The Super Prayerbook

When I was visiting my grandparents this past weekend, my grandfather pointed to his collection of very old books. Since I'm in a psalms study group, I immediately noticed a little brown leather-bound book titled "Psalms and Hymns." I opened it to the first psalm, which clearly said "Jesus Christ" in the middle instead of "God" or "the Lord." Flipping through a few other psalms, I found that this occurred very frequently. There were also multiple versions of each psalm (in long meter, short meter, etc.).  

But this wasn't all that this little book had. It also had a detailed index of the psalms for meditation (based on themes and words in the psalms), several hymns, even more prayers, a guide for running a Presbyterian church, guidelines for weddings, funerals, and baptisms, how one should observe the sabbath, and a "short" catechism with 100 questions and answers about the beliefs of Christianity.

A "complete" Jewish prayerbook, in terms of the breadth of content, also covers the home and synagogue prayers for all Jewish holidays, as well as some traditional Jewish hymns. But it usually won't include psalms, nor does it tell you how a synagogue should be governed or how to organize a funeral and burial. Since Jewish law covers everything from how to keep the sabbath to how to inspect your veggies for bugs, it would be impossible to contain in a prayerbook even in a compact summarization.

However, one of the things I thought was wonderful about the Presbyterian prayerbook, though, was the organization of prayers by one's personal need. While there are some Jewish books with special prayers for funerals, visiting the Western Wall, or prayers for women (which are mostly about marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, and the purity laws), I haven't seen a prayerbook with headings such as "for the person whose brother got engaged" or "for the person who is moving away from home." Often, the everyday and not-everyday events that fall outside the services and  aren't accounted for, leaving one feeling that even a "complete" prayerbook is still incomplete.

Another Day

Another good day at the clinic. While there weren't many kids in (it was an allergy testing day), I was busy for almost all my shift, which is not usually the case. The first half I spent drawing and playing cards with someone waiting for a sibling. She asked me for drawing tips and in turn taught me War and Slapjack. The second half I entertained a kindergartner who, in turn, showed off four of his stuffed animals and his copy of the picture book "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" (which is about a town in which it rains various kinds of food for breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday).

What surprised me today was not merely having a busy (but pleasant) shift. It was the conversation I had with the kindergartner about his stuffed animals. After he introduced each one by name and recounted who had given it to him, pointing to one and saying "this one's my favorite because Santa gave it to me!" he began telling me about the website to which each animal was registered. 

Not only were the animals registered, but they had virtual worlds. It made me imagine a Facebook-like networking site for stuffed animals. One of my friends jokingly made a Facebook profile for her plush fish and has it listed as "married" to another friends' alter ego's page (this is what happens when college students have too much free time). But this kid was talking about his stuffed animals' online world very seriously. I think his mother noticed my shock, because she informed me that there are similar websites for Cabbage Patch dolls and other dolls. When I told the boy that when I was young, the internet was very slow and that there weren't online worlds for stuffed animals, I began to feel hopelessly old. I am 20.

Is it more ridiculous for a five-year-old to register a stuffed animal to a virtual world or to feel old at 20 because the closest you got to that experience was making a pretend birth certificate for a plush giraffe you got at a college Build a Bear event?

In Search of a Haggadah More Interesting than the Maxwell House One

The seder which my family has attended for years at a dear friend's house might be described as a quintessential, at times stereotypical, American Jewish seder. On the table, Manischewitz wine and matzah, polyester satin yarmulkes on the men, an elaborate meal made by the lady of the house, and a strong desire to get through the haggadah as quickly as possible so the main meal can begin, accomplished by skipping over sections and heavily relying on the English translation. If we were more formally dressed (suits and dresses instead of plain slacks and shirts), we probably could have been on the cover of the Maxwell House haggadah.

After my conversion, I got to co-lead the seder and might, in the near future, have the opportunity to host one at home. With that in mind, I started investigating haggadot to supplement the Maxwell House one, which is primarily valued for being giving out for free in large quantities. I wanted something with interesting commentaries and parallels to modern struggles for freedom in the world. Something that would inspire celebration of our liberation rather than the feeling that we were enslaved to the haggadah.

So I went out to the Brandeis library, confident that their very large Judaica section would have a great selection of haggadot. I was right, in that there was a great number of old, musty haggadot. An overwhelming number were only in Hebrew, which would only make things more difficult. I did find an intriguing one with a lot of commentary in English, but the ratio of commentary to text made it impractical for leading a seder. The women's passover companion was a collection of essays, and the women's haggadah I found had excised almost all of the original Hebrew text, leaving only touchy-feely English. I've come to the conclusion that the haggadah I would use at a seder has to be made with extracts from several sources, and would require more labor than skimming the Judaica section of the Brandeis library. 

Helicopter Coloring

Not surprisingly, one learns a lot about a person's parenting style from watching them while her child is coloring or playing with stickers.

