An Evening for Giggles

Today was Yom HaShoah- something I kept forgetting until it was occasionally put in my face. I, in fact, thoughtlessly put up an away message of “Thou shalt not murder because it leads to a decline in population.” -Professor Kimelman and then felt sheepish afterwards. I also spent a random hour talking with one of the grad students whom I know from Hasidism class last semester between Biblical Ritual class and meeting with my Hebrew teacher in order to discuss my Hebrew presentation which needs a heck of a lot of practice, but which is about Israeli Dance, which makes many things better. So we started off talking about Patriot's Day, and ended up talking about Ethiopian Jewry in Israel and their interactions with the Rabbinate and the rest of Israeli society. And it sort of tempted me to rethink heading towards the rabbinate in some non-congregational capacity as my goal. I think academia is still pulling ahead, but...

(Random quote from conversation with Amanda, about a girl who used to worship idols: "And then she moved to Jerusalem and had 5 kids- and she started at 38". My response: "Bleah")

This evening, starting at dinner, and going through this evening's dancing, was rather giggle-filled. DInner rehashed a number of less than appropriate remarks that really and truly amused me- especially the one that sounded dirty, and was really talking about tzitzit, which set off the whole discussion. I dragged myself away to go get my things and go dancing- and the car ride there proceeded to be hilarious. As was the car ride back- I heard a story about a grad student's kid who heard Daddy talk about assorted deities all the time, and so, playing with his playdoh made a god, and freaked out his mom, and we offered to exorcise Matt, and learned that Ronald Regan was possessed by inept aliens, amongst other things. In between, I heard numerous amusing Pesach stories, and after asking how old Angela's children are (19, 17, 15, and 12), she in returned asked about the ages of mine. I responded that I was as old as her oldest child, and she was shocked and a bit disturbed. Samara tells me that I ought to answer next time I get that question "the sqaure root of negative eight"- because imaginary children should have imaginary ages. There were also just a ton of people at dancing, between it being after 2 weeks of no dancing, and because people's kids were on vacation from school. There was a ratehr cute 9th grade girl who came whom I hope comes again, but don't think will- she's got potential once she relaxed into it a bit. But the ones who come with their mom at that age rarely start dancing regularly. Unfortunate, but it seems to be generally true.

Today's also been a good day for random facts. Included have been, from fleurdelis28, that hamsters can tolerate 40 times as much alcohol per unit of body mass as people can, but that chocolate, kudzu juice or somethign else makes them uninterested in it. Also that some people think that New York bagels are good because of the water quality. I'm forgetting the others now, but they'll come back to me later I hope.

An Evening for Giggles

Today was Yom HaShoah- something I kept forgetting until it was occasionally put in my face. I, in fact, thoughtlessly put up an away message of “Thou shalt not murder because it leads to a decline in population.” -Professor Kimelman and then felt sheepish afterwards. I also spent a random hour talking with one of the grad students whom I know from Hasidism class last semester between Biblical Ritual class and meeting with my Hebrew teacher in order to discuss my Hebrew presentation which needs a heck of a lot of practice, but which is about Israeli Dance, which makes many things better. So we started off talking about Patriot's Day, and ended up talking about Ethiopian Jewry in Israel and their interactions with the Rabbinate and the rest of Israeli society. And it sort of tempted me to rethink heading towards the rabbinate in some non-congregational capacity as my goal. I think academia is still pulling ahead, but...

