Myspace Re-Post #22 (the LAST!): I have taken a giant step...

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on December 26th, 2007.

Ok, maybe the title is a bit hyperbolic. But today, I posted a serious comment in response to the following invitation from one of The New Republic's blogs:

The TNR Caucus: Who's Got Your Vote?

With just eight days to go until Iowa, we here at TNR thought it would be an oppurtune moment to do an informal caucus of our own. We want to give our beloved commenters the floor, and get an answer to the big questions: Who has your vote, and why? In what's already been a wildly unpredictable campaign, what do you think, as of today, is going to happen in the end? 

Of course, there are other issues that would also be interesting to hear from y'all on, if you're so inclined. For instance, in general, have you found yourself more engaged or less engaged by the campaigns--and by camapign news--this year? And has there been any particular argument, moment, event, debate, book, or article that's helped you make up your mind, one way or the other? (And no, we're not trolling for compliments.) So please, comment away!

--Ben Wasserstein

And so, I posted this:

shims-b said:

1. Barack Obama - For several reasons, most of which have been well documented by TNR, Andrew Sullivan in his terrific Atlantic article, and elsewhere.

The primary reason for my support of Obama is, yes, his ""character."" However, I do not refer to some vague, uncertain quality when I use that word. Here is what I mean: (disclaimer: I could very easily be wrong about each of the following statements of belief - it's hard not to be cynical in politics, and it's also hard to know the truth)

I believe that Obama will seek out the opinions of the most intelligent and qualified experts when handling almost any matter, and will use those opinions, and the arguments behind them, to arrive at better conclusions, on average, than any individual who thinks that he or she is a self-sufficient expert.

I believe that he will tell America the truth when and if he has something we that should be told (and which TNR will report on months before the larger newsweeklies).

I also believe that his administration will be relatively (emphasis on relatively) transparent - this much seems to be supported by his campaign's willingness to talk to the press, compared to some rivals.

Most importantly, I honestly believe that he has a better chance at winning the general election than any other democratic candidate. His appeal among moderates and conservatives has been widely discussed, and while the data may be somewhat flimsy and anecdotal, it seems logical to me to at least recognize the voter-turnout factor. In all likelihood, fewer conservatives will drag themselves to the voting booth to vote AGAINST Obama than would show up to vote against, oh, I don't know, Hillary Clinton.

2. Joe Biden - If I was one of the front-runners in this campaign, I wouldn't base my candidacy on ""experience"" unless my name was Biden or Richardson. Biden has the confidence, experience and credentials to, how shall I say this, govern from ""day one?"" I would probably support his campaign if I thought he had a reasonable chance of winning, but that does not appear to be the case at the moment.

3. Hillary Clinton - I think I speak for a large number of democratic voters when I say that we are, relatively speaking, blessed with an abundance of viable alternatives from which to choose in this primary. I would be happy to see Hillary elected president, and I am confident that she has the managerial skills etc. to get this country back on track fiscally, diplomatically and morally.

The thing that concerns me most about her is her Bush-esque emphasis on loyalty and secrecy over transparency and the toleration of dissent. She may be afraid that she or one of her staffers will say something that would potentially be an embarrassment. Well, Biden and Obama have not been so worried by this prospect, and they have each said things that the media has loudly touted as if they were campaign-wreckers. Hardly. That's why I trust them more than Hillary.

Everybody makes mistakes. A true leader is willing and able to admit them (with all due respect to those who object to Bush's numerous bunglings and disastrous management overall, I think that the inability to admit weakness or error is really his biggest problem).

A note: I will be voting in New Jersey, on ""Super Tuesday,"" so I guess I am one of those persons whose vote will count for something. To those whose votes will not count at all, I have the deepest sympathy for you. The primary system is broken, and we need to fix it!

December 26, 2007 11:13 PM

See the real live comment here:
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2007/12/26/the-tnr-caucus-who-s-got-your-vote.aspx
"

Myspace Re-Post #21: This time, it's personal!

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on December 4th, 2007. This post was also hosted as the only post on a separate Google Blogger account from June 25th, 2008 until quite recently (March 10th, 2017, to be exact). Let us hope this will end its long lonely wanderings in cyberspace...

