Hard to believe but today marks the halfway point in my 30 By 30 quest. You can read the original post here, but I figured now was as good a time as any to take a step back and do a little pontificating on being 29 1/2.
There's the obvious fear currently compounded by my joblessness, but there's also a tremendous sense for reflection. This may be because of the excessive free time alone with my thoughts that has come along as a sometimes malevolent side kick of unemployment, but I think it also comes with reaching a milestone that our society has elevated as a great marker of adulthood.
More on all that when January 8, 2010 actually arrives. For now, I'd just like to scribble (or type) a few notes on my various accomplishments or procrastinations of the past 6 months.
1. Travel to a new place below the Mason Dixon Line (March 14, 2009)
I wrote quite a bit about my trip to New Orleans before and after the experience. Going to the Crescent City made a considerable impact on me in ways that I probably am still discovering and it also crystallized everything from my relationship with an old roommate to an entire semester of graduate studies. All this while nursing a broken heart!
Who knows when I'll have another chance to visit either New Orleans or anywhere else in the South? For now, I'm really glad it was where I kicked off an incredibly busy year of travel since the city's raucous nature and laid back attitude were clearly what I needed to get out of a funk and to tackle my own challenges.
11. Find a synagogue I enjoy for the high holidays
This one's black which means I haven't begun to work on it and if you read my post from Monday you'll have a better understanding as to why. For now it's easy to delay finding a spiritual home in a house of worship because I've already found the local options unsatisfactory and I have no idea where I'm headed geographically. The scary truth is Rosh Hashanah is only 2 1/2 months away and my ability to cross this off my list largely depends on some elements that are out of my control for a little while longer.
14. Make coffee tasty enough for others to drink/enjoy (Feb. 15, 2009)
People who know me are instantly acquainted with my boundless energy and I often remind them that I eschew caffiene for fear of how wired I'd be. I'm fine in the mornings without anything but an orange juice spritzer and food, but others complained of the absence of stronger fuel.
Finally, I bought non-instant coffee and dedicated myself to mastering the French press that had been sitting neglected on the countertops of at least three apartments. It took a few experiments with the water to tablespoons of coffee ratio, but I eventually figured it out. Now I joyfully push down on the filter and even imbibe a cup or two when no one else is home.
19. Earn $100 from Google AdSense ($25 as of late May)
I just checked on my balance today and I'm up to $29.01. It means I need to do some more clicking and so do you! Come on, I'm unemployed. Help a hustler out!
27. Get a new job - back on like Donkey Kong because I got laid off.
30. Master the art of doing nothing (I'm pretty sure this will be the hardest item on the list)
I put these two together from their original "Life" category because the immediacy of one has unmistakably proven just how hard the other will be to ever accomplish. Most people get laid off and take a few weeks to relax, travel or at least sleep in. Not me. I launched a side business within days of getting notice and to date have earned nearly $800.
While I do manage to get 7-8 hours of sleep each night, it's often preceeded by me running around like crazy for 15-16 hours between errands, job applications, coffee dates, blogging, networking events, project for my Concierge Service business, working out, gardening, dancing, cooking, eating...you get the picture.
There are times I toy with the idea of simply putting #30 out of my mind and just embracing my frenetic nature for what it is. Then I stop long enough to realize how tired I am and recommit. Out of all my endeavors, it is ironically the art of doing nothing that eludes me most and where I need the most help.
Unemployment has helped me learn to prioritize and to allow myself to periodically say no, but it has also given me a host of new responsibilities for which I am accountable to no one but myself. It's freeing and frightening all at the same time. Here's hoping I'm able to overcome both the fear and to eliminate the cause by the time I do turn 30.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
Letter to the Editor
I know I've been terribly remiss about posting lately, and I really do want to write a thorough recounting of my recent adventures in Montreal and new plans to hit Costa Rica next month with some girlfriends. However, I have three job interviews this week and a few clients for my side business, so this will simply have to do.
Here's a letter I wrote to the editor of the New Jersey Jewish News that was actually published in their July 2 edition. Would love to get everyone's feedback on both the original article and my commentary. Cheers!
As I read Johanna Ginsberg's article this week, "Synagogues Make Do in Hard Times," I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps there is a silver lining for our houses of worship in this economic miasma. Just flip through the Community section of the New Jersey Jewish News and you'll see synagogues offering concerts, drumming circles, support groups (including one for overeaters which just strikes me as ironic to take place in a shul) and lectures of all varieties.
