Bartender Geek

First, I downloaded Moby Dick to my PalmPilot, to have more random stuff to read with me -- it's important to always have a book or two on you, and the greatest strength of the PalmPilot is that it makes it practical to always have twenty or thirty books on you.

I'm only up to chapter six, but I'm really enjoying it.

Okay, I've avoided the book in the past, because everyone always talked about how Great it was, and how it dealt with The Human Condition, and never once did anyone use the adjective "wacky".

Like I said, I'm only up to chapter six -- but, so far, I would like to be the first to publicly state, "Moby Dick is wacky fun."

At least, the first six chapters are.

Anyway, on Sunday, after coming home from Hebrew School, I was so pissed off and angry that I decided to make something inedible. I was feeling mean and destructive, so I decided that a good way to deal with it would be to make an alcoholic beverage so nasty that nobody could possibly ever stomach it. And I didn't simply want to mix something unpotable -- I wanted to brew it.

As you know, Bob, anything with sugar in it can ferment when you add yeast to it, so I set about to take some of the nastiest sugariest stuff in the kitchen, and mix it with water and yeast in a gallon glass jug to set aside for a couple days to ferment.

Which is why there is a jug of Tang Mead bubbling away on my kitchen counter right now. Unfortunately, it's actually smelling lack-of-horrible, and, while there is no remote possibility of this tasting GOOD, it may fail to be completely undrinkable.

So, this Sunday in Hebrew school, I did some teaching about Lashon Ha-Ra.

See, at the staff meeting (the one where I was dressed as Jayne Cobb), the topic of bullying came up. Now, there isn't a big bullying problem that I can see in the Hebrew school, mainly because we're only there for two-and-a half hours a week, and the kids are always under adult supervision. But a lot of kids have been having problems in their regular schools. And we were trying to talk about if there was anything we could do, as religious instructors, to help give kids tools to deal with this.

Now, the bullying that they're really having trouble with is the emotional kind -- teasing and the like. One kid in my class said that she'd lost all of her friends, because someone had spread lies about her. And the only person who she still had left as a friend was someone she didn't even LIKE that much, but it was the only person who'd still talk to her. And my point in the staff meeting was that Judaism teaches that this is really serious stuff -- but it doesn't really offer many solutions. I mean, you could argue that someone who really humiliates people should be stoned to death, but you can't actually DO that in the modern world. But the point that some other teachers made was that, if nothing else, being told that the reason this hurts so bad is because IT'S ACTUALLY GODDAMNED SERIOUS, and it's NOT a failing in them for feeling bad, since this IS actually that bad -- that, even if that was ALL we could do, that would have some value. Validating their feelings was important, and useful enough to do for that reason alone.
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Hebrew school has been going on for three weeks, now. I have been INTENDING to tell y'all about stuff, since, well, a lot of you mainly read this lj for my cute stories about teaching Hebrew school, and my fun bartending stories, and I haven't tended bar regularly for over a year now.

Some basic stuff. Rafi, my former boss, is now teaching at Kesher full-time, and isn't at our Hebrew school any more. I miss him, because he's cool and all (and he's now married, as of the middle of August, and they look all newleywedy together, and they seem like the sort of people who will continue to look newleywedy together long after they have great-grandchildren), but the school's doing okay without him. We're also working without Mark, who was my boss TWO years ago, and was very happy to turn the educational director job over to Rafi, and just become a regular teacher. But he gave up teaching here in order to focus on politics in Somerville. Still, they're both around, and are going to be available for substitute teaching and stuff, which is good, because the kids miss them. And, y'know, so do I. Of course, we all got to at least exchange hugs and catch up outside of Rosh Hashana services today and yesterday.

Isaac also retired, in order to spend more time with his great-grandchildren, and to focus more on running community outreach stuff to the Russian immigrant community at Temple B'nai Moshe. And to do lots of other stuff there -- I think he's helping run THEIR Hebrew school.

Y'know that whole joke about how Jewish communities just don't interact with each other and are mutually hostile? Not so much true in Boston. People don't so much choose one and diss all the others, so much as over-commit to multiple shuls and have to pull back and spend their time with just two or three of 'em. I mean, me, personally -- I've got connections with B'nai Moshe, Temple B'nai Brith, Tremont Street Shul, Chavaurat Shalom, Congregation Eitz Chayyim, B'nai Or, and Cherie Koller-Fox, who is her own community just by herself. Among others. That's a pretty typical list.

Anyway, this looks like it's getting long enough to deserve a ( cut tag )

As a good portion of my friends list is aware, it's the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. On Shavuot, one eats dairy foods, and, ideally, stays up all night studying Torah. I didn't manage to do this, 'cause I was tired.

Lis and I managed to move back into our apartment yesterday!

Okay, the place is still a mess, but it's almost marginally habitable. The downstairs isn't, and won't be for months. But we've got our bed back, which is REAL nice.

Temple B'Nai Brith, where I teach Hebrew School, and the Tremont Street Shul, where like 80% of my friends go, decided to do stuff together this year. There was a dinner at TBB, with some study sessions, and then, at 9:00, everyone who wanted to could troop over to Tremont Street to continue studying until five in the morning, and then go back to TBB for breakfast, and morning prayers.

The only part I showed up for was the dinner, and helping run the kids' stuff at TBB during the study sessions. Then I just went home instead of going over to Tremont Street.

None of my friends from Tremont showed up at TBB, which disappointed me. I'd hoped to see folks.

The kids' program I helped with was fun. It reminded me of the birthday hunts which my family does.

