I'm hooooooooome!

My day started early and included a wonderful breakfast at the Belfer 12th floor Sky Caf, where I managed to use all but 31 cents of my caf card on breakfast (I only had $4.31 to start). Then, since I was basically packed, I did some last minute packing and dropped off my keys and was ready to go.

At the airport my bags were overweight, I kind of expected that. Each bag was 58 pounds and the annoying lady was going to charge me $50 for it. I stepped aside for a second to try and "move stuff around and take stuff out" and with the help of my dad realized that I could just make one bag overweight and pay only $25, so I did that. When she weighed my first bag after I had "rearranged" stuff, the scale started at -6 lbs (she didn't see, luckily), so I was well underweight, and my 2nd bag was much heavier, so I was off to the plane after only getting scammed by American Airlines for $25.

The flight was uneventful, the plane was so small I had to duck to get in the door and walk down the aisle, and I'm not that tall. Other than that, I'm still holding off on that decision of mine, but it looks more and more likely that once I get over the fact that I'll be spending a ton of money to do it, I will end up in Israel this summer!

Done, finally.

After 7 exams and 2 papers, I have made it out alive. The year is over and I'm this close (imagine me putting 2 fingers near eachother...) to being a JUNIOR! WOW! After numerous times calling the airline to try and switch my flight to this afternoon and no luck, I'll settle for 10 AM tomorrow.

No new developments in my summer plans, except that I applied to potentially take summer courses if I want, meaning, if I decide to, which I hope not to, YU will accept the credits. I really don't want to. It was the smart thing to do though because worse comes to worse, I do want to get credit for any classes I do take.

So, this semester was definitely an improvement on last, in just about all the ways possible. We moved from Muss to Rubin, likely the best decision of our lives. My grades went up (hopefully, but so far I think I'm doing much better...) and in general, the first semester was a lot of settling in, and now I know the system much better. I can't say I look forward to next year, but I know that my schedule will certainly be easier for the Fall '06 semester for a number of reasons.

For now, I'm home for hopefully a little under a month and then off to Israel if it all works out, but that's really up in the air, as I haven't booked a ticket yet. At home I'll probably just do a lot of sleeping, maybe an odd job here or there working at my old school or something. I'm just ready to get home finally since I'll be under no pressure until September, which although YU isn't so hard except during finals and the week before, it will still be amazing to just relax.

the home stretch...

I've got most of my finals behind me now. Marketing is on Monday and Computer Programming (probably my hardest final) is Wednesday. Today I applied to 3 jobs in Washington, D.C. as a backup for Israel. I spoke to my program coordinator in Israel who is really trying to convince me to take that internship there, so it's a really tough decision. I am not expecting any communication from the 3 online applications I filled out, so basically its a decision between Israel and home at this point. I dont know what to do, because I am a cheap jew and I dont want to spend $2000 or more this summer for an awesome social experience and meeting a lot of cool people, and of course being in israel but probably being bored at the "internship"...uch...i dunno....

last shabbat in YU im excited to go home next thursday...its gonna be sad saying bye to people, of course ill see just about everyone next year (a few guys are transferring or making aliyah!! I'M KINDA JEALOUS!!), but still ive made some good friends this year so its still hard to go! ok thats all i got for now...hopefully my summer will be more exciting and bring more life to this blog...i may or may not blog until i'm home...we'll see...

On to the real finals...

Woke up 15 minutes after my Bamidbar final started today, I was pretty mad at myself. I think I aced it though. Having typed up 9 pages of notes last night really helped, especially since I didn't take notes all semester. Gotta love open note finals, seriously...the best thing that ever happened to final exams.

I have one more of those coming, but it will be much harder than today's. Oh, today's weather sucked this morning. Why isn't it hot out yet?


I really don't have anything much else to blog about. My roommate packed up all my clothes in my bag as a "prank". Good thing, now I don't have to pack up next week, I'll just leave it in there until then. Apparently, I walked in and that wasn't the whole prank, I'm guessing he was going to hang my bag out the window and maybe do more stuff, lots of fun times on Rubin 4!!! I have accounting tommorow afternoon, my first real exam. I need to do well, so hopefully I'll do well enough. Alright thats all for now!

1 down...

Sorry, couldn't think of a better title. But, this week, thats all I'm thinking about. How many finals left and how many days until vacation. My gemara test went well, I hope. I can never tell how I do on a test, I can't estimate how many I think I got right, so I just hope for the best. Tomorrow, 2 more jewish studies finals and then Wednesday starts the stuff that really matters, starting with accounting 2.

Today, I worked on the commentator's website, added some cool new features, like a poll and user comments for articles. It was a relaxing day, since I had the exam in the morning and then 2 review classes later at the day.

When i got back to my room, my roommate finally did what he was threatening to do (as a joke) all year. He put a mechitza in the room, it's really funny. It was a joke, don't worry, we get along great. He got a mattress and a sheet and put them on a rope and whatever its hilarious...I put a pic in but you maybe can't get the real feel of it unless you see it.

The Berlin Mechitza

Who knows how long it will stay up, it kinda breaks up the room, which I guess was it's intention.

After I tried to break down the wall/mechitza and was unsuccessful, it's just as strong as the one it's built in honor of, I headed off to study. 9 pages of typed notes for Sefer Bamidbar later, and then about 20 minutes of "studying" for hebrew, and I think i can call it a successful night.

Still no progress on deciding about Israel. My uncle called me today and said he might have a lead for me at his company in Washington, D.C. While it wouldn't be as amazing of an experience as Israel, if I were to able to get like a real internship there, it would be such an amazing opportunity, very hard to turn down. So we'll see what happens, I'd really like to go to Israel, so maybe they'll say, sorry, but we'd love to have you next year...that would be great!

I think ive done enough for tonight...i need to "try and get some good sleep" cuz i have 2 morning finals!

There's a first time for everything...

Well, after a few friends showed me their new blogs, I decided I would join the phenomenon, with this innaugraul post of "According to Ari...". Despite another friend nearly cursing me out for wanting to share my life on the internet, saying "Who cares what you have to say..." I went through with it. Sorry for wasting your time if you are one of those people.

Tomorrow morning at 9 starts the finals marathon. 10 days, 7 exams, 2 papers due. 10 days. I can do it. It will be tough, but I can do it.

I am on the heels of a decision on my summer. Well, close to the heels, not there yet. I didn't get the job I wanted at home, which officially was a backup in my mind, but it would have been an excellent backup no less. The guy couldn't hire me due to the tough economy, too bad. Now I have to decide whether to spend close to $2000 to have a really awesome summer in Israel at Yavneh Olami's Summer Internship Program. It really depends on what they give me, and if its remotely "worth-it" then I'll probably do it. Hopefully I'll find out this week.

Since I know you are already bored by reading my blog already, you should check out my 2 articles that appear in this issue of the Commentator, hot off the press tonight: New YP Honors Program Established and Serious Damage Avoided in Time Out Pizza Blaze.

Well, thats all for me for tonight. I hope to keep this updated and regular and I hope you enjoy it.