Camp's over
Well, I finished Camp CBI on Friday. All in all, camp was a great experience. I learned a lot about working with kids, especially 7- and 8-year-olds. Prior to this summer, my experience had mainly been with 11-13-year-olds, and now I realize that there are major differences. I really believe that working at this camp at this time in my life was better preparation (or at least on a different level) for life as a rabbi than my years at Kayitz (two weeks each summer at Temple Emanuel) or my ten years of teaching Hebrew.
Also during this time, I have managed to secure housing for next year (we are currently submitting the lease and all should go well). The address is 2460 S. Culpeper St., Arlington, VA 22206. The house has reasonably large bedrooms, a decent-sized living room and huge basement common area, and one-year-old appliances (washer & dryer, dishwasher, fridge, and microwave). It's pretty close to DC, it's less than 10 minutes from my grandparents' house, and it's in a nice (safe!) neighborhood. To top it all off, it has an affordable rent that wasn't the highest we saw! It was definitely my first choice among the houses that we looked at, and I'm looking forward to moving in. Come visit! :)
City Year begins August 29. Between now and then, I have several fun things lined up. Wednesday, I have an interview in DC to be the 6th-8th grade youth advisor at Temple Sinai in Washington, DC. After the interview, I drive to Amherst, Mass. to be with Jessica for the end of her internship at the National Yiddish Book Center. (On the drive, I'll be listening to my newly-acquired Paradise Lost book CD.) We're driving to DC on Friday (stopping in NYC to eat lunch with Nicole and Joe!) and spending the night with Jessica's uncle in Maryland. On Saturday, we drive to Roanoke, and early Sunday morning, our family goes to the Crane family reunion. We come back on Monday, on Tuesday we visit Rachel Bernstein in Richmond, on Wednesday we return to Roanoke, on Thursday Jess takes the GREs, on Friday I read Torah and then a day or two later we all go back to Lake Gaston (site of the Crane Family Reunion) for a mini-vacation with just our family (and Jessica) for several days. On August 11, I move into my new house (part 1), then we go to Philadelphia for Jessica's birthday. Then we have a week before classes begin for Jess and I move permanently to DC wherein we can rest up for our big years ahead. So, the next month is going to be busy but a cakewalk compared to what I've been doing for the past six weeks! :-D
Yesterday and today, having nothing else to do, I reread Yann Martel's Life of Pi. It felt really good to read solid fiction - I've been reading (when I have time to read) non-fiction all summer which is fulfilling in an entirely different way. Hopefully, Mom will finish with Harry Potter soon so I can move onto that. :)
I think that takes care of the big news right now. We'll see about any future updates for the summer. ;-)
Today's QotD is an excerpt from a paper I wrote about Life of Pi and Passage to India in my second year. No spoilers.
Pi likes his name, and he grows into it. He remarks that "in that Greek letter that looks like a shack with a corrugated tin roof, in that elusive, irrational number with which scientists try to understand the universe, I found refuge" (Martel 24). This statement alerts us already that Pi recognizes the significance of his name. The number pi cannot be fully understood or quantified, and, as Pi mentions here, it is a key to understanding the universe. The relationship between pi and Pi is clear and becomes only more significant when we examine the composition of each.
The exact numerical value of pi is incalculable, but mathematicians have been able to produce very precise approximations. Many know the number as 3.14, and I imagine most mathematicians can recall 3.14159 - it is not even uncommon to find people who can recite 3.1415926535898. But, whether one knows two decimal places of pi or a hundred, all can agree that pi is "a bit more than three." And, as we discover, it is not difficult to see Pi also as "a bit more than three."
Though it greatly surprises his parents, Pi comes to adopt to himself three religions: his native religion of the Brahman nirguna, Hinduism (one); the religion of Allah and Muhammad, Islam (two); and the religion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Christianity (three). When the priest, imam, and pandit discover that Pi claims all three religions, the only matter on which they agree is that such cannot be: "'...he [Pi] can’t be a Hindu, a Christian and a Muslim. It’s impossible. He must choose'" (Martel 69). However, Pi’s choice is to be just that: a Hindu, a Christian, and a Muslim. He will be all three.
