You're not helping!
(with apologies to Jon Stuart)
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
I Need to Get a Life
Duh. A friend asked me to help her with a piece she is writing on independent minyanim. I started referring her to various blogs in the Jewish Blogosphere and their recent posts on the subject. Then I asked, "Do you read blogs in the J-Blogosphere?" She responded, "Now I do. It's my job." And I thought, "Wouldn't it be nice to get paid for all of this expertise, instead of having acquired it because I don't have a life?"
NOTE: This post is a joke. It is NOT an extension of my previous post about being lonely.
NOTE: This post is a joke. It is NOT an extension of my previous post about being lonely.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Poll: New Template
So what do you guys think of my new template?
I really wanted something new, something academic, and not one of the more popular templates, because I like to be a little different.
I'm not thrilled with the colors of the post dates, titles, and links, but there weren't a lot of choices.
Thoughts?
I really wanted something new, something academic, and not one of the more popular templates, because I like to be a little different.
I'm not thrilled with the colors of the post dates, titles, and links, but there weren't a lot of choices.
Thoughts?
Monday, August 2, 2010
Asking for Help
I am a very private person.
I have always been this way, I think because my nuclear family is private as well. From a young age, it was made clear to me that it was inappropriate to talk smack about the immediate family to most people. It is obviously the case that if my brother and I had been abused or something of the sort, that would have been inappropriate in the extreme, but we weren't. Our home was a loving and supportive one. My parents just weren't the kind of parents who tell perfect strangers in the supermarket (or even friends) about all their kids' problems and inadequacies. So my brother and I followed that model.
When I was first dating TH, I realized, with the help of a friend, that I was not letting him into my inner life. I got a lot better at doing that, but it is still a struggle, even as our one-year anniversary approaches. I am used to talking to my parents or BFF (pretty much the only person outside the family I feel comfortable letting in) about problems, and once I have done that, it seems almost beside the point to tell TH. This is not particularly healthy, I know, and I am working on it, but it is not easy.
This summer has been a tough one for me. I am about to start a postdoc that will have me teaching my own lecture courses at the college level, and it is pretty terrifying. What is more terrifying is the state of the job market in academia. Last year, there were six jobs in my field in the entire country, and two of them were in rural Ohio. In theory, an academic is supposed to be willing to go to rural Ohio, and her husband is supposed to follow dutifully behind, eager to open a new branch of his money-printing business. Real life, however, is different. ( I don't blame TH for this. He has the kind of job that you can't do in rural Ohio. He doesn't have to do it in NYC; any city would do). I predict that this year there will be fewer. Each job that opens up gets 300 applications, at least. Meanwhile, in theory, I am supposed to be writing articles to publish and thinking about how to turn my dissertation into a book, because otherwise how can I compete in this practically non-existent job market? But my stubborn penchant for realism (bad for academia, I know) is slowing me down. It keeps whispering in my ear, "What is the point of writing that article, Katrina? The odds are incredibly high that you won't make it in academia. The article may be good and get accepted, but what's one more article on your CV if your competition for this year's five jobs has a book coming out next year?"
This post is not really about the completely destroyed market in humanities academia. (If you want to read more about that, I refer you to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Reader, beware, though: If there was a Pulitzer Prize in desperate academic columns, these guys would win hands down).
This post is about the fact that I am going through a difficult time now. My job prospects stink (this post-doc is for two years, though). Also, I am incredibly lonely in NYC, because while I have made some friends, it's not the same as GradSchoolTown, where I lived for six years and got to know lots of people. I talk to BFF on the phone almost every day, but it is not the same as living two blocks away and going over to her house just to sit together and work, keeping each other company without saying a word. TH works all day. I'm glad of that, because he makes money, but when he comes home he is zonked, and it is not easy for me to open my mouth and tell him what I am telling you, Internet. I have told him, but I can hardly tell him every night. In an additional hilarious piece of irony, my not asking for help means that other friends call ME and ask for help! It's not their faults, because how do they know how I am feeling, but I am getting to the point where I am not eager to answer the phone.
