acher's Journal

cover letter
Dear Big Scary World or Madam:

I have just completed my third year in the dual degree program between Barnard College and the Jewish Theological Seminary. In college, I have concentrated in Philosophy and Jewish Law; after college I hope to apply my knowledge to *insert career path here, particularly one with relevance to my useless majors*.

I am (out of luck when it comes to my previous plans for the summer and am) interested in finding gainful employment with your organization

Through (irrelevant, infantile) internships and other work experiences, I have accumulated (absolutely no) skills. I would like to utilize these skills within a challenging environment.

Please please please please please hire me I promise I'll be good and won't pee on the couch or anything and please please please let me be your file bitch please?

Thank you for your consideration,
Poor College Student

PS:
Short of any actual opportunites, how on earth does one find a reputable temp agency? because, oddly enough, no office seems to want me for more than a day.

PPS:
I'm serious about the temp agencies. They seem like a good way to make money, but they also seem sort of sketch...

A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than the giant himself.
Ten years later, REM's The One I Love is still so very 1996.

2006? "Finest worksong?"

Probably Dar Williams' "as cool as I am." Why not?

I haven't been thinking. refining. feeling. All that shtick. It's more difficult than I suspected to keep my head above water. Canceling Italy, missing the blizzard to write a paper, getting sick against my will, forgetting momentarily how to use sohcahtoa (i mean seriously? seriously.), but I maintain that it's a learning experience, right? Lots of business and practicality and focus and discipline. I just don't want to come out of this semester devoid of personality.

This world needs more music. Music and people willing to spontaneously hippie dance in the snow. Before the snow turns to that lovely depleted, hardened brownish-grey...

the idylls of college life and the song of the nightingale
It's 3:30 and my now somnolent roommate has been crying all day and remnants of chinese takeout are everywhere and I'm talking (edit WITH OTHERS and no I did not say all these things, clearly, bah to late night posting it is reckless! i blame schwartzie...) on AIM about magic dust and bodily functions and Kant with such jewels of wisdom as "grossness is noumenal, maybe" and "my girlfriend is a menstrual trooper" and I am completely not understanding any part of the conversation and I have checked my emails more times in a row than I thought humanly possible...

I must have final papers due!

Alfonso X, I may only have written 5 official pages on your Cantigas, but I am going to kick your anti-semitic butt before 10:00 am Monday. Promeso.

Only six more days until Shabbos...

Happiness is...

a call from spain
a certain someone to walk with when it snows
health services (sudafed, sudafed, sudafed)
the philo closet
suite family dinners (balanced meals?!)
a bed in a room that doesn't clank (this one is being worked on)
permission to take a 7000 level class (!) on thesis-worthy material with a professor who said, "you're more fascinating than i thought"
knowing that after 4 more final papers and 3 more final exams I can see my family again

Someone is actually auctioning off their black lanyard on ebay.

( http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5606022637 )

Fucking brilliant, man. Due to cause trouble somewhere...

Philos are on livejournal! Whoo!

The question now is, to comment or not to comment?

It seems sort of stalker-y, but I came about them in a fairly legit way - campus network reinstated automatic email updates and so I started playing around on said site and discovered a link on caitlin's (she posted it, I swear) but still. Online etiquette eludes me. I think I will just ask her otherwise and then all will be resolved.

(It is far more difficult than I imagined to rise above the livejournal netherworld. I will blame THAT on the fact that I WILL HAVE NO GLASSES FOR A WEEK - bah on costco - and my interim glasses afford me little to no long distance sight. hence, hovering about a computer screen. I really should write a novel, but instead I play on lj. Such is my life.)

Since I have no further depths into which to stoop, I will ask the inevitable summer question. I have nothing in the house to READ for the next two weeks, but am within walking distance of a minor public library. Any suggestions?

I suppose it's time for an update
CTY has come and gone and now can be offically said to be out of my life. Done. How that pans out, only time will tell. I've certainly learned a lot - about myself, about the system, about interacting with people, about THE MAN... - the usual. I think I will be writing CTY a letter regarding this summer's experiences, but I'm not sure. I can't quite put my finger on what exactly it was that upsets me. Dream deferred? I don't know. I think I rocked this summer to the best of my abilities, at least, and came out stronger.

