I am officially done with school.
Ever.
(Or maybe not ever, but for now.)
Last night was my last night as the Apple's roommate. In fact, it was my last night as part of TBA (what I nicknamed our apartment on my blog way back in the beginning of the year. I believe it stands for "The Best Apartment" - not very original, I know). But not even, because M.R. had already left.
Last night, the Apple and I talked a bit until we were nearly asleep (that didn't take very long, seeing as we were both exhausted from packing and transporting luggage). When I shut the lamp, I thought to myself, "These last few seconds before I fall asleep are my last few seconds as a member of this apartment. When I wake up in the morning, my time at Stern will really be over." While I was still the Apple's roommate, it was like school was still in session, even though there were no more classes. I was still a part of my Stern experience. Now I'm home for Shabbos and any return to the Stern premises will be as a graduate.
Truthfully, I do have one more night in my apartment at Stern. D2 and I are packing our stuff on motzei Shabbos and leaving Sunday morning. But it will be just us. We will be the last ones to say goodbye to The Apartment.
...And then we, and everyone else, will go on together to the next stage of our lives.
What's both nice and strange at the same time is that we're not saying goodbye to each other. We're going to be seeing each other next year. This is not like the end of the year in Israel when people go off to their respective colleges in various different states or countries or even continents. Those people you really need to say goodbye to. But not my friends now. We're still going to be together in some ways, but...differently. I don't know what it will be like but it doesn't feel lonely.
D2, Chana, SJ, M.R., and the Apple,
This year, there were struggles, triumphs, difficult moments, awesome moments...but you guys have been amazing apartment mates.
At the start of this year, I wrote a post on beginnings. Well, now we're all facing a new kind of beginning. It's the beginning of a path in a completely different walk of life. But I think we're not alone on that path. It's one we don't know well at all, yet we are not walking it in solitude, even as we are also all doing different things next year.
There's a song from the end of the movie Anastasia that I love. It's meant to be a love song really, but I think it can really apply to any sort of close relationship - especially a deep-rooted friendship that will help each of us face whatever journey we have up ahead.
As I step wistfully out of one stage and nervously, but not unhappily, into the next, I take with me everything my time at Stern College for Women has provided me with. In a way, I am the same person I always was, except I'm being that person in a different way. It's slightly confusing. But refreshing, in a way. It's exciting to feel like I can possibly do something important with my life outside of the comfortable school cocoon.
So thank you, Stern College.
This post feels somewhat awkward, but I guess some things are hard to say, let alone say with elegance.
This blog will no longer be the records of a girl in college. Now it will be something else. Perhaps it will be more important to me than ever to write about what happens to me. My life suddenly feels like it's one big surprise.
I suppose we shall see what happens come tomorrow.
Showing posts with label D2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label D2. Show all posts
Friday, May 22, 2009
Sunday, May 3, 2009
The Misadventures Of A Rainy Friday
There are some days when the rain is so fierce that it is not rain at all, but rather like the all the lakes and rivers of the world are falling from the sky right on top of you. This past Friday was such a day.
SJ, D2, and I set off on our trek from Stern to Penn Station in a gray world with a damp breeze. On occasion, a few droplets of water would sprinkle onto our faces, but as we walked, these droplets became more like fully-grown drops and their descents occurred more frequently than "on occasion." By the time we were halfway there, the sky had begun to dump its entire watery contents onto New York City.
For those unfamiliar with summers in New York, they go something like this: Nice Day. Hot day. Humid day. Very humid day. Very, very humid day. So-humid-it's-like-walking-through-sticky-swaths-of-hot-cotton-candy day. Stormy day filled with drenching, torrential rains, blinding flashes of lightening, and thunder so deafening it sounds like the sky's going to crash to earth any minute. The next day is a beautiful one, and the cycle begins again.
Although we have yet to reach summer, the rain which drowned our feet that day might as well have been an early summer visitor. SJ and I each had umbrellas, but the wind had decided to whip mine backwards into a position that was utterly useless. My hair, my shirt, my skirt, and my feet became completely drenched. I only hoped the contents of the suitcase I was dragging were still dry.
By the time we three got to Penn Station, our clothes were sticking to us in that uncomfortable way that wet clothes do and our hair hung limp and bedraggled. I could feel water squishing around in my shoes.
In such circumstances, a person may tend to feel bogged down by her wetness. I certainly felt that way. We had only four minutes until our train and we still had to buy tickets, but for some reason I could only shuffle my feet slowly around the train station. Everything around me, in fact, was operating on a slower, wetter system.