Hello out there all you lovely listeners! I'll bet you've been wondering where I've been...

Tee hee, course I don't really believe that. But I'm going to tell you anyways! I've been buried under a pile of work, with a special emphasis on applying to graduate schools in psychology.

That's going pretty well. I'll be sure to keep y'all up dated on if and when and where I get in anywhere.

So I've spent the past month or so researching schools and working on what is generally known as a "Statement of Purpose." In this statement, you are expected to detail what (within psychology) you are interested, why you are interested in it, why you're a good candidate for grad school, why the given school is right for you, yada yada yada. The point is that once you've come up with a carefully crafted, revised and vetted general essay, you simply need to make a few small changes for each school, and you're otherwise pretty much done.

Except for the fact that Berkeley, alone among schools that I am aware of, ALSO requires a personal statement! What is a personal statement, you ask? Why is a personal statement, you ask? What more is there for you to say after the whole friggin' statement of purpose thing, you ask?

Well, Berkeley answers: "In an essay, discuss how your personal background informs your decision to pursue a graduate degree. Please include any educational, familial, cultural, economic, or social experiences, challenges, or opportunities relevant to your academic journey; how you might contribute to social or cultural diversity within your chosen field; and/or how you might serve educationally underrepresented segments of society with your degree."

So, that should be pretty clear, right? No, not really? Well then you can understand why I put off writing the damn thing until last night, AKA the night my application was due!

Now I managed to pull something together with a little help from my friends, but I didn't really have time to run it through the wringer, so out of a general sense of curiosity and narcissism, I thought I would post this essay, in its entirety, on my myspace blog!

Pretty crazy, huh?

(Hey, shut up. I wasn't talking to you!)

Here's the essay. If there's anybody out there, let me know what you think!

My personal background is somewhat unusual, as I was raised as an Orthodox Jew, yet had numerous meaningful encounters outside of my community that have combined with my upbringing to lead me on a unique academic journey. Being an Orthodox Jew meant that I lived in a heavily Jewish neighborhood, attended Orthodox Jewish schools, and had only Orthodox Jewish friends while I was growing up. My community was very insular, and personal interaction with the wider culture was strongly discouraged. Despite this fact, I was exposed to other cultures and modes of living from a very young age. My grandparents and many of my other close relatives were Jewish but not Orthodox, and as a child I used to play with the children who lived on my block, regardless of their ethnic or religious background.

In high school, I began to more actively pursue engagement with the outside world. For example, I used to frequent a used music store near my high school during my longer breaks. This was in part driven by my budding fascination with rock and roll, but there was also a social aspect to my regular visits. I had struck up a friendship with one of the clerks at the store (who, it later turned out, was also the owner) simply by asking for his opinion on some of the CDs that I was considering buying. I was fascinated by my newly discovered ability to form friendships with people from outside of my insular religious community. I began to think about the basic commonalities that all people share, with a particular interest in how individuals come to form complex relationships with each other, both within and beyond group boundaries. By meeting other employees at the store, I was able to test out new ideas and theories that I had developed about how normal social interaction was structured.

I began applying a similar mindset to other social gatherings that I encountered. I joined an orthodox youth group that organized large conventions where hundreds of teens could meet one another. The array of different people I encountered at my first such convention dazzled me. I was particularly struck by the fact that I was continually meeting new people, and thus had a continuous supply of new encounters with which to experiment, so to speak. These encounters allowed me to learn a great deal about myself and my interpersonal style, as well as how people meet and become friends on a more general level.

Later in high school, my focus began to shift to the formation and evolution of informal social groups. This interest arose naturally enough, as I found myself stuck in the middle of a series of intractable conflicts between some of my closest friends. Often these conflicts boiled down to differences of personal preference and taste, and yet this seemed to be a sufficient basis on which to divide a unified group into two or more distinctly separate groupings. By senior year of high school, the web of my social affiliations had grown so complex that I felt the need to draw a diagram depicting the interrelationships of over twenty of my friends. In creating this diagram, I somehow felt that I was advancing my understanding of the dynamics which influenced who became friends with whom.