Each team of kids got a clue. The clue led to a second clue, which led on and on, seventeen clues in all. The point of it was mainly to have fun running through the shul and seeing all sorts of weird corners and bits that you wouldn't otherwise see, but at the end, everyone did get a little bouncy ball. But the point was the doing of it, not the getting of the prize. And the kids had a total blast.

Then there was ice cream.

I'm doing a trivia game for the kids tonight at our indoor-because-it's-raining Lag B'Omer party at the shul.

I really ought to write some questions for it.

So therefore, I turn to you, my friends -- any good suggestions for trivia questions, on any subject, suitable for an audience ranging in age from, oh, five or so to, oh, maybe thirteen or so?

Another reason I so love Anessia, besides that she's really annoying but then draws me pictures to apologize for it. . .

So, she was talking about how she had seen a play a couple days before -- a staging of The Secret Garden. And she hated it.

"I thought that it might be good, because I love the book, but the play was not as good as the book."

Since this was in the beginning part of the Hebrew school day when we're just doing art projects and chatting, we asked her what was wrong with the play.

"Well, it was a musical. And I've seen musicals before -- I think I know how they're supposed to work. You have conversations, and you have songs every once in a while. But this one -- you have a song, and then half a conversation, and then another song, and then . . . it was just too much. Also, the piano was too loud so you couldn't hear the singers. . . I saw another play last week that I liked better."

"Oh, what was that?"

"Um, I forget the title. Amid A Summer's Dream or something like that."

"A Midsummer's Night Dream?"

"Yeah, that was it! That was was great! It was so funny! People kept falling in love with the wrong people, and there was this one guy who's head turned into a donkey, and there was this play that was really awful!"

So, that's one reason I like my students, in general. They know the difference between classic literature and mediocre adaptations of classic literature, and also the difference between mediocre musicals and great plays.

I got to Hebrew school nice and early this morning, so I could finish learning the song Rafi asked me to learn, and do some class prep and so forth.

And when I got to Hebrew school, I discovered that I left my keys at home, so I couldn't get into the school, 'cause I was the first one there.

Anyway, Tamara, my co-teacher showed up pretty soon. But she didn't have keys, either. So we just sat and talked about what we'd do.

Rafi eventually showed up, and opened the door. And stuff went pretty well for the first half of the day.

The schedule was different for today. We had a normal first half of the day, except snack was going to be in each classroom individually, and therefore a little earlier. When we all got together at the time that we would usually have snack, as a whole school, instead, we would start our whole-school program.

Of course, Rachel, who handles snack didn't get the message and brought snack at the usual time so things started late. Oh well.

Then it was time to start the program, and we got ready to teach the song.

And we discovered, with a moment of amused horror, that the song Rafi had me learn and the song Rafi was thinking of and had brought lyric sheets for and had planned the lesson around were two different songs.

Yeah. That song which I was bitching about learning? That wasn't the song I was supposed to have learned. (It also wasn't the song that Matt Blum found for me, which makes me feel a little better -- it was an entirely THIRD song by that title.)

So we winged it. And it went okay.

Then I came home and Lis had cleaned the foyer because she rocks like Roxbury Puddingstone, and then we watched an episode of Stargate SG-1 on DVD, and now we'll maybe go out for a walk because it's GORGEOUS out.

Almost all my students are geeky. The girls playing Bigtan and Teresh asked me if they could be "the palace guards who say 'Ni!'" I thought that was great, but said that it didn't go with what we were doing. But that I am all up ons the idea of doing an entirely Monty Python themed skit for NEXT year.

One of the other kids (the one who wants to be a systems librarian when he grows up, actually) asked me if I had ever read Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper. Which, by coincidence, I'm in the middle of right now. So is he.

I love my class.

One of my students in Hebrew school said today, "When I grow up, I wanna be a reference librarian. No, I wanna be a SYSTEMS librarian -- that's even better!"

Well, okay, we had two weeks off for winter vacation, so this past Sunday was the first time we'd had class in a while. Still, I need to tell you about them. . .

It took me an hour and fifteen minutes to get my car out of the driveway Sunday morning, so I got to school right at 9:30 when class starts, so I was totally unprepared. Max actually got to class before me, by a minute or two, and I had him help me set up the table. We're working on mitzvot related to animals, and I'm using names of animals for teaching Hebrew.

Also, Tamara, the other teacher in the class, is in Israel, so I was soloing this week.

Only four students showed up, and, despite that, things didn't go smoothly.

I've mentioned how one of my students is resistant to Hebrew school, even though she likes the people, likes me, and so forth. It got bad. She was reistant to everything, and, in the second half, I sent her out of the room to wait for a few minutes. J decided to go with her to keep her company, (he'd also been rambunctious) which meant that I only had two students to work with. M has had problems with Hebrew all along, so it wasn't bad to have a little more time to work with him, and it was good to help E, too, but still -- half my class, y'know?

So, what did the two of them do when they were out there?

They made me a card. It's now hanging on my refrigerator. It's a picture of a Shabbat table, and challah, curtains, it's gorgeous.

I really love my kids.

After school, one of my students from last year commented that his class was a little crazy when they were with me, but they're not so crazy with Mark. So, yeah, it's me. . . I really need to figure out this whole "classroom management" thing.

After school, A and J wanted to play with my PalmPilot while I cleaned up the classroom and they waited for parents, so I let them. When I got it back, there was a new note in the voice recorder, and a new message written in the notepad, which boh said the same thing: "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die, you six-fingered FREAK!!!"

Yes, they're aware that the last part isn't part of the quote. They don't care; they like it better that way.