There were long lines by each ticket machine, but somehow both SJ and I managed to get a turn. I got tickets for D2 and myself, but SJ's machine was broken. We had no time for her to try on my machine, however, so we ran to our platform with one minute to go, stumbled clumsily (and wetly) down the stairs, and threw ourselves onto the first car of the train just before the doors closed behind us.
The train was a Double Decker, and for a moment we stood there in wet confusion, wondering where the seats were.
"Shall we go up or down?" I finally managed through chattering teeth. The others must have been too wet or bewildered or both, for they each mumbled something that didn't sound very much like a suggestion.
"Up, then," I decided for them and we all traipsed up the steps, shivering in our sopping clothes. Unluckily, there was nowhere for us to sit, so we had to stand until we reached Jamaica. That was where we had to switch.
I called my dad at that point to ask if he was also on the train. Then we could get a ride home from the train station. He wasn't, but he said he was on another train that was also switching at Jamaica, so we decided to meet up.
At Jamaica, we met my father and made the switch easily. Our next train had seats for us, but not together, so D2 went to sit in one area while SJ sat in another. "We're getting off at ---" I told them just in case we got separated, for it was a different stop than the one we were originally going to on our first train. Then I stood for a bit near D2 because I felt too wet to sit, but SJ finally convinced me to sit with her. I suppose that was when things went a bit awry.
Looking back on it, I don't think D2 noticed that I was no longer standing near her. When the train pulled into our stop, SJ and I got off the train, along with my father. As I got off, I looked around for D2 but couldn't find her anywhere.
"Is someone supposed to get off the train with you?" asked a man from my community. I nodded.
"What's her name?"
"D2," I said.
He poked his head back in the train and called out, "D2!"
But no one answered and the doors were closing.
As the train pulled away, SJ and I both took out our phones to call her. And we both noticed we had text messages from her asking if we were going to the stop our initial train, before we met up with my father, was going to. We looked at each other.
"Oh no," we said.
"What happened to D2?" asked my father. "Was she sleeping?"
I shrugged. "What's the next stop?" I asked. "Because that's where she's going."
SJ called D2, who told her what the next stop was. Then, still wet (though it was no longer raining), we trudged to my father's car and drove off to pick up D2.
Ten minutes later, D2 was found and in the car with us.
"When we get home, we should all have hot chocolate," I said.
"Ooh, yes!" exclaimed D2.
When I was taking a writing class at Stern, my stories frequently ended in everyone going home to have hot chocolate. SJ called these "hot chocolate endings." I figured we all deserved our own hot chocolate ending.
As soon as we got home, SJ, D2, and I ran up to my room to change our clothes. SJ, already wearing a light blue shirt that was mostly dry, borrowed a pastel pink skirt from me. Looking in the mirror, she exclaimed, "I look like ice cream!"
D2, meanwhile, had discovered that an air mattress was piled on top of my bed so that the whole thing looked like the set of The Princess and the Pea. She climbed on top and curled up. SJ and I, thinking this was a fun activity, climbed up with her. But after a little while, I remembered about the hot chocolate.
"Oh yeah, let's go have hot chocolate!" said D2, when I reminded her.
We all slid off the piled mattresses and bounded down the stairs.
"Do we have any hot chocolate?" I asked Mavis, who, like most teenage boys, was lurking around in the kitchen. We usually did have hot chocolate, but I wasn't sure if we had gotten any since Pesach.
"I don't think so," said Mavis. "But you can always use Ovaltine!"
So we tried the Ovaltine. The issue with that was we couldn't use the instant hot water on our sink. We had to actually heat up milk.
"Maybe we shouldn't," I said, glancing around the kitchen that had various Shabbos cooking activities going on in it.
"Aw, why not?" asked D2. I hesitated.
"We can just warm it up in the microwave," suggested SJ.
"Okay," I said. "But...in what?"
"Mugs?"
"Can you microwave mugs?"
"Sure! We do it all the time in my house."
"Um...okay..."
So I got down three mugs.
"Wait, girls, why don't you try these?" suggested my father, taking down some Styrofoam cups. I felt more comfortable using those and took them readily. SJ and D2 each poured themselves a cup of milk and put the cups in the microwave.
I waited for them to be finished but D2 kept putting hers back in.
Finally, it was my turn. I decided that instead of putting it in and out a million times, I'd just put my cup in for a full four minutes.
I suppose no one really paid much attention to what I was doing, because no one stopped me. SJ and D2 were busy with their cups of hot chocolate. I waited around for my cup of milk to finish microwaving.
As I waited, I did other things. I went upstairs to get something. I talked to SJ and D2. Mavis and I spent some quality time bothering each other. And then I decided to check out how my cup of milk was doing.
The first thing I saw when I looked over at the microwave was a steamy door and lots of white behind it.
