i was only reminded that today was Rosh Chodesh when girls from my old high school asked me to "babysit" them while they decorated the school last night. i was going to spend the whole night doing homework anyway, so i dragged my computer and five million textbooks to the office and sat there writing a paper. i thought about Adar, and how important it was for us to play pranks on people (mainly our teachers) on Rosh Chodesh Adar. and then i thought about the last prank i pulled.

it was in seminary.

my friend came to me with a brilliant idea; steal everyone's shoes. every single shoe. belonging to 150 girls. many of whom were classic Brooklyn japs. so at 3 am, we systematically went through every room, in every apartment, in both dorm buildings, and collected every shoe we could find. a few rooms locked their doors at night. and some girls woke up and demanded their shoes back. but for the most part we were able to collect about 98% of all the shoes. we loaded them into wheelbarrows and wheeled them across the campus to our school building where we laid every shoe out on the ground. there were over 900 pairs. the sun was rising by the time we finished. and we smelled so bad. i could practically see the fumes rising from the shoes.

in the meantime, there was pandemonium in the dorms.

my friend woke up and attempted to slide into her slippers, and her feet touched the freezing stone floor, which confused her so much that she stumbled into her netilas yadayim bowl of freezing water, which caused her to shriek and wake up her roommate, who woke up with a start and banged her head. although the reactions in the other room weren't as drastic, people were very confused as to where all the shoes had gone.

until someone noticed that all the members of my class were missing from the dorm.

some girls laughed and applauded our prank.
some girls rolled over in bed and pulled the covers back over their heads.
and some girls got really, really mad.
they came storming up over the hill, wearing fuzzy rabbit slippers, mismatched sneakers, and some wearing no shoes at all.
and there were all their shoes. lying out in all their footful glory.
(ironically enough, my roommate and i who were in the same class, forgot to take all of our third roommate's shoes, leaving her with a pair to wear)
the madrichot thought this was a great prank and refused to listen to anyone who complained.

but the problem came when we left the building to go eat breakfast. while we'd had our first class, the Arab workers had done sponja, and now the shoes were soaked. including one 500 dollar pair of shoes. the owner of that wasn't too happy. and alot of girls swore never to speak to us again. so needless to say we were a little ostracized that day. so we kinda kept to ourselves until it all blew over.

and when i got back to my apartment, my closet was empty. my apartment-mates had taken all of my clothing and hid it. every last shirt. so we were all even.

and then the next day we got to our classroom to find that it was totally empty. some girls had snuck into the building the night before and set up our entire classroom on the roof. so we learned on the roof that day.

it was the best Rosh Chodesh Adar ever.

yesterday i made record time. i was at a vort for three minutes.



as i mentioned previously, sister1's best friend got engaged last week, and my mother insisted that i go to the vort. so i put on a coat, applied makeup, and let down my hair. i walked in, found the kallah and her mom, said mazal tov, acknowledged family members who present, and walked home. it was a total waste, because the only people who even noticed me at the vort were my parent's, sister1, her best friend, and her friend's mom. as if they haven't seen me with curly hair or no makeup. but my mom insisted that i "had to be seen" i hate that expression. it's right up there on the list with "on the market" makes me feel like a slab of meat. I'm getting auctioned off to the highest bidder. maybe we should all get on a platform and prospective mothers-in-law can come inspect us and check out our teeth. or watch us perform demonstrations of dish washing, bed making, diaper-changing and house-cleaning.

but i can't complain. because then it might imply that G-d forbid i don't want to get married.

but then again, anyone who hears me say this and mistakes my tongue-in-cheek for complaining, probably doesn't have a very good sense of humor, and chances are, i don't want to marry any offspring of theirs anyway.

today's my bloggiversary.

