Leah Scheier's Blog, page 2

My 7 year old's life itinerary

Here is the life plan which my 7 year old daughter wrote out and posted on the refrigerator:

I'm in israel
America 8 days
get mareed
israel and give birth
stay ther until my chiyld is 6
africa 9 days
china 15 days
france 2 days
north pole 110 days
bild a big igloo




well, at least I know one daughter is set.  :-)

My 7 year old's life itinerary

Here is the life plan which my 7 year old daughter wrote out and posted on the refrigerator:

I'm in israel
America 8 days
get mareed
israel and give birth
stay ther until my chiyld is 6
africa 9 days
china 15 days
france 2 days
north pole 110 days
bild a big igloo




well, at least I know one daughter is set.  :-)

Movie review and other matters

I've taken a bit of a break from blogging recently, mostly because I haven't come across any book or movie that I've really loved or hated, and also because my life update would have read something like : "Still not many patients in the clinic, still waiting for book revision notes, still breathing."
I've been splattering my obsession with GLEE all over my facebook page-- so I didn't feel the need to wax rhapsodic about that, and after posting an enthusiastic "thumbs up" for Kathryn Stockett's The Help in my status updates, I didn't have anything further to say except read it. 

But I watched Disney's The Princess and the Frog yesterday-- or tried to watch it, rather, before finally giving up when my eyes began to bleed. What I want to know is: Who wrote those rave reviews on Imdb.com and what did they smoke before they went to see this thing? For the record, I was looking forward to this film.  Disney hasn't put out a great animated classic since the 90s, (all the great stuff has been Dreamworks or Pixar) and I was very pleased to read about their (long-overdue) introduction of a black heroine.  

  So why... why did it have to suck so bad?   Why was the animation choppy and cheap-- reminiscent of Saturday morning cartoons? Come on, Disney, we were just spellbound by the stunning beauty of Avatar and the creativity of Alice.  We know animators can do better.  Why were the songs irritating and repetitive?  Why did they introduce a new character every five minutes for the first forty five minutes of the film? (that was as far as I got) 
And why couldn't they come up with a better villain than that voodoo guy--that recycled Jafar? 

I'm glad my seven year old saw it before me-- or I would have forced to sit through the whole thing. 

In Leah news, I am thrilled to report that my sister Sarah has just been accepted to Technion Medical School (the American students program.) My sister Tammy is planning to come on aliyah this summer-- so I will have two sisters in Israel with me! 
Two down, two to go.  :-)

Watch out, Dinah and Anna---

 

Movie review and other matters

I've taken a bit of a break from blogging recently, mostly because I haven't come across any book or movie that I've really loved or hated, and also because my life update would have read something like : "Still not many patients in the clinic, still waiting for book revision notes, still breathing."
I've been splattering my obsession with GLEE all over my facebook page-- so I didn't feel the need to wax rhapsodic about that, and after posting an enthusiastic "thumbs up" for Kathryn Stockett's The Help in my status updates, I didn't have anything further to say except read it. 

But I watched Disney's The Princess and the Frog yesterday-- or tried to watch it, rather, before finally giving up when my eyes began to bleed. What I want to know is: Who wrote those rave reviews on Imdb.com and what did they smoke before they went to see this thing? For the record, I was looking forward to this film.  Disney hasn't put out a great animated classic since the 90s, (all the great stuff has been Dreamworks or Pixar) and I was very pleased to read about their (long-overdue) introduction of a black heroine.  

  So why... why did it have to suck so bad?   Why was the animation choppy and cheap-- reminiscent of Saturday morning cartoons? Come on, Disney, we were just spellbound by the stunning beauty of Avatar and the creativity of Alice.  We know animators can do better.  Why were the songs irritating and repetitive?  Why did they introduce a new character every five minutes for the first forty five minutes of the film? (that was as far as I got) 
And why couldn't they come up with a better villain than that voodoo guy--that recycled Jafar? 

I'm glad my seven year old saw it before me-- or I would have forced to sit through the whole thing. 

In Leah news, I am thrilled to report that my sister Sarah has just been accepted to Technion Medical School (the American students program.) My sister Tammy is planning to come on aliyah this summer-- so I will have two sisters in Israel with me! 
Two down, two to go.  :-)

Watch out, Dinah and Anna---

 

Year and a Half Mark

I just realized that last week was the year and a half anniversary of our aliyah and, looking back, I noticed no recent notes about Israel and our "klita."  (except the occasional gripe about bureaucracy and temporary unemployment) I am sitting now in an empty clinic (again) and so I thought-- why not update my journal? 