I don't remember being told which colors to use in drawings during elementary school, or my mother constantly critiquing my coloring skills. On the other hand, one of my friends told me that when he drew a rainbow-colored banana in school he was harshly "corrected" by his teacher for using the "wrong" colors. 

Many parents who come into the clinic express deep pride in their children's ability to hold a crayon and draw a few squiggly lines on construction paper, not bothering them about color schemes or if the crayon will show up on a particular color. My sentiment is that each child, to the extent of his ability, he should be given the opportunity to teach himself or practice certain skills without an adult hovering over him so that he can slowly gain a sense of independence.  

Other parents clearly feel that their children have to be trained to draw and color the "right" way (the parent's way) rather than letting them do something on their own. Even before the child makes a "bad" color choice or peels off a sticker, the parent is quick to solemnly murmur "be careful! Be careful! You're going to rip it!" or "That's not going to show up." 

Often, a parent won't ask the child if they want help with a sticker, proceeding to peel it off and muttering about the consequences of peeling too fast or from the wrong starting point. When the child is just about to place a sticker on a background paper, some parents start fretting over the exact placement. The more subtle ones might say something like "oh… you're putting the snake there?" Others start pointing at "good" spots, arguing for them with the tone one might use while planning a battle.

Where do I end up? Sitting in the middle, smiling when a child decides to make a cactus play maracas.

What Ends a TV Show?

There are a number of factors which lead to the decline in quality of a TV show, and ultimately to its cancellation. A few long-running series have managed to escape them, at least for now, such as Law & Order. However, even The Simpsons, which has become an America cultural institution, has started to go downhill in recent years, increasingly relying on poorly written jokes about the government rather than its characters' anctics.

Most of the time, a show approaches its end painfully slowly, especially if it has a large following. Similar to The Simpsons' shift from humor based on the show's plot and characters to the world outside Springfield, other shows' declines are marked by a decline in storylines. As characters are paired off, suddenly become friends, have children, or, in the worst cases, are placed in deadly situations or outright killed, the tension that drives the show starts to fade.

Of course, there are exceptions. In Desperate Housewives, for example, I think the writers are required by contract to include at least two murders per season, one extramarital affair, an assortment of other crimes such as embezzlement and arson, and somehow keep all the main characters in the neighborhood. In Law & Order, at least one person is killed per show, and every so often the assistant DAs and main detective's partner get changed.

Then there are shows like Grey's. While Grey's has so much emotional tension that it's surprising no one's been murdered by a fellow colleague, the last two seasons have stretched the limits. By the fourth season, though, almost all of the interns had passed their exams. However, rather than continue following the tension between these new residents, the older residents, and attendings, a set of new interns was introduced. Rather than having interns who were interesting, the interns were presented as one-sided fools. 

Come fifth season, the drama gets ridiculous — the interns practice stitches and putting in IVs on each other because they only see the residents for five minutes a day. One intern has her appendix removed by the others, and almost dies, and is later dismissed from the hospital. None of the residents are punished. And the cherry on top? One resident, Izzy, sees her fiance's ghost, and later finds out it's a hallucination caused by… (schizophrenia? a strong prescription medication? sleep deprivation?) a rare stage 4 brain cancer that may kill her in three months. If that's not a writing disaster in progress, I don't know what is. One of the main characters is leaving at the end of the season because the actor didn't renew his contract. Losing a second main character seems like a really, really bad idea.

What I Learned from Books in Middle School

6th grade (I don't remember the titles of most of these books, which is kind of sad)

* Trivia contests lead to strong friendships and a deep student-teacher bond.

* Being blind and stranded on an island with a stranger sucks at first, but in the end you become really insightful.

* WWII really, really, sucked for Japanese civilians. (So Far From the Bamboo Grove)

* Utopian societies have a very high potential to squash human rights. (The Giver)

* Being away from home is sad. (The Little Prince)

7th grade: 

* Pirates are really mean, but generally let preteen wannabes join them. (Treasure Island)

* People can change after being scared half to death by visions three ghosts. (A Christmas Carol)

What else did I read that year? I really don't remember. We spent a lot of time learning grammar through Schoolhouse Rock videos.

8th grade:

* Greed is a powerful thing. (The Pearl)

* WWII really, really, sucked for European Jews. (Friedrich)

Those are the only two books I remember reading (and there must have been more… we were an honors class). We did a lot of poetry reading/writing, had a Holocaust unit for 1-2 months, and had a biography project at the end of the year, so maybe that took up the rest of class time?

Only on Nickelodeon… Steers With Udders

Today was a very slow day at the clinic, so I ended up watching a children's show called "Back at the Barnyard." Aimed at the elementary school kids still jittery from their morning cereal demographic, the show is a computer-animated comedy about what farm animals do when the farmers aren't watching. 