You know that feeling where you suddenly feel the blood rushing around in your head? Shabbos was in less than an hour and I thought for a moment that I had broken the microwave.
After my feet unstuck from the floor, I shakily pressed the "stop" button and pulled open the door. A large circle of white liquid lapped up against an empty Styrofoam cup in greeting.
When I panic, I am generally overcome with a slow-moving, intense calm. I suddenly know exactly what to do, and what I knew most of all in that situation was that there was no reason my mother had to come into the kitchen until the milk was all cleaned up.
I became almost devilish about it.
"Should I take a picture?" I asked SJ.
"Yes!" she grinned. "It's like illustrated milk!"
I giggled and ran to get my camera.
Before long, I had both taken a picture of the milky masterpiece and had cleaned it all up. It was quite easy to clean, too.
"Here, let's try again," said D2, grabbing hold of the Styrofoam cup.
I looked at her incredulously, nearly started laughing again, and shook my head.
"I think I've had enough experimenting with milk for now," I said.
So I did not get my hot chocolate ending.
But I did get some illustrated milk. Oh, and a great story.
SJ, D2, and I set off on our trek from Stern to Penn Station in a gray world with a damp breeze. On occasion, a few droplets of water would sprinkle onto our faces, but as we walked, these droplets became more like fully-grown drops and their descents occurred more frequently than "on occasion." By the time we were halfway there, the sky had begun to dump its entire watery contents onto New York City.
For those unfamiliar with summers in New York, they go something like this: Nice Day. Hot day. Humid day. Very humid day. Very, very humid day. So-humid-it's-like-walking-through-sticky-swaths-of-hot-cotton-candy day. Stormy day filled with drenching, torrential rains, blinding flashes of lightening, and thunder so deafening it sounds like the sky's going to crash to earth any minute. The next day is a beautiful one, and the cycle begins again.
Although we have yet to reach summer, the rain which drowned our feet that day might as well have been an early summer visitor. SJ and I each had umbrellas, but the wind had decided to whip mine backwards into a position that was utterly useless. My hair, my shirt, my skirt, and my feet became completely drenched. I only hoped the contents of the suitcase I was dragging were still dry.
By the time we three got to Penn Station, our clothes were sticking to us in that uncomfortable way that wet clothes do and our hair hung limp and bedraggled. I could feel water squishing around in my shoes.
In such circumstances, a person may tend to feel bogged down by her wetness. I certainly felt that way. We had only four minutes until our train and we still had to buy tickets, but for some reason I could only shuffle my feet slowly around the train station. Everything around me, in fact, was operating on a slower, wetter system.
There were long lines by each ticket machine, but somehow both SJ and I managed to get a turn. I got tickets for D2 and myself, but SJ's machine was broken. We had no time for her to try on my machine, however, so we ran to our platform with one minute to go, stumbled clumsily (and wetly) down the stairs, and threw ourselves onto the first car of the train just before the doors closed behind us.
The train was a Double Decker, and for a moment we stood there in wet confusion, wondering where the seats were.
"Shall we go up or down?" I finally managed through chattering teeth. The others must have been too wet or bewildered or both, for they each mumbled something that didn't sound very much like a suggestion.
"Up, then," I decided for them and we all traipsed up the steps, shivering in our sopping clothes. Unluckily, there was nowhere for us to sit, so we had to stand until we reached Jamaica. That was where we had to switch.
I called my dad at that point to ask if he was also on the train. Then we could get a ride home from the train station. He wasn't, but he said he was on another train that was also switching at Jamaica, so we decided to meet up.
At Jamaica, we met my father and made the switch easily. Our next train had seats for us, but not together, so D2 went to sit in one area while SJ sat in another. "We're getting off at ---" I told them just in case we got separated, for it was a different stop than the one we were originally going to on our first train. Then I stood for a bit near D2 because I felt too wet to sit, but SJ finally convinced me to sit with her. I suppose that was when things went a bit awry.
Looking back on it, I don't think D2 noticed that I was no longer standing near her. When the train pulled into our stop, SJ and I got off the train, along with my father. As I got off, I looked around for D2 but couldn't find her anywhere.
"Is someone supposed to get off the train with you?" asked a man from my community. I nodded.
"What's her name?"
"D2," I said.
He poked his head back in the train and called out, "D2!"
But no one answered and the doors were closing.
As the train pulled away, SJ and I both took out our phones to call her. And we both noticed we had text messages from her asking if we were going to the stop our initial train, before we met up with my father, was going to. We looked at each other.
"Oh no," we said.
"What happened to D2?" asked my father. "Was she sleeping?"
I shrugged. "What's the next stop?" I asked. "Because that's where she's going."
