Freshmen on Campus
Sep. 28th, 2012 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanarillThings that have Happened:
1. Yom Kippur
2. Fall term started
3. WoW, Panda-version, is out
Of these, fall term is by far the most me-affecting. Buuuut, since we are going in chronological order of affecting me, we will start with Yom Kippur, also known as "that one Jewish holy day where nobody eats anything."
Actually, there is a trick. The trick is that the day before, you aim to drink about four gallons of water. Then, just before candle-lighting time, you eat meat. Don't go for lean cuts, either - you want your lymph system to be full of difficult-to-absorb fats. They make you feel full, for a long time. And, oh yeah, drink more water. You will have to pee a lot, but all that water slows food absorption even more. Basically, you knock out hours one through eighteen of your fast if you do this right. You only get really distractingly hungry in the last two or so.
So! Then I went off to Kol Nidre, which is both the name of the first prayer and the name of the first service. It is actually a legal statement that any promises that are made between this Yom Kippur and the next one are null and void. This was instituted during the Spanish Inquisition, because Jews might be forced to make vows which they had no intention of keeping, and this was a way of assuaging hurt consciences. Of course, it has no modern legal meaning. But it is Tradition.
Actual Yom Kippur, was not bad. I went to Chabad house, where the have a guy in the background reading the prayers so quickly you can't pick out individual words. In the foreground, we were praying interspersed with Torah discussion and anecdotes of wisdom. At no point was there any of the moaning, groaning, drawn-out long chanting known as Chazzanut. And that made me happy.
So then there was Ne'ila, the closing ceremony, during which you stand. If your cantor is doing chazzanut, this is physically painful and takes two hours. If he's not, as I found, this takes forty minutes from beginning to end, including the standard Ma'ariv prayers (which take five minutes anyway). Then, boom, Shofar blast and Rachel brought out the break fast. Not like the first meal of the day, but rather food you use to end a fast. Because we are Jewish, this was bagels.
That was Yom Kippur.
On Thursday, classes started. Now my bike paths are full of people who don't know how to ride a bike. Also, I will be TAing again, but I did this class last year as well so it should be a bit easier :D
Still. Undergrads.
Finally, JJ has begun to play a Panda. He will not shut up about it. It led to the following conversation:
JJ: So then he paired us up and send three mini-bosses that we had to beat.
Me: . . . were they hard?
JJ: No. With that many pandas running around, it was easy.
Me: You just said that. With that many pandas running around, it was easy.
JJ: :P
I love my awesome family.
Also,everbright come back! I did not mean to drive you away!
1. Yom Kippur
2. Fall term started
3. WoW, Panda-version, is out
Of these, fall term is by far the most me-affecting. Buuuut, since we are going in chronological order of affecting me, we will start with Yom Kippur, also known as "that one Jewish holy day where nobody eats anything."
Actually, there is a trick. The trick is that the day before, you aim to drink about four gallons of water. Then, just before candle-lighting time, you eat meat. Don't go for lean cuts, either - you want your lymph system to be full of difficult-to-absorb fats. They make you feel full, for a long time. And, oh yeah, drink more water. You will have to pee a lot, but all that water slows food absorption even more. Basically, you knock out hours one through eighteen of your fast if you do this right. You only get really distractingly hungry in the last two or so.
So! Then I went off to Kol Nidre, which is both the name of the first prayer and the name of the first service. It is actually a legal statement that any promises that are made between this Yom Kippur and the next one are null and void. This was instituted during the Spanish Inquisition, because Jews might be forced to make vows which they had no intention of keeping, and this was a way of assuaging hurt consciences. Of course, it has no modern legal meaning. But it is Tradition.
Actual Yom Kippur, was not bad. I went to Chabad house, where the have a guy in the background reading the prayers so quickly you can't pick out individual words. In the foreground, we were praying interspersed with Torah discussion and anecdotes of wisdom. At no point was there any of the moaning, groaning, drawn-out long chanting known as Chazzanut. And that made me happy.
So then there was Ne'ila, the closing ceremony, during which you stand. If your cantor is doing chazzanut, this is physically painful and takes two hours. If he's not, as I found, this takes forty minutes from beginning to end, including the standard Ma'ariv prayers (which take five minutes anyway). Then, boom, Shofar blast and Rachel brought out the break fast. Not like the first meal of the day, but rather food you use to end a fast. Because we are Jewish, this was bagels.
That was Yom Kippur.
On Thursday, classes started. Now my bike paths are full of people who don't know how to ride a bike. Also, I will be TAing again, but I did this class last year as well so it should be a bit easier :D
Still. Undergrads.
Finally, JJ has begun to play a Panda. He will not shut up about it. It led to the following conversation:
JJ: So then he paired us up and send three mini-bosses that we had to beat.
Me: . . . were they hard?
JJ: No. With that many pandas running around, it was easy.
Me: You just said that. With that many pandas running around, it was easy.
JJ: :P
I love my awesome family.
Also,
everbright come back! I did not mean to drive you away!
no subject
Date: 2012-09-29 07:05 pm (UTC)The Yom Kippur trick is pretty cool! I bet that's how people get through Ramadan too, without wanting to stab everybody because of low blood sugar. Yay for no chazzanut since it makes you grumpy (and is probably not great for the elderly in the room.) Do lots of temples do it, is it a more conservative thing?
D: About the bike path newbs you've got to deal with them at least every fall. I'm reminded of how Usenet used to get a surge of newbs in the fall when universities would issue new pass codes to all the students and they would flood the boards with mistakes. I just learned about this, it was a little shock to remember that it was only 20 years ago we all didn't have automatic access to the internet (and I lived through it!)
PANDAS. Well, I'm glad the WOW fans are happy with it, but from the outside it looks like a clear sign Blizzard has lost their collective mind.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-01 09:56 pm (UTC)I am not sure how well it translated. Yom Kippur is one day; Ramadan is a whole month when you cannot eat from sunrise to sunset. I mean, I am pretty sure high-calorie foods help with that, but after the first week or so I'd be willing to tear someone else's head off!
Ehh. I'm pretty sure there's no good reason not to have pandas as playable characters. I just want a commitment from Blizz that for each panda-character generated, they'll give 5c to the WWF. The money will build up fast.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-02 01:16 am (UTC)Blizzard made noises about donating to the WWF? I never heard about this.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-02 05:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-02 06:08 am (UTC)