Interesting Advertising

This morning on the bus, I noticed this ad on a huge billboard:



Now, I know this ad is for Abercrombie and Fitch, because I can kind of read the name of the company behind the almost naked guy. But if I wasn't already familiar with the company, I don't know if I would have any idea who it was for, and that they were trying to sell clothing, considering the fact that the model in question is wearing almost none.

So I have to wonder about the wisdom of Abercrombie's marketing department - nowhere on the ad does it actually say the whole name of the company or what they are selling. If I wasn't fairly knowledgable, I would think the ad was for a gym or tanning salon. I would think the point of advertising for a clothing store to be marketing the clothing they sell. But that's just me.

First Time for Everything

In my office, the females often engage in discussion about grooming rituals (to those with a Y chromosone, that means hair, waxing, manicures, make-up, etc.). Most of the time, the men in the office steer clear of such discussions. But this morning, for the first time ever, my favorite co-worker complimented on my eyebrows. I mean, I DO have nice eyebrows (of course), but I never expected a guy to notice! It's been an interesting morning already.

Excitement

I was trying to get myself to sleep extremely early to make up for the last few nights of insomnia I've been having, when I noticed flashing lights outside my apartment window. On being a busy-body, I discovered that two police vehicles, shortly joined by a third, were sitting across the street with their lights flashing. My roommate wasn't as lazy as me - she got dressed so she could go outside and find out what was going on. Apparently, on my quiet little street, there was some kind of domestic violence incident (according to the rumor that's being quickly spread like wildfire down the block). Wow, even with a bar at the end of the block, it hasn't been that exciting around here in the year since I've lived here.

School's Out for Summer!

I have Alice Cooper's "School's Out for Summer" ringing in my head this morning. Finished up my class last night, and feel quite free and cheerful at the moment. Two whole months with no assignments or papers or presentations - it's a good feeling after these last few crazy weeks. Now I just have to make sure I don't get bored...

Alabama: The Place to Live

Once again, "take that New Yorkers!" (that's for Ezzie) - Two Alabama cities were named at the top of the salary value index as the cities to live in - both Huntsville (home to NASA) and my hometown, Birmingham.

Check it out:

Salary Center's Places to Live

(Please also note New York at the bottom of the list.)

Disclaimer - I do apologize to you NYers who are convinced it's a great place, I am sure it has a very redeeming qualities. I just haven't really been able to appreciate them yet.

Mezuzahs

Our new owner, who is Jewish, but not frum, just mentioned to me and our other Jewish employee, that he would like to have mezuzahs for all the doors in our office. Our former owner, who is also Jewish, never bothered, probably never thought about it. I think it's really cool.

Gilad Shalit

I'm horrified by the kidnapping of one IDF soldier and the murder of two others yesterday - I can't even put words together to express my feelings on the matter, and I'm in tears just reading about it. However, Jameel and Ezzie do excellent jobs. Please read these posts, and say lots of prayers.

(Almost) Done

I wrote my entire paper yesterday. I just need to go back over it and make sure there are no glaring grammatical errors. I was telling a friend that I wrote the whole thing yesterday and she told me how impressed she was that I managed to do it. I explained to her that I didn't necessarily see my extreme procrastination as impressive; I actually would rather be able to motivate myself to start assignments earlier than the day before they are due, but I just seem to be unable to. One of these days, I'm going to get bitten. And then, I will probably start working on my assignments earlier. Until then, I'll probably continue procrastinating.

Life, Religion and my Brother

I had a conversation with my brother yesterday about life, religion and meaning. He's really been taking stock in his life and trying to figure out what he can do to improve it. I was kinda touched by the fact that he turned to me to discuss this stuff. He said that he saw that I had changed my life for a reason and he wanted to know what it was. He's really thinking about stuff, which isn't easy, and it made me happy that he felt that I was someone from whom he wanted input. My brothers sure are growing up. It's one of those bittersweet parts of life.

Tribute to a Friend

I have a friend who I really love. I haven't known her for that long, I only met her about two years ago, but in the time I have lived in New Jersey, she had been so incredibly amazing to me that I can't even express it. She has opened her friendship, her family and her heart to me. She has seen me in good times and in really bad ones. Whenever I needed an escape or just to whine to someone, she was there. But besides her caring and incredible friendship, she is also one of the most non-judgemental people I have ever met in my life. She is one of the few people who I know will accept me for who I am, no matter what. She's going away for six weeks, and while I think it's awesome that she's getting away, I'm going to miss her dearly.

Negativity

I wonder sometimes if a negative (or positive) view of life is due to experiences or innate tendencies. Because sometimes you see people who have gone through so many difficult times and they have such amazingly positve outlooks. And there are people who don't seem to have gone through so much who view everything extremely negatively. Though there is the factor that you can't possibly know what another person has gone through. But I do wonder if some are just more predisposed to view things with a negative light than others.

