Bearshorty's musings

Teaching day – I do hate getting up early. I get tired earlier in the day and my palpitations show up a little. But I do like leaving the house and working so I guess I just have to accept it!

I printed all my teaching stuff in the morning and then wrote an email to a college looking for adjuncts for Spring Semester. They are looking for someone to teach “History of Law” so maybe they would hire me. The school is close to where I live so I figure it doesn’t hurt to send off ‘I’m interested’ email along with my CV. The pay sucks but I would be teaching history. We’ll see.

Teaching itself went well today. They all came and all turned in Paper 1. Then we started on the new reading and I taught them what connections mean. A totally spontaneous exercise that I made up in the first class turned into a great exercise and I hope they learned something. It felt productive to me.

With a lunch of burger and fries (since I’m fasting tomorrow I wanted a big meal), I read a National Geographic article on Fraser Island off the coast of Australia. The photographs are absolutely gorgeous. Definitely a place I would want to visit if I ever get to Australia. What I liked is the story of Eliza Fraser (for whom the island is named – well, the article said the island is named for her and her husband). During a voyager, the her husband’s ship ran into trouble in Great Barrier Reef, and they all had to get into shody longboats. During the month they tried to get to town, Eliza gave birth (the baby died). They finally due to all kinds of distresses they landed on Great Sandy Island (later to be known as Fraser island). Then they were in the hands of Aborigines who made them work and stuff, apparently naked. Her husband, Captain Fraser, died at this point along with many others. Eliza’s release was negotiated by an ex-convict who spoke the language. Then she apparently married another captain, got to England and told the scandalous story of her captivity, nicely embellished at Hyde Park for money. Apparently she wrote it down. I just find her interesting.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert continue to be wonderful. Jon Stewart will be holding “Rally to Restore Sanity” on Oct 30 in DC. He is right that it looks like only crazy people show up to those Fox sponsored rallies and he just wants to bring reasonable conversation back. Here is a clip announcing it, what cracked me up is a sign “I disagree with you but I’m sure you are not Hitler.”

Stephen Colbert will also hold “March to Keep Fear Alive” at the same time. I wish I lived in DC.

Yom Kippur started this evening and I wanted to go to real Kol Nidre services. It is the only time I go to a synagogue during the year and I missed last two years. I love the melodies. So I put on a white shirt and a grey skirt and black slippers, ate my dinner at 6 and drank two glasses of water and Papa drove me to the synagogue nearby. It was a really nice place. I really liked the open space in front of the ark; it was a big hall. The prayer book was different. It had a lot of translation in verse so it sounded a bit off at times but still the melodies in Hebrew were the same, obviously. This was technically a conservative congregation (which is really between Reform and Orthodox), but men and women sat together and there was a lot of prayer in English before being repeated in Hebrew. What was cool about this year was because I learned how to read Hebrew last year, I could follow the place from where the prayer was being read. I still don’t understand it (I plan to pick Biblical Hebrew up again soon) but at least I could read along for the most part and sound it out. The cantor was fantastic: a beautiful singer. Here is Kol Nidre from YouTube.

My voice is finally back to sort of normal, although, I’m still coughing. Stupid cold. I did have enough energy to do regular Sunday stuff. I haven’t left the house since I came home from work on Thursday, but I did exercise through games.

I finally finished Chapter 6 of the Hebrew book and started studying the vocabulary for the next chapter. All I had to do for chapter 6 was some exercises but that took couple of weeks. But I can translate sentences like “In the land stood a city, and in the city stood a house, and in the house stood a father and young women and servants and an animal and things. Walked the father, walked the young women, walked the servants, walked the animal, and the things stood there in the house.” There is certain vocabulary you get from Biblical Hebrew. Next up, chapter seven and pronouns. I can finally get to “I” and “you.” We already covered “he”, “she” and “they” in previous chapters. Sometimes a chart might be nice.