CTY is really bizarre sans the usual intrigue. I'll hand it that.

It's rather glorious, really, how it can utterly be about the kids. They made it worthwhile. I had two wonderful, challenging halls and met some wonderful, enthusiastic people. GMA, perhaps, but I have complete confidence they will rule the world one day.

I know that whatever I end up "doing" with my life, I need to find some of that balance that takes the crazy whirlwind CTY brings and turns it into a blessing. Perhaps I forgot a few things about my body (I have a cut that's about a month old that refuses to heal, food choices could have been better, mosquito bitten, being ill...) but I learned a few things too (the usual RA dance, my innate longing for the water, yoga, a slight affinity for vegetables). I walked out of skidmore with some balance that must have been picked up along the way. Motions made more sense, taking action, decisions, curtailing inappropriate speech, laughing, interacting.

I am slowly, slowly, slowly learning to shed social awkwardness. I consider it... a project. I must remember that I, too, have the nerdly beginnings of the talented youth.

Back to school on the 25th to be an orientation leader. A week and a half of summer break awaits before the drone of the double degree commences and I must answer to it.

So if you want to sing out, sing out...

Love tape day always makes me want to livejournal
Thea just sent me a letter.

In the return address portion she wrote, "uhhh... The MAN."

More on CTY antics at a later date.

Current Music: Kadosh = my new favorite movie

So I forgot about paying my credit card bill (due 5/30) until today (5/29) when I woke up with a start at six thirty in the morning. Given that you're supposed to schedule payments two days in advance (I do it electronically) and given that tomorrow is a national holiday, is my credit screwed? Bah. I don't like this real world very much.

Holy summer plans, batman
Reasons to do CTY

I loved first session
Internship isn't paid. CTY is.
May not even get internship i'm trying for, may have nothing else to do
Living in brooklyn with grandmother = no social life, no internet
Living in jersey = mega commute, family, no transportation
ability to maybe, possibly do summer school (while living in one of the above places)
or if not summer school, substitute teach
ability to have a month in between to do something (i dont know what)
a chance to put my all into CTY and do an amazing job
a chance to be friends with val again

Reasons to not do CTY

I should be doing something new, be it good or bad
Second session and I did not get along
I made a bad impression - old mistakes can be haunting
No Max for 6 whole weeks
Being one of those whiny I miss my boyfriend types
Disillusionment with the system
Money isn't an issue now, but may be later when I have no work experience and hence no job...

Oy. I have no clue what to do. Any thoughts?

April 21, 2005.
Take back the day
Take back the night
Take back our bodies
Take up the fight.

HADAG NACHASH osim hip-hop tziyoni :)
This is how I wish to remember this day, the day that started so... ugh (classhousingC+morehousingmorefclassmoreugh)

and yet...

With the sun and the antici...pation, the crackling magic of the windy dorothy in toto in kansas before the whole world changes, tornado style.

With the lucky pennies on every corner (package office open - chocolate and comics and people who love me)

With Israel fair and condoms that say, "Israel: It's safe to come"

With fooooood. Oh food.

Israeli dance and music and laughter and children

Max surprising me and the heat and the tension melting away because i can wrap my arms around him

Oh yeah. and HADAG FREAKING NACHASHHHHH

Dance, in a trance, moving, sexy dancing (a modest grind line?) pulsing, gyrating, throbbing, this is starting to sound like sex, isn't it?
Captivated by the music, the message, hands in the air, zuz zuz zuz, am yisrael chai, close my eyes, colors flashing, bass beat, sway, hands, bodies, motion...

Shirat hasti-i-i-cker.

(Korim li nachman v'ani megam, megamgem. :)

WHAT a show and then running out, exhausted (will you buy me a shirt? let's talk israeli-like) and then... THE RAIN.

POURING down cold on hot exhausted bodies, max runs. wait, i say, and catch up. we kiss. we run. we kiss. cold on hot. wet on dry. streetlights and darkness, stones on college walk, puddles, running, skipping, twirling, wet wet wet.

