Delusions of Grandeur

Just Sayin'

2012-01-18T15:13:00.000-08:00

I know a couple who has been married for 10 years and they told me that every time they go to a wedding, they look at each other and say, "Thank god we never have to do this again."

'My Life Meant Nothing Until You Used My Toothbrush'

2011-12-20T12:15:00.000-08:00

"Well, there's nothing like a wedding to screw up a family. ... Something that's supposed to start nice, two people making promises to each other. I'll love you forever, I wanna die when you die, my life meant nothing until you used my toothbrush. And then it starts. ... Who do you invite, who sits where, open bar, yes or no. ... Auntie Junie doesn't eat chicken, Uncle Momo's off his meds. ... And then after all that planning, the reception will still be a disaster because no matter what you do or how carefully you plan, halfway through one of those nauseating Bette Midler ballads, someone's getting drunk, someone's sleeping with someone else's wife, and someone's chicken kiev is landing on the cake."

I am determined for this blog not to turn into a place where I kvetch about wedding planning because I am incredibly happy to be getting married to such a wonderful person and the fact that wedding planning is stressful, well, just comes with the territory. It's supposed to be the easy part after finding the right person to marry. Right?

Well, turns out it's harder than I anticipated and mostly entails spending ridiculous amounts of money and trying to do your best to make the smallest number of people mad at you as possible. But turns out, even that's a cheery take on the situation—because it's mostly about making everyone you care about unhappy to varying degrees (one benefit to eloping is that it makes everyone equally mad, except for my dad, who likes the idea and even offered to pay us if we elope) and just trying to minimize the total unhappiness. And basically, no matter what we do, someone (or many someones) thinks we're being inconsiderate to the extent that it seems like what they're saying is that it is inconsiderate for us to even remotely take into account what's important for us.

I'll try to return to kvetching about other topics soon but just needed to get that off my chest.

*Also, it's a quote, not an admission of actually sharing toothbrushes. Gosh, people.

Deep Thoughts: The It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas Edition

2011-12-06T23:04:00.001-08:00

The end of the semester is always crunch time, no matter how well-intended I was about getting things done earlier or being more efficient or whatnot. Things that break the monotony by making this semester even harder than past semesters:

Going to school solely for a meeting only to get stuck in an elevator for 45 minutes and miss the meeting.

A moving-out roommate unceremoniously removing the Internet a day early while I was smack in the middle of using it.

And, oh yeah, wedding planning. I have no idea why such a happy occasion has to be so stressful to plan. And why libraries won't let me use their space to get married. (With the exception of the NY Public Library, which will gladly let me use their space ... for a small fee of $50,000.)

But a week from tonight, I will be so done and so far away and so happy. If only I could fathom getting there alive and sleeping in between now and then.

Things that I Would Have Thought Were Implied...

2011-11-17T23:38:00.001-08:00

Even if you absolutely hate the person in the next room, if you hear her gasp in pain in a highly unusual manner, you should check to make sure she hasn't sliced off her finger or something.

This is called being a human being.

The Eternal Question

2011-11-10T22:40:00.000-08:00

To stress bake or to sleep?

Happy Day After Halloween!

2011-11-01T22:13:00.000-07:00

On-sale Halloween candy! It tastes even better if it's pumpkin-shaped.

What Is This World Coming To?

2011-10-31T11:01:00.001-07:00

Parsha-themed manicures.

An entire academic conference dedicated to Jersey Shore.

Virgin Suicides-themed wedding. (An excellent book, but it's about five sisters who commit suicide, which seems to make it a really terrible theme for a wedding.)

Deep Thoughts: The My Name Isn't Seymour Edition

2011-10-30T14:34:00.000-07:00

I may have made a ridiculous 6-layered rainbow cake for Parshat Noach this weekend, which mostly proves if someone gives me a crazy baking idea, I will go with it. This also means I now have 16 oz. containers of red, blue, and yellow food coloring. I am pretty sure this is enough food coloring to last a lifetime.

Eruvs are really nice to have. The L.A. eruv was down this week and I may have had to tape the front door of my apartment building open, hide my apartment key, and nix the highest of my high heels all so I could, you know, leave my apartment on Shabbos. I'll chalk it up to practice for next year when I will be without an eruv, but really what this means is I just have to get better at walking in high heels.

Is it weird that I got junk mail addressed to "Eli7 Seymour [my last name]"? Seymour does not even remotely resemble my actual middle name, which is good because I'm a girl. It came with a good coupon, though, so I'm not complaining.

Now that I've stopped essentially hairspraying my makeup onto my face for three days at a time so I could look semi-decent all through the Jewish holiday season, my skin seems to be liking me better. Go figure. All I can say is this: It is quite obvious to me that the rabbis who thought up three-day yom tov were not makeup wearers.

I did yoga last week. And I might have even liked it. Which is weird because I am so not the yoga type. But a massage therapist did tell me recently that my back was so tight she couldn't do anything with it and yoga might help, which seems to be as good a reason as any for doing yoga, I think.

עוֹד ישמע בּערי יהוּדה וּבחצוֹת ירוּשלים קוֹל שׂשׂוֹן וקוֹל שׂמחה

2011-10-29T22:53:00.000-07:00

“Don't marry the person you think you can live with; marry only the individual you think you can't live without.”

Mazal tovs are in order. (And this is probably also a good explanation of why I've been less present on my blog lately—though yom tov and schoolwork are the other, less exciting, culprits.)

I show a picture of the ring mostly because my fiance (fiance!), let's call him Doc, did such an amazing job on it.

I'll resume regular blogging, well, eventually...

Deep Thoughts: The Toilet Paper Bandit Edition

2011-09-26T09:15:00.001-07:00

You know what's not fun? Getting to school at 6 a.m. You know what could make that worse? Lack of toilet paper in all the bathrooms (at least on my floor). The rolls were gone, too, which leads me to believe that some undergrads thought it was a bright and original idea to TP something this weekend. Sigh.

I am allergic to some element of my eye makeup (moisturizer, eye shadow, eye liner, mascara—take your pick) but am unwilling to stop wearing eye makeup for long enough to let my poor, battered eyelids heal and then to figure out which product I am actually allergic to. You know what's going to make this problem even better (and by better, I mean, terrible)? Wearing the same makeup for three days in a row for three consecutive three-day yom tovs. Woohoo.

I had to tape my freezer shut so that I can ensure it won't pop open with all my frozen Rosh Hashana goodies. Hopefully, my roommate won't need anything from the freezer in the next few days.

If I am wearing boots today, not so much because it's cold but because of shaving concerns, do I mark it as my personal beginning of fall or do I chalk it up to turning into an L.A.-er who will wear boots at weather-inappropriate times?

In Which I Desperately Want to Send Board Games to Cuba

2011-09-10T23:45:00.001-07:00

This article totally makes me want to buy copies of Spanish Scrabble in bulk and ship them to Cuba. This, it has been pointed out, might be illegal unless it's humanitarian aid. But I think Scrabble can totally count as a human need.

Deep Thoughts: The Smurfberry Edition

2011-08-29T18:55:00.001-07:00

Today in Walgreen's, I found blue smurfberry animal crackers. Now, aside from the fact that blue animal crackers look disgusting (they were a drab light blue), Smurfs are not animals and therefore Smurf-shaped animal crackers are not animal crackers. Am I missing something here?

Who would have thought that the first state border I'd ever drive across would be the Colorado-Nebraska border? Heck, I didn't even know until yesterday that those two states have a border.

Unsolved mystery: Why does a Walgreen's employee (it was a very eventful trip to Walgreen's) have a BMW? Couldn't she pawn the BMW and then not have to work at Walgreen's?

I don't have to buy nearly enough books for school this semester, which I recognize is nice in the saving money department but is also a bummer because classes are good excuses to add books to my bookshelf, which is always a good thing. Because how else am I going to fill a home library one day?

Deep Thoughts: The Back to School Edition

2011-08-23T13:06:00.001-07:00

So, I've decided that on days when I have 9:30 class, it's worth getting to school before 8 in the morning to avoid rush hour traffic. In theory, this makes sense. In practice, I am tired.

You're never too old for a moon bounce. (Best birthday party ever.)

I may have opened almost all of my birthday presents a week before my birthday.

New Year's Eve cocktail party-themed Rosh Hashana meal: genius. Too bad I didn't think of this on Jan. 2 last year so I could have gotten lots of on-sale New Year's products. Though Halloween stuff has been in stores for a few weeks already, so maybe New Year's products will hit stores before Rosh Hashana. One can only hope, I suppose.

And now, I will start preparing to present an article in class on Thursday. Yes, I have a class presentation on the first day of that class. I'm pretty sure there's something inherently unfair about that. What ever happened to the first day class being the day the prof gives out the syllabus and lets you out early?

Happy First Day of School!

