Last Year in Israel...This Year in Ithaca. A different kind of Passover

The week leading up to the festival of Passover was almost as exciting as the holiday itself has been. So I can focus on the juicy stuff, I will briefly mention all of the wonderfully exciting things I have been up to here at Cornell as part of my fabulously adventurous life:

On Tuesday of last week, I read a Hebrew poem at "Poetry and Pasty: an elegant soiree of Near Easter, Francophone, and World Poetry" in the Johnson Art Gallery. What a classy affair! I read a beautiful poem by Yehuda Amichai called Jerusalem.

On a roof in the Old City
Laundry hanging in the late afternoon sunlight:
The white sheet of a woman who is my enemy,
The towel of a man who is my enemy,
To wipe off the sweat of his brow.

In the sky of the Old City
A kite.
At the other end of the string,
A child
I can't see
Because of the wall.

We have put up many flags,
They have put up many flags.
To make us think that they're happy.
To make them think that we're happy.

The hebrew is more beautiful, without question, because it is a very rhythmic language with easy rhyming. To be honest, I really enjoyed my poem and the other Yehuda Amichai poem that was read, but I didn't really connect well to the other poems. I think that my generation of Americans is out of touch with poetry for the most part and it is hard for us to appreciate it. I want to relate to poetry and feel deep and artsy and hipster, but it just isn't there. I still loved the Poetry and Pastry atmosphere though!

Then on Wednesday, besides my regular slew of excitement and my introductory meeting to being a Residential Advisor (!!!), Rachel and I attended another Multi-faith Ambassadors Meeting. The group is really taking off. Besides planning for events and creating programs for other people to enjoy, I really feel as though the core group is becoming close. I see my new Muslim and Bahai (Bahai!!) friends out and about and it feels totally natural to stop and chat with them, and then when we are at the meetings it is also natural to talk about our faith and religion and what we value in life. So it is not just a surface friendship, but we really dig into topics and I feel like these people understand more about me and my faith than many Jews on campus. Sometimes religious people have more in common with other religious people, even if they call God by different names.

On Thursday, the real adventure presented itself. My friend Alyssa was hosting a pre-frosh and I instantly saw myself in her. Sophie was a nice Jewish girl from the DC area deciding between Barnard and Cornell, and she was going to be pre med. We all had dinner together and then afterward, Alyssa needed to do her own thing for a while, so I said I'd play with Sophie. I took her to Kinkeldey, the most beautiful study room on campus, and I gave her "2.5 Minute Ride" to read by Lisa Kron. She loved it. Then, when I was finished with a reasonable amount of calculus homework, we set out for Collegetown. The goal was: to visit a boy she had a crush on during middle school who then moved away and then she ran into him outside the Cornell store earlier that day, and he was staying at his brother's house in Ctown. Seemed easy enough. We trekked in the rain to the address on Linden and the boy let us in. There was a dog and a couple of seniors chilling around a tv watching 30 Rock. I was down with that.

I let Sophie and Eli talk for a while with all of us in the room, and then the "grown ups" moved into the dining room to give them some added privacy. In the dining room, I met Dylan, to whom I had already been introduced via the installation art that adorned the house walls. Dylan was a fire cracker/hippie/magician/ego maniac/wonderful human being who completely dominated the conversation. First, he made me go turn off the tv because he doesn't believe in tv and the frequency of sound coming from it was bothering him. Then he showed me a mind boggling magic trick and made fun of me when I couldn't figure it out (the solution came to me about two days later while I was walking to class..I can't wait to perfect it!). Then he suggested we all play spoons (the card game) but they didn't have enough spoons so he insisted we play with knives. The night went on like this. While we were playing spoons/knives, my friend Ariella came in the door with Eli's older brother (they might be dating, still unclear). It was great to see her! It felt very sitcom-esque and I basked in the glory. I saw Eli bringing Sophie a beer from the kitchen and I taught her about not letting boys open your drinks for you. People made fun of me for it, but the girl didn't know, and come on, if your parents are completely clueless and think you'll never drink (aka Sophie's parents), then they aren't really going to be bringing up the date-rape drug convo if they don't have to, right? So I was pleased with myself.

