Happy Birthday to me!

Happy birthday to me!

Yay!

:)

I'm 20 years old. I can't believe it. What a lovely round number. 20. Twenty. No longer a teenager, but it's okay because I still dress like one.

I had a great week off, and now a lot of work to do. Time for breakfast/class!

Blue Screen of Death

My computer crashed.
Luckily nothing is lost.
Everything had to be re-installed.
:(

My week off was pretty great. I watched tv all week, went to eat at a georgian restaurant with my dad's family, ate out with my mom, and noah came to visit :)
My birthday is tomorrow and I have a lot of work to do tomorrow. My moderation papers are due and my DSS application (I sent it in already). I have to run around and hand things in. I have to do a lot of reading for my mexican history class, and I got cool presents from Noah.

I can't complain. I'm very happy right now.

Also, amy (my roommate) got my a cute little spinney wind up toy from the Whitney museum. Except the one I got doesn't have the red top, it is silver.

I am sound

Vacation has been alright thus far. Noah is coming to visit tomorrow and I can't wait!
I also have my heart set on a Lazaro gown.
My plants are doing well. The watermelons have their first real baby watermelon leaves, and I see the tomatoes doing pretty well too.
I'm very excited for them.

As for doing productive things this week... well I got my DSS application pretty much done. Now I have to do my moderation papers, which won't be too different from the DSS application, because I have to talk in both of them about my future and what not.

Spring break

Im home for spring break. Ive been watching steve urkel all day. It's great :)

Before Class

So I came 3 hours early today to the lab to work on homework, and everybody swarmed in, early, trying to figure things out. The room is full of people, fluttering around trying desperately to put down some sort of answer, everybody going nuts.
Did I finish my homework? Yes.
Is it correct? Absolutely not. I put down some crap I pulled out of my butt and have no idea what it means!
Oh well.
I can't wait to go home. Oy vei.
I have class in 5 minutes.

My frustration will soon be over. (for a little while at least). Perhaps I will not move to a commune after all.

...or will I

Sprouting

I woke up this morning to find that since i put the humidity controlling plastic wrap over the plants, the two watermelon and one tomato pods sprouted! The ones that are not directly under the light haven't sprouted yet, maybe this afternoon i'll figure out a way to put them under the light too, maybe grab an extra box and extend it along my desk. The lettuce is doing quite well.

Human

human- a word whose etymology leads us to the word humus "earth." Return back to earthly organic living, make everything ourselves, grow everything we need to eat, use surplus for renovations, clothes, etc. Self sustainable living.

Read this article about a girl who grew up on a commune, what she has to say about the emphasis on technology in the 90's and 21st century. A record number of people are ordering seeds this year, did you know this? There was a news article about it the other day, that people are started to garden more then ever before.

There is this cohousing movement thats very interesting as well. I like the idealist utopian movement. You would be surprised just how many communes, eco-villages, co-ops and co-housing groups are sprouting up around the US.

lettuce, tomatoes and watermelon!

I'm getting ready to go to Olin Hall to see Noam Chomsky's first talk today on linguistics.

I've just watered my plants and put them under plastic wrap to lock in the moisture and keep the humidity up.

I'm so excited because the tomato seeds started germinating. They haven't sprouted yet above the soil, but in my paper towel germination plate, they germinated. Now I have 2 watermelon plants, also germinated and waiting to sprout, and 5 tomato plants, and 2 lettuce plants with at least 4 little seeds in each of them that have all already showed leaves!

Aside from planting, I've got discrete math homework, and a test tomorrow in mexican history that should be fine. I am glad that spring break is next week. I'll have to write my 2 moderation papers though, and finish my DSS application. Also probably will need to study Theory of Computation for the upcoming test when I get back.

Work work work....

Noam Chomsky

I'm seeing Noam Chomsky today.

"Noam Chomsky will be coming to Bard on March 16 to give two talks. The first will be on linguistics. It will take place in Olin Auditorium at 2:00 PM He will then later speak to Students for Just Peace in Israel/Palestine on US Foreign Policy in the Middle East. The talk is scheduled to be at 8:00 PM, in Olin Auditorium."