Happy, Happy

I really like making people happy. My co-worker whose birthday it is (and who I brought in balloons and doughnuts for) thanked me and told me that he had a really good birthday and it was very much due to the way in which the day started :)

Conversely, I really don't like it when I make people not so happy, and I don't know what I did.

Happy Birthday!

It is the anniversary of the birth of both my baby brother (who's not such a baby - he's 19!) and one of my favorite co-workers. I attempted to send my brother a great present, but it was backordered, and didn't quite make it. So I sent him an e-card, and will probably call him later. For my co-worker, I picked up some sugary treats and balloons on the way to work. As I was walking to my office, a couple people stopped me and wished me Happy Birthday! It was nice to know that even in New York, people can be sweet.

Wal-Mart Employees' Shul

I know people have been blogging about it for days, but I just read this article in the New York Times about the Wal-Mart employees in Arkansas who built their own shul in a Bible Belt small town. Reading it, I felt like I was reading about my own family, from the Chanukah presentations in school to the Jesus comments.

What I found to be one of the most interesting lines in the article -

"You have to try harder to be Jewish down here."

I think that was my experience growing up - my parents made and effort to make sure that we knew we were Jewish, because it wasn't a commodity that everyone related to. I think my Jewish identity is stronger for it, even though it wasn't always easy being different. I hope that the Jews in Bentonville, Arkansas can appreciate the strength they derive from their situation as well.

Sparkly

In an effort to put off even further the research for my paper that is due in a few days (and which I haven't started writing), I decided that my fingernails needed to be polished. Since I did purple last week (to varied reactions), I decided I wanted something different today. In searching through my colors, I rediscovered my glitter nail polish - yay! So much fun. So now I have sparkly nails. I'm a big fan of glitter (and am in search of glitter eye liner that a friend introduced me to - if you know where I can find it, let me know).

Stupid School

I think my school hates me. Okay, maybe not just me, but their students in general. I hhad heard a rumor that class times were going to be altered - instead of starting at 4, and being done by 8:15, they were going to adjust it so that classes would start at 5 and be finished at 9:15. But I had been hoping that it was a groundless rumor and that there was no substance to it.

I just looked up my fall schedule online and apparently, it was no rumor. My classes are now scheduled for 2 nights a week, until 9:15 at night. Which doesn't mean I get home at 9:15, it means I get out of class at 9:15 and then have at least a 45-minute commute home. I can try to change my schedule so that I'll only be there so late one night a week, and I might do it, because I'm so exhausted right now I'm a basket case, I can't imagine having that schedule for an entire 4 months.

But what is my school thinking? Doesn't it know that students need their sleep? That it's really hard to focus in class that late at night? Ugh.

The Ocean

I spent Shabbos and Sunday morning in Lakewood, with my wonderful friend and her family. I hadn't been there in quite a while, so it was nice to retreat and take a break. Saturday night we went to the Jersey shore and walked on the boardwalk for a while. We then sat on the sand watched the waves roll in just a few feet in front of us. It was beautiful, and I was mesmerized by the water, the waves ambling in and out along the shore. I could have sat there all night watching the water, except it was really cold. But for the time that we did relax there, I felt my stress floating away, and I just enjoyed the breeze and calm.

Yummmm....Good Shabbos!

Baking cookies at 6 in the morning - what a nice smell for my roommate to wake up to. Again, making the most of my time. It's amazing I can still remember the recipe, the way my brain has been lately, but it's Kavod Shabbos Kodesh, so I guess Hashem is on my side for this one. Will be away for the weekend, so blogging might be nonexistent, so have a great Shabbos everyone!

Slacker

I'm been working on a group presentation that is due on Monday. There are three of us in the group. I usually despise working in groups, because there's always at least one person who isn't pulling their weight, whose work you have to do for them. Most of the time I would rather just work on my own, because it's easier. But this time, I've been the slacker. One group member doesn't work and this is her first class, so she has gone incredibly overboard in everything she needs to do. The other group member has a job that she can do school work at, so she has been plugging away with that. And I have not been able to pull myself together to get what I have been assigned done. It will get done when it has to, but I am the slacker this time. And I feel horrible about it. I don't know what's happened to me.

Brain-Dead

I feel like I am brain-dead lately. People keep reminding me of things that have completely passed me by. I keep hearing from friends, "I can't believe you don't remember that." Two more weeks until this class is over - I'm hoping that my brain will start working again after that.

Sharing the Fun

My classmate who I have become friends with gave herself highlights over the weekend. She said I was the inspiration for such a feat. I was happy to see that they turned out well and she said she enjoyed the process.