THEN Eli asked me if he could walk Sophie home at a later hour because it was a school night for me and I needed to get home soon. Umm...hell no, do I appear to be completely useless as a person? Obviously I wouldn't stand for that. We get too many forcible touching incident emails for me to just let some boy bring Sophie back willy nilly. He doesn't even GO here! They could have gotten lost. Anyway, I was feeling extra responsible that night. And she thanked me later because she actually wanted to walk home with me in the first place but wasn't going to say anything to Eli. Two points to me.

Then, thank you Karma, we ran into my friend Josh who was just pulling out of a driveway in Ctown and heading back to North Campus with a pile of people in his car. So naturally we piled in and we were delivered in style to Donlon. Sophie was, needless to say, pleased and amazed by her Cornell adventures.

On Friday, Adina convinced me to go see Far Away, a play that was showing at the Schwartz. It only had three actors in it. For a while, I thought I knew what was going on. It was some kind of creative way of showing how the normalization of violence in our society is bad. Ok, got that. But then, they started referring to animals as if they were on teams or allies in some war. So then I thought, ok, this is just a metaphor for some world war or something. But then it didn't fit any of the main wars that I know about and it seemed to just be artistic use of animals as war allies or enemies and it was really quite impossible to sort out which team all the alligators and cats and deer and raccoons and monkeys were on, and I was boggled. So although I wouldn't say I enjoyed the play exactly, I do feel as though I got my $3 out of it because it provoked thoughts for a few hours after the show ended.

Then it was time for a lovely Shabbat and a mixer at Phi Sig during which I relived our USY glory days with Joe. Plus beer pong. I really couldn't be worse at that game.

Saturday was full of more adventures. L and I set out for our usual walk around Ithaca. We stopped at Green Star Oasis as usual to pee and collect ourselves. For the first time, I really had to pee and simply could not wait for L to be finished. Well, I really could have, because when I got out of my stall, L was no where to be found. I spent about 10 minutes looking for her in the Dewitt Mall. This was a stressful time in my life. Finally, I found her seated at a table in the grocery store, chomping down on ice cream she had removed from the dairy section. Ok, great. So I paid the clerks (they were very understanding) and brought her coat and hat back to her, and cleaned the ice cream from all over her face. I scolded her a little bit but it clearly made her feel terrible so I stopped. We still made the hike up to Ctown so she could burn off some of those ice cream calories, but I wouldn't let her pause on the way up because every time she slowed down, I was afraid she was starting to poop in her diaper. So we made it to Ctown, and I got a hot chocolate in Starbucks, and on the walk back we ran into about 6 people that I know, and it was a lovely morning.

Saturday's excitement was only just beginning, though. Mama picked me up from babysitting and we went to have lunch at Kappa Delta made by Katie and Kate and it was soooo delicious and since I went to farm school I ate that moz and tomato right up! Then we went to meet Ilana and Joe O at CTB, and I was reunited with Nativ 29!!! Then Ilana and Mama and I went to see Holi, the Hindu festival of colors, which was occurring in a messy fashion on the Arts Quad. Jesse met us there, looking extra colorful for the occasion. Then we went to the Johnson Art Museum and saw many cool exhibits and views and learned many things thanks to Elyse's unfailing caption read alouds.

Despite the rain trying to ruin our plans, we forged ahead with the day's itinerary. This included grazing at a classy dinner reception in Terrace with other Kappa Deltas and going to see the Cornell Fashion Collective Fashion Show! The show started late and was really long, but other than that, it was really incredible! We very much enjoyed critiquing the outfits and walks based on our expert knowledge gained through Project Runway and America's Next Top Model. I practically AM Michael Kors, please.