I also did some cross-stitch, more gray rocks with some blue sea, which was briefly interrupted by gossip. As Papa was coming home he saw lots of police cars on our block, at one of the house facing the back of our house. Too many police cars and detective cars to be an ordinary police call, in a house known for screaming spouses. I hope nothing drastic happened, but there was some excitement at speculation.

“Dexter” is having a good Season 4; only one episode left, and wanting to see it now is a great sign for the set-up and the cliffhanger.

I slept in, in the morning, while my parents went to Brooklyn. Instead I ate my breakfast (I made English muffin with egg and cheese) and watched Bill Maher show of nice funny political discussion.

I started the next Hebrew Chapter on plurals. Things are getting complicated and I can’t go fast if I want to absorb it properly. I got plurals in consonant well, but the vowels confuse me since most nouns have their own pattern. I guess I just need more practice.

I left the house at 4:30 because I was meeting Bear in the city for the opera. We met up in the Columbus Circle around 6:30 and had dinner at WholeFoods. Bear had Indian and I had sushi. I also made a mistake, seeing it retroactively, and got a big cup of green tea. Caffeine and I don’t always mix well and I think caffeine was the trigger here. It was also raining like crazy, sheets and sheets of rain and that might have been a trigger too. By 8pm when we got to the Met to see “Barber of Seville,” my favorite comedy opera, I had a slight headache that kept growing throughout the evening. At first I thought it was because of the rain but it wouldn’t go away and I didn’t feel that great. But I managed to enjoy the opera because it has fantastic physical comedy and it is really funny and the music and arias are great. I don’t think Bear is much of an opera fan because he doesn’t like subtitles usually and he decided that he prefers musicals. But still, we had fun. By the time we headed to my house around midnight, my headache refused to go away and just got heavy. By the time we got home I was thinking that my blood pressure was probably up. When I measured it, it read 150/106 which slightly freaked me out. It took a little while, maybe 20 minutes for it to go down to normal level, and that did not help my headache, which during the night turned into a migraine. Maybe it was a migraine all along. Because of all the worry and probably the caffeine my palpitations started to act up and get really loud, which did not help getting a good night sleep. I still had a good Saturday overall, but the last part of the night was a little stressful. No green tea with caffeine for me ever.

( Battlestar Galactica )

I finally looked up the lyrics to “All Along the Watchtower” since it will play such a large role in “Battlestar Galactica” from the end of Season three. It is a damn hard poem to understand. Wikipedia gave a link to a useful website that breaks it down. The explanation actually helped me to see how perfect the song was for the themes of the show: the question of worthiness of human life, the repetition of history and patterns, opposing forces of establishment and change and other themes.

Grading today; I have folder review on Monday. I’m spending too much time on each paper; I need to be more efficient and not spend more than half an hour on each paper. I think tomorrow I will just need to stick to a schedule and grade lots and lots with little breaks.

I did start Chapter 5 of the Hebrew: Feminine Nouns and Verbs. Also learning “from” and “and.” I read much faster now and some basic sentences are fun. For example: ‘David listened to a girl from Egypt’. There is a lot of nuance, I just have to not let it overwhelm me and just take one chapter at a time. Guttural letters just cause so many exceptions. Still I can read most prayers easily now. I do need to learn more words to understand them. I did half the exercises for the chapter today, I’ll finish the rest tomorrow if I get the time with all the grading. I do like that in Hebrew letters serve as numbers: first letter of the alphabet is 1, second letter is 2, etc.

Numbers WTF moment of the day: chapters 6 to 10 are about making a special vow of separation, offerings at the tabernacle dedication, setting up the lamps and again emphasizing the special nature of Levites, celebrating Passover and then, finally, leaving Sinai Desert. Much feels like repetition again. The action was described previously and now people are doing it. In the modern storytelling it would just be redundant. Each tribe is also giving identical offerings yet the Bible has to list each, one after another twelve times. And then a summary of all the offerings. I realize this used to be important but it is really boring to read and even write about. At least I learned that everyone can celebrate Passover even those ceremonially unclean from touching a dead body or traveling. And aliens who want to celebrate Passover have to follow the same regulations. This is pretty much how every Passover Seder I’ve ever hosted or participated in went (the aliens part not touching the dead body part, unless dead chicken counts). Sometimes I had more Catholics/atheists at my Seder than actual Jews. I also learned from these chapters that to make a special vow one can’t have anything made from grapes, let his or her hair grow out, can’t go near a dead body even those of family, and in the end have to shave the head completely. It is also kind of fun that the Israelites are pretty much following a cloud around and letting it dictate when they move on.