Do you have any supportive words for me, Internet? You can say whatever you want, but I have to admit that I am less interested in being reassured that I will find a job in academia, since probability tends to be against it. But other supportive words would be good. For me, this level of asking for help is a sort of breakthrough. Really. So, please . . .
I have always been this way, I think because my nuclear family is private as well. From a young age, it was made clear to me that it was inappropriate to talk smack about the immediate family to most people. It is obviously the case that if my brother and I had been abused or something of the sort, that would have been inappropriate in the extreme, but we weren't. Our home was a loving and supportive one. My parents just weren't the kind of parents who tell perfect strangers in the supermarket (or even friends) about all their kids' problems and inadequacies. So my brother and I followed that model.
When I was first dating TH, I realized, with the help of a friend, that I was not letting him into my inner life. I got a lot better at doing that, but it is still a struggle, even as our one-year anniversary approaches. I am used to talking to my parents or BFF (pretty much the only person outside the family I feel comfortable letting in) about problems, and once I have done that, it seems almost beside the point to tell TH. This is not particularly healthy, I know, and I am working on it, but it is not easy.
This summer has been a tough one for me. I am about to start a postdoc that will have me teaching my own lecture courses at the college level, and it is pretty terrifying. What is more terrifying is the state of the job market in academia. Last year, there were six jobs in my field in the entire country, and two of them were in rural Ohio. In theory, an academic is supposed to be willing to go to rural Ohio, and her husband is supposed to follow dutifully behind, eager to open a new branch of his money-printing business. Real life, however, is different. ( I don't blame TH for this. He has the kind of job that you can't do in rural Ohio. He doesn't have to do it in NYC; any city would do). I predict that this year there will be fewer. Each job that opens up gets 300 applications, at least. Meanwhile, in theory, I am supposed to be writing articles to publish and thinking about how to turn my dissertation into a book, because otherwise how can I compete in this practically non-existent job market? But my stubborn penchant for realism (bad for academia, I know) is slowing me down. It keeps whispering in my ear, "What is the point of writing that article, Katrina? The odds are incredibly high that you won't make it in academia. The article may be good and get accepted, but what's one more article on your CV if your competition for this year's five jobs has a book coming out next year?"
This post is not really about the completely destroyed market in humanities academia. (If you want to read more about that, I refer you to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Reader, beware, though: If there was a Pulitzer Prize in desperate academic columns, these guys would win hands down).
This post is about the fact that I am going through a difficult time now. My job prospects stink (this post-doc is for two years, though). Also, I am incredibly lonely in NYC, because while I have made some friends, it's not the same as GradSchoolTown, where I lived for six years and got to know lots of people. I talk to BFF on the phone almost every day, but it is not the same as living two blocks away and going over to her house just to sit together and work, keeping each other company without saying a word. TH works all day. I'm glad of that, because he makes money, but when he comes home he is zonked, and it is not easy for me to open my mouth and tell him what I am telling you, Internet. I have told him, but I can hardly tell him every night. In an additional hilarious piece of irony, my not asking for help means that other friends call ME and ask for help! It's not their faults, because how do they know how I am feeling, but I am getting to the point where I am not eager to answer the phone.
Do you have any supportive words for me, Internet? You can say whatever you want, but I have to admit that I am less interested in being reassured that I will find a job in academia, since probability tends to be against it. But other supportive words would be good. For me, this level of asking for help is a sort of breakthrough. Really. So, please . . .
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Off Our Rockers
It's the 8th of Av. That means the Jewish people only have 24 hours to finish going completely off our rockers.
Is it just me, or does it seem to you guys as well that Tisha B'Av brings out the serious crazy in Am Yisrael?
