Cold White Snow

Last semester in my religion class I found it funny that every time (rather, I should say, almost every time), when a religious group felt they had deviated from the true intent of their Scriptures or their beliefs, they would start a new religion and from there build a new way of interpreting their faith.

It made me think of when the autumn comes and I remember how life used to be, how I was a playful yet shy little boy who defined my life in terms of how full my Pokedex was and whether or not I had caught the last episode of Digimon. I miss those days–not for their content, but for their simplicity. There were no such things as deadlines. There were small vocabularies. Complex numbers were still just imaginary.

So I did what I always did, in those moments before class began, or before it ended, or before my teacher next spoke: I wrote.

Word Weary

I can’t recall a semester when I’ve been this exhausted at the end of the second week. Not when I had my first math class that was, for all intents and purposes, over my head. Not when I had fifteen credit hours plus work and family and student involvement. Not when I had physics and calculus and differential equations.

Yes, I came down with a stomach flu this past weekend and I think I’m not back to my full self again, but this is ridiculous. I yawn all day. I can barely focus on being awake. I could roll over asleep at any moment.

The culprit? Reading.

I love reading. I learn best by reading. But with four reading-intensive courses, the reading assignments are mountainous. Not only do I have weekly chapters to read in multiple classes, I also have “short” stories to read, reread, and annotate, stories for workshopping to read and review, and entire mythologies to tackle–and everything has a quiz attached to it. For example, yesterday I read the entire Iliad. Yes, I’ve read it before. But not recently enough to pass the test on it.

In a word, I’m word-weary. How can I read more in less time? How can I read attentively without expending all my mental energy on a single page? How do English majors do it all day long?

I’m open for suggestions.

Silent Night

The semester is over and all through the house, not a word is spoken, not even a shout. No pages are turned, no pencils are moved; no papers frantically ferried to professors behooved. Instead there is silence, a deep blanketing veil, a solemn rest now overcoming those students whispering, “Farewell.”

From their shoulders are lifted great burdensome weights, and tall and mighty now they stand and await. In days’ time, in weeks’ time, they’ll find peace at last; and once more, and once again then, classes will begin at first light. But now, now they rest, all wrapped up in bed, and tired and lonesome, no thoughts in their heads. In silence they slumber, in silence they wake, and through silence, to silence, their futures they make.

Chaos is Order

My intent was to keep a NaNoWriMo journal going.

November first. Tuesday. Busy at school all day. Didn’t write a word till the kick-off party–but we had such a great turn-out, it was awesome. So glad so many people showed up. It really made my day. I got just past two-thousand words. Reaching my daily goal made me happy.

But I missed Tuesday. And then I missed Wednesday. And then I missed Thursday. And then the weekend came and homework followed and I realized I still hadn’t even posted here. At all.

All Things Come to an End

I’m writing this Friday night as I wait to leave for Kol Nidre, the start of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the final moment before the book is closed for another year. It’s fitting then, I suppose, that I should be reading the last teaching from the second book of the Pirkey Avot tonight. Today, when you read this, two gates will close.

2.21 This was a favorite teaching of his:

Your are not obligated to finish the task,
neither are you free to neglect it.
If you have studied much Torah, your reward will be abundant.
Your Employer can be relied upon to reward you for your labors.
Know, however, that the reward of the righteous is in a future time.

Reading this, I find it beautiful and fitting for the evening, for the day. Last week, Rabbi Tarfon spoke about workers and rewards, as he reiterates here, but what shines to me is not the study of Torah, which I have also spoken about on many occasions, or reliable employers, but how this teaching begins, and how this teaching ends.

Destiny and Rebirth

I’d like to begin by saying Shanah tovah to all my readers! This past Wednesday began Rosh HaShanah, the celebration of the Jewish new year and one of the most important holidays in the Jewish year. The ten days following until Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) next Saturday are referred to as the Days of Awe and are a time to seek forgiveness and make amends for the coming year.

