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June 28, 2006

GO ARTS HIGH!

OH MY GOODNESS!!!

I just saw a commercial for the new season of Project Runway, so I decided to go check out the website for it. I was looking at the designers and saw, "Hey, that girl's from Minnesota." So I clicked on her and HOLY FREAKING COW, I WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH HER. We weren't friends, and since I sort of hid in the corners, she probably doesn't know who I am, but I definitely know who she is. She was a media major at the arts high school, and she always seemed very nice.

Everyone go check out Katherine Gerdes and root for her when the show starts.

Posted to Mindless Entertainment & Nostalgia at 11:38 AM | Comments (7)

June 27, 2006

No longer homeless

We're all moved. All our stuff is here. We've showered here. We've eaten here. We've made the bed. We officially live here.

There are a lot of good things about this apartment, but the best one is that some girls just walked by our apartment talking at a normal volume and I could barely hear them. In Fairkid, it would have sounded like they were screaming RIGHT IN MY EAR.

I'm happy to be here.

Posted to Minnesota at 11:47 PM | Comments (3)

June 16, 2006

Laying groundwork

I have no good reason for not updating in the last 10 days. I've been busy, but not so busy that I'm not at my computer. Mostly, the things I've been doing haven't been interesting to write about. I've been eating ice cream from my favorite ice cream place, shopping for interview clothes, watching movies, spending time with my family, and reading.

There is one thing worth mentioning, and that's the job front. Right now, even though my prospects are no better than they are any other time, I kind of feel like I'm in a "when it rains, it pours" situation.

Yesterday I interviewed for a job that I'm really excited about. It's not something I ever pictured myself doing, but it really appeals to me and definitely fits in with my future goals. I think the interview went fairly well, and the interviewer already requested references. However, I won't know about this job until the end of July or so, so I'm trying not to think about it too much.

In the meantime, I've been asked to do something I've wanted to do since I was about 10. It's not exactly a job in the sense that it's a short-term project and it wouldn't mean that I could stop looking for another job, but it does pay, and it does involve Jewish youth. If I can figure out transportation, I'm in, even though I'm very nervous about it.

And also, next weekend I'm volunteering at the Jewish community booth at pride. Yes, pride. I haven't been to pride since 1997, which is the first pride after I came out. I was curious and I was invited to join some people, so I went. It's not for me. Since then, I've worked very hard to avoid it (although Lauren and I actually did go to Cleveland pride in 1999 because we were at the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame and saw that it was next door, so we stopped by). But working there is ok with me, especially since it's Jewishly related and the person in charge is someone I've known all my life. Still, if you were to have asked me two weeks ago whether I'd ever go to pride again in my life, I would have guessed the answer would be no. So we'll see how this goes.

All in all, I'm feeling hopeful. Just being back in town is giving me so many opportunities I never would have had if we had stayed in Oberlin. I never would have been asked to volunteer or to do this other thing if we were in Ohio, and this is all within 2 weeks of being back.

This all has to be a good sign.

Posted to Hardly Working at 04:54 PM | Comments (2)

June 07, 2006

Sleep now?

Normally I keep this kind of thing to my LiveJournal, but I'm very vain, so there is nothing I love more than answering questions, so I'm doing it here too. I've been "interviewed" by Eryn. Here are my answers.

And if you want to be interviewed, reply here. I'll post questions for you in the comments.

1. You are on the road to Minnesota as I write this. What will you miss about Oberlin or the area?
I said goodbye to Oberlin in 2003, thinking I'd never live there again. Being there again for a year, especially as a non-student, non-employee, non-anything else, changed the way I think about Oberlin pretty intensely, so it's hard to know what I'll miss. I guess I'll miss going to brunch on the weekends and seeing the same people who are always at that same restaurant every Sunday at 11. Even though it always bothered me, I'll miss being surrounded by pessimistic idealists. I'll miss the passion and the angst. I'll miss people who care so much about the world, even if they care too little about things that I value. And I'll miss being somewhere that so completely and totally shaped who I became back when I was in college myself.

2. What are you most excited about moving home?
I'm excited to be somewhere where not everything is such a struggle. I'm looking forward to convenience. I'm excited about good food, lakes and green space in the midst of a city, family nearby, politics I can usually get behind, friends who I really connect with. I'm excited to have a good therapist. But the thing I'm most excited about is that this is home. I feel comfortable but challenged here, and I see a future here. I'm ready to move forward, and Oberlin and the lack of opportunities there was keeping me at a standstill.

