Just like the song, this morning's turning out to be a really wonderful and enriching experience. I woke up at 7:15AM -- having slept through my alarm for 45 minutes, though a good chunk of that included built-in snooze button time even though I don't remember hitting the snooze button at all -- after getting a little less than 4 hours' sleep because I just couldn't fall asleep last night. After rushing to get ready, I found my car blocked in -- again. This time was by an Arrowhead water truck who had conveniently parked right in front of our driveway as the driver made his deliveries, so I blew my horn quickly (quickly because I didn't want to wake anyone, but the driver was nowhere in sight) and had to do it a few times as the driver took his sweet time getting back to the truck to move it and offered no apologies, just an annoyed look because how dare I make him walk all the way back from his deliveries? Then I got down to the end of my street to find that they'd closed off one of the main roads in my area so it could be ripped up and repaved. I turned around to go the long way in and found the second main road blocked off -- it was like there was a conspiracy to keep people in my area this morning without letting them out.

Mondays are always so full of frustration, and this one seems more so than most. At this point, my ideal activity would be to go home, pull the covers over my head and make the world go away for a little while until everything gets better. It's days like this when I am keenly aware that I am single, since usually the best remedy for this kind of thing is long hug from a significant other. A Mom hug can be substituted for that, but since my parents are 3000 miles away and I haven't seen them in 5 months, I'm S.O.L. on that front as well.

Not to keep the religious topic going, but I will anyways.

So MTV launched this new "Real World"-esque show called "Sorority Life," which follows the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Mu sorority at UCDavis (my roommate predicted it was that school even before we saw any school signs, I was impressed -- and I also have to comment that SAEM is probably the longest Greek organization name that I have ever seen, since I thought they were usually either 2 or 3 letters). They basically follow the sorority girls around, show how they interact, show the entire pledge process and all the drama in between. And even though we've only seen the first show, I can already tell there's going to be a lot of drama. I remarked that they ought to rename the show "Sorority Drama Queens on Parade."

Either way, I digress. Sigma -- as they will be referred to for the rest of this post -- is a Jewish sorority. One of the problems that the sisters were discussing while trying to decide who to accept as pledges who weren't Jewish and who didn't "know" certain things about Jewish practices. And it is a problem, since one of the pledges was remarking that she didn't find out until she started talking to the sisters that Jews don't believe that Jesus is the son of God. It's not that I have problems with Jewish sororities -- although I went to a college that was predominantly Jewish so all the fraternities and sororities were Jewish -- it's that I fear that it gives the impression that Jews are exclusionary and only want to be around "their own kind." Which isn't true. Jews are usually pretty open and accepting people -- as are most groups -- though it's the outspoken ones who go against the grain who usually get the attention and generate negative publicity for the rest of us, again as with most people. But it will create friction, I think.

As I told Melly last night, it's not that I want to date (and eventually marry) within my faith because I'm excluding everyone else, especially given the fact that I don't really practice anymore. It's that the culture and the background are still so much a part of my life, and that's important. Plus, I firmly believe that the more you have in common, the easier it is to get along with a partner. To top it off, it just makes things easier when you can make references to cultural aspects and have them understood by the person you're making them to -- for example, during "Sorority Life," I made an offhanded comment to my roommate (who incidentally is Jewish as well, though I didn't try to ensure that I lived with Jews, and he practices as little as I do) that was based in Jewish practices as pertaining to Passover, and he got the reference and agreed with me and found it funny. That wouldn't have happened so easily had I needed to explain to him the whole reasoning and background behind the remark I made. Plus, I grew up with kids who were the product of interfaith marriages, and I saw how they were torn apart by the fact that they were being taught from both sides -- they went to both Hebrew school and CCD -- and that each side was teaching the kids that the other side was wrong. It tore them apart, and it was unfair to educate them like that and then say, "Okay, you're 13, time to make a choice."

Either way, I just hope that the fact that this sorority is a Jewish sorority doesn't make it a big deal, especially when they narrow down the pledges as to who they're going to accept and all that. I fear that it might unfortunately reflect poorly on the rest of us.