SJ called D2, who told her what the next stop was. Then, still wet (though it was no longer raining), we trudged to my father's car and drove off to pick up D2.
Ten minutes later, D2 was found and in the car with us.
"When we get home, we should all have hot chocolate," I said.
"Ooh, yes!" exclaimed D2.
When I was taking a writing class at Stern, my stories frequently ended in everyone going home to have hot chocolate. SJ called these "hot chocolate endings." I figured we all deserved our own hot chocolate ending.
As soon as we got home, SJ, D2, and I ran up to my room to change our clothes. SJ, already wearing a light blue shirt that was mostly dry, borrowed a pastel pink skirt from me. Looking in the mirror, she exclaimed, "I look like ice cream!"
D2, meanwhile, had discovered that an air mattress was piled on top of my bed so that the whole thing looked like the set of The Princess and the Pea. She climbed on top and curled up. SJ and I, thinking this was a fun activity, climbed up with her. But after a little while, I remembered about the hot chocolate.
"Oh yeah, let's go have hot chocolate!" said D2, when I reminded her.
We all slid off the piled mattresses and bounded down the stairs.
"Do we have any hot chocolate?" I asked Mavis, who, like most teenage boys, was lurking around in the kitchen. We usually did have hot chocolate, but I wasn't sure if we had gotten any since Pesach.
"I don't think so," said Mavis. "But you can always use Ovaltine!"
So we tried the Ovaltine. The issue with that was we couldn't use the instant hot water on our sink. We had to actually heat up milk.
"Maybe we shouldn't," I said, glancing around the kitchen that had various Shabbos cooking activities going on in it.
"Aw, why not?" asked D2. I hesitated.
"We can just warm it up in the microwave," suggested SJ.
"Okay," I said. "But...in what?"
"Mugs?"
"Can you microwave mugs?"
"Sure! We do it all the time in my house."
"Um...okay..."
So I got down three mugs.
"Wait, girls, why don't you try these?" suggested my father, taking down some Styrofoam cups. I felt more comfortable using those and took them readily. SJ and D2 each poured themselves a cup of milk and put the cups in the microwave.
I waited for them to be finished but D2 kept putting hers back in.
Finally, it was my turn. I decided that instead of putting it in and out a million times, I'd just put my cup in for a full four minutes.
I suppose no one really paid much attention to what I was doing, because no one stopped me. SJ and D2 were busy with their cups of hot chocolate. I waited around for my cup of milk to finish microwaving.
As I waited, I did other things. I went upstairs to get something. I talked to SJ and D2. Mavis and I spent some quality time bothering each other. And then I decided to check out how my cup of milk was doing.
The first thing I saw when I looked over at the microwave was a steamy door and lots of white behind it.
You know that feeling where you suddenly feel the blood rushing around in your head? Shabbos was in less than an hour and I thought for a moment that I had broken the microwave.
After my feet unstuck from the floor, I shakily pressed the "stop" button and pulled open the door. A large circle of white liquid lapped up against an empty Styrofoam cup in greeting.
When I panic, I am generally overcome with a slow-moving, intense calm. I suddenly know exactly what to do, and what I knew most of all in that situation was that there was no reason my mother had to come into the kitchen until the milk was all cleaned up.
I became almost devilish about it.
"Should I take a picture?" I asked SJ.
"Yes!" she grinned. "It's like illustrated milk!"
I giggled and ran to get my camera.
Before long, I had both taken a picture of the milky masterpiece and had cleaned it all up. It was quite easy to clean, too.
"Here, let's try again," said D2, grabbing hold of the Styrofoam cup.
I looked at her incredulously, nearly started laughing again, and shook my head.
"I think I've had enough experimenting with milk for now," I said.
So I did not get my hot chocolate ending.
But I did get some illustrated milk. Oh, and a great story.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Why I Will Not Make A Good Gofer
This morning, I was about to leave for the caf when D2 said to me, "Oh, Erachet, are you going to get breakfast?"
"Yep."
"Do you think you can get me a cup of coffee?"
I hesitated. Coffee was not the sort of thing I was much experienced in. In fact, I had never made a cup of coffee before in my life.
"Sure...but I don't really know how..."
"Oh, it's easy! Okay? I'm going to explain it to you."
"Okay."
"Okay," said D2, and began slowly. "You take a cup. Then you fill it up about this much with coffee. Then you place it under the milk thing and fill it up some more with milk. Then you put two sugars in."
"Okay," I said. "I can probably do that."
So I went to the caf and, before I knew it, there I was standing in front of the coffee counter. I had never paid much attention to it before. I stared at it for a moment, D2's instructions suddenly becoming incredibly complicated.
