Graduate School: Week 1 Recap

As I mentioned previously, over the summer I started a graduate program in Washington DC! The summer was jam-packed with new friends, new projects, and new museum jargon. After a whirlwind 6-week summer semester, I returned to Birmingham for the month of August to digest all this new information and to pack up my life for a permanent move to DC.

I've been back for a week and I've hit the ground running! It seems easiest at this point to split my life into three categories: Personal, Religious, and Academic.

Personal
My new apartment in Silver Spring is wonderful and still has that new-apartment smell! I quickly learned how to get from my building to important places like the Metro, grocery store, and Starbucks, but I'm still working on remembering how to get to the downtown shopping center. There is a Ben and Jerry's and a New York & Co. downtown, so I'm sure I will find my way back there soon enough. Yesterday, I learned how to take the bus to the day school I will be working at for the semester. The apartment itself is beautiful.

My living and dining room

We have a great view of the Metro tracks and what will eventually be a landscaped park area. For now, Marc is still in Birmingham, so the apartment is pretty sparse and quiet. I can't wait until he moves here with me permanently to start his new job (three weeks and counting). This summer and the next three weeks are the first (and hopefully last) time I have ever lived alone. It's incredibly boring and lonely to live alone, so it has forced me to become more of an extrovert.

Religious
Learning my way around a new town also means finding the kosher food and the synagogues. Silver Spring (and Southern Maryland in general) has a large Jewish population, so I have many options to choose from. The local Giant carries plenty of kosher products, but I also have two kosher grocery stores within driving distance for even more variety. I had heard very good things about Moti's (formerly Kosher Mart) in Rockville. The accompanying restaurant of the same name has excellent falafel, pita, and hummus, but I was more impressed by the grocery selection at Shalom Kosher right here in Silver Spring.

On the synagogue side of things, I have at least four options within about a mile of my house (and that's not including the Reform synagogue), all somewhere between Conservative and Modern Orthodox. The High Holidays are coming and, for the fourth year in a row, I am in a new place shul shopping in a rush to find a community in time for Rosh Hashanah. So far, I have visited one - Ohev Shalom. It was my first experience in a Modern Orthodox shul with a mechitza. The mechitza is a half-wall that runs down the middle of the room, so men and women can see each other and have equal space and sight lines to the action. The community was welcoming and we had a very nice lunch after the service with a few members (thanks to one of my classmates, Rena, who coordinated it at the last minute). We have since been invited to the Rabbi's home for dinner. I plan to continue my Jewish firsts this weekend with a trip to my first independent minyan, Segulah. After that, I will head back to my comfort zone in the Conservative movement at Tifereth Israel.

Academic
It's been a long time since I was in school with readings, assignments, and projects to do. I have to say that I was starting to like the nine-to-five professional life, but education has sucked me back in. I'm hoping that I have outgrown some of my worse undergrad habits - like procrastinating and drinking too much caffeine - over the past four years, but I guess we'll see about that. I couldn't be more excited about this program. It combines everything I have ever wanted to do. For those who don't know, I will be receiving a Master of Arts in Education and Human Development (M.A. in Ed. & H.D.) in Experiential Education and Jewish Cultural Arts (EEJCA). Yes, it's a mouthful. Basically, it is a combination of Museum Education and Jewish Cultural Studies. There are seven of us in this "pioneering" cohort trying to find our ways into the wide-ranging field of experiential Jewish education. In addition to learning about Jewish life in DC with my EEJCA cohort, we are also part of GW's Museum Education Program (MEP), which is a class of thirteen. Together, the twenty of us spent the summer learning the history and best practices of museum education. My vocabulary now includes phrases like "entrance and exit narrative," "lofty outcome," and "MEPiphany" (credit to my MEP friend Alli for that last one). I missed them all on our month off and was so glad to see everyone again this week.

Coming from Knox's trimester system, where each term was only ten weeks long, I am having trouble envisioning a regular sixteen-week semester, but I'm sure I will appreciate the extra time later. This semester I have three classes:

1. Contemporary Jewish Life will cover Jewish life in America after WWII, including topics like Jewish cultural and religious identity, food, and music. There is not a single thing on the syllabus that I am not excited to read about and discuss. The Pew survey on American Jewish life? Can't wait to re-read it! Judaism in the Diaspora? Awesome! Interfaith marriage? Bring it on. Join me in my love for this class by watching Stephen Colbert's 1-800-OOPS-JEW Atone Phone segments. The class will require weekly blog-style papers in response to our readings, so hopefully that will make me better at keeping up with my own blog. 
2. Museum Audiences also promises to be fascinating. I look forward to building a skill set that will allow me to engage museum visitors of all ages and backgrounds. It is important in any public presentation to know your audience and museum audiences are no different. My classmates have wide-ranging educational and professional experiences that I hope to learn from in this class. 
3. Field Placement and Seminar is designed to give us experience with an audience we are not particularly familiar with. I have been assigned to the Jewish Primary Day School of the Nation's Capital, where I will be teaching two special needs fifth grade Judaic Studies classes about art in relation to the Book of Exodus. I don't know anything about special needs education or art, so this will be fun. If you know of any art exhibitions in the Washington DC area that contain Biblical art (specifically about Exodus, if possible) and would be suitable for a fifth grade field trip, please give me suggestions! Thank you! 

This has been my first week of fall term. I will keep you posted as the weeks go on.