I'm Glad That I'm Good for Something, I Guess

[via phone]
My sister: Hi, Eli7, I have a really important question for you.
Me: OK
My sister: In "Twin Towers," is "twin" an adjective?
Me: It's part of the proper noun.

[via e-mail]
Friend: Random question: I assume that you give someone a "heads up" not a "head's up" or a "heads' up"...
Me: Heads-up.

Searching for ... a Wife?

Some of the search terms that people have used to find my blog this week:

• Hot frum wife. Are you looking for one? Try JDate.

• Tall Jewish girl. Umm, no, not here. (Friend: One of the guys interning with you this summer is 6'10". I just want a picture of the two of you standing next to each other.)

• Is my nose too big? Was my blog supposed to answer that? If you're looking for answers to that on the Internet, you might want to consult a psychologist.
  

Deep Thoughts: Crazy Lady, Guys With Long Hair, and a Pathetic Me

Deep thoughts for today:

• Philosophy classes=guys with too much hair.
• Watching someone edit your work is painful. I tried to come up with a witty simile, but I couldn't. It's just painful. Period.
• If the bookstore has the book I need in stock but can't find it on their shelves, what good are they?
• If I called you every hour for two full business days, shouldn't you give me what I need just so I stop bothering you?
  
• There is a crazy lady that hangs out at both of the Starbucks I frequent (maybe I'll fill in the whole story some other time), and she is scary. Really, really scary.
• I am uniquely talented in that I can manage to disappoint my eight-year-old sister and my grandmother at the same time.
  
• It was easier to give it everything I had than to give it up.
  

Forget the Core: Can You Say 'Paper or Plastic'?

This article about Costco interested me because I am from a large family and my mother does her grocery shopping at Costco, so I identified with the buying in bulk, coming away with things you didn't intend to buy deal.

But I came across this:

"A typical full-time cashier will earn $40,000 a year plus benefits after four years with the company."

What? I'll barely make that with an Ivy League degree at the best employer possible on my current career path. They don't tell you that in the Columbia brochures.

Seperation Anxiety

Editor: So, how are we doing?
Former editor: It's like letting the inmates run the asylum.

I didn't cry when I left the office on the last night. I wanted to. Desperately. But I didn't. I couldn't. I wanted to cry for everything I'd given it. For everything I had put into it. For the fact that it was over and that I wasn't ready to leave. I wasn't done, but it was time to go. In the pictures from that night, my coeditors and I look like we were at a funeral. It was the end of life as we knew it.

Even then, as I sat willing the tears to come, I didn't know how hard it would be. To be done with it. To trust others to take care of it. To watch them make their own mistakes. To not have to go to the office every night. To know that I am not essential to anything right now. And then to know also that they don't need me. They don't need my advice and they don't want it, don't ask for it. I have nothing for them anymore. I have no place there anymore.

I didn't know how hard it would be to call something my own for so long and then to have to give it all up.

If the Shoe Fits ... Buy It in Every Color

Eli7: I love your shoes.
Friend: Thanks. I thought of you when I put them on because they're stupid.

New black heels! Goal: to avoid killing them on the cobblestones on College Walk this semester. We'll see how plausible that is. Stay tuned.

Overheard in Class

Professor: So, I when I was an undergraduate up North...
Student: Where's that?
Professor: Harvard
Student: Oh, I'm sorry.

In Which I Prove That I Am a Dork

This is just about the coolest thing. Ever. No, really. It's a graph of how often Bush has used what words in his State of the Union speeches (or as someone pointed out, in his States of the Union). You can choose any word you want and it'll graph it for you.

I'm not really sure what, if anything, it tells us, but I think it's really cool to see Bush's speech pattern, and it's also a reflection of the issues that are important to him.

So cool.

The Art vs. the Artist

This weekend, I saw a play-Dutchman. I went into it essentially blind, not knowing anything about it, except that Dule Hill from The West Wing was in it and it had something to do with race relations.

It was ... interesting. And I'm not writing that because I thought it was bad. I'm writing that because I don't know what I thought of it. It was fast and violent and controversial.

After the play, the playwright--Amiri Baraka--spoke. He had some interesting, umm communist, views. Afterwards, I found the NY Times review of the play, which contained some more information about the playwright. Among other things, he has been accused of anti-Semitism. He's the one that wrote that poem about how the Jews knew about September 11th and so didn't show up to work that day.

And I'm not sure if that should change the way I viewed the play itself (which I'm still trying to digest). Does the playwright matter in the ultimate manifestation of the play? Should you think of the artist when you look at a painting? The author when you read a book? If he made some valid points about racism in his play and if he is a good writer, then his art should stand by itself, right?

Right?

The Glass Ceiling Won't Be Shattered by High Heels

I hate articles like this. Nobody ever writes any articles about how male senators dress or what their haircut is like or that their boots are inappropriate. I pay a lot of attention to what I wear, but articles like this really make me wonder about equality in the workforce. I know, I know, you're all like, "don't make such a big deal about it," but it is a double standard. Can't these smart, successful women be judged for their political decisions and not their power suits?

(And, incidentally, you should not use "entree" for "entry." And I'm relatively certain that the Times' own Maureen Dowd--and not just The Washington Post--referred to Condoleeza Rice as a "dominatrix" for her boots.)

Blasphemy

Though I am about to work for a publication that--like most newspapers, but unlike the Columbia paper--does not use the Oxford comma, I still maintain that it is a beautiful and elegant punctuation mark. So this is, well, blasphemy as far as I'm concerned. Now I hafta figure out how to wean myself off of it...

The Beginning of the End

Today (yesterday?) was the first day of my last semester of classes at Columbia. Maybe my last semester of classes ever. It's also the first time in three years that I have no defined role at the newspaper and the first time in a year that I don't have to be at the newspaper office every night. And it's bittersweet. Well, mostly bitter.

I love Columbia and I so don't want to graduate. The real world is scary, and I like my bubble. I'm not sure I'm ready to leave academia forever. And, yet, I'm burnt out. I need a break. Sitting through classes today was tedious at best. (OK, maybe that has something to do with the fact that I was shopping classes and was none too impressed with the ones I tried, but still...)

And I miss the newspaper. It's hard to go cold turkey on something I gave so much to for so long. It's hard to be so out of the loop, to--as a former editor put it last year--let the inmates run the asylum. I know it sounds crazy, but I miss the hard work. I miss working on something bigger than myself.

So, that's it. I begin this semester apprehensive about life after graduation (especially in light of having to find a job, figure out exactly what I want to do with my life, etc. ...) and with separation anxiety from the newspaper.

And my comma key on my keyboard is sticking. I'm a copy editor. I cannot live without my comma key.

This is not promising.

Makes You Wonder About That Yeshiva Tuition...

"The only Spanish explorer I know is Dora."

--My 14-year-old sister in response to a Trivial Pursuit question asking for the name of a Spanish explorer

Riddle of the Day

If you were an employer and you offered me a job which I did not take because I got a better offer, why would you send me a rejection letter saying that because of the high number of applications you are unable to offer me a job?

Overheard in Israel

Overheard on a bus somewhere between Ramat Beit Shemesh and Yerushalayim.

Yeshiva Guy 1: Yeah, Israel is considered the only Western-style democratic country in the Middle East.
Yeshiva Guy 2: Really? What about New York?
Yeshiva Guy 1: Well, New York isn't a country.