And yet, Pi is more than simply a Christian, a Muslim, and a Hindu. For, just as "religion is more than rite and ritual" (Martel 48), so, too, is Pi more than the composite of those three faiths. If Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity are the three, then Pi is the point one four. Pi does the impossible: he joins the three religions to himself in a way that seemingly cannot be done. Pi’s ability to absorb and unite what others perceive as contradictory is irrational - just as the simple division of a circle’s circumference by its diameter yields an unexpectedly irrational result.
This similarity is hardly a coincidence - even the relationship between geometry and Pi’s journey is significant. Pi discusses circles in the midst of his journey at sea:
To be a castaway is to be a point perpetually at the centre of a circle. However much things may appear to change … the geometry never changes. Your gaze is always a radius. The circumference is ever great. In fact, the circles multiply. To be a castaway is to be caught in a harrowing ballet of circles... (Martel 215-216).
Pi understands that he is traveling in a midst of circles, and we as readers have the ability to view his journey with a bird’s eye - that is, although Pi feels ever in the center of a circle, we can see him as traversing one whose boundaries include the place at which the Tsimtsum sinks and the Mexican shore where Pi lands. Thus, the correlation between pi and Pi is clear: both are relationships between a crossing and the thing it crosses.
Therefore, if pi and Pi are related, then the diameter of the circle and Pi’s crossing the Pacific Ocean are also related. If a mathematician were to try to use the number three to "construct" a diameter, the line would not make it all the way across the circle. Nor would it be long enough if the mathematician used 3.14 or even, theoretically, 3.1415926535897932384626. No number but pi itself can get that diameter all the way across the circle. Regardless of our inability to understand how, pi manages to create a real, vital part of the circle: its diameter. In just the same way is Pi really not the same as the point one four - really, Pi is akin to the infinite string of decimal places that can never be understood. Pi, as "a bit more" than the union of three religions, is infinitely deep and complex, and he must be in order to make it across the ocean.
SPDWotD:
story - an account of an event or series of events
Also during this time, I have managed to secure housing for next year (we are currently submitting the lease and all should go well). The address is 2460 S. Culpeper St., Arlington, VA 22206. The house has reasonably large bedrooms, a decent-sized living room and huge basement common area, and one-year-old appliances (washer & dryer, dishwasher, fridge, and microwave). It's pretty close to DC, it's less than 10 minutes from my grandparents' house, and it's in a nice (safe!) neighborhood. To top it all off, it has an affordable rent that wasn't the highest we saw! It was definitely my first choice among the houses that we looked at, and I'm looking forward to moving in. Come visit! :)
City Year begins August 29. Between now and then, I have several fun things lined up. Wednesday, I have an interview in DC to be the 6th-8th grade youth advisor at Temple Sinai in Washington, DC. After the interview, I drive to Amherst, Mass. to be with Jessica for the end of her internship at the National Yiddish Book Center. (On the drive, I'll be listening to my newly-acquired Paradise Lost book CD.) We're driving to DC on Friday (stopping in NYC to eat lunch with Nicole and Joe!) and spending the night with Jessica's uncle in Maryland. On Saturday, we drive to Roanoke, and early Sunday morning, our family goes to the Crane family reunion. We come back on Monday, on Tuesday we visit Rachel Bernstein in Richmond, on Wednesday we return to Roanoke, on Thursday Jess takes the GREs, on Friday I read Torah and then a day or two later we all go back to Lake Gaston (site of the Crane Family Reunion) for a mini-vacation with just our family (and Jessica) for several days. On August 11, I move into my new house (part 1), then we go to Philadelphia for Jessica's birthday. Then we have a week before classes begin for Jess and I move permanently to DC wherein we can rest up for our big years ahead. So, the next month is going to be busy but a cakewalk compared to what I've been doing for the past six weeks! :-D
Yesterday and today, having nothing else to do, I reread Yann Martel's Life of Pi. It felt really good to read solid fiction - I've been reading (when I have time to read) non-fiction all summer which is fulfilling in an entirely different way. Hopefully, Mom will finish with Harry Potter soon so I can move onto that. :)
I think that takes care of the big news right now. We'll see about any future updates for the summer. ;-)
Today's QotD is an excerpt from a paper I wrote about Life of Pi and Passage to India in my second year. No spoilers.