In the summer before my senior year of high school, I participated in a summer arts apprenticeship program conducted by the City of Chicago that drew teens from every part of the city. I was in the "Performance Poetry" group, where we not only learned to write poetry in a particular style, but also to "perform" it. I made some very good friends in this program, and maintained contact with them during the school year by attending poetry readings throughout the city. In this way, I also came into contact with a broader subculture surrounding spoken word, poetry readings and coffee shops. I was fascinated to discover a social world all around me of which I had previously been ignorant.

That same summer, I began working as a vendor at Wrigley Field on a part-time basis. I soon grew to love this job, not merely out of my interest in baseball, but also because it gave me a window into the inner workings of human nature. Vendors were paid on commission, and I had to hawk my wares myself. I enjoyed the opportunity to test out my naïve theories of how people could be influenced to buy a product from me. When selling peanuts, I noticed that whenever I threw a bag to a distant customer, several other people would suddenly express interest in my product. Soon I was looking for every possible excuse to toss someone a bag rather than hand it to him or her, and I began to nonchalantly toss a bag up in the air and catch it myself if I found myself in a slow aisle. I enjoyed this work experience to such an extent that it was to serve as my primary means of employment the following three summers.

As senior year progressed, I thought a great deal about what course I should pursue in life. My high school encouraged its students to remain within the bounds of the Orthodox community, even while pursuing higher education, by recommending that we attend specific colleges (such as Yeshiva University) that are largely populated by other Orthodox Jews. The idea of continuing the social and cultural isolation that had been imposed upon me by my community did not appeal to me. I looked to my college years as a time when I could branch out and meet individuals from diverse backgrounds, to learn about their values and way of life. I also hoped to find a peer group that was as interested as I in striving for a deeper understanding of human social interaction. I bucked the trend and applied to many secular colleges, including Harvard, where I eventually matriculated.

In my first semester at Harvard, I enrolled in "The Evolution of Human Nature," in order to explore some of the questions I had about human relationships and social interaction. To my delight, I found that many of these questions could be answered by adopting an evolutionary perspective, and I spent hours in conversation with several of my classmates, discussing the implications of the course's material for our own lives. The following spring, I took "Introduction to Psychology," and found that I was most fascinated by the chapters on personality and social psychology. By the end of the year, I had decided to major in psychology, with a particular focus on social psychology.

My coursework in psychology and such related disciplines as biology and sociology answered some of my questions about human behavior, but this is not what drew me most strongly to the field. Rather, I increasingly found that I was able to articulate and frame the questions that had always aroused my curiosity. By learning about past experimental studies, I was able to imagine how some of my favorite questions could be explored in the future. Every new piece of information that I learned seemed to raise another question. My curiosity for knowledge of the workings of human interaction was boundless.

That curiosity is what continues to drive me to this day. I have become familiar with the day-to-day challenges and demands of experimental research in psychology by working in psychology laboratories during six semesters of college and in my current full-time position. Yet still I find that the more I learn about interpersonal relationships and social interaction, the more fascinated I am by the intricate workings of our complex human nature, and my list of questions only seems to grow longer with each passing day.

Myspace Re-Post #20: Weekend of Champions

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on September 4th, 2007.

I figured out what I'm the world champion of this weekend. Know what it is? No, it's not of asking stupid rhetorical questions to chew up blog space...come on, try a little...


Ready?


Ok


Here goes...


Turns out I'm the world champion of Lugging Around Oversize Wheelies on New York City Subways! (LAOWNYCS-ing) I established this feat with a rush hour dash from Penn Station to the Upper West Side on Friday afternoon, followed up by an all-day Upper-West-to-Queens-and-back spectacular on Sunday afternoon, with a nice little Morningside-Heights-back-to-Penn number to finish it off. All you erstwhile challengers, bring it on...

Also, although I've known this for some time, and I am a contender in the ongoing International Awkward Juggling of Possessions While in Motion (IAJoPWiM) event. I have yet to capture that crown, however...too many bumbling putzes in this world for a guy like me to make his mark...



sigh...