2011-08-22T15:09:00.000-07:00

Purple Nail Polish: Inquiring Minds Want to Know

2011-08-16T15:10:00.000-07:00

Very important question: Can I pull off purple nail polish? Or am I too old? Or am I just not cool enough?

This Is Not a Jumpsuit

2011-08-04T13:14:00.000-07:00

Dear NYT,

I know the stereotype is of jailbirds wearing orange jumpsuits, but this is not a "bright orange jumpsuit" as described by the article to which it is attached. The outfit in question looks to be two separate bright orange pieces, which do not make a jumpsuit.

(I am in no way making light of the actual case—the Leiby Kletzky case—but the Paper of Record needs to be kept on its toes. Unless they want to run prison fashion corrections.)

Love,

Eli7 (a concerned reader)

RIP, Borders

2011-07-22T11:45:00.000-07:00

Sad.

Deep Thoughts: The Hole in the Ozone Layer Edition

2011-07-22T09:52:00.001-07:00

Sorry, sorry. I know that i have been out of blogging commission for a while, but in my defense, I have also been, y'know, out of the country and stuff like that. I want to blog about Amsterdam and life and everything, but for now, I will leave you with some random thoughts and get back to schoolwork even though I am on summer vacation and in Washington, D.C., and just took the red eye and probably should take a nap. Academic research waits for no one. Or something.

I know that I lived in D.C. for three summers so it should not come as a surprise to me that it's a million degrees and humid here, but it's disgusting here. I have to say, I do not love L.A., but knowing that a climate like L.A.'s exists, how do people defend living in this miserableness?

Things that are weird for people to talk about with random strangers on a plane: how much their children suck.

I am pretty much doing my part to cause global warming. In the past month or so, I have driven from L.A. to San Diego and back four times, flown to Amsterdam and back, and have now flown from L.A. to D.C. Yeah, that hole in the ozone layer is getting bigger thanks to my huge carbon footprint.

And speaking of feet, I may have brought eight pairs of shoes with me for a two and a half week trip. That seems reasonable, right?

On Privilege, Ivory Towers, and College

2011-07-01T01:40:00.000-07:00

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

—The Great Gatsby

There was an editorial in the Times this week that pretty much argues that everyone should go to college, which is something I definitely believe. The argument, though, seems to be mostly economic, based on the fact that college graduates make more money, which is definitely not my reason for believing in the importance of college. I think college is important because of the diversity of ideas and opinions to which it exposes students. College is a unique time in which one has few responsibilities and has the time to come to his or her own beliefs and opinions about life and the way one wants to live. This is a pretty big deal.

I was surprised by the editorial's claim that the "case against college is an elitist one — for me and not for thee." It's true that the argument is elitist in that it is exclusionary, but I think those who argue that not everyone should go to college are arguing that college isn't really that important and that people who go to college don't deserve an elite tag and have garnered no worthwhile benefit from that education. Which seems to be a pretty anti-elitist argument to me

When I make the pro-college-for-everyone argument, I am told that I am an elitist and am in an ivory tower, which is true (also, one summer, I lived in a dorm called Ivory Towers). I have had an incredibly privileged education, and I recognize that and am immeasurably grateful for the opportunities I have had.

But the consequence is that I fail to understand the costs of education. Call me an elitist, but I don't think you can put a price on the kind of intellectual growth that a college education provides, even while recognizing (with sadness) that not everyone can afford a $200,000 price tag.

Promoting Pedestrianism?

2011-06-28T03:27:00.000-07:00

I have a really lousy sense of direction. Which means that pretty much every time I attempt to go anywhere in Amsterdam, I get lost. This might also have something to do with the facts that I am walking everywhere because I haven't yet figured out the public transportation system here and that I refuse to rent a bike (which seems to be how most people here get around) because of an unfortunate childhood arm-breaking biking incident. Anyhow, I am enjoying walking, which I don't get very much of in L.A. (I may sometimes drive to the Coffee Bean that is down the block from my apartment.)

I do, though, count being able to navigate New York City as part of the definition of a real New Yorker (also on this list—for women, at least—is being able to stand on the subway in heels without holding onto anything). So, I laugh at this initiative that implies NY-ers need better signs in order to get around The City. If you want to put up better signs that will prevent annoying tourists from wandering around looking confused and getting in the way, then great, but don't say that real New Yorkers need these signs, too.

I should admit that I needed to link to that article, in part, to point out the use of the word pedestrianism, which is a pretty awesome, if flashy, word.

Deep Thoughts: The Amsterdam Edition

2011-06-26T12:00:00.001-07:00

I've only been in Amsterdam two and a half days and am mostly just struggling to get over my jet lag before I start classes tomorrow, but some random thoughts on this new city I have begun exploring:

The thing about old, quaint (although quaint might be the wrong word to describe a city where marijuana and prostitution are legal and where there are live-performance sex shows) cities is the cobblestone. Now, don't get me wrong. I love cobblestone. I think it gives character. I was severely disappointed by the lack of cobblestone on the Harvard campus when I visited Boston in May. But heels. Cobblestone hates heels. And when you get lost in a cobblestoned city for an hour and a half and roam around, well, your heels suffer. Let's just say shoe repair is on my list of things to do when I get back to L.A.

Things I love: my universal voltage hair straightener. I wasn't too worried about my laptop or my camera or my iPod or my Kindle (yes, I caved, but more on that later), but I was terrified that I might have to go two and a half weeks without straight hair in Amsterdam. But luckily, my magical hair straightener that I can use on wet hair can also be used on European voltage.

Now, I know about this whole globalized world thing, so I wasn't surprised to see Burger King, H&M (which, like in America, plays annoyingly loud music), and Tommy Hilfiger. But I was surprised by the Color Me Mine around the corner from my hotel. Of all brands to cross international borders and the Atlantic Ocean, the pottery-painting chain had made that jump? Really?

Little old Jewish women are the same everywhere. A woman who barely spoke English came up to me in shul and without introducing herself or asking my name felt the need to tell me that she has a 32-year-old son studying in the Mir and promptly tried to set us up.

A Further Proof that NY-ers Don't Learn Geography

2011-06-26T11:23:00.000-07:00

Either that or it's a genetic thing. When I play Trivial Pursuit, People & Places is one of my worst categories, but even I'm better than my 9-year-old brother:

Me: Guess where I am.
My 9-year-old brother: In L.A.
Me: Nope. In Amsterdam.
My 9-year-old brother: So you're close.

Baked Goods: Or What I've Been Doing on Summer Vacation

2011-06-12T22:42:00.000-07:00

Shavuot cheesecake: double-layered mocha, pumpkin, and cookies 'n cream cupcakes.

Graduation cupcakes.

East Coast: How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways

2011-05-29T08:24:00.000-07:00

Things I love about the East Coast (even if I am in a city that is not THE city):

Public transportation. Though I am still confused by Boston's Silver Line, which seems to be a magical/mysterious bus that is part of the subway system.
Seasonal Pop'ems. Yes, it is way too early for Fourth of July edibles, but I am not complaining. (I did, however, already buy flags for my Fourth of July Shabbos meal, which will have to take place well before the fourth, since I, terrible citizen that I am, will be out of the country for the fourth.)
Pretty, quaint old buildings. Because Southern California architecture leaves much to be desired.
Walkable cities.
Dunkin' Donuts. Yes, I am aware that Dunkin' Donuts iced lattes are more sugar than coffee, but they are so very delicious.

I will say that I do not miss the East Coast's humidity. My hair doesn't miss it, either.

Because It's Been A While Since I Expressed My Love of Journalism

2011-05-23T00:55:00.001-07:00

It's been a while since I posted an ode to journalism. So, here's a sad one from this op-ed by a Russian journalist:

In Russia today, journalists are murdered like Anna Politkovskaya, beaten like Oleg Kashin and intimidated like me, but — as terrible as this will sound — that is not the real problem. The real problem is that journalists are ignored. The risks they take in challenging Vladimir Putin and the Russian oligarchy have ceased to have meaning. One is valued only for telling a harmless story, an amusing anecdote that can exist, side by side, with ad space.

There's what to say about whether this attitude toward journalism is present in America, too, but I have research to do (story of my life) and it's almost 1 in the morning, so I'll leave you to your own thoughts about what it means that people are more interested in pictures of the royal wedding (those hats!) than in serious journalism.

Book Review: The Case for Falling in Love

2011-05-20T15:47:00.000-07:00

I'm always tickled when my blog gets books to review, and if they sound interesting, I take the book publishers up on the offer for a review copy. The Case for Falling in Love by Mari Ruti seemed intriguing, though I wasn't sure why falling in love needed to be defended. I mean, who has ever said that falling in love sucks? People want to fall in love, don't they? It's like writing a book called The Case for Ice Cream, Cookies, and Chocolate. Does anyone sane question the awesomeness of those things?

