The Danger of a Single Story

I had to watch this for my Children's Literature class yesterday. I thought it was true and powerful enough to share with everyone.

Senses

I'm taking a class this June called Developmental Variations. It's a class in child development for kids who develop atypically - aka kids who have special needs of all various sorts. Yesterday, I was grouped with a few others to do a presentation on hearing loss. While working together, we came across the videos below.

Cochlear implants are actually a very controversial issue for the Deaf Community. Some members are extremely against the idea of getting a cochlear implant or of considering those who have one to be part of the community. Others are more open to the idea.

As someone who is hearing and who has no direct connection to the Deaf Community, it is not my place to weigh in on the issue. However, the videos below moved me enough to make me want to write a post about them.

Thinking about people who cannot hear - and who have to wear devices in order to simulate hearing - makes me really appreciate the fact that I can hear naturally. That I can see naturally. That I can taste and touch and smell. That I don't have to think about my senses because they work and they've always worked. Our senses play such basic, vital roles in our life experience - we may not even notice how much our lives would be different if just one of our senses was not working just a little bit. They are so fragile. Some of us may not have to ever think about our senses because of how basic they are. They are working constantly so they fall below our notice. But imagine how much in the forefront of our attention they would be if one of them wasn't working even a little bit?

If We Hold On Together

Seeing as it's Rosh Chodesh and I can actually post something with music, I'm going to post a song I really like. It's actually a Diana Ross song (featured in The Land Before Time), but this video is of a ten-year-old girl singing it. It's really pretty. Enjoy!

What It Means To Be A Friend

True Colors

I think this song is beautiful and really speaks to me.

(And Glee does such a good job with its songs. Yes...I know this is an old song. I love this version, though.)

Changes

Change is difficult. It's like I have to reorient the different things and people in my life in order to both keep the old and make room for the new. This is both because of what is happening in my life and what is happening in the lives of others. Some of that reorienting can really be kind of wrenching. But I guess no matter what, certain things of the past will always remain with you (with me), even if they do not seem as present anymore.

I wanted to write a whole post about change, but I find that I can't. In any case, I'll leave you with this scene from The Lion King that I have always liked:

Let Me Be Myself

I liked this song the first time I heard it.

Wave Over Wave

I really like this song.

Bringing Creativity Back

I think this is the most extraordinary video. I absolutely love it. You should all watch it - it's well worth the twenty minutes.



I believe we should really work towards a world where creativity is fostered in children and remains with them when they become adults.

On A Dark And Stormy Night

It's raining and thundering so hard, I can't sleep. Lightening keeps flashing through the blinds on my windows. Often when I sleep during a storm, the sounds and flashes from outside incorporate themselves in my dreams in some way, and that makes me reluctant to fall asleep.

When I was younger, I used to imagine that thunder was the sound of a heavenly bowling alley God was making use of that night. It does sound like some sort of cosmic bowling night, doesn't it?

I also have a distinct memory of opening up an umbrella outside during a particularly windy rainstorm and being nearly carried off Mary-Poppins-style by the wind.

If I wasn't so tired, I would describe these memories more poetically and in greater detail, but I'm really only awake because of the din and commotion outside.

Did any of you ever have any strange notions about thunder and lightening?

I happen to love storms, but not while I'm trying to fall asleep. This old video I dug up on youtube was strangely comforting - if only because it's a clip from one of the best children's movies ever. It makes me sad to think kids don't watch Wee Sing movies anymore (I hope I'm wrong about that!) because they were such quality kid entertainment.

Also, I used to always want a dress like Sally's. :)

...Things seem to be quieting outside. For now, at least. Except I think the wind just knocked against our garbage cans outside because something scraped against the house just now. It had better be the wind, anyway. A little unnerving...

...And now the rain's started again. Wow, I think I'm liveblogging a storm. I am way too tired for this. The rain, if I'm going to start using metaphors for everything, or similes - as the case may be, sounds like the earth is taking a strong shower. Or like a humongous watering can from one of Jack and the Beanstalk's giants being poured down onto the world. Or like the clouds are dumping buckets of water on us. Which is somewhat accurate, anyway. Isn't is funny when your simile is actually what's really going on? The clouds are dumping water on us.

Well...so much for being poetic.

Alright - I'm going to try and let the rain lull me to sleep...

