Death by Midterm

Oct 26: IED ME Paper Due; Daniela, Evan, Anna, and Rachel come over
Oct 27: Hang out with friends; Family Dinner
Oct 28: Study/ Write; Family Dinner; Asher stays over
Oct 29: Shira and Mike's Engagement Party
Oct 30: Study/ Write
Oct 31: Study/ Write; Econ and Ed Exam
Nov 1: Study/ Write; Peace Ed Paper Due
Nove 2: Study/ Write; IED ME Paper Due

Weekend

Help, I have fallen and I can't get up

Weekend: 10/ 20-22

Another long, but very unproductive weekend. Unproductive in the sense that I've got midterms left, right and center and I didn't do a thing for any of them. But I embrace my flaws and move on.

Friday night I met up with Russell (did you know he spelled his name with two Ls?) to go to services at Bnei Jeshurun (BJs). We also invited Prithvi along, because he is a closet Jew. Prithvi is Indian, grew up for a time in Saudi Arabia and Germany, and yet knows everything about Israel and Judaism, but he'd never had the experience of going to services since the opportunity growing up was always limited. I think we all had a pretty good time, we prayed, we danced, we answered lots of questions (sometimes I made stuff up, what is the Eternal Light over the ark for?)

Russell then came to stay over and my friends at I-House had our long awaited potluck. I'm the only one of our group who has a kitchen, so people were excited to have food not from the cafeteria. I made a Daniela-esque Thai curry, Suzana and Prithvi worked together to make an excellent Indian dish, something like alu-maktar, containing potatoes, peas, and spicy love. Imre brought Hungarian wine to represent his native land. Honza decided to not represent the Czech Republic, but brought Swiss ginger snaps and other cookies instead. Russell brought Argentinean wine, suggested by Paul (Canadian) who couldn't make it. Then my neighbor Susan lent extra dishes and another bottle, towards the end of the night. And the cream on top, quite literally, was Brittany joining us after work at Kitchenette and bringing us tons of different cakes!

Saturday morning Russell and I met up with Sam at Nussbaum & Wu for bagels and coffee. Then Sam went back home while Russell and I did homework at my place. Russell left in the early afternoon. I then read a bit more before getting ready for my first JDate. I met Y. Down at a Starbucks in the 90s. He was very sweet, and we had a nice time chatting about Columbia (he went their undergrad) though I don't think we'll be seeing each other again. He had a really nice Burberry scarf, the kind I have a knock-off of from the Statue of Liberty that cost $5. After the date, I headed back to I-House where people had just started a mass movement to the pub after the Fall Fiesta. I hung out there with friends until the early hours of the morning and then crawled into bed.
Sunday, nothing much happened until the evening, which was Sam's first show in NY! I walked over to the apartment Sam is crashing at, and hung out with him and Russell until Rachel and Marsha (who drove in from Philly together) came and picked us up. The SideWalk Cafe was pretty big, and much more upscale then I was expecting. Sam's set was great; he played That Girl, and his cousin Naomi joined him with harmonies on Angel Eyes, and he sang that one outlaw-hand-cutter song which always scares me, and a new love song too. It was just so incredible to be seeing him perform, somewhat like Nishas, made me a little teary. Russell's friend, Andy, bought us all champaign to celebrate! We stayed to listen to Glenn Roth, who plays the guitar faster and fancier than anyone I've seen before. We then headed for one last beer at the oldest bar in NY, McSourleys. At the SideWalk I also finally met David Weinfeld, who I was starting to believe was an international hoax cooked up by Seth and supported by my sister.

Even the rain cloud of being sick after it all at 4 in the morning had it's silver lining, I was able to call up Yohoshua and have a nice little chat and I got to hear yet another scream out between random people in the park. Now I have to seriously work on my midterm stuff because next weekend in another WUJS reunion (isn't every weekend turning out that way?) and Shira and Mike's engagement party!