On a related note (kind of), I think one of the annoying things about being a woman is the maintenance. It's not that you can just get your eyebrows done once and it's over - you have to keep getting them done every couple weeks. And you have to put a little effort into maintaining them between sessions. You have to keep your nails polished on a regular basis. If you put highlights in your hair, you have to continue to touch up the roots. It's a neverending process. Or I guess we could just choose not to do anything. But really, that would be too easy.

Making the Most of Every Moment

The up-side of waking up at 5 AM with absolutely no need to do so? You can have beautifully painted toenails before going to work. At least I use my time wisely.

Little Brother's Planning Skills

When brother initially decided what college he wanted to attend, his criteria was that he wanted to live in a big city. So he chose Florida State University, in Tallahassee, Florida, which, by the way, would be a big city by absolutely no one's standards. So when he told me today that he wants to move to a bigger city, because he enjoys the city life, and that he is considering Portland, Oregon or Memphis, Tennessee, I have two thoughts:

1. - Benjamin Franklin said "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." (This is also attributed to Albert Einstein, so whoever it is, it's someone pretty smart.)

2. - Oy.

Being in Charge

Since our general manager's last day was Friday, when the owner of my office is out, I'm the one in charge now. Me, the youngest person in the office. I'm finding it very odd that people in my office, some of whom are twice my age, are telling me that they want to leave an hour early, and they are trying to justify it to me. I don't care; I trust them to be responsible; they are adults and in addition to being much older than me, have worked for the company longer. I guess I'm not meant to be the boss.

E-mail Advertising

I just received an e-mail advertisement tied in to a popular website that I frequent. At the top of the e-mail it say that I received the ad because I signed up to receive such offers (I am fairly certain this isn't true, because I routinely make sure to uncheck those boxes that ask whether you wish to receive such offers). Additionally, I have, in the past, asked them to stop sending me these offers. The disclaimer at the top concludes with "such and such website never releases your information." Except to those special advertisers, apparently. Yuck, annoying.

No Time

Every day lately feels like ten - there has just been so much to do and not nearly enough time to do it all. When your weekend is just as busy as your week, it's time for vacation. I'm exhausted. Wish me luck getting through this course, once it's over hopefully I'll catch up on my sanity.

Goodbyes

I'm not very good at goodbyes. Our general manager's last day was today; I'm going to miss him, he was always very sweet to me. I bought him some balloons to wish him well, but when it came time for him to leave, I didn't really know what to say.

Hobby

It's looking like I am going to have lots of evenings and hours in July and August to fill. I'm searching for a short-term, non-addictive, preferably artistic hobby. Any idea?

Catholic Kippot?

I had to wade through the graduates at school yesterday in order to get to my class. What I found interesting was that, instead of the customary graduation caps that are normally worn alongside gowns, the men were all wearing blue kippahs. Is this some sort of Catholic custom?

Internet Bans

If you know of good articles about the Monsey and Lakewood Internet ban/asifah, please point me in their direction. I am doing a project for school and I would like to use them in it. Thanks!

Please Daven

My brother is in the hospital, though thank G-d, he should be okay. But please daven for Michah ben Malka. I appreciate your prayers.

UPDATE Tuesday 2:30 PM: My brother will be coming home from the hospital sometime this evening. Please continue to have him in your prayers.

Rose

Someone in my office gave me a pretty pink rose for my desk. She definitely doesn't know about my blog, and I don't even think she knows what my name means. It was a nice thing to sweeten my morning.

Shelo Asani Aved?

Had a wonderful Shavuos, which I am sure I will write more about later. I'm still trying to catch up from my time off work - so just a quick question that I noticed from davening this morning, maybe someone can help me with an answer.

I thought it interesting that in the brochos we recite each morning, we thank Hashem "shelo asani aved" - for not being a slave. But we call ourselves "eved Hashem" - servants of Hashem. As far as I can tell, the Hebrew of the two words is from the same root (though admittedly, my Hebrew is weak, so maybe I am wrong).

I just thought it was odd that we would thank Hashem for something that we proudly proclaim ourselves as. I knwo it's meant to thank Him that we aren't slaves to other humans, but still, we are in another sense. And would we say tha same brocho is we were returned to our Egypt-status?

So Pretty

My boss was going through some boxes that had been sitting around since our move yesterday. In it, she found a string of white Christmas lights (or Sukkah lights, to some). She asked me if I wanted them. I decided to string them around my cubicle so that I know have little white lights all along the edges. It brightens up my whole area, and is so fun and pretty. I really like them.

Eye-Opening

We did an exercise in class last night that is designed to get to know someone on a cultural level in a fairly short period of time. It was really interesting. I was paired with a girl in my class who is Catholic. She is one of twelve children. She said that a lot of the pressures of the Orthodox Jewish community are also present in her Catholic community. What really fascinated me was when she told me that one of her sisters recently joined a convent. Wow! I had no idea that people still did that. We could have talked for hours, but our time ran out shortly.