The title, though, seems to be a misnomer for the book—at least for the first quarter of the book, which is all I managed to get through. A more accurate title would be something to the effect of: Author Bashes All Other Self-Help Relationship Books for Relying on Gender Stereotypes and Then Replaces Them with Her Own Stereotypes. That might be a little long for a title, but you get the idea. I had no interest in reading any further.

I don't think the author is wrong when she says that if we rely too much on gender stereotypes, then women play the victim and men are thought of as incapable of feelings and obsessed with being powerful. And that surely, this is not an accurate depiction of love, nor is it a healthy approach to love. And I definitely have no problem with bashing self-help books as a genre or with bashing relationship self-help books in particular.

But the author then seems to make her own ridiculous generalizations about men. She'd much rather date men who ask for directions than those who don't because ones who can't ask for directions are unable to recognize their infallibility in any realm. Guys who ask for directions are clever. Guys who are masculine and macho exploit women. Guys who are good at making the first move in a relationship are the guys you should worry about and maybe avoid.

I think the author has some great points about gender stereotypes being ridiculous and not a way to approach relationships. I am just not sure she provides a better approach. Though I do like her assertion that the person with whom you fall in love is an "exception" in that things you thought mattered beforehand do not matter as much. "[W]hen it comes to your 'exception,' you're willing to push aside the gender codes that you might usually navigate by. This is excellent news, not the least because the person you fully fall for is, by definition, always your 'exception.' "

Buried Under a Pile of Grading

2011-05-15T00:41:00.000-07:00

I am currently buried under a pile of grading instead of a pile of my own work, which is definitely a step in the right direction at least. I am tantalizingly close to being blissfully done with this semester (and am using way too many adjectives, or adverbs, as the case may be). Also, I am baking cupcakes. Obviously. And in so doing, may have permanently dyed my countertop and my fingers red.

I will be back to my regular blogging shortly. Until then, do something fun and think of me holed up in my apartment grading 120 handwritten essays. All I can say is that handwriting is definitely a lost art.

It Is in the Small Things We See It

2011-05-10T00:38:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite poems:

Courage

Anne Sexton

It is in the small things we see it.
The child's first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.

Later,
if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,
you did it with only a hat to
cover your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
though it was there.
Your courage was a small coal
that you kept swallowing.
If your buddy saved you
and died himself in so doing,
then his courage was not courage,
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.

Later,
if you have endured a great despair,
then you did it alone,
getting a transfusion from the fire,
picking the scabs off your heart,
then wringing it out like a sock.
Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
and then you covered it with a blanket
and after it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses
and was transformed.

Later,
when you face old age and its natural conclusion
your courage will still be shown in the little ways,
each spring will be a sword you'll sharpen,
those you love will live in a fever of love,
and you'll bargain with the calendar
and at the last moment
when death opens the back door
you'll put on your carpet slippers
and stride out.

Still Buried Under Piles of Books

2011-05-08T13:26:00.001-07:00

I will resurface at some point in the next week or so after finishing two papers, drafting a conference presentation, and grading 40 final exams. But just to keep you entertained in my absence, this is my new favorite website.

Because I Am Clearly Insane

2011-04-28T23:43:00.000-07:00

Those are mint chocolate cupcakes with mint frosting. One of two desserts I am making for Shabbos (because I can't disappoint a 9-year-old who loves these cookies). That paper that's due on Monday that is currently a mess of notes, data, and nothingness? It'll get done somehow. Right?

On Postponing the A Cappella Death Wishes

2011-04-27T11:31:00.001-07:00

I may or may not have already messed up the counting sefira thing, and less than a full day in and I'm already hating a cappella music with a passion, but here's a public service announcement for anyone else who is ready to make Maccabeats voodoo dolls: There is a Warblers CD of Glee music that is all a cappella. I doubt it will last me until Lag Ba'Omer, but it's something, and I would find it hilarious if Orthodox Jews could drive a noticeable spike in the CD's sales during sefira.

Awkward Moments at the Keilim Mikvah

2011-04-12T11:34:00.001-07:00

So, I went to the keilim mikvah today with lots of stuff to tovel pre-Pesach (coffee pot, pots, knives, cookie jar—yeah, that doesn't make as much sense—really cute shot glasses...). After spilling a good amount of mikvah water—gross!—on my shirt while trying to lift a pot out of the water, a guy waiting in line to tovel dishes said: "Now everyone will know you went to the mikvah." Awkward pause. "The keilim mikvah."

Halacha Is Real Life and Other Adventures in Gchat

2011-04-06T23:25:00.000-07:00

In response to my Gchat poll about whether there are foods that are both snacks and meals:

Friend: if u have enough of anything it is a meal
me: i know that's the halacha
but i don't think it's real life
Friend: oy - halachah is real life

Another friend late at night while we were both suffering through studying and wanted to go to sleep:

Friend: ok, ice cream, or coffee
  or a late night muffin?
me: ice creammmmm
Friend: haha
  we should do board game + ice cream night!
  totally
me: YESSSSSSSSS
   after the semester is over?
Friend: after the graduate school is over?

I Need This

2011-04-04T14:16:00.000-07:00

It combines two of my favorite things: shoes and office supplies. (I cannot even explain how excited my new 24-pack of Post-It notes is making me.)

Only in L.A. ...

2011-04-01T17:12:00.000-07:00

That's inflatable slime on a building (the Galen Center) across the street from USC. Who knew there even was such a thing as inflatable slime?

PSA on the NYT Paywall

2011-03-30T11:51:00.001-07:00

I am somewhat embarrassed that it took me from Monday until this morning to slam into the New York Times paywall. This means that as a researcher who studies news, I obviously spend far too little time consuming news. But having exhausted my 20 free articles less than three days into the month, I was faced with three options: pay for the digital subscription, pay less money for a print subscription I am unlikely to read in print so that I can access the NYT online thus killing trees for no good reason, or I could use a workaround to get around the paywall.

I had prepared for this by adding NYT Clean to my bookmarks toolbar, curious if it would work. It essentially strips the Javascript that creates the text box over the article that says you have to pay. (Or something like that. I don't really understand the computer stuff.) It works fabulously and effortlessly.

Now, the NYT has made it clear that they know these workarounds exist but they do not intend on shutting them down. The NYT, however, has also made it clear that using these workarounds is comparable to stealing a newspaper from a news stand.

You can decide how you feel about all this, but I figured I would just let all you trusty blog readers know that NYT Clean is awesome. Now you can decide for yourself if you want to go steal newspapers.

And No, I Will Not Get High

2011-03-30T09:07:00.000-07:00

I just got funding to go to Amsterdam for two weeks this summer to attend a program about digital methods. This makes me very excited. For all those who are about to ask whether I am going to get high while there (because everyone seems to think it's hilarious to ask that question to someone who so obviously will not), it is not on my to-do list. Though I was thinking that I really enjoyed Widow for One Year by John Irving, which takes place in Amsterdam. But being as it's about a woman who witnesses a prostitute get murdered in the Red Light District, I do not think I will be re-reading it in anticipation of my trip. Also because even though I shipped 250 pounds of books to L.A. when I moved here (including a lesser Irving title and another awesome Irving book), I apparently left that book in New York.

But while I'm on the topic of Irving, I will link to one of his essays, which I really like: "Trying to Save Piggy Sneed."

Happy First Day of the NYT Paywall

2011-03-28T16:16:00.001-07:00

On this unhappy first day of the NYT paywall, I bring to you dorky links.

On the un-hipness of the OED:"Listen, Oxford English Dictionary. You are the Oxford English Dictionary. Do you know what that means? That means that you are never, ever going to be invited to the hip afterparties, no matter what you do or how many asinine "initialisms" you say are words."

Poetry is coming back to the subways. Too bad I don't take the subway. Also, it's too bad that the headline of that article is a pun.

Also, now that the NYT costs money, I thought I'd start reading the Washington Post. Except that its new website is hideous.

Sibling Name-Calling

2011-03-27T20:16:00.001-07:00

A text message conversation with my brother on the occasion of his 14th birthday:

Me: Happy birthday, bro!

Brother: Thanks.

Me: Are you also getting an annoyingly loud musical instrument for your birthday? [Our sister got drums for her birthday three weeks ago.]

Brother: Nope.

Me: What presents are you getting for your birthday?

Brother: Idk. I'm not home yet.

Me: You didn't tell the parents what you want?

Brother: Nope I don't really care.

Me: Weirdo.

Brother: OK wtvr. At least I'm not the one that goes to school after you already graduated.

Me: I loooooove school.

Brother: Nerd.

'Eruv, from the Hebrew for Loophole'

2011-03-26T23:41:00.000-07:00

The Daily Show - The Thin Jew Line
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Happy Shushan Purim/ End of Spring Break

2011-03-20T23:20:00.000-07:00

My hamentaschen—they looked a lot better than they tasted, though I'm not a huge hamentasch fan. And, yes, I am insane for taking the extra time to drizzle chocolate on cookies that would have been perfectly fine without the added chocolate.

