Renaissance artists and childhood TV shows

In Euro, we keep mentioning some famous artists of the Renaissance: Michaelangelo, Donatello, Raphael, and Leonardo. Whenever I hear their names, I can’t help but think of a favorite childhood TV show…Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

Thinking about the Turtles gave me a nice mental break from the video we were watching about Machiavelli.

I want to meet the guy who came up with the idea for that TV show. “Let’s make a TV show cartoon about turtles. Wait, that’s boring. I’ll add a twist. They’ll be…NINJA turtles! But I don’t know…ninja turtles is a little unrealistic. I mean, turtles don’t just become ninja turtles naturally…they are mutants! The show won’t be entertaining though if it’s about adults–adults are too old, and the ninja weapons are probably slightly dangerous for small children. They’ll be…teenagers. Eureka! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!”

The show was really cool. I was never a huge fan, but my brother watched it all the time. The turtles were really funny, really ’80s: “Dude!” “Radical!” And I looked in every toy store in the universe for the April figurine, but they only had the turtles and the bad guy (Shredder?).

Yeah, I don’t really know much now about Machiavelli.

www.lialehrer.com

FYI, you can all access this page now at www.lialehrer.com. For now, that goes directly to my Livejournal, but eventually, I’m hoping to create a super webpage that links to Israel pictures (site to be created), other various pictures, and other things that I think are cool.

So if you’re having trouble remembering lia1031 (as in Lia, my name, and 1031, October 31, Halloween, my birthday), then you can just remember my easy-to-spell name. Lehrr. Lehrerre. Leher. Lehrere. Leher. Leia. Liya. Leah. Lejah. Lerer. Learer. (My British piano teacher once spelled it “Lera.”)

www.lialehrer.com

Happy birthdays

I got to chill with Dan a little last night while dropping off Michael and his stuff at Northwestern. College looks like SO much fun. I can’t wait for the summer-camp-minus-the-counselors (plus some work?) atmosphere. Never mind the worries about WHERE I’ll go to college–I’m sure even if I go to [insert undesirable school here], I’ll have a really fun time.

Michael was complaining that I didn’t update this enough. So this is for you. Happy 21st birthday, Michael!!

Another birthday mention to Nathan, who turns 17 today. Happy birthday!

In honor of these milestone birthdays, I thought I’d dedicate a paragraph to each of you.

Michael is my older brother. He’s a cool kid. He’s a junior (well, by AP credits I think he’s actually a senior) at Northwestern. He plays bassoon and sax, which sort of makes me jealous. He’s in a fraternity. The Jewish one, of course: AEpi. He’s majoring in math. He wrote his college essay about how if he could live in the world of a book, he would live in “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” When he grows up, he’ll either be a math teacher or an actuary, because those are the only two things you can do with a math major. He taught me everything I know today about sports (especially how to play football). He won’t admit it, but I’ve beaten him multiple times at You Don’t Know Jack. He’s pretty smart, and he thinks he’s funny. Happy birthday, Mike.

And, to Nathan: Nathan lives in Texas. Haha. He’s an Astros fan, but when the Cubs beat them, he claims he’s “not that big of a baseball fan.” He was on USY Poland Seminar / Israel Pilgrimage Group 4 ‘04! He’s loud, and sings Az Ich Veil Zingen with lyrics of “kosher beef jerky.” He’s his regional IA VP, and isn’t afraid to announce that to the world. He says “Oh man” a lot, and now I do too. I read his Livejournal before I met him because Francie found it. He has a beautiful theory about stupid people. He hates a lot of people, and if you’re on his good list, it’s a big accomplishment. He also thinks he’s funny. I guess he is. Happy birthday, Nathan.

Dead vegetables

This is courtesy of a fellow Niles West student’s shirt I saw the other day:

“Do you know how many vegetables had to DIE for your stupid salad?”

That shirt made me happy. Haha.

Vegetarians are pretty funny too. I guess there are two kinds of vegetarians–the ones who do it for the moral/ethical reasons, and the ones who do it for the taste.

Moral/ethical people: Um, we’re at the top of the food chain. It’s our job to eat the animals. If we didn’t, there would just be too many of them!! Think about how much grass would be eaten if there were too many cows. THINK ABOUT THE GRASS!! And if you’re worried about the way they’re killed, just keep kosher, and let the mashkiachs worry about that.

Taste people: If you don’t like the way meat tastes, why does it matter if your “vegetarian” food touched meat once? You can’t taste it. Also, I don’t like oranges (yes, I don’t like oranges), but I’m not going to go around with the people who are against the killing of innocent oranges. Not eating animals because of moral reasons and not eating animals because of their taste, is, well, comparing apples and oranges. If you don’t like the way animals taste, don’t eat them–just be quiet, and don’t go joining PETA.

