Playing by yourself is one thing, playing with an imaginary game is another.

The other day, I was practicing with my partner, Seth, and he wrote something in Hebrew on the whiteboard in the practice room (it wasn't ACTUALLY Hebrew, it was English words but with Hebrew letters). This small thing sort of rekindled my love for Hebrew. In fact, I went online and tried to re-learn the aleph-bet (which I knew at one point in my life...and now I am getting close to knowing it again!) by watching videos on YouTube.

A great aleph-bet video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiCzoTs1AdE

As you may have experienced at some point in your life, it is possible to get caught up in a crazy cycle of YouTubing. I ended up learning how to play dreidel, and although this is a 2+ person game, I decided to go practice by myself. Then I realized, I don't have a dreidel. Oops!

In case you're wondering, here's how you play, compliments of Wikipedia:

-Each player begins with an equal number of game pieces (usually 10-15). The game pieces can be any small object, such as pennies, raisins, or chocolate coins.

-At the beginning of each round, every participant puts one game piece into the center "pot". In addition, every time the pot is empty or has one game piece left, every player puts one in the pot.

-Each player spins the dreidel once during their turn. Depending on which side is facing up when it stops spinning, they give or take game pieces from the pot:

a) If nun is facing up, the player does nothing.

b) If gimmel is facing up, the player gets everything in the pot.

c) If heyis facing up, the player gets half of the pieces in the pot. (If there is an odd number, they get half of the total plus one)

d) If shin (or peh) is facing up, the player adds a game piece to the pot.

If the player is out of pieces, they are either "out" or may ask another player for a "loan".

When one person has won everything, that round of the game is over.