devarim

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I've been remiss. Many people did many things to help me get through that horrendous part of my life known as Studying For the Bar Exam. However, no one was quite as important during that time as my husband, Julian. He put up with many more nights of take-out than anyone should ever have to (he offered to cook, but I wouldn't let him), did more than his share of dishes, gave up his social life in commiseration with me, and, most importantly, brought home a bottle of Oban on Thursday night.

I love you, my Julian.

Two days ago, a friend returned my wedding veil to me. I'd lent it to her for her wedding over a year ago, but there was really no rush in getting it back. It's not like I planned to use it again any time soon, and I had no other friends needing to borrow it.

I just spent the past 10 minutes prancing around the apartment with the veil on my head. Freak.

Ladies and gentleman, I am employed. Beginning September 1, I will be clerking on the Probate and Family Court.

Carry on with your lives...

Happy anniversary to us!

This is my last at-home, relaxing Friday for a long, long time. We'll be visiting family next Shabbat, and after that, I start work. I'm trying to strike a balance between savoring the freedom and getting everything done (laundry, cleaning, food) in a reasonable manner before our dinner guests get here.

In other news, we just returned from a five-day vacation in Montreal. Next week I'll post details about that, including restaurant reviews. In the meantime, there is challah to be made and laundry to be sorted, all at a leisurely pace, of course.

I suppose I owe my loyal readers (I like to pretend I have some) and explanation of what happened with my job search, and how it is that I am magically now employed. Way back in September of 2003, at the urging of an advisor in the B.U. Law Career Development Office, I applied for a clerkship on Probate and Family Court here in Massachusetts. I almost didn't bother to finish the application, because it required a writing sample--a short memo on one of three given fact patterns It was mainly my strong interest in one of the fact patterns (on grandparent visitation rights) that kept me going on the application, even though I had not yet taken either family law or trusts & estates. The application also killed any shot I had at making it through that semester without pulling an all-nighter. (For those of you playing along at home, I also pulled two all-nighters in the spring--both for family law--meaning that since the middle of high school I have not made it through a single term without at least one all-night marathon of studying, writing, and/or procrastination. Hopefully the working world will be different.)

I received a call for a first-round interview fairly quickly. I thought I did well; my one flub was answering a hypothetical question (dealing with ex parte communication) "incorrectly," but my out-loud thought process wasn't too shabby, and I understood the proper course of action once it was explained to me. A short while later, I received a call for a second-round interview, at which I thought I did very well. I was told decisions would be made just before Thanksgiving. However, I didn't hear anything on the expected date, and when I called for a status update, I was told...well, I was told that I couldn't be told anything. Helpful.

A couple of weeks later, my contact person (who, as of September 1, will be my supervisor, but now I've ruined the end of the story) told me that if I was still interested in the clerkship, I would be placed on a waitlist along with two other candidates. We would be hired based on budgetary decisions (mainly controlled by the state legislature). Of course, since family law is my dream field, and since I love the idea of a clerkship, I said yes. Thus began a months-long process of resume and transcript updates, friendly "check-in" phone calls, and anxious anticipation of budget-tweaking (apparently there is no firm deadline on this--it seemed nearly every other month I was told there would be a decision "in just a couple of weeks"). I generally acted as if this job was a no-go, and continued interviewing for other positions, even in the couple of weeks before the bar exam.

Then, about a week before the bar, I did a stupid thing related to this job application. At least, I felt at the time that it was stupid. My contact person called to find out whether I was still interested in the position, and I told her that it was my first choice among all of my open applications. Then I casually mentioned that, if I received an offer, I would like to have a meeting to discuss some "concerns." Based on the timing of the phone call and the bar exam, I thought it would be nice of me to give this mini heads-up. Well, one thing lead to another, and I ended up discussing my Shabbat/holiday requirements on the phone. Yup, before I had an actual offer. My contact person thanked me for my honesty, we hung up, and I went into an hours-long crying fit, certain that I had lost the job. I mean, obviously they couldn't not hire me because of my religious observances (unless my demands were unreasonable), but the combination of bar exam stress and overactive paranoia had me convinced that I was condemned to a life of misery over this slip-up. It took a tremendous amount of willpower to push it from my mind so I could concentrate on studying for those last few days, and I had an elaborate answering-machinie-checking system set up whereby Julian would get the messages first and not tell me if I had been rejected until after the exam, lest I become preoccupied with my own stupidity again.

The day after the bar, my contact person called and requested a letter spelling out my requirements. Whew. Good sign, but still no offer. She mentioned that they were still trying to reach one of my references. I had everything spelled out in an email by the end of the weekend, and began a final week of sweating it out. At the end of that week, she called back to start discussing the specifics of how I would take the necessary time off. It took a couple of minutes before I finally asked, "Does this mean I have an offer?" The answer, obviously, was yes.

I'm still pondering whether I was stupid or not.

Julian, my husband and resident electric device expert (it helps that he has two degrees in electrical engineering*) tried to fix our broken hot water urn and slow cooker today. He was successful as to the slow cooker; we are doing some test runs with the crock full of water, and so far things appear to be heating up properly without overheating. The damage seems to have been due to water corrosion, probably because we kept it near the sink. (Yes, I'm smart like that.)

The urn, on the other hand, is unfixable. Julian finally got it turning on, but the temperature sensor is damaged such that it thinks it's at the right temperature after only a few seconds of heating, which obviously won't do for nice hot tea on Shabbat. We plan to replace it, hopefully before Rosh Hashana. We've discovered that we weren't thrilled with all the features of the (now-broken) overpriced urn we currently have, so we're looking for something different. Good features include insulated sides (both for efficiency and to prevent burns, since I'm a klutz) and some way of refilling on Yom Tov (either it automatically turns on an off at specified intervals, or the act of stopping and restrating electrical current via a timer causes it to turn on again). A 24-cup (six quart) or greater capacity would be nice, but slightly smaller is probably OK. Obviously, it has to stay on for at least 25 hours at a time. If anyone out there has an urn they are happy (or unhappy) with, suggestions and reviews are welcome.

