Odessa's Oddities & Curiosities | Week of 12/16/2024

Dear friends,

I arrived home last night, and I’m fully soaking in the joy of my animals, California produce, and not wearing flip-flops in the shower.

One of my favorite coming-home treats (aside from ripe persimmons) was a box of hand-me-downs from my mom. I had brought home a very light suitcase in anticipation — one of the many joys of coming home is wearing all her clothes. Also, I’m rioting against the grammatical notion that there’s no space between the em dash and the surrounding words. Fuck that. Let the words breathe.

This was one of the first finals period/reading weeks that I truly enjoyed, and I realized that I wasn’t burnt out from this semester. Instead, I’ve just been enjoying studying in these long stretches, with some breaks for cookie-decorating, escape-room board games, and horse-betting (only a little bit). My brain has been swimming with machine learning and Jewish magic. For my Occult Science class, I wrote 7,000 words (25 pages) of my Jewish Pirate novel, along with an accompanying essay: “Practical Jewish Magic for Early Sixteenth-Century Jewish Pirates”. I also had to make my final paper for my European Jewish history class about magic: “Making European Magic Jewish”. Feeling very grateful that I get to spend such luxurious time using my mind for such matters.

I also wanted to touch briefly on ChatGPT. I use ChatGPT all the time. Here are my top queries in a school context:

Please explain what I need to understand to solve this problem. Please don’t solve the problem for me.

Can you please give me feedback on this essay and point out three top areas for improvement?

Come up with ten possible essay titles please.

What do you think is my thesis from reading this excerpt?

(Note: ChatGPT is better if you’re polite. Also, recommend asking ChatGPT to describe you if you ever need an ego-boost.)

While my brain has been mainly focused on studying and writing, I do have a few media recommendations.

This adorable story of star-crossed Siberian tigers. And in a turn of events, Pope Francis waxes poetic about humor?

I listened to the whole Freakonomics series on the cannabis industry. (I used to be a podcast purist and always listen on 1x speed, but I’ve recently changed my ways.) Super interesting. Did you know that cannabis is a bioaccumulator? Cannabis collects whatever is in the environment—they actually use it to collect toxic waste. Also, many states require that every single plant be tagged, which is wild.

I just started On the Edge by Nate Silver. I find it a little bro-y, but interesting. I much preferred The Biggest Bluff if you want a story on poker, but I’m curious about the rest of the book so I’ll keep reading.

I also started The Anthropologists — but I’m at that strange phase where reading about people in their early twenties, feeling lost, stresses me out because it hits a little too close to home. But the writing is delectable.

Oh, I also read I Made It Out of Clay — not a romance novel! It did make me cry, but I would give it 3 stars.

For all my Jewish Magic research, I’ve been reading Jewish Magic & Superstition by Joshua Trachtenberg (published in 1939). I’m scouring for magic I want to bring into my novel. I was tickled by the idea of the ghost bureaucracy. He wrote about the Jewish conception of this spirit council that adjudicates disputes between the latest arrivals and older members (pg. 62) — I guess all those Jewish lawyers need a pastime in the afterlife.

I binged The Later Daters (exec. produced by Michelle Obama!) on my flight home. Very adorable. A Netflix dating show in the style of Indian Matchmaking.

I’ve been destressing by watching a few of my favorite YouTubers…Wishbone Kitchen’s Ina-Gartner-style cooking videos. Kara & Nate’s adventures — especially the new one about polar bears. And Celia Blomdahl who lives in the polar night in Svalbard — makes you appreciate that scarce winter sunlight.

Music-wise, I’ve been loving listening to Suki Waterhouse, Role Model, and The Dare. Also, the Harry Potter soundtracks are the best study playlist.

And I recommend this article about boardgame clubs. Danya and I share an obsession with these escape room board games. They are one-time-use, take about 2-4 hours, and are so so satisfying. Highly recommend as a family activity this holiday season.

We had a board-game break to check out the meteor shower (recommended by Medad), and while I didn’t see any shooting stars, I loved seeing everyone, faces upturned, on Cross Campus.

Danya and I are also running a half-marathon (ahhhh! I feel like if I put it here then I’m fully committing.) Let me just tell you that I have always been a terrible runner. Slowest runner in my fifth grade class—that trauma lasts forever jk. Anyway, I welcome any running tips. Any stretches you recommend? I’m getting new running shoes for Hannukah.

A strange fact I learned from my PI: lab coats are gendered to my utter shock and surprise. In fact, all buttons on clothes are gendered, and it traces back to the idea that a maid might be buttoning up women’s clothes.

A poem for you: “The Universe: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack” by Tracy K. Smith. And I’m taking inspiration from one of my mom’s idol’s Agnes Varda, who— when asked “What is the secret that has allowed you to stay creatively active for nearly seven decades?”— replied:

“I’m curious. Period. I find everything interesting. Real life. Fake life. Objects. Flowers. Cats. But mostly people. If you keep your eyes open and your mind open, everything can be interesting. The secret is that there is no secret.” (From Interview Magazine, but I did find the quote on Twitter/X)

I’m grappling with the fact that I’m home from my penultimate semester. I don’t know when the panic will fully set in about graduating. I’ve been thinking that I might need to pencil in a good cry, but for now, I have no regrets. I plan on continuing to take everything in with open arms.

With love & curiosity,

Odessa

p.s. Midnight (my cat) has been walking across my keyboard this whole time.

p.p.s. this might be my last newsletter of 2024. also, I’ve been doing this for over a year!?!?!? my first newsletter was dec 5, 2023. woah.

p.p.p.s. I was curious why it was p.p.s. not p.s.s. Turns out, p.s. stands for post-script, so really these post-post-post-scripts could go on forever.