My mishloach manot—Christmas themed in honor of ונהפוך הוא.

I'd say Purim was a success (also that I keep cellophane makers in business). As was the spring break trip to Sequoia. Schoolwork? Not so much. But it's back to school tomorrow morning at the ungodly hour of 8 a.m. Seriously, I don't know how anyone gets anything done that early in the morning.

Advantages of a Cross-Country Move?

2011-03-15T00:41:00.001-07:00

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I think moving to L.A. was ... difficult. But there are certain advantages to a cross-country move. One of them should be that when you're buying your coffee at the ungodly hour of 6:20 in the morning, you should not run into your elementary school principal, who is wearing sweats. It's just not fair to still have that as an even remote possibility, never mind a reality, after having moved 3,000 miles.

'Really Special Shoes'

2011-03-13T21:28:00.000-07:00

“It's really hard to walk in a single woman's shoes—that's why you sometimes need really special shoes.”

Lesson of the day: It's really difficult to take pictures of your own feet. Also, it's too bad I am venturing north into the snow tomorrow morning (it's a spring break for fun and schoolwork—we'll see which one suffers most) and will thus have to wait days before I can wear these awesome new shoes.

It's All Relative

2011-03-13T11:26:00.000-07:00

Once, I went to a Shabbos meal that was also attended by a guy who I had dated for a long time (in shidduch terms) and his girlfriend and the ex-husband of a friend. It was very awkward. Essentially, I sat between two friends and didn't say anything to anyone else the entire meal.

The good thing about having said experience, though, is that pretty much any other awkward Shabbos meal pales in comparison.

משנכנס אדר מרבין בשמחה

2011-03-07T11:27:00.000-08:00

My grandmother has this thing about hanging pictures of fish on the apartment door for the month of Adar. She thinks it's a segulah to get married. I think it's a bubbe meise (which is my general opinion toward segulahs, though I do have a drawer full of plate shards in my parents' house and am especially thankful for my good immune system after every sip of segulah wine). But, still, for the past three years, I have dutifully hung up the watercolor fish my grandmother has sent. In those three years, four out of six of my roommates have gotten married. Two got engaged while I lived with them. It seems that these fish are actually roommate segulahs, if anything, but that's good, too.

This year, my grandmother did not send me a fish. I'm not sure if that means she's given up on me (or my roommate) or she just forgot. In any case, I hung up last year's fish. It can't hurt.

N.Y. Beats L.A. (Sorta)

2011-03-01T13:40:00.000-08:00

In toxicity.

L.A., 1. N.Y., 100 million. But, hey, I'll take what I can get. Especially because it is way too cold here, and the whole point of living in L.A. is being able to gloat about wearing flip-flops when everyone else is bundled up in down coats and wool hats.

What Academia Is All About

2011-02-26T23:20:00.001-08:00

A conversation with a fellow Ph.D. student about coffeemakers:

Friend: Mine is a 2-cup.
me: My old one was a 4-cup but I hated it.
Friend: I decided to go for a smaller one since otherwise I would end up making too much coffee because the 4-cup doesn't fit in a phd student's life.
Next time, you get an espresso machine.
me: Mmmm. I wanted an espresso machine, but the price doesn't fit in a phd student's life.
Friend: Work harder!!! That is why we want a professor-ship, you know.
me: It's true. So we can afford the coffee habits we developed as grad students.

And L.A. Drivers Complain About the N.Y.-ers

2011-02-26T21:52:00.001-08:00

Texting while you're driving even when you're stopped at a red light? Bad. I judge those people, too.

Rolling down your window to yell back at the texter and give him the loser sign while your child is sitting in a car seat in your back seat? Not so cool, either.

Adult Mutant Ninja Turtles: Heroes in a Cubicle

2011-02-25T12:21:00.000-08:00

OK, yes, I should be doing research right now (story of my life) or cleaning my kitchen (which is a disaster because I started baking last night at 11:30 and my roommate is away for the weekend so I didn't feel as pressed to clean it up right away) or cleaning my room (which is a disaster because I've been stressed and is so bad I've been avoiding doing anything in it but sleeping) or figuring out my life (something I always need to be doing).

But, instead, in my procrastination efforts, I found the image above, which you can get on a T-shirt here. My sister was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles watcher (while I watched My Little Pony or somesuch), but this is sort of awesome.

Ok, back to work. Or other forms of procrastination.

Why Spelling Is Important, Reason 1572

2011-02-24T21:01:00.000-08:00

It's not like anyone needs to prove to me that spelling is important, but...

Seriously, NYT? Seriously?

2011-02-19T23:57:00.001-08:00

Now, newspapers run corrections for misspelling names all the time. Street names in a city that is as foreign as they come (L.A.)? Not great to misspell but maybe almost acceptable. Understandable, at the very least. (It becomes slightly less understandable if you have any clue what NYT copy editors make.) Now, consider this correction:

Correction: February 19, 2011 An earlier version of a map with this article misspelled part of the name of a street in Los Angeles. It is Cesar Chavez Avenue, not Sezar.

Sezar Chavez? Nobody caught that? Really?

The Life of a Grad Student

2011-02-17T21:50:00.000-08:00

It's from Graph Jam, where it's titled "The Creative Process," but I think it does a pretty good job summing up the life of a grad student, too. Though I get a lot less napping than the graph indicates. I should work on that.

My Blog Is a First Grader

2011-02-17T20:51:00.000-08:00

It's officially 6 years old today. That makes me feel old.

Break-Up Rules: My Proposal

2011-02-15T22:55:00.000-08:00

Being on either side of a break-up (the one doing the breaking up or the one being broken up with) isn't exactly pleasant. But gleaning from past experience on both sides, I think there are some rules of propriety worth following:

Voice mail or text message break-ups are never appropriate.
After more than a few dates, the courtesy of an in-person break-up is warranted.
Despite #2, an in-person break-up does not mean waste lots of hours on a date before doing the dirty deed.
If at all possible, warn the other party. Tell him/her that you need to talk—that's a pretty good signal that something ominous is coming and prevents surprise.
If you are going to do the breaking up by framing it in a "Where are we at in this relationship?" context, do not ask the other party what her opinion is before giving your own. This can only lead to embarrassment if she says she thinks it's going great and your response is something like, "Actually, I don't feel that way at all, and I don't think we should continue dating."
Please, please, please do not do the breaking up in such a way that you then need to travel together afterward. Break up in a car. Or on the sidewalk in front of your apartment building. Or anywhere that does not mean you will have to spend more awkward time together.
Make sure that all of each other's possessions are returned before the break-up. This prevents future awkwardness.
Do not say that you still want to be friends. Maybe you'll end up being friends and that's really nice or maybe you won't and that's also OK. But the last thing someone wants to hear when they're being broken up with is, "I didn't really like you that much, but I sorta liked you." Also, because most of the time, at the moment you're being broken up with, the thoughts in your mind are something like, "Jerk. Jerk. Jerk. I never want to see this person ever again." And probably the person is not a jerk if you've dated him for long enough that an in-person break-up is warranted, but that's still what you're feeling in the moment, which is significantly different than wanting to be friends with him.

Anything I'm missing?

Seasons = Missed School Days

2011-02-10T09:56:00.000-08:00

Since I moved to L.A., I have made it my mission in life to try to convince everyone I know and love to move here, too. (This practice has the added benefit of forcing me to be positive about L.A. and count its positive attributes. Though, really, I'm just selfish and miss the people I love.)

I haven't convinced anyone to actually up and move here, but I definitely have convinced many people that they should at least want to move here (you know who you are). Honestly, though, I think it's more about Coffee Bean than me.

When talking to my 8-year-old brother this week, I tried convincing him that he should move here (which seems sort of pointless since he's 8 and doesn't exactly have the wherewithal to move cross-country but whatever) by telling him we don't have any snow here in L.A., to which he responded by asking if we had any seasons here. "Well, sure," I responded. "It gets a little bit colder in the winter. It rains a little. But mostly it's beautiful." This seems to be all pluses in my book. "No, No," he said. "Do you have any seasons that let you miss school?"

Upon revealing that there is nothing comparable to snow days in L.A., he decided he has no interest in moving here.

Oh, well. I tried. I should tell him about Coffee Bean.

Questions From a Confused, Sleep-Deprieved Mind

2011-02-06T00:23:00.000-08:00

Why does the USC student center have a five-tiered fireplace (see picture if you are having a hard time figuring out what that means)? Never mind the fact that I can't figure out why anyone would have a five-tiered fireplace, but USC is in L.A., where fireplaces seem slightly unnecessary. I mean, I have a fireplace in my apartment, which seemed pretty awesome—I envisioned toasted marshmallows and s'mores—but guess how many times I've used it? Um, never.

Why did I get summoned for jury duty in New York when I live in California? The entire time I lived in New York, I never got summoned for jury duty. I have been an official resident of California for one and a half years, and I just got summoned for jury duty. In New York.