(Random quote from conversation with Amanda, about a girl who used to worship idols: "And then she moved to Jerusalem and had 5 kids- and she started at 38". My response: "Bleah")

This evening, starting at dinner, and going through this evening's dancing, was rather giggle-filled. DInner rehashed a number of less than appropriate remarks that really and truly amused me- especially the one that sounded dirty, and was really talking about tzitzit, which set off the whole discussion. I dragged myself away to go get my things and go dancing- and the car ride there proceeded to be hilarious. As was the car ride back- I heard a story about a grad student's kid who heard Daddy talk about assorted deities all the time, and so, playing with his playdoh made a god, and freaked out his mom, and we offered to exorcise Matt, and learned that Ronald Regan was possessed by inept aliens, amongst other things. In between, I heard numerous amusing Pesach stories, and after asking how old Angela's children are (19, 17, 15, and 12), she in returned asked about the ages of mine. I responded that I was as old as her oldest child, and she was shocked and a bit disturbed. Samara tells me that I ought to answer next time I get that question "the sqaure root of negative eight"- because imaginary children should have imaginary ages. There were also just a ton of people at dancing, between it being after 2 weeks of no dancing, and because people's kids were on vacation from school. There was a ratehr cute 9th grade girl who came whom I hope comes again, but don't think will- she's got potential once she relaxed into it a bit. But the ones who come with their mom at that age rarely start dancing regularly. Unfortunate, but it seems to be generally true.

Today's also been a good day for random facts. Included have been, from fleurdelis28, that hamsters can tolerate 40 times as much alcohol per unit of body mass as people can, but that chocolate, kudzu juice or somethign else makes them uninterested in it. Also that some people think that New York bagels are good because of the water quality. I'm forgetting the others now, but they'll come back to me later I hope.

More stuff

First off, why do apples taste different once they're cut up? I was all set to microwave the one I'm eating now, but it tastes too good on its own to bother.

Secondly- today I got to give my opinions on the Arabic department (aka Franck) to the reviewers who came in to observe and talk to students, etc. Only two of us showed up to talk to the Arabic department guy- I was quite surprised. But well, we were both pretty blunt about it, and the reviewer was pretty shocked and surprised, but we decided that a good bit of it was because he was still a grad student. But it was an interesting experience- to share my kvetches and occasional praises with an honest-to-G-d interested adult who isn't related to me. Of course, he tried to push his own program at the end, but I squirmed out with the excuse that it would be dreadfully hard to keep kosher in a regular family's home in Syria. Let's hear it for convenient excuses to get people to stop riding their own hobby-horse.

More stuff

First off, why do apples taste different once they're cut up? I was all set to microwave the one I'm eating now, but it tastes too good on its own to bother.

Secondly- today I got to give my opinions on the Arabic department (aka Franck) to the reviewers who came in to observe and talk to students, etc. Only two of us showed up to talk to the Arabic department guy- I was quite surprised. But well, we were both pretty blunt about it, and the reviewer was pretty shocked and surprised, but we decided that a good bit of it was because he was still a grad student. But it was an interesting experience- to share my kvetches and occasional praises with an honest-to-G-d interested adult who isn't related to me. Of course, he tried to push his own program at the end, but I squirmed out with the excuse that it would be dreadfully hard to keep kosher in a regular family's home in Syria. Let's hear it for convenient excuses to get people to stop riding their own hobby-horse.

Seasonal Word Abuse

TOmorrow is the day when we get tons upon tons of prefrosh. And I'm seeing interesting things done with the word, which is an odd enough one already (and I'm procrastinating)... SO, it started out as pre-freshman. The alternate flural for freshmen is, apparently frosh. So the plural of prefreshman is prefrosh. That said, presumably the sigular should be prefr esh, which I've heard, but which sounds weird. So now prefrosh is both plural and singular. ANd now I'm hearing prefroshes, which just seems redundant.

Seasonal Word Abuse

TOmorrow is the day when we get tons upon tons of prefrosh. And I'm seeing interesting things done with the word, which is an odd enough one already (and I'm procrastinating)... SO, it started out as pre-freshman. The alternate flural for freshmen is, apparently frosh. So the plural of prefreshman is prefrosh. That said, presumably the sigular should be prefr esh, which I've heard, but which sounds weird. So now prefrosh is both plural and singular. ANd now I'm hearing prefroshes, which just seems redundant.