All this discussion about Jewish sovereignty and Jerusalem brings out the pro-Israeli-settler nutbars. The highlight for me came two Shabbatot ago, when my shul's young associate rabbi gave a drash (homiletic speech) on the chapter on Zachariah about Jewish fasts. Zachariah, the rabbis of the Talmud, and the major medieval commentaries, discuss the circumstances under which fasting on Tisha B'Av would be nullified. The sources are not exactly clear, but our living in a time of "peace" is a precondition, though not the only one, and not everyone agrees on what "peace" means. He innocently asked the congregation whether Jews currently live in a time of persecution, a time of peace, or a neutral time. Imagine in his surprise when a few people independently piped up that we currently live in a time of persecution. The rabbi pointed out that even the Rishonim (medieval commentators such as Rashi and Maimonides), who lived at a time when they were officially second-class citizens, when Jews were physically attacked by Christians with impunity, when Jews were forced to listen to sermons in their shuls by Christians who wanted to convert them, thought that they lived in a neutral time. The rabbi realized his mistake when someone said, "But if I can't build a house wherever I want in Yerushalayim, how can you say that's not persecution?" The rabbi quickly said, "No politics," and continued to something else. Our rabbis do not talk about politics from the bima (pulpit), since a modern Orthodox shul in Manhattan will have a range of political opinions, and what is the point of stirring the pot? We'd all kill each other. So, since the rabbi can't answer, allow me to:
Persecution is when non-Jews try to kill you, convert you, tell you what clothes you can wear and by what religious laws you have to live. Not being able to build a house anywhere you want in Jerusalem in 2010 is the democratically-elected government of a sovereign Jewish state in the Land of Israel denying you a building permit. SEE HOW THEY'RE DIFFERENT?
Another difference is the one between what you CAN do and what you SHOULD do. Your better-raised 9-year-olds know this. Do you think maybe they can tell the settlers? (I am not saying that Jerusalem is a settlement. The Jerusalem stuff is merely a symptom of the larger alternate universe in which the settlers are living. You know, the "What do you mean there's a demographic problem?" universe. I'm saying that throwing Palestinians out of their homes in full few of the international media is a stupid idea, and, of course, and immoral one, though if the "immoral" doesn't convince you, just try to focus on the "stupid").
Also, talking about the Messiah ("Moshiach") makes people crazy, too. How could it not? We have no idea what will happen, there are many conflicting sources, almost all of them written during a time in which monarchy was considered the best form of government, bar none, and women were, shall we say, not yet liberated. DovBear has done a better job than I, of course, in talking about some of the problems that come with traditional Jewish ideas about the Messiah, so I will direct you to his post.
It's not always easy for the modern Jew to relate to Tisha B'Av, as the Orthoprax rabbi points out. For me, the exile of the Shekhinah (the Presence of God) from Jerusalem and, therefore, from the midst of the Jewish people, at the destruction of the First Temple, is plenty to mourn. I will leave building permits and the question of what denomination of Judaism the Messiah will represent for another day.
Is it just me, or does it seem to you guys as well that Tisha B'Av brings out the serious crazy in Am Yisrael?
All this discussion about Jewish sovereignty and Jerusalem brings out the pro-Israeli-settler nutbars. The highlight for me came two Shabbatot ago, when my shul's young associate rabbi gave a drash (homiletic speech) on the chapter on Zachariah about Jewish fasts. Zachariah, the rabbis of the Talmud, and the major medieval commentaries, discuss the circumstances under which fasting on Tisha B'Av would be nullified. The sources are not exactly clear, but our living in a time of "peace" is a precondition, though not the only one, and not everyone agrees on what "peace" means. He innocently asked the congregation whether Jews currently live in a time of persecution, a time of peace, or a neutral time. Imagine in his surprise when a few people independently piped up that we currently live in a time of persecution. The rabbi pointed out that even the Rishonim (medieval commentators such as Rashi and Maimonides), who lived at a time when they were officially second-class citizens, when Jews were physically attacked by Christians with impunity, when Jews were forced to listen to sermons in their shuls by Christians who wanted to convert them, thought that they lived in a neutral time. The rabbi realized his mistake when someone said, "But if I can't build a house wherever I want in Yerushalayim, how can you say that's not persecution?" The rabbi quickly said, "No politics," and continued to something else. Our rabbis do not talk about politics from the bima (pulpit), since a modern Orthodox shul in Manhattan will have a range of political opinions, and what is the point of stirring the pot? We'd all kill each other. So, since the rabbi can't answer, allow me to:
Persecution is when non-Jews try to kill you, convert you, tell you what clothes you can wear and by what religious laws you have to live. Not being able to build a house anywhere you want in Jerusalem in 2010 is the democratically-elected government of a sovereign Jewish state in the Land of Israel denying you a building permit. SEE HOW THEY'RE DIFFERENT?
