Rating My Courses

OLLI has concluded for the semester.  An entirely satisfying selection of seven subjects.  There are many ways to sort my seven.  Six in person, one online.  Five morning, two afternoon.  One lecture, six with DVD or other video format.  Six with a single speaker, all men, one with rotating presenters.  Two dependent on discussion, all with question options. Two held downstairs in a large room, four upstairs in smaller rooms.  Only one in a room with windows.

So that's my composite.  Instead, the courses are assessed individually, what went well, what needs review.  I did mostly well.  By now I have experience attending and only sign up for teachers who I know can present capably.  And this semester they all could, though sometimes they lack expertise with content of the individual DVDs that centerpiece the courses.

It is a lot easier to show a video for a third of a weekly session, then use that as a basis for expansion than to write a dozen lectures with power point for each class, though the people who go that route invariably do it well.

What I find missing is that multidirectional discussion that has made my medical immersion sparkle.  Sometimes the patient's situation is pretty mundane and encountered most days.  But one unique aspect stands out, one twist in presentation around which a whole new discussion takes form.  Common in medical rounds.  Very rare at OLLI.  Even if the question is more intriguing than the video everyone just watched, it gets answered rather tersely, usually by the class instructor.  It very rarely becomes a new path of inquiry in its own right.

We now have hybrid courses, where some participants attend in person while others watch the proceedings remotely.  Anybody can watch a PowerPoint or view a DVD from anywhere.  It's the same Great Courses disc whether you purchase it for your PC or watch it communally.  What you cannot readily duplicate is interaction.  Q&A with the instructor goes mostly OK.  Reframing that interaction to students with each other mostly goes poorly in that format.  Still, the remote option enables people who live far away, or maybe live nearby but could not realistically enroll if they had to drive another half hour each way to get the campus, or have frailties.  Zoom has enabled many beneficial upgrades, but at a price of interaction.

Over two days I filled out the evaluation forms for all seven of my classes.  Different formats, though many recurrent themes in the assessment.  There is a committee that tabulates the feedback.  It is less clear what they are able to convey to the individual instructors.  Comments that take diametrically opposing or irreconcilable views would also be expected.  But they have a chance to look at all seven on mine.

Schedule Struggles

One laudable personal achievement post-pandemic has been the introduction of routines, primarily morning, but really extending much of the day, into the post-supper times.  I have a wake time with few deviations from it.  Sleep time has not established itself quite as well, but close enough to create something of a box of time for my waking hours.  Every day, with some modifications for shabbos and yom tovim, I start with dental care, make coffee which I bring upstairs to My Space, retrieve the newspaper from the end of the driveway for my wife irrespective of weather, wash some dishes, then retreat with my coffee mug to my desk to begin the day.  A blog effort, some crosswords, FB notifications while I sip the first cup, invariably brewed in a Keurig Express machine from pods obtained from a Shop-Rite discount.  Then treadmill if scheduled that day, time dependent on when my OLLI class begins.  On-site at OLLI completes most mornings.

That leaves a mostly unstructured block of time every afternoon, though my personal prime energy time has been the mornings.  Afternoons have very occasional appointments, the time to tackle tasks on my Daily Task List to bring Semi-Annual projects to fruition.  What I have found, though, is the morning structure, created by me, makes my mornings productive.  Afternoons have been less so, with my Musts largely dispatched by the time I return home from OLLI.  I have tried priorities, and work on them, but often do not bring projects to completion, in large part because I am often unclear on what completion entails.  Some things I do well, particular those with a future deadline like an upcoming Torah reading assignment or a submission to a writing contest.  I have a way of pacing myself knowing the end point but often flounder when there is either no completion deadline or I cannot grasp what the final result of my effort should look like.  I have tried to create structure with a timer which encourages me to define the time block for working on something but not for determining the final result.   I suppose there is no reason why I cannot do the same structural definitions of tasks for the afternoon that have succeeded in the mornings.

The evenings go a little better.  Supper gets prepared by me most nights, with eating time a little before 7PM, linking my PM medicine to supper preparation with nearly complete success.  I have a defined time for twice-weekly stretching in late afternoons and a defined time to record my weekly YouTube video, with very few postponements.  Then I have a recreational block, TV time, though more productive than the endless sitcoms I watched prior to subscribing to a comprehensive cable service.  I gravitate to YouTube shows about the trajectories of religion and videos of travel to places I might like to visit but realistically won't. That alone defines my personal interests.  There is Netflix, worth the monthly fee, where my interest varies between short series on assorted topics or more recently stand-up comedy presentations.  I do not usually try to catch up on what I should have done during the afternoon but didn't, nor do I do much housework.  Often I will read from a book I am pursuing, the amount determined by length or time before I begin to read. And I work on Torah readings during the evening hours, pacing myself to achieve fluency by a certain date.  Bed at a fairly specified time, a very helpful rather recent introduction.