I am happy to report that work is going as well as can be expected. I have good days and bad days.  Some mornings I feel close to fluent, whizzing effortlessly through fever explanations and asthma counselling in Hebrew, chatting with the nurses about movies, even writing my med notes in Hebrew (a new development of which I am rather proud).  And some days--  some days I feel like I've just stepped off the plane.   It doesn't take much to make me regress, either.  This morning it took a doubtful look from a parent and suddenly I was in "olah chadasha" (new immigrant) mode, all of my insecurities hammering in my ears.  Did I say that right? Why is he looking at me like that? Is he doubting the diagnosis? Or did I just accidentally suggest that his daughter wrap a warm piglet around her neck? ---the entire time attempting to look confident and resisting the urge to curl into a ball, rock back and forth and moan, "English. English. Why don't you speak ENGLISH?"
I managed to stay upright, the patient went away, and I spent the rest of the morning furiously lecturing my computer screen about sprained muscles.  My Hebrew sounds better in my head, or when it is aimed at inanimate objects, apparently.

But I think I'm getting there.  

My kids are still thrilled to be here.  Report cards recently came home and I am quite pleased.  It's almost as if they speak Hebrew. They really don't yet, despite predictions from everyone that they would be conversant in six months.  I've had a few conversations with my seven year old and she has a lovely Israeli accent and is a few months, I think, from being truly fluent.  The older girls are progressing very well, though understandably it will take them longer to "get there."
But the important thing is that they are happy.  They go horseback riding, hang out with friends, enjoy the freedom that they never had in the states.  They miss their grandparents, aunts and uncles, but they have no desire to go back this summer.   
  
 On the writing front, I just heard from my editor and I've been promised an early March editorial letter. In the meantime I am plugging away at research for the second Dora novel---
It currently has no plot.  This concerns me.
I think someone is likely to get murdered, disappear or lose something valuable.  Or maybe all of the above?
I am narrowing it down, not to worry.  My agent has asked for a summary paragraph for the sequel and I get sick butterflies everytime I think about it.  I'll just keep at the research and pray something materializes.

   

Year and a Half Mark

I just realized that last week was the year and a half anniversary of our aliyah and, looking back, I noticed no recent notes about Israel and our "klita."  (except the occasional gripe about bureaucracy and temporary unemployment) I am sitting now in an empty clinic (again) and so I thought-- why not update my journal? 

I am happy to report that work is going as well as can be expected. I have good days and bad days.  Some mornings I feel close to fluent, whizzing effortlessly through fever explanations and asthma counselling in Hebrew, chatting with the nurses about movies, even writing my med notes in Hebrew (a new development of which I am rather proud).  And some days--  some days I feel like I've just stepped off the plane.   It doesn't take much to make me regress, either.  This morning it took a doubtful look from a parent and suddenly I was in "olah chadasha" (new immigrant) mode, all of my insecurities hammering in my ears.  Did I say that right? Why is he looking at me like that? Is he doubting the diagnosis? Or did I just accidentally suggest that his daughter wrap a warm piglet around her neck? ---the entire time attempting to look confident and resisting the urge to curl into a ball, rock back and forth and moan, "English. English. Why don't you speak ENGLISH?"
I managed to stay upright, the patient went away, and I spent the rest of the morning furiously lecturing my computer screen about sprained muscles.  My Hebrew sounds better in my head, or when it is aimed at inanimate objects, apparently.

But I think I'm getting there.  

My kids are still thrilled to be here.  Report cards recently came home and I am quite pleased.  It's almost as if they speak Hebrew. They really don't yet, despite predictions from everyone that they would be conversant in six months.  I've had a few conversations with my seven year old and she has a lovely Israeli accent and is a few months, I think, from being truly fluent.  The older girls are progressing very well, though understandably it will take them longer to "get there."
But the important thing is that they are happy.  They go horseback riding, hang out with friends, enjoy the freedom that they never had in the states.  They miss their grandparents, aunts and uncles, but they have no desire to go back this summer.   
  
 On the writing front, I just heard from my editor and I've been promised an early March editorial letter. In the meantime I am plugging away at research for the second Dora novel---
It currently has no plot.  This concerns me.
I think someone is likely to get murdered, disappear or lose something valuable.  Or maybe all of the above?
I am narrowing it down, not to worry.  My agent has asked for a summary paragraph for the sequel and I get sick butterflies everytime I think about it.  I'll just keep at the research and pray something materializes.