Today was a momentous day at work: It marked the first face-to-face meeting I have had with my boss (I've been on the job two months). It's nothing too spectacular, he's simply been in Berkeley until now (a likely story...). I should note, however, that he has been compared to Charlie of Charlie's Angels, for whatever that's worth.

Today also marked the return of my other boss, Talya. For those of you stuck in hopelessly outdated, rigidly hierarchical employment structures (which is to say, jobs in the corporate sector), this is not, in fact, comparable to the situation of our hero in the celebrated film Office Space. Danny, my ultimate boss, gives me very little work, as he is working on writing a book. Most of the work he does give me consists of scavenger hunting across the social psychological literature and beyond to verify memories he has of classic experiments.

Talya gives me much more work, which could be seen as annoying. However, she's also around more frequently, and those halls can get lonely at times (I've been hearing these aliens in the white noise that keep trying to make contact with me - but I won't let them!).

Well anyways, the point is that both of my bosses were gone, now both are back. Maybe I should explain about the lugging of luggage (not that it would seem to need explanation, given the name...)...

I went into NYC this weekend after two tranquil, placid, pastoral, endless weekends in Princeton. I left work early on Friday and made it to the Upper West with an hour to spare before Shabbos. My place of crashing was the swank pad of one Aaron K. Harris, who was in the year ahead of me up in Boston. We went to this infamous shul known as OZ on for Friday night minyan. OZ has frequently been described as a "meat-market," although this a heinous falsity, as we Jews don't sell meat on Shabbos, and most of the people there looked like they were the veggie type or else on diets.

However, there were lots of young single people there, which was a nice break from my never-ending purgatory "out-of-town" (i.e. "out-of-dates"). Dinner featured an evenly matched gender ratio and chicken. However, I grew bored of the company after dinner, when talk turned to an in-depth analysis of Justin Timberlake's (er, rather, "JT's" ) dance moves and essential hottness ...

The next day we ventured up to the low 100s to eat at another Harvard alum's place - or rather her parents'. This place was tastefully decorated in the manner of a pretentious intellectual elite. It fondly reminded me of my own childhood

ambitions.

And later in the day, after a nap, I paid a visit to "the lawn." Once again, I came in the expectation of an open-air butcher's market, and yet all I saw were young Jewish people playing games...and sports, too.

The evening was a little insane, however, I must skimp on the details. I met up with Ivan at his place in the East Village, and we proceeded to watch the show "Californication," for about an hour, before venturing out. We ended up in one of the oldest bars in New York, and it seemed to retain its 1850s feel - right down to the dirt and imminent bar fight. Fabulous!

This was followed by a trip to Washington Heights and then back to the Upper West by subway, all after midnight. However, my CIA editors tell me I can reveal no more...

Sunday, I ventured out to Queens. Kew Gardens to be precise. In theory, I was going to pick up some stuff that I left with my room mate, Jon. Turned out that it was actually an excuse for Jon's mom to foist some food on me.

Well, you've got to sympathize. I mean, she obviously never gets a chance to foist food on Jon...

Well, a conventional narrative would build to a climax [here] and then insert a brief resolution [here]. However, I'm getting bored and tired, and have better things to do, so...

One more thing: Check out my profile! I updated it recently, and seriously, it's embarrassing that it has fewer views than my blog. Really...


Good Night, and Good Luck...

Myspace Re-Post #19: What kind of music do you like?

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on August 23rd, 2007.

You know, this used to be such a simple, innocent question. People strongly identified with a particular music genre and its accompanying subculture, whether that be the folk scene in Greenwich in the early sixties, or rock and roll, or grunge and the the Seattle scene in the early-to-mid nineties. Even now, there are many emo kids and the like. And yet, more and more it seems that people of our generation keep saying the same damn thing: "Oh, you know, everything."

Even in the late nineties, I could catch people on this by following up with, "even country?" and they'd be like, "well no, except country." But even that caveat no longer holds true these days, with country being one of the top-selling genres of the past ten-to-fifteen years, and increasingly a staple on Top 40 radio and MTV (you know, between 2 and 5 in the morning, when they show music videos?). What has happened to our once-powerful identification in particular forms and kinds of music?