And next time you eat a salad…think about the poor, innocent vegetables that can no longer live their care-free lives as happy vegetables.

Goal achieved!

I think I finally achieved my goal.

Tanya told me that my blog helped keep her busy while she was procrastinating from doing homework…it even prevented her from doing homework!! WOW!! Do I have that kind of power? That is beautiful.

She also told me that it would be really cool if I could dedicate a whole entry to her. Well, Tanya’s a really cool girl. She went to Schechter with me, and then I see her at the few USY events I manage to drag her to. We have a lot of fun reminiscing together about the old days. She lives in Glenview, and hangs out at the Glen–that’s like an Old Orchard wannabe. Shes likes the Simpsons and the Beatles, which is great. She’s really cool, you should all be friends with her. There, Tan. Now if you don’t post a comment at this entry, there will be angriness.

I wonder…if I wrote an entry about each of the people I think read this, would they be more inclined to read it more frequently? Or would people who read this without commenting (the silent stalkers, I call them) finally comment so I know they exist, and then I’d write an entry about them? Maybe if I’m in the mood, I’ll dedicate a whole paragraph to YOU!

Bio

A few days ago, in Bio…

Mrs. Gleicher: Mammals are the only creatures that play.
Brad: I thought whales and dolphins played…?
Mrs. Gleicher: I thought whales and dolphins were mammals…?

What? Lia went to a USY convention?

Every day, it’s always, “Yeah, I just got back from [insert USY convention here].” But I love it. I don’t know how I’d get through high school without my USYers.

So this weekend (LTI = Leadership Training Institute), I played football during Shabbat free time with the sophomore boys. And by “played football,” I mean we threw it around and didn’t actually keep score or run or anything like that. If I may say so myself, I am quite good at football. I threw perfect spirals, and I seemed to always be able to catch the balls. The boys were very impressed. See, it’s one of those times when if you play with people at your own skill level or lower (meaning boys two years younger than me), it makes you look a lot better than you actually are. It was great.

And if any of you were at Camp CHUSY but not LTI, I’ll give you the “hey ba-ba-re-bop” that we (the girls) came up with: “Hey ba-ba-re-bop, oh ba-ba-re-bop, I wish that all the men were pieces of chicken, and then I’d COOK THEM FOR SHABBOS DINNER AND EAT THEM!” Hahahahahaha.

Where did my weird phrases come from?

When I write a paper in English class, I am required by the Academic Honesty policy to cite the ideas or words that aren’t my own.

Shouldn’t I have to do this in real life too?

I’m noticing that lately I’m using a lot of phrases/words that I picked up from other people. It’s kind of funny. I feel like I should give some of these people credit–cite them for giving me their words.

(For some, I’m not sure who I got the phrases from. If it’s you, let me know.)

“I feel like”–Michelle L?
“Can we talk about…”–Michelle L?
“O-gkay”–Maham
“Foreal”–Caroline L
“Oh man”–Nathan
“&*%#&@”–probably Nathan
“I’m not gonna lie”–who did this originate with? (And I haven’t started saying it yet, but I’m sure I will soon.)
“What’s the deal with…?”–definately Jerry Seinfeld
“Psshhht”–????
“OMG” (as in saying the letters O, M, G)–Tanya Spektor, a long time ago
“Sexy kavanah”–Elyse
“Spooning”–Hannah Heller? Rachel Hilker?
Haha, I’m sure there are plenty more.

Back from Fall Board + Allocations Meeting

I got back yesterday from New Jersey for International Fall Board Weekend, a weekend for all the USY Regional Board members. It was SO much fun!

Since I’m a SA/TO (Social Action / Tikun Olam) VP, I got to attend the Allocations meeting on Thursday where we decided where $81,000 went. We had a list of almost 80 charities, each with a different grant request. All of the organizations were really great and really deserving, and it was difficult deciding which places deserved more money.

Well, there was one organization that I didn’t like as much. It’s the Seminaro Rabbinico Latinoamericano (something like that). I mean, the organization itself is great–it trains Conservative rabbis in Latin America. But they wanted money for the weirdest project:

There are some Jews in Latin America that are in jail for selling drugs. The letter didn’t specify if they were guilty, but I assume that if they were innocent, the letter would say “wrongly accused” instead of just “accused.” Of course, in jail, they’ll need kosher food to eat! This organization works to provide kosher food to the Jewish prisoners, as well as blankets and warm clothes. In addition to this, they also send rabbis to the jail to teach Torah to the Jews in jail.

Come on. Jail is not a palace. They’re in JAIL! Because they committed a crime! If you’re worried about having kosher food in jail, don’t sell drugs!!! That place REALLY bothered me.

Other than that, all the organizations were really cool. The meeting lasted from 10:30 am to 10:30 pm with a lunch and dinner break. It was quite an experience.