JDate: it has come to this

I'm just going to put it out there, because I'm not ashamed, I have recently joined JDate.
Oh yes, yes I have. After much prompting by friends, sister, at one point even a current boyfriend, I have decided to give the modern yenta a chance with my love life. What is JDate, my sweet little non-Jews ask. It's an online dating service for Jews, especially popular in NY, that allows Jewish eyes to oggle your pictures and profile and then begin online chats or flirtatious emailing which should eventually lead to dates, and for those lucky few like Shira and Mike, marriage.

Creating the profile was fun. Who am I indeed... I've learned from previous JDate users that pictures are important, so I had a vote by my closest friends and got what I think are some good results. Then writing about myself, not easily done. So far I'm meeting an interesting range of people, though it is often more sketchy than not.

Sweetest: Had a really decent talk with one guy that ended with his saying "Lilah motek," see that's classy.

Most Sketchy: Guy from Minneapolis said he'd move to NY for me, this is before he asked my name. He asked if I liked to travel, I said yes, he said he liked to have sex on planes. Eeeeeeew.

Most Brazen: A really great seeming guy asked what I was looking for (several people had already asked, because they are looking for marriage) and I said I was open to friendship or dating. I asked what he was looking for he said "Sex and a girlfriend" in that order. The conversation ended shortly after.

I ask you, where's the romance? Where's the dating? Where's even the coffee? What happened to getting to know someone, walks in the park, a long engagement? Even Israelis, by definition pretty darned sketchy, invite you for coffee (though at BGU we learned it meant something else).

I will keep you updated with the funnier/ scarier/ sweeter stories as they come up...

4am Brawl

Gosh, Kinneret, it's 4:40 in the morning, what are you doing up?
Gee, nothing much, there was just a little gang violence over a prostitute going on outside my window
Gang violence! What to do you mean?
I was woken up be a lot of screaming, not nice words either, and when I looked out my window 4 men were fighting outside of a black car.
But a gang?
There was a lot of talking going on, and their were three guys yelling at just one man and it seemed if there weren't serious consequences, they would have taken him. And the matching baggy clothes and baseball hats of the three guys helps.
And there was a woman?
She seemed to be with the three guys. She was kind of running around screaming while they were running around screaming, then when the single guy left she started fighting with the three guys.
No one hurt her?
The guys were kind of throwing her around, but nothing too physical.
But you think she was a prostitute? What lead you to that conclusion?
Well, she was in a cute little short shorts and matching halter number with a large belt
And?
And it's below 50 degrees outside
Ah
And after the fight, between the men, and then the fight with her and the remaining guys, she walked down the street with quite a strut while the three guys got back in their car.
Wow
Well I called the police, but it didn't strike them as much of an emergency. Once the car was pulling away the operator hung up on me.
And so it goes....

Sorry, at 4 am Kinneret can only think in third person dialogue

Weekend: Oct 13-15

Oh it was a crazy long weekend. This is probably cause I'm in school less days then I'm out of it (tues, wed, thurs). What made it especially nice, in the long run, is that I worked all week on a prospectus for IED Middle East class and turned it in on Thursday only to be told that it was due this Thursday. So I asked the prof for early critique and I'm somewhat ahead of the game. With just my basic reading to do (which I usually complete a few hours before class) I'm just brimming with time.

Friday during the day I met up with Melinda Jaffe! Melinda and I were very close during high school, we were friends from camp. Though we haven't' spoken in about 5 years or so, we decided to get together and had such a great time! Melinda is cute as a button, she's studying speech-language pathology at NYU, and dating a great guy. It's just really great to have someone who is in the same place as me in a lot of ways so close; we have the same sort of Jewish background, we're both from Chicago, we're both trying to figure out NY and want to run around together. I'm really looking forward to hanging out a lot more!
Pictured: Melinda, courtesy Facebook