Wet clothes off and dry clothes on and happiness in this moment of time captured - this kiss and those stars and that taste like spring and summer and love and music and all put together into an explosion of click.

In between the sadnesses (so far behind me in this instant)...

I feel so alive.

what else is there to say?
Mitch Hedberg, you'll be missed.

History of Philosophy? I'm history.
Samantha, why on earth did you not start hardcore work on this paper Thursday night instead of doing Purim/matisyahu, Friday night instead of feeling sorry for yourself and then getting to know guysam until beyond 4 am, Last night instead of being lazy and then spending quality max time?

Furthermore, why does your laptop smell like burning hot dogs?

One page on Spinoza under my belt. One more page to go. Then two pages of Conway and two pages of comparison. Then to study for 1009, and then to edit. Should be a breeze.

Really, though, why the meaty smell? I'm starting to almost get hungry, although I did eat an entire box of waffles in about 18 hours yesterday/today/whatever. So I should be pretty full.

I really want to write a talmud thesis on the medieval talmudic approach (of the beyond rishonim and so on and so forth) to jewish philosophy, particularly heretical jewish philosophERs that weren't, like, rambam, but instead spinoza and his funky biblical approach (cherem! ooh!). That is, of course, if that can be separated. A good portion of the texts are theological lalala ing, but within a jewish context. What's their response to secularism? How do they deal with big!philosophical!issues! Also how do they incorporate other people picking up on their philosophies, on mysticism, on xpianity? Sounds groovy.

Beats Doron's thesis on drinking and purim? I think not. Doubt I'll be allowed to write a talmud thesis anyway. I wonder how to make that a secular Barnard thesis. Maybe do it on the philosopher's approach to criticism from the outside religious world. or how they incorporate religion into their philosophy, but that's SO cliche (helloooo, augustine, aquinas, etc etc). maybe how they incorporate religions not their own (conway is sooo buddhist).

Or maybe how they procrastinate SO ridiculously when, um, it's almost 5 am and they have a paper due in ostensibly 5 hours if they're to go to their 10am class. Which they may not do because damn it, they only have 5 hours for 5 pages of philosophy, no less. So that's like 5 hours for 10 pages because sammy is lame.

And here's a bunny with a pancake on its head.

I'm starting to think it's safe to trust implicitly, even without that reciprocation junk. As DP's "symptom recital" predicts, I'm due to fall in love again.

Life is beautiful, all is groovy.

Countdown
Don't know what classes to take to make sure I graduate in four years (deadline: April 25th)
Don't know how to handle passover and kashering the kitchen and finals and everything coinciding (deadline: April 23rd)
Don't know what to do about my majors (deadline: April 1st)
Don't know where I'm living next year (deadline: April 1st)
Don't know what the heck is going on with purim and my family and jason's wedding (deadline: March 24th)
Don't know if I'm p/d/f-ing poetry of the kabbalah (deadline: March 24th)
Don't know what I'm writing my paper on (deadline: March 22nd)
Don't know how to get my medicine refill in time (deadline: asap)
Don't know a freaking thing about this summer (deadline: passed? may? who knows...)

But really, what's the point of knowledge?

Just spent more hours in transit than i'd like to recall to go see max and co down in maryland. Public transportation is SO inefficient. It took me something like seven hours to get from Gaithersburg, Md. to Aberdeen, NJ. (ooh, i put information online. scandalous.) I'm exhausted from nonaction, somehow, but content that I went. I feel oddly committed, though I don't know why. I suppose this means that he'll have to come see where I live, as well, which is kind of eeptastic. Sounds serious. No worries, though, I still have faith that he's lame and will wimp out on me.

We had this weird conversation about who would get to keep which friends if we were to break up. He seems to think he has dibs on em all - no fair! But so it goes. Our solution was to simply stay together (for the kids, you see.) Sounds like a plan.

Odd, too, to be retracing steps - it's so willa-reunion territory. The bus ride kept flashing me back to Bara's mom and our crazy car ride of doom (what? we're here again? but we were here two hours ago! no, don't close your eyes, you're driving!), and I passed (ok, ran, i was running late) by the spot in union station where we held our protest (free monaco!). Makes me think that the world is finite, ultimately, although I know that's not true.

