to tree, or not to tree

I grew up with the Russian New Years tree (yelka), Ded Moroz ("Grandpa Frost" ala Santa), and Snegoorochka (no translation, no equivalent). I gotta say, I've been missing it. I remember fondly getting the tree with my dad and helping him decorate it with ornaments, and waking up early the next morning to find chocolates and other candy hanging on the tree. New Year's eve, presents would appear under the tree, to be opened at midnight (or whenever my little self would get tired). The tree was a national symbol of celebrating the new year, completely devoid of religious meaning. Coincidentally, an overwhelming majority of Christians in the former USSR are Orthodox, who (secretly) celebrated Rozhdestvo (loosely defined as "the birth") sometime in the middle of January. As far as I know, Rozhdestvo is a purely religious holiday that would be sacrilege to commercialize.

Either way, since my family came to the US we gave up our New Years traditions. No more trees, or decorations or gifts. I wouldn't call my family religious, but having the ability to finally publicly admit to being Jewish, I suppose there was no desire to pick up a Christian holiday. Among Jews, even the appearance of Christmas decorations is a big no-no. But I do miss it. I've been told that Christmas in the US being a national commercial holiday rather than a religious celebration these days, but it still feels "dirty" to celebrate it.

Anyways, I just ran across this interesting article about the Western Christmas creeping into Russia. It's pretty funny in certain places, to me at least. Enjoy.

ultimate wishlist

About 90% of things I want can be found on Amazon.com, but for the few that can't, I've signed up for a kaboodle wishlist. I just signed up so I'll update it over the next week or so.

My Kaboodle wishlist: http://www.kaboodle.com/drone1218/
And my Amazon.com wishlist direct link:


Make your own wishlist! (and let me know)

OMG. Nostalgia alert!

I'm so happy, I'm about to cry! No seriously, I'm tearing up. In searching for birthday/holiday gifts for people, I ran across this: http://store.russiananimation.com/cheburashka.html

I grew up with this cartoon and I would do anything to own copies of it again! It would be a fantastic gift for someone to get me (hint hint) but I don't know if I want to risk it selling out. I think I'm just going to buy it for myself. I've also added these to my amazon.com wishlist.

I really never thought I would be able to relive any part of my childhood from the USSR. But after finding this, I'm beginning to think that in another few years, much of the media from that time/region will become available to the public. There are so many other shows and movies that I would love to have. Somehow, I will have them all!

i love to sleep

unfortunately, today is "tree trimming day" so there are guys with loud chainsaws outside my window cutting branches since 8am. Damn them! My first day of not waking up at 5am and I can't even sleep in. I guess I'll have to nap later.

So the craziness of working all the time is finally over! Now I get to stay out here in cali till after Thanksgiving. What will I do with myself? I have work to catch up on but that won't take up too much time. But since Alex and everyone else out here works (sheesh!), my days will be pretty dull and uneventful. I'd like to sleep in, but it's likely that people from work will call me in the morning (afternoon their time). I hope to start going to the gym at our building. There's even a yoga class every Wednesday, and kickboxing on Tuesdays I think.

I wanted to write down a few interesting observations from my train commuting days. Yesterday, I sat across the aisle from 2 middle aged women knitting scarves. There was something weird about that. From time to time they would discuss different stitches and yarn they used for different projects. I wondered if they know each other outside the train-knitting, or if they are kindred souls who found each other during the commute one day and then decided to sit together.

Last week, a woman sitting behind me offered her paper to a man sitting across the aisle from me when she was finished with it. He took it gracefully, flipped through the sections, and picked out the standard male section: sports. I then saw a very interesting thing which led me to conclude that the man was illiterate in English (he was most likely an immigrant). He opened the paper to the middle and just held it up in front of his face. I could see his reflection in my window (because it was so freaking dark out at 5am) and he wasn't looking at the paper at all. He would look up, down, left right, anywhere but the paper. Once, he turned the page and then did the same hiding behind the paper bit. It must be difficult for him in social situations like this one. I hope he takes the time to learn to read, because it's hard to be so isolated from the world around you.

Oh and WOOHOO for the Democrats winning Congress and for Rumsfeld leaving. The next 2 years of politics will be awesome! When is the last time both parties had presidential primaries at the same time? It'll be really really interesting, and historic. Alex and I have decided to not get cable because comcrap doesn't deserve our money, but it'll be tempting to sign up just to watch the news and debates.

I've temporarily escaped the pitts

I've been out in California for the last 3 weeks working. This has been planned for a while now, so it's a great coincidence to have Alex living out here. Unfortunately, our apartment is in Mountain View and my work is up in San Francisco, which means a very long and painful commute. It's particularly painful since I have to be at work by 7am. So I get up at 4:50am every morning, leave at 5:30 and take a beautiful 15 minute walk up to the CalTrain station for the 5:56 train. Recently, I've been picking up breakfast of English Breakfast black tea and a blueberry muffin from a little coffee stand at the station to eat on the train (as that's the only way I'm going to get breakfast). I arrive in SF at 6:42 am, and have to take a cab to where I work (since time is of the essence). I usually don't get out of work till 6pm these days (which used to be 7:30, and once, 9:30pm!). Getting out at 6pm, I usually catch the 6:56 train home and get home around 7. That's just enough time to eat and shower and get 5 hours of sleep to do it all over again!

I haven't had much time or energy to do anything else here yet. I went to a friend's Halloween party, out to see Borat, and to the Lines Ballet, and that's about it. The ballet thing was hosted by Technoratti, and was unfortunately on a weekday (this past Weds). By the end of the evening I was so tired, I felt nauseous. I avoided hurling and was able to get 5 hours of sleep. Fortunately, I should be done with my work here on Tuesday. Then I'm staying out here for a week to relax and catch up on sleep. I will be heading back to the Pitts after Thanksgiving.

I actually kind of miss Pittsburgh... particularly my bed. It's nice having a real mattress. An Aerobed is pretty nice for an inflatable mattress, but it's not quite the real thing. I also miss TV. I have lots of shows to catch up on. But that's pretty much all I miss about Pittsburgh.

That brings me to today.... It's Veteran's Day which means I have a day off (who knew?). I woke up at 10, checked my email and did some work-related online errands till about 11:30. Then I went out to drop some clothes off for alterations and picked up lunch (Indian curry soup in a sourdough bread bowl - yum!). I ate my soup at home while watching Baseketball (really lame movie) since my only entertainment is limited to whatever DVDs I brought with me that play on my laptop. Then I read the manual for our fancy Halcyon Inverter cooling/heating unit which was originally written in Japanese and translated (very poorly) into English. After figuring out how to turn off the stupid timer setting someone else had set, I felt tired and in need of a nap.

I crawled under the covers at 1:50 and set my alarm for 3:30. Unfortunately, I didn't change AM to PM, and woke up at 5:30 once it was dark out. It's always depressing waking up when it's already dark. My only consolation is that my day is going to get better since I'm having a girls' night out with all the lovely ladies of Cornell who live out here. We're going to the Korean House for dinner (all the reviews say that the place is run by old Korean moms who yell at you for not eating enough), and possibly a movie after. Speaking of... I should get out of my PJs and brush my teeth and all that.