So my lost opportunity appears to occur in the afternoons, that unstructured time box between my return from OLLI and supper preparation.  I need to add structure, a predictable routine, for tackling the Semi-Annual projects that lack deadlines, or even a definition of completion.  The templates for doing this are well established and successful most mornings.  As OLLI reaches its summer hiatus, that amorphous time interval will greatly expand.  It needs to be recaptured by the many things I'd like to do but have not taken advantage of my ability to perform at top level.

Political Event

For a mere $100 a ticket, a Benjamin by electronic transfer, I could meet the candidate while he could amass the money he needs to purchase media time.  My wife and I each bought a ticket.  His campaign selected a Mexican restaurant with a patio, a time in proximity to Cinco de Mayo, the celebratory day of Mexico and a partying day of people of Americans with Mexican heritage.  This is apparently a small local chain, this branch a newly opened one in a recently developed shopping center that aspires to become upscale. 

For the most part, I am among the diminishing fraction of Americans who live in a place that elects mostly honorable people, at least for statewide office.  I've met every governor except one, every Senator, every congressman except the incumbent who had been swept out within a short time of our relocating to where we have lived the past 44 years.  Not a single slimy individual.  Talents and views vary.  Scandals have been rare.  Leveraging power in a seriously objectional way only occurred one time, by the man who the candidate we just spent money to support ousted from office in a primary eight years earlier.

While the people who hold upper-tier offices seem worthy, the mechanism by which they organize people politically does not always attract my kind of people.  I had served on my Representative District's Democratic Committee, resigning not long ago as I found myself at odds with the platforms of the Democratic Progressives at my meetings.  Like many other Jewish voters, multigenerational Democrats who achieved considerable prosperity through initiatives that rescued my grandparents from an economic abyss and enabled a once unlikely college degree for my father, and access to elite universities for myself and my children, the October 7 massacre of Israeli's offered a political inflection point.  The President made his position unambiguous, virtually identical to mine.  The pushback offended me.  A new committeeman of my district introduced a proposal to support an initiative of a known congressional anti-Semite who herself represents a district adjacent to one in which my son and I each lived thirty years apart, a district where intimidation by punks is the coin of the realm.  My neighborhood and Tel Aviv are each pretty nice places to live.  So was the town where my parents opted to purchase the family home.  North St. Louis and Gaza are places that are left to people who are not the builders but the destroyers.  People who have little.  Takers.  The Democratic Party is about Builders, as is some of my Shabbos morning liturgy.  If not Reagan's City on a Hill, at least seek to create aspirations more noble than getting even with people who have attained economic success.  Equality of opportunity.  Rather than suffer through that, I realized that over my time on the district committees, I got to meet and admire some of the very honorable men and women that we elect.  I opted to divest myself of the monthly committee meetings in favor of picking one or two individual officials who had impressed me, then supporting their campaigns for re-election or higher office.  And so I support the County Executive who seeks to become the successor to the incumbent term-limited Governor, who I have also met and admired.  I know he is worthy.  A contribution of $200 may help get the word out to other people who don't know him.

We arrived at the Mexican restaurant as people were assembling.  As a Kosher consumer, Mexican cuisine seems dominated by ground beef and cheese combos, a Kosher taboo.  As a result, I never go to a Mexican restaurant unless physically in Mexico.  I did not know where this site was, but capably directed by my Israeli Waze app to a shopping center anchored by a Wegman's supermarket.  I found a place to park not far from the entrance, then passed the glass doors.  A hostess pointed me to their patio where the first person I encountered was another retired physician who I had not seen in a few years.  In the middle of the patio sat two young people, one of each gender, sporting cornflower blue t-shirts with the candidate's name in white block letters.  Since attendance required a campaign donation, the two aides confirmed payment.  They also confirmed contact information, suggesting that new solicitations would be forthcoming.