What they do in secret, apparently, is walk on their hind legs, tell badly-written jokes, and get stuck in very strange plotlines. In one episode, the arrival of one clam leads to a swarm of clams taking refuge in the barn. Apparently, clams are able to survive and reproduce outside the water at rates comparable to e. coli bacteria.

Among the main characters of the show are a pig, assorted sheep, a sheepdog, a skunk, a Jersey heifer, and a large Holstein whose name is Otis. What is unusual about Otis to anyone who knows the basic definition of a mammal or has at least learned a little about cows?

Otis has an udder, which are of course nonexistent on male cows. I was immediately reminded of an exchange my mother and I heard at a farm. I don't remember it exactly, but basically a little girl asked her mother if a cow nearby (which had a very swollen udder) was a boy cow or a girl cow. The mother said that both boy cows and girl cows make milk.

It was one of those moments where I'm sure it was very tempting for the farm staff to laugh out loud. My mother and I wondered where this woman got the notion that boy cows make milk. Are people really that undereducated about biology? I feel like I knew that mammals are defined as having fur/hair and lactating (if they are female) when I was in early elementary school. Perhaps part of it was the steady dose of Zoobook magazines I had as a kid… but by the time you're out of school, you should know that male mammals don't lactate. 

If you don't know that male mammals don't lactate after school, something is wrong.

The Acceptance/Alienation of the Convert

In the Bible, the Hebrew word for what in the modern era we call a convert is "ger," which roughly translates to a foreigner or stranger. While one would not generally refer to a religious convert as "Joe the stranger" in conversation, I feel that after "coming out" as a convert, people treat me differently. Overwhelmingly, their reactions are very positive: "Wow! When/why/how did you convert?" At times, though, the person I'm talking to begins to mock themselves in the form of a compliment to the convert by saying something like, "you're so well-informed … I was born Jewish but didn't know about that."

What's harder, though, are the moments of confusion when someone assumes that I was born and raised Jewish until I say something about my parents going to church or visiting my grandparents for Christmas. Before I went to college, I didn't have to explain that I was a convert in the middle of what started out as simple conversation about plans for winter break or upcoming Jewish holidays.

Harder still is finding a place for yourself in the community when your family isn't Jewish. Since so much of Jewish observance is centered around family meals and celebrations, if your family isn't Jewish (or observant, as is the case for some) you become dependent on the goodwill of Jewish outreach services for finding a place to celebrate a Passover seder, light a menorah, make holiday food and celebrate the sabbath (unless you're lucky enough to be a college student on a campus with a large, engaged Jewish community).

That shaky interim period between calling your parent's house "home" and creating your own that seems to start in college I've tried to see as a time of intense religious reflection, because once you become responsible for a spouse and children you have much less time or space to make big changes religiously. When you're a convert and also the only Jew in your family, you're forced to think for yourself a lot anyway. Much earlier than most of your religious brethren, you have to keep track of the holidays for yourself, pay your own membership dues, find places to go for holiday meals and services and educate yourself. There are, I think, advantages to this, but it at times it feels quite taxing.

Given that most converts to Judaism that I've met seem to convert around birth (for adopted children) or marriage (for a non-Jewish person marrying someone Jewish), I wonder how many other converts have that awkward period of being tied to your birth home and needing to make your own home. For me, the ultimate fulfillment of marrying and having a family would be to observe the holidays in my own home, with my children, and not having to rely on others' charity. Even more than that, the relief of no longer feeling so stuck, in many respects, outside both my family and the Jewish community.

Post #50 - Homosexuality and Religion

This Shabbos, Brandeis had the privilege of welcoming Rabbi Steven Greenberg, the only openly gay Orthodox rabbi and the author of "Wrestling with G-d and Men," a book about how Judaism has responded to homosexuality. Friday night after Hillel dinner, Rabbi Greenberg talked about his journey into Orthodox Judaism as a teenager and how he struggled to reconcile his religious identity and sexual orientation. As one can imagine, it was a very long process, but I think he came out (no pun intended) with a sense of self-acceptance and duty to his faith that isn't easy for a gay person coming from a socially and/or religiously very conservative environment.

This afternoon, Rabbi Greenberg discussed the broader issues surrounding religion and homosexuality with Brandeis' Catholic chaplain, Father Walter Cuenin, and Professor James Mandrell, who is a Unitarian Universalist. While it didn't surprise me to hear that in Catholicism and Orthodox Judaism there's a very strong tension between religious leadership and law and the opinions of the laiety, it was interesting to hear how things are changing in terms of acceptance of gay and bisexual people. 

Having grown up in a very liberal (both theologically and socially) Protestant church, I took it for granted that LGBTQ religious people and allies could easily find accepting communities, and saw conservative congregations who didn't declare themselves "open" or "welcoming" as morally backward at worst and at best sadly out of touch. When I converted to Judaism, my initial perceptions of Orthodox communities were similarly narrow. I thought that both my conversion and my social views were too extreme to get along with anyone leaning to the right, even as I espoused the sentiment that people should just get along.