Today, however, my focus is still on the Pirkei Avot.

2.20 Rabbi Tarfon taught:

The day is short, the task is great;
the workers indolent, the reward bountiful,
and the Master insistent!

What is this, a piece of poetry? Though I’m apt to adore art, I must wonder what is meant by this, what lesson was intended, what pupils were at his feet when he spoke these words….

Time is Not on Our Side

There’s a strange sequence of events that flourishes with any venture between deadlined tasks. We are harried and rushed for release, then harried and rushed for return. In the midst of this tumult I find myself now, pacing and aching in any number of ways and directions at any given moment. I feel akin to a vector turned into a field, a being capable of but one magnitude and direction in an instant but suddenly forced to move outwards with no aim in sight.

It started simply enough, I told myself. There would be time. So much time.

So I’m Finally Free from Finals…

It’s the summer and I’m ready to go.

Actually, I should be ready to go, but I don’t feel it yet. This past semester was a killer. It started off innocent enough, at least on the surface. My tutoring hours in the math lab were surprisingly simplistic, if slightly busier this time than the start of last semester. Under the surface, however, dark forces were brewing.

An End to the Silence

Time escapes me. I’ve started about half a dozen posts since my last one (please don’t make me admit how long it’s been–quite sadly, I’d be too ashamed to look myself), but I’ve finished none of them. I’ve had weekend events, weekday events, homework to keep up with–and every time the outlook looks good, my teachers announce a test and the cycle begins again.

I strongly wanted to write a post about the Day of Silence, which was Friday the fifteenth. Our GSA got t-shirts to wear, and I didn’t say a word to my friends all day. (Sadly my vow was broken for the period during which I was conducting interviews for the new student ambassadors, but otherwise, I was remarkably silent all day.) And I think I touched a few people. I think I spread my message to a few people that just didn’t know of it beforehand. And it was progress. A first step of a greater change that could come.

But of course, with more tests and more homework than I’ve ever had to fathom before, time ran away with the spoon and the stopwatch leapt over the moon.

A Sojourn of Self and Soul

The Saturday before last was the youth Shabbat at my synagogue. In other words, the majority of the service was led by youth from our congregation, mostly middle- and high-school-aged students, with a few college kids and some of the teachers at our synagogue’s congregational school mixed in. It got me thinking. About a lot of things.

First of course, let me say this: You really feel old when you realize that you remember most of these children when they were a third their current size and had barely a tenth of their present Hebrew-reading skills. On the one hand it was gratifying in that way only known to educators to be able to say I shared a slight moment in their development, a minuscule step in the path that brought them each to leading services Saturday, but on the other hand, it makes me feel tremendously old. It’s like looking down at my own grandchildren: They started so small, and now they’re all grown up.

Worse is that this trail of thinking always evolves further. Soon I was thinking about all the other times I’ve lived through, all those faded fads I supported and all those past professions I’ve participated in. Pokemon, Digimon, Cardcaptor Sakura–some of these names you’ll never know if you’re even a few years younger than me–FernGully, Little Nemo, the Lion King and other classic Disney movies before Pixar (which although fabulous, is not nearly as classic) came around, the Brave Little Toaster, Thomas the Tank Engine, Encyclopedia Brown, Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages–all these things that I grew up on, now most of them, gone. It brings a sudden realization to the fact of how quickly time really changes. We don’t think much of those “when I was your age…” stories that seem so trite, but trust me, children: When I was your age, things really were different. And I’m not that much older than you.

Of course, thinking about growing old always leads to thinking about growing older. The average life-expectancy of a man living in the US is only 76. I’m almost 22. That means more than a fourth of my life–or more precisely, 27.8% of my expected lifetime–has already passed me by. I’m more than a fourth dead by that statistic. And, just as I wonder every time I get on the path of wondering this, where have I gotten in the last decade? What have I done with my life?