moocowinthecity

one cow. many pastures.

open pasture

Crosses of Long Island City

moocowinthecity No Comments

Crosses of Long Island City
Long Island City, New York

And a child’s walking down the street holding onto her rosary praying to Jesus to protect her from the demons that she fears hide in darkened corners and alleys as she walks from the subway she took from her church of affluence into neighborhoods that her parents would be appalled to find her in: that bad side of town. She hikes her skirt up and puts on some eye liner and some lipstick: deep red, positively crimson as she heads to her night job: looking for a little bit of street cred.

Her clients are the prostitutes, the homeless and beautiful boys who were forced to work the street because their parents threw them out because of who they loved as she ‘steals’ bread which Jesus freely gave from her church kitchen to bring to the hungry and the starving and the infected as she ignores the messages of her priest who tells her that good girls are quiet and meek and listen to their husband’s every command: and I’m proud ’cause I see a righteous sixteen year old girl pouring soup into the mouths of the hungry and holding the sick and I see someone who’s doing God’s work:who read the book:who got the message:who chooses to live her life in his spirit.

She doles out advice as she hands out food and she dances as she works/in the summer heat, music is playing from the clubs which rich white men browse as their wives are home hoping that their husbands get the contract that they said they were going to be out signing and she takes down their license plates to make sure that her friends are going to come home safe because if they’re willing to break their contract between God and their Spouse then she knows that they’re not opposed to breaking something else.

She knows her parents won’t call her because they think she’s at youth group as she’s told them every weekend she’s gone out since age twelve:and in a way she is as she takes care of the children and reads to them stories of the lord and brings them trinkets that she finds to keep them occupied while their mothers are inside tinted lairs and she pockets vitamins from the local pharmacist from her home town who she caught here last week and she knows that he’ll keep them coming because sometimes you have to twist some things to make sure that people get taken care of and if instilling the fear of god into a man will make sure that children don’t die then she’s more than happy to take that up with St. Peter when it’s her time.

The local pimp once raised his hand to her when she gave him what for and as angels swooped down from the sky they took hold of his wrist and as he soon found out that he couldn’t move as her stare bored into his eyes and saw through his soul and he found himself standing there naked before her yet fully clothed as her chest rose and fell with her cross lying perfectly in the center all she had to say was “you wouldn’t dare” and dare he wouldn’t because he felt Gabriel holding onto his wrist and too many people think that miracles these days don’t exist but I know them for I have seen the beautiful Crosses of Long Island City.

open pasture

יום השואה

moocowinthecity No Comments

I apologize in advance…this may be slightly scatter brained, I tried writing it last night, and my client crashed, and I’ve been crying while writing it so I’m not thinking straight:

I believe in the sun
even when it isn’t shining.
I believe in love
even when I do not feel it.
I believe in God
even when he is silent.

These words were found scrawled on a cellar wall where Jews had hidden in World War II in Cologne, Germany.

By many miracles, I am here today. One of them was Soccer.

On Krystal Nacht the Nazis ordered the local police in the Shtetl in Vienna, Austria to round up the Jews. The two officers who were sent to my Grandfather’s apartment building knew this building. They knew the door they were knocking on…they knew my grandfather: they played soccer together. Though they saw him hiding underneath the bed and they knew he lived there, they let him go.

This would be the last time that my Grandfather would see his parents. My Great Grandfather’s last words, as we know them are “Come along, we’re going…” as he grabbed his hat, and he escorted my Great Grandmother and my Grandfather’s Twin Sisters out of the house. My Great Grandfather and my Great Grandmother would later be murdered at Auschwitz. My Grandfather’s twin sisters would – by the grace of HaShem and by a miracle, escape Mengel and eventually also find their way to freedom.

My Grandfather would make his way to the Swiss border where he was promptly turned around; on the train he took to get back, he was informed by a fellow passenger that the train was going to be stopped for inspections…as it slowed, he jumped holding onto his Violin, the Violin he was given as a child.

That Violin bears silent testimony as it hangs the wall in my parent’s house; surviving Krystal Nacht with my Grandfather.

