I thought

November 21 was Talia's birthday, but since none of her siblings blog-wished her a happy birthday, I must have been wrong.

Life is Good

Mike's sports life has probably never been as bad as it is now. The Packers are 2-7, as are the Knicks, and while the Yankees had a decent year the ChiSox won it all. Boo-yah

Disclaimer: Tobie consulted in the creation of this post.

Hello? Hellooooooooo?

Anybody out there? Anybody reading this thing?
Mmmmhmm. I thought so. In that case WHY aren't you posting?
Am I supposed to fuel two blogs, by myself, with only the patheticness of my everyday life?
Cuz I can't.
What about you, David, when did you last post? Or Joe, for that matter?
I'm getting the uncomfortable feeling that this blog is dying, and only YOU can save it.

News from the College Front

I hope that the title didn't mislead you into expecting real news. This post is going to be devoted strictly to minutae. For example, did you know that it is possible to wash clothes with dish-washing soap? Somebody stole my detergent from the laundry room and I was annoyed and out of clean socks (in fact, already far into the negatives, clean-sock-wise), so I improvised. Seems to be working ok, so far, but I'll know more when the clothes come out of the dryer.
Also, fabulous quote that was actually uttered. In a discussion of Metamophosis, somebody actually said, "The sub-humanity, in our view, of artho-pods". How phenomenally U of C geeky is that? And the best part is that the speaker is this huge hulking guy who is into sports and looks like a charicature of a dumb jock and is actually one of the most intelligent people in the class. Sometimes, I really love this university.
That's actually all that comes to mind for the moment, but I felt the need to feed to the blog, so there you go.

My Commute

The fun thing about blogs is that they make you look at ridiculous experiences as fodder for your own entertainment. Case in point- my and Rachel's trip up north for Rosh Hashana. (Not a ridiculous experience thus far) So, as we were waiting for the last bus in our journey, which took like forever to come, and talking, I think, about methods of suicide, a large black man across the station shouts "Hello, sister." Naturally, we ignore him, and anyway, there was no reason to believe that he was talking to us. A bit later, he shouts it again and it's pretty clear that he is talking to Rachel. In a whirling flash of deduction, she realizes that the snood has lead him to believe she's a nun. The conversation goes as follows, to the best of my recollection:
Rachel (laughing): Oh, no, I'm not a sister.
Random Man: You're not Catholic?
Rachel: No, I'm not a nun.
Random Man: You're not? [Is it so unbelievable? Think of all the people in the world who aren't nuns.]
Rachel: No, I'm Jewish. My law says that married women should cover their hair.
R.M.: Well, at least you're married.
Me (who had been standing around laughing at Rachel):It's true, Rachel. At least you're married.
And then he floats off to inform the woman sitting on the bench that her shirt is pretty bright, leaving us with trying to figure out why it was better to be married. It's not like she was visibly pregnant or anything (or invisibly, to the best of my knowledge, for that matter). By that time, he was haranguing the woman for not taking her husband to the doctor because he wasn't eating enough. We moved away, thinking that it would be rude to laugh in front of him.
When the bus came (thirty blinking minutes later), he was still wandering around, bellowing at an acquaintance that "The policeman said to cool down, so I'm gonna have to curse you out quietly." Was he drunk? Was he crazy? Did he just have an unusual and interesting personality? Who knows? But he not only gave us free entertainment in the bus station, he also provided fodder a nice long blog post on a blog that is sadly lacking in recent entries.

Classes

Short post- it's late, I'm tired, and the computer just ate the first draft of this, so if this doesn't sound clever, assume that the first version was brilliant and sparklingly witty, as of course it was if it was written by myself. Anyway...finished registering for classes- I'm taking twelve hours a week plus four hours of physics lab, a paltry sum compared to Talia's course load and one that will leave me with oodles of free time, some of which may be filled by whatever extra-curriculars I will acquire at the club fair tomorrow, if any.
Anyway, Shmuli and I (who had a lot of free time watching Chaim run around the park) wondered how this compared to other college's schedules, so we decided to call for general family input. David, Joe, Talia (Stern days only, we all know about Bar Ilan)- how does this compare? And how does the fact that mine is a quarter system contribute to the whole thing? And for that matter, Shmuli, you can answer too, because I have unfortunately forgotten whatever number it was that you mentioned. As I said, it is late.

eh

Many of you have had the misfortune of learning Ruti's major means of communication; pointing and uttering a sound best spelled "eh". Is this sound properly characterized as a grunt? It seems too weak for grunt, but I can't think of a better term.

No Escape

for Tobie. She had deluded herself into believing "that I'm going off to college next week and probably won't be collecting the books there." On Friday night, however, after David Rosenberg asked for volunteers to collect siddurim, I spied Tobie carrying a stack. Would Tobie be better off in Israel, where siddurim are smaller but more plentiful, or here in the States?

Tobie's News

Well, until I get my phone authorization code, which won't happen until I register, the blog is my only means of communicating with my family, so here is all my news: Moved in Friday afternoon. Only person doing early move-in and they didn't bother telling any Orientation aides or RHs, which are the equivolent of Midrichim/ot, so they were all just a little surprised, but friendly. Davening began quite late at Hillel, followed by a communal dinner, where I got to meet other first years and grad students, all later year people not being allowed to move in for a bit. Shabbos day, davening followed by another communal lunch, but I was at the boring table with all the accompanying parents, so I left early and hung out and Rachel and Shmuli's all afternoon. Fun stuff. Then mincha, break and ma'ariv, after which I rushed back to my house meeting twenty some minutes late. We got various forms of house related information- there are about forty new or transfer students, of which around ten are female, and the upperclasspeople are moving in at the end of the week. We also had an icebreaker (Two truths and a lie- where each person tells two true facts about self and one lie and everyone else has to guess which is the lie- my semi-fluent Aramaic impressed people) Tomorrow we start real stuff- for me, registration, and for everyone, math testing. Some of you will see me tomorrow morning (7:30, right?) and so I can give more info then.
Missing you all (well, not you Rachel or Shmuli, because you're right here, but everyone else)

25 Years Ago

today, my first wife was born.