...Though I'm hungry. Have you ever read A Wrinkle in Time? It starts off like this. A storm. Meg, the protagonist, goes downstairs to get something to eat. Charles Wallace, her brother, has already made her a sandwich, intuiting that his sister would be upset by the storm and want something to eat. Their mother comes down and has something to eat, as well. And then they get a surprised visitor and the adventures begin...

Good book. Highly recommended.

I feel like Meg tonight. In fact, I feel like Meg often. Smart, not especially cool, average in looks, high hopes and dreams. And like Meg, I've learned many things this year about myself and my own strengths. I spent time learning about the Happy Medium (aka Balance). And I am still learning how I, an ordinary girl whose succes - until now - has remained only in dreams, can stand firm and grounded on my own two feet and face the world with my chin held high.

I was just thinking recently how, ever since school ended, I haven't written much on my blog. It seems a stormy night is fertile ground for thinking.

Someone said to me today that I ought to consider myself an adult, not a little girl. Well, that person is right. It's high time for me to take the mantle of adulthood, and I guess that begins with not letting a storm keep me up at night.

So I think I shall try going to sleep now. I'm certainly tired enough for it...

Good night!

But perhaps with a lamp on... ;)

Starting Out On A Journey

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.

The Ballad Of Magellan

I used to like this song as a kid.

We're All In This Megillah

(Hat tip: A Friend)

(NOTE: Girls singing, but not a clue who they are and you can't see them in the video or anything. So, uh, guys, listen as your own discretion)



Have an easy fast tomorrow!

Ducks Fly Together

Also - don't forget to be yourself. :)

Genius?

Ezzie sent me this video. I think it's a must-see for anyone of the creative bend, or even not - it's good for anyone at all to watch. I'm not going to preface it by mentioning anything it talks about, but I'm also extremely interested in discussing it should anyone wish.

Migration of MBC

Hat tip: Jameel

The Flight Of The Bumblebee

I love this. I used to play the flute so I am really in awe of how difficult this is.

Life's For Sharing

I thought this was amazing.



Here you can watching the making of.

Modern Day Miracles

This is a newish (though slightly belated) video by Nefesh b'Nefesh that I thought was cute, and, in light of all the intense news coming out of Israel lately, also somewhat refreshing.

Out Of Clay? A Chanuka Dissertation That Gets Very Silly Indeed

You all know the song:

Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel,
I made you out of clay,
And when you're dry and--and--and--
Hey...WAIT A MINUTE.

Made out of clay???

Raise your hand if any of you have ever played with a dreidel made out of clay.

...

Hmm, thought not. In fact, I don't think a dreidel made out of clay would even spin very well. It'd be way too heavy!

According to this site, they did used to use clay to spin cloth. But that is not the sort of spinning we're interested in, is it?

Here, finally, is archeological evidence to support the song we all learned in nursery:

- Clay tops were found in the ancient city of Ur dating from 3500 B.C. (Ur is modern day Muqayyar which lies 187 miles southeast of Baghdad, Iraq)

- Fired clay spun type tops were found from Thebes, Greece dated at 1250 B.C.

Interesting.

However, it appears from that article that the spinning top category the dreidel falls into, the "Twirler," was never made of clay but rather of some sort of fruit or seed with a thorn on the bottom to make it spin. Later versions were made of wood (or plastic). In China, they have tops of this sort made of bamboo. In Japan, the Twirler tops are made of metal.

The clay tops were not Twirlers but Whip Tops. These were not tops one spun with their fingers but rather they were "whipped" into spins using some sort of material (apparently in Europe, they used to use eel skin):

The whip top has mostly kept to the basic cone shape and was made of wood, fired clay and, in some cases, stone. During the 18^th century, heavy whip tops of iron were made with the intent of whipping on the ice of ponds and lakes.

Hmmm. Definitely not a dreidel.

This has an interesting history of the dreidel game which is actually based on some old European game and has nothing to do with Chanuka at all. Isn't it always so pleasant to find these things out?

I'm not sure who decided to sing about dreidels made out of clay, but it sounds supiciously to me like a cheap attempt to have something rhyme with "play."

My conclusion: eh, who cares! :D

After that whole boring post, here's something a lot more fun:



...Did I really just write an entire post historically proving the dreidel song wrong? ...Oy.