Eventually my Grandfather would manage to escape to Caracas, Venezuela (where most of my family was and where most still reside) and then he would emigrate to the United States where he would enlist in the U.S. Army.

He became an Interrogator, a Map Maker, and a German Translator…through his travels he would wind up saving a Torah from a wandering tribe. That Torah too survived and found freedom and now rests safely and with honor inside the Ark of a Synagogue in Passaic, New Jersey.

On Krystal Nacht, my Grandfather was 13 years old.

How many of us, at age 13, could ever do such a thing? Be so brave, so strong?

Upon completing his tour of duty with the Army; he was honorably discharged and awarded some medals for his service. He was also given his U.S. Citizenship. He was finally free. He eventually moved to Long Island and setup shop to do what he was trained to do as a young boy at his trade school. He started a tailoring business and lived out the rest of his life as a humble man.

The first time my Twin Brother and I went to see him in Florida with my Grandmother (they moved to Florida before we were born, and while they were at our life cycle events as babies, we were too young to remember them) the first thing he did with us was play Soccer; then later that day, when we were napping – we were four – he went to play Violin at the club house with the orchestra he was in, and later tailored the swath of clothing that my father brought down with us. He did not view himself as a war hero, he viewed himself as Grandpa. If I knew then, when he first played soccer with us, what I know now about what that sport really meant to him: I would have dedicated the rest of my life to it.

He also didn’t question me or have a single question when I came out so I didn’t have a question for him either, just the unspoken understanding between two men that skeletons look the same at the gates of the camps if they’re wearing stars or triangles…it wasn’t anything that we needed to speak of together, so we didn’t. Many years later, we had him and his sisters write down (and we had him record on an audio tape) their life stories for us. I have copies of all of them and I’ll be bringing them to the archives at Tel Aviv University and Yad Vashem (if they want them) when I go to Israel this summer.

The hardest thing I have ever had to hear in my entire life was when we laid him to rest two days before Thanksgiving (I believe it was two days, I’d have to check my Yarzheit calendar to be sure, it might have been the day before) and as they were playing taps – two soldiers dressed in uniform presented my Grandmother with a flag and said “On behalf of the President of the United States…” at which point I noticed I wasn’t standing but rather I was being held up by one of the taller and stronger family friends who noticed that I was about to give way, he had already put his arms around me and was holding me up against him so he wouldn’t fall…because friends are there to hold you up when you can’t yourself. We still had Thanksgiving that year (it’s my Mother’s favorite Holiday) because our family was already there, and my Mother cooks for a month prior and dammit, we had food and we had something to be thankful for that year.

Yom HaShoah seems to be about so much more though, for me, these days.

The Armenian Genocide (which is still denied by some); the Holocaust (which is also still denied by some), Darfur (which is being ignored by almost everyone as history repeats itself), the Pagans who had to fly silently into the night during the burnings while their brothers and sisters were tortured and burned to death…so many people have died because of hate.

Could it happen again? Absolutely (and no, I’m not being alarmist): look at Darfur and the deafening silence…though, God Forbid if our people are attacked again; this time we will not be going out with our hands up; that much I can assure you. It’s the year 5767; arguably we’ve had 2,104,955 days (minus however many we have left until the New Year) as a world to get things right, and by all accounts, we’ve failed to make significant changes and it just doesn’t make sense to me. If children are starving, you feed them. If people are cold, you clothe them. If people are sad, you sit with them and you listen to them. Where’s the holdup? Please, explain to me what part of the message you don’t get. We don’t need to wait for people to get funding from organizations: I have a sandwich, I can cut it in half, you have water, you can pour it into cups: when will we just get that we’re all human and because of that it’s our job to take care of each other.

Do you remember the story of Stone Soup? Where the entire village came together to make a soup…it’s sort of like that. Why wait for governments to do what we should be doing, what we can do better than they can anyway?

