Soviet Responses to Catastrophe: War, Holocaust, and Cultural Production in the Soviet Union

Today I attended a talk titled Soviet Responses to Catastrophe: War, Holocaust, and Cultural Production in the Soviet Union. This talk was mostly about Jewish writings, in Yiddish, in the Soviet Union during the period when the Red Army was fighting against Hitler. The speaker talked about two collections of songs, short stories, and Jewish folklore that were unpublished. They were unpublished because the Soviet censors did not approve them, but the writings were kept in a collection someplace, back East I think. The "Cabinet of Jewish Culture" was the Soviet group that put together one manuscript. Later, that group was disolved and members were sent to the Gulag, since any kind of Jewish ethnic, or national, unification wasn't an ideologically correct viewpoint. Overall, I'm happy I went to this talk. The speaker had an interesting subject matter.

I'm getting a new phone soon... 

The Presenter - and the backs of two people's heads.

The original documents were pretty cool looking - you could see censor stamps on some of them, others were written on the back of whatever paper scraps Jews could get inside concentration camps or ghettos. 

Pretzels!

When I was in high school, I took a home economics class my final year. This was mostly because I completed basically all required classes, and I didn't really want to have a completely open period with nothing to do (since I lived like 40 minutes away from the school, and I was my sister's ride) and there were not any academic courses offered during that period.

The home economics class turned out to be really, really fun. We learned how to cook many different dishes, and had a small cafeteria where people could come and eat for lunch (for about $3.) At the end of the year, we used all that money we earned from the cafe and went to a REALLY fancy four star restaurant in Phoenix (there were only about seven of us in the class and I was the only guy.) After cooking for half the year, the teacher decided we should learn to sew. The sewing did not go as well as the cooking. I patched all of my screwed up work clothes, put buttons on everything, and then started making a shirt. The shirt looked like a tunic, and generally sucked. Most of the class had a similar experience - useful patching / repair work, and then crap. After taking a look my shirt/tunic, the teacher asked if everyone would like to get back into cooking, and we all said yes. So we went back to cooking, and our small cafe. Thanks to that class I have some basic cooking skills, and can avoid starving, eating out all the time, or malnourished due to a steady intake of Ramen Noodles.

One of my favorite things to cook is pretzels. I still have the physical piece of paper recipe from high school. 

My girlfriend and I think it's fun to prepare meals together, since it's an activity we both can do, contribute to, and then we have something nice afterward. I like working on projects. She never made dough before, so the rising of it was a bit surprising to her.

(White flour version)

We made pretzels together twice. The first time we followed the recipe exactly, and the second time we added whole wheat flour instead of wheat flour, for slightly less than half the flour. If you want to substitute flour, I highly recommend doing so with way less than half, since half wheat flour makes the dough much more difficult to work.

Her little brother LOVES these pretzels, and eats most of them whenever I bring them over. 

Bluetooth Headphone Repair

I really like Bluetooth headphones. They are extremely convenient, especially while biking and listening to audio books. Sometimes, they break though. The last time mine broke, I decided to fix them myself by cannibalizing an old set of headphones, and a soldering iron.

First, I started watching different youtube videos on how to repair Bluetooth headsets. Basically, the kind of headset I like is the same across different brands and models. They are probably manufactured at the same Chinese factory, with very minor differences, and the same fundamental design. This was the most helpful video for me.

After I was ready to begin, I took apart my headset. While it was apart, I touched the soldering iron to the connections for the actual broken earbud. I removed it, stripped the plastic ear covers to use later, and then threw away the broken min-speaker.

Next, I cut a working headphone out from it's connection, stripped the leads, and then soldered that into the position that I removed from the previous step.

I then powered up (with everything disconnected) to make sure things worked. They worked, and I then reassembled everything, and it worked.

The number one "gotcha" is making sure you have enough slack in your new replacement headphone. Mine were too tight, and the lack of slack pulled the entire headset up, off my neck, when I was wearing it. That was pretty uncomfortable.

Notice how the new speaker wire is super short compared to the existing speaker wire - this is uncomfortable.

This was 100% not an efficient use of my time. It makes way more sense to throw away your broken pair, and buy a new one, unless you make minimum wage or less. It's like $9 (free shipping) from the link I shared above. However, I like repairing things. It's been a while since I did any electronics projects, and it was fun. Plus, I had a set of headphones where the speakers still worked, but the jack was sort of messed up. It was fun combining two broken things into one working thing.

Russian 401 Final Project - Done with Russian Language at UNM

I've had a lot of Russian friends in Albuquerque beginning in graduate school, and had a good time progressing with the language. Understanding another human language is like understanding a completely different programming paradigm - it gives you another way to view the world you're in, gives you creative ways to solve problems, and introduces you to a whole set of people you otherwise wouldn't have met. I'm not yet fluent in Russian, but have progressed a great deal since starting the UNM Russian program four years ago.

My formal Russian study officially began at UNM Continuing Education, twice a week after working a 9-5 job. I was absolutely terrible in my first class, and even though there were no grades I almost was kicked out. I started private tutoring, and improved a great deal. I'm still not as good at reading as I am at speaking or understanding. After I finished two years of Continuing Ed, I took private tutoring for a year, and then started at UNM.

I finished my final Russian assignment and submitted it about twenty minutes ago. Finishing it up was somewhat bittersweet. I'm a bit disappointed that UNM doesn't offer more Russian language classes, but I cannot really blame them. My 401 class BARELY happened, with about eight students enrolled.

I will continue studying, with tutors and on my own. After all of this study, I am finally at a point where progress alone is possible.

If I actually want to get a Russian degree (which isn't super necessary since I already have a BS + MS in Computer Science) I'll need to take 4-5 culture classes. I enjoyed history as an undergrad, and maybe I'll enjoy the culture classes too. I'm signed up for one in the Spring time, and it should be fun. I like learning about new things, that aren't necessarily only programming or business, and the instructor seems nice.

I'm very grateful that resources such as UNM Continuing Ed, private tutors, and UNM Russian exist in Albuquerque.

417 "C" Available

I have an apartment that is available, located at 417 Princeton Dr. SE. I would like to rent this out for the Spring, 2018 semester. The existing tenant said she'd like to be out December 10, 2018. Rent is $700 / month, and includes gas, internet, water, sewage and garbage (all bills!) No pets are allowed. I'd like first month's rent, last month's rent, and a month of damage deposit ($2100) down.

This place is three years old. Furnishings are negotiable. I furnished this place while experimenting with listing it as a short term rental on airbnb.com.

Please give me a call at 505-750-1169 if this is something you're interested in. Thanks!