While I'm sure the congregations arrange these programs in order to attract potential and current members, one has to ask how it fits into their core missions to create Jewish spaces for the community when so many people in said communities cannot afford to participate. With the suburbanization of the American Jewish population in the 1950s, synagogues morphed from small places to pray with a minyan into seemingly holistic paragons of Jewish life. All your needs - literally from cradle to grave - could me met at the synagogue.
That model certainly worked for some, but the presense of the Havurah movement in the 1960s and today's proliferation of small congregations like Kehillat Hadar on the Upper West Side, indicate that a certain authenticity and closeness may have been missing all along.
Maybe the lesson for synagogues from this economic crisis is to not be afraid of small. To welcome intimacy, closeness and friendliness. Don't be afraid to scale back programs to a bare-bones, but high-caliber and high-touch community of worship. As someone who has shul hopped and has yet to find a spiritual home after three years in this community, I would much rather have an option to join a basic congregation for $100 than to pay $1000 for all the bells and whistles I will likely never use.
Much of the Jewish communal world has been caught up in competition with secular institutions and has forgotten the added value they can potentially bring when they stop trying to be something they are not. As the congregations in the article and others in MetroWest and around the country struggle with declining dues and swirling debts, I hope some will be bold and take this as an opportunity to reimagine what the American synagogue can and should be. Who knows, you may even attract some new members?
Here's a letter I wrote to the editor of the New Jersey Jewish News that was actually published in their July 2 edition. Would love to get everyone's feedback on both the original article and my commentary. Cheers!
As I read Johanna Ginsberg's article this week, "Synagogues Make Do in Hard Times," I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps there is a silver lining for our houses of worship in this economic miasma. Just flip through the Community section of the New Jersey Jewish News and you'll see synagogues offering concerts, drumming circles, support groups (including one for overeaters which just strikes me as ironic to take place in a shul) and lectures of all varieties.
While I'm sure the congregations arrange these programs in order to attract potential and current members, one has to ask how it fits into their core missions to create Jewish spaces for the community when so many people in said communities cannot afford to participate. With the suburbanization of the American Jewish population in the 1950s, synagogues morphed from small places to pray with a minyan into seemingly holistic paragons of Jewish life. All your needs - literally from cradle to grave - could me met at the synagogue.
That model certainly worked for some, but the presense of the Havurah movement in the 1960s and today's proliferation of small congregations like Kehillat Hadar on the Upper West Side, indicate that a certain authenticity and closeness may have been missing all along.
Maybe the lesson for synagogues from this economic crisis is to not be afraid of small. To welcome intimacy, closeness and friendliness. Don't be afraid to scale back programs to a bare-bones, but high-caliber and high-touch community of worship. As someone who has shul hopped and has yet to find a spiritual home after three years in this community, I would much rather have an option to join a basic congregation for $100 than to pay $1000 for all the bells and whistles I will likely never use.
Much of the Jewish communal world has been caught up in competition with secular institutions and has forgotten the added value they can potentially bring when they stop trying to be something they are not. As the congregations in the article and others in MetroWest and around the country struggle with declining dues and swirling debts, I hope some will be bold and take this as an opportunity to reimagine what the American synagogue can and should be. Who knows, you may even attract some new members?
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Hitting the Snooze on Type A
The blogosphere is all atwitter with news of celebrity death matches, literally. Apparently, Michael Jackson trumps Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon, but he's the only one with a royalty-inspired moniker so it makes sense.
Rather than feeding into all the hype of a story that was actually broken by TMZ.com (even NPR used it as a source), I'm offering up this little reflection on my continuing life after being laid off from my job. It might not be as scintillating as revelations on child molestation or anal cancer or the Publisher's Clearinghouse sweepstakes, but it's honest.
For the past 25 years, I've created and thrived on routines. In elementary school, I consistently finished my homework by 4:45 and forced myself into a regular bedtime. In college, I developed a steady route between the local bars based on the spots with the best specials. For the past several years, I've carved out Wednesday nights for dance class, Saturday mornings for calling my grandmother and Sunday evenings for cooking.
So you can imagine how shocking it's been that I have made the transition into the vagaries of unemployment with little difficulty. Lest you think my Type A personality completely absent, I do still set an alarm clock every night, only now rather than sticking at 7:05, the dreaded time drifts wildly depending on the previous night's activities or lack thereof.