And to be totally honest, I don’t understand the hate and I mean that earnestly…all I want in life is to make a difference, to do good work and to find a husband whom I love and who loves me in return; three simple goals. One of them I’m working on at the moment, one I’m not (I know I’ll find him, but not here in Buffalo, and not now, but one day…sooner rather than later I hope) but I can tell you that I’ve felt the universe pulsing through me as I’ve listened to the heart beat of my lovers, as I’ve laid on their chest as we’ve fallen to sleep together, and as I fell asleep in bliss I thought to myself: how can anyone who has ever experienced love want to destroy? How has anyone who has ever felt lips pressed against their skin want to hate? How has anyone who has ever had their breathe taken away by seeing their lover covered in the moon light turn to hate…how can anyone who’s heard a child’s laughter with reckless abandon be angry?

How can anyone choose hate over love? The choice is so simple: hate destroys you from the inside and everything around you…love just, fills you up, it creates, it protects and it encourages people to do things they never knew they were capable to save someone.

But wickedness endures, and unless we rise up and stop it; it can consume…

And there’s children in Darfur who are screaming out in pain and there’s children who are hungry around the world and people shoot each other for such stupid things as televisions and video games: there material objects, they’re so worthless when you see the bigger picture.

Please Today, Jewish or Not…take some time to Remember; remember the Jews, The Righteous Among the Nations, the Armenians, The Pagans and please pick up your phone and call your senator, your representative, your boss, your mother and say “what can we do about Darfur?”

And then please, and I mean this so seriously: tell your children that you love them, tell your parents that you love them, tell your brothers and your sisters that you love them…tell your friends that you love them; climb to the highest mountain and scream it to the heavens…because you’ll never know when you won’t have the chance to say “I love you” ever again; never go to bed angry, life’s too short to not be true to who you are or to hate.

I’m sorry, again that this is scatter brained; it’s been a hard night.

Goodnight.

open pasture

יום השואה

moocowinthecity No Comments

I apologize in advance…this may be slightly scatter brained, I tried writing it last night, and my client crashed, and I’ve been crying while writing it so I’m not thinking straight:

I believe in the sun
even when it isn’t shining.
I believe in love
even when I do not feel it.
I believe in God
even when he is silent.

These words were found scrawled on a cellar wall where Jews had hidden in World War II in Cologne, Germany.

By many miracles, I am here today. One of them was Soccer.

On Krystal Nacht the Nazis ordered the local police in the Shtetl in Vienna, Austria to round up the Jews. The two officers who were sent to my Grandfather’s apartment building knew this building. They knew the door they were knocking on…they knew my grandfather: they played soccer together. Though they saw him hiding underneath the bed and they knew he lived there, they let him go.

This would be the last time that my Grandfather would see his parents. My Great Grandfather’s last words, as we know them are “Come along, we’re going…” as he grabbed his hat, and he escorted my Great Grandmother and my Grandfather’s Twin Sisters out of the house. My Great Grandfather and my Great Grandmother would later be murdered at Auschwitz. My Grandfather’s twin sisters would – by the grace of HaShem and by a miracle, escape Mengel and eventually also find their way to freedom.

My Grandfather would make his way to the Swiss border where he was promptly turned around; on the train he took to get back, he was informed by a fellow passenger that the train was going to be stopped for inspections…as it slowed, he jumped holding onto his Violin, the Violin he was given as a child.

That Violin bears silent testimony as it hangs the wall in my parent’s house; surviving Krystal Nacht with my Grandfather.

Eventually my Grandfather would manage to escape to Caracas, Venezuela (where most of my family was and where most still reside) and then he would emigrate to the United States where he would enlist in the U.S. Army.

He became an Interrogator, a Map Maker, and a German Translator…through his travels he would wind up saving a Torah from a wandering tribe. That Torah too survived and found freedom and now rests safely and with honor inside the Ark of a Synagogue in Passaic, New Jersey.

On Krystal Nacht, my Grandfather was 13 years old.

How many of us, at age 13, could ever do such a thing? Be so brave, so strong?

Upon completing his tour of duty with the Army; he was honorably discharged and awarded some medals for his service. He was also given his U.S. Citizenship. He was finally free. He eventually moved to Long Island and setup shop to do what he was trained to do as a young boy at his trade school. He started a tailoring business and lived out the rest of his life as a humble man.

