Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Navel-Gazing Crap*

*how a favorite professor of mine once referred to superfluous personal reflection

What I learned about myself this week (and last week, if you really want to be technical):

--I should NOT drink more than half a beer at a sitting

--My interest in blogging has clearly faded. I even missed my own first blogoversary!

--It is no fun sending the perfect passive-aggressive e-mail to my advisor anymore (too easy and kind of eats away at the soul; how has my advisor been doing it to me for so long?)

--I am really bothered by Washington politicians wearing green ties on St. Patrick's Day unless: 1) they are from New York or Illinois; and/or 2) they are actually Irish. Can't we even get our pandering up to date, people? The Irish don't vote as a block anymore.

--It would be a good idea for me to try to take it a day at a time right now. Thinking two years ahead is helpful for dissertation organizing and writing and less helpful when times are busy,stressful, and uncertain

--Talking to someone about things that are bothering me is helpful, even if it is BFF, and everyone assumes I am telling her everything anyway (I'm not, but every little bit helps)

--Conservative Judaism pisses me off (ok, that's not new, but did you see the Voices of theUnited Synagogue's Pesach issue, which focused primarily on homosexuality and Conservative Judaism? It was wrong on so many levels. If you're gay or pro-Jewish-commitment-ceremony-and/or ordination, you could say, "So now you're just going to pretend that the movement has not spent all but the last year or so officially discriminating against gays?" And if you're anti, you could say, "Why didn't you provide a platform for people who did not agree with the teshuvot [responsa] on homosexuality to share their side of the story?")

--I've still got it in the last-minute-Purim-costume department

2 comments:

Too Old to Jewschoo said...

I believe the magazine, a consolidation of at least 3, is now title "kolot". I thought of it as the moral equivalent of Sports Illustrated's annual swimsuit edition, to be followed by the customary "cancel my subscription" issue, wherein the letters of all the disaffected readers are published.

I drafted such a letter, complaining about the issue, but abandoned it. Any publication that self-congratulatory about such an insignificant factor when there are so many more significant issues for the Movement to address just won't get it.

Woodrow/Conservadox said...

I thought about writing them a nasty letter, but I never got around to it.