In truth, I too frequently say "everything," or at least want to say it. But that's not really what I mean. To me, a genre is not a good or bad thing in and of itself. Rather, it's a mode of expression, within which one can excel or dramatically fail. Indeed, it is within genres that I make my distinctions. and every genre is fair game. I maintain to you that almost any genre or subgenre has its good, its great, and its awful musicians/artists. example: within hip-hop/rap/whatever you want to call it, we have the great: Jay-Z. and the good: Kanye West. and the awful: Puff Daddy/P. Diddy/Diddy/just shut the fuck up already, no one cares anymore. Similarly, hair metal has its (sometimes) great progenitor Van Halen, its (occasionally) good Def Leppard, and its (generally) awful Bon Jovi (oh boy am I gonna get shit for that one - ok, just pretend I said poisen!)

Anyways, my point is this: It's ok to like every kind of music, but pick the good music from the bad. Not all songs are created equal!

In addition, don't dismiss a song or band by its genre - that's like judging a book by...well you know what I mean. Country music has given us Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson, and even metal has its moments (some of Metallica's early albums contain some astonishing melodic sections, not to mention brillian soloing).

And finally, when I ask you what kind of music you like, all I'm trying to do is engage you in a conversation about music. If you truly don't like music (or at least don't like to talk about it), then fine, say "oh, you know, everything." But if you wouldn't mind a discursive tangent on the relative merits of some of your favorite bands (I'll let you pick - I'm musically omnivorous), give me something to work with!

Myspace Re-Post #18: Dearly Beloved

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on August 19th, 2007.

Hello friends...

This lyric has been going through my head for the past week or so. I thought if I posted it on my blog, maybe that would make it go away? anyways, bonus points if you can guess the artist...

Dearly beloved
We are gathered here today
2 get through this thing called life

Electric word life
It means forever and that's a mighty long time
But I'm here 2 tell u
There's something else
The afterworld

A world of never ending happiness
U can always see the sun, day or night

So when u call up that shrink in Beverly Hills
U know the one - Dr Everything'll Be Alright
Instead of asking him how much of your time is left
Ask him how much of your mind, baby

'Cuz in this life
Things are much harder than in the afterworld
In this life
You're on your own

And if de-elevator tries 2 bring u down
Go crazy - punch a higher floor!

Myspace Re-Post #17: Up-date, Part 3 of 3?

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on August 19th, 2007.

Hey all, not sure if I'll finish catching y'all up to where I am at the moment, but I'll give it another go-round. First some ordinary musings...

I was wondering why my blog views have taken off lately. I mean, what with about forty friends and maybe 3 subscribers, it seemed odd. Then I remembered that I'm now allowing facebook to import my blogs. hmm... clever, aren't I?

Let me clarify something, by the way: I'm in Princeton, New Jersey these days. I've got a job doing research with a professor by the name of Daniel Kahnman. He's cool. He's got a wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kahneman . And I live in the Princeton "ghetto" which means that for about two blocks around me, there's a little bit of diversity. Got two room mates, pretty cool people...

Ok, Chapter 3:

Well, in the last episode, I detailed how I got a job, traveled, did some other stuff, then I sort of glossed over May. Well, I don't really remember May much. In fact, with the way my memory's been going these days, I'd better get this thing finished as soon as humanly possible...

So with May began the senior events, and Hillel was the first. Because if Hillel tried to compete with all the other senior events, let's just say that wouldn't work out so well...so on Wednesday, May 2nd, they had a senior dinner. This was actually pretty fun, although the ironic part is that I sat with my housemates mostly - that is, people from the Currier '07 Jew Crew. This is primarily me, Aviel/Bryan, Jon Kamler (my senior-year room mate - who still has my stuff!), Hannah Sarah, Arielle, and Strich. Plus there are satellite members like Josh Elihu and Johnny Leeman and a bunch of others. All in all, not too shabby of a group, compared to what '08 and '09 have got...Also, we got to drink wine in the courtyard and try to act graceful and sophisticated. right.