But this Shabbos, the people who came to hear Rabbi Greenberg were not just a small portion of Reconstructionist and Reform Jews, whose movements have accepted LGBT Jews for a long time, as well as LGBT rabbis, or even liberal-to-moderate Conservative Jews*. There were a large number of Orthodox Jews, some Christians, and non-religious attendees as well. 

Granted, Brandeis is a fairly socially liberal campus and most of its Orthodox population could be characterized as leaning slightly to the left/modern side. But I think such a positive response to a person like Rabbi Greenberg would not be seen in many parts of this country and might not even have happened here in Massachusetts just 10-15 years ago. Hopefully that kind of acceptance can continue to happen, and on a wider scale than a small New England college campus.

* = The Conservative movement is in an awkward position in terms of accepting LGBT Jews. It has multiple position papers about the acceptance (or non-acceptance) of LGBT laity and rabbis; in effect the movement lacks a unified position on issues such as the ordination of gay rabbis or acceptance of same-sex marriage and for better or for worse leaves these decisions up to individual congregations.

Drinking on Purim (and other holidays) - What do you think?

Inspired by: http://frumsatire.net/2009/03/13/are-you-anti-drinking-on-purim

The author of the above article argues that being anti-drinking on Purim, the Jewish equivalent of Mardi Gras (in terms of revelry) is something that divides traditional and non-traditional Jews, with non-Orthodox and secular Jews being in the anti-drinking camp.

You see, it is considered a mitzvah (good deed) to drink until you cannot distinguish between "bless Mordechai" and "curse Haman," although you aren't allowed to drink to the point where you would break religious law or harm others, which seems like a dangerously fine line.

Coming from a mostly conservative Protestant family in which most people either don't drink at all or only drink one glass of wine about once or twice a month, the mitzvah to get drunk on a religious holiday seemed both foreign and, to some degree, questionable.

The idea behind the mitzvah of Purim drinking, in addition to drinking wine on the Sabbath and during the Passover seder is supposed to be that wine is a symbol of joy, and that drinking it adds to the joy of the holiday. However, I can't enjoy a holiday meal with people who take the wine drinking thing very seriously. After a while people start acting silly and you can't be sure if anything they're saying is really them or the booze. One drink is enough for me anyway — anymore and I feel dizzy and then sleepy — so I guess I won't be hosting any big Purim parties.

Good shabbos!

Conrad > AIDS > nursing homes

I'm not sure if other university libraries are like this, but in my university's main library there are more books about Joseph Conrad than the issues surrounding nursing home care and HIV/AIDS combined.

I'm sure there are some more HIV/AIDS books in the science library, but still. Is Joseph Conrad really that important?

Tuna Noodle Casseroles in France

Since my room is only equipped with a fridge, freezer, and microwave, I don't make the diverse dishes I learned to prepare in middle school Family and Consumer Science* (stir-fried vegetables, macaroni and cheese, smoothies) or instant ramen noodles. Around the time I began to reach my breaking point with eating cafeteria food for lunch and dinner every day, I started taking a closer look at the kosher options in the convenience store and discovered Amy's frozen meals, which are all vegetarian, fairly yummy (except for the pizza with rice flour dough…), and certified kosher. 

Still, I know I could do better. The summer after my senior year, my dad and I lived in an apartment in northern France whose kitchen only had a fridge, freezer, sink, small stovetop, and microwave. Did we rely on pasta and frozen meals? Rarely. Most of the time, Dad made noodle casseroles, assembling the ingredients in a single glass casserole dish and sticking it in the microwave for five minutes. Other nights, we had couscous with vegetables. From time to time Dad did heat a pizza in the microwave, but very infrequently. I have yet to understand how a French apartment kitchen is allowed to lack an oven, though, since French people still do more home cooking than Americans. Of course, both countries may make a large step back towards home cooking in the current economy… 

* = Family and Consumer Science is what my middle school called Home Economics; both boys and girls had to take it. Is FACS supposed to be more PC than HE or does it just sound fancier?

Popular Causes and How College Students Promote Them

Being a child during the 1990s, my main exposure at the time to trends of popular causes was lessons about the rainforest. Being on a liberal east coast college campus in the late 2000s of course sheds light on a variety of the new popular causes, such as HIV/AIDS. In contrast to the olden days of protesting the world's ills with witty picket signs, sit-ins, and Bob Dylan songs, though, college students have new, innovative ways of tackling big issues without leaving their campuses, or even their rooms.

A list of popular causes on my campus, and how students contribute to them:

* The environment, by focusing on "green" shopping bags, cleaning products, reusable water bottles, household decorations, etc., organic food, and wearing expensive t-shirts made of organic cotton, which is slightly less wasteful of petroleum than non-organic cotton. 

