(no subject)
Sep. 29th, 2003 10:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sanpaku_backupThe challenge as always is figuring out what to update about when I have no time.
Heap big trouble brewing at work, as my coworkers keep calling me to tell me of confrontations with one or another of the bosses. Oddly, I have not been having any such confrontations yet. It may be my lack of spine or moxie compared with my coworkers. It may be that I think I can do the work they want me to do. More likely, I have been so busy doing the work they already asked me to do that I haven't gotten much of a chance to reflect on the changes and what they will really mean for me.
Life right now is just a nonstop blur of sitting in front of this computer, feeding the baby, and going to minyan twice a day. Yeah, there we go, I could write about that. How my status as religious committee chair at my synagogue since they fired the rabbi has made me pretty much the closest thing they have to a functioning clerical authority there. I was the one who knew when to light the havdalah candle on Saturday night. I was the one who figured out what the Torah reading was for today (a fast day). I am the one who is planning to make sure we have a quorum of 10 people for the weekdays of Sukkot in two weeks. I am the one learning to chant Ecclesiastes in three weeks. I am the one rebuilding the synagogue Web site. (Example not forthcoming, as it would be a good site if it were, oh, 1995 or so, but my HTML skills have not evolved much since then.) And so on.
It is a lot of effort to put into a place that a) could well not exist this time next year; b) if it does exist will move somewhere else in the state so that we will probably not want to be members there anymore. It is also a lot of effort considering that I can't lead services etc. and do baby care at the same time, saddling Mrs. S. with the baby a lot. We had a bizarre series of unhappy conversations about it until I told her that if I didn't go there would pretty much be no leadership a lot of the time, kind of as though I was the rabbi, and oddly, that helped. "Just keep telling me -- I have to go; I'm the rabbi," she said.
Yeah, and that could lead to a whole other post here involving the letters J, T, and S, but I'm still making that all friends-only. Not that anything will come of it. Really.
One way to keep track of life is to contemplate things in the near future. So, in the next two weeks, I will
- teach, grade papers, make a lesson plan
- host an online event and upload 90 reviews at work
- learn Jonah for Yom Kippur
- take Mrs. S. to the ferry and back over the weekend
- see two of my old friends from college
- build a sukkah on my deck and help build one for the shul
- copyedit a whole bunch of things
- make arrangements for a trip to DC at the end of October
And that's just the things I can keep track of off the top of my head. The weeks after that don't get any easier.
As I said, it is just better not to think about how much it is. I truly have no idea how I get it done.
Heap big trouble brewing at work, as my coworkers keep calling me to tell me of confrontations with one or another of the bosses. Oddly, I have not been having any such confrontations yet. It may be my lack of spine or moxie compared with my coworkers. It may be that I think I can do the work they want me to do. More likely, I have been so busy doing the work they already asked me to do that I haven't gotten much of a chance to reflect on the changes and what they will really mean for me.
Life right now is just a nonstop blur of sitting in front of this computer, feeding the baby, and going to minyan twice a day. Yeah, there we go, I could write about that. How my status as religious committee chair at my synagogue since they fired the rabbi has made me pretty much the closest thing they have to a functioning clerical authority there. I was the one who knew when to light the havdalah candle on Saturday night. I was the one who figured out what the Torah reading was for today (a fast day). I am the one who is planning to make sure we have a quorum of 10 people for the weekdays of Sukkot in two weeks. I am the one learning to chant Ecclesiastes in three weeks. I am the one rebuilding the synagogue Web site. (Example not forthcoming, as it would be a good site if it were, oh, 1995 or so, but my HTML skills have not evolved much since then.) And so on.
It is a lot of effort to put into a place that a) could well not exist this time next year; b) if it does exist will move somewhere else in the state so that we will probably not want to be members there anymore. It is also a lot of effort considering that I can't lead services etc. and do baby care at the same time, saddling Mrs. S. with the baby a lot. We had a bizarre series of unhappy conversations about it until I told her that if I didn't go there would pretty much be no leadership a lot of the time, kind of as though I was the rabbi, and oddly, that helped. "Just keep telling me -- I have to go; I'm the rabbi," she said.
Yeah, and that could lead to a whole other post here involving the letters J, T, and S, but I'm still making that all friends-only. Not that anything will come of it. Really.
One way to keep track of life is to contemplate things in the near future. So, in the next two weeks, I will
- teach, grade papers, make a lesson plan
- host an online event and upload 90 reviews at work
- learn Jonah for Yom Kippur
- take Mrs. S. to the ferry and back over the weekend
- see two of my old friends from college
- build a sukkah on my deck and help build one for the shul
- copyedit a whole bunch of things
- make arrangements for a trip to DC at the end of October
And that's just the things I can keep track of off the top of my head. The weeks after that don't get any easier.
As I said, it is just better not to think about how much it is. I truly have no idea how I get it done.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-29 08:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-30 05:18 am (UTC)Nah, it's really moribund. There are pretty much no younger people at all and the oldies are exhausted. I have been making tapes of Mincha/Maariv and shabbat Shachris and pesukei for a few people who have volunteered to fill in once in a while, but no one is crazy enough to be on the hook week in and week out.
They do have a part-time cantor coming in. Plus we're pretty much abandoning the morning minyan for 3 days of the week after sukkot. So things will lighten soon, hopefully.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-30 08:38 am (UTC)Well, if you had someone both interested and capable you wouldn't have to be there all the time. If you had just the former you could eventually produce the latter but still be stuck in the meantime. Don't mind me; I'm just being nit-picky. :-)
Part-time cantor is good. Reduced service schedule is unfortunate but sane given the circumstances.
Mr. Steen Report's
Date: 2003-10-08 01:33 pm (UTC)Re: Mr. Steen Report's
Date: 2003-10-10 02:00 pm (UTC)