hissing fauna...

ah so we are back again and honestly i am quite excited! oh, but i can't wait for it to snow again. this year i went back to california and actually craved snow on the streets which i suppose just shows that i have morphed into a creature of the east. today was pleasantly brisk and as it's not over yet i plan to take advantage of the chill and run to dupont for my little evening with w.

today mcn brought me this cd that i have been yearning for (totally the accurate vocabulary choice) for about a month. but i had been yearning for it based on a couple of particular songs and was not expecting to stumble into something even greater than what i had hoped for, which is really the best present ever. i always write about how i am a sucker for a good song but every once and a while you come across one that just flows through you as if it were part of your person always even before you ever heard it. it is beautiful.

the last two weeks since i have been back have just been so amazing. i feel that i am finally coming out of everything that has happened over the past few months and the world looks incredibly bright -- not that it wasn't bright before, but now it is really shining. i am so so so happy to be in this place with so many wonderful people. and thus far classes are beyond exceeding my expectations, which very much excites me. it's hard to believe this is the last few months that we'll all certainly be in the same place. everyone is really scattering after this semester...

all the more reason to make it the most amazing one yet.

Jewish Law

I joined RBF's Jewish Law class shortly before it was no longer possible to do so. It was a tossup between the other course that I was taking because I thought I should, and then this one (the one that I wanted to take but didn't think would ultimately look useful). Weakness for what I hope will be tons of muttered random Aramaic phrases uttered in the Jesuit-iest institution around finally won out.

The course is actually split between RBF, the top Rabbi of Reform in the US, and another professor that I have yet to look into. We'll see how this plays out, as I'm not entirely sure how a multi-professor, multi-ideological course can really come together. But I've got faith (ba dum bum).

As an update to the post below: we had a good time even though I looked like I was totally suffering. Icing on the cake: going to hug Guy goodbye... and missing him by about two feet (to the left). Good catch, Guy.

By the way, I'm currently in NY. Quite sick, quite working on papers, quite going to miss the first day of school and wondering how the hell I'm going to make it through yet another schedule-intensive semester (though less so than the last one for reasons we'll just refer to as 'lessons learned').

This should be laughably interesting

I'm currently in so much physical pain that I can't walk for more than a few minutes. This has been occurring and gradually worsening for several days. The pain is concentrated in my neck, lower back, and legs and is resistant to all pain-relieving balms we have administered thusfar. Even the 'Extreme' stuff only works for a few minutes at best.

This evening, I'm going on a date-ish type get-together (type, because when you already know the person for a hella long time, it's something of an odd thing to label a 'date'). Perhaps because we've been chums for such a long time, even upon being informed that I am hobbling, hacking, and kvetching like the world's most romantically unappealing geriatric (Leona Helmsley-level), Guy's response was sympathetic, followed by 'can you at least chew?'

Why, yes. Yes I can. Problems solved.

In short, this evening promises to be personally pleasant, yet physically excruciating. Props to Guy - if I had to relish the prospect of taking me out me at the moment, I'd require payment in my weight in the strongest currency going and a guaranteed favorable exchange rate.

Swap exchange, I Law II peeps!

Wow. Wow.... Wow.

These guys are so... damned... good. Click around, buy tickets, whatever. But especially watch the opening video and then listen to their other stuff.


Do you have any idea how hard that is?! They're amazing! The only thing that would make this stuff better is if the cameraman had captured more of the fingerwork. Which he apparently decided wasn't all the important even though... well, that's really all that's important.

More vid here, by the way.

The Happy New Year

Sure to be smoother than the last one, but filled with just as many quality people and experiences. Gotta say, the first day was not so bad. Hope yours was as good as mine, and if it wasn't - well there's always tomorrow, which tends to exceed expectations in one way or another.

To kick off a slight return to relative regularity in these posts: I caught Minnieckey (celverly using a box, a spoon, a rubber band, a spatula and a clear plastic container with a strong zipper) who turned out to be both a Mickey and a Minnie, and released them into the wild. Ojalo que tengan buen suerte, kidlets. The streets of Georgetown don't have nearly as many sweaters of mine to chew as you'd hope.

Anyway - now going back to writing papers and securing America for the common - and the greater - good.

Don't ask.

Just have a good night. Ciao. :-)

i am a bear of little brain

it's finals time, and that can only mean one thing: it's time for a few pooh quotes. i should add here that reading winnie the pooh is perhaps the literary equivalent of curling up beside a nice fire with a cup of hot cocoa.

how i feel around 11am sometimes:

when late morning rolls around and you're feeling a bit out of sorts, don't worry; you're probably just a little eleven o'clockish.

something that anyone who has ever heard my obtuse references to interesting childrens' books will most likely agree describes me:

when you are a bear of very little brain, and think of things, you find sometimes that a thing which seemed very thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.

and something everyone should know, whether they are taking finals or not (but especially if they are taking finals):

if ever there is tomorrow when we’re not together, there is something you must always remember. you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.

(of course the last one's not really pooh, it's christopher robin to pooh, but the genius of a.a. milne was still rather appropriate in this instance and so i have overlooked that fact.)

boa sorte, all.

and i myself am looking forward to a real fire, real hot cocoa, and some pooh.

missing in....action?

i don't expect to be posting much in the next few weeks (and this post has definitely been preceded by a distinct lack of posting-ness). oy vey, finals. although my recent lack of writing hasn't been totally prompted by the strain of academics.

there are just some experiences that cannot really be described in words, and i think that when you have one of those (or at least when i do), it requires a certain amount of silence for processing purposes, and also because there's just no way to write or talk about it that would do it any sort of justice.

maybe this will help. this is my friend julia:

she was beautiful in every sense of the word.

this semester has been chock full of curve balls. i'm ready for california.