My friend invited me to her Passover seder last night. I'd never been to a seder before, which seems strange to me given that I grew up in a place where if you weren't Jewish or Catholic you lived at my house. Anyway, I arrived to house full of amazing smells and absolutely packed with people. There were 17 of us there and enough food to feed the fleeing tribe of Israel (which, I think, is part of the point).

If you've never been to a seder before and you're invited to one, don't eat all day and wear something comfortable to sit in. We sat at the table at ten to six and didn't get up until quarter after nine. My friend's husband actually passed out a booklet of computer-printed papers explaining everything that happened during the meal so that the ignorant Gentiles at the table could follow along. The family isn't particularly traditional or orthodox (or, I'm told, the ceremony would have been even longer), but they still go through all 14 (yes, that's right, 14) steps of the seder. The time was saved in that a lot of the more traditional prayers were skipped, and there was no singing.

I had a good time, I ate too much, and I learned a little bit more about what Passover is all about. It's got me thinking about the seemingly insular Jewish community, but that's another post.

Big News

I have a desk! I went to Manchester on Wednesday to find that Reed had scrounged a desk for me; it's set up, along with the desks of the five other adults who work in the program, in the "new" room in the building. (Wednesday was moving day - the Deaf kids have been in a "portable classroom" (I just love that euphamism) for years, and they've finally been moved into the actual high school following some ongoing construction.) It's a tiny, green metal thing that has a "Friend of the Manchester Animal Shelter" sticker on one of the drawers and remnants of old tape on the front where I'm assuming some sort of posters were stuck. It's nothing, really, to get excited about, and yet, I'm very, very excited.

This whole desk thing has me feeling a little like the Velveteen Rabbit - you know, "love makes you real"? I've had a sort of stoic cynism about this whole process for a while now - I'm secretly waiting for someone at UNH to say "wait a minute! You can't do that!", void my contract and make me start all over again. Some of the things adding to my apprehension are that I still don't know who my UNH supervisor will be, or which schedule I'll follow, or how much time I'll have to spend with either of my cooperating teachers but DAMMIT, I have a desk! This might actually happen!

Christmas

What are your favorite Christmas traditions? Do you practice them or simply miss them?

If this year you could simply have the perfect Christmas, what would it look like?

Pathetic Mediocrity

I got the grade back from the presentation I gave in class last Monday. The professor thought that the discussion I lead was strong (though not overly-well participated in by the class), that the film clips I used to present my discussion topic were wisely chosen, and that the lesson plan I wrote to accompany the presentation was detailed and well thought. For this effort, I earned myself an A.

I thought it was all crap. I could only get two people really invested in the discussion (though, to be fair to myself, it's not a particularly chatty class), the professor disagreed with my personal stand on the topic, and I completely forgot to make sufficient copies of the extra materials (a painting, some poetry and lyrics to a Patty Griffin song), so none of those things added the extra oomph to the argument that I'd hoped they would. And yet, I still earned an A. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

I mean, obviously I'm pleased that I got an A. Duh. Yet this leads me to two essentially oppositional questions, the first of which is am I really THAT hard on myself? Beecause this happens to me a lot - I think I've done a crappy, slipshod job and I wind up with much better results than I expected and I'm genuinely surprised every time it happens. The second question is has life in general, and college in particular, become so complacent with pathetic mediocrity that the stuff I do seems A-worthy? If so, I'm afraid for our future.

I'd almost rather the first question were true - THAT, at least, I can change. I highly suspect, though, that it's a combination of factors, that it's both my lowered self-esteem AND inflated grading practices that lead to my seemingly stellar performance review. I suppose I should be happy that it's not the other way around - that the expectations aren't so high that they can't be reasonably obtained. At least I wasn't expecting a B but receiving a C-.

It's Only ONE Hour...

How is it that adjusting the clocks one measly hour can so effectively mess with my life? I was all excited this year because, for about two weeks before the clocks changed, I had begun spontaneously waking an hour early. For no discernable reason - BING - I'm awake at six and I'm thinking "GREAT! Because in a couple of weeks, six will be seven and I'll have to be up anyway." Well, now six IS seven and I'm still having to DRAG my ass out of bed (and let's not talk about the two small people it is my job to roust and get moving in the morning....). What's this whole "daylight savings" thing about, anyway, and why has no one really questioned whether we still ought to do it? Can't we just adjust the clocks a half an hour and LEAVE them there all year??

I'm sorry I'm whining. I'm tired...