Pre-Purim fun

We end the week almost like we started it, instead of snow we get lots of rain. There have been lots of fun events to go to in the days leading up to Purim. I went to one of those fun events Tuesday night. The event was at the Kaye Playhouse in Hunter College, it was a fun play about a group of men wanting to stage a Purim shpiel (a play that's mean to be humorous). The show was staged by a Yiddish theatre company. The best part was that it was free. I was plesantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the play, it was appropriate for kids and adults. Going to this play was a nice antidote for hearing about all the crap going on with Britney, Anna Nicole, etc.

I watched a full episode of American Idol on Wednesday night, hearing some of the judges' comments reminded me of a discussion I had with my parents several years ago. I noticed that when a few of the female contestants had bad performances, Paula and/or Randy started off by telling these women that they looked beautiful. At my first job out of college, we had 2 days of workshops for staff only before the school year began. One of these workshops was on how to give constructive feedback. We learned that the criticism has to be sandwiched between a positive statements in the beginning and end. I told my parents this and they laughed. The Israeli way is to be very blunt, sometimes to the point of rudeness (or at least I've been told). We came up with a rule that for every bad thing you say about someone in the house, you have to say 3 nice things about that same person. My dad asked me if he could say "You look nice today" as one of the 3 nice things. Apparently, Randy and Paula believe very strongly in telling contestants who can't sing well that they look nice today.

I watched parts of the last half of American Idol last night. I was not surprised when Alaina and Nick were voted off but was kind of pissed that AJ was voted off. I haven't been that pissed about someone leaving this early in the competition since Judd Harris left. Somehow I think we'll be seeing AJ again, most likely in some happy broadway show. I'm not happy that Antonella is still in the competition, yes she is representing for Jersey but she is doing a real crappy job of it. I cringed throughout her performance (if that's what you want to call it) on Wed., if she makes it into the final 12 over more talented people, I will be very unhappy. I've already resigned myself to Sanjaya being in the final 12, he's cute and has better hair than me. I might actually have to vote next week for women who I feel could be in danger and right now I think that's Jordin, Gina, and/or Stephanie. I also learned that singing "Feeling Good" is a ticket back home and that Kellie Pickler is still as annoying as ever but she has great taste in shoes.