After the fashion show, we collected Adina and went to Madeline's for some dessert! The restaurant is so pretty and delicious it really felt like a portkey out of Ithaca. Adina's presence was extra appreciated due to the fact that my together-time with Mother had just about reached its limit and I no longer felt her striking similarity to me to be funny or cute but really it just made me want to throw myself out the window. Or her, for that matter. Anyhow, Adina was a great buffer and a great conversationalist and person in general so dessert went well (the dessert itself was also fabulous!).

The next morning, I had three brunches! First, the traditional Sunday morning Meinig brunch to discuss our research presentation, then a brunch with Mom at Kappa Delta, and THEN a brunch at CTB with Ilana and Joe and Jesse as we tried to relive our Nativ happiness. It was just so comfortable and natural and fun to be with them all together. What a good group.

On Monday, PASSOVER BEGAN AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY. I was a "seder monitor" at Super Seder, which was in Barton Hall (a gym that originally functioned as an aircraft carrier or something...whatever, its huge). Although over 400 people actually did show up for seder, the room looked somewhat empty because the seders were set up for 800 people just in case that many people surprised us. But in general the seder was a positive experience. I led the Freedom Seder, which is an incredible hagadah and I encourage you to explore it!! The link is here, and it is from UMASS Amherst. Although there were many people there who were chatting and seemed like they wanted to get out of there, when I asked for feedback afterwards, it was overwhelmingly positive and even the most unengaged girl (by my estimation) said she thought it was super meaningful and was really happy with the seder and so appreciative. So although I would have loved more participation from the seder, I was really happy that my guests got a lot out of it.

On Tuesday, I had a plant lab for four hours and I learned about plant ovaries and how we are eating them when eating fruit! Wow!! And then I led the Freedom Seder again, this time on North Campus, for several freshman Sammy boys and several senior AChiO girls. Again, they seemed chatty and impatient, but when it was all said and done, they were really happy we had done it and genuinely appreciative.

After that seder, Rachel and I went to the Sammy seder that the Emily and Sam (sister and brother team) were leading with the help of another family team, Emily and BJ. The seder was incredible. I am going to petition to be adopted into Emily and Sam's family because I really can't even describe how much joy there was at the table and how we were all laughing during the songs and how Emily was patient and firm and loud enough when trying to lead a room full of impatient and hyperactive fratty Jews. Amazing. I hope to channel her energy when I have to lead a family seder of my own (or not lead, just contribute to, whatever, I'm not making any assumptions about my future husband) because it was motherly in a comforting and firm and smart way but not motherly in an overbearing New York mother nagging way. I fear that escape from becoming an overbearing New York nagging mother is going to be my greatest challenge in life...forget about medical school. I have my work cut out for me.

Wednesday included another beautiful Multi-faith Ambassadors meeting, and Thursday was the ultimate happiness.

To be continued!!!

Pre Med Musings on Coursenroll and House

Last night, after a successful day of nothing-but-bio, I rewarded myself with back-to-back House episodes. I sat with my llama piñata on my lap and ate cookies-n-cream Hersey's kisses out of its belly for almost a full hour. This seemed to me to be the life: candy, doctor show, and imagining my blossoming career as a medical professional (especially after my aforementioned success in biology-I am practically a doctor already).

At the end of the second episode, however, House lost a patient. This has happened before. We've dealt with it. It happens! I know. Maybe it was the slow motion, or the Coldplay-ish song, or the wife's face and silent scream as her husband passed away, but I got really upset.

I watched as Chase tried to keep reviving the patient in vain. The team of doctors had solved the case and made the correct diagnosis, but not in time.

I sat and thought about my classes for next semester, which I chose this morning. Chem, physics, human biology and evolution, human sexuality, and statistics, or some combination. I am on a track to medical school, hopefully at least, and I am usually really enthused about this prospect. I think about all the people I will help and how proud I will be of myself and how many incredible discoveries I might make should I ever do research.

But on the eve of choosing my classes for next semester, I thought for a while about the darker side of medicine. When you don't solve the case or save the patient or make a difference or discover something incredible. Of course, when moving forward, this is not the kind of thing to think about on a regular basis. The same way people in Israel don't go around being afraid of bombs and people still fly in planes even though they could crash. You can't, otherwise you'd never leave the house, or declare a major.

