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October 13, 2005
Awesome
The most random thing has happened today. I don't have to go to class because today is the first full day of Yom Kippur, the Jewish New Year. I am especially happy about this because it keeps me from having to go to my dreaded 8 am class, and because I am swamped with work that would otherwise have caused me to go insane. I already had to cancel a date with my super-duper lovely girlfriend on account of my nagging mistress, the law. In that regards, the day off is nice, because I am going to roll down to school and slap around some of this work.
On the other hand, I was stunned when I first heard we were getting the day off for Yom Kippur. Where I grew up, there wasn't much in the way of racial minorities. There was one black family. I don't recall any Asians, or even any Hispanics for that matter. We had a kid who claimed to be 1/8 Cherokee. Everyone else was white as white could be. In hindsight, it would have done me a lot of good to not be so insulated from people of different backgrounds, but that is the way I grew up.
There was, of course, one Jewish family. Their daughter was in my grade, and every year around Christmas the teachers would cancel regular class and have her give a presentation about Hannukah and dreidles and how the lamp burned for so many days. I was never like, "well that's bull plop, she ought to take Jesus as her savior," but I know a few parents felt that way about the little Hannukah lesson.
As for me, I always wondered what it was like to be in a society which observes all the religious holidays you simply don't believe in. I feel a little bit like that with this Yom Kippur thing. I celebrate by sleeping in, but somewhere, people are going to synagogue and fasting and doing whatever else they do to celebrate the day. It's just another day to me, and that must be a strange thing for some people to believe.
Posted by oz115 at October 13, 2005 09:36 AM
Comments
Well, you know me! I went to Buffalo Grove high school. About as Jewish as Jewish gets. I'd say growing up I went to temple as often as I went to Catholic mass. I attended over 100 Bar and Bat Mitzvah's in junior high school. Those are AWESOME! Like mini weddings. And we got off for more Jewish holidays than Christian holidays. We also got off for Indian holidays and Chinese holidays. It rocked!
My high school, being HUGE (I graduated with over 500 kids) had everone represented. There were the freaky ESL (english as a second language kids) whom none of us really associated with. There were the black kids, the asian kids (we had a TON of Asian kids, my best friend being Irene Ni, nice little chinese girl), Indian, Mexican, Hispanic,...And even a hot Polyneasian kid, Omar (and he was FREAKIN HOT!). Ah, how I miss the melting pot I call high school!
Posted by: Your Lady friend at October 13, 2005 04:16 PM