Archive for January, 2008
The I Can Excercise
Explanatory quote from AidelMaidel’s blog:
“I think this is a simple and amazing exercise. I am challenging all my readers and the following bloggers to do this exercise and to either a) list it in the comments or b) post it to their own blogs and comment below that you’ve done it. I will update this post with links to everyone’s “I can…” list. The Rules are simple:
You have 15 minutes and 15 minutes only.
- Time yourself.
- No making changes once the list is completed beyond correcting spelling mistakes.
- Be Honest. It’s okay if it’s silly or strange or weird or disconcerting.
- Resist the urge to explain yourself. Wait and see what other people will ask you to explain after they read your list.”
So, here goes
I can:
- Raise three kids while pregnant with the fourth
- Not shout at my husband when I’m angry because I’m pregnant and I’m feeling sorry for myself, but really need to get things done
- Have a baby by the side of the highway–under a tree–because we didn’t get to the hospital in time
- Stress myself out terribly every day, or make the choice not to
- Have good advice for friends who are sad and need cheering up
- Write a blog, even if it’s not the perfect pulled together one
- Cheer myself up
- Make new friends even though I didn’t used to be good at it
- Argue with my husband about fine theological points in Judaism, even though I just got to know about it at all since a year and a half ago when I started researching my religion-of-birth
- Make the kids clean up their mess
- Make the kitchen really clean at least once a week on a regular basis
- Drive a car
- Drive a tractor
- Write a simple html code and some other computery stuff like that
- Put my website on my own domain from blogger all on my own, including installing the wordpress program on a server and and refining it
- Speak both Russian and English fluently, even though I didn’t know a word of Russian till twelve years ago
- Live in both America and Russia and be mistaken for a native in both places
- Keep my children’s enthusiasm up about Judaism (with the help of their schools) even though I know hardly anything myself
- Keep my head in an emergency
- Type 60 wpm
- Work with other people in an office and get along and be respected, after entering the workforce later than most
- Keep my good attitude even though I used to be depressed for years and years
- Be sure of my opinion
- Write this list
- Keep writing this list even though I am feeling silly
- I can be a mom and a worker and a friend and a wife all in the same person, and not go crazy yet
- Sing
- Watch and critique a movie or play in my own head and later be proved right by reading other’s critical analysis
- Exist in a former-communist society
- Shout at the babushka ladies who man the metro in Moscow in the expected manner for those who being harassed by them
- I can keep on going even when things are hard
- I can nurse a kid for almost two years, and then be pregnant, and then again nurse, etc, and not complain or whine
- I can live in very close quarters with a bunch of what one-would-call-unsavory-characters for a year (due to temporary financial difficulties), and still bring my family out unharmed and polite
- Get along with my mom and sister after many betrayals
- I can be brave
- I can learn new things and expect the best
- I can say the beginning of the Shema by heart
- I can stay friends with my new friends and continue to have a good relationship
- I can fold six loads of laundry in one afternoon
- I can drive a stick shift as well as an automatic car or van
- I can not be scared when life gets me down
- I can translate Russian-English-Russian simultaneously
- I can keep a secret
Tags: about me
Zen Jewish Humor
I read this humor on BubbyGram, a site I just discovered:
Marvin was a deeply spiritual man, a seeker of truth. He went to synagogue every week for years, but eventually realized his soul needed more than Judaism could give him. He tried Buddhism, Christianity, a wide assortment of New Age religions, but he still felt spiritually empty.
One day, he heard about a great guru living atop the highest mountain in India who had all the answers. He sold all his worldly possessions, bid goodbye to his friends and family, and headed east. Once on the subcontinent, he learned that the guru would agree to see only one person a year and that person would be allowed to ask only one question. There were many other truth-seekers ahead of Marvin, so he had to wait nearly twenty years to see the great man. During that time, he lived in poverty, at the base of the mountain begging and doing menial tasks. When his turn finally came, he made the perilous journey up the snow-covered mountain, and waited for a week in the freezing cold in front of a cave, until the guru emerged.
“What is your question, my son?” the guru asked.
Marvin had been rehearsing this for years, and said, “Oh, wise one… What is the meaning of life?”
“Life, my son,” said the guru ponderously, “is a deep well.”
Marvin’s jaw dropped open. He could not control his shock and anger. He screamed at the guru, “‘Life is a deep well?’ That’s it? I’ve given up everything I owned, abandoned my friends and family, spent years living in abject poverty, even lost my toes to frostbite getting up here, and that’s the best you can do? ‘Life is a deep well?!’”
The guru looks at him quizzically. “What? You mean it isn’t?”
Tags: humor
Let my eyes see good
During a conflict with someone close to me last night, a little prayer came to me. I closed my eyes and said:
Hash-m, let my eyes see good when I open them, so that I can deal with this situation positively.
It worked wonders.
I will be saying this prayer many situations now, since it seems so apt to help keep a positive and creative attitude.
Hash-m, let my eyes see good…
Tags: Hash-m