   

movie review(s)

I think I'll start with the movie I saw last night (Up in the Air) and then progress slowly and carefully to the movie I saw last week (Avatar).
The first, a Goorge Clooney film about a jet-setting, "fire -for-hire" expert was just nominated for an Oscar.  Although I can't see it winning over Avatar, perhaps in a non-James Cameron year it would have had a shot, provided that nothing particularly epic or Holocaust -related was up against it.  But "Up in the Air" was certainly worth seeing.  The characters were believable and interesting; I especially liked Clooney's cocky little assistant, Natalie.  Clooney was his usual suave self-- nothing new there, but it was fun watching Natalie deflate him every time she opened her mouth.  I also appreciated the lack of sexual chemistry between them; a fling between the young twenty-something and her fortyish superior would definitely have had too much "ick"  to make it tolerable but she defused that dread early on when she declared emphatically to her friend, "Oh, god no! He's OLD!"  (prompting Clooney to look woefully into the mirror beside him).  I will not give away the ending, except to say that the screenwriter avoided the typical Hollywood cliches and so left me feeling satisfied, even if his characters were not. 

My one criticism? The soundtrack made me want to tear my ears off. I looked it up afterwards, and I realize that there were many different artists contributing to that cacophony from hell, but I first became conscious of the constipated, tuneless whining towards the latter half of the film.  If I may paraphrase the late, revered Michael Jackson:  "That sound, it was like a FIST in my ear."  
I actually began to dread Clooney's pensive moments-- because everytime the conversations stopped that noise would come back.

Good. Well.
Now on to Avatar. 
So----I'm afraid to comment on this one.
First of all, this movie has been over-reviewed.  Anyone who hasn't heard of it is either very Haredi or living under a rock.
Avatar's been praised by nearly everyone ---except, of course, the Vatican. (they objected to all the alien tree worship.) 
The movie's been used by both liberal and conservative columnists to support nearly every cause.  
So I don't think I have much to add, honestly.
But here is my review, in 100 words or less:
It was pretty. Really really pretty.  Kinda preachy, as if Al Gore and Amnesty International got together to father a lovely ten -foot female alien with a message for stupid humanity.  But the cinematography and animation mostly overshadowed the preachiness.  I rolled my eyes several times, but I was expecting too.  I've seen Titanic, after all; BUT  I am happy to report that in ten years James Cameron managed to achieve a significant cliche reduction (50 % at least?).  
After seeing the movie, I strongly recommend watching the Making of Avatar. It is absolutely fascinating.

THE MOVIE (don't worry, no spoilers)

Well, I brought in the New Year in the best way possible: at the movie theatres, watching Sherlock Holmes, which was released last night in Israel.
And let me just say:
It was ALL KINDS OF AWESOME.
The previews had not done the movie justice. 

In  Sherlock Holmes, Victorian London came alive in a way that I have never experienced before-- but not with the steady clip-clop of horse hooves, rustling petticoats, and pursed lips over teacups.  This movie began with two black hansoms tearing down a narrow cobbled street and rolled through scene after scene of beautifully reconstructed East End London, ending with a stunning view of the Thames and Tower Bridge.  This was a fast-paced, gut-punching action film, but it was cerebral too, and it did justice to Doyle's creation, albeit in a rather tongue-in-cheek manner.  I watched Sherlock Holmes knock the daylights out of square-faced thugs, but the sequences were narrated by Holmes's thoughts and calculations, each punch was delivered with medical precision to maximize the impact.   I can't stand watching boxing matches, but this film made those scenes interesting and fun. 

Although Robert Downey Jr. was no one's conception of the original Sherlock Holmes, he seemed to embrace the role, and gave a fantastic interpretation of a character that's already been interpreted to death.  He was both light-hearted and brooding, intelligent and silly; he made Holmes's quirks almost adorable, and most importantly-- he was funny.  He infused the detective with a naughty humor-- and he made his friendship with Jude Law's Watson live.  There was none of the master and his faithful dog about these two. Watson actually complemented his Holmes, instead of shivering quietly in his shadow.  Their crazy quarrels were the best part of the movie.

Most surprising of all was Holmes's chemistry with Rachel McAdams's Irene Adler.  Irene was completely "re-invented" in this film.  In the original story she was a pretty adventuress who outwitted Holmes and then vanished from his life.  In the movie she was some sort of shady female agent, half criminal/ half kick-boxer, who seemed to continually haunt the detective.  And yet-- unbelievably, I did not find her annoying.  I hate hate hate "modernized" Victorian heroines, but somehow she never got under my skin.  And the sexual tension between her character and Robert Downey Jr. was just right: it was present-- but not excessive.  

There now. That's the best review which I can write, without spoilers, between clinic patients.
I've raved enough.  Go see it.
Then post a comment telling me what you think.   Happy New Year.        

