Moving Day

Leah is moving! 

I hate to say it, but I am sick of this blog.  It’s old and it’s disorganized.  It annoys me. 

This is the new blog, entitled, My Parents’ Basement.  It is a fresh start, which is good, because I am pretty much addicted to fresh starts.

My Parents’ Basement will be a little more personal than this blog has tended to be, more cohesive, and better edited.

As for you Mom and Dad, who ocassionally read this website, go ahead and read the new one.  But I warn you, you may not like what you see.  Proceed at your own risk.

Change me in your bookmarks!  Thanks!

(Leality will remain up for the sake of the archives, so enjoy.)

Interests

I have been using Livejournal to blog and keep in touch with my friends since 2002.  I started using Facebook in 2005.  On Facebook, I get to keep a list of my interests.  It just occurred to me that back in 2002, I made a list of interests for my Livejournal profile.

I wonder how much they’ve changed…

In 2007, I am interested in:

Blogging, improv comedy, writing, apple computers, sex things, shoes, goths, raptors, American Studies, journalism, clementines, travel, fuzzy socks, journals, sunshine, sleeping in.

In 2002, I was interested in:

Achievement, acting, apple computers, apples, Aqua, art, Ayn Rand, bananas, Birkenstocks, black nail polish, blankets, blue, books, boots, boys, Brandeis, canned soup, car dancing, celtic music, cheese, chocolate, dave barry, digital cameras, dogs, Don Quixote, Edward Norton, elves, eyes, faeries, feet, fishnets, flute, gazpacho, goths, hardcover books, hats, henna, hoodies, imps, incense, independence, ink, jew bling, jews, johnny depp, journals, lilacs, maple syrup, Nectar Fizz, northampton, nudist colonies, october, old jeans, pants, peace, photography, pillows, pirates, puppies, quesadillas, quizzes, rain, reading, red cars, satire, scars, sleep, smooth rocks, smores, snail mail, socks, South Park, Spain, sparkles, sticky things, sun, tapestries, Tim Burton, trees.

It’s funny how much some things change, and how much some things stay exactly the same.

Healing with Technology

My grandfather managed to stay with his father up until the very end, at Auschwitz. When his father died he had no one left. My grandmother, the youngest of six, arrived at Auschwitz with one brother and her mother, and was separated from them the moment she got there. The only other person in her family to survive was her eldest brother, who escaped to Russia before ghetto. He lives in Israel now, and they would only see each other once more in both their lifetimes, when my grandmother scraped together enough money to visit him.

After the camps were liquidated, both grandparents made their way back to Lodz, where they grew up. My grandfather found a friend. My grandmother found two sisters she knew, and arrived on their doorstep. “Rushka, have something to eat.” They said. “No, I’m fine.” My grandmother said, and promptly fainted. That’s how the story goes anyway. My grandfather’s friend was dating one of the sisters, and as a group the five of them travelled to America.

My grandparents were the first Holocaust survivors to get married in New York. The Times covered their wedding and they received $600 in wedding gifts from total strangers, which at the time, was alot for an immigrant couple fresh off the boat. They have not spent a single night apart from each other since. You can imagine the kind of dependence they had for each other. My dad says that my grandmother would wait and just stare out the window in the evenings waiting for him. They have both been so afraid their whole lives.

So, my grandmother’s passing is nothing less than traumatic for my grandfather. Burned into my retinas for the rest of my life is the image of him leaning into her coffin screaming, “How could you leave me here alone?”

My dad is still staying with him in Florida. Yesterday I set up an AOL account for my grandfather, filled his address book with all the family’s email addresses, and sent him an email with pictures, an email with links to things like the New York Times, and to my new blog about going to England. Today my dad dragged him to the Apple store. We think he really is afraid of computers because he is self conscious about his spelling- English being his second language and all. Sometimes he writes “Leha” on my birthday cards.