3. At what age did you know you wanted to become a Rabbi?
I've actually been interested in the job of a rabbi for a long time... I think I became interested around the age of 11 or 12, when I was preparing for my bat mitzvah and spent a lot of time with rabbis who I really disliked. I thought they did their jobs poorly and I thought I could do better. Then after my bat mitzvah I started meeting some really great rabbis, but even my own rabbi couldn't answer most of my questions. Again, I thought I could do better, but I was disheartened because organized religion seemed to be both divisive and inaccurate. At that point, I completely walked away from Judaism except as a heritage. It wasn't until I found the Reconstructionist movement just over a year ago that I considered becoming a rabbi as a real option.

4. What drew you to Rabbinical school? When do you think you'll go?
That's a hard one to answer. I feel most myself when I'm learning, which, historically, is what a rabbi does. I also feel a strong connection to Judaism now that I've been able to figure out how an organized religion can fit into my life. Finding the Recon movement, which so identically mirrors the views that I had come up with on my own, made everything snap into place. As soon as I found it, there was no question in my mind that I wanted to pursue this. As for when... Emotionally, I'm ready now. In terms of academic preparation, I have another year or so left to finish. In terms of my family being ready for the transition... We figure Lauren should stay in this next job for 3 years or so, and we do want to have our first child before I enroll, if possible, so I guess I plan to apply for fall of '09. That seems so far away... I hate that.

5. Where do you get all the BSC books?
Mainly eBay, a few from Half-Priced Books, and a few from some LiveJournal communities. eBay has been the best source!

Posted to Miscellaneous at 11:51 PM | Comments (1)

June 06, 2006

We're here. Call us.

So much for updating every day in the month of June. But to be fair, my computer access is pretty limited right now. My dad got a wireless router, so I thought I'd get to be online more often, but for some reason the network doesn't want to assign us an IP, so we haven't been able to use it so far.

It feels like we've been here for weeks already. We arrived surprisingly un-tired around 8:30 central on Saturday, spent Sunday shopping for couches for our new apartment and at a movie with Carly, and then spent yesterday lying around trying not to get heat stroke before joining Carly again to celebrate her birthday. I don't know why it feels like we've been here for so long, but it does.

We have very few things lined up for the next several weeks. My youngest brother graduates from high school in two days, and we're seeing Stuart and Mary on Friday. Other than that, nothing. If we can get used to this heat, maybe we'll actually do some of our favorite Minneapolis things, like outdoor jazz concerts and drives around the lakes and patio dining and reading in the park.

In the meantime, I'm trying to convince Lauren that we should pick up and go to Italy this weekend. Good way to kill time.

Posted to Minnesota at 11:20 AM | Comments (0)

June 03, 2006

Moving right along...

We're outta here! In just over an hour, we'll be driving off, watching Oberlin getting smaller and smaller (which shouldn't take long) in our rearview mirrors.

I'm no so stupid as to think I'll never be back here again. I'm an alumna, and in case my obsession with all things facebook/myspace/friendster hasn't made this clear, I love reunions and any other experiences meant to remind me how miserable I was during previous life experiences. And I really do love Oberlin in a twisted way, I just wish to love it from afar. So yes, we'll be back someday, probably sooner than I realize. And that's ok.

But for now, we're leaving, and going home. Unless we get too tired and stop for the night, in just over 12 hours, I'll be home in Minnesota.

WOOHOO!!

Posted to Oberlin at 07:17 AM | Comments (1)

June 02, 2006

hyperlink: n : a link from a hypertext file to another location or file; typically activated by clicking on a highlighted word or icon at a particular location on the screen

Today's true and amazing links begins with a contribution from Lauren. Her excitement over being the one to provide this link can only be rivaled by my excitement over its existence. What is it? Have your baby's picture drawn in the arms of Jesus. Wow. I am completely at a loss as to what to say about this. I've never been one to find virgin Mary shaped nightlights or Jesus candles amusing (ok, I did have a virgin Mary nightlight at one point, but it was only because I had three intense Christian roommates and I needed something to make me feel like I could joke about it), but this one not only amuses, but thrills. And the best part about it is that the URL is iwantthatstuff dot com! Wow. Seriously.

