Please sign this: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/sonogram/petition.html

It is a petition to retain the sonogram service at McKinley. This, along with several other services have been eroded. Sonograms are necessary for women who have a previous family history of ovarian cancer. Sign it, sign it, sign it.

Not a lot to say, but do watch "Silver Jew," a documentary about the Silver Jews in Israel. It has a pretty awesome (not like awesome "sweet" but like "this is an unreal, amazing experience to watch" awesome) scene with David Berman wearing tefillin and becoming overwhelmed with emotion while saying a prayer.

I was never #1 Silver Jews fan, but this movie was wonderful to watch on a few levels. The first time I heard them was probably back in '97 and I thought "Honk If You're Lonely Tonight" was the best song ever, particularly because it was written by a band with the word "Jew" in it. Neither Berman nor I were practicing Jews at the time.

However, in 2004 after Berman began treatment for drug addiction and depression and began attending temple, he started to recognize his background as not just an ethnic tag, but something much more substantial.

The documentary was filmed in 2006, during his trip to Israel with the band (the same year as my trip, which is pretty cool). It is understandable that he had such intense feelings about his beliefs while he was there. Most people do. I guess what felt so personally and culturally relevant is that he was completely non-practicing, but came to a point in his life where it actually meant something to him. (The G-d part, too!) So much so that he broke down in tears.

His history is pretty much the same as mine, so when I saw him put on the tefillin (kind of like the first time I held the Torah) I cried with him. Especially after watching "Religulous" this past weekend and feeling confused about some of the absurdities of religion, it was nice to remember that there is incredible personal growth to be had when one practices faith.

Hello friends, although I'm probably not friends with half of you anymore because I have been antisocial. Sorry about ditching friendships to catch up on six and a half years of sleep, but it's been pretty awesome and totally worth it. Here are things I've been doing:

I graduated.
We went to Minneapolis: http://www.flickr.com/photos/amalina.
We went to Chicago for New Years to see Carol and the cats.
I started working 15 more hours a week.
We started attending Jewish conversion classes. For Aaron, it's an opportunity to learn more about Judaism since we'd like to raise our children Jewish, but for me it will finally be closure on this "half-Jewish" thing, plus I get to learn a lot that I've never known. I think the Rabbi thinks I'm kind of silly for doing this, but I don't care. Mikvah in May!

Here are things I decided rather abruptly that I want to do:

Go to Kiev, Ukraine for Jewish ASB.
Go to Tel Aviv, Israel for a 4-6 week internship helping poor people (one in four Israelis are below the poverty line).
Get involved with peace groups while in Israel (and hope I don't get sent home early for it).

Oh yeah, and I applied to LIS, so we'll see how that goes in March. In all honesty, I would very much like to be accepted into the program, but I threw things together quickly because I decided to apply quickly. When I spoke with the Assistant Dean, she said that 3.2 is fairly competitive still and since I know what i want to do and went to UIUC I have some things already working in my favor.
I've also been walking to work or at least walking to the bus station (about a mile away from where we live) because, well, it's good exercise, and it feels good, and I'm getting use out of my iPod.

I promise I'll start being a reliable person again soon.

PS I got Yelp, so add me!

i am graduating at 4:00pm tomorrow.

my grandpa will be there.

last night he asked my mom, "what do you think about your daughter, my granddaughter, graduating?" that's one of my favorite things he's ever said.

i am ill, but it's coo'.
trying to get my finances in order/be a responsible, accountable person for myself.
trying to grab any motivation to work on papers for the semester.
m.i.a. on the 23rd with a terwillicarson family reunion.
i am graduating in one month and four days.
do we make the move to berlin? back to chicago? esl in korea? gslis here in champaign?

just bein' amy.

I joined the Freecycle Yahoo! Group today to potentially find a new tricycle (Following the most devastating event I have ever witnessed on a city street, I am on heightened watch for one.) A woman posted this

Anyone interested in "medium size" troll dolls? I have 5. Photo available on request.

This is the best e-mail I have ever received. I will explain the devastation later, perhaps after the Real World. Well, this dude next to me has the most annoying text message alert ever, so I am leaving Cafe Kopi now! BYE!

my arm hurts. it is probably because of this new dark green text that has been tattooed into my skin.

three words: PERSONAL. RAPID. TRANSIT.