Why do undergrads think that if they ask their professor enough dumb questions about the upcoming exam, he will break and just hand over a copy of said exam?

Deep Thoughts: The New Shoes & Stress Baking Edition

2011-01-30T23:53:00.000-08:00

Dating is exhausting.

Having something wrong with my foot is clearly a good excuse to buy new sneakers. I mean, the doctor did tell me I needed to wear sneakers. I may have promptly gone home and broken in my new heels over Shabbos, but this still seems legit.

I am stress-baking to recover from this exhausting day (chocolate chip cookies with white chocolate chips added in). Which only means I will be more stressed when I realize how much work I haven't yet done tomorrow. It seems like this is going to lead into an endless cycle of stress and baking. Which will lead to weight gain. Which will lead to more stress. If you give a moose a muffin...

What if, according to this typography, I will be a "Yes caffeine/No sleep Robot" forever?

I almost sent an e-mail last night that went something like: "Dear huge news company, If you let me interview your reporters, I will buy them coffee." It's so pathetic they might have had pity on me and let me do my research.

She Has a Valid, if Impractical, Point

2011-01-23T21:20:00.000-08:00

A Gchat conversation with one of my classmates:

me: I drove to Ralph's [a supermarket], which is not that far from my apartment because I am lazy

classmate: No, it is because you are an LAer
People drive in LA, that is the norm

me: Shhhhhh

Don't say that
It's not true

I am a New Yorker

classmate: Then you should have taken the subway to the market

Boots in 80-Degree Weather: An L.A. Milestone

2011-01-22T20:59:00.000-08:00

Last week, I became that L.A.-er (I know the correct term is Angeleno, but that still sounds so weird to me) who wears completely weather-inappropriate clothing. In my defense, when I left my apartment at 7 in the morning it was cold and when I left school at 8 p.m. it was also cold. So, it totally made sense to wear boots. Even if it may have been somewhere around 80 degrees for some of the hours in between. Yeah, whatever. I deserve to be made fun of.

But in honor of this L.A. milestone of mine, I have collected some L.A. quotes for your entertainment—and my procrastination. (There don't seem to be very many happy quotes about L.A., but the tone of the collection is not necessarily reflective of my thoughts on L.A.):

“Los Angeles is 72 suburbs in search of a city.” —Dorothy Parker

“I'd move to Los Angeles if New Zealand and Australia were swallowed up by a tidal wave, if there was a bubonic plague in England and if the continent of Africa disappeared from some Martian attack.” —Russel Crowe

“In Los Angeles, by the time you're 35, you're older than most of the buildings.” –Delia Ephron

“Between a quarter and a third of Los Angeles's land area is now monopolized by the automobile and its needs—by freeways, highways, garages, gas stations, car lots, parking lots. And all of it is blanketed with anonymity and foul air.” —Alistair Cooke

"As far as loneliness, I feel Los Angeles and its layout, having to drive everywhere—it is a lonely place. It's an isolated city in that respect because you're driving to places alone listening to the radio." —Jason Schwartzman

"I don't like Los Angeles. The people are awful and terribly shallow, and everybody wants to be famous but nobody wants to play the game. I'm from New York. I will kill to get what I need. —Lady Gaga

And You Think I'm Kidding When I Complain About Driving in L.A.

2011-01-19T19:44:00.000-08:00

That's right outside my apartment building. Neither car is mine—since I don't drive a pick-up truck or a Lexus. And I'm told no one was hurt (I was in school when this happened, and by the time I got home, it was all cleared, but Facebook kept me informed), but I still can't figure out how it happened.

Back From Vacation and Back to Work

2011-01-11T22:39:00.000-08:00

(And back to blogging more regularly. Or so I hope.) So far, I have articles to teach, books to read, research proposals to write, data analysis to do ... and I've only had two days of school so far. Also, a heel broke off my shoe, I was called "professor" by a student, I'm pretty much stalking one of my professors, I shipped 25 pounds of books from New York after buying books at something like three different bookstores on the East Coast (and digging up some of my old books that I wanted), and bought another a bookcase. And I'm just hoping that my next game-night date doesn't end in being dumped (like my last one did). But it's 70 degrees here, so I'm not complaining.

Boys Are Stupid, Throw Snowballs at Them

2010-12-27T21:52:00.001-08:00

So, I'm on vacation in New York (obviously) where I am stranded by the snow in the Heights, which would be fine except I am pretty much out of clothing and need to get home to pack and return to the city before I trek below the Mason Dixie Line to visit friends in D.C. and Baltimore. Snow? Not so awesome. Though I did have an awesome day of Billy-building (or watching others build Billy, as the case may be) and Trivial Pursuit.

Anyhow, I will leave you with three boys are stupid moments before I get back to vacationing. And by that I mean sleeping as much as possible:

Words that you never, ever want to hear from a guy you are only sort of friendly with: "So, I want to know why you're not dating my roommate." Followed by: "I realized you could have thought I was going to ask you out, but ... I wasn't ... not that you're not ... hahaha."

Something you should never, ever do in a blizzard: Plan an outdoor date. Because you know what? Four-inch heels (even in boot form) and makeup (even if advertised as waterproof) and hair (that was meticulously done and looked awesome) should not be exposed to a blizzard for prolonged periods of time. Even if there is sesame chicken at the end.

Something else you should never, ever attempt to do in a blizzard: barbecue, which was my brother's plan. Two and half hours and no edible food later, he called it quits.

Deep Thoughts: The Almost End of the Semester Edition

2010-12-15T11:40:00.001-08:00

Laughing out loud while reading = charming. Laughing out loud while watching TV = significantly less charming.

Fijian is an adjective, not a country, and writing in script should be banned.

Eye care is ridiculously expensive.

I ate my last Reese's pumpkin and now I have to wait until after Christmas to get more seasonal Reese's (tree-shaped ones!).

Flat Stanley is going to a medical marijuana dispensary (he needs to get a true L.A. experience). Will I get my 8-year-old brother kicked out of school? Maybe.

Shoe Lust: The Green Edition

2010-12-09T23:56:00.000-08:00

My friend and I make Shabbos meals themed by color, in which all of the food has to be a single color. I know, I know, it sounds ridiculous, but it is awesome. When I am in New York for winter break, we are doing a meal for the only color of the rainbow we haven't done yet—green. Part of the rules are you have to dress in the color of the meal, and I am lusting after these beautiful green shoes, which I can definitely not justify buying. Oh, well. At least you can all see them.

Inappropriate Questions: A Rant

2010-12-08T12:19:00.001-08:00

Or, boys on dates are not the only ones who ask inappropriate questions about my family. (Ed.: I went looking through my blog archives to link here to one of my favorite dating stories, but I apparently have deprived you blog readers of this anecdote. So, I will give it to you here. Once, on a first date, a guy was very taken aback by the size of my family—which is fair—and one of his first responses was to ask me if I ever told my parents to stop having children. His follow-up question was whether I thought my parents were irresponsible for having so many children. Charming.)

Anyhow, back to the scheduled programming.

Yes, my parents have a lot of children. Yes, that's unusual. I don't know what part of that entitles people to ask whether I think my parents are "done" having kids. Quite frankly, I'm not privy to information about my parents' family planning, and I hardly think it's a question that you would ask anyone else, so I'd rather not be asked it in front of a Shabbos table full of guests I just met.

And, yes, my youngest sibling is significantly younger than I am. But if you're curious about our relationship, you might not want to phrase your question as, "Does he even know who you are?" (Especially, because I might actually be sensitive to that.)

A Virtual Primal Scream

2010-12-06T00:50:00.000-08:00

At Columbia (and probably lots of other places), on one of the nights of finals, there is a set time where students let out a primal scream. In the absence of frightening my roommate by doing that, consider this my virtual primal scream:

So, it's 12:45 a.m. ITunes (yes, the I should be capitalized; I know it's ugly) is on shuffle and is spitting out a mix of Glee, Disney, Jewish music, and Rent, which I'm sure is not an accurate reflection of my music collection. I have been snacking ridiculously (candy cane Joe-Joes!) and procrastinating in every way possible. My room is a total disaster. My part of the group paper I'm working on is probably less than half done. I'm not tired so much as uninterested in writing. I want a real donut, not the kosher-bakery variety. I am crazy excited about going to the East Coast (green meal and used books and the Newseum and people who will play Trivial Pursuit with me!) but am not entirely sure how all the work is going to get done before I leave. (This is pretty typical finals fare, I realize.)

And I have a rant about ridiculous financial expenditures (not my own) boiling up inside me, which shall remain unwritten for now—both for propriety and time concerns. I'll leave you with this:

In Gilmore Girls, when Paris and the gang drive into Stars Hollow to work on a group project and they pull up in a fancy car, Lorelai says something to the effect of: "Wow. She must have baby-sat an awful lot to afford a car like that."

Happy Erev Chanukah!