Another difference is the one between what you CAN do and what you SHOULD do. Your better-raised 9-year-olds know this. Do you think maybe they can tell the settlers? (I am not saying that Jerusalem is a settlement. The Jerusalem stuff is merely a symptom of the larger alternate universe in which the settlers are living. You know, the "What do you mean there's a demographic problem?" universe. I'm saying that throwing Palestinians out of their homes in full few of the international media is a stupid idea, and, of course, and immoral one, though if the "immoral" doesn't convince you, just try to focus on the "stupid").
Also, talking about the Messiah ("Moshiach") makes people crazy, too. How could it not? We have no idea what will happen, there are many conflicting sources, almost all of them written during a time in which monarchy was considered the best form of government, bar none, and women were, shall we say, not yet liberated. DovBear has done a better job than I, of course, in talking about some of the problems that come with traditional Jewish ideas about the Messiah, so I will direct you to his post.
It's not always easy for the modern Jew to relate to Tisha B'Av, as the Orthoprax rabbi points out. For me, the exile of the Shekhinah (the Presence of God) from Jerusalem and, therefore, from the midst of the Jewish people, at the destruction of the First Temple, is plenty to mourn. I will leave building permits and the question of what denomination of Judaism the Messiah will represent for another day.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Stop Locking!
Another blog that I read a lot, which shall remain nameless, has been locked. It is now "open to invited readers only." Why do people do this? More specifically, why do they do it without warning their readers? If you're going to lock your blog, is it really too much to ask to throw up a post a few days before you plan on locking it, asking your interested readers to contact you if they want to continue to read your blog? You might get a few hostile e-mails from your usual online enemies, but it will be over in two days.
I also think, now that I am on the subject, that bloggers need to get over themselves. I realize that getting over oneself is pretty much the opposite impulse from the one that leads to blogging. But how important do you think your little blog is? Also, if your blog is controversial, how do you not expect to get negative comments? Nobody reads my blog, and I never say much that is controversial, and I'm fine with both. But if you can't take the heat . . .
I realize that sometimes hate blogging can cross the line into harassment, and I am in no way condoning that. But anything short of that . . . deal with it.
I also think, now that I am on the subject, that bloggers need to get over themselves. I realize that getting over oneself is pretty much the opposite impulse from the one that leads to blogging. But how important do you think your little blog is? Also, if your blog is controversial, how do you not expect to get negative comments? Nobody reads my blog, and I never say much that is controversial, and I'm fine with both. But if you can't take the heat . . .
I realize that sometimes hate blogging can cross the line into harassment, and I am in no way condoning that. But anything short of that . . . deal with it.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Material Maidel, Where Art Thou?
Does anyone know what happened to Material Maidel? She and I don't have much to be in common on the surface, as she is a modern-Chassidic, music- and shopping-loving woman, and I am none of those things except a woman, but I like reading her blog. She has funny/snarky takes on shidduchim and Jewish womanhood in general, and she links to a lot of the blogs I read. But for the past five days or so, clicking on her URL has resulted in an error message from Blogger ("Blog not found").
Where is she?
Material Maidel, do you copy?
Where is she?
Material Maidel, do you copy?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)