So I am generally pretty positive. In fact, I'd say I'm ecstatic about my future possibilities. I do honestly believe that I am going to save lives and help people. But last night made me realize--for some reason, in a way that I had not totally absorbed before on this level--that I will lose patients. I will not solve every case, and there will be families who blame me for the loss of their loved one. There will be families that are broken because I will not be able to save or treat my patient. I might have to give people terminal diagnoses, or tell someone there are no more options left. I will have to witness death, something that I have yet to experience.

This may seem egotistic. Indeed, it is. I am worried about how I will feel when I fail to treat my patient, and how that patient's family will feel about me. I cannot pretend that while my profession is about treating patients, how I feel about my job will probably be more related to how I feel about my own success and reward as a doctor and not my patients (although these are inextricably linked). I realize that I will be working with a team, most likely, and that there will be uncontrollable factors, but I know that I will still feel enormous responsibility (the same way I would want to feel enormous responsibility for something positive).

I also recognize that I have not yet chosen my specialty, and I might choose a nice calm field where I deal mainly with adolescent acne or overeager parents who spend too much time on the internet and invent diseases for their children. But I probably won't choose such a specialty, because while the risks are lower, so are the gains and opportunities to really change lives. I'm also assuming that I will be part of a variety of procedures and dabble in many areas during medical school and training (in fact, it is my understanding that it is somewhat the entire point to dabble in many areas).

These are my thoughts of the day. Obviously, I am writing these in a public forum and welcome opinions, especially those of people with more life experience

(or at least people who more regularly watch doctor shows).

Life and all its glory

In this post, I will attempt to do justice to the glorious month of March.

Saturday, March 5th, was a particularly glorious day. While babysitting, L and I took our usual walk to CTB in the Commons. Along the way, she pet dogs and even said, "Hand," and we held hands. It was a victory.

Right after babysitting, I went to the KD/Sammy brunch. There was an assortment of brunch foods, pink Andre, and Sammy boys. These are all things I greatly enjoy.

Then I did laundry in preparation for...BIG/LITTLE REVEAL! I arrived at the KD house and waited with my pledge class in the basement. We all received gift bags with apparel in them, so we could get changed and then match the rest of our lineage. Everyone opened her bag and found a cute puffy-painted tank top or maybe, if the lin got fancy, an AmerAppar v-neck with screen print. Then I opened up my bag; there was no v-neck to be found, no plays on words (Gineage...?). I had received...a ONESIE. I proudly donned my onesie and was eventually called up to meet my lineage. Finally-Emlyn and Katie!!! I could not have been happier. We rolled around in our onesies for a while, ate stir fry in our onesies at RPCC, ate a colossal ice cream sunday at Purity in our onesies to benefit the dinosaurs at Museum of the Earth, went to a frat in our onesies and ate chocolate covered strawberries, and then we went to a different frat in our onesies and danced the night away. We took many glorious pictures and loved each other very much. Emlyn dropped Katie and I off at Sammy to end the night there, in our onesies.

That Monday was glorious because we had a snow morning! The next night, 7 members of the Hillel Executive Board dined with 3 members of MECA, the Muslim Education and Culture Association. It was great! The next night I took an exam for KD and memorized many, many bits of useless information ("the purpose of Kappa Delta is to create true friendships among its members by inculcating into their hearts and minds....").

On Friday night, I celebrated Shabbat on North Campus with Gil and some Cornellians and some non-Jews who were there as part of the Multi-Faith Ambassadors group. Services were lovely and then we went to our dinners, then joined back up for hamentaschen dessert! I ran out from Shabbat to go to Sammy for date night. Jesse was already at the restaurant when I got there--there was a bouquet of flowers at my place!! FLOWERS!! And they were beautiful. He proved to be a perfect date and we had a perfect evening of edamame at Miyake. Then we retired as a group to an apartment in Collegetown. At the party, I sort of felt like I was making the rounds at a Saturday morning kiddush, because I made sure to circulate so I could speak to all my friends who were throughout the room.