We first greeted the candidate's parents, longstanding friends from the synagogue we eventually defected from.  His mother remains a Facebook friend, a delightful lady in her mid-80s, while his father seemed less animated than in his prime.  As we mingled, nearly everyone we met and recognized belonged to their synagogue, with a few outliers, also Jewish, who belonged to different synagogues.  Even most of the doctors were Jewish.  They did not provide us name tags, something I usually expect at events where most people do not know each other.  In the absence of this type of passive introduction, I greeted essentially only people I knew, either from the Jewish or medical communities.

A Mariachi Band attired in neon green with glittering gold braid and ornate silk ties, all making these burly Mexicans register in my mind as effeminate, serenaded us.  A trumpet, two violins, a huge guitar larger than any I had seen before, and two more standard appearing guitars played the kind of music that I would expect at a place that serves tacos. Off in a corner sat food, a large bowl of tortilla chips and smaller bowls of guacamole and salsa.  A few people helped themselves to small servings on white porcelain bread and butter plates.  A pitcher of ice water and restaurant-style beer glasses to pour it in sat next to the tortilla chips.  No Dos Equis XX, Corona, or Modelo, which I might have expected at a political rally of high-priced admission held at a Mexican-themed location.  A few people went into the restaurant, emerging back onto the patio with their Margaritas, presumably purchased at the restaurant's bar.

As the band's music dominated the ambient sound, though not so loud as to snuff out conversations, the candidate appeared, holding his two month old son.  His wife, a physician, had entered separately, eventually taking turns holding the baby.  He made rounds, shaking hands, accepting congratulations on his newborn, but not disclosing how our lives might find an upgrade when he becomes our state's next Governor.

While the attendance seemed dominated by members of the Jewish community, and we are likely to vote overwhelmingly for him, our influence on electoral outcomes is rather small, even for a Democratic primary.  The party has the same two factions locally that it has nationally.  George Packer, in his masterpiece in The Atlantic not long ago termed them Smart America and Just America. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/07/george-packer-four-americas/619012/  Smart America supports this candidate.  We are college educated professionals, highly sought after by mainstream employers who need our skills and energies.  Only one person of color appeared on the patio, not counting the Mariachi musicians.  There did not seem to be any elected officials, many of whom are also people of talent seeking political advancement.  I would probably recognize any statewide official, and the woman of color may have been a statewide elected official.  But without name tags, I could not reference city, county, and state legislators or Cabinet officials who also think my preferred candidate should become Governor.  They may agree but would be at a disadvantage if the primary voters selected a different candidate.  I would have expected to see more of them than I did.

This election cycle, we have a musical chairs of high office.  Governor and County Executive stepping aside by term limits.  Senator retiring.  Congresswoman wants to be Senator, creating a vacancy there.  Lt Governor wants to be Governor, so another vacancy.  Did my candidate, the person I deem most capable, might have done better aiming for Washington?  There are candidates for those primaries, one perhaps part of Just America, the other a delightful person who displays photos of herself with Seniors and Kids but sidesteps anything that divides the professional class Democrats from the Progressives.  I much would have rather my fellow become a legislator, though there are satisfactions from being a CEO that individuals functioning in a legislative body do not enjoy.  So I understand why he sought the position that he did.  

I also did not detect enthusiasm.  What I saw was not the expansion of a community of common interest but its affirmation among people who already know each other.  We know his capability and trust him to function like our state's CEO.  Enthusiasm comes from imagining what might be possible that does not currently exist.  I saw none of that.  More importantly, in this day of Progressive and Identity ideology with a certain amount of public harm and political risk, I did not see any inclination to state that he as a candidate would resist the lures of easy votes if it jeopardized taking the best path ahead.

Might he not prevail in our primary?  Before the event, I would expect his talent to emerge.  After the event, I did not experience that talent, only a personable presence, nor did I encounter any breadth of support beyond what prosperous, highly educated, Jewish professionals would seek out.  The electorate is much wider than what I encountered for my $200.

Shiva House Trends

This week our house needs to observe Shiva, that Jewish mourning rite where the immediate family of the deceased stay mostly at home for the seven days following burial while people come to console them.  Customs have evolved over time.  In the 1960-70s era of the passing of my mother and my grandparents, it functioned as something of an open house.  Neighbors would drop by randomly, share memories.  On Sundays, aunts, uncles, and cousins living in different parts of metro NYC would drive over.  There was always food, often brought by neighbors who shared our Kosher guidelines.  Appetizing stores or sections of supermarkets could prepare trays of deli, dairy, or pastries for visitors to munch on.  A minyan assembled each evening for afternoon or nighttime prayers.