Pi likes his name, and he grows into it. He remarks that "in that Greek letter that looks like a shack with a corrugated tin roof, in that elusive, irrational number with which scientists try to understand the universe, I found refuge" (Martel 24). This statement alerts us already that Pi recognizes the significance of his name. The number pi cannot be fully understood or quantified, and, as Pi mentions here, it is a key to understanding the universe. The relationship between pi and Pi is clear and becomes only more significant when we examine the composition of each.
The exact numerical value of pi is incalculable, but mathematicians have been able to produce very precise approximations. Many know the number as 3.14, and I imagine most mathematicians can recall 3.14159 - it is not even uncommon to find people who can recite 3.1415926535898. But, whether one knows two decimal places of pi or a hundred, all can agree that pi is "a bit more than three." And, as we discover, it is not difficult to see Pi also as "a bit more than three."
Though it greatly surprises his parents, Pi comes to adopt to himself three religions: his native religion of the Brahman nirguna, Hinduism (one); the religion of Allah and Muhammad, Islam (two); and the religion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Christianity (three). When the priest, imam, and pandit discover that Pi claims all three religions, the only matter on which they agree is that such cannot be: "'...he [Pi] can’t be a Hindu, a Christian and a Muslim. It’s impossible. He must choose'" (Martel 69). However, Pi’s choice is to be just that: a Hindu, a Christian, and a Muslim. He will be all three.
And yet, Pi is more than simply a Christian, a Muslim, and a Hindu. For, just as "religion is more than rite and ritual" (Martel 48), so, too, is Pi more than the composite of those three faiths. If Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity are the three, then Pi is the point one four. Pi does the impossible: he joins the three religions to himself in a way that seemingly cannot be done. Pi’s ability to absorb and unite what others perceive as contradictory is irrational - just as the simple division of a circle’s circumference by its diameter yields an unexpectedly irrational result.
This similarity is hardly a coincidence - even the relationship between geometry and Pi’s journey is significant. Pi discusses circles in the midst of his journey at sea:
To be a castaway is to be a point perpetually at the centre of a circle. However much things may appear to change … the geometry never changes. Your gaze is always a radius. The circumference is ever great. In fact, the circles multiply. To be a castaway is to be caught in a harrowing ballet of circles... (Martel 215-216).
Pi understands that he is traveling in a midst of circles, and we as readers have the ability to view his journey with a bird’s eye - that is, although Pi feels ever in the center of a circle, we can see him as traversing one whose boundaries include the place at which the Tsimtsum sinks and the Mexican shore where Pi lands. Thus, the correlation between pi and Pi is clear: both are relationships between a crossing and the thing it crosses.
Therefore, if pi and Pi are related, then the diameter of the circle and Pi’s crossing the Pacific Ocean are also related. If a mathematician were to try to use the number three to "construct" a diameter, the line would not make it all the way across the circle. Nor would it be long enough if the mathematician used 3.14 or even, theoretically, 3.1415926535897932384626. No number but pi itself can get that diameter all the way across the circle. Regardless of our inability to understand how, pi manages to create a real, vital part of the circle: its diameter. In just the same way is Pi really not the same as the point one four - really, Pi is akin to the infinite string of decimal places that can never be understood. Pi, as "a bit more" than the union of three religions, is infinitely deep and complex, and he must be in order to make it across the ocean.
SPDWotD:
story - an account of an event or series of events