st. pete

Once some photocopies are made and some financial forms are filled out, my application to study abroad in St. Petersburg next semester will be complete. Then comes the interview, and then the real stuff - visa application, plane ticket, host family assignment, etc. It's getting closer to reality, and it feels weird. In a few months I'll be half-way around the world. But I'm looking forward to it.

Summer plans are still very much up in the air. Any ideas for me?

Life moves on as usual. It's moving fast enough to keep me from the blogging world. But it doesn't much miss me, I don't think, so it's all good.

And the requisite photo. The roomies keep things interesting, as always:

see?

Apparently I haven't always disliked animals:

five hours to go

I'm on the RUF leadership team and we are reading a book called Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster. Some of the disciplines we've read about include, fasting, prayer, meditation, study, etc. This week we are reading about simplicity and solitude/silence. Along with reading chapters of the book we are assigned projects. This time we are to go 24 hours without speaking, as an experiment.

I'm doing this now. I started at 7:16 pm last night, so I have less than five hours left. And it's been interesting. Some thoughts:

- from the book: "It is easier to be silent altogether than to speak with moderation." - Thomas a Kempis

- being silent makes me do other things more loudly - popping gum bubbles, washing dishes, etc. I feel the need to make some sort of noise.

- this feels really artificial. Last night Amanda and I were both at home. And it's not like we would be talking the whole time, but there is the normal periodic back-and-forth that is natural from being around another person. This was almost completely eliminated. And it felt so fake. I'm just choosing not to talk, for no real reason, and it really stunts our interactions.

- I retreated to non-verbal forms of communication. I sent a whole lot of emails and facebook messages in just a few hours last night. It was like I could still be my real self, though online, since I can't be myself in person

- Julie and Carolyn and I went out for lunch and they had to order for me. I felt a little stupid.

- This makes me realize how much of what I say is useless. And how much of it I say only as a societal necessity - responding to what people say just so they don't think I'm ignoring them, etc. I could cut down my words by a lot and not lose anything.

You should try it some time. Other experiments I want to do are speaking only in Russian, and choosing some words to completely eliminate from my speech for a day in order to make my speech more efficient.

What's in a Name?

by Chuck Jackson

The discussion of surnames and how a person's occupation, trade, or profession may have played an important role in developing certain surnames continues. Please keep in mind that some surnames were adopted due to the sound, the secondary meaning, or for other purposes, and the family may not have ever performed the occupation defined by the surname.

SCHUPACK: A dealer in fish, from the Russian for pickerel. Also appears as Schupakevitch. In Polish, the word Szupak means sandpaper and indicates a cabinet maker.

[from the Jewish Geneological Society of St. Louis]

from Russia with love

My Russian history prof brought our class valentines yesterday. That is, Russian candies. Like, from Russia. She orders them from this website called "Russian Table." So of course I had to check it out. Under "bulk chocolates" I found what I was looking for.

And it's all the same stuff I grew up eating, I think. At least it looks like it. They ship it by the pound. But. The best part about this nifty little site is the names and descriptions of the chocolates. Some of my favorites:

- the "Korovka", which happens to mean "Cow", is described as "Not glazed sweets of the oblong rectangular form. Will consist of a dairy toffee with the become candied crust."

YUM.

- "Stolichnye" candies, translated as "Metropolitan," are "Chocolate sweets with the combined stuffings: a delightful combination of dairy lipstick and liqueur stuffings. " I don't know about you, but my mouth is watering.

- Morskiye, "Candy with fudge body covered with chocolate glaze." I'd like to know what a fudge body looks like...

- and the winner for most appealing name: Sugar free green apple flavor chocolates "Good advice"

You know, maybe instead of ordering candy I should just send them an application to be a translator....?

just a haircut

My parents had decided that it was time for Isaac to get a haircut. You know, at some point they would do it or take him to get it done.

My mom goes out shopping and my dad decides to take matters into his own hands. He doesn't know where the haircutting scissors are. Calling my mom to ask will mean she knows what's happening, and will do her best to prevent it. So he pulls out regular scissors. And...goes to town.