Movie Review: In which I rant about the lack of good Victorian filmmakers

So my lovely and generous husband suggested an outing to Tel Aviv to see a movie which I had never heard of: Jane Campion's "Bright Star." I use the adjective "generous" because I am quite aware that watching a Victorian* romance is for my spouse about as pleasant as watching a documentary about whales is for me. *shudders* 

Still, in spite of his oft- voiced disdain for the genre, he was the one who discovered the film and recommended it to my attention. I could not help wondering why I'd never read anything about it; I am weirdly attuned to the swish of petticoats and the clatter of horses' hooves-- unless it's a period porno I've probably seen the production or at least watched clips of it on youtube.

About ten minutes into the film I understood why I'd never heard of this one. The movie was a loosely based romance about John Keats and Fanny Brawne--- so loosely based, in fact, that I don't think even the actors realized who exactly they were playing. The fellow who was cast as Keats was, without a doubt, the least inspired and dullest portrayal of any character anywhere that I have ever seen. (This includes Keira Knightley's simpering version of Austen's Elizabeth Bennett- and I didn't think anything could be worse than that.) I couldn't picture an original doodle coming from that "Keats", much less the beautiful poetry which the two lovers kept dribbling to each other. He didn't even seem to love his "muse;" he watched her wring her hands and sob around him with weak, distracted eyes, as if wondering why she was making all that fuss about him. (I was wondering that as well, actually)

And the directing---! Endless shots of blooming English countryside with no action whatsoever; conversations that fizzled into question marks and scenes that appeared to end when the actors simply ran out of lines to say.

I could write another page about the historical and social inaccuracies in that thing, but I've already bored myself out of my own righteous rage. I'm just sorry that my poor husband had to sit through that. That would be like me suffering through a two- hour documentary on mating Beluga whales. In slow motion.  With the mute button on.



* ok, so technically this was a Regency romance- not Victorian, but when I review I tend to identify all films b/w 1800-1900 as Victorian, just for simplicity (some people are confused by the term Regency). apologies to anyone who cares.

God, I can't speak this language

Really, I can't. It seems like every time I get even a little comfortable, a touch complacent, some new issue comes along and completely wrecks my confidence. I just got done trying to explain intussusception to two rather confused parents. Dammit, that's hard enough in English but trying to explain telescoping intestines in Hebrew turned out to be completely impossible. (For me.) The problem was that I got flustered half-way through and forgot everything I'd ever learned about conjugating verbs, noun genders or normal human expression. So I resorted to hand gestures for a while, until I realized that miming a collapsing bowel with a fist and hand-shaped "O" looked rather---umm--- embarrassing. I eventually got my meaning across and breathed a sigh of relief when they finally left (with a referral to the ER where the resident will clear up anything I may have screwed up.)

After they were gone I spent half an hour composing a speech about intussusception in Hebrew. I dare the next Israeli to walk in here with acute abdominal pain. Come on. Just try me. I'll blow your ears off. I almost want to call those parents back and cry "Wait---Come back! I can explain it better now!"
Except that would be beyond stupid.
You know what else is embarrassing? Typing a letter in Hebrew in front of a patient. In English I type almost as fast as I read. In Hebrew I look like a five year old picking out letters with her index finger. And my spelling----! This morning it was hard to ignore the bemused expression on a patient's face when I typed out the Hebrew equivalent of "Doctor's permission. Permissible to participate at work."
That took me, like, ten minutes. Mostly because I was choosing words I thought I knew how to spell. Except--- judging by his smile-- I probably really didn't.

*sigh*
Movie recommendation: I watched "Brothers" (with Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhal and Tobey McGuire) in the theatre last week and really loved it. The acting was fantastic (even from Tobey McGuire! Surprise, surprise. He does have more than one expression after all!) I had watched the previews and was expecting a steamy love-triangle film. It was nothing like that, actually. The plot was realistic, the conversations natural, the ending quiet.
I especially loved the cinematography. It takes a very intelligent and talented director to resist the urge to glamorize his attractive actresses and actors. Natalie Portman is probably one of Hollywood's most beautiful women and Jake Gyllenhal is a very handsome man. But in this film they both looked like normal people. No one wore surprisingly revealing clothes, no one was overly made-up, no one puckered their lips suggestively while the camera made love to their faces.
I really appreciated it.
Final movie recommendation: "The Brothers Bloom," if you are looking for a weird, dark comedy. It was like a Coen brothers' film on PCP.
It dragged a little at the end (but I watched it at one in the morning so maybe I had less patience than usual) but I laughed my head off through most of it.