I don't know how I feel about him. He seems like a political nut.

I have a python programming language problem to do, that almost makes me miss java just a little bit. Python is hard. Can you believe I'm getting tired of complaining? Well, I'm sure I'll get my complaining energy back soon enough.

Time for class. We're reading TS Eliot "Wasteland and other Poems".

I have 4 beautiful lettuce sprouts each with 2 baby leaves. Very exciting.

Plants! part 2

It is important to have good potting mix for the baby seeds. Note how I put the paper towel cups on plastic bottle bottoms, to allow the drainage water to be collected and not go all over the place.

Now, I realize it has only been four days since my darling seeds were planted. However, my lettuce seeds must have been eager to be born! They sprouted tiny, itsy bitsy little lettuce sprouts!
I know you can't see it, but here is a blurry photo. There are 4 baby lettuce sprouts!
(in just 4 days!)

Plants!

How I started my tomato, cucumber, lettuce and watermelon plants!

I started with little paper mache style cups.
Step 1. find paper towels
Step 2. find recycled water bottles or glass bottles, glass works best for this
Step 3. cut paper towels in to strips 2-3 inches wide
Step 4. soak strips in water for several minutes
Step 5. wrap strips around base of the bottle into a cup-like shape (use as many bottles as you want, really only need one)
Step 6. don't wait too long, while they are still wet, gently pull the cups off of the bottles
Step 7. poke holes in the bottoms of the cups for drainage and let them dry over night

Next, you want to follow the planting instructions on the seed packets, and put under a fluorescent light. The perfect fluorescent light is built right into my dorm desk.

Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykq3yUCuM1M

This song is incredible. The zylamadoodle is an awesome instrument.

Cereal

I got a little carton of milk yesterday so I could eat cereal for breakfast. I am terrified of cereal. I have a few boxes of cereal in my dorm and every time I pour it into the bowl, I'm so paranoid that there will be a bug. Luckily, no bug today. (knock on wood)


listening to: packt like sardines in a crushd tin box (radiohead) I don't know why they spelled it so wrong.

Charger

I left my stupid battery charger in Mexico. And I also can't find my 2 spare rechargeable batteries.

Also, I started the little plants. 1 lettuce. 2 tomato. 2 watermelon. (so far)

Ian randomly messaged me out of the blue asking me to listen to some song he's been working on for a while. I don't know. Its alright. He always was a good guitarist, but this song itself isn't very good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spX3iZXhfXw

Truman

Every time I see the end of the truman show, it makes me cry. What a great movie, and a great piano score.

zoo

I really want to go to the Bronx zoo. I don't know why. I just really want to see the animals there.

Pictured above, baby porcupine, red panda, and baby kangaroo.

Stomach Flu Part 2

I called health services and they said I should go there right away, and shouldn't wait until 3. So they scheduled an appointment for 12:15. im going to try to catch the shuttle so i dont have to walk the whole way.

yuck. i feel so awful.

update: turns out I have 101.8 fever! they gave me some medicine and hopefully I'll feel much better tomorrow.

Stomach Flu Blues

Well, I thought Noah had food poisoning when in fact it was the Stomach Flu. Who knew? Turns out stomach flu is ultra contagious, and now I have it. Vomiting, chills, headache, skin sensitive to anything on it, fever, can't hold down beverages/food, just yuck yuck yuck.

My roommate Amy went to her film screening and I left her a message since she's the only person I know still out this late. She called me back and is getting me some ginger ale and iced tea from the campus center. I'm soooo thrilled.

She usually asks me if I want anything when she goes to campus center, and I just about always say no, I don't need anything. But this time..i'm feeling so ill, and she's already out, and so im really glad she's getting some.

Cathy is going to take me by health services tomorrow. She's also been feeling pretty sick. She slept all day yesterday and today, and felt like her skin was crawling and sensitive. So hopefully the nurse practitioner at health services will have something to say.

update: its almost 2 am. i was shuffling around all night trying to fall asleep. my tummy felt queasy so I sat up. As soon as i did this, I was vomiting overboard (onto the floor). due to the slanted floors, the vomit slid across the whole room and it now smells like ginger ale orange juice vomit.