Friday night, usually a pub night at The Pub in my dorm. This Friday was especially special because it was American Culture Hour! Every month or so I-House residents prepare a series of skits, music, food, and good times in general in order to learn about a specific country. Since about 30% of the residents here are American, and we're a super power with nuclear capability, we got to go first! I had a pre-party with Prithvi, he came over for dinner of curry. Being Indian, and a consumer of actual curry, he was very kind to me and only butted-in when it came to adding more spice and he let me put my beloved pineapple in. We then headed down to Cultural Hour where we met up with other friends and got samples of American food: stew, sweet potatoes, corn bread, pecan pie, and of course sweet tea. Then we sat for the show, which featured two American and one foreigner on a road trip of America. They started in New England, then headed South, towards the Southwest, stopped in California, went to Alaska and Hawaii, through Midwest and back to NY. In each area they either focused on scenery (New England leaves in Autumn, Midwest was a lot of cows and corn), music played by a full band (jazz down south, blues grass, blues in Chicago), language (Southern and Californian accents, and Hawaiian pidgin), or games (Alaskan kicking game, which got the Inuit performer who went from the floor to 12 feet in the air a lot of phone numbers), or even American traditional dancing, the Charleston! Then we headed down to The Pub which had been turned into a Western Saloon. It featured $1 Beers and Whiskey Shots that were dispensed from plastic guns and shot into your mouth. It was a very good time, and I hung out with the normal crowd (Suzana, Prithvi, Imre, Cyrus) and some new people (Lithuanian pool guy, French dart person, TC girl in early ed).

Saturday morning I wasn't feeling so hot. I was up at 8:30 am and had a strong need to call people. Obviously no one was awake in the US, so I called good old Yohoshua! He wasn't able to talk too much, because his family, the Harmonious Harris Household, is currently visiting! So I pretty much did nothing all day and awaited the next party that night. That night was Brittany's house warming and so I went up to Washington Heights (ghetto) by taxi you best believe. I got to Brittany's beautiful apartment and hung out a bit with her flatmate and her boyfriend, Greg, while noshing on the Puerto Rican food and drinking fantastic sangria.

Pictured: Brittany, Armen, Me. Photo courtesy of Vinnie
I pretty much hung out with our TC friends, Armen and Mike. This was largely due to the fact that the rest of the invitees were the roommate's friends, and it felt sort of like a bad high school reunion with too much alcohol. One girl pulled out a 40 (I haven't' seen a 40 since that one weekend back in California at David's going away party, and that's whole 'nother story). I had brought a bottle of wine, and I assumed this too was a type of wine and I asked if she was going to pass it around. Ohno, this was for her, and I said "Oh it lasts you all night?" and she said "It lasts me an hour" and indeed it did. She went on to have a lot more to drink and ended up kicking over the cat water bowl and pouring beer on herself in the middle of a conversation with me (conversation isn't quite the term for the rambling I was trying to decipher). So, good times! Armen and I took the train home, which wasn't a problem except Armen, who's a pretty muscle-y Armenian with chest hair that would embarrass an Italian, kept telling me we were going to be mugged and killed. But we weren't, and I went on to Sunday...
Pcitured: Armen, Me, Mike, bottom Greg & Brittany

When I met up with Shira! We had lunch at our favorite tea place, Alice's Tea Cup. Then we did some Israeli-inspired shopping at Sabon for soaps and candles and on to Lush, recommended by Yohoshua and I made her buy the stuff I wanted for myself (mmmm, massage bars). I helped her do her grocery shopping and helped her with her bags home. There we hung out.

I had a great weekend, and now it's a Monday, and I want my weekend to continue! I'm awaiting Brittany to come over and help me eat Shira's pumpkin bread and walk around the park.

Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

This post is about transportation in NY. Or two of my run-ins with it.

TRAINS
I was on the subway yesterday, going from 125th down to NYU on the 1 and R. The 1 is a slow long trip, and it was a completely crowded train. So I'm standing, squished up, and the man standing right in front of me starts yelling "Who farted, someone farted, fess up, who was it." Honestly, I'm short, and if someone had done any such thing I would be one of the first to know, and it clearly hadn't happened, but that didn't stop this man. He went on for 10 stops, then he switched to the topic of his ex-wife's farts, which he enjoyed a lot. Meanwhile everyone on the train is pretending they hear nothing. That we're not being forced to listen to this crazy man's tirade. It wasn't until he finally left that people started snickering. Very www.overheardinnewyork.com.