* Julian would like it known that these skills were not developed through his college education. Rather, he picked them up as a child by helping his father with similar repairs. His father, incidentally, is also an electrical engineer.

Through a sort of convoluted path, I came across this blog today. The blogger, who is relatively local, used to be frum and now...isn't. I did a little poking around and haven't found the "why" yet. I'm curious, but I'm also for some strange reason too mentally exhausted to continue the search.

Anyway, it has me wondering why I'm even thinking about it in the first place. After all, it (generally) doesn't bother me that different Jews have different religious philosophies and different levels of observance (in either "direction," as it were). However, there's always this little twinge in my heart when I hear about someone who used to be somewhere near my place on things who has moved away. I start wondering what's so evil about it...am I blind to some horrid aspect of my religious observance that they've found out? Were they blind to some wonderful, subconscious thing that I have always known about? Did the rigidity of the rules overshadow the beauty of the religion? How can I possibly raise my children to stay on this path? Alternatively, how can I possibly limit them when there are so many things in the world that I prohibit to myself? After all, Julian and I have made the carefully considered choice to follow this path (although we came to it in somewhat different ways); can we really expect to deprive our children of that choice? On the other hand, would we have made these choices if we didn't think they were the best for us and, by extension, for our future family.

I feel like Tevye. Dear God, I don't want to be like Tevye. On the other hand, he did have five daughters...

The exchange this morning before Julian left for work:

Him: What's your plan for today?
Me: No plan. Just a day.

Someone sent me a gmail invitation a couple of days ago. I've had the Create An Account window open since then, unable to complete the form, because I can't seem to pick a name. My usual handle is two short (four characters). My six-character-minimum variation on that handle won't work, because it includes a dash. My first name is already taken. I don't want to associate my last name (or any portion thereof) with the account. I also don't want to branch out into new territory with something unrelated to either my name or my usual handle. Suggestions are welcome.

Damn it all - I don't even need another email account! I was just trying to be one of the cool kids.

Let's get this straight. Please. Words have gender. People have sex.

Yes, there's a double entendre in there. Sue me if you don't like it. The point remains. When you get an ultrasound to find out if your fetus is a boy or a girl, you are finding out the baby's sex. When you, a man, talk about your relationships with women, you are discussing the opposite sex. When you decide whether to use "blond" or "blonde" to describe someone with light-colored hair, the choice is based on the sex of the person, although you are choosing a gendered word.

"Gender" properly describes people only when you are talking about their emotional and physiochemical identity. A biological male (that's his sex) who feels as if he should be a woman is transgendered. If you have some paperwork where you want to know whether the person is male or female (for whatever reason), you want to ask about their sex. If you ask for their gender, you should expect an answer consdierably longer than "M" or "F." It is not more polite, or more proper, or more discreet, to talk about someone's "gender" as a substitute for "sex." In fact, if you want to use the proper definition of the word, it's pretty damn intrusive. Now who's being rude?

I wandered through a Barnes & Noble yesterday and passed by a display of "moderately priced" paperback editions of "classic literature." I decided to pick up a copy of Gulliver's Travels and a Kate Chopin collection including "The Awakening."

No, I have never read Gulliver's Travels. I know, I should be shot.

Tomorrow I become a grown-up. At 8:30 AM, I begin training for my new job. I haven't yet had a chance to write up those Montreal restaurant reviews. No, that's not entirely accurate; I've had the chance, I just got lazy. I'll do them, I promise. Not now, though. Now, I want to talk about a little phrase that has appeared on almost every piece of paperwork I have filled out for this lovely new job of mine.

"Maiden Name"

Now, just to clarify, I have no problem with an employer knowing my former name, or anyone else's for that matter. I assume it is needed to keep records in order and the like. However, I imagine that married women are not the only people in the world who change their names, nor are the former names needed for this orderly record-keeping certain to be only the birth surnames of these women. This may come as a shock to someone out there, but--wait for it--men also can and sometimes do change their names upon marriage! And men and women are both free to change their names at any time, for (almost) any reason! First names, too! It's a regular name-change-a-palooza out there!

*ahem* What I mean to say is, strictly speaking, a man who changed his surname upon marriage would not need to fill in his birth surname under "Maiden Name," because, well, it's not. Furthermore, a person who has changed her or his name more than once since birth would face quite the challenge in trying to fit all that information onto one of these forms (setting aside the literal meaning of "Maiden Name"). What I think most of the entities issuinig these forms really want is "Birth Name." Why would it be so hard to write that? Why assume that all women change their surnames upon marriage, and that no one else changes a name for any reason? Hell, there's one fewer letter in "birth" than in "maiden," so the government can save on ink in the process!

It's even worse on forms asking for parents' names. Birth certificate forms, for example, nearly always request "father's name" and "mother's maiden name" (or, slightly less misogynisticly, "mother's name at birth"). Again, what if the father is the one who changed his name? Do we not care what his former name was? I'd bet good money that if John (formerly Doe) Smith and Judy Smith filled out a birth certificate form for their new baby both using the surname "Smith," the nurses would all be pestering Judy to put in her maiden name, and they wouldn't give John's name a second thought.

So far, the only form I've had to fill out that requests this information "properly" is the American Red Cross blood donor form, which asks whether you have "ever given blood under a different name."

See? It's not that hard.