I... am really, seriously, painfully in love. It kind of hurts, in that good way. I mean, I go out drinking when she's studying and, after an hour or so, it loses its luster. She's not there. What's the point? But I can watch her stress out over a final for hours, and never get bored. So. Weird. But good. I dunno.

Who knows a good fairly left-wing (for them) Orthodox Rabbi in NYC I could get in touch with, y'know?

I might. Well, I don't really know the rabbi, but there's an Orthodox synogogue that I know pretty well (my grandparents were founding members, and I've been going there for special occaisions and stuff my whole life) which seems fairly liberal, as Orthodox goes. I can figure out the rabbi's contact info, if you want.

I can figure out the rabbi's contact info, if you want.

Actually... that would be great. E-mail it to me? Or just the name of the synagogue, and I can almost certainly get it myself.

Don't know that I'll USE it anytime soon (that's a big, scary step) but it would be nice to have.

Got it. GG actually attends there. Small world.

GG actually attends there. Small world.

Neat.

That's actually one of the Orthodox synagoges where I feel most comfortable. Most of my issues with Orthodoxy are gender issues, and I feel like it actually tries to address them in a meaningful way, rather than the "Let me tell you all the reasons we're right and you're wrong" that I feel at a bunch of other ones. Also, they've got a Carlebach service, which always feels more "right" to me than a traditional one. (Carlebach services are a lot more singing, and more emphasis on finding a tune that emphasizes the meaning of the words.)

Theologically, if I were Jewish, I think I'd be right-wing Conservative or left-wing Orthodox. Not that I really have any idea what I'm talking about, but those seem more reasonable than most positions. I'm friends with an example of the former, and dating an example of the latter, and both have really smart, logical arguments that make lots of sense to me.

And, with that, I bid the world (or, rather the Bitches and their close friends: FUCK the rest of the world) good night.

Love you all.

As for interesting forms of grading curves, I had a lit. teacher in high school who designed her multiple choice tests so that no one could get all the questions right. Instead of using a regular curve, she would set whatever was the highest score as equivalent of 100%. So 91% of the highest score would be an A, 82% of the highest score was a B, etc. In the 7 or 8 years she'd been teaching that particular class, no one had ever gotten a perfect score on those tests. Until I showed up. I did it twice. My classmates often threatened to kidnap me on exam days.

ETA: Here is a link to a game called Sober Santa. [link] The object seems to be to guide Santa to champagne glasses and presents without bumping into an electric train track and getting zapped.