I couldn't find a place where you get coffee from. There was a big urn that said "Caution: Hot Water" on it. Then there was a machine with three different kinds of milk. Three! Next to that was another machine with spouts for either cappuccino, french vanilla, or hot chocolate.
Okay. First thing first. Take a cup. I can do that, right?
I started to reach for a cup and then hesitated. There were two different kinds. Did D2 want a large cup? Or a small one? I tried to remember if she had specified but, my mind blanking on me, I had to use my own judgment. I figured I'd get her a large.
Large cup in hand, I then tried to decide which of the three flavors on the machine could one possibly mean when asking for "coffee." Clearly, the answer was not hot chocolate. Was it cappuccino? French vanilla? I had absolutely no idea and, after two whole minutes of deliberation, I stuck the cup under the spout labeled "cappuccino" and tried my luck.
After the cup was about 3/4 full, I decided it was full enough and went over to the milk. Here was another complication. Did D2 want whole milk? Skim milk? 1%? At home we get 1% milk so I figured that was safe.
As I was adding the milk, another girl looked at me with keen interest. "Is that good, what you do? Cappuccino and milk?"
I felt a little startled. Was there something wrong?
"I-I have no idea," I stammered, trying to sound like I knew what I was doing. "This is for someone else."
But something about her question made me think I had made a mistake. When she then took a small cup, put it under the "Caution: Hot Water" urn, and brown liquid came out, I knew I had completely messed up.
I decided to skip the two packets of sugar and instead covered the cup and brought it back to my apartment.
After having gotten wrong the size of the cup, the milk, and the coffee, D2 later told me she'd give me coffee-making lessons.
"Yep."
"Do you think you can get me a cup of coffee?"
I hesitated. Coffee was not the sort of thing I was much experienced in. In fact, I had never made a cup of coffee before in my life.
"Sure...but I don't really know how..."
"Oh, it's easy! Okay? I'm going to explain it to you."
"Okay."
"Okay," said D2, and began slowly. "You take a cup. Then you fill it up about this much with coffee. Then you place it under the milk thing and fill it up some more with milk. Then you put two sugars in."
"Okay," I said. "I can probably do that."
So I went to the caf and, before I knew it, there I was standing in front of the coffee counter. I had never paid much attention to it before. I stared at it for a moment, D2's instructions suddenly becoming incredibly complicated.
I couldn't find a place where you get coffee from. There was a big urn that said "Caution: Hot Water" on it. Then there was a machine with three different kinds of milk. Three! Next to that was another machine with spouts for either cappuccino, french vanilla, or hot chocolate.
Okay. First thing first. Take a cup. I can do that, right?
I started to reach for a cup and then hesitated. There were two different kinds. Did D2 want a large cup? Or a small one? I tried to remember if she had specified but, my mind blanking on me, I had to use my own judgment. I figured I'd get her a large.
Large cup in hand, I then tried to decide which of the three flavors on the machine could one possibly mean when asking for "coffee." Clearly, the answer was not hot chocolate. Was it cappuccino? French vanilla? I had absolutely no idea and, after two whole minutes of deliberation, I stuck the cup under the spout labeled "cappuccino" and tried my luck.
After the cup was about 3/4 full, I decided it was full enough and went over to the milk. Here was another complication. Did D2 want whole milk? Skim milk? 1%? At home we get 1% milk so I figured that was safe.
As I was adding the milk, another girl looked at me with keen interest. "Is that good, what you do? Cappuccino and milk?"
I felt a little startled. Was there something wrong?
"I-I have no idea," I stammered, trying to sound like I knew what I was doing. "This is for someone else."
But something about her question made me think I had made a mistake. When she then took a small cup, put it under the "Caution: Hot Water" urn, and brown liquid came out, I knew I had completely messed up.
I decided to skip the two packets of sugar and instead covered the cup and brought it back to my apartment.
After having gotten wrong the size of the cup, the milk, and the coffee, D2 later told me she'd give me coffee-making lessons.
Friday, February 20, 2009
The Problem With Math
The problem with math begins as soon as you decide you are an English person. All of a sudden, you find yourself aligned with the English/History/Humanities group and anything number-related, by default, has now become your arch-nemesis.
