note to self: when i become a principal of a school, or MC of a graduation, i will not have a keynote speaker. nobody is coming out to be inspired. this isn't a tea or a dinner. the only thing the parents want to do is watch their daughter trip across the stage to receive a diploma, which really isn't a diploma, but a rolled up piece of paper. and the five parents whose daughters are speaking want to see their daughters speak, praying they won't mess up. they're the only ones who are listening to the speeches. it's not as if the girl actually wrote her own speech anyway. they may have practiced it over and over until they know it by heart, but it's still their dad's speech, with maybe a little help from the older brother, or even the mother, if she remembers how to use her hebrew sefer skills. the school i attended for my elementary years started a new thing a few years go, called a cantata. i would very much love to sit down with the principals and know exactly what they were thinking when they implemented it. each girl had two lines to say, set to Casio music. no that wasn't the entertainment tonight. the fun part was watching the girls who'd snuck their cellphones onto the stage with them, try to text their family members without being seen.

graduations.

what a waste of everyone's time.

it is literally impossible to drive at 20 mph.



i was driving in westchester, and i was passing through a school zone where the speed limit is 20 mph. maybe i'm disillusioned, but i doubt they're worried about the safety of those little mamroneck-ers. no it's just a speed trap to nab unsuspecting motorists as they zoom off the hutchinson parkway or 95 south. i did my best to slow down, but i found myself driving at 10 mph. this thoroughly infuriated the camry behind me, and he proceeded to tell me with his horn how disgusted he was. so i sped up. and my car jumped to 30. and cruise control doesn't even work that low.

another thing about westchester:the malls are really nice (read:way too pricey for a poor college student) but it seemed to me that they spent so much money on the bronze horses standing in fountain, and the statue of the little girl in front of the coach store (if you ask me, she looked terrified. maybe it was meant as a warning to children to hold on to their mommys' hands. or maybe she was daunted by the crazy prices for a handbag) so there was nothing left to use in bathroom, which is why they have one restroom in a four floor mall, which looked and smelled like a gas station bathroom

jury duty

what is it about jury duty that has adults groaning and whining like children?

my sister recently got jury duty and she's looking at it as an experience, because she never did it before. but everyone who hears that she has it, tells her they feel bad for her.

my cousin told her to act really prejudiced against the people involved in the case.

my aunt told her to ask a million questions so they'll get annoyed.

my friend told her to explain to them that she'll lose alot of money if she doesn't go to work.

what my sister's decided is that most adults don't like jury duty because they'd rather be at work making money. it's true that if i went i would lose a day of work, but for me it would be worth it. i guess i have this romantic notion of jury duty from watching 12 Angry Men. i watched that movie in seventh or eighth grade, and then because i liked it so much, i watched it twice more. maybe i have visions of myself spilling out the traumas of my childhood (Even though i don't really have any) to everyone, and getting to sob "not guilty!" maybe i want to flick cough drops off an old man's head. maybe i want to be the one to decide that a young boy didn't kill his father, but was really at the movies-like i said, i have a romantic idea of jury duty.

either way, i put it under the category of "First Timers" like the first time i drove on the highway. my first day at my first job. my first day of college. the first time i vote. things that get taken for granted, even become mundane, but as a first, their almost like inductions into the adult world.

and besides, life is only mundane when you let it be.

"i'm really sorry, and i'll have the money to you by the end of the week"

i hang up the phone, shaking my head. his excuses would be alot more believable if he'd returned my calls at all this past week. i left over seven messages on his cellphone, which, from working for him, i know he always has with him. I've been reduced to almost, but not quite stalking him, and only calling him at home after ten thirty, will get him to answer the phone.

everyone tells me i was stupid to continue working after the bounced check. and now i see that i was. and i should have realized that the money would be very delayed in coming. but i didn't know that five months later, he would still owe me eight hundred dollars, after paying three hundred of it only two weeks ago.

he says he wish he can pay me soon...but if he really cared, he'd work out some sort of payment plan...fifty dollars a month would have gotten him more paid up at this point than he is now...and how am i supposed to know that he cares when he doesn't bother returning my phone calls?

I'm sorry that my first office job had to be such a lousy experience. that i waited before accepting another one, scared that I'd be burned again. that i had to make quite clear terms with my current boss about being paid on time, when he, puzzled, answered that he'd never dream of holding payment. that I'm so happy to get my paycheck now without a hassle.

I'm trying to see it from his side, but he's making it exceedingly difficult. and highly embarrassing when i meet his wife at the store buying potting soil for the garden. she apologizes and explains that, "sometimes for shalom bayis you gotta know when to back down" i wish i can explain to her that I'm sick of apologies. i don't care if it's causing issues. i just want to be paid, and then i don't want to have anything to do with him, his wife, or his organization again.