After I pay off my many debts on Tuesdayish, I want to invest in one of these:



Even though I own one of these...



I only feel confident in parking lots because I assume everyone is out to run me over. I don't care if I will look like a giant tool, because at least I will be a giant tool who gets exercise. Also, most tricycles come with a basket. Sweet.

From Geoff at Rentertainment, via the mailing list:

Criterion has finally posted the specifics for their release of "Berlin Alexanderplatz" (www.criterion.com/asp/release.asp?id=411) -- November 13th, spine #411, seven discs.

It's possible that only Nikki knows how excited I am about this, but just so everyone else understands how exciting this is:

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Thank you.

they packed my bottom right socket today with oil of clove, but half of the pack came out so uh, that sucks.

also, after an extremely aggravating day that turned into night that turned into early morning, i finally got back to chicago from minneapolis... but not without leaving my backpack AT O'HARE. OH WELL! BYE, CLOTHING THAT I BOUGHT IN BERLIN AND $75/piece RETAINERS!!!

i now realize that it is 11:40 at night and i have done nothing with myself, mostly because the pain is getting worse and worse when i should think it would be getting better and better.

sorry sabrina. i am a tool.

Thank goodness it sounds like there are only injuries, including a school bus full of kids.

Just so you know, if you aren't familiar with I-35W, this is a shit storm. This is THE main bridge which people use to get from Minneapolis to St. Paul. There are exits on the bridge to downtown. It is fucked up. It is really fucked up.

if it is true that we are what we eat, then i am parve peppermint patties. i AM kosher, and also chocolatey, and also minty. however, if you knew what else i've eaten today, you would just think i'm gross :(

i don't know what the subject means, because i just double-clicked on the textbox and it came up. WE ARE IN ISTANBUL!!!! it is amazing and beautiful and we have kittens whenever they break in to our poorly designed balcony.
i ate octopus today and i liked it! i am sad because wireless does not work here even though they claim it does, so i am on a crappy turkish keyboard.
today we saw the blue mosque and the aya sofia. tomorrow we might go to the grand bizaar and walk around sultanahmet. we still have quite a few days to catch up on things we missed due to sleeping 14 hours today.

in the words of michael, OK BYE. that's how i feel in this beautiful city!

Sunday was Jose's birthday, but more importantly, it was the day that I puked out (and inside of) the car while Aaron drove us down I-55 back to my house. I've come a long long way, baby.

Last night became Amy's early 23rd birthday party. Amy is a fucking lightweight. Two and a half drinks and I thought I was going to relive the incident from a year prior, so I took it easy for the rest of the night and this morning, I am happy to report that I had no hangover. There is probably nothing that I regret last night except for pointing out to Koreans at Perkins that they are Korean. My guess is that they are even more aware of this fact than I am.

I just watched Stroszek. I am placing Bruno S. as my number two hero behind Brigitte Mira. My stomach hurts because Jada and I went to her Mom's house so she could cut (and highlight) my hair. I ate A LOT of cheese dip and three small corn on the cobs, and then when I got back to Champaign I had a strong hankering for Korean food, so I ordered the dumpling soup that has beef, fried egg, noodles, and dumplings in it. For some reason, mine only came with dumplings but by the time I saw I had already gotten home. How do you forget the three other important ingredients of your dish? It reminds me of Aaron's 29th eggless birthday cake. Fucking sick.

It's funny that I celebrated my official 10lb weight loss by eating as much disgusting food as possible today. It's actually not that funny, I don't really want to weigh myself for a few days. Whatever, I'm totally fucking buff.

my current passions: going to istanbul and berlin, getting back on track with arabic, converting to judaism once and for all, becoming a customer of a different bank, but most importantly...

borscht.

finally, they have listened to my telepathic requests to come to chicago! august 31st, I AM SO THERE.

we will also hopefully see them at the melt festival an hour outside of berlin on july 14th. ow ow.

I JUST BOUGHT A MACBOOK!

WHY?

WHO KNOWS!

(probably because i am sick of not having my own computer)