They later tried to fix it a little with a razor, but my mom said the result was "nearly bald with scabirous blotches all over--a general mottled appearance." She also said that she actually cried when she saw poor Isaac. wow. That's pretty bad.

When they told me about this on the phone, my dad was laughing semi-hysterically and my mom had sort of a tolerant I-can't-believe-this-is-happening-but-there's-nothing-I-can-do-about
-it-now tone of voice. Oh dear. It's awfully funny, but my sad little brother looks like a chemo patient or brain surgery victim. Not to be insensitive, but that's what he looks like.

this is what i'm reading

"The House on Garibaldi Street" by Isser Harel. It's for one of my classes, called Regime Change and Covert Action. So I just got this book in the mail today and it looked so good I started it tonight. Plus I didn't want to do my other homework...

But what got me interested was the dust jacket summary:

"I have to announce in the Knesset that a short time ago one of the greatest Nazi criminals was found by the Israeli Security Services: Adolf Eichmann, who was responsible, together with the Nazi leaders, for what they called the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Problem' - that is, the extermination of six million Jews of Europe. Adolf Eichmann is already under arrest in Israel, and he will shortly be brought to trial in Israel under the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators [Punishment]Law of 1950."

On May 23, 1960, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion electrified the world with this simple pronouncement. Yet even in the ensuing drama of Eichmann's trial with its attendant worldwide publicity, some vitally important questions remained unanswered: How had the Israelis "found" this former Nazi leader, who had vanished so completely that many people presumed him dead? Who was involved in the successful capture of a man who had vowed to commit suicide if he was ever apprehended? How had they accomplished their mission?

For fifteen years the true story behind the spectacular headlines remained shrouded in secrecy. Now the official silence is broken: Isser Harel, the man who directed every step of Operation Eichmann, reveals a complete account of that historic manhunt and arrest. Each development in the quest for justice is meticulously reconstructed, from the first tentative identification of Eichmann (made by a blind man) to the final nerve-searing flight from Buenos Aires to Israel.

...

In 1945 Adolf Eichmann boasted, "I will leap into my grave laughing because the feeling that I have 5,000,000 human beings on my conscience is for me a source of extraordinary satisfaction." Fifteen years later he stood in a courtroom in Jerusalem, brought to justice by some of the very people who had so narrowly avoided adding to his satisfaction. The House on Garibaldi Street is a complete record of that extraordinary mission and an inspiring portrait of the men and women who accomplished it.

Isser Harel served as Chief Executive of the Secret Services of Israel from 1952 to 1963, supervising internal security as well as intelligence activities abroad. He remembers with bitter clarity that fateful evening when he received the first slim clue to Eichmann's whereabouts: "That night I resolved that if Eichmann were alive, come hell or high water he'd be caught."

a two-post day

I like making food.


I didn't make this, though. It grows naturally. Apricot tea:


strawberry peach smoothie:


rice made by my Christmas present:


curry:


it's called carrot soda bread:

i voted

in the Super Tuesday primaries. I exercised my right, privilege and sacred duty as an American citizen. Though I'm not telling who I voted for. I will say that it was not for a woman or African-American man. That's right. Alan Keyes did not get my vote. I was a little surprised to see Keyes on the ballot. Granted, some candidates who have already dropped out were still on the ballot, but I didn't even know Keyes was running. But I'm not voting for him! I seem to remember trying to persuade my dad to vote for him in the 1996 primaries. I don't know if he did. But that was one Schupack endorsement, and what did he do with it? Nothing. Never again am I supporting Alan Keyes for president.

in other news, OU is felling trees like there's no tomorrow. Or no firewood. Or something. It's really sad to see tons of stumps around. And then I spotted some trees on deathrow. They had the pink paint spot of doom. It doesn't seem right that they have to get the death penalty just for losing a few branches in the ice storm. But I guess the landscape people must know what they're doing with the $1.7 million OU is using on ice-storm recovery....?