"I hate math!" I remember declaring to myself and to anyone who would listen. At one point, I had read a book in which the main character, upon starting middle school, hated both math and her math teacher. I figured that was what one was supposed to do when starting middle school, so my entrance to seventh grade was also the beginning of my real math aversion. I don't remember having real difficulties with math before, but suddenly math was most definitely not my thing. I would argue every little point with my teacher, trying to prove how it just didn't make sense. The truth was, some of this was genuine math/english friction. It wasn't that I couldn't do math, it was that I didn't like not understanding what I was doing. I didn't like meaningless formulas. And my teacher never sufficiently explained what things meant. I kept asking her how it was possible to multiply something by a negative number - especially multiplying two negative numbers and coming out with a positive. It didn't make sense to me to have negative five and then multiply that not ten times and come out with fifty! Huh?!*
In eighth grade, the girl who sat behind me asked if she could cheat off of me during a test. I remember being incredibly baffled. Cheat off of me? But I hate math! Math is not my thing. Do I have to make it any clearer? You will not get the right answers if you cheat off of me. Aside from the fact that I'm vehemently against cheating, the idea of cheating off of me in math seemed like sheer idiocy!**
I have no idea how well I actually did in math. I just know that I hated it.
...Except I didn't really hate it. I didn't have any particular issues with it. In tenth grade, I even allowed myself to like logic proofs. I loved logic. It was my favorite part of math.
In eleventh grade, I actually did hate math. For real this time. We were doing trig and for those of you who suffered through trig as I did, you'll probably know what I mean when I say that it frustrated me to not be able to understand what a sine, cosine, or tangent was. And when I asked, I didn't want some equation thrown at me. I wanted a real answer. I did not like having to use some button on a calculator I did not at all understand in order to figure out things I didn't even care about. Who cared about any of that stuff anyway? Certainly not me. When would I ever need to figure out the sine of something in real life? What the heck does a sine even mean?
That is why I loathed trig.
This past summer, I went to visit D2 in the city and we got into a whole long discussion about infinity. I found it all fascinating. I even remember saying it would make such a great blog post. To that, D2 replied, "it's all calculus."
...What?!
That confused me. Here was an English major who hated math her whole life (with the exception of logic proofs, of course) and now she was involved in an extremely fascinating discussion about calculus. How?!?!
You know, I think a lot of things we think we don't like are things that we possibly just don't understand. Either we had a bad teacher or we weren't ready to learn something yet or we went in with a prejudice that we weren't supposed to like something. You ever have that? You go into a class where most people don't like the teacher and you find yourself kind of liking her but you keep it to yourself because, I mean, no one likes her, why on earth do you? Or how about, for the English people out there, if you've ever read a book when you were younger, hated it, read it again in college and loved it? I know that's happened to me more than once. Just because you have the capabilities to read more mature books at a young age doesn't mean you have the maturity to properly approach the issues it deals with. That's why it's good sometimes to shed your prejudices from when you were younger and come at something old with new eyes. You'll be surprised how your understanding and opinions might change.
I'm not saying I all of a sudden like math. I'm just saying that teachers, circumstance, and maturity have a lot to do with what we like and don't like as a kid. And sometimes that can change when we're older. Sometimes we think we don't like something because we've convinced ourselves we don't, but we haven't really given it a chance, in truth. As our understandings of the world change, I think it's good to give old things a new try. In general. (No, I don't want to start doing math. I'm just using it to make a point.)
*Actually, now I think I get it. If you owe five dollars, that's -5, so if you don't owe five dollars ten times, you end up with fifty dollars more than if you had owed five dollars ten times. Yeah?
**Also, if a person was going to cheat off of me, I would not want to know about it. I hate cheating, and what's more, there's nothing in it for me to move my paper on a desk so the girl behind me can see it except the possibility of getting caught. But I think cheating is absolutely vile and I don't understand how a person could live with herself if she hasn't really achieved by her own merit the grades and accomplishments people judge her by. It's good for your self-worth not to cheat, not to think you have to use someone else as a crutch in order to achieve. You can do it on your own if you put in the effort. Really.
"I hate math!" I remember declaring to myself and to anyone who would listen. At one point, I had read a book in which the main character, upon starting middle school, hated both math and her math teacher. I figured that was what one was supposed to do when starting middle school, so my entrance to seventh grade was also the beginning of my real math aversion. I don't remember having real difficulties with math before, but suddenly math was most definitely not my thing. I would argue every little point with my teacher, trying to prove how it just didn't make sense. The truth was, some of this was genuine math/english friction. It wasn't that I couldn't do math, it was that I didn't like not understanding what I was doing. I didn't like meaningless formulas. And my teacher never sufficiently explained what things meant. I kept asking her how it was possible to multiply something by a negative number - especially multiplying two negative numbers and coming out with a positive. It didn't make sense to me to have negative five and then multiply that not ten times and come out with fifty! Huh?!*
In eighth grade, the girl who sat behind me asked if she could cheat off of me during a test. I remember being incredibly baffled. Cheat off of me? But I hate math! Math is not my thing. Do I have to make it any clearer? You will not get the right answers if you cheat off of me. Aside from the fact that I'm vehemently against cheating, the idea of cheating off of me in math seemed like sheer idiocy!**
I have no idea how well I actually did in math. I just know that I hated it.
