Nora Ephron, screenwriter for “When Harry Met Sally”, 1941-2012
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Brooke’s going to Germany today. For those of you who don’t follow this blog, Brooke received an achievement award from the Federal Republic of Germany for a summer study in Nuremberg. She’s only been studying it for less than a year and no one at home speaks German. Many thanks to her aunts and grandparents in Texas who gave her a push in the right direction.
It just goes to show you that when a kid develops a passion for something and spends all summer in the basement teaching themselves, maybe it’s ok to leave them alone and let them do it. It’s too bad that we expect kids to become adults and learn the hard ways of the world too soon when they could be developing their talents. This is a concept that tends to go over the heads of most conservatives. We are wasting our nation’s most valuable assets when we deprive young people of educational and cultural opportunities and put them to work too soon before we’ve discovered what they’re good at.
She’s very excited and has been packing for the last couple of days.
Should be good…
Filed under: General | Tagged: germany, Nora Ephraim, When Harry Met Sally |
The Confluence 
I am so sad.
That’s Ephron I believe. Sorry to hear it. She once wrote my sister a very nice letter.
Fixed. Thanks!
D’OH!
(I knew that)
Thanks for the correction. 😉
Good luck, Brooke!
Have a wunderbar time!
We’re in the airport. She just went to the bathroom to put her retainer in. How much you wanna bet it doesn’t make it home?
We just met tge award winner from Rhode Island. Very pretty and a nice kid.
Too many boys in this crowd.
Ephron was a bit of an Obamabot, but hey she told a good story. She will be missed.
I think rather than spending the time in the basement “developing talents” a job might be a good idea. Most kids come out of college entirely lacking in maturity and responsibility (exhibited by things like losing expensive retainers, etc). I think that a job is the best way to hone responsibility, one of the most useful “skills” we can have.
Learning German *was* her job last summer, along with interning at a local university to learn python.
I imagine that if she had spent the summer pulling custard at the local Rita’s that she never would have gone on that study trip this year.
She was plenty mature and diligent to have done what she did and she has a better chance of landing at a good university than she did before.
I guess it all depends on how you define “work”. John Houston said, “choose your career as you would choose our wife: for love and money”. She loves language and as long as she works hard at it, I will support her.
Always worrying about money and working to make sure that I had enough to go to college really limited my sense of adventure. It did break through, once, when I quit my job (they wouldn’t let me take a leave of absence- bastards) and took a six-week tour of Europe. I had the time of my life! But I came home to a different economy and it was three years before I earned as much as I had as a part-time grocery store clerk. Two of those years were after I had a BA!
I’m glad that I had a mixture of the two. I learned to take care of myself even if I had to work at a crummy job but, I knew, once upon a time, the joy of saying “I’m going to do this because I’ve always wanted to!”
I hope that Brooke has a wonderful time!
My favorite Ephron movie is “Julie and Julia” which she directed as well as wrote. I enjoyed every frame of that one.
Ephron was an Obot, seems one has to be to breathe the rarified air of the Upper West Side.
Nora had to prove she was still hip and young so she threw Hillary under the bus and backed up over her lifeless corpse.
Funny how the creative class is all “you go girl” until one threatens to attain the White House.
I would have liked “When Harry met Sally” but Billy Crystal is just so gosh darned unattractive.
I’m partial to “You Got Mail”
Congrats & Good Luck to Brooke 🙂
OTB . . . Riverdaughter and possibly others may find this interesting.
“Glucose deprivation activates feedback loop that kills cancer cells, UCLA study shows.” http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/researchers-discover-that-glucose-235478.aspx
Off topic–I saw a bumper sticker advertised on the Web:
DEAR CONGRESSMAN: PERHAPS YOUR NEXT TERM SHOULD BE IN JAIL 😈
Glad to hear about Brooke. Read the Nipper. Good for you, RD. Well, four years after 2008. What a mess it all is now. I know you aren’t crazy for the greens, but I like Jill Stein even though she won’t have a chance in hell — she reminds me of Hillary a little bit. All I see out here for political signs are Ron Paul. Geez. And I mean everywhere. Everywhere. Nada for O. Just faded 2008 stickers. Where will the indy voter turn is going to be the big question. Sending good thoughts your way that something good turns up on job front.
I guess Brooke will be watching the semifinals in the European soccer championship tonight, Germany vs Italy then? Actually, she probably won’t be able to miss it even if she tried, as soccer is huge this side of the Atlantic. And the Germans expect to win – not only tonight but in the finals too. Again. 😉
Hope she’ll have a fabelhaft stay and will enjoy every minute of it.
She was in France in 2010 and World Cup Fever was everywhere. So, I think she’s prepared.
Gotta go check in with google translate.
Travel abroad is the best experience ever, at any age, and she totally earned this one. I bet you feel pretty happy and proud today! Congrats!