Aargh, Does NO one post on this thing?

Well, I suppose the title pretty much says it all. Despite the fact that I am one of the more recent post-ers, I have stepped up to the plate once again. Not that it's easy, considering as I have my own blog to take care of AND everyone who cares about this one converses frequently anyway. But still, I do what I can, so the family will be treated to a quick description of the bathroom painting extravaganza.
Lesson- never, ever leave Talia in the house for more than 24 hours with nothing to do. Her first day back, she cooked an elaborate dinner. Her second day, she decided the downstairs bathroom needed to have the wallpaper removed and then be re-painte. On Thursday, we removed all the wallpaper, which is hard and disgusting due to the fact that the bathroom stinks, not that we assigning any blame for that. Ahem! On Friday she went to look for a job, but we were back at work on Sunday night, beginning at like ten o'clock and putting on a coat of primer and our first coat of paint and ending past midnight. The next day, we put on another coat and a decorative rim of wallpaper, so that you can't see our more glaring painting errors. The bathroom is now and lovely shade of pink (we tell Mike that it is peach, but only to make him feel better) and the house is awash with the intoxicating smell of new paint, which I love. Sometimes I purposely go into that room just to smell it.
And that's all the news from Lake Woebegone. Isn't it someone else's turn now?

Job interviews

Given that I having been spending my time back home in an absurdly lazy manner, I decided that I would try to get some temp jobs, which are probably the only jobs I can get for only three weeks. So I checked out various temp agencies on the internet and called one up and scheduled a job interview. So far so good. Of course, I had wanted to schedule more than one appointment, but I didn't have the guts to tell this place no in case I got a job elsewhere or cancel my appointment, so I was stuck with this one. Come Monday morning, I got up early, dressed up in interview clothing, got my resume (the story of printing that one is a story of its own, which we shall not go into now), and went off to this place on Old Orchard Road, about a 15 minute drive. I arrived at 9:55, a few minutes before the interview, and the stupid office was locked. So I hung about, thinking that maybe they actually didn't open 'til 10, although that was somewhat ridiculous and then someone from another suite told me that they had moved. Hello! Did they not feel the need to inform me? We never discussed their location, but I don't think it was hasty of me to assume that the address on the internet was inaccurate, and if they recently moved, you'd think they'd tell people where they were in case the other person had the wrong information. So when I got home, I called them up and found the guts to cancel my appointment, since they were all the way out in Northbrook. And then I called up another place, interviewed there, and am currently waiting for them to get back to me when they find a job that fits.
That is not the point- the point is my massive annoyance at this other place that did not feel the need to tell me where they actually were located, nor did they feel in any way guilty for my trouble, etc. And also the point is that I posted on the family blog again, which I have not for a while and had to keep my hand in even if I didn't have anything particularly interesting to say.

Typing

Ever since I took Mavis Beacon back in ninth grade (almost for a whole year of computer class, if not two. But don't get me started on Hanna Sacks curriculum), I guess I've sort of taken the ability to type for granted. So much that I currently can't compose anything, even an essay, past a first draft on paper. The whole editing process only works through computer for me. Which is fine, when you can type, so it seemed like a fine system.
Until today. (Da-DUM!) Today I had to type a paper in Hebrew for my summer Kollel thing, and it took me over five hours to transcribe six written pages. Of course, a lot of that was also editing and correcting and I think that the whole paper is a lot better now, but even so. Five blinking hours. Pen pecking letter by letter and everything. And some of that on a laptop that for no particular reason would change the line I was typing on or start typing over some other things I'd written. Aargh. The only good thing about the whole process was that the paper is now a lot more compact than it would have been- anything that wasn't absolutely necessary got left out, because it wasn't worth ten minutes to say. Think how different this post, for example, would be if I only had to type what needed to be said. It would read something like this, I suppose "Typing's useful. Hebrew is annoying."

The Sister who mysteriously fell of the Face of the Blog for weeks at a time

Not as clever as Talia's title, perhaps, but nonetheless descriptive.

Oh, family, family, darling, darling, much-missed family! To be perfectly fair this post should be an in-depth description of the craziness that is my summer, but I just wrote a long summary of all that for my friends, and those of you who really care have probablyu discovered it in person or through the Momophone.
So instead I will be true to family tradition and talk politics. I happen to have a great chance to do that, since I am surrounded in the Kollel by leftists, which I suppose is status quo for Boston, although the director is more libertarian/ conservative. But anyway, most of the boys are the real deal, Bush-bashing, universal health care pushing, you name it. One is a self descriped Marxist and says that the Vietname War was wrong not for the traditional reasons, but because Communism is good and it would have been great if they would have come to America. I kid you not, nor do I Exaggerate. But he is a bit nutty and atypical, to be fair.
A couple of days ago we went to a rally about Darfur as a group. I really think the cause is an important one, but I could not stop cracking up. Rabble rousing in general amuses me, but alos becuase it was so anti-Bush. All the speakers yelled at him for not doing enoug, although no one suggested yelling at the UN. One of the best gimmicks was sending him a giant watch, because his must be broken, because he said that he would not allow genocide on his watch. Get it? I don't. The pun is so poor that it almost makes you think that they're stupid enough have gotten the meanings mixed up. But it did get a big round of applause.

I should write more, but I'm too tired.

Love and miss you all.