Choking

Yesterday, I drove to Miami to meet with my future mentor, Sarah. The 4 hour drive there was quite pleasant (I learned to love long car rides when I went to college 5 hours away from home), and I wasn't even that nervous. When I arrived at our meeting spot, I saw it was on a stretch of road I was familiar with. Definitely a Jewish neighborhood, but in a pretty poor-looking part of a the Miami outskirts. My roommates and I once nearly rented a house there a long time ago, but after seeing the bars on the windows and shady neighbors, we high-tailed it out of there. Here's hoping that same feeling doesn't creep back when I need to move there for real.

Anyway, our meeting spot was a Jewish women's store, connected to another Jewish-owned convenience store. In between was a tiny place that appeared to once sell tznius clothing. When I walked inside, there were about 6 or 7 women preparing large bins of food from a HUGE shelf that looked like it had been stolen from the local grocery store. I located Sarah, and we went into a small back office to chat. Awkwardly, there was another young woman in there who did not introduce herself or speak the entire time (45 minutes), but did listen to everything we talked about.

After Sarah and I got acquainted, she started right in about what it means to study with her: honesty, honesty, honesty: don't come to her class wearing nylons and long skirts, tell her you only eat kosher, and you don't go out on Shabbos if you actually are not ready. If she walks past the local McDonald's and you're sitting in there with a tank top on and eating McNuggets, the conversion is off. Not because of the spaghetti straps and the mystery meat, but because you were dishonest in how observant you are. Everything will come in time, she told me, and it's important to do only the things I am ready for.

Luckily, I haven't worn pants or shorts in over 2 years (except for one pair of jeans I owned which I wore to work on Saturdays at an old job - it was kind of like an extra push on my conscience because I didn't want to be working on Shabbos). I can add nylons easily, and I think that I will soon. In fact, they were part of my daily wardrobe for a while, but became discontinued after major Florida heat issues. Now that I'm a little more acclimated, everything should be fine.

Clothing will be the easiest part of this whole transformation. I'm mostly terrified of the school-like aspect of what will begin when I officially start studying with Sarah. I'm not a "bad" student, and I used to love school, but I am not one of those engaged students who loves to speak in class or mingle with classmates afterwards. I'm more of a show up, take notes, pay attention, and go home kind of student. I have a feeling this will not serve me well for this kind of studying. Here is my upcoming schedule:

Monday: 6:00-9:00 pm
Tuesday: 10:00 am-3:00 pm
Wednesday: 6:00-9:30 pm
Thursday: 10:00 am-3:00 pm
Friday/Saturday: hangin' with my host family and at the synagogue
Sunday: Test Days

Since I will be away from my husband and my dog for, oh, at least 8 months, I want to stuff my time with as much stuff as possible. Hopefully I can find a part-time job, and all the other time I have will be filled with studying. Oh, and speaking of my dog, Sarah told me our meeting that I HAVE TO GIVE MY DOG AWAY. This happened in about the first five minutes, and I immediately started crying. Awkward. My husband was pretty upset by it when I called him bawling my eyes out after the meeting (I managed to contain myself for the rest of it!), so he called Sarah himself and they decided that we will find a new house where we can keep Nola outside, therefore not breaking the law of not keeping an animal under our same roof. Whew.

I have a LOT of housework to catch up on, and a lot of reading to start doing, so here's where I end for today. Will update when I discover when/where I'll be living and what my next steps are!