This is pretty old news by now, but I'm going to mention it anyway. I've talked before about my serious distaste for my graduate institution and my joy at their discomfort over dealing with Real Issues. They've gotten more news coverage in the Twin Cities this past year about how oppressively conservative they are than I was aware of them getting for the entirety of my life before this year. And now they were written up in the Strib because the senior who spoke at commencement offended people big time. Yea for St. Thomas. I'm so proud to have my masters degree from them.

Last week some of Lauren's coworkers were telling her that they didn't really get what hipster meant. Lauren and another coworker did their best to explain it to them, but they said they needed a visual aid. So I went to work. I found plenty of resources, but my favorite was Hipster Bingo. The only thing missing is calf-length black leggings under a skirt and slip-on checkered keds/vans/whatever. Awesome.

Shavuot, a Jewish holiday celebrating the day the Jews received the Torah, began tonight at sundown. I thought I would share a link to a commentary on Shavuot from Jewish Mosaic, a Jewish organization for sexual and gender diversity. I really like divrei Torah, but I don't often read them, which is kind of ridiculous if you think about the fact that I may be delivering them one day. This one is a little dry, but interesting, and it was written by the rabbi of the first Recon synagogue I ever heard about, the shul that introduce me to the entire movement. So I'm sharing.

I've mentioned before that I'm quite the fan of women's soccer. In fact, last year when Lauren was job searching and I had no real contribution to picking a location, I based my opinion partly on whether or not that city would have a WUSA team if the WUSA got started back up (as it claimed it was trying to). That didn't really pan out. However, I was recently informed that as of this year, Minnesota has a women's soccer team in the USL women's league! I even know someone on the team who went to my high school (although if she were to remember me, I'd die of shock). Yea for women's soccer!!

I'm not really a whimsical person. In fact, I'm a pretty ridiculously serious person when it comes to anything that 1) will last a long time or 2) will cost a lot of money. So if and when I ever redecorate a house I own, I will surely go with plain, simple wood floors. That doesn't prevent me, however, from wishing I was the kind of person who would install a puzzle floor. I'm so not that interesting, but I wish I was. Someone do this to their house and then invite me over, ok?

I'm constantly asking people for book recommendations. I'm the world's pickiest reader. And now I've discovered Literature Map, where you enter in an authors name and receive a mindmap looking picture of similar authors. It does seem to only have about half of my favorite authors in the database, but that's a start. I have no idea if it's going to yield good recommendations or not, but I'm certainly willing to give it a try. I looked up books by authors close to my favorite authors and wasn't all that impressed, but I did end up buying one book that I found that way, and it looks like a totally my style book. We'll see!

Apparently, a cd can help with morning sickness. I'm skeptical, and I'm also pretty sure that I'd rather find a CD that keeps giving birth from hurting, but I guess I'll take what I can find. I think for now I'll wait to hear whether or not this works and instead just buy the kids CD put out by one of the guys from Eddie From Ohio and the kids CD put out by the Nields. And I'll ignore the fact that we're not even going to start trying to get pregnant for another couple of years.

I don't know why this salt and pepper shaker amuses me so much, but it does.

By the way, I'm sorry that my last few links entries have been so heavy on the weird products and light on news. My favorite news source, allgaynews.com, seems to have shut down. And I've also been too lazy to pay attention to which headlines are being discussed at the message board I frequent. I'm a lazy news-reader. If you have a favorite headlines/news site (and I don't mean a traditional newspaper), feel free to share it with me. I hate feeling so out of the loop.

Posted to Links at 12:09 AM | Comments (3)

June 01, 2006

Little things...

...that deserve a mention but not an entire entry:

After three years as an Oberlin student and an extra year living here, I saw the college president in person for the first time today. At my favorite Oberlin restaurant. It was a little surreal.

It's really fricking hot right now.

I finally found a ringtone to use for all my of my family's phone numbers. I choose People Are Strange by the Doors.

For some reason, the heat has given me the travel bug. Italy, anyone?

We're all packed. Tomorrow I'll pack my suitcase(s) for our month at my parents' and Friday I'll pack up the bathroom. Saturday, we're out of here.

The air conditioner in our living room keeps the room at a chilly 78 degrees. Our bedroom is in the 80s.

I'm on a crusade to get my friends to join MySpace. It's kind of sad when I look at my friends list and only see one of my closest friends there. It's sadder that I care. But I do. So SIGN UP and add me.

I can't sleep.

That is all.

Posted to Miscellaneous at 04:22 AM | Comments (0)