I had work to do - a paper for my Jewish history class was due on Monday, and I had also decided, for some odd reason, to organize the study guide for the class. You know, study guides - where you do a fraction of the reading for the course, write up a summary, and everyone else does likewise, and everyone gets to take it easy-ish.

Now I had never organized one of these things before. Second-semester of my senior year, doesn't seem like a good time to start something new, does it? But I was really anxious that no one would do it, because the reading list was HUGE. and since I knew a ridiculous number of people in the course, I figured, hey, why not?

In the end, I managed to get out of doing practically any reading at all - just lots and lots of emailing, assigning, and a little bit of arm-twisting. See, my group was a runaway best-seller. We cornered the market - another group actually said that they couldn't get enough people because of us, and asked to join. Over half the class was in on the take...I got a weird kind of evil glee out all this.

and I was writing a paper on the relation between Freud's Jewishness and his Freudian-ness. But aside from that, I was pretty much free. See, at Harvard, they have a reading period that lasts a week and a half, so that students can put off studying for a week and a half and party or whatnot...

of course, I should have been figuring out what I was going to do between graduation and July 1st. That's when my job was supposed to start, and in the mean time, Harvard was throwing me on my ass on June 8th (day after graduation). I needed to find a place to live, but had never done this before, and at first, I really didn't know what to do. naturally, my first reaction when I don't know what to do in a situation is to do nothing, so that's basically what I did for a while...

May 8th there was a Currier house senior dinner...I sat with Aviel (formerly Bryan, formerly my room-mate) and a bunch of people we weren't that friendly with. Turns out it was primarily an awards ceremony for pretty much everyone in out house and class except us. Actually, the whole Jew crew got pretty much shut out...but I'm not sayin anti-semitism or anything, hell no. See, I almost never get awards, and I have figured out why: I never do anything extremely well and I never devote hours of my time to helping other people. I think that's pretty much the only ways people get awards...and kudos to them, for that.

(Actually, there was a little scandal about an award that I could have potentially gotten from the ortho minyan at hillel - basically, they had created the award this past year, and it was to be given to an outgoing member of the community who had done a lot to serve the community. The only public service I did while at Harvard pretty much was helping out the minyan, which I did in a variety of ways for my first three years. Then I got sick of performing a series of thankless tasks without any support or help or positive reinforcement, etc. So, senior year, I prioritized other things. And guess what? although three awards were given, I didn't get one - even though I know one of the big guys was pulling for me! What can I say? orthodox judaism has really never done anything but push me away. Sometimes you gotta wonder - why bother pushing back?)

May 15 our psych-lab had a year-end party. I'd been looking forward to this because in the past they've been pretty cool, but this year's party was a little underwhelming. Also, they gave out awards at the party, too, but only for people who had worked on a particular study - guess what? not my thesis study. Shut out again...I'm really not the award-winning type.

May 18th I had my first final, May 22 I had my second, and last! So at this point I was totally free, and had nothing to do but kick around and party until June 7th. However, I let the housing search stress me out to a ridiculous extent. I decided that I decided that I needed to go down to Princeton to look around in person, after laying the groundwork first. but first, there was Shavuos...

That's right, almost forgot about Shavuos - it started the evening of my last final - May 22. The big stinker was that Austin had managed to get out of town right beforehand. I mean, good deal for him, I would've done the same, but that left me with Avi and Adam and the usual crowd at Hillel, and they're all pretty unpredictable.

Usually, shavuos night is awesome because it's a religiously sanctiones/ordained all-nighter. hillel was pretty boring, however. In fact, I walked back and forth twice, and gave myself some foot trouble for a few weeks, but nevermind.

The second night, I ate at Danny and Lindsey's - they are the nicest people ever. I think this is when I found out what I would do with all of the random stuff I needed to store - they offered to let me use their basement for the three weeks.

MY GOODNESS, I almost forgot to put this in: on Sunday the 27th, I drove to Monsey, NY, and back with Avi and Dave to attend Shuey's wedding. No time to explain, but it was just crazy that we went there and back on the same day...

