I love public speaking! (Which is, as I discovered to my chagrin, not the same as Public Speaking, the class. BIGGEST waste of time ever.) I actually just spoke on Shabbos. I used to be really shy, and even now I’m not the most explosively friendly person, but being the oldest of a bunch of siblings who are even shyer than you doesn’t really give you a lot of room to be shy. Since I got over it, I’ve discovered that it’s really fun. I’ve given divrei Torah and speeches at simchos, and I’m in my school debate club.

I don’t feel nervous until I stand up. Then I agree with what Bored said- it’s the nervousness that pushes the words out and makes it flow.

Of course Binyamin Zev is two different names. It’s not like Aryeh Leib, which is a name and its Yiddish translation. It would be more like Yehuda Aryeh- a name of an animal, in this case, and the name of someone associated with it. But there is no reason why it should be separate names. If there is, I’d love to know.

Anyway, don’t Yiddish names ending in the “a” sound always end with an alef?

I have a “dumb” phone. (LG Cosmos- NOT touch, with texting). I got it because I commute over an hour every day, and my mom wonders why, because 95% of the time it’s sitting at the bottom of my bag, dead. (Baruch dayan emes.)

I think it depends in whose hands you put the phone. I have friends with smartphones who SnapChat and Instagram EVERYTHING (it gets extraordinarily annoying), and I have friends who do pretty much the same things with their phones that I do with my computer. It all depends on the person and his/her strengths- there are no absolutes. But I can see Shraga’s rationale.

GAW: Isn’t it possible that it’s more of a minhag hamakom type thing? If I lived in a place where nobody used a smartphone for ideological reasons, I probably wouldn’t use one for the same reason that I’d wear different clothing in Meah Shearim than at home.

No, sorry- I mean, I’ve always learned that kef means fun in Hebrew. If what everyone is saying is that there is no such word as fun in Hebrew (or rather Lashon HaKodesh), then where did kef come from? Is it a derivative of another language incorporated into Modern Ivrit?

mdd: But the way you put it the first time made it sound like she is specifically TRYING to be untznius, like if she found out today that there’s no problem with tight skirts she’d start wearing pants solely in order to be untznius.

And THAT is harsh.

Wife Mommy: I have no idea. I’d logically think so, if they’re seen as inevitable. However, the people who don’t think these things are inevitable will logically not see it that way.

I feel like a lot of this is a matter of “out of sight, out of mind.” Teens are hanging out in pizza stores- let’s ban that! Now the pizza stores aren’t hangouts- problem solved. Who cares if now they’re at Dunkin Donuts or 7Eleven- we haven’t seen them there yet.

NO TEEN is perfectly innocent. Were you guys, when you were kids? It could just be a teeny niggling rebellious streak, even if you didn’t act on it, but different kids just express it in different ways. And no, it doesn’t necessarily cause OTDness.

Mods- is there a reason why you took down my post? (That is, I think you did- it’s in yellow now while it wasn’t before.)

we didn’t take it down. it was overlooked. have some patience. 🙂

Wife Mommy- it’s a bandaid.

As a teen, I can say that while most of my friends and I don’t hang out in these types of places, those of them who do would simply take another ten seconds to find somewhere else to go.

here I reach a dead end, though, because I have no idea what else they’re supposed to do to be proactive. Therefore I can’t blame them for being reactionary, because what are they supposed to do?

One thing- a lot or most of these teens (at least the ones I know) are NOT at risk or OTD in the conventional sense- they are normal teens, in that they’re in BYs and yeshivos, they learn their chumash and gemara, and are just bored and curious. There are very few teens who fit into that idealized ben Torah/bas Yisrael box. Most teens (and yes, I can say this, as I’m one myself) are just immature, curious, and trying in rather dumb ways to avoid being so. DON’T FLIP.

ANd like I mentioned above, when one hangout is closed, the next one is already being set up. From Yavne to Usha to Yavne…

“Personally, I like the idea of having separate Pizza shops, especially on Motzei Shabbos. All Bochrim can go to shop A, all Bais Yaakov girls to shop B. All dates to Shop C (formal attire required). Seniors to shop D (AARP card check), and families (certified with Kesubah & birth certificates) to shop E.”

LOL, gaw, it seriously took me til shop D to figure out you were kidding! 🙂

I remember the whole stink about the pizza shop in Monsey- I was a JC in a day camp that summer, and my counselor was VERY ticked off…

Now I think people go to 7Eleven.

