Shvayg Shosh

Since Gwyneth Paltrow and her oh-so-successful friends offered such lovely insights into their hardworking days on Gwyneth's website GOOP : insights filled with weekly blowouts, personal trainers, nannies, and organic food. Insights like: I really make a point of sitting down with my children—even if it's for 15 minutes. A great time saver is to make steel cut oatmeal, put it in a ceramic bread loaf pan and slice it each morning, add a drizzle of maple syrup, milk and 45 seconds in the microwave—healthy breakfast in seconds and I can make it last over 3 - 4 days! In the summer, I start the day with a protein smoothie, which can be made in minutes (a handful of organic berries, a large scoop of Greek yogurt, a squirt of flaxseed oil, 2 scoops of protein powder, organic pomegranate or cranberry juice and blend)."   Or I have the benefit of an amazing assistant, without whom I could not make it happen (Thank you, thank you, Diane). My day is packed back-to-back from the mome...

NPR has a short story contest called Three Minute Fiction . I always forget to enter or I miss the deadline. Yesterday, I looked over the contest to see what I needed to write: a short-story in 600 words where at least one character tells a joke and another character cries. Before I started to write, I thought I'd try to find what I've already written. I usually write on my graduate school laptop, so most of my files are research files or papers I've written. Why would I have a story with my graduate papers? One of my favorite professors, who teaches Jewish Thought, loves to make his grad students write stories instead of papers (awesome for a girl who thought about getting an MFA in creative writing before turning her attention to Jewish Literature). Anyway, because of my worship of wordiness, I can't find one story less than 1,000 words. I guess, I'll have to start from scratch. However, I did find a goodie from my course on Job. If you aren't familiar with Jo...

When I first started teaching writing, my friend, The Stable Goddess, gave me her syllabus. I loved how candidly it was written. Over the years, I've changed little bits and pieces. I always add important statements to my "welcome" lecture, but I've never written these statements down. Quite frankly, they've always struck me as too mean to put on paper. However, despite my constant lecturing, no one ever listens to the added details. Thus, the big bad monster finally wrote it down: Much of this class works like a writing workshop, you are here to write even when I am not lecturing. Pressing matters should be e-mailed to me. If you miss class, you may e-mail me your assignment. However, I will grade only hard copies of your work. Your attendance is graded. According to the college's official policy, if you miss 5 classes before the withdrawal period, I have the right to recommend you drop the class. More importantly, at the end of the semester, if you've m...

Sometimes, I feel bad for my feet. They are creamy, pretty, and small and they are trapped below an oaf of a woman. Sworn for life to drag her around- upholding the brunt of her body weight. It makes me feel sad for them. For many reasons, besides my feet, I'm back at the gym again. Yes, I've done this before. I'm pretty generic. The weird part about the gym is that I actually like it. I forget that I like it. I've never stopped going to the gym because I hate it; I've stopped going because I get sucked into it. Like this morning, I got there at 8 and I didn't walk out the door until 10! Why can't I just jump on the elliptical for a half-hour, get off, and get on with my day. Instead, I find myself lost in my music (nothing makes me work harder than the Glee version of Teenage Dream ), lost in conversation with JCC employees, other moms, or my rabbi friend. (I'm such a name dropper). While I puff away, I'm saying no to chairing another committee or d...