My Awesome Summer

My summer 2018 is going to be awesome. I know this because, true to my family’s form, it has already been booked over half a year in advance. I decided to write today about my 4-part summer 2018.

1.      First I’m going to Ithaca, NY to work with a professor at Cornell University in the virtual Reality Lab they have there. See, I do this program called “Science Scholars” at my school, in which high school students get to work with professors or doctors at universities or hospitals, and study whatever kind of science research they want in the summer. I work with an awesome professor at Cornell studying behavioral psychology and cyberbullying. So I will spend 3-4 weeks there at the beginning of the summer with my mom doing science research. Summer will be off to a great start!

2.      Next, I’m doing this crazy amazing tour called “AMA” – American Music Abroad. It’s a program that you apply to, and if you have enough merits in your area -- band, chorus, or orchestra – and a recommendation, you can go on a 3-week trip to Europe to perform songs with other teens. I’m going with my two best friends and a bunch of other people I’m close with from my school, and we’re going to Austria, Germany, Italy, Croatia, and Switzerland. It’s going to be SO MUCH FUN!

3.      Straight from Switzerland at the end of the AMA tour, I’m going on an Adventures by Disney arranged tour with my family to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia for like 2 weeks. It’ll be the first family vacation with all four of us that we’ve had in a while, since my brother’s been away at college, and our school breaks rarely line up enough for us all to go on a vacation together. Again, soooooo much fun exploring the world!

4.      Finally, my parents always go to the Telluride Film Festival at the end of the summer, so I always spend a week at my grandma and uncle’s house. My brother used to stay there with me, but at that point he’s always back at college again once I’m there now. So I get to hang out with my awesome uncle and grandma, who are some of my favorite people in the world, and my uncle and I bake and buy things for the troops in bulk at Costco, and my grandma and I goof around a drive each other nuts, because what are grandmas/granddaughters for? It’s always the best way to end an awesome summer!

-- Holly

My Favorite Comedians

I was just watching a clip online of Sebastian Maniscalco.  I think right off the bat, he is my favorite modern-day comedian.  His sense of humor, coupled with his physical humor, is just dynamite.  One of my favorite bits of his is the one where he talks about answering the doorbell.  He compares how people used to be so excited to see who is visiting them with now, where the homeowners are wondering why the heck somebody is coming to them in person.  Another very funny bit is about the etiquette of visiting someone’s home – taking shoes off, the amount of hors d’oeuvres served, etc. Oh, and one more classic I have to mention: Sebastian’s bit about his first experience at a Passover Seder as an Italian dude.  Funny stuff!  Yes, he is definitely on track to become a comedic heavy weight.

In the Living Legend category I would put Jerry Seinfeld.  Yes, I know he is not 100 years old – but when you think about the fact that his very successful tv show Seinfeld first aired 28 years ago, he has been around long enough to be called a legend! For me, Jerry’s comedy is so appealing because it is all about little observations about life.  I saw his stand-up show recently and he talked about cellphones.  He said “I bet every one of you can tell me at this very moment exactly how much charge you have on your phone” and then went on to propose that there are many other important things you would have no clue about, but your phone being at 57% you know.

My most favorite deceased comedian is Lucille Ball.  Like Sebastian Maniscalco, she relied heavily on physical comedy to tell her story. But what I like most about her work is that she was fearless.  As an actress, she adhered to the glamour-imaging of her time – with all the portrait shots of her with perfect eyelashes and her hair just so.  Nonetheless, in her comedy, she was not afraid to look messy, silly or unattractive.  She would have paint spilled on her, shove endless amounts of candy in her mouth, or do the ugly cry.  Anything to get a laugh.  I found her comedy creative and entertaining to watch over and over. 

So there you have it: my thoughts on comedians.  Love to hear everybody else’s favorites!

-- Eve

On Greek Life

Greek life is toxic.

That's the joke I throw out every now and then when discussing the many negative aspects of Fraternity/Sorority life with friends. The list is long: it's heteronormative, promotes gender roles, and acts as a nesting ground for extreme alcoholism, drug abuse, sexism, racism, homophobia, you name it.

This is a joke when I say it because I am part of Greek life. I joined a Fraternity in the middle of my freshman year because it seemed like the natural next step and all of my friends were rushing. I knew about all of these elements going into it but mostly brushed them off with some cute ideology that we would "be better".

Every time a kid is forced to drink himself to death while pledging his fraternity or every time privileged frat bros commit a hate crime or sexual assault, my chest feels hollow and I am inclined to reflect on what this institution is and why it can be so damn terrible.