2010-11-30T23:36:00.001-08:00

Yes, I know it's old news, but I figure if it's good enough for HuffPo to link to, it's good enough for me. (Note to readers: I do not know what implications this will have for the future of my blog. Stay tuned.) Anyhow, I'm getting excited for Chanukah. Well, mostly I'm getting excited for the box that's been sitting unopened in my room for the past week, which, I am told, contains an awesome Chanukah gift. Because I, unlike my holy 6-year-old brother who prefers Pesach to Chanukah, get excited over deep-fried food, gifts, and fire.

An Open Letter to Anyone Who Will Ever Ask Me What I Study

2010-11-26T09:54:00.001-08:00

Dear anyone who will ever ask me what I study,

I am studying communication. That does not mean I am learning how to communicate. It is not funny when you say something to the effect of, "You must communicate really well."

Love,
Eli7

Shoe Purgatory

2010-11-23T15:45:00.000-08:00

Dear shoes,

I am sorry I killed you. You will be missed.

Love, Eli7

Another Driving Milestone

2010-11-22T13:18:00.001-08:00

I can successfully drive in heels and wedges. Booyah.

Giving the Finger and Other Milestones

2010-11-20T22:36:00.000-08:00

Yeah, yeah, it's been a while. I've been busy. I went to my first academic conference, where I learned that I suck at networking and that conferences accept some work that is, shall we say, less than amazing (which means that if I don't get work accepted to these conferences I am going to be even more discouraged because it will mean my work is worse than that work). I also learned that San Francisco is an awesome city (with the exception of its not kosher Coffee Bean, which threw a wrench into my meal plans) and that academics drink a lot of coffee. In other words, not mind-blowing but a good time.

I have also learned that I become an obnoxious driver when I am stressed because I left school at 3:50 and candle lighting is at 4:30. First time I have ever given anyone the finger. And he probably only sort of deserved it. Also, if I gave four years of my life and sleep to a college newspaper, you'd think it could pay me back by filling out my darn survey so I don't fail a class. You'd think, wouldn't you?

Now, I have to write three papers by the end of the semester. Big ones. And grade 220 finals. And host a Thanksgiving dinner (including pumpkin challah!) and celebrate Chanukah (which my 6-year-old brother finds less enjoyable than Pesach—he's insane or gets some really awful Chanuka presents). And then fly off to the cold, cold East Coast, where I will visit many cities to see many fun people.

'The Abyss of Contemporary Academia'

2010-11-07T21:47:00.001-08:00

"[T]he boldness of of this ignorant lily-white redneck fundamentalist led my other students to form a committee to demand that I grade and return their accumulated essays and examinations. There was even a small demonstration outside the window of my office. It was rather dramatic. For being such simple, ignorant children, they managed it quite well. At the height of the demonstration I dumped all of the old papers—ungraded, of course—out of the window and right onto the students' heads. The college was too small to accept this act of defiance against the abyss of contemporary academia." —A Confederacy of Dunces

In the past 24-ish hours, I graded 100 essays and piloted six surveys. And now I am tired.

How to Raise Your Adult Children—If You Want Them to Hate You

2010-10-31T20:47:00.001-07:00

So, I got a review copy of this book, How to Raise Your Adult Children. Now, I have to tell you, I am really tickled when I get review copies of books through my blog. I once got one about Nazis and Jews and condoms, which is still sitting on my bookshelf unread (which probably says something about the appeal of the book). Anyhow, this book sounded pretty interesting and who better to review a book on raising adult children than an adult child?

Well, this adult child is glad the authors of this book are not her parents. Their advice is sort of confusing to me. They don't think it's OK for parents to always pay for dinner when they take their adult children out to dinner, don't think that parents have any obligation to pay for their kid's college even if they can (and specifically think grandparents shouldn't help pay for their grandkids' college just to teach their own children a lesson for not saving), think that parents always know how their kids' relationships are going to turn out, and think that parents should convert their kids' bedrooms into something else the second the kid walks out the door to college.

One of the authors is a comedy writer so the book is supposed to be funny. It's not. The other writer is a marriage and family therapist who suggests that pretty much everyone needs therapy. Now, don't get me wrong, I think mental health counseling is incredibly important, but I'm not sure the daughter in her first month of college who calls home multiple times a week needs therapy nor does the grandfather who doesn't mind babysitting his grand kids every weekend.

Now, I'm not saying I know everything about raising adult children—or even children children—and certainly the authors occasionally call parents out for being stupid or ridiculous or something, but they don't give adult children enough credit. Because you know what adult children are? Just people. People who sometimes make good decisions and sometimes make bad decisions and sometimes need a helping hand from the people who love them.

(And for the record, my parents did not pay my college tuition and I don't have a bedroom in my parents' house, but my parents pay when I eat out with them and they will owe me as much babysitting as I ask for considering how much babysitting I did for their children.)

The Bizarre and Wonderful World of Shoes

2010-10-27T23:08:00.000-07:00

I just discovered "shuella"—that is, a shoe umbrella. It is a hideous contraption. I'm not sure how it works or why anyone would try to make it work. Is it so hard to wear regular rain boots and carry your heels? Would anyone who is so vain as to want to wear beautiful shoes in inclement weather stoop to wearing these on their feet? The answer is no, and this is coming from a girl who ruined two pairs of flats last year before she finally bought her super-cute rain boots

These, though, are genius.

In Which I Learn Some Health Stats

2010-10-27T00:28:00.001-07:00

I've been extraordinarily exhausted lately even when I get what should be sufficient sleep. After that went on for a few weeks, when I didn't really have time to be sleeping at all, I went to health services on campus. The doctor suggested that I was just stressed out. When I tried to tell her that I know stress, hang out with it every day, and this is not stress, she seemed skeptical at best but took some blood. All the tests came back negative. She again suggested stress; I again reiterated that if this was how my body reacted to stress, I'd know it by now. She said there were some tests for rarer conditions that she could run. Those rarer conditions? HIV and ... mono. Now, I assured her that HIV seemed highly unlikely (considering...), but why in the world would she wait until the second blood test to test for mono? The tests haven't come back yet, so I don't know whether I have mono or not, but I'm just saying that, in the scheme of things, when a student comes to the doctor complaining of extreme fatigue, shouldn't mono be up there at the top of the list? And is a USC student really just as likely to have mono as HIV?

1 a.m. Thoughts, Sense Not Guaranteed

2010-10-24T01:08:00.001-07:00

At this very moment, I should be constructing a survey. It would help if I knew what the survey was supposed to be on. [Insert shameless idea solicitation here.] In the next week, I have four papers due, which is clearly why I am blogging right now instead of frantically tearing out my hair while trying to read a book I have to review and present on Friday. I'm afraid if I go to sleep now, I'll oversleep in the morning, so clearly the solution is not to go to sleep anytime soon. All of this makes sense in my head. And I'd really like to bake, but I don't really have time even though freshly baked cupcakes (and the physical exertion of creaming butter) may make me feel better. Also, I have eaten rice cakes as a meal at least three or four times in the past week, which I'm pretty sure is not the most nutritious thing I've ever done in my life. Then again, I've probably eaten chocolate for a meal, too, and a few weeks ago I had a mint-chocolate-chip ice cream sandwich (so many hyphenation questions that my brain is going to explode) for breakfast, so maybe rice cakes are a step in the nutritional right direction.

If I read another 10-12 articles (or however many I have opened on my computer) tonight and can come up with a survey-construction hypothesis, then I can go to bed satisfied (and turn off my poor computer, which is begging me for mercy; I had to leave it on over Shabbos because I had downloaded a ridiculous number of articles and didn't have the patience to organize and save them all). So, here's to hoping for some rest for me—and my computer.

Pumpkin Season

2010-10-18T18:01:00.000-07:00

“Men are like pumpkins. It seems like all the good ones are either taken or they've had everything scraped out of their heads with a spoon.”

Pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting in honor of yesterday's pumpkin carving (which, unlike my first pumpkin-carving experience, did not involve a semicolon). Let's just say the can of organic pumpkin that went into those cupcakes was ridiculously expensive, but apparently there is a canned-pumpkin shortage, so I took what I could find—at the second supermarket I tried.

Pomp and Circumstance

2010-10-16T21:47:00.000-07:00

USC inaugurated its 11th president on Friday. I was mostly worried that parking would be a problem (it wasn't, which maybe had to do with the fact that I got to school at 7:15 a.m.), but I did watch the ceremony from the Ph.D. dungeon. (This had two advantages: I could use the inauguration as background noise while reading about sensemaking in organizations and I didn't expose my hair to the unusual-in-L.A. humidity.) But even while watching it from the relative comfort of a place where somewhere around 80 grad students spend a ridiculous amount of time doing a ridiculous amount of work and eating ridiculously badly, the inauguration left me all warm and fuzzy inside. So, I figured I'd devote some blog space (and time that should be used to write about survey construction) to USC school pride (or some semblance thereof).

