Registering displeasure

Warning: The following post may exceed the recommended daily allowance for long, drawn-out tales of, er, woe and suffering. Proceed at your own risk.

I have many fond memories of my college years.

But registering for courses is certainly not one of them.

It all started with my first semester at Stern. Incoming students signed up for courses after all the upper classmen, and due to the vagaries of the alphabet, I was one of the last students in the entire school to register.

Which meant that by the time my turn came around, the pickings were fairly slim.

I still shudder when I recall running up and down the stairs between the registrar’s office and the computer room, where a large monitor displayed all the closed courses. (“What do you mean EVERY section of freshman composition is closed?! How can I be closed out of freshman comp?!! I’m a freshman!!”)

Desperate, I had no choice but to ignore my mother’s cardinal rule.

The key to a successful college career, she had declared, was to push off taking the dreaded speech class (a general requirement for all Stern students) until one’s senior year, in hope that the academic powers-that-be would somehow be inspired to change the requirements and allow one to graduate without it.

(The fact that speech was still a requirement nearly two decades after my mother had graduated Stern should have been my first clue that the strategy was doomed to fail. But I digress…)

But since there wasn’t too much else left to take that first semester, I was forced to sign up for speech.

(Postscript: The silver lining was that during our senior year, when all my friends were groaning their way through speech, I had the smug self-satisfaction of knowing that I no longer had to deal with that misery. But once again I digress…)

But B”H, in the intervening years -  during which time I graduated college; YZG and I got married; we made aliyah; I started a blog; I neglected that blog; and so on – I was gradually able to come to terms with my, ahem, ordeal.

You see, I was secure in the comforting belief that technological advances would ensure that the Shiputzim kids would be spared the same registration trauma.

Fast forward to two weeks ago, when the Studentit called home in the middle of the day.

Registration for the spring semester had just opened, and she was having trouble registering. Could I please help her, she wondered.

Suffice it to say that although the Studentit attends an internationally-acclaimed institution of higher learning, which boasts some of the country’s finest engineering and computing minds, she and I spent the next two hours glued to our respective computer screens, as the supposedly sophisticated online registration system crashed ignobly right before our very eyes.

It seems the French may be on to something with their whole “plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose” thing (i.e. אֵין כָּל חָדָש תַחַת הַשָמֶש – for the Biblically-oriented amongst you).

[raises glass]

Well, here’s hoping that the registration system improves by the time  the Shiputzim grandchildren (BA”H) are ready for it…

A tale of two graduations

There’s nothing more annoying than a blogger who blogs endlessly about a perceived slight or insult.

Thus, I suspect that when you saw this post’s title, many of you were [mistakenly] concerned that this would be yet another rant about a certain gan graduation which was – to my dismay - not designed for online mockery.

“Seriously, enough already with the mesibat siyum,” you probably shouted at your computer screens. “Besides, it’s not the gannenet’s fault. After all, a beautiful-yet-blogworthy-graduation is an oxymoron. It simply cannot be done…”

And so I’m here to tell you that this is not true. There’s no need to sacrifice blogworthiness when planning end-of-year celebrations.

After all, the organizers of a recent yeshiva high school graduation somehow managed to pull off this seemingly-impossible feat.

You see, although the graduation didn’t have a processional, graduation gowns (made in Israel or otherwise), a valedictorian, diplomas, or the other trappings of traditional American graduation ceremonies, it was a lovely, moving, wonderful, and fitting tribute to the yeshiva and this year’s graduating class.

And yet nevertheless, the organizers skillfully – and thoughtfully! - included two amusing elements which warmed my blogging heart:

1) The organizers had (intentionally?) neglected to tell the boys what to wear to the graduation, and thus a significant percentage initially showed up wearing regular everyday clothes.

However, when they realized that many of their friends were wearing white shirts (most likely at their parents’ prompting), the casually-dressed graduates immediately took action.

Some quickly called home and had their parents bring them something to change into. Others had hedged their bets and were thus able to put on the white shirts they had brought along “just in case.” (I believe that credit for this bit of advanced planning also goes to the parents…)

And so, by the time the festivities had begun, the majority of the graduates were appropriately and uniformly attired in white shirts…

2) And then there were these:

Five words: Handmade construction paper graduation caps. Need I say more?

Now THAT’S what I’m talkin’ about…

A little consideration, please

Sadly, being a blogger isn’t always as glamorous as it seems.