* Fighting HIV/AIDS in Africa by purchasing CDs, t-shirts, coffee and paper goods whose producers send a small portion of the profit to organizations that provide medicine/counseling to HIV/AIDS patients in Africa.

* Protesting the genocide in Darfur through many of the same means used to fight HIV/AIDS without actually providing direct aid.

* Fighting global poverty, especially in Africa, by buying beaded necklaces and signing online petitions pre-written by ONE.

* Organizing very big, expensive dances with student activity/club funds and donating the ticket proceeds to a particular cause.

* Handing out plastic water guns with local fire fighters to symbolically extinguish poverty, as opposed to giving club money to a prominent NGO or financially-challenged schools.

* Paying for expensive speakers to tell the students that things in [name a country with major economic/health/social/political/religious issues] are really bad, but we are trying really hard to fix things up… would you like to buy the book I wrote about the process?

Call me cynical, but I think there are better ways to fight AIDS, poverty, and help the earth than buying expensive t-shirts.

FernGully: The Last Rainforest Propaganda Movie

At the clinic, the movie showing was FernGully: The Last Rainforest, which felt like a 1940s anti-Hitler propaganda poster rewritten for the 1990s fixation on rainforests and directed by a PETA advertisement designer under the influence.

The movie opens with a very old rainforest sprite explaining to her young apprentice, Crysta that humans were all wiped out centuries ago after a volcano eruption caused by Hexxus, a spirit of total destruction who is now safely trapped in a baobab tree. (Foreshadowing! Foreshadowing!) But Crysta is smarter; she has seen humans hanging out near the rainforest and learns about their true nature from a bat called Batty Koda who has a radio in his brain that was installed by evil, evil research scientists. Batty's song "Batty Rap," unabashedly condemns cosmetic and cigarette experiments on animals, making the animal experiments in The Secret of NIMH sound like an amusement park.

Two scenes later, the humans accidentally cut down the baobab tree that had imprisoned Hexxus, setting him free to sing a song called "Toxic Love" about his new mission — to destroy the rainforest through humans' greed and their expensive leveler. As the leveler cuts down trees, the artists appear to have run out of non-blood red colors. Surprisingly, the trees do not sing about their destruction. Then again, 1990s kids had other movies in which non-sentient beings sang about their suffering (say, The Brave Little Toaster or Toy Story).

Hexxus, who looks like a cross between the large winged demon in Fantasia and the black smoke from a broken down diesel truck, looms over the whole rainforest, destroying large sections of the forest. Meanwhile, the forest sprites (played by miniature white yuppies and college students) and a human who was shrunk to sprite size by Crysta, Zac, fret about what to do. While some of the sprites have magical powers, they apparently cannot grow trees or shrink the leveler. It isn't until near the end of the movie that the wise old sprite gives all the other sprites little pieces of her magical energy and tells Crysta that there is magic in every living thing the forest. After that, well, you can easily guess how the movie ends. Hexxus is trapped in a new magic tree. Zac gets returned to his normal size. We don't see him go on to join international Greenpeace, but I'm sure the writers thought about it.

Now, I consider myself very pro-Earth. I grew up in the "save the rainforest" era, during which schoolchildren received a steady diet of pro-rainforest books, movies, and TV shows. I think we were required under federal law to learn that "x square feet of rainforest are destroyed every minute" and that rainforests have a diversity of photogenic birds, frogs and monkeys. My brothers old Zoobooks (magazines about wild animals published through the San Diego zoo) added to the pro-Earth sentiment with their strongly worded essays about how lots of mean people are thoughtlessly destroying endangered animals' habitats, hunting, buying fur coats, etc. but you can make a difference and prevent tigers/elephants/lions/rainforest monkeys from becoming extinct.

But I don't think movies like Ferngully that shout the "everything in nature except humans = good; humans = heartless scum" philosophy are the way to engender pro-Earth sentiment. Nature is not a fairy tale, and most of the world's remaining undeveloped land isn't as pretty as the rainforest. And writing about the mean things people do to the environment without elaborating about changes people can make every day (like recycling cans and bottles) just leaves people feeling pessimistic and/or useless.

While there has been a brief rebound of environmentalism under the name "green" in response to global warming, I'm not sure how easy it is to teach children compared to the "save the rainforest" movement. Perhaps I'm wrong. But I don't think it would be a bad idea to bring the rainforest back into the picture without singing smoke clouds and ex-lab bats.

Fuzzy Things in the Middle of Midterms

I can't say midterms are ever fun, but when I was taking my Biology midterm I found myself smiling. One of the questions about involved Labrador puppies (it was about genes for coat colors and what kinds of puppies certain types of labradors will have). Yes, the goal was to see if one understood Mendelian genetics and could write out a basic Punnett square. Yes, it was a Biology midterm. But while I was reading the question, instead of visualizing DNA and RNA strands or HIV, I got to think about puppies.