My dad showed him his AOL account on the demo computer. He lit up when he saw the pictures of me and my brother and our cousins. My new blog about England is a multimedia blog, with videos, and when my grandpa saw the video and heard my voice, my dad said he got so excited and really understood what the point of this whole “internet” thing was anyway.

They bought him an iMac, and the cable gets installed tomorrow. They also bought him a cell phone with a camera and text messaging. Everyone in the family, especially us grandkids, are going to email him and text him photos of us every day.

A lot of people talk about the internet as something that isolates people- replacing human contact with anonymity and shallow communications. Hopefully, in this case, the computer will help my grandfather feel less lonely and fill up the empty stretch of days before him.

And hopefully he will figure out that on the internet, spelling really doesn’t matter.

Things that become very important when you should be working on your thesis:

1. Scrapbooking
2. Blog-surfing
3. Grocery shopping
4. Leg waxing
5. Simpsons reruns
6. Making Jello

Yeah, I apologize if all of this month’s posts are about my thesis.  It has moved in, and completely taken over.

See Mommy? See what stress can do???

This is a little peek inside my mind as I work on a paper. A paper due tomorrow. A paper I started writing at 11:55 pm. Welcome to theworld of a real life college student.

12:23 YAY! I wrote a paragraph!

12:23 YAY! I have pickles!

12:25 I’m going to make this super-opinionated to cover up for the fact that I have no idea what I’m talking about! BRILLIANT IDEA!

12:26 Wow. I just used the name of the course in my paper. That is not a good sign.

12:27 Huh, I’m punchy. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t have a beer.

12:30 It was probably not such a good idea to eat so many pickles. I feel ill.

12:35 There, I wrote an introduction. Wait, the second half of that introduction is my conclusion. [Pause] *whines* “Do I really have to write the middle?”

12:36 Okay, I’ll write the middle. But I’m peeing first dammit!

12:40 Peeing and making hot chocolate, apparently.

12:42 I should really blog this.

12:50 I whine to a friend, “Why do we have to back up our arguments with evidence anyway? THE SYSTEM IS FLAWED!”

12:51 He says, “Because your teacher needs to know you read the assignments. It’s an ego thing.”

12:51 “But I didn’t read the assignments. Hence the flaw.”

12:56 I like Enya.

1:01 I think I cut my toenails too short.

1:27 Shit. I’ve been working on another project for the past fifteen minutes! How did that happen?

1:37 I am still on page 2. Popcorn? No, chocolate. No popcorn. Chocolate. Chocolate.

1:45 This is only getting worse.

2:45 That’s it. I’m quitting school and running away to join the circus.

2:54 Time for popcorn. My roommates will just love me for this. Waking up to popcorn popping at 3 am. Oy.

2:58 I always knew I would someday encounter a paper I just couldn’t write. I’ve come close before, but always pulled it off at the last minute. But I think I may have finally found it. The One. I thougt I’d be done by 4 am. I’m only 1/3 done. And it’s crap.

3:05 I’d rather be writing my thesis.

3:34 Um. Maybe I should just take the MTEL and give up all aspirations of a PhD right now.

3:47 Okay. So you’ve passed the halfway mark. Good. But you’re out of material? Shit. Maybe I should floss my teeth.

4:16 Yep. Circus it is. Get me some hair extentions, I’ll be the bearded lady.

4:23 The sugar and caffeine just left my body. Like water going down a drain. Suddenly, this isn’t so funny anymore. I’m tired.

4:24 The New York Times just emailed me tomorrow’s headlines. That’s …. oy.

I gave up and went to sleep at 4:45. I woke up at 8, went to class, and finished both the paper and a big sandwich by 11:30.

I would like to go to sleep now.

And in case anyone’s interested, the topic of my paper was, “Does the Web increase the potential for ethical and/or legal quagmires in journalism?”

The answer: Probably, but I do know without a doubt that the Web most definitely increases the potential for procrastination and emotional quagmires in journalism students.