I mean, on the rare occasions when we step away from our computers, we’re inevitably dismayed to discover that our online fame and fortune 4.56 NIS don’t carry the same weight in the real world.

The main problem is that, strangely enough, many people fail to take bloggers’ needs into consideration when making plans and organizing events.

Take, for example, the recent gan graduation (i.e. the mesibat siyum - מסיבת סיום – the end of year party).

After documenting the first two major dates on the gannenet’s calendar – namely, the infamous gan meeting and the Chanukah party - I’d been looking forward all year to blogging about the third one.

Indeed, the resultant post was to have been the concluding panel in my gan highlights triptych.

But when the mesibat siyum finally rolled around, all my hopes and dreams were shattered.

Because, you see, the party wasn’t amusing!

Yes, it was beautiful. Yes, it was heartwarming and emotional. Yes, the kids did a wonderful job. And yes, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

But funny? Absurd? Open to ridicule and mockery?

Not so much.

And so, dear readers, I must unfortunately disappoint you and regretfully announce that there will be no mesibat siyum post after all.

Which naturally begs the question: Is there any reason why the gannenet couldn’t have designed a blog-worthy program?!

Guest Post: Rak Smachot

B”H, this time of year – coming, as it does, between Sefirat HaOmer and the Three Weeks and coinciding with the last month of school – tends to be full of smachot (festive occasions), ken yirbu (may they only increase).

Our Shiputzim commenter (and real life friend) Malke graciously agreed to share some thoughts on the subject:

~~~~~

Israeli Smachot

A Guest Post by Malke

Now that I find myself in that in-between stage: after bar/bat mitzvahs and before weddings (b'ezrat Hashem), my simcha-making lull allows me to reflect on the whole topic of making a simcha in Israel. Quite different from the Old Country.

Let's address each in turn:

Brit: I still have not figured out why the American standard of making a brit first thing in the morning, according to the principle of "zrizim makdimim l'mitzvah"- or in other words, “do the mitzvah at the earliest opportunity you can” - does not hold true, for the most part, in Israel. Here the reigning principle seems to be "b'rov am hadrat melech"- or in other words, “the more the merrier” - and the brit takes place later in the day. It's true that it does spare one from having to get up at the crack of dawn, but it also means missing half a day's work to attend a 2 PM brit.

Bar/bat mitzvah: On the whole, much more toned down than in America. I recall a friend in America telling me she was having trouble coming up with a "theme" for her son's bar mitzvah. Here, luckily, the theme does tend much more towards "kabbalat ol mitzvot." I realize I am generalizing, and I'm sure things vary by community. But when the same friend told me a girl in her daughter's class was taking the entire class of 23 to Disney World for her bat mitzvah, I must admit I wondered if something wasn't getting lost here…

Here in Israel, the major question seems to be whether to have the almost mandatory matzeget (PowerPoint presentation) or not. I am personally not a big fan, figuring no one really wants to see cute baby pictures of my children other than me, their father and their grandparents. But YMMV.

Graduations: Not technically a simcha, perhaps, but still worth mentioning because… HA HA HA HA. Nothing like what I remember. When my oldest niece graduated high school, my father wanted to fly in from America, envisioning caps and gowns, pomp and circumstance, cantatas, valedictorians. My sister quickly dissuaded him from wasting his well-earned money. Maybe there are schools here who do something more akin to what we had in the US, but my children certainly don't attend them.

Wedding: I am still searching for that happy medium between the over-the-top formality of some American weddings and the complete chaos of some Israeli ones. The more informal atmosphere of Israeli weddings definitely adds to the joyous atmosphere. However, I have been to too many chuppot where you can barely hear the proceedings, because the guests are all milling around and talking… That seems to me to lessen what is, after all, a very holy and solemn occasion.

This is, of course, just the tip of the iceberg, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter. In addition, I have only referred to affairs in the circles in which I travel, which naturally does not cover all segments of society.

Which brings me to one final issue: work affairs. I find that at my workplace EVERYONE gets invited to EVERYTHING. Now apart from those people for whom their work friends constitute their entire social circle, I am assuming that, like me, most of the inviters don't really want to fill up their simcha with work colleagues, and almost certainly most of said colleagues don't want to come. And yet this dance continues…

~~~~~

Thank you, Malke, for a great post!

!שנדע רק שמחות

Mazal tov!

מזל טוב

to our dear

MAG

on your graduation

and

כל הכבוד

on receiving the award for

Excellence in Limudei Kodesh!

We love you

and are very, very proud of you!!