The next week was "senior week" - a whole bunch of random party-ish events for seniors, since all the underclassmen were gone. I was stressing about the housing thing - that really killed this period for me, unnecessarily. Still slapping myself. I was emailing all kinds of random people, sending blind emails, etc., and trying to find out when people could show me around. I thought at first that I would go down to Princeton on Thursday/Friday, but then realized that it wasn't really convenient for the people showing me around, and that doing senior week stuff would be cooler.

Although I didn't actually do a lot of that stuff, except hang out in the house and party with those people a bit. There was a talent show which was an amusing cultural experience...I remember a pre-game for a formal I didn't go to. I ended up hanging out with Joe and Mike Judge (aka Fudge) and a few other folks, watching the red sox game at a bar and then going back and chilling at currier. I hung out in the ten-man (the major party suite) more that week than I had all year (another criminal offense on my part, since I was pretty good friends with a few of the residents - but last year was all about work and pain...ugh!)

So I went down to Princeton sunday night, stayed at a real stripped-down joint for the night, and spent Monday checking a few places out. Mostly, I didn't have a clue what I was doing, and the few places I saw weren't right. So I stopped by the office, where some of my former co-workers came up huge for me, and we worked some things out. I arranged to meet a guy who lived in a semi-collective house nearby around 4ish, with the knowledge that to have any hope of getting back to harvard that night, I would need to be out of there by five or so.

and lo and behold, this place was great! I was really enthused - the people seemed cool, the room was nice, the rent was fair (or even cheap), and the location was awesome! I called them and said the deposit was on the way, and they sounded stoked too...

unfortunately, they pulled the wildest, weirdest bullshit I have ever encountered. When I checked my email at some point Tuesday afternoon, I had an email from the guy saying that he had received my check - and torn it up! Why? the owner of the building told him that since there were currently 4 male and 1 female residents, the remaining room had to go to a girl, since otherwise no woman would ever live there ever again. now, I hate to say this nice boys and girls, but this counts as housing discrimination on the basis of gender...

I was in disbelief, and also quite upset. I contacted my legal counsel (my father), and he handled the situation, which was key, because I totally would have gone off on this guy. unfortunately, they were unbudgeable, and so I graduated without knowing where I would live...

Tuesday, June 5th, there was a senior wine and cheese run by hillel at the home of the assistant director. I was one of the first there because I had to meet the Shoags and work out some random details. So I got to hang out awkwardly with two hillel staff-people until some of the hillel folk showed up with their families - such a strange gathering...but I braved it out, yes I did! Incidentally, Avi showed up, which was the last time I would see or hear from him for a full week. he totally ditched me. sometimes you just gotta wonder what goes on in peoples' minds...

and then when I was about to leave I was unlocking by bike on the street below and notice that someone had jacked - my seat! re-fucking-diculous! and I actually biked all the way back (about a mile and a half) just standing up...

The next day there was a brunch at hillel followed by one at chabad and then "class day." and my parents and brother were coming in. They missed the hillel brunch, which would have been somewhat cool for them to be at, but hey - my parents barely ever hung around at Harvard while I was there, and maybe it was better that way...I did set them up with some food at chabad, and then we went and found some seats for the class day thing.

Class day is a series of humorous or poignant speeches by students and one celebrity guest speaker - we got Bill Clinton. I was pretty stoked. Also, one of the peeps from my house, Kiernan Schmidt, was giving a speech, which was hysterical! really, he crossed the line about a dozen times, and I was just surprised that they actually approved it...

Clinton was ok. My brother kept obsessing over how he kept listing great people who had spoken at the Harvard Class Day thing, people we should emulate, people like Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, and...Bono. he really did keep bringing Bono up for no apparent reason. What can I say?

Did I mention that to this point I had packed about two or three boxes? to give you an idea, in the end there were probably 10-15, plus luggage, plus stuff that I just left behind because of my hideously poor planning. but at least I got down to princeton for no reason...

and then my bro and I stayed up veeery late that night - nevermind that I had to be up at 7:30 to attend a "very special breakfest" (no, no alcohol or drugs were involved. I know, I was disappointed too...) and then march all together down to Harvard Yard.

