I’m a Barbie girl…in a Jewish world?

I never thought I’d say this, but it seems Barbie is finally doing something positive with her image.

What, you’ve never seen Tefillin Barbie before?

And not only does Barbie now know how to study Talmud…

        
She can read Torah (left) and lift the Torah (right).

In real life, this blond Barbie would still have the 18-inch waist, size 42D bust, and would not have the muscle strength to walk on her two feet.

But still, I’m all for having positive female Jewish role models.

Come on, Barbie, let’s go party…on Shabbos!

(Images from http://www.geniza.net/bar/barbie.shtml)

At last! A new phone!

Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like you to meet the newest addition to my electronics collection.

    

Its name is Samsung M500, and it is amazing.

It can text message normally (see the previous post), take good pictures, and is slim and beautiful. I can talk on a speakerphone, but I also got a Bluetooth headset.

I think I was busy the day everyone got Bluetooth, and nobody bothered to tell me that it was the cool thing to have. So I’m not quite sure what it is, but I’m excited to have it.

If I type in a partial phone number and press “Find,” it can tell me whose number it is. When I dial a number, it tells me what state I’m dialing–in case I forget that Sara is from Ohio, Benjamin is from Missouri, and my Home is in Illinois.

So far, I’m pretty pleased with it. Yay.

This is why Lia needs a new cell phone.

At the Sprint store the other night, I asked the woman to compare text messaging in the two phones I’m looking at.

“It depends on what kind of a texter you are,” she said.

I’ve been shopping around for a new cell phone for the past year or so. I’ve had my current phone since my sophomore year of high school–more than four years ago.

But I can’t take it anymore. I need a new phone as soon as possible. It’s not that the phone doesn’t work or that it’s broken or anything. It’s that I’m not any kind of “texter.” I have missed out on the “texting” culture because on my phone, in order to send a text message, I need to set aside an hour or two of my day to do it.

Four years ago, text messaging wasn’t very common. You had to log onto the Internet on your phone, which is what I have to do. Let me show you. 

          
Here is what my phone looks like, to give perspective. It’s not slim, and it still has an external antenna.

       
So I want to send a text message. I must click on “Shortmail” in the menu, and log onto the Internet (left). Then, I get to menu in the right picture. It’s a list of people who texted me three or four years ago when I set this up. For everyone else (even if they’re in my phone) not on this list, I must click on “Compose.”

    
Left: Here is how to send a message. The fields expand when you click in them. But when you go to type in the number in the “To” field, the default that comes up is English letters rather than numbers. Right: So I must switch to Number mode.

  Then I get this lovely message saying that my message was sent!

    
Left: So now I get a reply from the message I sent. How do I know? My phone flashes red, and I get this message. I now must click on “Go,” and I, again, must log onto the Internet (see above). Right: Finally, finally, I get my message. But the person’s name does not appear. I must look at the number (I blocked out the last two numbers so you can’t call this person), and if I don’t recognize it, call it and then hang up really quickly to see who it was. Yeah, I’m not kidding.

Therefore, I’m hoping to get a new phone this weekend or sometime soon. Then, you can send me all the text messages you want!

But for now, if you text me, I might just respond with a phone call. At least now you see why.

Comparative politics? More like nap time.

Is it better to take a class that is difficult but interesting, or easy but boring?

For Medill, we need to take an international (non-U.S.) political science class. I’ve been dreading this requirement; though I’m enjoying my American Government and Politics class, I can’t imagine enjoying an international politics class of any sort.

So then I found Comparative Politics, taught by Professor John Doe (name changed to protect the identity of the professor). I read through hundreds of CTECs (course and teacher evaluations) of this class, and I learned some interesting things. Most people agree the class is incredibly easy, the readings are unnecessary, and the lectures are dry.

Should I take the class anyway and knock the requirement out with an easy class? Leave a comment with your vote. And here’s what some of the students had to say on the evaluations.

“Don’t take this class unless you plan on going into comparative politics. No, even then, don’t take it.”

“Please, unless you enjoy wanting to stab yourself in the head twice a week, don’t take the class.”

“I once counted how many times he said ‘um’ (this is just ‘um’; it doesn’t include ‘you know’ or ‘I don’t know’) and it was 297 times over the course of 70 minutes. That translates to about an ‘um’ every 15 seconds.”

“If you’re willing to be bored and wishing for death but with a high GPA, take this class.”

“Kendra, the TA, was amazing, and I wanted to give her a high-five whenever I saw her. I didn’t, because I figured it would be awkward, but in the back of my mind I wanted to.”

“Ripping my eyes out of their sockets would be more fun than going to the lectures.”

“John Doe is, um, possibly, um, the worst prof I have ever had, um, at NU. The class is for monkeys. My favorite class was titled ‘Dictators can be good, but also very bad.’”

“This class was like having hot cheese dip poured into your pants. There is a shocking pain at first, but after that, it just becomes an annoyance. Lectures will make you sad. Bring a Daily.”

“John Doe looks just like my ex-boyfriend. So that was kind of creepy.”

“I only went to this class once (to take the midterm) and my GPA didn’t take a beating. In fact, it improved.”

“Comparative politics? More like nap time.”

Those were just the best of the best comments; there were also some positive comments. If you go to Northwestern, look up the CTECs for this class for some light reading.

So…sound like a winner?