Baruch Dayan Ha’emes.

I know two of his daughters. Lovely people.

Wouldn’t the effect on shaving on your job have to do with whether you have a beard in the first place? My dad has a short beard, so you can’t really notice when he doesn’t trim it. The aforementioned chassidim have long beards all the time, so you don’t expect anything different from them during sefirah. You get used to them looking a certain way. But people who usually shave and show up in stubble just look shlumpy. It has a bad look, compared with someone who usually looks polished.

I’m not saying everyone should grow a beard AT ALL, but it does seem to make sefirah easier, if only to adjust people’s expectations of you from day 1.

“Can anybody explain the Heter of shaving in the sefira because of business reasons? do all the halachas and minhugim in shulchan aruch fall away because of business reasons?”

See, if you’d just included that first sentence, it would be construed only in the way that (I’ll be dan lekaf zechus that) it was intended- as a question about halacha that you’re genuinely interested in knowing the answer to.

The second sentence hits the whole thing out of the “curious guy” ballpark, straight over “respectfully disagreeing,” way beyond “disrespectfully disagreeing and not really caring why people who disagree with me do what they do because since they don’t agree with me they’re doing something wrong,” and straight into (IMHO) “troll territory.”

Why not? You’re providing tzedakah indirectly to poor people who can’t afford to send their kids to school. It’s the same as donating it directly and having the recipient use it to pay tuition.

My personal solution is to team up with a friend who’s much more motivated and intelligent than I am. The peer pressure then makes me want to do things just as well as she can.

(Shout out to A! 🙂 )

In elem, I was always told some variation on “very smart, participates a lot in class.” The variations were very slight. I was sure there was an answer bank on the computer where you just pick the comment of best fit.

In my high school, though, my comment for gym was “doesn’t study hard enough.”

And then I knew.

I happen to really like the Magic Mill. It’s a workhorse, and it really does the job well. My only complaint is that it’s VERY heavy (which for me is an issue as I have an arthralgia-related condition which makes heavy lifting kind of painful), but as long as you are smarter than me and you don’t keep it in the cabinet under the sink it really shouldn’t be a big deal. It’s absolutely fantastic- I love the dough hook and that gizmo that scrapes the edges of the bowl. I also use it to make triple batches of cakes and cookies for yom tov.

I’ve never had a Bosch, so it might be way better than this for all I know, but the Magic Mill is nothing to sneeze at.

I have a Tzahal sweatshirt. I also have a Coca Cola (or rather ???? ????) sweatshirt. Tzahal is a symbol of the State of Israel. Whether it is THE most moral and ethical organization in the world I will never know. (And for those who talked about the army and women, just read even a shtickel about harassment claims and more made against women in the American armed forces and training academies.) But Tzahal is also an organization that has defended the Jewish people (even if you forget for a moment about the Jewish State) for 65 years (yesterday). Its soldiers have, with the help of Hashem, been largely successful up til now, and there are so many soldiers who are moser nefesh every day to keep Jewish people safe.

I’d say that’s why I wear a Tzahal sweatshirt, but it’s really ‘cuz my parents brought it back from Israel for me when I was in ninth grade and it’s my comfiest sweatshirt. But that is how I justify it.

“If everything when it occupies a certain space is at rest, and if that which is moving is always occupying only one space at any moment, shouldn’t a flying arrow be considered motionless?”

Ooooh! Zeno’s paradoxes!

“Is Mr. Quaker also on the $20 Bill?

No. Andrew Jackson is on the $20 bill.”

I think whoever made it up was confused with the $10 bill.

That actually makes sense, though I might be making it up post facto. horri- horrified, pil- hair, as in depilation.

I could be making that up, but it’s good exercise for my creative muscles.

Wow, I feel dumb 8o.

Except vicious circle, which I saw as a joke in Peanuts, where it’s a circle with an angry face.

And HANKIE OF DEATH? That’s just weird.

If everyone else is saying amen, wouldn’t your NOT saying amen cover you?

I think it’s harmless, if pretty strange and somewhat disturbing. As someone said above, Anne Frank was a perfectly ordinary girl, and for all we know would have been a “belieber’- but it’s still a really strange thing to say when you’re at the house.

Well duh… we’re all anonymous.

Because being told that you’re a teenager is usually in response to exasperating behavior, which means that it turns into an insult, while being told you’re an adult is considered a compliment.

Maybe the term for what a person de facto is should not be used as an insult.