Professional Procrastination

1.  Check NYtimes.com.

2.  Read some blogs.

3.  Talk to your roommates.

4.  Make a collage.

5.  Call home.

6.  Make a new iTunes playlist.

7.  Read a 700 page book.

8.  Stock up on DDP.

9.  Knit a sweater.

10.  Organize a shabbaton.

11.  Look at old photos.

12.  Watch The Office.

13.  Apply for summer jobs.

14.  Try on outfits.

15.  Straighten your hair.

16.  Call high school friends.

17.  Go on a walk.

18.  Sit in the caf for a couple of hours.

19.  Watch Backstreet Boys music videos on YouTube (and then deny doing so).

20.  Learn Shmiras HaLashon.

21.  Reminisce about the good old days in Dira 21.

Get some work done, and go to sleep at 4:30 A.M.

Irony

I need some caffeinated Diet Dr. Pepper.  

In school, I craved decaf, and now that I have it, I really need caffeine.

I feel a withdrawal headache coming on...

These are a Few of My Least Favorite Things

1.  United Airlines.

2.  Deadlines.

3.  Getting asked out by someone that I see all the time.  

4.  Making housing plans for next year.  

5.  Receiving five phone calls a day from the same person who just wants to say hi.

6.  Being woken up.

7.  Shots.  I'm needle-phobic.

8.  Packing and un-packing.  And packing again.  

9.  Doing laundry in Israel.  Seriously unpleasant.  

10.  Egg salad--I've never tasted it, but it looks horrible.  Same's true of chopped liver.  And I can't bring myself to eat gefilte fish on days other than Shabbos and Yom Tov.

Stehekin, Washington

Ever feel like your life's a soap opera?

Lists are Easier to Write Than Prose

These are a Few of My Favorite Things

with apologies to The Sound of Music

1. The smell of winter.

2.  Being asked what I want for my birthday and realizing that I have everything I need. 

3.  Having a loose tooth.  Haven't had one in a while, though.

4.  Arriving in a new place and not knowing my way around and then figuring it out and then being comfortable.  It's the feeling of discovery.

5.  Getting a higher score on an LSAT practice test.

6.  Coming home for the first time in a couple of weeks.

7.  The smell in the Brookdale elevators.  It's not a particularly amazing smell, but I feel like a freshman every time I smell it.

8.  The Museum of Arts and Design.  I just found MAD, and it's really cool.  In just an hour, you can visit all six floors of the museum's galleries.  Thursday nights are free.  It's located at Columbus Circle.

9.  Doing logic homework.  I'm not very good at it, but it's really fun.  

10.  My family.  Spending Shabbos with friends' families helps me realize how wonderful my family is and how non-dysfunctional we actually are. 

Bad Habits

I have lots of bad habits, but one of my very worst may be staying up all night reading.  Last Thursday night, I indulged in this particular weakness of mine while reading Chaim Grade's masterpiece, The Yeshiva.  The book is a 700-odd page autobiographical account of the author's years in the Novardok yeshiva.  

There is so much to love about The Yeshiva.  For one, Grade's descriptions of pre-war Vilna.  He transports you back to a time that feels not much unlike our own.  The characters have problems very much the same as ours, and the community grapples with issues that we still deal with today, i.e. learning secular subjects and to what extent.   

Unique to that time, though, was the popularity and prevalence of the Novardok brand of mussar.  Grade illustrates life in Novardok, leaving the reader to come to his or her own conclusions.   Even more interesting to me, though, is Chaikl's, Grade's younger self, relationship with the Chazon Ish.  In his late teens and early twenties, Grade was a close student of the Chazon Ish.  His description of the Chazon Ish's middos and bein adam l'chaveiro is awe-inspiring.  Whether or not one identifies with the Chareidi legacy of the Chazon Ish, one can appreciate his humanity and character.

This book was definitely worth my 5 A.M. bedtime.