I got about two hours of sleep and was late to breakfast, and also to the marching because I ran to my room for a minute. Then began the most hallucinatory experience I have ever had - and I mean ever (so far...). There were about 100 of us, in black caps and gowns, walking down the street and through Cambridge Common during morning rush hour, mostly tired but also giddy. When we got there, they lined us up in the middle of the yard, which was packed, and we got to stand in the center aisle while all these pompous people in ridiculous uniforms marched by - famous people, too, like Bill Gates and John Kerry &c.

Then we all sat together through some truly bizarre rituals, and then some awards and stuff, then we were officially "graduated." yay! Of course, my brother slept through it all...

Then we hiked back to our house (I made a frickin beeline in my cap and gown) where, after a brief intermission, we had our official roll-call degree ceremony. The weather was perfect, and I was just tired enough to be sentimental and teary-eyed. We go fancy programs and heard some speeches by classmates and tutors, and the house-master, then we all got our degrees.

After this ceremony was lunch, and the family discussed what the next move should be. I decided it would be sleep. which was awesome...

We went out to Taam China that night to eat, then my dad helped me and my brother move some boxes to the storage locale. I continued to neglect packing that night, and hung out some more in the ten-man instead, and reality seemed strange and somehow altered.

The next day, (Friday, the 8th) my brother and I had a hellish experience trying to throw all my stuff together. we had to have our cabbie drive us to the storage place to drop off more stuff, and then we got to the airport about 20 minutes before boarding time - we were lucky, because there was almost no traffic. I was sweating because we were coming in pretty close to shabbos...

but we made it onto the plane & everything. the final indignity - I was in the very last row of the plane! But oh the relief...

***Ok, so there will be one more chapter, but it will be briefer, hopefully, and focus mostly on my epic journey with all of my stuff from boston to Princeton, with a little detail about life since getting Princeton thrown in. I'm impressed with myself! and with you for getting to the bottom of this post. How do people manage to stay interested in all this mundane bs? ah well...love ya lots!***

Myspace Re-Post #16: A Funny Little Note

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on August 15th, 2007.

Hello boys and girls,

I will be posting the next installment of my tell-all recent biography soon. Meanwhile, here is the text of an email I sent an (anonymous) friend recently:

Subject: what up

Message:
the subject line is to be read in exactly the same way that I typically answer my phone, with a higher pitch on the 'what' and a lower pitch on the 'up' - perhaps you could tell me how to relate that in the terms you philologist motherf---ers like to use...

So I was on vacation and wasn't answering my phone. went to Dallas. it was fun.

quick things:

1) Interpol - on the cover of Rolling Stone this month. does this mean you hate them now?

2) Noah Feldman - in case you weren't aware, that article he wrote (were you the one who sent it to me?) kicked up a shit-storm in the self-obsessed worlds of the liberal orthodox-hating Jews and of the orthos themselves. just google his name or something - it was the topic of much conversation over Shabbos in Montreal a week ago (all of those people - Avi, his dad, one of his friends) are really into the Rabbinic gossip stuff...and speaking of which, did I ever make you look at this essay written by Hillel Halkin? It's about his apostasy. Perhaps you will enjoy...

3) Social constructionism - I might have mentioned that I've been reading an article that aims to reunite social psychology with social constructionism. It also gives a background to the rift, which is not inconsiderable (<-- double negative). Anyways, you might want to read the article - it's actually very well written, and occasionally hilarious as well. Here is my favorite sound-byte:

"Perhaps the single most significant and enduring bone of contention between [the camps] ... concerns the issue of truth. To simplify things greatly, experimental social psychologists believe in truth." - tee hee, aren't we cute, with our antiquated notions?

They also turn the tables on the constructionists, pointing out that "the notion that there is no truth or objective reality, for example, provides a convenient objection to any claim about the (real, actual, material) existence of injustice, inequality, exploitation, and oppression." - Oh snap! All that exploitation and oppression y'all obsess about - just a construction!

Anyways, how are you doing?