Jewish Rabbi: Conclusion to my long day
Man, what a day! As if my long day of flight cancellations weren't enough, I had another interesting encounter on the way back. (If you missed the whole thing, read from 2 blog entries ago...."Stuck in LGA")
So after finally taking off from NYC to Syracuse (instead of Ithaca, since the flights were all cancelled), I arrived at the Syracuse airport with no ride back to Ithaca. As I was telling a friend of mine on the phone how I was stuck in Syracuse and somehow needed to find a way back to Ithaca (which was 50 miles away!), the guy next to me on the plane overheard and offered to give me a ride in his friend's car since he was also going to Ithaca. Apparently, this guy was going to Cornell for a speech that he was giving. He was probably in his late late 40's or early 50's and seemed pretty nice so I decided to take up on his offer. His name was Steve.
It turned out that the friends that came to pick him up were these 2 Directors from Cornell University from the Center for Diversity and a PhD Physist student (all very important people). Apparently, Steve is some favmous speaker/writer who was coming here to give a speech on Jewish religious studies. In the car, one of the director showed me the book that he wrote. The book was on the topic of "Homesexuality in the Jewish Community". Whoa, right?! That just woke me right up. Not only that, he turned out to be a Jewish Rabbi! Actually, later I realized that everybody in the car (but me!) was all Jewish. Apparently, the book is all about his personal experience growing up being a Jewish and gay. So the whole drive back to Ithaca, we (or I should say "they") had a lot of very interesting "academic" type of conversation on Jewish community, various religion and how it takes part in our life, and about differerent sexuality in various cultural communities. The discussions were quite interesting since up until now, I know only a little bit about the Jewish culture, religion, and other stuff they were talking about in the car. Although I couldn't contribute much to their heated debates and discussions, I thought it was quite interesting just sitting there listening to what they have to say. They were all very nice people and it was fun talking to them and learning about new things that I've never really given much thought about.
I think this whole talk about religion made me start to think how I should maybe one day pick up a religion? Although my parents are Buddhist, I'm technically an atheist since I don't practice any specific religion. Besides my parents, I think the only other person in my family is my youngest brother who happens to be Christian. I think my brother Tom and I are just indifferent about a specific religion since religion wasn't a big part of life growing up.
Finally came home at 5pm after starting my day at 7am! I was exhausted. I think I'm too tired to travel anymore. Even though its an all expense paid trip, I've decided not to go to Singapore next week. I think I just want to hang out here and just relax and catch up on my TiVo =D
So after finally taking off from NYC to Syracuse (instead of Ithaca, since the flights were all cancelled), I arrived at the Syracuse airport with no ride back to Ithaca. As I was telling a friend of mine on the phone how I was stuck in Syracuse and somehow needed to find a way back to Ithaca (which was 50 miles away!), the guy next to me on the plane overheard and offered to give me a ride in his friend's car since he was also going to Ithaca. Apparently, this guy was going to Cornell for a speech that he was giving. He was probably in his late late 40's or early 50's and seemed pretty nice so I decided to take up on his offer. His name was Steve.
It turned out that the friends that came to pick him up were these 2 Directors from Cornell University from the Center for Diversity and a PhD Physist student (all very important people). Apparently, Steve is some favmous speaker/writer who was coming here to give a speech on Jewish religious studies. In the car, one of the director showed me the book that he wrote. The book was on the topic of "Homesexuality in the Jewish Community". Whoa, right?! That just woke me right up. Not only that, he turned out to be a Jewish Rabbi! Actually, later I realized that everybody in the car (but me!) was all Jewish. Apparently, the book is all about his personal experience growing up being a Jewish and gay. So the whole drive back to Ithaca, we (or I should say "they") had a lot of very interesting "academic" type of conversation on Jewish community, various religion and how it takes part in our life, and about differerent sexuality in various cultural communities. The discussions were quite interesting since up until now, I know only a little bit about the Jewish culture, religion, and other stuff they were talking about in the car. Although I couldn't contribute much to their heated debates and discussions, I thought it was quite interesting just sitting there listening to what they have to say. They were all very nice people and it was fun talking to them and learning about new things that I've never really given much thought about.
I think this whole talk about religion made me start to think how I should maybe one day pick up a religion? Although my parents are Buddhist, I'm technically an atheist since I don't practice any specific religion. Besides my parents, I think the only other person in my family is my youngest brother who happens to be Christian. I think my brother Tom and I are just indifferent about a specific religion since religion wasn't a big part of life growing up.
Finally came home at 5pm after starting my day at 7am! I was exhausted. I think I'm too tired to travel anymore. Even though its an all expense paid trip, I've decided not to go to Singapore next week. I think I just want to hang out here and just relax and catch up on my TiVo =D
posted by Jack at 12:59 AM
3 Comments:
you sure you couldnt contribute? or you just didnt want to come out in front of strangers? i am sure you had plenty to share from your "experiences", if you wanted to. it's ok jack, we accept you as who you are. he he he
hahaha... LOL
kin, actually, I was able to mention to them about your "experiences" and what that meant for the chinese/japanese community..hehe. don't worry, we don't discriminate.. equal opportunity here.. lol
What fun luck!
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