Today is the tenth anniversary of Grandma Tanya’s death. She was 75 and spent the last six month of her life in pretty much a catatonic state following a stroke. She died when I was in college, four hours away, on the day her oldest granddaughter Katya came to visit her from Minsk. By all accounts, she showed signs of recognizing Katya and then she quietly died later that night. She was the best person I ever knew, the kindest, patient and warm and wonderful person who was also a greatest cook in the world. I remember thinking when we were moving to America that I didn’t not want to go without her because I would miss her food. I just didn’t want to leave without her. I’m glad she could come with us and I at least got to live with her for six more years. She was always an example of what a person should be and the love someone is capable of giving. She grew up in an orphanage and lived through World War II and did not always have the easiest life but somehow she still had so much positive energy and so much love to give. To me, she was a good contrast to my Mom who is not the easiest person. Babushka Tanya was also the first person I ever lost so it was the first time I had to deal with grief, really. Papa called me early that morning (she died about midnight), I don’t even know what time it was. It was a Sunday, I went to sleep late the night before, and the phone woke me up. I was half asleep and couldn’t comprehend what he was saying. My brain was going a mile a minute. I called Bear right way, I didn’t even realize it was so early. I woke him up (and his roommate probably) and asked him to come over. Yeva wasn’t there that weekend so I was by myself in our dorm. I waited for him in the stairwell, he only lived a building away, but it still took him forever, in my mind, to get there, because I couldn’t think properly. I then had to figure out when was the first bus back to New York so I could go home. That whole day seemed so long. And all I could think about was that my Grandma died. I didn’t cry, I remember that. I think I was just in shock, even as for six month she was in this terrible state. But somehow the idea of her dying, really dying never entered my being. We went to the cemetery today with some flowers. I miss her.

This morning I worked on Chapter 3 of the Hebrew book. It was all about exceptions to pronunciation and more reading rules. It was a good practice and I feel I’m getting more of a handle on it and can recognize letters with less mistakes. Some of the rules were interesting, like the dagesh letters. I think, based on the rules, Hebrew can’t have a word that starts with “f”, it will always be “p”, at least in biblical Hebrew. I think I will do a chapter a week, so as not to get ahead of myself or burn out. Next week we get to basic sentences and some vocab.

I was finally able to do some cross stitching today. I started that ten years ago too in October after Katya and my parents came to visit me in college the weekend following my grandma’s death and we found a craft store. I associate cross stitching with my grandmother and I think I started it in memory of her. I’m doing a small project now and I like the contrast of bright green thread I’m using with grey and red I used before. It is all about the colors.

I was also feeling like a total girl today with spending lots of money on skin care products, money I’d rather spend on books.

Exodus WFT moment of the day: chapters six to ten cover the story up to ninth plague. Aaron completely gets the short stick in the common memory of the story. So Aaron is the older brother by three years and not younger as I thought. But Moses gets all the credit. God is speaking to Moses who then tells Aaron what to do. It was Aaron who was starting off all the plagues by touching the staff to water, for example. It was Aaron who was illustrating God’s power by turning that staff into a snake. So Aaron is doing everything, but because God is speaking to Moses, Moses gets the glory. Also, I was thinking about the events from the pharaoh’s perspective. Every time a plague happens he tells Moses, “Fine, just stop the plague and I will let some go.” So he is negotiating with what are pretty much terrorists to make them stop the attacks. Once the plague stops, he reneges on the promises (and only because God himself hardens pharaoh’s heart. I think God just wanted to do all the plagues to show how big his balls were and he wasn’t risking pharaoh’s capitulation). But the pharaoh is in the really tough position: all his slaves and workforce want to leave and they are killing innocent people and animals through the plagues. What would be a proper response today? Incorrect memory of the story: for some reason I always thought frogs were falling out of the sky, but they weren’t. The frogs were just leaving the water and jumping all over –why is that really scary? Too bad Egyptians didn’t like eating frog legs.

