Driss-A-Blog

Sunday, February 8th - Bridal Shower with friends.
It was a lot of fun, more fun than I thought it would be. It was great to see friends from different parts of my life all in the same room.

Monday, February 9th - class
Spent most of the day learning. In the late afternoon I headed off to school to finish cleaning my desk. The week before which was my last week at school I had been sick but forced my way through the week. Last week I focused on saying good-bye to the kids, but this week it was time to clean up.

Realized that I had game day the next day, went to Barnes & Noble on 83rd street to go find a Risk game. They had two different types - a reprint of the original version and the normal one that we know, but smaller so it fit into a big "book". I would have liked the original, but the pieces were wooden blocks, they didn't look like men, horses or canons. So I go the other version. The best part was that I used the 10% discount and I had found a $25 gift certificate - the whole thing cost $11 dollars. Oh yeah, I also found a book to buy while I was there too.

Tuesday, February 10th
Woke up at 7am, wide awake. I remembered that I hadn't finished preparing the dvar Torah stuff for the kids. Checked my email and found an email from my boss saying the same thing. Was at school by 8:15am. Finished by 10am. Was seen by some kids, reminded me why I shouldn't show my face during school hours. Too hard.
I came back to Washington Heights, went to Key Food to get some food. Today was game day. Once a week in the evenings I meet up with a couple friends and we play a board game. This week, it happened to be that all of us were free in the middle of the day - so we met and played Risk. I won, but it was a great game. Brunch and Risk, a great day.

The rest of the day I spent on the computer cleaning out my school email. The school is closing that account at the end of this week. There were about 4500 emails in the account - yes, I'm sure I should have done this beforehand - but by the end of the night I got through all but about 800 emails. Not bad.

Wednesday, February 11th
It was a beautiful day so I decided that I should spend the time outside. I also realized that I wasn't at school anymore - a sad moment that popped up throughout the day. I took the A train to 40th and 7ave. I got out and went to the comic store there and picked up a couple copies of the Green Lantern. Fun. Then I went to Kosher Delight for a hamburger. Then I went for a walk north.

First I did something I have wanted to do for the last four years. I stopped into the Armed Forces office located in Times Square. I walked in the door and said, "I'm not signing up today - but wanted to say 'thank-you'". They looked surprised and said, you're welcome! That was nice. Considering their office had been bombed in the middle of the night a couple months ago, this was an overdue stop.

Then I continued up Broadway. It was a good walk. I haven't been feeling good for the last two weeks with a head cold. It was a nice day, I was feeling decent and it was time to get outside and get some exercise. I walked all the way up to 89th to talk to West Side Judaica about bencher prices. Then I went to school around the corner. Spent a couple more hours photocopying stuff that I'd put together over the last few years then finished up my desk. I walked out knowing that I really don't have to step foot in there again - maybe to say good-bye, but not to clean up.

Went home. Wrote a letter to the window guy who never put in the window gates - and owes me money. And then assembled my receipts to be reimbursed.

Thursday, February 12th
I woke up not feeling so good. It was a slow start to the day because of it. I headed to the bank up the street to get quarters so I could do laundry. After I got the quarters I crossed the street to get Advil and Sudafed. Then I headed to the post office to send a couple letters off - one to the window guy who owes me money. The other to the company that reimburses us for our mass transit receipts.

Then I went to Key Food to get laundry detergent. Did a good job shopping but forgot the laundry detergent. Oh well.

I made some phone calls to different friends and send some emails so I could meet up with them sometime next week. Called for bencher prices.

Got home. Went to class. Came back from class. Finished clearing out my email and started packing the apartment. Fun.

Friday, February 13th
Not feeling great, but okay. Put a load of laundry in the machine. Had an early lunch. Wrote up what I did this week. Heading back to the basement to get my laundry. Pack some more.

I'm looking forward to Shabbos. I'm headed to Queens for Shabbos for Leslie's birthday. Yay!