Magic Jewball

Without making light of the tragic loss of life at the University of Alabama last week, I’d just like to highlight this piece of the story I heard on 1010 WINS this morning. They quoted a student who found the professor to be “disorganized and prone to rambling.” As well, she often went off topic and her exams had little to do with what had been lectured about in class.

I would just like to say that if this is a warning sign of a higher education instructor going nuts and shooting a bunch of people, the world is in HUGE trouble.

*with apologies to all my friends who are professors! xoxo

Led Zeppelin – Ramble On

Can you tell the semester has really started? Because I have no time and nothing to say that’s not in the form of a paper. But I can update my “undone on vacation” list by saying that I have started my thesis. The great thing about my thesis is that every time I tell professors and advisors what I’m planning to do professionally and then what my thesis topic is, they get this confused and concerned look on their faces. But I say, in what interview do they ask the subject of your thesis and so why not pursue something in which I’ve been interested for ages? It’s not like I’ll ever have a chance to do this again unless I end up in academia and I don’t think I’m cut out for that life (on a side note, I now count via Facebook that seven of my friends from high school and college have become college professors… wow).

So, drumroll please, my thesis will be an ethnography of an online community forum. If you happen to know me from an online community forum, you will know which one I am using. So I may be studying you. Don’t be scared, it won’t hurt, and no one will be mentioned by name. Also, it’s not a dissertation so it’s not going to be on any bookshelf. And how many dissertations have you read lately anyway? Thought so.

Soon, I will need to turn in my proposal and thus I am curious to hear from people (from any community forum or no community forum), what “problem” you think should be studied. Because that’s how ethnographies work. I have lots of ideas (mostly about social interaction and cultural norms) so this is really more an intellectual exercise. This is a good place to segue and say, my last post got zero official comments but received the most private e-mails of any post I’ve ever done. I understand why and if you feel like e-mailing me your response to this one, that’s OK too. If you do choose to comment here, try not to mention any forum specifically by name. TIA!

Speaking of my last post, that is, about my other sites, if you like my taste in videos on Are Everything (link in sidebar), then you may also like Radio Nigel. I have been fiddling with Pandora for what I realize is now two years and still cannot get a station I like. I love technology but I really believe a human radio programmer will beat an algorithm every time. I can personally vouch for the fact that this station is super for accompanying the writing of a thesis proposal and I know that’s just what you’re looking for.

As well, there are new items at Cinnagirl (link in the sidebar too) just in time for the Purim holiday, specifically Hamantaschen and giant chocolate chunk cookies made with Guittard chocolate, so support your local thesis writer and sweeten your life simultaneously. It’s like a miracle of physics.

Title is a play on the fabulous:
XTC – Making Plans For Nigel

I know it seems odd for a Jewess like myself to have a picture of a Christmas tree on her blog, especially on a Jewey blog like this one and especially a tree such as this one. But hear me out. I have my reasons.

Last year at this time, I was probably off to our Hugh Jass Holiday Party which took place at a trendy club and was always sponsored by some liquor company. Consequently, it was plastered with advertising for said liquor not to mention full of a lot of plastered people dressed in scanty finery and dancing to things like Boom Boom Pow as the president of the company raffled off vacations and thousand dollar bills. I never won, by the way, before you ask. Then, everyone would get car service limos to take their drunken asses home at the company’s expense.

The day before we took our holiday break, my boss would hand out expensive electronic gadgets to the department, the same thing for everyone. In later years, he sort of lost even this bit of imagination and gave out large gift cards. My, I bought some cool things with those.

And I loved that break, I must say. It was the closest thing to a lengthy enough respite to feel like an actual vacation that I ever got. But towards the end of it I just dreaded the idea of coming back and facing the inevitable post-holiday sales letdown and dealing with the dullest releases of the year: the ones that come out in the first quarter. Sometimes, my boss would make me do some work over the break. I mean, you didn’t expect him to come in and do the work, did you? That was my job.

This year is different.

We had our holiday party this week. There was no liquor or DJ. Instead, a couple of people went to Fairway and picked out a simple but lovely spread of cheese, crackers, cookies, cupcakes, pretzels, and sweets. I helped decorate the room, a classroom at TC, with garlands and lights and sprinklings of brightly colored candy around the tables. The head of our group hooked his iPod up to a speaker and people chatted and ate and laughed and then at the end, everyone pitched in and cleaned up.

Today, the head of the group gave out presents, each carefully picked out for the recipient. A gorgeous coffee table book about Morocco to my boss who had just been there on a family vacation, a bestseller about dogs for our admin who loves her dog, a CD I had mentioned a few days earlier that I never got a chance to hear for me. Simple and well thought out and perfect. From the actual organization, I got a small gift card to B&N (we’re a literacy program, after all) and a bar of peppermint bark (LOVE peppermint bark). I felt as happy as Laura Ingalls did when she got a sugar candy in her stocking that year.

Next week, I’ll begin the longest vacation I’ve ever had in my adult life. It won’t be a total break as I hooked up some part-time work, I have to begin my thesis, and of course, the bakery never closes. Also, my boss mentioned today that if I felt like coming in, I could, she’d be there. And the thought of all my projects standing still is a real bummer. I believe in what we do, you see, and so does everyone else. So we’ll see… but it’s my choice.