The first time my Twin Brother and I went to see him in Florida with my Grandmother (they moved to Florida before we were born, and while they were at our life cycle events as babies, we were too young to remember them) the first thing he did with us was play Soccer; then later that day, when we were napping – we were four – he went to play Violin at the club house with the orchestra he was in, and later tailored the swath of clothing that my father brought down with us. He did not view himself as a war hero, he viewed himself as Grandpa. If I knew then, when he first played soccer with us, what I know now about what that sport really meant to him: I would have dedicated the rest of my life to it.

He also didn’t question me or have a single question when I came out so I didn’t have a question for him either, just the unspoken understanding between two men that skeletons look the same at the gates of the camps if they’re wearing stars or triangles…it wasn’t anything that we needed to speak of together, so we didn’t. Many years later, we had him and his sisters write down (and we had him record on an audio tape) their life stories for us. I have copies of all of them and I’ll be bringing them to the archives at Tel Aviv University and Yad Vashem (if they want them) when I go to Israel this summer.

The hardest thing I have ever had to hear in my entire life was when we laid him to rest two days before Thanksgiving (I believe it was two days, I’d have to check my Yarzheit calendar to be sure, it might have been the day before) and as they were playing taps – two soldiers dressed in uniform presented my Grandmother with a flag and said “On behalf of the President of the United States…” at which point I noticed I wasn’t standing but rather I was being held up by one of the taller and stronger family friends who noticed that I was about to give way, he had already put his arms around me and was holding me up against him so he wouldn’t fall…because friends are there to hold you up when you can’t yourself. We still had Thanksgiving that year (it’s my Mother’s favorite Holiday) because our family was already there, and my Mother cooks for a month prior and dammit, we had food and we had something to be thankful for that year.

Yom HaShoah seems to be about so much more though, for me, these days.

The Armenian Genocide (which is still denied by some); the Holocaust (which is also still denied by some), Darfur (which is being ignored by almost everyone as history repeats itself), the Pagans who had to fly silently into the night during the burnings while their brothers and sisters were tortured and burned to death…so many people have died because of hate.

Could it happen again? Absolutely (and no, I’m not being alarmist): look at Darfur and the deafening silence…though, God Forbid if our people are attacked again; this time we will not be going out with our hands up; that much I can assure you. It’s the year 5767; arguably we’ve had 2,104,955 days (minus however many we have left until the New Year) as a world to get things right, and by all accounts, we’ve failed to make significant changes and it just doesn’t make sense to me. If children are starving, you feed them. If people are cold, you clothe them. If people are sad, you sit with them and you listen to them. Where’s the holdup? Please, explain to me what part of the message you don’t get. We don’t need to wait for people to get funding from organizations: I have a sandwich, I can cut it in half, you have water, you can pour it into cups: when will we just get that we’re all human and because of that it’s our job to take care of each other.

Do you remember the story of Stone Soup? Where the entire village came together to make a soup…it’s sort of like that. Why wait for governments to do what we should be doing, what we can do better than they can anyway?

And to be totally honest, I don’t understand the hate and I mean that earnestly…all I want in life is to make a difference, to do good work and to find a husband whom I love and who loves me in return; three simple goals. One of them I’m working on at the moment, one I’m not (I know I’ll find him, but not here in Buffalo, and not now, but one day…sooner rather than later I hope) but I can tell you that I’ve felt the universe pulsing through me as I’ve listened to the heart beat of my lovers, as I’ve laid on their chest as we’ve fallen to sleep together, and as I fell asleep in bliss I thought to myself: how can anyone who has ever experienced love want to destroy? How has anyone who has ever felt lips pressed against their skin want to hate? How has anyone who has ever had their breathe taken away by seeing their lover covered in the moon light turn to hate…how can anyone who’s heard a child’s laughter with reckless abandon be angry?

How can anyone choose hate over love? The choice is so simple: hate destroys you from the inside and everything around you…love just, fills you up, it creates, it protects and it encourages people to do things they never knew they were capable to save someone.

But wickedness endures, and unless we rise up and stop it; it can consume…

And there’s children in Darfur who are screaming out in pain and there’s children who are hungry around the world and people shoot each other for such stupid things as televisions and video games: there material objects, they’re so worthless when you see the bigger picture.

