Sup

So, I was about to begin my blog post when I noticed some comments on an old post of mine. In this post, I described my advocacy work for Israel here (from October-the post is called "WTF Joseph Dana" and about a speaker on campus talking about Israeli Apartheid). The comments are horrendous! I know that I'm putting myself out there on the internet and all, and choosing to talk about some controversial topics, but there's no need to be such a hater. Haterz, please find something better to do with your lives than retroactively attack my personal views that I post in my blog. You know what? Write your own blog! Oh wait, you can't, you haven't got real ideas.

Ok, now that that's settled.

I had a very fun and eventful weekend. On Friday afternoon, I met with the leaders of the Jewish Russian Club and they were really wonderful people, and very excited to meet with me about Hillel. It put me in a great mood for Shabbat.

Shabbat was beautiful. I welcomed people in Anabel Taylor and I met so many new friends! Then, the conservative minyan was in the chapel for the first time and it is so beautiful and it echoes! Matt led a Yakar-style Kabalat Shabbat and then I led Maariv for the first time ever! It was not a failure! I tried to add the foremothers to my Amidah but I was never really taught it so I tripped up and skipped it. Oopsh.

Shabbat dinner was magical as always. All my friends were there, including Jesse, which is always a treat! I sat with Eric, a Binghamton student who is transferring next fall, and it was nice to have someone new to shake up the conversation. I was in a super energetic mood at dinner and it was even overwhelming for me at times but it was a great night. The challah was never better!

I walked back to North with Jake and we chatted for a while before I went to KD for some sister bonding! We played name games and 10 fingers (never have I ever) for a while, and then we did a really serious bonding program where errybody cries and it was pretty crazy to me that we were just doing name games a few minutes beforehand, but you know what, it worked out.

I left KD around 1 to escape the crying and I went to Sammy for after hours. There I found several pledges passed out in different areas of the house with their faces in garbage cans. Classy. I was a wee bit concerned for some of them so I just sent "please text me when you wake up so I know you're alive" texts. They all lived! Although apparently Andrew walked home barefoot...?

Saturday morning was my usual babysitting. We took an hour and a half walk with a break for her mini bagel! I made up a song: We're going to get a bagel/to put it in your tummy/We're going to get a bagel/It's going to be so yummy. Do you like it mini? Keeps me skinny! Do you like it grainy? It makes me zaney! Do you like it with cream cheese? Yes please! Do you like it toasted? The most-ed!

Then I purchased a gorgeous headband and it was on sale for only $4.30!!! I had to go show it off so I went to the Zesty Kiddush for the Cantorial Weekend and then to Shabbat lunch. They had Dr. Brown's soda! Woo!!! It was nice to do Shabbat on Saturday instead of just Friday night.

Then Adina picked me up with Jesse and we went to: Dispatches from (A)mended America. I don't understand what the title means, but I know that there were a couple hundred people in a downtown elementary school gym all sitting in folding chairs in a circle. Then these actors, for two hours, portrayed interviews done by two men (who were the "leads" in the play) in the South after Obama was elected. I cried (ok, so sisterhood bonding doesn't get me but thinking about the generation of little kids who grow up only knowing a black president and a black family in the White House-that really gets me!) and it was just so moving and provocative.

After the show, the fun began. There was a free dinner and everyone stayed to discuss race relations in America! I talked to some characters! One old white woman told me she was so passionate about civil rights because she had been a guard at the White House under Lincoln in a previous life. Most people were pretty serious though, and we had some great discussions. I talked to one old woman about her experiences in Chicago and seeing the tenements. I talked at length to a couple about their family, because the woman is black and the man is white and their beautiful little girl is biracial. They said that they can tell their daughter she can be president. That's the best thing ever.

On the bus earlier that day, I had seen a black boy get on with his father and he was wearing a scull cap with Obama's face on it and it said OBAMA in bedazzlement stones.

This play and the discussion afterward wasn't about Obama's politics, it was just about the fact that a black man had been elected president, but what did that change? Did that change things for the kids growing up with a black president? Yes, definitely. Did it change the lives of average black men across the country? In some ways. Did it change discrimination, did it eliminate inequality in opportunity, did it eradicate racism? No.

That's our job.

And the jobs of the Cornell students who decided to make a Cornell adaptation of this play! Adina is in the group along with Susu and even though I'm not in the group I stayed for the discussion with the actors and writers because Adina was my ride home. Amazing! What amazing people doing amazing things! There are about 30 students who are going to do interviews on campus about race relations here at Cornell and then they're going to turn it into a play!

After the play, I went straight to the KD house to meet my Emerald Sister, Kelly! She is a farmer from Wisconsin and she shows cows! So exotic! Then I got ready for our Superhero mixer with Lamda Chi. I was in the first car over, insisting that I be the one to get the party started. And I did, it's no big deal. I danced the night away (and by that I mean for one hour and fifteen minutes) and found some dancing friends to get down with me. Brian from Brighton is in Lamda Chi which was a really fun surprise so we got to catch up. The boys were really nice and it was even better to be able to spend more time with the girls in KD. Everyone was very superhero themed (I wore my metallic blue cape, my new headband, and lipstick-what more do you want?), except this one girl who I hope is not in my sorority-she was wearing the Elle Woods bunny costume without the ears...wrong party, whoops.

After Lamda Chi, I met Adina next door at DKE and we sat in their castle watching The Dark Knight for a while (the Joker popped up in my dream two nights ago and I escaped by yelling ACCIO BROOM and flying away) while her friend caught up with a friend from high school. The only problem was that there was a fire in the fireplace but I'm pretty sure the chimney wasn't open so there was smoke everywhere and there were a few people just openly smoking marijuana-ahhh so bad for my sinuses! I was dying when we left to make the trek back to North in the uber snow blizzard. We stopped in an igloo on the way home, it was amazing!

On Sunday, I had a Jewish Student Leadership brunch for Hillel, which was great, and we all networked and mingled and discussed Jewish Student Life at Cornell. Then I studied at Club Mann for a while, then I was feeling sooooo sinus-y that I took a nap!!! It was glorious in its own congested and sniffley kind of way. Then I woke up just in time for dinner with Adina and INTERNATIONAL ETHNIC DANCE. Juhi joined us and we just made friends with every Indian in the world. I am on such an Indian friend spree right now.

International Ethnic Dance was obviously insane in the membrane. From Israeli (Haroa Haktana-something I've been doing since Sunday nights at the JCC in 6th grade whaddup) to Serbia to Romania (Pravo Radopsko?) to Macedonia to different areas of the Balkans...wow it is a frenzy of culture and dance and music. And crazy old dancing people who wear multiple braids.

Yesterday was a typical Monday-Hebrew, Gerontology, Calc, and I worked at the Statler! It wasn't awful! I staffed a meeting of potential recruits for Capital One. You couldn't PAY me to want to be a business analyst. Just thinking about how dry that job is makes me a little sad.

Working was fun because I also got to catch up with my favorite local Russians (sup Igor) who work there and I got to eat great leftover cucumbers with aeoili dip (too many vowels in that word but you know what I mean).

Today was a lil crazy but good. I had my civil rights class, which is so great, and we talked about lots of things that make me feel like my public school civil rights education was completely inadequate. Then I had lunch with Rabbi Leib and we talked about Jewish life at Cornell and he is the greatest man ever and I don't want him or Chana to leave and go back to Israel and I wish they'd stay and work at Cornell forevs and evs.

The rest of the day was a blur of bio and more bio, and the occasional break for facebook. Now it is late and I must say lila tov!