It's my birthday and I'm officially bored at work. My supervisor is in a meeting and I've completed all the work that I was supposed to, so now I'm just aimlessly cruising for things to do. I've asked everyone else in the office if they need help, but they don't. So, here I sit. I am going for lunch with my dad though which should be fun. Although that will probably be exactly when my supervisor gets out of his meeting so he can actually give me something to do... go figure.

Anyway, about my struggle with anti-semitism. I was listening to Robert Enright yesterday morning on CBC and they were having a panel discussion on the current level of anti-semitism in the world as well as the current awareness of Jewish issues. They bantered back and forth about the current level of persecution and many of them seemed to be arguing that anti-semitism was on the rise and many of them warned about the possibility for a future holocaust. What bothered me was that they were suggesting that they find it difficult to discuss Jewish issues in their social circles for fear of rebuke. However, the only issue that they seemed to suggest was contentious was the battle in Israel. As an individual who has difficulty supporting the current Israeli position on Middle East Peace, and as someone who feels that the human rights of Palestinians have been abused, am I automatically an anti-Semite?

One commentator mentioned the UN Conference on Racism in Durban where she said Israel was "singled out" and that if the highest body on human rights can't protect Jews, who can? First off, the UN Conference assembled a long list of human rights violations around the world and was looking to include Israel's disrespect for Palestinian human rights. The reason they were "singled out" is that Israel didn't agree with this nor did many of its allies. Additionally, the commentator's suggestion that the UN conference was "anti-semitic" because it was "anti-Israel" or even "anti-Israeli conduct against Palestine" seems a stretch. So, anyway, I'm going to go on thinking about this and working towards a greater understands of Jewish issues...

I am beginning this blog at the very end of my 22nd year and finishing it at the very beginning of my 23rd. I think birthdays have become a bit of a non-event. It's not that they're not fun and exciting, I think they've just become another little "event" that could either make your day go really well or make it flop. Anyway, it's a happy day so far (all 2 minutes of it) and I think my little birthday dinner party should at least be entertaining.

This week has been really busy- hence the no-blogging since Friday. Friday was my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary party. I was the MC. I often forget that despite the fact that I speak in front of large groups of people on a fairly regular basis, I still get nervous- especially in front of a room full of 70 year old's who think anyone under 50 is Satanic and secretly trying to ruin the world... Anyway, it went well. I wasn't very funny but I got the job done- and it didn't really matter anyway because my pro-creating sister stole the show with my cute little nephew (old people eat that shit up!)

Thursday night I saw Spiderman with Trevor and my friend Kevin. I will say that it was a good movie, however, not great. I think maybe you had to read comic books as a kid. Anyway, I think that I can definitely get into "make-believe" movies and suspend my belief in reality if I believe fully in the storyline, the characters or mostly just the emotions behind what's happening. However, Kirsten Dunst was so vacuous and superficial that the movie was just not all there for me. I found it difficult to get my brain around the highly fake plot because I never really believed that Kirsten Dunst was worth saving- maybe it's just a gay thing?

Saturday I played my first round of golf of the season and I am SOOOO sore. Apparently some people are quite shocked that I play golf. I will admit that I'm not very good, however, just because i'm a yuppie urban academic, does not mean I can't understand the physics behind swinging a metal rod at a plastic laminate ball... :) ... Then JC and AJ and I relived old times and hung out at The Keg on Garry. Ahhh, what a sweet bar!

I have more to say but I need to get some sleep... Coming tomorrow, anti-semitism and why I'm finding it hard to not be labelled as such... Stay tuned.

My apologies to the people who've e-mailed who I haven't gotten back to you yet. I'm working on it- I promise...