Please Today, Jewish or Not…take some time to Remember; remember the Jews, The Righteous Among the Nations, the Armenians, The Pagans and please pick up your phone and call your senator, your representative, your boss, your mother and say “what can we do about Darfur?”

And then please, and I mean this so seriously: tell your children that you love them, tell your parents that you love them, tell your brothers and your sisters that you love them…tell your friends that you love them; climb to the highest mountain and scream it to the heavens…because you’ll never know when you won’t have the chance to say “I love you” ever again; never go to bed angry, life’s too short to not be true to who you are or to hate.

I’m sorry, again that this is scatter brained; it’s been a hard night.

Goodnight.

open pasture

Today had many milestones…

moocowinthecity No Comments

Not only did I pass the Foot Structures section of Phonology/Structure of the English Sound System with flying colors (official grade not in, but I’m 100% certain that I got at least a 96% on the assignment) but I’ve totally improved my air guitar (a noble pursuit) and I found a cough drop (thanks to covarla) whose taste I can stomach.

Now it’s time to head home, I’ll catch up with everyone later.

open pasture

Today had many milestones…

moocowinthecity No Comments

Not only did I pass the Foot Structures section of Phonology/Structure of the English Sound System with flying colors (official grade not in, but I’m 100% certain that I got at least a 96% on the assignment) but I’ve totally improved my air guitar (a noble pursuit) and I found a cough drop (thanks to

covarla) whose taste I can stomach.

Now it’s time to head home, I’ll catch up with everyone later.

open pasture

Quack Quack Quack Quack Quack

moocowinthecity No Comments

Quack Quack Quack Quack Quack Quack

We’re nearing the end of the semester and it seems everyone — despite numerous promises to ourselves and each other — is once again in the same boat as we were last year: sleep deprived, overloaded, and facing the burnout that signals to us the beginnings of Summer where we’ll each take between one and four weeks off before we start the cycle again during the summer session while we once again make the same promises to get more sleep, get ahead of game, etc.

I would be slightly less stressed if it hadn’t snowed every day this week (this, I’m sure is happening, because Al Gore is coming to talk to campus to talk to us about global warming and God has a twisted, fucked up, sick sense of humor that I can’t help but admire) and because it’s been snowing, I haven’t been able to go running because the cold air irritates my lungs and at this point, I think they deserve a break.

So we can all share in the fun, here is the list of things that I need to have done in short, short order:

So for Wolf:
Project (not actually required, doing it voluntarily, so we’ll see where that goes, due the last day of class, quickly morphing from an actual paper into a model for those who wish to write future papers due to time constraints)

Final Exam (I estimate an A on it, this occurs the Last day of Class)

So for Michelson:

Final Homework (due tomorrow…I hate making trees, boy howdy do I hate making trees…I see how they’re useful…but it’s assignments like this that make me glad that in one more semester, I get to enter into the field I’ll be specializing in…a field which doesn’t require making trees…fuck trees, man I hate trees so, so much…stupid trees)

Scrap Book (almost done…I had a good time in the craft store…I like scrap booking…I have to remember to bring my camera to campus so I can take a picture of something I want to include in it…I also have to finish watching RKO films for the dialect diagnosis section)

Final Quiz (coming up soon…her course is humbling…very humbling…I should be getting a B+ to an A- as my final grade; working towards the A-)

So for Jürgen:

Presentation (This Coming Tuesday…’yea, even as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…’; and despite what he says, I’m fairly certain I’m walking into the class with a deficit because he wasn’t thrilled with the paper I chose to present, despite my firm belief that not only is it beyond adequate, it’s interesting and on point in many of its arguments which is better than what I can say for most of the papers we’ve discussed this semester of which, I’ve had at least one major issue with each of them)

Experiment (Due the last day of Class…the instructions were close to twenty pages long when they could have been two pages long…this actually seems to function as a wonderful metaphor for the entire semester, this will be completed Monday so covarla and I can compare our findings — a requirement for the assignment — and then just finish writing the damn thing up, which should take around three hours)

So for Roustum:

Final Exam.