Nurture and Religion

Today at lunch I had the pleasure of being party to an engaging interfaith conversation that was neither full of touchy-feeling gushing with phrases like "our common ground" nor marked by aggressive arguments over why people had particular beliefs and practices.

Some of the topics covered were: the ultimate purpose of religion and philosophy, the nature of religious truth (as opposed to mathematical and scientific truth), Paul's tendency to write really long run-on sentences, the distinction between personal religious experiences and religious dogmas and hierarchies, and possible reasons why there is a much larger percentage of self-described religious people in the United States than in Western Europe.

One of the earlier points touched upon by a few of the people present was the quality of their experience with their religion, and how it differed in their childhood from the present. There seemed to be, at times, an unconscious message that when you have a "bad" experience with religion, you most likely leave religion altogether or choose a faith community very different from the one of your childhood.

A lot of the time, I think it's more appropriate to focus on what is the "right" place for someone, religiously. It's not just about how people in a community treat you, about how other people talk about G-d. The church in which I was raised was very nurturing and for the most part I had a very good experience there religiously and socially. Since it was a city church, there was (and still is) a large focus on outreach to the city's homeless and hungry. In the church youth group, we did a lot of service projects inside and outside the city, which were organized in the spirit of justice rather than pity.

However, as I realized later in high school, Protestantism did not click with my beliefs about G-d. My next course of thought was "this doesn't quite work, I need to find something that does." I know some people "drop out" of religion because their childhood religious upbringing didn't click with them or made them feel rejected, and I can understand why they make that choice. Religion in its major, organized forms is not for everyone. But I don't get the people who extend their anger from a specific religious experience towards organized religion as a whole. It's just a lot of unnecessary hate that hurts both nonbelievers and believers, and there's enough unnecessary hate polluting the world to begin with.

The cutest baby ever

I made another trip to the local Chabad house tonight, this time to make hamataschen (triangular cookies with filling). There was a large bowl of dough already made, so it was more a hamantaschen assembly and baking event than the total, start-to-finish cooking experience.

Warming the dough and kneading it was fun and pretty easy, as was cutting it into 3" circles. Trying to figure out how much filling to put in the middle was tougher, and pinching the three corners just so was much more difficult than you're think. Still, it was fun, and food doesn't have to look 100% perfect; what matters is the taste.

After putting my hamantaschen in the oven, I went into the entry hallway, where the rabbi's 9-month old daughter Leah (not her real name) was playing in on of those activity center things with rattles, wheels, etc. She was very friendly, smiling at everyone and laughing. Later on, her father came over with his very impressive camera, which he uses to document every happy moment, and wanted to take pictures of me and Leah. 

Leah started bouncing and laughing, her smile growing and growing with each picture. The flash didn't bother her, she just kept smiling at me and her father. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen; I wanted to reach out and pick her up but I held back because I don't really know how to hold a baby. It seemed like a very maternal feeling, and yet not at the same time. Perhaps the new mother feeling of "this kid is so wonderful but I have no idea what I'm doing?"

Whatever it was, it was a happy feeling, and I hope Leah keeps inspiring that kind of happiness in others for the rest of her life, may it be long and good and filled with good deeds.

You have to get by the guard. He's 3 years old.

Tonight, I had a Jewish learning class at my local Chabad house. I walk up to the door (which has big glass panels) and see a folding chair placed directly in front of the other side of the door. The rabbi's younger son, David (not his real name) climbs on top of the chair and locks the door. (Since a lot students come in for classes and meetings with the rabbi and his wife, who live there, the door is usually unlocked).

I laugh a little at his prank and immediately knock on the door because it's very cold out and three year olds shouldn't think it's okay to lock out guests. The rabbi sees me and walks over to tell David to move away from the door so I can come in. After I close the door behind me and the rabbi walks away, David walks straight back to the door and locks it again. 

I ask David what he's doing. He cheerfully explains that he's locking the door. I tell him (as I'm sure his father did two minutes ago) that it's not nice to lock people outside, and unlocked the door. Sure enough, he refused to take my advice to heart, but his father lured him away from the door with the promise of a latke (fried potato pancake), and I unlocked the door again, making sure to move the chair away as well.

I'm sure there are many stories of this sort among my readers with children or young siblings. But, having grown up without any younger siblings and being the second youngest of my cousins, the kids at the Chabad House and the clinic where I work are my constant reference points for childhood behavior. Everything they do, even the really annoying things, is still new and interesting to me, and I hope that the being interested part of that feeling doesn't go away. However, it would be nice to know what to do in case of 3-year-old lock-outs.

On "training" men to cook, vacuum, and do laundry

A friend of mine recently joined a group called "Si toi aussi [es un] femme, tu utilises ces 10 expressions!" (Translation: If you're also a woman, you use these 10 phrases!) Naturally, I had to see what this was about, in the interests of practicing reading informal French (as opposed to textbook French) and taking a break from my Hebrew homework.

