rantings

There are many things that irk me in Philly, and a lot of these are related to the road. As a biker, I probably risk my life every day riding in the city. But yeah, a list:
*People who park in the bike lane
*People who go in the bike lane to turn
*Pedestrians who stand in the bike lane to cross the street
*Bikers who bike the WRONG WAY in a bike lane (especially when there's another on the other side of the street. I don't mind them on the sidewalks, which are plenty wide, but the bike lane is pretty small.)
*People who drive through the red light after someone has aready driven through the red light (As in they must have had enough time to stop, but yet they don't...)

And I guess that's it. Sorry, I've been wanting to get that out for a really long time but never got around to writing it.
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I spent most of today when I wasn't in class learning mincha. At both lunch and dinner I was anti-social and sat with my ipod, listening to everything, with the machzor in front of me, marking in everything with pencil. If I had sheet music it would be so much easier, because then I could follow the notes. But I don't, so I'm forced to make my own notations. And I can't even explain what they all are, since I can't just sing on LJ...And not all of them are so systematic. A few do actually mean specific things, but a lot just trace the notes going up and down in certain places.

As it is, even when I did get to working with M.Y. I only really knew through the kedusha, semi knew the next part before "Baruch atah Hashem, Melech HaKadosh" Then I know the yaaleh v yaavo (and have some fun notations there) then I'm pretty much clueless except for the stuff that's just sung by everyone. And the kaddish shalem at the end is shiny, though I have to figure out how OCP makes the ending work, since they have the fun way of singing it, but I can never get the "v al kol yisrael vimru (amen)" to fit... But I have a note that says "shiny, shiny! (See mussaf3)" since there are 3 mussaf recordings for YK and the kaddish shalem is at the end of that. Luckily I downloaded all of the services! Yay! Ipod full of liturgy!!!

So I have not done any thesisizing today.

And I asked Dr. Schuyler if they used patiches in American historical archaeology. He said he didn't even know what they were! The tragedy! And maric23 was trying to convince me I didn't need one, since there were all these other tools, except that safi doesn't have those hobbit-friendly tools. We have the big hoe, the pick-axe, the handpick and the trowel (which we bring our own.) The first 2 are near impossible for me, because my arms are short, so I'd have to kill my back to use them. The handpick is okay to use, but gets tiring after a while because it has a big metal head (or whatever you call it) and also it can't get into tight places like the patiche can. And new tools are always sharp and shiny.

So I still don't know which size to get, but I guess I'll have to decide, so I can buy it. I'm weird like that- buying a patiche in September/October when I won't need it until at leats the end of May. Though then they get out of stock in the summer.

Unless anyone wanted to get me one for channukah...Nah, don't. I really want it now. It's retail therapy. To make up for all the thesisizing I do (well except this week.)

If Ben asks me what I was doing with my time instead of thesisizing, I can sing him the chatzi kaddish that comes before the amidah, because it's all shiny and complex and hard to learn. And then he'd be ike "Umm...Rachel... That's not a thesis." Yeah. Definitely not a thesis. But it's a lot prettier than my thesis.

I really could use a massage, but since everyone is stressed and busy now, there's no one I can really ask.

I need a hug.

At least the only thing I need to do tomorrow is make food for Shabbat. That should be easy, and I can listen to mincha while waiting for things to cook.