I’ll be really sad when his class is over, he’s had a profound impact on my life from my politics to my academic future and my love of languages, and my future career to my love of Middle Eastern Food.

Okay…time to get back to doing work…I really can’t wait for April 30th…the day after the last day of classes, I’m sleeping in hard core.

I’ll catch up with everyone on the flip side.

Peace.

open pasture

Quack Quack Quack Quack Quack

moocowinthecity No Comments

Quack Quack Quack Quack Quack Quack

We’re nearing the end of the semester and it seems everyone — despite numerous promises to ourselves and each other — is once again in the same boat as we were last year: sleep deprived, overloaded, and facing the burnout that signals to us the beginnings of Summer where we’ll each take between one and four weeks off before we start the cycle again during the summer session while we once again make the same promises to get more sleep, get ahead of game, etc.

I would be slightly less stressed if it hadn’t snowed every day this week (this, I’m sure is happening, because Al Gore is coming to talk to campus to talk to us about global warming and God has a twisted, fucked up, sick sense of humor that I can’t help but admire) and because it’s been snowing, I haven’t been able to go running because the cold air irritates my lungs and at this point, I think they deserve a break.

So we can all share in the fun, here is the list of things that I need to have done in short, short order:

So for Wolf:
Project (not actually required, doing it voluntarily, so we’ll see where that goes, due the last day of class, quickly morphing from an actual paper into a model for those who wish to write future papers due to time constraints)

Final Exam (I estimate an A on it, this occurs the Last day of Class)

So for Michelson:

Final Homework (due tomorrow…I hate making trees, boy howdy do I hate making trees…I see how they’re useful…but it’s assignments like this that make me glad that in one more semester, I get to enter into the field I’ll be specializing in…a field which doesn’t require making trees…fuck trees, man I hate trees so, so much…stupid trees)

Scrap Book (almost done…I had a good time in the craft store…I like scrap booking…I have to remember to bring my camera to campus so I can take a picture of something I want to include in it…I also have to finish watching RKO films for the dialect diagnosis section)

Final Quiz (coming up soon…her course is humbling…very humbling…I should be getting a B+ to an A- as my final grade; working towards the A-)

So for Jürgen:

Presentation (This Coming Tuesday…’yea, even as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…’; and despite what he says, I’m fairly certain I’m walking into the class with a deficit because he wasn’t thrilled with the paper I chose to present, despite my firm belief that not only is it beyond adequate, it’s interesting and on point in many of its arguments which is better than what I can say for most of the papers we’ve discussed this semester of which, I’ve had at least one major issue with each of them)

Experiment (Due the last day of Class…the instructions were close to twenty pages long when they could have been two pages long…this actually seems to function as a wonderful metaphor for the entire semester, this will be completed Monday so

covarla and I can compare our findings — a requirement for the assignment — and then just finish writing the damn thing up, which should take around three hours)

So for Roustum:

Final Exam.

I’ll be really sad when his class is over, he’s had a profound impact on my life from my politics to my academic future and my love of languages, and my future career to my love of Middle Eastern Food.

Okay…time to get back to doing work…I really can’t wait for April 30th…the day after the last day of classes, I’m sleeping in hard core.

I’ll catch up with everyone on the flip side.

Peace.

open pasture

Life Update, Ruminations, etc.

moocowinthecity No Comments

This Week is going to be crazy; however I have Friday Night through Monday Night blocked off to complete my work for the semester. My cell phone will be off, I’ll only be checking email.

I present my literary review to the Linguistic Anthropology class this coming Tuesday. This should be a cakewalk. If Jürgen thinks I’m combative in the back of a classroom he should see what happens when I’m given a captive audience.

However, as we head into the final stretch of this semester, I’m anxious, I’m excited, but overall I’m cautions. I’m expecting As…but those will come from hard work and certainly aren’t guaranteed, they’re tenuous at best.. I have no room for mistakes at this point in the game…there’s barely room enough for sleep.

“You give me too much credit, Matan!”
– Prof. Roustum

I met with Prof. Roustum today regarding the email I sent him pleading to take the independent study. The main problem, is that teachers don’t get paid for 499 level courses (which is why so few grant students access). The other problem is that he’s a teacher at the school for refuges in Buffalo so his time is precious as it is.