Half of me just wants to start journeying, see more, stop treading the same paths. The other half wants me to keep the secrets of the universe secrets, and unlock them slowly. Ahh, conflict.

Meh, tired. It's going to be a ridiculously crazy next two weeks or so - crunch time for me starts now. Shackles will be removed... sometime before pesach, I figure? And then it's finals again. Whee.

Bakbukbakbukbakbuk...
Itzhak Perlman is going to be playing at state theatre the night before my birthday.

*swoon*

Just playing one piece, it seems, (Beethoven's Sonata for Violin & Piano No. 9 in A major ("Kreutzer"), Op. 47), and is somewhat pricey for cheap seats, but... Perlman. Who doesn't really PLAY anymore. I mean he does, but not a ton. In Jersey. It would be... incredible. Absolutely.

He's also at the philharmonic playing a longer set in the end of October... though who knows what will be in October? I'm trying to figure out if this is a sign to just grab opportunity and run with it? We shall see.

Spring break is now, but lots of papers, so not so much frolicking. Today doctor's appt, tomorrow interview at a hospital and then surprisingly, an emanuel ax/yefim bronfman concert? mom won tickets- should be awesome. Wednesday back to school again to get to work on the papers, but it's going to be a very lonely few days. School is deserted, and the boy has decided to jump ship and not come back until late Sunday night. Haven't really seen him in ages, due to a combination of serial illness, midterms, and feinberg - feels like familiar territory. Back to Jersey again Friday night, maybe, but either way please come visit! (Because you all actually are in a position to do so? oh well.) Social interaction is always a pleasure.

Visits to the doctor always remind me. Life is beautiful.

Happy New Year! Rosh Chodesh! Wednesday! (stolen concept below)
My dear gentle reader,

Would you be so kind as to post a memory of yours in which I am involved? Anything that suits your fancy, be it good or horribly bad. Even if we haven't spoken in a while, I'd really appreciate it. I'm interested to find out what pops into your mind. Thank you!

Sincerely,

Samantha

Snowmazing! (backwards entry)
Eve's 21st was last night, and it was lovely. Food and friends and yes, alcohol, but chill and delightful. There are several people here that are worth adoring. Didn't actually get to play any poker (the activity du jour) but hey, all is worth it. Tis fun to entertain and be entertained as well.

Snow was too dry for snowballs and snowmen but perfect for a jaunt around, snowangels, writing barnard on college walk in huge footsteps, slipping around, pretending to cross country ski in the middle of 112th street, etc. Darkness and snow in your face and everywhere and pretending to fly while singing uf gozal with two quasi israelis in random ways = so good.

Yesterday morning I made bona fide breakfast (pancakes and eggs and such) and it was nice to feel productive with my cooking. Productive, but not so successful. Merely glimmers of the domestic.

Friday night at MSRH is one of the best parts of college. Period.

Side note: I'm finally glad I don't drink (particularly not excessively). firstly, I just don't need it. Sam = drunkard with a little bit of sugar anyhow. Secondly, alcohol is a privilege. Really. alcohol without responsibility does bad things. My close friends have all mastered this (or chosen to abstain). I don't think I have, and I dont know if I can. Another friend of mine got pretty shikkered at her own thing last night (not eve's) and I encountered her pretty ill. Not alcohol poisoning, but very much in the i-want-to-die slumped mode. Not fun, and so vulnerable.

School hasn't hit me hard yet, and i'm already exhausted, but it will be fun this time around, methinks. Either way, it's burn burn burn.

strife_journal, I think of you.
Livejournal, I went through an emotional crisis, and you were not here to guide me.

Angst.

(By the by, www.somethingpositive.net echoes my grief)

Current Mood: mad at boys

Just emptied out my profile on this computer, and found the following from my favorite ancient partner in crime:

happinesss: what exactly is he going to test us on
happinesss: "which book is worse than ignorance?" a) the sasson b) the schafer c) antiquity

I miss the sarah!

