside World. I will say this: My loft (I've decided not to call it an attic anymore. Who wants to live in an attic? Loft sounds nicer. And more expensive) is dry. But it is not warm. That's because Sofia, desperately hanging onto one of their last relics from the Soviet era, still operates on a system of Central Heating - that is, control of the radiator in my apartment is outside my jurisdiction; the superintendent has to decide that it's gotten cold enough to merit turning on the unit that supplies heat to the whole building. I'll let you do the math.
So, it is cold, but, for the moment, dry. (Praise the Pantocrator for half-victories) I can only hope, pray, and make supplications to Buddha that the superintendent will relent someday (and may the day be very soon!) and have mercy upon the Cold, Ravaged, Collective Soul of the residents of my building.
I'm sorry for all the snarkiness, sarcasm, pessimism, and the mockeries of religion contained herein. I don't mean any of it (Well, most of it). The dreary weather aside, it is a rather lovely-looking, overcast, quiet Fall Sunday here.
Things in general have gone well enough since last I wrote. The resources that I'm looking at to build a history of the Shopi people continue to trickle in, allowing me a steady stream of material, though not enough to overwhelm me. I have also been introduced, over the past week, to a veritable host of people who are experts on the subject, or tangentially related ones. I don't really have a clearer sense of direction than I did a few weeks ago, but the more I read, and the more people I talk to, the more likely it is each day that things will snap into focus.
I have also been hanging out with some of the people I met at second orientation, a pretty cool crowd. Between cleaning my apartment, reading treatises, spending some quality time with my ukulele (I am about to restring it), expanding my social circles, getting myself lost on late-night runs and significantly increasing the chances that I will be mugged and brutally murdered, and attending synagogue for Yom Kippur, I have kept myself fairly busy over the last five days.
Yom Kippur was a fairly interesting experience for me, coming from the background that I do, as was Rosh HaShanah before it. As you may or may not know, I come from a semi-observant, hazily denominational, Ashkenazic family. So to be thrust into a Sephardic Orthodox experience (in the Balkans, no less) was, while not a complete shocker, a surprising experience in a few respects. I won't go into much detail--both because I feel like it wouldn't be that interesting, and because the more I talk on the subject the greater the risk is that I offend someone--but it was a not unpleasant experience, and I found myself a few times having to roll with something I either had not expected, had never experienced, or both. But the synagogue is beautiful, it was an eye-opening experience to attend an Orthodox Yom Kippur service (the Highest of Holiday Services, you might call it), and I found myself adjusting to it with few problems.
I have always tried to use Yom Kippur as a pivot point in years past, and this year is no exception. I always strive to fix things that I'm doing wrong, recommit myself to things that matter, and to be, in general, a better person, both to people around me and to myself. So right now, I'm writing from the standpoint of someone with a healthy sense of optimism and a commitment to doing things better over the course of the next year. Go-go-gadget-improvement.
Now, I'm off to the airport to go pick up my friend Mark who is in Europe for two weeks and Sofia for two days. A recap of our adventures to come in the next entry. Stay warm!
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