I started this blog in November 2003 and called it "Leah in London." At the time, I was managing a student residence in London for IES. This was an easy way for me for people to keep up with me without me sending annoying mass emails or spending a lot of money on international phone calls. When I moved home from London in March of 2004, I changed the title to "Leah in Chicago" and kept blogging away. When I started studying Judaism, I added the subtitle or alternative title "Accidentally Jewish."
I'm that Leah Jones.
- got a degree in chemistry from Millikin University
- studied in Argentina with IES La Plata
- managed the hotline at the Rape Intervention Team in Durango, Colorado
- ran Camp Snyder when it was all men at Fort Lewis College
- interned with Bike-Aid when Just Act! was still called Overseas Development Network and Bike-Aid hadn't moved Global Exchange
- found out that catnip is an effective insecticide when I participated in the Program for Women in Science and Engineering (PWISE) at Iowa State
- never made it all the way across the monkey bars at University School
- went to drum major camp and oboe camp at Indiana State University
- presented a Top 33 program at NACURH
- managed an ice cream parlor in Ravenswood
- was includeded in the anthology of inspirational stories for RAs
- writes for Shebrew and Jewish Fringe
- really loves Neighborhoodies and should've bought stock
- works at Edelman
in the me2revolution in Edelman Digital - went to Tel Aviv One in March of 2006
- produced "Little Revolutions" in March of 2003 at the Single File Chicago festival
- did stand up comedy in Chicago and took all the classes at Annoyance Theater in 2005
- became a Jew in November 2005
- celebrated my bat mitzvah in March 2007
- participated in the second ROI120 in July 2007 and in June 2008
- first used the "internet" in the early 90s on IDEAnet
- is on Twitter and Flickr, a lot.
Disclosure
I work at Edelman Public Relations. I try not to blog about work, but since I'm in the me2revolution Edelman Digital, sometimes I do. I don't get paid to write about stuff, not here and (so far) not anywhere. If I write about a client, I'll tell you. I don't have any ads--cause I'm too lazy to set them up, same reason I rarely redesign the page or add images to posts. Lazy.
I lean left politically, I'm a zionist, I'm an observant, liberal jew. I love chicago, I love my friends. When I write about things I love, I probably wasn't asked to write about it. Seriously, look at my stats, nobody really needs my help to sell their stuff. I write about jewish stuff, dating stuff, writing stuff, friend stuff, weather stuff, event stuff, weight stuff.