Really though, i should write down these entertaining snippets in somewhere more permanent. I want to have something fun to find in a few years when I look back (if i look back?). What WAS college, anyway?

I love going out with friends and feeling drunk from the laughter. Entertaining others is such a kick.

( Kissing quiz = silly and innocent, yet fun. i wonder if i've forgotten something... )

First snow
Got up 6:15 to shovel the walk (rachel had school today) and was left with some indoor time (we had to stay inside until dad got back, to make sure he would be ok.) Hence: cleaning. Cleaning always yields the strangest things. This time around the following items of note found:

-faded picture of two now deceased, anonymous family members, faces indiscernable (what does it mean to disappear?)
-5 pairs of glasses in various states of dusty blurriness. most take up at least half of my face - owl tastic!
-a bookmark from my Pre-K buddy (i hope four year olds still think i'm cool)
-Pictures of me and bara from my mom's "She's a lesbian, but we love her" stage
-All my AP chem notes. yummy. To torture rachel with.
-that redbull from locon's stash senior year. yeah, it's that old. eesh. it's like a good luck charm or something. a radioactive good luck charm.
-Picture of me, premedicated, directly after my seventh grade disaster (maybe i'm inside there somewhere, but it certainly doesn't look like me. at least i hope not. i wonder why my friends (ok, by friends i mean marla)even spoke to me. ugh)
A southasian-themed sex book (read: "the hindu book of LOVE" of my parents. quoth my mother, "I don't think we could get into those positions anymore." (double ugh)

Let's rip a page from our Ferris book -

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.

I am really considering running abroad aka yerushalayim (oh hebrew u and your jts compatibility) sometime next year, if not to look after my baby cousin (he's going to be in a yeshiva all year, trying to pick up chicks. hmph. he's too young!) and eat lots and lots of chocolate (with poprocks!). Means starting to plan things out now, but that's ok. Gives me something to look forward to. I should brush up my Hebrew...

This never happened in suburbia... i heart new york
THERE ARE RANDOM CAROLERS OUTSIDE MY WINDOW ON 121st STREET!!!

I LOVE CHRISTMAS!

It makes people (in this case, of all ages) so happy! and kind hearted! and harmonious!

It lights up a dreary night with warmth.

Tis the season...

and now back to work.

Hallelujah Chorus is the reason for the season
That and Sleigh Ride. Oh man. They are awesome. In a in high school band was my life sort of way.

I love feeling confident (kinda) after leaving a final. Makes me more motivated to study than I did for the first two.

Dorothy, you aren't in high school anymore. That needs to sink in already.

God, can you imagine going to college in kansas? Or just living in Kansas period? Weird.

I heart the coast. I really don't ever want to leave it. Keep coming back to that theme in my life, particularly now that people are thinking about moving out and getting married and all that craziness. And I keep realizing how much I couldn't move to a non coastal state. Not for "bush sucks" reason, just... water. It's important. Even if it's filthy. Something about its mobility and usefulness and calm. It's so mesopotamian of me but I really just adore the shore.

Shit, that rhymed.

Today on the radio I was listening to WQKR "the classical station of the new york times" (real hoity toity) and the announcer goes, "that was the *blah blah blah* opera. erm. the ballet. the ballet's where they dance. right. ill work on that. *continues about something else* am i certain about that? yes, i'm certain about that."

SO CUTE. HE HAS BEEN HIT BY CHRISTMAS CHEER :)

I actually don't need christmas per se (yum parents, chinese food and movie, maybe?) but the way people speed up yet are HAPPY and then slow down. It must be such a let down for some but for me I like how the dust settles, hoping people are with their families.

Or if not families, people in some social group akin to one. Something like that's forming here, but it keeps getting ripped in places. I dont know. some of my friends at school are awesome. some of em suck. so it goes. do you accept flaws in your family? do they accept yours? i dont know about that either.

Oh well.

Just hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring ting tingling too...

(things are better without words sometimes)

Hey Greek Art!

I love you!

Why do you make me cry?

(2 pgs down, 10 to go, and i don't understand citation. bah.)

In other news, our talmud teacher is getting us bagels and having a Siyyum for the completion of perek bet of the masechet. That's what I call a siy-YUM!