Nirvana

So I'm listening to Pandora and Nirvana just came on, "In Bloom," and I haven't been able to listen to Nirvana for a good 4 years without getting annoyed and turning it off. But now, for some reason, my ears find it pleasurable again. My ears are grundging out to the sweet self destructive sounds of counter-culture.

Ah...Counter culture. I want to start a commune.

Discrete Math

I've been working on my Discrete Math "take home" test from 5pm, and i'm still working on it. I have 1 and a half more massive proofs to get through until I'm done. It's due tomorrow. Ugh.

Joe Mande- Comedian

So I went to this "Comedy on Wednesdays" thing at the campus center with Cathy and it was really funny. This guy Joe Mande who was recently named “Best New Comedian” by Time Out New York was there. Sometimes you can see Joe as a panelist on Vh1’s Best Week Ever. He made some funny jokes and we laughed a lot.

http://www.joemande.com/

Jew Card

It's official. Jews are losing their minds. I received an invitation from a certain Jew girl this morning, lets just call her, G.
She wanted me to join some "end occupation" group whose mission it was to "demand an end to U.S. aid to Israel." Are you KIDDING ME? HELLO? First of all, look at who you're talking to. Secondly, you actually believe this anti-Israel propaganda? Aren't you Jewish? Weren't you in Israel? Weren't you bat mitzvah'ed? And now you claim that Israel is unjustly occupying Palestine? You're a shame to the Jewish community.

Zionist movement on campus, me?

I sent the following message to one of the new leaders of the Jewish Student Organization:

Hey, I just looked at the JSO page, and it's nice we have some new leadership. I think it'd be great if the JSO promoted birthright on campus.

Also, it seems to me that there has been a great deal of anti-Israeli sentiment on campus. especially since Gaza/Israeli war. I don't know how you feel about the issue, it only makes sense to me that the JSO provide some real information, support Israel and show the other side. It's easy to flash a bunch of pictures of suffering Palestinians, but what about the Israelis whose towns were getting hit by missiles for months before the army took any action?

Once again, I don't know how you stand on this. I feel like I'm the only one on campus upset by all of this

The response I got:

Hi Bella,

So sorry I didn't get back to you earlier. Yeah - it's good to have new leadership. By the way, we're having two major upcoming events. On Saturday March 7th, the JSO is hosting a Purim Party in Manor, starting at 9pm and ending at 1:30am. Then on Monday, March 9th, we're hosting a Purim Spiel in the MPR starting at around 8:30. It'd be great to see you there!

I agree - there has been a lot of anti-Israeli sentiment on campus, particularly coming from the Just Peace in Israel/Palestine group - In my opinion, the group isn't interested in a just peace - they're interested in what's best for Palestine (I just got back from one of their meetings - no pro-Israel speakers - only left-wing people, like Noam Chomsky).

The JSO is going to be having an Interfaith dialogue with the MSO, with the Rabbi and hopefully the Bard Imam about Israel and Palestine. Hopefully, we'll show the film "Promises," then have a discussion. Some select people from the JSO will be meeting some time this Saturday to discuss our views about it with the Rabbi - I'm going to invite you, since you obviously seem passionate about the issue. Once I get more details, I'll let you know. Believe me - I'm upset about this too. I do know that there has been some talk about starting a progressive Zionist movement on campus - I'm going to talk to Alyssa Goldstein about this (she's the other Co-Head of the JSO). There has been some talk of getting the Israeli Lobbying group Jstreet to campus - they offer a more progressive opinion.


Anyways, stay in touch! I'll give you the info about the Israel/Palestine meeting and dialogue.


And, thanks for contacting me! Great to see you're interested.


K.



------
Anyway, I'm really glad he got back to me. I think it's great that there are others on campus angry about the issues at hand, and the lack of Israeli support from our fellow Jewish population.

official

So I officially accepted the offer to Iowa State University for the summer. I am excited, anxious, and somewhat dreading being away from home again. I'm also missing my grandmother's 80th birthday, which is very very sad.