He leveled with me today and explained his reasons for being hesitant to grant the independent study (mostly a money and time issue, which I do understand) however he told me that if I needed the two or three credits to graduate, it wouldn’t be a question, he’d let me do one instantly. I regretfully had to inform him that I wouldn’t lie to him: I have 130 credits under my belt and certainly don’t need more credit to graduate. He then told me again that if I were to need those credits that he would allow me an independent study, and I again emphasized that I will not lie to him. He then said that he would look at the situation when the semester ended and perhaps something can be worked out…so it certainly isn’t a yes…but it certainly isn’t a no so we’ll see (keep your fingers crossed).

In other news, he’ll be having tea with my parents and myself when they come up later this month if he has the time. He really enjoys my Mother (they email each other).

Dad and I are taking the Assault Rifle Course together…this can lead only to one of two things: either a visit to the E.R. for one of us or an amazing blog entry in the near future…

Originally we were going to take the assault rifle course on Long Island, but the day long course was being offered on the day of the Lavender Ceremony, so we’re going to probably take the one in Elmira, NY together (providing we don’t have schedule conflicts).

It’s odd, but we’ve found some weird kind of father-son bonding experience over firearms…nothing says family love like the smell of gun powder and a perfect score on a paper-human target; I’m sure there’s a hallmark card for it somewhere.

What I’m Doing With My Life/The Soon to be Immediate Future

I’m perilously close to graduating…as such, this means that whenever I enter the vicinity of a family function, I’m left to explain just what it is I’m doing with my life and from what I’ve gathered, many people are confused as to what the next few years hold in store for me as well as what my job will be when I’m done.

I’m not going down the path of academia (to the chagrin of some who hoped I would); this doesn’t mean that I won’t be completing higher level degrees (quite the contrary, I want my Ph.D.) it just means that I won’t be attempting to get into a tenure-track professorship.

Whenever I see people on television setting up makeshift hospitals and repelling out of helicopters to land in war zones in times of need, I go “that could be me.” And people think I’m kidding or having delusions of grandeur when I tell them that I want to work in war zones. I want to work in Darfur, I want to work throughout Africa, and the Middle East. I want to work with Doctors Without Borders (if not at some point, set up my own group, Translators Without Borders? Who knows…maybe someday) as an EMI-T (Emergency Medical Interpreter-Translator). The field (much like Translatology) is still relatively new and still being defined, which is incredibly exciting to me (and very, very appealing)…because I hope that the work that I’ll eventually be doing will help to define the field and pave new paths of academic exploration for others.

I’ve been told by a few family members that I need to dream smaller, or to settle down or to get a nice secure job where I’ll be safe (and had I been born a woman, I guarantee that my grandmother would have told me to get my MRS degree by now) .but there’s a simple rule to life that I live by: there are winners and there are losers and you get to choose which one you’ll be. And the only reason the winners are getting the cool jobs (the jobs that they want) is because they learned the skills necessary to do their work, and they went out and did it despite how many people told them they couldn’t.

I’m not a loser.

So many times people are told to settle down, to tow the line, to behave, to take the easy way out that will earn them the most amount of money for the least amount of work…those people, they don’t make history.

I don’t accept failure (for myself or for others) and outside of sexual relations, I don’t accept no as an answer — ever. The basic requirements to be an EMI-T are physical fitness, ability to work in multiple languages in high-stress environments, being able to interpret on the spot for the patients and the doctors and being able to translate charts on the spot for doctors and then provide the necessary information for follow up care to the patient upon discharge. Certifications are encouraged. Specialized training in Medical Translation a must.

I know I can do all of that. I’m also aware of the risks, but what is life if you don’t take risks? I feel this is what I have a calling to do and much like I’m moving to Israel because I feel a call there, I’ll be training so I can do this too. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out and I won’t be disappointed in myself…because I tried. But I plan on living my life without regrets, and you’ll never know until you try…so I’m trying.

Of course, I’ve mentioned the job, so I should probably mention how I plan on getting the training (which will take quite a few years).