I learned from the inauguration that probably every USC event should be endured with a drinking game involving the phrase "Fight on" and references to the ancient city of Troy. I imagine this knowledge will come in handy in the future.

I am a sucker for a good speech about the importance of education and American opportunity, etc., etc. A good immigrant story helps, too. Nikias's inaugural address did not disappoint.

USC has the most international students of any American university, which is a nice statistic that it throws around whenever it can, but I recently learned that USC also has the most fountains of any university in either the U.S. or the world (I don't know which one and I really know how one would actually gather statistics for this). Pride in our fountains culminates with a senior fountain run, in which the seniors race to get wet in each of the fountains. It's apparently incredibly hard to make a good route for this because the maps are never accurate because USC is constantly adding more fountains to stay on top of this having the most fountains thing.

Obama clearly likes USC better than Columbia. He is speaking here next week (parking worries intensify) and seems unlikely to speak at Columbia despite the efforts of this group.

This is less USC-specific, but I found this quote in a paper I was reading about narratives and storytelling in newsrooms (you know you're jealous of my exciting life) and really liked it, so here it is: "It is important to reﬂect at this point on my story, the story of an academic researcher. ... I am cast, at various times, as fool (to think that academic research matters to people in newspapers), as villain (associated with one group or perspective, usually management), and sometimes as hero (telling the story that nobody else is willing to tell)."

And with that, I will leave you to go do my schoolwork. Or to bake pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Yeah, I want to do that.

Why 12-Year-Olds Shouldn't Be on Facebook

2010-10-10T21:16:00.000-07:00

Or at least why you shouldn't be friends with them on Facebook:

A guy I met on Shabbos friended me last night. To which my 12-year-old sister commented for all my (and I suppose her) Facebook friends to see, "your new boyfriend." She then deleted it and now denies it was her (which maybe it wasn't, but I don't know who else has access to her Facebook account—I mean perhaps another sibling, but...). It's no secret that 12-year-old sisters are bratty, but Facebook lets the whole world see their brattiness. The joys of technology.

Sister for sale?

Wearing White Shoes and Hiding My Underwear

2010-10-08T12:11:00.000-07:00

Jezebel tells me that going to college will not make me a "miserable spinster." But will going to grad school make me one?

I have decided that since L.A. does not have seasons and people here wear Uggs in the summer, I can totally wear white shoes after Labor Day.

A piece on what USC students wear reveals they own designer bags, shop at H&M and Forever21, and have useful fashion advice like " "Don't wear anything you don't like," "Don't get caught up in the USC paraphernalia," "Never wear heels," "Dress however you want," and "hide your underwear."

אנחנו מאמינים בני מאמינם

2010-10-07T10:07:00.000-07:00

I get uncomfortable when I see news about women being forced to cover their hair or forced not to cover their hair. (And, yes, the anecdote in the article that spurred this post about immodestly dressed women being spray-painted bears a striking resemblance to what sometimes happens to some women in Meah Shearim who are deemed inappropriately dressed.) In Reading Lolita in Tehran (awesome book, btw), the author talks about the symmetry in the fact that she so viciously opposes the law that forces her to wear a headscarf just as her grandmother opposed the law that prohibited her from doing so.

This post, though, is not about hair-covering (though the slew of three-day yom tov this year—and next—did have me wishing I had an excuse to cover my hair) so much as it is about religion. I guess what makes me uncomfortable is anyone being told how she should worship and how religion should affect one's life—not because I don't think religion is important but precisely because I think it's both important and an intensely personal choice.

The aforementioned slew of three-day yom tov combined with the school I had to miss for it did have me complaining a lot. Which (combined with the paltry number of times I made it to shul, not that women have an obligation to go to shul, but...) made me feel like a bad Jew. After all, yom tov is supposed to be enjoyable, not a nausea-inducing stress fest.

Yom tov also had me answering a lot of religion questions to school friends (i.e., "Why have you dropped off the face of the planet for the last month?"). This, plus seeing Leap of Faith (a musical about a crooked revival tent preacher) and the latest episode of Glee (in which a grilled cheese sandwich with the face of Jesus leads to some surprisingly good discussions on faith) have had me thinking about religion a lot (or, rather, thinking about religion in a different way than the day-to-day being an Orthodox Jew requires thinking about religion).

My brain, though, like my life and my room is a little messy right now and can't be cleaned up until I first write a literature review about Facebook and outline how I'm going to talk to my undergrads about sex in the media and maybe lose the weight I gained over yom tov and call my 8-year-old brother whom I've been ignoring...

So, let's call this a placeholder for a more thought-out post on religion.

This Is My Life

2010-10-04T15:28:00.000-07:00

The next few days/weeks are going to be quite painful, but I bought a new alarm clock (so I can pretend the problem is my perfectly functional alarm and not my complete inability to get work done).

And I'm Getting a Ph.D. Because ... ?

2010-09-16T17:24:00.000-07:00

(From PostSecret.)

It's the Little Things, Part II

2010-09-14T23:07:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Department of Justice recently reported that one in four college women will be victims of sexual assault by the time she graduates, though officials say that statistic might be higher than the reality at USC.

Am I a bad person if I was distracted from the disturbing-ness of this article's topic by the horrendously ungrammatical lede? What if, in the moment, I was maybe more upset by the latter than the former?

One of the occupational hazards of copy editing, I suppose.

It's the Little Things

2010-09-14T22:36:00.001-07:00

New highlighters (after years of being a yellow-highlighter purist, I have graduated, or devolved, to colored highlighters), the first pumpkin latte of the season, free coffee, a belated birthday card and gift, two cans of diet coke, and I'm a very happy person. (Or at least a very caffeinated person.) Oh, that and an upcoming visit by my best sister (luckily, I'm pretty sure she's the only sister who reads my blog) for Sukkot. Which reminds me of all those yom tov meals I need to find, which I can't host myself because I don't have a sukkah and my balcony (I have a balcony!) has an overhang (not that I have the technical aptitude to put together a sukkah anyway)... I have too much caffeine in me right now to get nervous quite yet. I'll write "yom tov meal-finding stress" into my calendar for tomorrow.

'Grad Students: They Just Made a Terrible Life Choice'

2010-09-05T18:34:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: I don't think grad school was a terrible life choice. In the throes of stress, I might call it slightly misguided. Though, I also hope I make more than $600 a year when I am 30.

(H/t to two people who have no blogs or MySpace or Twitter to which to link.)

26?

2010-09-02T22:44:00.000-07:00

This week has been a crazy one, full of ups and downs and not so much sleep.

I turned 26 and had a significantly better birthday than last year (let's just say, a friend whose birthday is also in August and who also moved to L.A. for a Ph.D. program suggested that there should be a special committee for people like us to make sure our first birthdays here don't suck so much)—with friends and games and cake. I got some great, awesome, thoughtful gifts and cards and phone calls from people I really care about. I successfully facilitated a discussion about organizational culture with 35 students (at which I was told that I had a remarkable amount of energy for 8 in the morning; I was just trying to get to my next cup of coffee). I convinced friends to do what amounted to surgery on my walls to hang up what I thought would be simple shadow boxes (they are beautiful, and I very much appreciated the help). I beat up my feet so badly that even the thought of shoes with backs makes me cringe (which will make Shabbos interesting). I was disappointed by people I didn't even realize I cared that much about. I hurt someone I know I care a lot about by being selfish (combined with a misunderstanding and some niceness but still). I accumulated enough work to last me the entire semester. I got up at 5:30 one morning. I graded 70-some odd papers. I made a fool of myself by not recognizing someone I had spent a significant amount of time with two nights before. I had a crazy shidduch story (that didn't even involve a date). I confirmed plans for six Rosh Hashana meals but started worrying about 12 Sukkot/Shmini Atzeret meals.

But in any case, I am 26 years old. I feel sort of old. And tired.

Now Where Will All the Shidduch Dates Go?

2010-08-30T18:08:00.000-07:00

RIP, Barnes & Noble in Lincoln Center, which saw many, many shidduch dates (and, in fact, many of mine). It was one of my go-to places when I (semi-)jokingly suggested shidduch-date watching as an activity. It will certainly be missed.

Those Are Some Lucky Kids

2010-08-30T07:04:00.000-07:00

I got this ad for Godiva in my inbox. Now, first of all, before I say anything else, if you're not signed up for the Godiva membership, which is free and gives you a free Godiva chocolate of your choice every month, go sign up right now. Secondly, I don't know who this is ad is geared toward, but who gives their children Godiva chocolates in their lunch boxes?

(Besides, the chocolates probably contain traces of peanuts in which case they can't even be brought to pretty much any school anyway.)

Making the World Taste Good

2010-08-26T07:26:00.000-07:00

I like baking. When I'm stressed, I like the challenge of creaming and beating (by hand) to get out some of my anxiety. (My old, awesome roommates used to come home to freshly baked cookies and immediately ask what was wrong.) And I like sharing baked goods with people I like.

