Tempted

It’s the weekend between week 8 and 9 here in Hyde Park. And it’s Memorial Day weekend. A “holiday” weekend. Which, apparently, falls appropriately at a point where I have to write papers for finals in order to feel successful. So, I am. Or will. Yesterday I wrote notes and a presentation outline. Today, I am blogging instead of starting. I have notes. 2 different files of notes and one outline. I also have the paper proposal open. We are ready. Open yet another new document…

Instead, I am thinking about the Borders rewards coupon sitting in my inbox. 40% off. I am moving soon. I am getting kicked out of my housing and moving everything to a storage unit–which I have not yet reserved. And so, buying another book, especially after a quarter where I ended up buying more than 10 is probably not a good idea. But, the idea of going to borders and paying 5 or 7 dollars for a new book of fiction sounds wonderful (and I have a gift card with $5 left!). Kind of like heaven. What is one more book, especially when it’s so cheap? But, I am a grad student, living off a pittance of loans and other small incomes, and it will add another weight to one of the many boxes of books. This is why Borders sent out a Memorial Day weekend coupon with such a large discount. To tempt me. To lead me, a bookworm, away from my computer and productivity and towards the nearest big box bookstore (or down Lake Shore Drive to my favorite).

knowing that spring is here

I wish that I had a digital camera. I promise to either borrow or buy one for my time in Israel. I know that spring is here because the view outside my window is no longer of a plastic bag wound around a high branch of a tree and a clear sight of the parking lot. Instead, it’s images of that springy green color–of leaves. Lots of leaves. And no clear view of the parking lot. I can see the nearly flourescent green of the moss under my window that slowly merges with regular grass halfway down the parking lot length (to the side). I see rain now and often. Here in the upper midwest, we’ve been experiencing lots of rain. But, then there is a day like yesterday. Where I rode my bike to school for the first time this spring (I was slow in filling my tires). And the sky was perfectly blue and the temperature was perfectly just under 70 degrees. They had a bbq for graduate students and when I walked up to the lawn where it was being held, seeking out my friend, I saw so many people all over the lawn sprawling nearly down to the sidewalk. It began at 4, and the food was gone before I got there, at 5:30. We ate on a restaurant patio instead.

a case of the Mondays

I have a case of the Mondays today.

Why?

Let’s see:

1. I couldn’t get through the 1.5 hours of class before break without dashing downstairs for a bathroom break during class. The problem was the coffee. The other problem was the fact that about 1/2 before the mad dash downstairs I had started obsessing. And when you start obsessing about having to do something like that, you cannot concentrate. Which wouldn’t be that bad if you weren’t in a small class and sat close to the teacher.

2. In the same class, I didn’t have the copy of the primary source, because there were 2 copies on Reserve. I had decided not to even try to get one of those copies. It was no fun. And it didn’t help with my obsessing about #1.

3.Other stuff that I can’t talk about.

4.The university grad housing office is so entrenched in bureaucracy and customer service is clearly not their goal. I have to move out on June 14, I’ve decided not to “transfer” apartments, which means I have to pay another deposit (which I’ll get back of course). But the manager even threatened to take away my monetary compensation for having to get kicked out early. Until she read the fine print, again. Unbelievable!

5. The fact that I’m sitting in the music building not getting work done. Like I do every other Monday night of my school life. I hate the lights, the building’s temperature, the noise, and the location of my desk: conveniently located next to the men’s single stall bathroom with a vent. Lovely.

First Hike of 2009

Here in Chicago I’ve been craving the woods. Everywhere in the city there are people, even if you don’t see them. They are there, living in the 3 flats and high rises, walking along lakeshore path, or driving down the street. Even though I knew that I’d see some people on a trail in the woods, I figured it would be a good place for peace.

I went home on Friday evening, arriving just in time for Shabbat dinner. Yum! Saturday was a lazy day, beginning with laundry and Riley’s graduation from “teenager” class at obedience school. I’m so proud. I ran errands and then in late afternoon my sister and I got ready for a hike. We had planned to go to Governor Dodge, which is our favorite state park. But it wasn’t going to work out timewise. We tried out a new park: Indian Lake County Park which was about 20 minutes outside of town. It was perfect. There was a pretty lake and it was situated on the edge of the driftless region, which always makes things interesting.

We chose the easiest hike as we were still short on time. The hike was about 1.3 miles. Although labeled as easiest, at other parks it would at least be considered a hike of medium difficulty. There were lots of steep hills. The views were great, and we saw many fallen trees. My sister and talked and walked and she took some photos. Here are a few that Allison took:

And sisters on the first hike of 2009:

Chag Sameach Pesach! Happy Passover!

It’s begun. My favorite holiday of the year. A celebration of freedom and a recollection of oppression. My fondest seder memories are of Smith, of course, where I labored, sophomore and senior year, for hours in the weeks preceeding the holidy in the basement graphic design lab in Seeley, creating and digitzing the Smith Hagaddah. That is where I felt closest to the holiday and where I began to cherish its existence. My first year at Smith, I merely contributed a portion to the zine-like collaboration that turned into the Hagaddah. But, after that year, when the wonderful seniors had graduated, I aspired to make it easy to change out different sections, to reflect the annual themse. So, I digitized it, using first Pagemaker and then InDesign. It was a difficult, yet fun and intense experience for my partner-in-crime, M and I. The product was beautiful.