I try to think of the positives when overwhelmed with the negatives, especially when I consider my place in Greek life. As advertised, Greek life is supposed to provide an instant social life/party scene, lifelong friends, philanthropy events, and just general... I don't know popularity? Like we're in middle school. 

So we have those few positives (which are only more or less accurate) combined with the wall of negatives. You have kids dying and people getting raped balanced out with... brotherhood. That doesn't sound worth it. When you look at it like that, abolishing Greek life seems like the easy solution. 

I don't think joining a fraternity makes a person ignorant or hateful. I do think that ignorant or hateful people can find Greek life attractive, just by its inherent structure designed to benefit the privileged. If every school everywhere banned Greek life, nothing would really change. If anything, these organizations would operate underground or in another way in which they would be less regulated/overseen by the schools. 

So what is there to do here? The easy solution isn't really a solution at all; it's simply a rebranding and displacement of the same issue. The best thing, to me, is to work with the organizations as they are: educating students, eliminating bias and any lack of understanding regarding sexual consent. Progress can be painfully slow but progress is progress. My hope in Greek life lies in the people who are aware of the flaws of our respective fraternities and sororities. 

-- Rudolph

The Last Jedi

Happy to say this post is spoiler free. These are just my initial reactions to it right after seeing it. Get hype.

Wow, good stuff. I'd like to start off by expressing my appreciation for how this movie did not heavily resemble the plot of The Empire Strikes Back in the same way The Force Awakens felt like a still-enjoyable re-skin of A New Hope. Ep 8 is its own animal that, while paying homage to Ep 5 in a couple ways, still holds its own.

The Old Characters: Luke and Leia really get their screentime, both have awesome moments and develop more as characters as opposed to just playing out what we've seen before. Leia in particular has a moment that feels like it was a long time coming and well deserved. Supreme gratification.

The newbies: Finn, Rey, and Poe get mostly split up, which while that was for a greater purpose, it was kind of sad to not see them all together considering how fun that was in The Force Awakens. 

The baddies: Huge Andy Serkis fan here so really cool to see Supreme Leader Snoke in the flesh. I can't help but want to learn more about him. I'll leave it at that. Kyle Ren grew on me in this one. I really didn't love Adam Driver in the last one nor do I particularly enjoy him as an actor. His inner conflict here was believable. Hopefully by Ep 9 he'll be awesome. We'll see.

The new Ep 8 Characters: Newest player Rose was charming and wonderfully wholesome in the way you'd hope and expect every Star Wars villain to see. My favorite new character was Benicio Del Toro as DJ. His character really fit the world nicely and was just fun to watch. I hope we see more of him in the next film. Lastly, Laura Dern as Hodo was a really gentle performance and I particularly enjoyed how our opinion of her shifted. She also has a badass moment.

-- Rudolph

May The Force Be With You

Tomorrow’s a big day!  My family and I are going to see an early screening of The Last Jedi, the 8^th “Episode” of Star Wars.  I have to admit that I’m pretty jazzed to see it.  Star Wars is one of those movie franchises that really excites me.  Each time a new film starts, we see the words “Star Wars”, trumpets blare and we pull back onto the deep space sky with a million stars.  Without fail, my pulse quickens and I get a little lump in my throat.  In that instant, I’m the 11 year old kid who saw the first Star Wars in 1977 not really knowing what to expect, but, like so many other 11 year olds at the time, was completely blown away.

The early reviews on The Last Jedi look good so we have very high hopes for this film.  Given all of the anticipation, I got to thinking about Star Wars and realized that even after all of these years, Empire Strikes Back is still my favorite.  A few of the reasons why:

•            “I am your father”:  I know it’s a cliché by now but that “oh shit” moment in Empire Strikes Back caught most of us by surprise and it was freaking awesome.  It also starts us down the path that leads to Darth Vader saving Luke from the Emperor in Return of the Jedi.
•           Luke being trained by Yoda:  I thought the introduction of Yoda and the various steps of Luke’s training were really fun and memorable.  The wimpy farm boy from A New Hope (Episode 4) all of a sudden had some skills.
•           “I love you.” “I know.”:  Han Solo gets captured by Boba Fett the bounty hunter and just as he’s about to be frozen in carbonite for transport back to Jabba The Hut.  Leia declares her love and Han’s response is classic.
•           The AT-AT battle on planet Hoth:  The film begins on the ice planet of Hoth and before long, the Empire shows up in the big walking vehicles to attack the Rebel base that is hidden there.  The imagination and creativity of the environments and situations really have been unrivaled except possibly by the Harry Potter films.  And given what year these films were made, the special effects in them were especially impressive.
•           The Creatures:  This isn’t necessarily exclusive to Empire Strikes Back but one of my favorite things about these movies is the endless variety of creatures that the filmmakers constantly come up with to inhabit their various worlds.  Even ones that only enjoy a fleeting moment of screen time are impressive.