Whereas I once found tremendous comfort in routine, I now am finding ways to embrace the art of scheduling randomness. My ridiculously outdated PDA has become my constant savior (thanks Dad) and I am quickly becoming an expert on lunch menus and free in-town parking spots. No longer chained to a desk all day, I'm free to hit the grocery store at off-peak hours and I rarely stress being out late on a "school night."
The uncertainty of unemployment does always loom over one's head with its threats of mounting debt, loss of benefits, isolation and feeling like a drain on society. At the same time, it gives you enormous chunks of time to consider wild possibilites like launching a nonprofit consulting firm, writing a book, starting a concierge service business or creating a website devoted to burning Jewish questions.
In the past six weeks, I've given more serious thought to all these endeavors than I probably have for my entire adult life. Being cut off from the demands of a daily job and the soul-crushing frustrations of the daily office grind, absolutely frees your mind into the peaks and valleys of creativity, with all its commensurate pros and cons.
As much as I'm looking forward to getting a regular paycheck again, I'm also extremely curious to see which of my hustler brainstorms will carry over into the next phase. Who knows, maybe Amalgamated Missel Concierge Services will net me thousands or Ask a Heeb (Ask a Jew was taken) will become the Dear Abby of the 21st Century?
And yes, look for the launch of Ask a Heeb in the coming weeks. You can submit questions here or on the Shtetl Fabulous Facebook page.
Rather than feeding into all the hype of a story that was actually broken by TMZ.com (even NPR used it as a source), I'm offering up this little reflection on my continuing life after being laid off from my job. It might not be as scintillating as revelations on child molestation or anal cancer or the Publisher's Clearinghouse sweepstakes, but it's honest.
For the past 25 years, I've created and thrived on routines. In elementary school, I consistently finished my homework by 4:45 and forced myself into a regular bedtime. In college, I developed a steady route between the local bars based on the spots with the best specials. For the past several years, I've carved out Wednesday nights for dance class, Saturday mornings for calling my grandmother and Sunday evenings for cooking.
So you can imagine how shocking it's been that I have made the transition into the vagaries of unemployment with little difficulty. Lest you think my Type A personality completely absent, I do still set an alarm clock every night, only now rather than sticking at 7:05, the dreaded time drifts wildly depending on the previous night's activities or lack thereof.
Whereas I once found tremendous comfort in routine, I now am finding ways to embrace the art of scheduling randomness. My ridiculously outdated PDA has become my constant savior (thanks Dad) and I am quickly becoming an expert on lunch menus and free in-town parking spots. No longer chained to a desk all day, I'm free to hit the grocery store at off-peak hours and I rarely stress being out late on a "school night."
The uncertainty of unemployment does always loom over one's head with its threats of mounting debt, loss of benefits, isolation and feeling like a drain on society. At the same time, it gives you enormous chunks of time to consider wild possibilites like launching a nonprofit consulting firm, writing a book, starting a concierge service business or creating a website devoted to burning Jewish questions.
In the past six weeks, I've given more serious thought to all these endeavors than I probably have for my entire adult life. Being cut off from the demands of a daily job and the soul-crushing frustrations of the daily office grind, absolutely frees your mind into the peaks and valleys of creativity, with all its commensurate pros and cons.
As much as I'm looking forward to getting a regular paycheck again, I'm also extremely curious to see which of my hustler brainstorms will carry over into the next phase. Who knows, maybe Amalgamated Missel Concierge Services will net me thousands or Ask a Heeb (Ask a Jew was taken) will become the Dear Abby of the 21st Century?
And yes, look for the launch of Ask a Heeb in the coming weeks. You can submit questions here or on the Shtetl Fabulous Facebook page.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Ask A Jew
Originally, I was going to write a post today about my experience going to Monsey, NY for the first time on Wednesday for a friend's wedding. I had jotted down a few notes about how I couldn't decide if the employees in the grocery store stared at me because I had on a blue dress (normally, women wear very muted colors in that ultra-Orthodox enclave), or because my legs were bare below the knee or because I was wearing open-toed shoes with red polish common among harlots.
I also thought about opining on the women who power walked at 10 p.m. wearing snoods, dress skirts and sneakers while chatting in Yiddish. Or the yeshiva bochur (15-year-old kid) who claimed he'd never heard of I-287 when I tried to ask him for directions. Note: I later found a cop.