...Except I didn't really hate it. I didn't have any particular issues with it. In tenth grade, I even allowed myself to like logic proofs. I loved logic. It was my favorite part of math.
In eleventh grade, I actually did hate math. For real this time. We were doing trig and for those of you who suffered through trig as I did, you'll probably know what I mean when I say that it frustrated me to not be able to understand what a sine, cosine, or tangent was. And when I asked, I didn't want some equation thrown at me. I wanted a real answer. I did not like having to use some button on a calculator I did not at all understand in order to figure out things I didn't even care about. Who cared about any of that stuff anyway? Certainly not me. When would I ever need to figure out the sine of something in real life? What the heck does a sine even mean?
That is why I loathed trig.
This past summer, I went to visit D2 in the city and we got into a whole long discussion about infinity. I found it all fascinating. I even remember saying it would make such a great blog post. To that, D2 replied, "it's all calculus."
...What?!
That confused me. Here was an English major who hated math her whole life (with the exception of logic proofs, of course) and now she was involved in an extremely fascinating discussion about calculus. How?!?!
You know, I think a lot of things we think we don't like are things that we possibly just don't understand. Either we had a bad teacher or we weren't ready to learn something yet or we went in with a prejudice that we weren't supposed to like something. You ever have that? You go into a class where most people don't like the teacher and you find yourself kind of liking her but you keep it to yourself because, I mean, no one likes her, why on earth do you? Or how about, for the English people out there, if you've ever read a book when you were younger, hated it, read it again in college and loved it? I know that's happened to me more than once. Just because you have the capabilities to read more mature books at a young age doesn't mean you have the maturity to properly approach the issues it deals with. That's why it's good sometimes to shed your prejudices from when you were younger and come at something old with new eyes. You'll be surprised how your understanding and opinions might change.
I'm not saying I all of a sudden like math. I'm just saying that teachers, circumstance, and maturity have a lot to do with what we like and don't like as a kid. And sometimes that can change when we're older. Sometimes we think we don't like something because we've convinced ourselves we don't, but we haven't really given it a chance, in truth. As our understandings of the world change, I think it's good to give old things a new try. In general. (No, I don't want to start doing math. I'm just using it to make a point.)
*Actually, now I think I get it. If you owe five dollars, that's -5, so if you don't owe five dollars ten times, you end up with fifty dollars more than if you had owed five dollars ten times. Yeah?
**Also, if a person was going to cheat off of me, I would not want to know about it. I hate cheating, and what's more, there's nothing in it for me to move my paper on a desk so the girl behind me can see it except the possibility of getting caught. But I think cheating is absolutely vile and I don't understand how a person could live with herself if she hasn't really achieved by her own merit the grades and accomplishments people judge her by. It's good for your self-worth not to cheat, not to think you have to use someone else as a crutch in order to achieve. You can do it on your own if you put in the effort. Really.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
My Wonderful Apartmentmate(s)
I have a wonderful apartment mate. Her name is D2. This is the story about why she is so wonderful.
To SJ, Chana, M.R., and the Apple -I love you guys, too! Chag sameach to my apartment and chag sameach to the entire JBlogosphere.
Now everyone go eat a jelly doughnut!
*But we are not playing Gamad v'Anak, so of course D2 is not my person, nor is she anyone's person.
(SJ addendum: [deleted] [deleted] [deleted])M.R., SJ, Chana, D2, and I were out in the kitchen talking. D2 was at the kitchen table on her computer. The conversation went like this:
(Erachet addendum: Stop interrupting my post, SJ! You're ruining it!)
Erachet: So...what's happening tomorrow?Later on in the evening, I was in the middle of working on this very post when D2 suddenly piped up with:
SJ: Um, it's reading week.
Erachet: I know that. I mean, what are people doing?
D2: You want to see what I'm doing tomorrow, Erachet? [She puts her arm around my waist and gently drags me over to her computer] Here, come, I'll show you what I'm doing.
[On the screen, there is a youtube video of a cat being dissected. D2 presses play]
M.R.: Don't look, Erachet! Hide your eyes!
Erachet: Wha--NO WAY, D2 EW EW EW! I am going to the other side of the table!
SJ: Now our apartment's going to smell like formaldehyde again.
D2: Erachet? When do you think they last lynched people?A little while later:
Erachet: Er...I don't know?
D2: No, really. If you had to guess.
Erachet: Ummmm, I...really couldn't guess.
D2: Come on, guess.