I graduate this December. I submit my paperwork to the Aliyah Organization on February 2nd; from there I’ll be in the United States for however long it takes for the paperwork to go through for both them and Nefesh B’Nefesh so I can receive whatever assistance I’m eligible for.

Upon arrival in Israel I’ll assess my options (academically/university wise) after I complete Ulpan and an Intensive Arabic Program (which I’ve been saving for, and will have more than enough money to cover by the time I make Aliyah).

After I complete both those language programs (neither of which are degree granting) I want to get my Masters in Arabic. While I love the field of Linguistics (I really do) I am much more interested in the Arabic Language than I am in the science behind the language and I’d like to find a program that reflects the focus that interests me…I want to read Arabic novels and Arabic poetry and to learn all I can about the language.

I’ve had a wonderful two year love affair with the Arabic Language and I want to continue that love affair into a relationship that lasts a lifetime; I want to one day be able to express myself better in Arabic than I can in English.

So that’s the deal kids: graduate in December, move soon after that, study really hard, learn the language, live life (always take time for a margarita and a dance with a good looking guy, it’s what keeps you young), take the ATA exams, go for a masters degree, then change the world before noon. Maybe I’ll even find time to work in a nap or two.

“I don’t want somebody to love me, just give me sex whenever I want it, ’cause all I ask for is instant pleasure, instant pleasure, instant pleasure…you in the traffic for all eternity, how could that speed be where you want to be…”
– Rufus Wainwright

So I came in third place for the essay contest…and considering that I wrote spoken word/poetry instead of an essay I’m happy. Plus it means I get $50.00 (or $25.00 since there was a tie for third place?). Either way, it’s more money than I had to begin with and $50.00 buys at least a weeks worth of food in Israel (a few peppers and rice for lunch, a salad for dinner, maybe some falafel if I’m gunna be really lavish…I’m a cheap date).

I’m excited, I sold my desk the other day to Joe so now I have even less furniture in the apartment (and another $50.00 actually…). Now I just have to sell the antique dresser set, the chest of drawers, a bakers rack, three more shelving units and my bed (well I’ll sell my bed in December) my coffee table and sell my chachkis and I’ll have reached the very admirable goal of having all of my belongings fit in my messenger bag :-D.

Minimalism rocks my socks…it also makes cleaning up so much easier.

Loosing Weight!

I’ve found a new eating structure that’s really working well. I’m already down 15lbs and I’m finding it fairly easy to follow. Combining that with getting back into running I’m on the path that I want to be on (now if only the weather would cooperate already so I can run outside without feeling all clammy).

UBULS

So the UBULS (UB Undergraduate Linguistics Society) I co-founded with friends fundraised with our hoodie sale a total of $1,100.00 and we started to redecorate the Linguistics Lounge last weekend.

Apparently Dr. Michelson was originally hesitant as to what she would find when she came in, though she (and everyone else) seem to love what we’ve done with the place. I’m not sure what she was hesitant about though, since she was sending in a Gay Man and two Designing Women (not only that withfangs is a dual-degree Linguistics/Art major) so I’m not sure what she was expecting to find other than a color coordinated, fully redecorated to-the-nines room, but whatever it was, she was relieved we did a good job.

The lounge now looks like a classy living room, it’s wonderful, and warm, and inviting.

Next weekend (I hope) we’re going to get the big, fluffy matching couch and then in May I’m building the computer-bar (though quite a few professors have made mention that they wouldn’t mind if it were a wet bar instead) which will have power strips running down the bottom of it and four stools to sit on so people can setup their laptops and work in the lounge, with WiFi access and a printer.

The Graduate Linguistics Association should be donating a new red microwave (our color scheme is red and beige) and the electric tea-kettle. Lisa (withfangs) is donating her coffee maker…which we’re incredibly grateful for since it only holds four cups of coffee which means that we might finally be able to avoid continually growing swamp thing on a daily basis.

Tomorrow we’re continuing the Linguistics Film Series we setup and having a viewing of “The Gods Must Be Crazy” which I haven’t seen yet, so I’m excited.

I have more to write, but that’ll come later.

G’night New York.

« Previous Page — Next Page »