All these observations and culture clashes are certainly the stuff pithy blog posts are made for, but then I sat down to my computer this afternoon to find an email from someone I knew in college.
"Question: My husband's cousin is having his bar mitzvah and we can't go. What is the going
rate for $ as a gift. Also, would they have Bar mitzvah cards at Target? Thanks for the info.
Hope you're doing well!"
Or this one I got a few months ago from a high school friend getting married next year.
"I am looking for a little insight regarding Judaism and marriage and rabbis.We are trying to
research options, but could you recommend a rabbi in Phoenix? I would be interested in
learning more about him or her."
These are just the latest examples in a life's vocation I have decided to dub, "Ask a Jew." For better or worse, I seem to have absorbed more Judaic knowledge than many of my peers during my time in various Jewish educational settings. Plus, I tend to shoot from the hip, so people generally figure they're getitng straight-forward and honest information from me.
I'm always flattered when I get these questions, because it makes me feel good that others are comfortable enough to ask me everything from the deeply spiritual to the obscurely ritualistic to the blithely ignorant. It appeals to my inner know-it-all which I've certainly blogged about in the past and my sister has now suggested I pen a Dear Esther column here on Shtetl Fab or in another venue. Perhaps.
Of course, being a hustler as well as a maven, I also wonder how I can make money off this knowledge. One friend suggested (along with a Yiddish-language question) that I could set up a PayPal account and charge by the question. Interesting, but how do you set prices for that sort of thing? Higher cost for harder questions?
If I were smarter all along, I would have started to compile them in one place and then made a book. A nice book promotion tour would be the perfect way to scratch my itchy wanderlust feet. Wherefore art thou Simon and Schuster?
I also thought about opining on the women who power walked at 10 p.m. wearing snoods, dress skirts and sneakers while chatting in Yiddish. Or the yeshiva bochur (15-year-old kid) who claimed he'd never heard of I-287 when I tried to ask him for directions. Note: I later found a cop.
All these observations and culture clashes are certainly the stuff pithy blog posts are made for, but then I sat down to my computer this afternoon to find an email from someone I knew in college.
"Question: My husband's cousin is having his bar mitzvah and we can't go. What is the going
rate for $ as a gift. Also, would they have Bar mitzvah cards at Target? Thanks for the info.
Hope you're doing well!"
Or this one I got a few months ago from a high school friend getting married next year.
"I am looking for a little insight regarding Judaism and marriage and rabbis.We are trying to
research options, but could you recommend a rabbi in Phoenix? I would be interested in
learning more about him or her."
These are just the latest examples in a life's vocation I have decided to dub, "Ask a Jew." For better or worse, I seem to have absorbed more Judaic knowledge than many of my peers during my time in various Jewish educational settings. Plus, I tend to shoot from the hip, so people generally figure they're getitng straight-forward and honest information from me.
I'm always flattered when I get these questions, because it makes me feel good that others are comfortable enough to ask me everything from the deeply spiritual to the obscurely ritualistic to the blithely ignorant. It appeals to my inner know-it-all which I've certainly blogged about in the past and my sister has now suggested I pen a Dear Esther column here on Shtetl Fab or in another venue. Perhaps.
Of course, being a hustler as well as a maven, I also wonder how I can make money off this knowledge. One friend suggested (along with a Yiddish-language question) that I could set up a PayPal account and charge by the question. Interesting, but how do you set prices for that sort of thing? Higher cost for harder questions?
If I were smarter all along, I would have started to compile them in one place and then made a book. A nice book promotion tour would be the perfect way to scratch my itchy wanderlust feet. Wherefore art thou Simon and Schuster?
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Jack Asks, "Why Be Jewish?"
My blog-buddy Jack wrote to a bunch of us in his network asking the simple question, "Why Be Jewish?" I, like many others, answered the call and he's compiled our thoughts into this great meta-post.
Whether you're struggling with this quandry or your brain is wrapped around something else entirely, it's pretty interesting.
Check it out here: http://wwwjackbenimble.blogspot.com/2009/06/why-be-jewish.html.
And have fun trying to guess which one is mine!
Whether you're struggling with this quandry or your brain is wrapped around something else entirely, it's pretty interesting.
Check it out here: http://wwwjackbenimble.blogspot.com/2009/06/why-be-jewish.html.
And have fun trying to guess which one is mine!
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