It’s been an exhausting week, I’ve barely slept and seldom worked harder. I could really use a vacation. But even so, I picked out some great classes for next semester and can’t wait to go back. I.love.my.tree.

Title comes from:
Pearl Jam – In My Tree

I think the thing I like best about not working full time is the way I only rarely have to wake up at what most people consider a decent hour. Or, more accurately, I can if I want to but if I don’t, no one yells at me but me. This is akin to that feeling you get when you’re an adult and no one tells you not to have ice cream for dinner except yourself when you’re starving an hour later or when you see the scale that next time. I have no problem telling you that I often had the kind of boss who after you got to work ten minutes late a few times, called you into his office for “the talk.” Most bosses are like this and I guess they should be. I’m more of a “as long as I get the work done, who cares?” kind of person. I was lucky enough to have had a few bosses over the years where this worked out fine, but it was rare.

Now my life is like that. My classes are all at night so if I hope to get the schoolwork done I have to get up in time to do it. And if I don’t actually go, I only get in trouble with myself. My work time is flexible except for one meeting I must attend one morning a week. It’s pretty awesome.

I’ve mentioned that most of my doctors are in Westchester and what I’d have to do to see them under the old “must be at work at X o’clock” system was to wake up at the crack of dawn, take a train to Westchester, see the doctor, and get back on the train with all the regular commuters to the city who hadn’t lived half their day already. Now I don’t have to do that! Last week I booked a 12:15 appointment…. what heaven! No fight for seats, no, “OMG, I’m waiting for a Metro North train and the sun hasn’t even risen,” and no paying the pricey peak fare.

A funny thing happens, though, when you’re not the first appointment of the day. Life happens to other people and they get shoved in before you. 12:15 turned into 1 turned into 1:30. Then I got moved to an exam room and waited some more. Now, I’m aware of this and it has happened to me at other doctors’ offices, but I never had the opportunity to see exactly how far behind this particular office gets before. I may have to go back to the crack of dawn method.

***

When you go to school, making friends is a little on your mind. It’s strange, but work is not like this. If you start a new job, you hope that you get along with people, but you don’t really imagine you’ll see them in an extra-curricular fashion or hang out with them on your own time. In school, it’s different. I’ve said that I really like my cohort, which is good because I see them often. I have my classes with mostly the same people and we run into each other in the departmental office and ruminate over why no one ever participates in That One Class. I’ve made one particular friend and we went out for dinner the other night and then coffee. It was supposed to be just dinner (where are you? 2nd floor library. Where are you? Lounge. Dinner? YES.) but at one point late in the meal she got this strange look on her face and indicated to me that the professor we had just been talking about was one table over. This is the trouble with going out to eat right near the university. So we hastily got our check and moved onto one of those arty coffee shops every university has where we proceeded to each get the most basic coffee and split one pastry. I could see the waitress mentally roll her eyes. Students! Then we proceeded to go back to talking about the professor from the previous restaurant and, oh yes, what the hell we were going to do with the rest of our lives

***

Right now, I’m going out of my mind as the semester comes down to crunch time. But as I scanned my calendar to see final due dates, I happened to notice a funny thing: there is no school from mid-December to mid-January and I have nothing to do for a month! My job is at the university so I don’t have that to do either. I’m not really sure the last time I had a month off from commitments. High school? First year of college? Weird! I’ve had a kind offer of subsidized travel to Israel but it’s still mostly beyond my means at the moment. I’m considering my next most exciting offer, laying on the sofa for a month with several DVD boxed sets, my laptop, and a case of Pop Chips.

Can’t think about that now, though. According to my calendar, I’m ten minutes late for starting my Java project!

In honor of this post, I’ve started a new tag I should have added a while ago: Student Life. Oooooh. Aaaaah.

The Fall – Hey Student

An e-mail conversation between two tech students at a random Ivy League grad school.

StudentA: So when should we get together to start our coding project?
StudentB: We could meet after class Monday or before class, or are you going to class Tuesday, how about after that? Or before that?
StudentA: Ummm, any of those are fine.
StudentB: Something’s come up, how about Wednesday, it’s Veterans Day, I’m off from work.
Student A: I’m not at school on Wednesdays I have an online class. I may be in Columbus Circle, do you want to meet there? Or I can come up to school anyway.
StudentB: I’m in the East Village, where in Columbus Circle? 11am is good.
StudentA: That’s fine, or…. how about Skype, do you have Skype?
studentB: I don’t have Skype. If we meet in Columbus Circle, do you have a laptop? Because I don’t.
StudentA: I do but I wasn’t planning on bringing it. So let’s just go up to school.
StudentB: So what time, like noon? I need more time to get all the way up there.
StudentA: Wait, are you going to meet with the TA? I have a 4pm Thursday appointment, we can meet before that but not after because I have class.
StudentB: I’m meeting with him Thursday at 3 so no good.
StudentA: What about the phone? Do you want to just call me? We can type up notes.
StudentB: Great idea! The phone! I never would have thought of that.

Sadly, this conversation is actually shortened from 30 e-mails over three days to come to this conclusion. Just got off the phone; I highly recommend it!

Title of course from:
Thomas Dolby – She Blinded Me With Science