Monmouth county has SEASONS! Away from the asphalt playground...
Lovely, lovely, lovely thanksgiving.

Home means my enthusiastic, bouncy mother and pun-producing father and serious, thoughtful sister. I like that.

Today included a really nice (tasty!) meal and a group trip out in the rain to holmdel park. Longstreet farm goodness ensued. Wandered around the park with umbrellas, visited the farmhouse, milked a cow (having learned proper technique) and got stepped on by said cow. (Her name was Rosie. She's about 20. Calm little lady.)

I like remembering the peacefulness that comes from a good day, a warm shower, the voices of my family.

It's time for pie. :)

the election, in other words
and its whispered that soon
if we all call the tune
then a piper will lead us to reason
and a new day will dawn
for those who stand long
and the forests will echo with laughter...

beautiful dreamers.

what happens to a dream deferred?...does it explode?

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
...
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

or not.

goodnight moon, goodnight spoon, goodnight man driving this country into ruin.

Scared
For a number of reasons. Not just nov. 2nd. Which is jennie's birthday, silly canadienne. But living life in fear is kind of irrational, wouldn't you say?

I'm developing quite the fondness for the new york times.

"'Surely the board knows what democracy is,' E. B. White wrote then. 'Democracy is the score at the beginning of the ninth. It is an idea which hasn't been disproved yet, a song the words of which have not gone bad. It's the mustard on the hot dog and the cream in the rationed coffee.'"

Dean Link asked me about my plans for a major and I heard myself saying, "Philosophy with an Art History minor," and that sounds interesting enough so I might just stick with my midterm-stupor-induced answer. Why not? Should be fun, and my degree will do the same thing either way. Still have to figure out this whole jts-i-wanna-transfer debacle. Still just being lame and listening to fear.

I'm going to give myself an ulcer.

I want to go dancing.

Why I miss a Jersey I can't have
Walking to school today I caught a glimpse of the foliage in riverside park, trees and buildings and skyline. I was hit suddenly with this deep misplaced yearning for something akin to a suburbia I could never have. October of etrogs and hayrides pumpkins and apples and cold. There was a baby screaming on the opposite side of amsterdam, wriggling and writhing in its mothers arms, and I wanted one. A family. A sense of belonging to a unit. A group with whom to walk down the street. Not an idyllic image - the baby's squall, the leaves falling - but desirable and impossible. And even as I walked, it slipped away from me.

Was that life's way of passing me by? Things going on around me, constantly (city is a blessing and a curse) and I trudge along, head down.

I try to keep my head up facing into the wind and it whips at my face, biting. It feels good but is too much to bear; I put my head back down again in defeat. What was I thinking, standing tall? Live among the asphalt, Sam. That's the way it works.

Still the image of the baby, hands and legs like medusa's snakes that haunt my dreams, held around the waist like an offering by a concerned mother. The child's siren call barely perturbed the busy street.

Sometimes I wish I had something to share with the world.

On Jes LC and how she rocks my wife-ran-away, dog-left-me kinda soul
This is what we call blatantly stealing a friend's homework.

Jes wrote lyrics, classic style, to 12 bar blues. The result tickles me pink.

Livejournal Blues

My good friend IMed me, she said to see what’s going on
Yeah, that old friend IMed me, to tell me what’s going on
I opened up the browser, it kept me up till nearly dawn

I know we’ve been fighting, but don’t bring it up to everyone
I know we’ve been fighting, you don’t have to tell everyone
You’re bringing down those blues, yeah, like the cold November sun

I told you it don’t matter, ooohh, what’s in my profile
Yeah, I told you it don’t matter, ooohh, what’s in my profile
It’s nothing to do with you, it’s just there to make me smile

Let’s just keep this quiet, ‘cause I’ve done you no wrong
I’d like to keep it quiet, ‘cause I’ve done you no wrong
But I’ve gotten to thinking you’ll just sing the same old song

You can keep your old entries, I’m done listening to you
You can keep your old entries, ‘cause I’m not listening to you
Just leave me be now – you stop reading my profile too.

Oh, livejournal.

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