The 10 phrases are:

1. Bien (well)

2. 5 minutes

3. Rien (nothing)

4. Vas-y, fais-le (go ahead, do it)

5. Soupir

6. OK

7. Merci (thanks)

8. Comme tu veux (as you wish)

9. Ne t'en occupe pas, je le fais (don't worry, I'll do it)

10. C'est qui? (who is it?)

The group's information continues with an instructional manual on "training" men. The idea is that you have to train men to make them as intelligent as women (who are perfect).

"Objectif pedagogique: Cours de formation permettant aux hommes d'éveiller cet organe, appelé, cerveau, dont ils ignorent l'existence." - The lesson in formation allows men to stimulate this organ, called the brain, whose existence they ignore.

 

Among the topics covered were teaching men to not depend on their mothers, to not treat their wives/girlfriends like their mothers, not making a mess in the bathroom, doing laundry without losing articles of clothing, having a cold without crying "I'm going to die!", being able to dress themselves and buy clothes on their own, doing chores, and how to cook.

Now, most of these things seem obvious. It is a little pathetic, though, that a domestically and/ or socially inept man becomes the topic of several Facebook groups, Dave Barry essays, and family sitcom plots. I cannot imagine a domestically inept woman becoming the subject of pointed, but playful mockery, though, because women who cannot cook/clean/etc. are generally viewed with much less sympathy than men who depend on their mothers/sisters/wives to do these things. Also, if a man were to joke about "training" a woman in anything (outside of athletics or academics), most people would think he was a heartless chauvinist.

After all, the domestically inept men in sitcoms who are told to change their ways are usually forgiven when they fail to learn how to do their laundry or even to look after their own children. When their wives do call them out on their incompetence, the wives are often shown as just being bitter or harsh and quickly give in for the sake of keeping peace. In the rare case where a husband is actually compelled to learn how to do laundry, or the even rarer case where a woman has to learn how to cook something besides pasta (Desperate Housewives), it is often at the urging of an outside party, often a friend or mother-in-law.

I'm interested in seeing people's responses to these questions:

1. Is joking about "training" people to do chores/cook/etc. worse than believing they cannot learn to take care of themselves?

2. What do you think of "jokes" about men being incompetent at taking care of themselves? Do they have any truth to them? Are they just mean? Or is it more complicated than that?

Silly Things I Learned from…

Grey's Anatomy:

* Doctors never use on-call rooms to sleep.

* Surgeons are so special that they can take care of all their patients' needs and never have to ask their patients' nurses about how they're doing.

* Anesthesiologists, nurses, physical therapists, social workers, orderlies, food service employees, custodians, and chaplains all wear invisibility cloaks.

* HIPPA doesn't exist; surgeons can discuss patients' medical histories in the cafeteria, elevators, hallways, each other's houses, etc.

* Female surgeons are required by law to wear eye makeup at all times.

* Surgeons who disappear for several hours without explanation are never reprimanded.

* A mentally stable, responsible surgeon who happens to be pregnant is suspect of being "crazy" because of her hormones.

* Nurses only need to be consulted when you're looking for a brain dead patient who could be an organ donor for your patient. 

Desperate Housewives:

* Property values never go down in neighborhoods where there have been several murders, a few stalkers, a hostage crisis, and fugitives.

* Freelance illustrators and plumbers can easily afford to live in upper-middle-class suburbs.

* A man who has been incarcerated for embezzlement can easily find a job again in business.

* Selling your Dolce & Gabana dresses and fancy sports car are signs of financial distress.

* You can hide that you're getting chemo until you get sick at your child's school play.

* Busy moms never wear sweatpants at home, and they never go without makeup.

Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (includes spoilers):

* French women can perfectly coordinate their outfits with the interior decor in their homes, offices, and stores.

* Getting married at 16 to the 20-year-old guy you love is ridiculous, because you don't know about love and besides, your mother doesn't like him.

* Getting married at 16 to a 30-year-old guy you hardly know is absolutely fine if your mother approves of him and he's rich.

* When you run into financial troubles, don't tighten your budget. Sell your prized pearls.

* Don't bother telling your boyfriend that you're marrying another man before he comes home.

Disney movies:

* You don't have to even talk to someone to know that you love them and would be willing to give up your family, home, and friends for the rest of your life to be with them.

* Kissing someone will bring them out of a coma if you really love them.

* People whose only friends are animals can have normal social interactions with other people.

* Being emotionally abused by family members won't leave you with any emotional scars.

* Sleeping in strangers' houses is totally safe.

* A princess in a traditional Muslim kingdom is allowed to wear a belly shirt.

First College Snow Day!!

I got up early to go to a doctor's appointment, only to realize when I got there that the health center was closed. This was a real snow day after all. So I returned to my room, using my time valuably to listen to music, make a Facebook friend request, and do a survey called "100 Truths" in which you respond to questions ranging from what you want out of life and love, to your favorite foods. Then, I went to the kosher cafeteria for a leisurely lunch.

