Still obsessed with Wicked!

...and it's been almost 5 months. That musical was phenomenal. I listen to the soundtrack, I find out stupid little details about the current, past and future casts in all of the productions, and I get defensive about the Wicked Witch of the West (known dearly to me as Elphaba). It's like, a serious thing for me. And I suddenly felt the need to vent.
While I'm on the subject, I should mention that I'm reading Son of a Witch, the sequel to Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. I'm about halfway through, and I'm not loving it, I think, for lack of characters from Wicked. It's not bad, but I never particularly liked Liir (Elphaba's son- in the book, not the musical) so what happens to him is not very intriguing to me.
However, I did love the dedication at the beginning of the book. Because the sequel to The Wizard of Oz was dedicated to some of the cast members from The Wizard of Oz on Broadway, Gregory Maguire dedicated Son of a Witch to the cast, creators and crew of Wicked. I was so excited when I saw that!
Back to my obsession. I can't see myself ever getting over it, but I know that's wrong. I'd really love to see it again, but I'm not going to be anywhere it's peforming for at least a year and a half, and next chance I have to see a broadway musical, I'm probably not going to see Wicked, since I can only see one musical when I'm in the States, every 2 years, and I might as well see something I haven't seen before. Right now I'm searching for a fansite to quench my thirst, but the internet isn't providing anything worthwhile. I should go to sleep.

Grr.

We had school today.

It's... snowing!

Yes, it is! And this was my day so far:
I've had a cold for the past few days, and this morning it expanded to include a sore throat. Then there was getting to school at 9:30 because of this abnormal traffic, due to the very heavy rain. I had a chemistry test during the first two periods, but the rest of the day was something of a waste of time because all of the teachers were sick and almost nobody was there. They let us out an hour early, and I found myself hoping I wouldn't get stuck in Yerushalayim when the snow decided to come down. There was a tiny bit of snow when I was on my way home, but nothing noteworthy, or sticky for that matter. I walked home from the bus while being pelted with tiny hailstones, but no snow.
When I got home, I went on my computer for a bit and hung out with my brother Noam. I was helping him build this Lego truck, and suddenly my sister Sarah comes in and says, "Have you looked out the window?" We hadn't, and therefore failed to notice the thin layer of white on our front lawn. We worked on the truck some more, and then my sister Mira called us downstairs and told us to look out the window. There were massive amounts of flakes falling, and everything outside was white. We were kind of thrilled...
Awhile later Mira and the boys and I went outside, and we had a bit of fun in the snow. It was really beautiful in the snow at night, but the sad thing about this country is that nobody can guarantee it'll be there tomorrow. What's the point of snow, especially in Israel, if school doesn't get canceled?
Anyway, of course tonight had to be the night our gas broke at home. That means, no hot showers, and no use of the stove, which means a lot of the "snow foods" aren't available. On top of that, we also lost power for about 20 minutes.
I managed to get a short shower, and dinner was soup out of the freezer. Thank heavens for the microwave!
So I started feeling a bit worse, and I took my temperature. Now I have a drop of fever, but that's just frustrating. I hate being sick and having no fever, so since I had a cold anyway I would have much preferred to have the fever on one of the earlier days this week.
So that's our story. I think snow is good any time.

The End of an Era

This is so sad. It's also exhilirating. Yes, we Potter-freaks are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but unlike most lights we're really sad to see it. But the fact is: The era of the Harry Potter fandom, of the waiting and speculation about the future books will be over somewhat soon. We don't know when, yet, but the title of Book 7 was released today: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It sounds freaky, of course we have no idea what it means, but the point is, it symbolizes that the last HP book will be released at some point on the horizon, and then there will be no more HP speculation!
This is sad.

Eragon

Now is the time where I need to post on my blog and tell everybody whether or not I liked the Eragon movie, and the sad fact is I have no idea what to say.
First of all, they made quite a few unnecessary changes from the book. Too many. Some of them may be because they weren't sure they were doing a sequel, but a lot of them were for no good reason.
That said, I think if I hadn't read the book the movie would be pretty good. Some of the actors weren't great, but I was very impressed by Ed Speleers (Eragon), who is a new actor. The more experienced actors (especially Jeremy Irons as Brom) were great. Although the relationship between those two characters was supposed to be closer than it was in the movie. Not to mention that the relationship between Eragon and his dragon Saphira (voiced by Rachel Weisz)was supposed to be very very tight, and it wasn't. Oh, well. Such is life.
Oh, and they completely butchered Angela, who's one of my favorite characters in the book. I don't know what was up with the movie Angela, but they might as well have cut her for all the difference she made.
So, did I like the movie? I have no idea.

Chanukah!

A little closer... almost there... just a little more... I made it! I've finally reached this glorious vacation, and I'm ecstatic! Chanukah vacation comes out to 9 school-free days, including Shabbatot and Fridays.
So: The plans. Savta's here, so that's always fun. We have a Bar Mitzvah on the second Shabbat, and between Monday and Thursday we'll be in Eilat. I have plans to see Eragon, the movie version of one of my favorite books, on Sunday, and I can't wait! Other than that, the plan is to take advantage of my time to work on my Neturei Karta paper. Speaking of fun...
So, everyone, have a great Chanukah! I'm trying to think of some cheesy line to say involving lights, but I'm not thinking of anything, so we'll leave it at that.

Neturei Karta

Yes, I'm writing my big paper this year on Neturei Karta. Neturei Karta is a group of Chassidim extremely opposed to Zionism. They believe Israel- my home, I might add- has no right to exist, they maintain close ties with various Arab organizations, and the reject the State of Israel even though a bunch of them live here. I should also mention that they're somewhat outcast within the Chassidim.
I've just been taking notes from their site, which inconveniently enough, isn't available in Hebrew (on principle, it looks like, although it is available in Arabic and German and a bunch of other languages) which means that everything I read needs to be translated into Hebrew.
Anyway, their site is driving me crazy! Everything they say is so opposed to everything I believe in, and it's hard. I mean, taking notes is easy because their views are so clear, but whoever said Zionism rejects Hashem? And since when does most of the world believe (wrongly, of course) that Zionism and Judaism are the same thing? I certainly don't.
On that happy note, have a good week!