Over time, or perhaps over geography, customs shifted.  Corporate bereavement policies allowed only two or perhaps three days, which included round trip travel when needed.  Few people tapped into their vacation time for the full seven days, so a three day official home mourning became more common, though my wife and I observed the traditional seven days, the literal translation of shiva, for each of our parents.  The open house format waned in favor of formal visiting hours to coincide with evening services, conducted by a clergyman or congregant experienced at leading this.  Living room and dining room seating was often inadequate, particularly for prominent families that attracted dozens of visitors at the limited times.  Chair rental became a necessity.  There was still food, though fewer caterers, and outside Jewish enclaves, virtually no appetizing stores.  Still, supermarkets had a familiarity with this and provided mostly dairy options and baked goods.

It's been a challenging year for my household.  My wife lost her older brother, with the funeral on erev Yom Kippur, so there was only a Meal of Condolence, which traditionally follows burial,  without shiva.  Her sister passed away shortly after Pesach with shiva at our house.  And we have attended a few other homes as visitors to the mourners, people who create the required ten men, or in some traditions ten people of both genders, to allow the mourners to recite the prayer most associated with public mourning.  Arranging food has been my task.  For my brother-in-law, with the funeral conducted in a suburb with prosperous, observant Jews, and two sections of large supermarkets to accommodate them, I had difficulty assembling a suitable meal.  They made hoagies of deli meats, but I had to cut them into portions and arrange them on a platter.  For my sister-in-law, our small kosher section could not assemble a pareve pastry platter.  Instead, I went to the Dollar Store, bought two plastic trays, then a few hours before guests arrive, I will return to the Shop-Rite bakery to purchase my own pareve selections, then display them on the trays.  I will get some fruit as well, wash them, and display them.

I do not know why the demand for this service has dwindled.  In addition to shiva, homes also sponsor gatherings for circumcisions of newborns, always held in the day, with either some late morning snacks or a small luncheon.  For our children, Millennials from the 1980s we could count on a local kosher caterer both times.  They are no more.  The synagogues which have kitchens and Sisterhood volunteers have not filled in that vacuum, at least in my community.

Shiva will go on.  While it would have been simpler just to arrange for catering, I am fortunate to have the capacity to fulfill this part of the observance.  

Counting Omer

Mid-spring.  About halfway through.  Pesach mostly completed with the last few boxes of dishes still to be transported downstairs and a few appliances returned upstairs.  Mother's Day.  A languishing legal matter awaits resolution.  A talk for the synagogue to be prepared.  The outdoor gardens.  My monthly expense reviews.  Semi-annual plans for the second half of the calendar year.  Other things already completed.  Taxes.  Flourishing aerogarden, less flourishing chia pots.  Been on a small vacation.  Osher Institute courses nearing completion.  Made it to the putting green but not to the driving range. Casted my fishing line in a very unenthused way.

Amid the spring projects comes the nightly Omer Count.  The Festival of Shavuot, unlike the other Jewish Festivals, does not have a specified calendar date.  Instead, it occurs on the fiftieth day after the Second Seder.  During that interval a nightly count through 49 days, that is 7 weeks, takes place with a blessing before each count and a short benediction following it.  The daily count has few rules, but must be done after dark, so I set my timer to 9:10PM, though I may need to reset it a little later the final week.  There are rules for missed counts, some compensatory, some really better termed also-rans.  The count is both by days through 49 and after the first week, by week plus days.  No synagogue or communal effort is required.  This is entirely my project, though it has a dedicated number of people who make the nightly count part of their spring duties, as I do.  Organizational Reminders appear online.  I subscribe to Chabad, but the Orthodox Union has a reminder service as does an independent but less reliable Homer Omer which posts a Simpson's themed cartoon on Facebook most days through the count.

I find the need to do this, while taking not more than a minute or two each night, offers an anchor for the many spring projects that also take multiple small steps but have a destination.  The Omer's destination is the Festival of Shavuot, anticipated one night at a time.  I might have expected it to function as a count-down to goal, much like the clock running down to the end of a football game.  But like Hanukkah, it is designated count upwards.  It makes the destination grander, perhaps.  The count is purposeful.  Our seven weeks between Pesach and Shavuot is not empty time.  It is acknowledged time.  The many spring projects, from preparing my upcoming talk to nurturing my outdoor plantings, do not really have specified milestones, and sometimes not even firm end points.  Those weeks that define when Shavuot gets celebrated have their progress chart.  Unlike my garden harvest, the Festival always arrives.