I walked to the hospital where I volunteer. Only a small portion of the sidewalks were shoveled, so I had to half hop, half jog through the snow. It reminded me of those training montages in movies in which everyone has to run through an obstacle course with a series of tires. When I got to the hospital, my face was burning from the cold and exertion, but I felt like Wonder Woman.

The clinic was fairly quiet; a lot of people seemed to be canceling or skipping their appointments because of the snow. I did get a few visitors at the art table though, which motivated me to stay through my shift. The rest of the time I spent doing an elaborate glitter glue and crayon drawing of a butterfly, solving Sudoku puzzles, and watching Spongebob. The TV was set to Nickelodeon, so I saw a marathon of Spongebob episodes and ads for sugar cereal and Barbie dolls. I also saw parts of the Spongebob movie. It was much better than I expected; it was quite enjoyable for a movie based on a TV show (especially a cartoon).

The plot is that someone has stolen King Neptune's crown. Mr. Krabs is suspected of stealing it, and Neptune sentences him to death if the crown isn't found in 6 days. Leaving Spongebob and his friend Patrick to find the crown. They are helped out by Neptune's daughter, Mindy, who is much more reasonable than her father, but still get themselves into a lot of silliness.

I was offered some delicious birthday cake by one of the nurses and had some coffee, which gave me a good energy boost. After straightening things out, I returned to my building, to find two friends of mine watching As Good As It Gets, which I had never seen and was wonderful, especially with the soundtrack of my friends' laughter and comments. And now, having enjoyed some delicious grilled hot dogs, I'm writing this post.

I don't know a better way to spend a snow day!

Evolution Hurts

The following is a true story, one of many stories in my family of injuries with silly causes (my brother tore his ACL playing frisbee). The names have been changed so that the participants don't have this story pop up in Google under their real names.

Mrs. Klein, my AP Biology teacher, told us that, in order to simulate natural selection, we would play a game outside. Everyone would stand in a circle. In the middle was a pie plate with little slips of paper. The slips of paper represented food, and we were pretending to be mother bears. During each round, we had to run into the middle of the circle and grab enough food for our cubs and ourselves. Naturally, as the game progressed, there would be less food and the slower mama bears would die off, leaving just a few survivors.

I made it through the first round. But when the second round started, my friend Melanie, who was standing next to me, and I started running at the same time and managed to hit each other in the head. She walked away with a large bump on her forehead. I looked down at my shirt and saw blood. My glasses frames were crooked from the impact. Mrs. Klein told Melanie to take me to the girls' bathroom, help me wash my face, and bring me back out to the game.

If you've ever seen our high school bathrooms, or any public high school bathroom, you would know how ludicrous this idea sounded. The bathrooms often lacked soap and paper towels, but always had the trace of marijuana and cigarette smoke. So we went to the nurse's office. She found a small laceration half an inch away from my left eye and told me I would need stitches. Apparently, some of the metal in my glasses frames cut my face.

When the nurse called my mother, she said that I had been "in an altercation," which made my mom think that either a) someone had said/done something really nasty to me or b) something was wrong with me, because I am not the violent type. When she picked me up and saw Melanie and I laughing about our injuries, she was relieved but flabbergasted. We were in AP Bio and injured ourselves pretending to be bears?

After waiting an hour and a half at the doctor's office, I got three stitches and a rainbow-colored bruise had formed around my eye. Despite my brother's sentiment that I should photograph the bruise for posterity, we never did, which I actually regret because it adds a lot to the story. We also should have photographed my bent glasses; my mom and I had to take them to Lenscrafters to get the frames fixed. 

However, I did get to see Mrs. Klein's face when she found out about the incident. The day after, I showed up to class as usual, and showed her my eye. I wonder if she still uses the bear game in her Biology classes, or if she's changed her policy on sending bleeding students to the bathroom instead of to the nurse.

In Vein

Haven't written much poetry since high school, but thought it would be worth a try. Based on an unsuccessful blood donation (during which my veins collapsed) and an unsuccessful post-donation recovery at the Massachusetts State House (when I got really, really dizzy).* 

"In Vein"

Bluish, purple

Spreading out through your palm

Leading up your arms, your legs

Branching over your chest

Just under the skin

Like some kind of rare parasite

A little bouncy like a tendon

But softer, thinner

Bluish, purple, green

At the site of a bruise

Where I tried to give

Once they collapsed

In vein

Once I collapsed 

Had to leave a state house tour

For a bottle of juice

It's not kosher

But it's sugar

In vein

And I'm back

In a chair

For twenty minutes

But for another person, my loss is their gain

My blood is lost and found in their vein

* = Whenever you donate blood, don't skimp on the 10-15 minutes you're supposed to spend drinking water and eating cookies before going home and try to slow down for the next several hours. The dizziness I had was from leaving too early and following a walking tour group.