This year, I only went to one seder. It was the family seder, where we use a 1950s version of the Union Hagaddah. This is an old-school reform document with all the thous and thys in place. In years past, I’ve felt offended by its content. But, after I changed the gendered language when spoke last year, one of the parents finally explained why we still read from it. I love history, especially Jewish history and family histor. So, now, since I understand that it is a family tradition, a historic re-enactment, if you will, of our family’s seders, that happen the same way each year, I am accepting of its gendered language. And while we read from the book, I think about how far we’ve come.

Our seders have changed over the years of my memory. Sometimes, we’d have them in Florida. And some years, my immediate family couldn’t make it to the big Chicago family seder, and we’d have it in whatever small city  in Wisconsin we lived in, with a hodge-podge of other families who also chose not to travel. We used to have them at my aunt’s old house, and then her new house. And now that she’s older and tired, her daughter hosts the seder. We used to have brisket and chicken. Now, we have chicken and steak from the grill. We always have our cousin (parent’s age) who makes up a prayer to bless the egg, because no one ever claims to remember how to say it in Hebrew (although this year someone did). We sing out of tune. We compete on “who knows one”. And of course, the youngest look for the affikomen. What’s different is how old everyone is. We have some babies that didn’t come. But the children looking for the affikomen numbered 2, and they were in 4th and 5th grade. I can now have reasonable, non-awkward conversations with my college-aged cousins (I’m second oldest in our generation). Although I did regale  them of stories of our first family reunions, when they were babies and toddlers.

And even though I was tired from the crazy bus to train ride that it took to get out to the suburbs after a day of classes and a week of non-stop reading, the seder was fun. And it reminded me how I miss and love my extended family.

The New Class Review

It’s Monday of the second week of the quarter. All of my classes have met once. And today’s, of course, has met twice. This quarter will be good, I think. The first year of grad school is about finding balance, and figuring out what works best for your learning style. Of one thing I’m certain: quarter system is NOT for me. I really struggle with the accellerated nature of our classes. I basically need to have 3 final paper ideas by next week. Which will only be our third meeting. Ugh.

I’m taking an assortment this quarter, based on what programs I’m planning on applying to next year. I’m taking a class on women in American religious history, a class on scriptural authority in rabbinic literature, and a class on Orientalism. One of the best parts of this quarter is the new faces. Our cohort is so big that I haven’t met everybody. So this week and last, I’ve met 3 new people! Apparently, one has seen me before and remembers me because I have a cute, short hair cut. Which is really nice of her, and a funny way to remember someone you don’t know…

Other exciting things of note:

On Friday we (friends and I) went to see Marjane Satrapi, writer of Persepolis. She was amazing! and it was fun to hear someone like that speak in a very un-U of C environment (we were at Columbia College).

And on Saturday, I went out to Logan Square to hang out with my Smith friends. Which was fun, nice, and normal. I made Hazelnut-Spinach pesto pasta with walnuts as a substitute. It was sooooo green. What was fun, though, was infusing the olive oil with a rosmary sprig. You could really taste the rosemary in the pesto. We had a few other things as well, including some really yummy chocolate-mint bars too.

I also helped out at the Divinity Students Association book sale on Saturday. I helped sort books. And tomorrow, I will help sell for a couple of hours. I am not planning on buying anything, no matter how tempting (unless it’s a school book).  It was a really nice couple of hours hanging out with people I don’t see as often.

All-in-all a good weekend.

Spring Break is over

I had a lovely spring break. It was exactly what I needed: relaxation.

Unfortunately, it began in a rather panicky way. After spending a wonderful day with my parents, sister, aunt, and the puppy, my sister and I had Sunday school. Well, I had school to teach and she had a website to design.  So, that wasn’t break. We spent Sunday afternoon downtown, mostly people watching. She took photos at Millenium Park, we went to a cupcake bakery and bought mini-cupcakes. yum! We ate those at Borders while reading/people watching from above. We finished off our day with some yummy thai food and TV.

Monday morning was an early morning. I had ordered a cab the night before to take us to the Blue Line el stop, to shave off some travel time. Unfortunately, the cab hadn’t arrived 15 minutes after it’s promised time. So, we had to shlep to the bus to the train station. It was super windy. And I ended up running upstairs for my winter coat, which I had hoped to leave behind. After getting into the train station, my sister got her handle stuck. Whoops. I went back through the turnstile to detach it. And, of course, it wouldn’t turn again. And the machine freaked out at my card, not letting me back in. I never have gone over/under a turnstile in a subway before. Now, I have. I am short, so I craweled UNDER the turnstile. What an experience! It happened so fast that I have no details. Needless to say, we got to the airport on time. We LOVED JetBlue. It was so nice to have the personal TV screens and the free snacks (with variety) were great.