It's true that baking is time-consuming, but there's something to be said for the ability to produce something tangible and useful and delicious in an hour or so (plus clean-up time). When so much of what I spend my time doing is a lot less tangible and a lot less useful on the surface (obviously, in the long run, saving newspapers is hugely useful), it's nice to spend some time doing something that so quickly yields results—and ones that are appreciated.

(One of my professors said that baking is one of the only socially acceptable hobbies for an academic because colleagues will always want you to publish more and work more, but they will never question whether you were wasting time on your hobby if you hand them food.)

Anyhow, I don't intend to quit my Ph.D. program to open a bakery and luckily now that my apartment isn't stressful and the kashrut of my kitchen isn't dubious, I can bake more often, and fresh baked goods do make everyone happy. (This is my new favorite recipe—even with non-dairy substitutions, it was delicious.) Thus ends my ode to baking.

Happy First Day of School to Me

2010-08-23T13:07:00.001-07:00

I love the first day of school. Writing in brand-new notebooks. Filling in a new planner with all my classes for this semester. Breaking the binding on new books. All that school-supply shininess before the fear of overwork and lack of sleep sets in.

Academia, Explained

2010-08-19T08:22:00.000-07:00

An explanation of the Ph.D. I should send this to all the people who express surprise that earning my Ph.D. will take more than a year or two. (I was reminded that this needs a h/t, well two of them actually—to Written Pyramids and to he who does not have a blog. Consider my hat tipped.)

In the 2011 U.S. News and World Report college rankings, USC moves up to 23 (beating UCLA) and Columbia moves up to 4 (beating Stanford and Penn). It's a good day for my institutions of higher education.

Gambling on grades? Somehow, this seems like a bad idea.

Back to Reality, L.A. Style

2010-08-18T10:21:00.001-07:00

I'm back from New York, utterly exhausted, and being trained to be a T.A. (I have currently learned not to date my students or go to their parties).

In New York, I got to be a part of a fantastic wedding, see my sister off to her year in Israel, ransack said sister's closet after she left (mostly unsuccessfully), enjoy three boxes of seasonal Popems (Fourth of July ones, which, thanks to all the preservatives, were still fresh and delicious) and better sesame chicken than can be found in L.A., play a game of Trivial Pursuit, participate in a NYC scavenger hunt, buy books at the Strand (which luckily fit in my luggage), watch lots of Gilmore Girls at odd hours of the night, Skype into class (it's so much more productive when you can frost cupcakes while listening to lecture), and just spend time with awesome friends whom I don't get to see nearly enough.

And now, back to the reality that is great weather, getting paid to go to school, and my birthday season (the period in between my Hebrew and English birthdays). It's a tough life.

Smartphone, 0; Stupid Phone, 1

2010-08-12T14:03:00.001-07:00

As admittedly unhealthy as it is for me to walk around with instant e-mail access, I've been loving my smartphone. But I will say, no one can pick up your phone, rifle through your e-mail, and get upset over something he had no right to be reading in the first place on a plain, old phone without Internet access.

Things I didn't think about when I switched to a smartphone...

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'If you don't really care about breathing, Los Angeles is a great place'

2010-08-09T16:57:00.001-07:00

I've officially lived in L.A. for over a year, which is weird to realize now because I am currently in New York (where the wedding was beautiful and fun and all things good despite my dress trauma). I don't really have anything exciting to say about this one-year anniversary right now. Things are looking up. I have moved apartments, which is awesome, and one of these days, when I'm back in L.A. and have a few extra minutes (i.e., after Sukkot? Winter break? After I've earned my Ph.D.?), I'll post some pictures, especially of my awesome bathroom (I've never had my own bathroom before, and let's just say, it's very me) and my color-coordinated wall decals (you probably don't want to ask). I'm excited for next semester, though slightly wary, especially considering I'll be missing much of the first month of school to three-day yom tov (woohoo!). I'm taking Frankie the Fish home with me (his brief stay at my parent's house has entertained my little brothers and aggravated my mother). And that's about all for now.

[Quote in title is from an article about the worst cities in which to live.]

A Little Less Anal Retentive

2010-08-03T16:35:00.000-07:00

"I look before I leap
I love margins and discipline
I make lists in my sleep, baby
What's my sin?"

One of the other things about being a copy editor is that it requires an incredible level of anal retentiveness. (This article on what it's like to be a copy editor is pretty accurate.)

Now, this worked out just fine for me; I'm anal retentive to a fault (as many of my friends would attest). I like to have things scheduled weeks in advance. I have more to-do lists than seem possibly useful. I started packing weeks before moving 2.5 blocks. I boycott restaurants with puns for names or too many typos in their menus (though in order to be able to ever eat out, I have had to get a little lax on this). I meticulously organize my bookshelves by topic—research methods, writing, literary nonfiction, schmaltzy nonfiction, newspapers, newspaper editor memoirs, style books and grammar (I have an exciting book collection). I routinely leave myself at least 15 minutes as a buffer so as not to be late (when flying, this is more like an hour).

For a confluence of reasons, my bridesmaid's dress for an incredibly important wedding is not quite done yet. The wedding is on Sunday. I leave for the better coast tomorrow morning. At 8. When I saw my dress earlier today, it was a sleeveless bodice, a roll of lace, and a skirt that is not sewed in back (which was a vast improvement over the last time I saw it).

But am I worried? Nooooo. Well, I am worried about whether it will be hideous (through no fault of the bride, I should note, who didn't impose anything like this on me), but I am not hyperventilating or looking into whether any dressmakers in New York will make me a dress in a day. Which is to say, I am being much less anal retentive than I am normally. Which, I think, is an accomplishment.

It's going to be OK. And if it isn't, my sister suggested holding my flowers strategically. I am hoping my bouquet is huge—like 5 feet tall...

On Tedium and Past Lives

2010-07-28T00:54:00.000-07:00

In my past life, I was a copy editor. This means I cringe at puns and alliteration and grammar mistakes and look down on people who don't know how to use the subjunctive (figuratively, obviously—the only people I actually look down on, height-wise, are children). This means that I look forward to being a TA and teaching (teaching might be a kind way of saying what I have in mind) all my students about how proofreading is necessary. This also means that I have an incredibly high tolerance for tedium. So, the fact that the task I am currently doing (which even involves a topic I am incredibly interested in) is one of the most tedious things I have ever had to do is saying something profound about the torture grad students go through.

In Which New Yorkers Don't Know Geography

2010-07-25T00:12:00.000-07:00

Me: You should come visit me.

5-year-old brother: I can't.

Me: Why not?

5-year-old brother: Eema and Abba don't let me leave America.

Even after I explained to him that I do in fact live in the same country and that I live really close to attractions like Disneyland and Legoland (which I'm sure is exciting to a 5-year-old, even if it's less exciting to me—and to Alec Baldwin), he insisted that he didn't have the means or ability to up and visit me all by himself. Seriously.

Though I can't really complain about his lack of geographical knowledge when I might have maybe used my cool U.S. map cookie cutter to make cookies for my red, white, and blue meal and maybe made those cookies backwards. Oops.

But really what do you need to know besides for the fact that New York is the center of the universe?

משנה מקום משנה מזל

2010-07-21T15:04:00.000-07:00

Yeah, yeah, I've been playing hooky on my blog lately. Sorry.

In the time since I last wrote, I spent two amazing weekends with good friends who were visiting from the East Coast, I officially moved (!) with the help of some incredibly dedicated friends, I unpacked many of my books (though am still trying to get a hold of one last bookcase so that I have space for them all, I scavenged Craigslist and yard sales for the last items I needed for the new apartment (folding wooden bookcase, $5; two bar stools, $10; hot water urn, blender, serving piece, 700 packets of Splenda and other assorted things, $30), I procrastinated doing schoolwork, I completed my flip-flop collection with USC flip-flops (from Target!), I discovered a good used-book store in L.A., I did the whole Tisha B'Av thing (though with less inspiration than I would have liked), I got a new power cord for my laptop because the old one was oozing brown goo (score one for Apple Care), and various other assorted things.

All of which is to say, I've been busy—but good busy (well, aside from Tisha B'Av and the brown goo)—and things are looking up. But I'll try to keep you updated more regularly from here on out. Also, I'll try to stop procrastinating and actually get my schoolwork done.

Great Mysteries, Solved by the NYT

2010-07-05T19:06:00.001-07:00

So, I'm on quasi-summer vacation (which will end when my summer class begins tomorrow), and I really suck at being productive without any structure, which means I've been doing a lot of slightly premature packing and, um, watching a more than healthy amount of TV on Hulu, which means I've seen lots and lots of commercials for the Kin, Microsoft's smartphone. And I keep on wondering, Who the heck uses the Kin?

The NYT answered that for me. The answer is, no one.