PLANES I'm sure you read on the news about the plane crash in Manhattan last week. My friend Dominick is actually out today in 4 person plane, makes me a bit nervous. It was quite crazy, obviously the images were the most frightening part. I was in Family as Educators class, in which we mostly share our family memories and stories. So that class turned September 11th and our memories of that, and from there the Challenger explosion, and disasters in general. Not the uplifting class about our grandparents' childhoods I usually look forward to.

AUTOMOBILES
The other week, coming back from the airport from Florida, I had a fight with my taxi driver. On the way to the airport the fare was $20 plus $4 toll. So I was shocked when on the way back home the fare was reaching the 20s mark and we were somehow on East 96th (I live at West 122nd). So I ask the driver how it was that my trip had doubled in price, and he said he had taken a route because of rush hour. It was midnight and the other 5 cars on the road weren't holding us back. After a bit of discussion, he stopped the meter at $25. Yeay! He even helped me with my bag, so I think he wasn't too upset with me. If Israel has taught me anything, it's that taxi drivers are not gods, even if they think they are.

Kathleen and Kendal's Wedding

My pictures came out pretty bad, so I will include more of Kathleen and Kendal and the actual wedding when appropriate photos can be found.

I remember meeting Kathleen Royston the first day of school after I moved to Highland Park. It was fifth grade, and she was wearing a floral print dress, her hair was in long blonde braids and she had a straw hat and red glasses. I liked her immediatly. She's grown up a lot since then, and we were close through middle school and high school. We haven't really spoken in 4 years; her parents moved to Florida right after graduation and I was always traveling on breaks. So I was thrilled to be invited to her wedding (admittedly, i begged her) and it was such a pleasure to be there.

Pictured: Becky, Me and Jessica in Seaside

When I arrived the night before the wedding and met up with Jessica Offenbach and her family, we headed over to the Royston's home where the bridesmaid activities were slowing down after the rehearsal dinner. All the girls were in the hot tub, and of course I forgot to bring my bathing suit to Florida, but I joined them anyway. All the bridesmaids were Emilys or Kates, and though I can't really tell them apart, they were very nice. Becky Swartz was also there, and this wedding was like a mini reunion for us.

The next day festivities began! The Royston's had rented out a house for the wedding meals with a big tent out front. There was a brunch that all the girls had to sit through with their hair done up. It was the first time I met Kendal, and I truly wondered if his deep voice and Southern accent weren't put on. That is, until I met the rest of their families and realized this was either a huge hoax, or these people really do say Ma'am and offer sweet tea. Kendal was a true gentleman, and an attractive one at that, and you can easily see that he and Kathleen are in love. His mother was also a treat, a truly nice lady who went out of her way to make me and the other Highland Parkers feel welcome. And of course it was wonderful to see Kay and Rick, Kathleen's parents, who look better than ever now that they're living the life of beaches and boats, and church dinners. To understand how perfect and intimate and special each of the wedding events were, you have to know they were arranged by Kay, who is one of the most thoughtful people alive.

In the break between brunch and the chapel service, Lee, Becky, Jessica and I walked around the town of Seaside. It was used as the idealized town in the Truman Show, and it's easy to see why. Just off the beach, it's complete with all the amenities of an old-time town around a central square. There were even children doing chalk drawings on the front sidewalks of all the stores. This also includes the white clapboard chapel where Kathleen got married. The service was simple and warm. At some points surprisingly emotional. The small chapel was full of family and friends from all over. It was clear that the Royston's make a big impact on any community they are a part of.



Rick and Kay walk down the aisle.


Kendal walks his mother down the aisle.

The reception was back at the beach house, and truly stunning. What made it so wonderful was the intimateness; even the caterers were good friends and it felt as though no one was "working" the wedding but everyone was a guest. There was excellent cajun-inspired food in honor of Kathleen's Louisiana roots and a great deal of Southern charm such as very fancy grits, with touches of Mexico in margaritas and burritos. There was a bride's and groom's cakes as well (the groom's was an ode to Alabama and "Rolling Tide!" was yelled out more often then cheers to the newlyweds).

The whole thing was stunning. Makes me want to get married immediatly, and many times. I also wish I was the sort of person to have a beach wedding, but since I have a general aversion to sand and no history of travel to florida, it seems that I'll have to settle for something more inland.