I've been blogging for a year.

if there's anyone out there who's been reading my blog for a year, thanks for showing an interest in my writing.

has my writing improved? i doubt it, because i blog more as a creative outlet than to actually work on my writings, but you never know.

but I'm glad to have this outlet, and thanks to Bad4 (who probably has no clue that my blog exists) cuz i read her blog which lead me to make the decision to start my own.

my first real post (it was about cellphones) was actually posted on the 20th but i set up my blog and posted a warning post as a way of introduction on the 19th

back to stupid people (here's my original post on stupid people)

so you know how teachers tell you that they welcome all questions? that's not true
and you know how they say there's no such thing as a stupid question? that's not true either

ever ask a question that wasn't so smart? I've gotten yelled at for asking questions. and the real reason they tell you to ask away, is because they're hoping you will ask them something stupid so they have something to laugh about in the staffroom. or so they can provide their children with bedtime stories. or maybe it will show up on their blogs.

but one thing they say is truthful-if you have a specific question, chances are, there are other people in the class who have the same question you do. that is true. and when someone asks a stupid question, half the class lets out a sigh of relief, because that very same question was plaguing them too, but they were too embarrassed to ask it.

so we were learning about documentation and admitting patients to care. it's very important to make sure you can get a medical record from paperwork or someone who came in with the patient. a guy raised his hand and asked,

"what if the patient has no papers?"

the teacher smiled condescendingly and answered

"everyone comes from somewhere. so you ask the relative who brought him in. or you request the paperwork from the transferring facility"

"but what if the patient came in off the street and has no papers?"

"that doesn't happen!"

at this point the instructor was getting a little annoyed. but i was behind the student. until he said:

"but that always happens on TV"

duh.

that's why it's TV. because people want to escape from reality.

i know that a lot of people were thinking along those lines. but he was the only one who actually verbalized it.

they walk among us.

yikes.

I'm a human being, but there are those of my kind who i cannot understand.

i wonder if there are other species that have such a complex and diverse range. I'm guessing not.

I'm taking my lecture classes with a neighbor and old friend of mine. i say old friend because we were sort of friends, even though we were in different high schools, and then i didn't see her for almost two years because she went to seminary the year after me. but now we've become friends again, especially since we're going to school together.

it's kind of nice to take classes with someone frum, but I'm hoping we don't get sick of each other before we graduate (something that is very likely to happen, because we don't mold together so well) sister1 went through high school and college with her best friend, and they took almost all their classes together. but their friendship was much stronger than mine and neighbor1's friendship.

we were talking about our schedules and how much time we put in, and i told her that i spent all morning in the school library, studying and doing homework. she reacted in a funny way. she got almost annoyed at me, and told me that she has less free time than me because she's taking three more classes than i was. i was a little surprised. i guess she felt threatened than i was putting in more work? i validated her feelings and admitted that yes, she did have the heavier workload of the two of us. and i guess i won't bring that topic up again.

but i still understand what bothered her.

so tonight's big adventure was my attempt at dancing on a DDR.

i happen to love those things, but I'm really bad. like two-left-feet-knocks-over-everything-in-the-vicinity bad. in high school they practically didn't even let me into the room to try out for dance. maybe they thought i was bad luck, or would break something (or someone) which is ironic, because my friend actually got struck in the nose by the dance head as she was showing some moves, and to this day, my friend still has issues with her nose. she had to get it cauterized or something. she used to get random nosebleeds all the time. something that was both annoyingly inconvenient and highly embarrassing.

but it's mainly been my self-projected image of bad dancing that's kept me from hopping around on DDR's in arcades. although when i was in Detroit and in no danger of anyone seeing me i got my dancing kick.

but tonight my friend convinced me to play with her. mercifully, the lights were out, so no one was able to see me. she set it to "workout mode" which i totally don't get, because even in beginner mode i was totally getting a workout.

but it was fun.

why?

why is there pain?
why do some people have (what seems to be) bad luck?
why are there people who just can't seem to find happiness, no matter how hard they try?
why does "bad" consistently happen to "good" people?
why is there pain?

i know there's a plan for everyone, and a reason for everything, and G-d sure knows what He's doing, but it doesn't make it any easier. deaths, miscarriages, poverty, illness, there's always someone who's down on their luck. there's always someone worse off than myself. it makes me count my blessings when i hear of other peoples' misfortunes. so i didn't get the classes i wanted. so i spent a whole weekend doing homework instead of catching up with a friend, or reading a book i wanted to read. all that pales in comparison to real misery. and i can't complain because i am lucky enough to walk down a road with only minor bumps and cracks, and not gaping potholes.

i am truly blessed.