This morning I had to deal with fun little details. First my computer started making this noise in the left speaker. It was mild before but this morning it was really loud. It is probably the fan not working properly since the noise is intermittent. Since my laptop is only six month old, it is still under warranty, so I wasn’t worried too much. And I will get a personalized home visit to replace the fan thing within a week. But reaching the company was a circle of bureaucratic hell. I started with the website and tried to fill in the repair form and it wouldn’t recognize the model number. I clicked on “Contact Us” next and under “repair” section they sent me back straight to repair form that wouldn’t work. Finally I called the number I found, where automatic voice suggested I look at the website for any questions or problems. I held on and after a short time was actually connected to a human being who found my records easily, noted my problem and set up the home visit. It was actually too easy. I’m not breathing a sigh of relief yet until they actually show up and fix it.

After that fun morning activity I had to fix another problem. I picked up my paycheck yesterday and it is a good thing I bothered to go and get it now. I looked at what they paid me and the number seemed a little low. This was the first paycheck, so I didn’t know for sure how much I was supposed to get. I had a strong suspicion that they were only paying me for one class instead of two so I called department’s paycheck person today. Turns out I was right. Good thing I don’t need the money right away. They fixed it, of course, but it just reinforces that I need to double check everything myself.

I started on the Hebrew lessons today. I worked on chapter one which is a review of first half of the alphabet and three vowels. It was the first time I wrote out the letters and I used that iTunes class as a guide. It just reinforces the alphabet and reading since I still have to get used to it. I like when they give English words written in Hebrew letters so at least I would know if I’m pronouncing it right. They don’t always do that, but that is most effective.

The ocean today in the evening has this golden glow close to sunset. It didn’t last long but it was very pretty.

Read more “World War Z” today, mostly about government’s ineffectual handling of any disaster and the panic people are thrown in. This book feels very realistic since people act like people would with both ugly and generous behavior. The only thing that bugs me is the stories from women’s perspectives. There are not a lot of them proportionally which in a way makes sense because governments and soldiers and intelligent communities are not known to be very representative. But we read a story of an architect who in her story is pretty much a mother saving her children, a story of a little girl and a story of a Russian female soldier and it seems underbalanced in the role women play. I’m probably just over thinking this and should just enjoy the book. The book does make me think of what I would do in the situation. Probably get a shotgun, not that I ever held a gun in my life, and get out of the cities. Head north or something.

Genesis WTF moment of the day: Last night’s passages – Genesis 21-25 - where pretty straight forward, some even a bit romantic. The care Abraham took to bury Sarah properly and Isaac seeing Rebecca for the first time after Abraham’s servant fetches her from Abraham’s homeland were both moving moments. And Rebecca’s relatives even sort of asked her opinion about traveling so far from her home to marry Isaac. So the WTF moment has to go to Abraham getting ready to sacrifice Isaac when the latter was young. A familiar story was just weird in little details. We are not really privy to too much of what Isaac was thinking at the time, just him wondering why they were not taking up a lamb up with them along with all the wood. It was Abraham’s nonchalant attitude to God’s request that earned the WTF status. When Sara kicked Abraham’s son Ishmael and his servant mom out of the house, Abraham was a bit upset and uncomfortable with that. Yet God tells him to sacrifice Isaac and he doesn’t even blink. He just takes up the wood for the altar for burning, ties Isaac up on it and is ready with a knife to stab him before God finally stops it. Last night, when Bear and I were talking about this, he just came up with one hilarious script for what God might have said once he stopped Abraham. I can’t reproduce it here, I won’t do it justice, but it was hysterical (God: Dude, I was kidding, Jeez).