Erachet: Uh...after the Nuremberg Trials?
[SJ walks into the room]
D2: SJ, when was the last time they hanged people as punishment?
SJ: Well, Sadam Hussein was hanged.
Erachet: Oh, that's right!
D2: Okay, the last time in America.
SJ: Um, don't they just use lethal injection?
D2: But I think I remember people being hanged! I'm going to look it up.
Erachet: Why... are you interested in this?
SJ: D2's planning out her future life of crime!
Erachet: Yeah, but hanging?
D2: Come on, don't you ever get interested in things?!
D2: [Reading off her computer] "Only the states of Washington and New Hampshire still retain hanging as an option." Isn't that crazy?!Other D2 quotes of the night:
1. So I was telling my friend how in genetics lab we made menorahs out of bacteria, which we did. And my friend said, you know, I really don't like being around giddy people. And I said, I'm not giddy!As you can see, we've got quite a gem of an apartment mate here in Stern. But, in all seriousness, we love her. And if we were actually playing Gamad v'Anak (secret Chanuka buddy) in our apartment and if D2 was my person, this post would certainly serve as a gift to her!* But in any case, now D2 has a post in dedication to her that is completely lishma, and hey, she deserves it!
[Erachet: Menorahs out of bacteria?! Sounds pretty giddy to me!]
2. Time to metaphorically roast the proverbial duck.
[You're not supposed to get it. There's nothing to get. D2 doesn't get it either. The only way to get it is to understand that it is not supposed to be gotten. Got it? So now you get it. :P]
To SJ, Chana, M.R., and the Apple -I love you guys, too! Chag sameach to my apartment and chag sameach to the entire JBlogosphere.
Now everyone go eat a jelly doughnut!
*But we are not playing Gamad v'Anak, so of course D2 is not my person, nor is she anyone's person.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Top Ten Highlights Of The Week
1. Baking cookies with D2 (or, rather, eating D2's freshly baked cookies) and bringing them to the security guards downstairs
2. Beating SJ in Boggle :)
3. Writing bad poetry with SJ and the Apple
4. Our wild west poetry teacher looking for a board marker, not finding one, and muttering, "Heck!"
5. Our poetry teacher going around the room asking us our names and why we are taking the class. When my turn came around I said, "I'm Erachet, I'm an English Lit. major, and...I've done a lot of creative writing on my own."
"Really?" he asked, interested. "What sort of writing?"
"Well, mostly short stories but also some poetry. And, er, a lot of just...random blurbs."
"Well, that's poetry, too, you know!" my teacher exclaimed.
"Er, uh, well, they're more like beginnings or middles to random short stories," I explained hesitantly.
"Oh," he said, now looking at me as though I was a bit slow. "Those are called drafts."
Then a bunch of people laughed.
"Oh," I said. "Yeah. I write drafts."
6. Beginning a whole new year of adventurizing with SJ!
7. Beginning a new school year as the Apple's roommate :)
8. Getting five pages from my lit. and philosophy teacher about how to write a one page response (BRING IT!)
9. My 18th Century Satire class taught by my Gothic Novel teacher from last semester - and the funky book we're gonna read later called Tristram Shandy. It sounds sooooo....bizarrely cool.
10. School Books Buying: Survival Of The Fittest. It's a dog eats dog world out there in Barnes and Noble...
2. Beating SJ in Boggle :)
3. Writing bad poetry with SJ and the Apple
4. Our wild west poetry teacher looking for a board marker, not finding one, and muttering, "Heck!"
5. Our poetry teacher going around the room asking us our names and why we are taking the class. When my turn came around I said, "I'm Erachet, I'm an English Lit. major, and...I've done a lot of creative writing on my own."
"Really?" he asked, interested. "What sort of writing?"
"Well, mostly short stories but also some poetry. And, er, a lot of just...random blurbs."
"Well, that's poetry, too, you know!" my teacher exclaimed.
"Er, uh, well, they're more like beginnings or middles to random short stories," I explained hesitantly.
"Oh," he said, now looking at me as though I was a bit slow. "Those are called drafts."
Then a bunch of people laughed.
"Oh," I said. "Yeah. I write drafts."
6. Beginning a whole new year of adventurizing with SJ!
7. Beginning a new school year as the Apple's roommate :)
8. Getting five pages from my lit. and philosophy teacher about how to write a one page response (BRING IT!)
9. My 18th Century Satire class taught by my Gothic Novel teacher from last semester - and the funky book we're gonna read later called Tristram Shandy. It sounds sooooo....bizarrely cool.
10. School Books Buying: Survival Of The Fittest. It's a dog eats dog world out there in Barnes and Noble...
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