Our stay in Florida was very relaxing, as I said. My grandparents live in a country club, with a pool at the house and one at the “club”. We spent a lot of time at the club, because my grandparents decided not to keep the pool heat on. What did we do? mostly we read by the pool or swam. The weather was in the low 70s, not super warm, and there were 10-15 mph winds every day. The wind made it chilly, so that was a disappointment. But, we did get to the beach, where we did not swim. Too windy and cold. We read and my sister took really cool photos.

We had some really nice meals with my grandparents. And, for me, it was just so nice to be cooked for. And, of course, we had my Grandma’s amazing blintzes. There’s nothing like them. ANYWHERE.

We were supposed to go to a one-person theater production, however that person was sick so the show was cancelled. We thought about going to the movies, but nothing good was playing that all of us hadn’t seen. So, TV was our primary evening entertainment. We should have played a game, actually…but we didn’t. One day, though, we took Grandma to Whole Foods. They just built one nearby. That was really fun. They won’t shop there, of course, but it was a fun experience. The store was really nice and instead of the cool noodle shop at the new South Loop location, they had an espresso bar/gelato shop. (I know they sell gelato everywhere, but this was formatted differently).Good evening entertainment!

I enjoyed myself and soaked vitamin D into my skin, hopefully it’ll last. And I only got sunburned at the beach, inconveniently on my calves. Oh well.

What I have been doing during Finals week of Winter Quarter 2009

1. bought junk food including veggie booty, organic teddy grahams (they were the same price as the non-organic ones!), pretzels, and goldfish (ok, I actually buy these quite often, and a 12 pack of diet cherry coke and one of diet root beer.

2. eaten said junk food (except for the pretzels). and Thai and Chinese food. finals treats.

3. taken walks.

4. talked to Smithies on the phone for hours. Ok. this happens a lot anyway, because I love my Smith friends. But, still it’s happened this week too.

5. had coffee with 2 Smithies at U of C.

6. Spent hours upon hours studying hebrew. Really, this is what I’ve been doing with my time.

7. reading blogs, expecially parenting blogs, I love the kid stories! and I was really into unschooling blogs but now, I’m starting to realize that I wouldn’t really like their kids. They have no limits. (most families) and some even let their kids eat whatever they want whenever they want and go to bed without limits (which means, apparently, staying up until 11PM or 1AM as a preschooler, NOT cool).

8. skyping and emailing with my amazing friend N (who’s a U of C friend)

9. being tutored in Hebrew and going to an extra long review session.

10. scheming about lesson plans for Sunday school

11. planning my paper (1 of 2)

12. looking at apartments. Ok, only did this yesterday. But I will do it again tomorrow.

13. having panic attacks and worrying that my text messages don’t go through. and then panicking about that (so silly!)

14. Spending 2 hours at the allergists only to discover that the sinus infection that I thought was gone about a month ago is still lingering and that there might be an extra special infection just in my nose. Fun! I have had a sinus infection for 6 months straight now. I’m super cool and chock-full of antibiotics again. yay!

what do I need to do?

Well, before midnight, I need to turn in a paper. And then I need to start another one, but I’ll turn it in later, I guess.

And on Monday I will be taking a vacation!!!! to Florida!!!! where it’ll be warm and I can go swimming and hang out with my sister and grandparents.

Friday 5

1. One is the number of times I’ve gotten to sleep past 7 this week (and that means that I got up earlier, sometimes lots and lots earlier!)

2. Two are the number of times I’ve been in Chicago in the last week (Saturday and Wednesday).

3. Now, I’ll stop being silly. Well, kind of, because 2 are the number of times that I was stood up at various apartment viewings on Wednesday. One, the person didn’t write it down. And 2, she was actually getting a chemo treatment when I called to find out why she wasn’t there. I felt very bad, and eventually her son came to show me the 2 apartments.

4. Needless to say, I didn’t find anything I really liked. I do have a lead on a building/managment company that could be good. But, of course, I wasn’t planning on going back into Chicago until after my summer job ends. I might have to see if I can convince a friend to check the apartments out for me.

5. I like that the trees are green, but I’m not so excited about how much pollen is in the air. Aaaachoo!

Musing on Composting

When I moved to Maine, I became roommates with two fabulous Salt alums. Somehow, after my brief visit a month or so earlier, I decided that they composted. I’m not sure why I made that decision, perhaps it was out of longing. But, they really didn’t have much of a yard behind the lovely 3-flat. So, I asked where I should put my compost? And my roommate was startled and said that they didn’t compost. At the time I was embarrassed and a little weirded out by my desire to compost. But, now, I realize that I’ve been composting off and on for most of my life. We frequently composted for our gardens growing up. And I had just been at my parent’s house, where we most definitely brought out our plant products to the composter. So, I guess it was habitual.

And at Smith, we composted at the Kosher Kitchen. And in Chicago, I would compost when visiting a coop or such. If I lived somewhere with a garden or easy access to a larger composter, I would love to do it again.