What was your favorite Star Wars movie?  

-- Frosty

The Miracle Of Hanukah

For those who are unfamiliar, the Jewish holiday of Hanukah, also known as the Festival of Lights, celebrates the Jews (led by Judah Maccabee) retaking Jerusalem from the Syrians in roughly 166 B.C.  After their battle, Judah called on his followers to cleanse Jerusalem’s Second Temple, rebuild its altar and light its menorah—the gold candelabra whose branches represented knowledge and creation and were meant to be kept burning every night.  While they only had enough oil for one night, the menorah miraculously burned for eight nights, giving them time to find a fresh supply of oil.

That’s a nifty story but it’s not the miracle I want to focus on today.  To me, the truly miraculous thing is that Jews have celebrated this holiday for more than 2,000 years, but have still not reached a consensus on how to SPELL Hanukah.

Okay, I get that it is a Hebrew word and we’re talking about the English translation.  So maybe you have a choice A and a choice B in the spelling of the word.  But there are at least 8 different spellings in use today.  You have:

HANUKKA
HANUKKAH
HANUKA
HANUKAH
CHANUKA
CHANUKAH
HANNUKA
HANNUKAH

and of course

CHRISTMAS

Does it start with an “H” or a “CH”?  That part I get.  The correct pronunciation starts with the sound you make when trying to cough up a fur ball from the back of your throat.  That suggests that the “CH” may be more accurate than the westernized “H”.

But do we really need to debate whether there are one or two “Ns”, one or two “Ks” and whether there is an “H” at the end or not? 

I know Talmudic study places a lot of value on the ability to argue different sides of a given issue.  And I know that once you have learned to spell or pronounce something one way in a given language, it is often difficult to look at it any other way.  But there literally is no definitive answer on the question of how to spell Hanukah.

I ran several Google searches on this subject and have found no single authority or even a consensus on how to do it.  Even as I write this, I’ve tried to spell it a number of different ways and Spell Check is willing to accept Hanukah, Hanukkah and Chanukah as correct, but has told me that Hanuka, Chanuka, Hannuka, and Hannukah are all spelled incorrectly.

How do you spell it?

Happy Hanukah to all, however you spell it!

-- Frosty

My Harry Potter Confession

I have never read the Harry Potter book series.  My daughter has read the series seven times – and most of that when she was like 12 yrs old.  She said each time she re-read any of the books, she discovered more and more detail that she hadn’t picked up before.  Like most of her pre-teen friends back then, she could cite Harry Potter backwards and forwards and simply couldn’t get enough of the books.  She even enjoys them today.

I have never seen the Harry Potter movie series. Okay, I saw half of the first movie – up until the part with the three-headed dog.  That was when my daughter was much younger and that scene scared the heck out of her.  Scared her so much she did not resume watching (or even think about reading the books) for several years.

Of course I figured these stories would be great. Why else would they cause such a world-wide craze?  But I was busy, and I never got around to checking them out. 

Now, there is a new play coming out.  It is called Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.  We bought tickets to see the show in the spring.  I figured now is as good a time as any to binge watch the eight movies – otherwise I am going to be really confused when I sit down to watch the play.  So that is what I did.  I watched all eight movies over the course of 2 1/2 weeks.  I have to say JK Rowling created a formidable body of work!  That was a lot of screen time.  Watching all of the films within a short period of time has the benefit of keeping the story lines fresh in one’s mind.  It is also fun to observe the characters (and actors) growing up right before one’s eyes.  But perhaps the thing that kept blowing my mind was the countless unique worlds that she created.  Every room of Hogwarts, every town, a maze, a graveyard, caves, olde England, the ministry, a bank, a vault etc. etc. etc.  Sooo many different and distinct little universes.  I kept wondering aloud to my daughter – did JK Rowling really put this much detail into the books? Or were the movie guys just really good.  My daughter confirmed that the books read just like the movie views.

Not to be remiss, I should tell you that I really enjoyed the movies!  I am glad I waited until I could sit and give them the attention they deserve.  The characters, story lines, and the scenery were all fun, interesting and engaging.  I find myself wondering if I should read the books. (Don’t tell my daughter or she won’t let up until I do!)  Stay tuned…

-- Eve