Jesse really outdid himself as a date when he walked me through Ctown to my next destination-the Phi Tau annex where JONATHAN KRISTINE JULIA AND EMILY WERE WAITING. The gang was reunited (at least in part!). We partied and caught up and walked home together in terrible weather conditions. It was amazing to see my best friends.

The next day after babysitting, I went to Shabbat lunch because a couple was visiting. They were applying for the job of Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus, which is basically an Orthodox rabbi and his wife who come to Cornell for two or three years to teach and guide students, and it is partly funded by the OU. I am on the search committee for this position so I wanted to meet with this couple, listen to their study sessions, eat with them, and of course we had to interview them. The interview took hours. It was very interesting, however, to decide (as an all-student search committee) what is important to us for our campus and for our Judaism and just personally. It was a great experience (there will be more couples coming this month as well).

On Sunday, I was initiated as a full sister of Kappa Delta Sorority. The initiation ceremony was a little bizarre, but I was really happy to finally be a sister and participate in the chapter meetings, etc. Then, of course, Adina, Juhi and I danced ethnically.

The next week we had a Purim Carnival at Cornell, which was a grand success and lots of fun for everyone who came! Susu did an amazing job of putting it together. I babysat L again because her mother was at a wedding in Argentina and we took a different walk than usual-Ithaca is beautiful! It was a gorgeous day out and we went around a big neighborhood loop. We stopped and played with THREE kitties!! Lots of older houses with a lot of character and big porches that the residents clearly make good use of, because there were beautiful lanterns and wicker chairs and swings out on the porches. Beautiful. I want a big ass porch when I grow up.

The next day was Dragon Day at Cornell, and there was a big parade and a metal dragon and lots of festivities. It was a gorgeous day yet again, so the whole community came out for the parade and it was a picture perfect kind of day. People wore great costumes and everyone was in a festive mood. Then Adina and I peaced out. We wore really exciting outfits and listened to really great music and talked in the car for hours. We also stopped in Roscoe, NY for a photo shoot. It was A-MAZING. The town had so much character and there were trains set up and we climbed on them. There was a hanging sign outside a grocery store that said "Newspapers Sold Here" and there were people on the sidewalk milling about. It was so American! The most exciting thing about the photo shoot, though, was that I have a friend who is also interested in doing things like this! We took turns being the photographer and the model. We each used our own cameras so we got different kinds of effects, and we are both very different models (Adina is an actress and SO good in front of the camera, while I can't hold a serious face long enough and just end up breaking out into a goofy looking smile). The shots we got were amazing!

We got into Mamaroneck, NY around dinnertime, and chilled with the fam for a while. The dinner was delicious and the house is beautiful. We had a super fun sleepover night that included two episodes of the OC, which really brought us back to our childhood (I liked it a lot more when I was in ninth grade though).

Adina and I got breakfast at a SUPER cute little place the next morning and then we got froyo, mostly so we could just quote the Harvard Sailing Team video. Then Adina drove me to Queens, where she met Mimi and Grandpa Beast! Mimi immediately whisked me off to a hairdresser because my locks were getting a little straggly, and then we watched a Sex in the City marathon (also better when I was 16..hmmm) and had dinner, then went back to Sex in the City. It was just the relaxing night I was craving.

The next morning, I set off for Jewish Organic Farm School with Cornell Hillel. We took a plane to San Diego and vans to Tierra Miguel Farm, which is about an hour and a half outside the city, in one of the most beautiful valleys I have ever seen. We read the megillah when we got there, because it was Purim, and we prepared a feast. The food was INCREDIBLE. Everything was natural, everything started out as raw ingredients, and we just cooked and cooked and cooked the whole week.

Some highlights of farm school:

• our staff members, Gabe and Elana, were amazing human beings. At first, I was skeptical of their serenity but by the end I could tell they were genuninely the most tranquil people I've ever met.
• working on the farm-we weeded chard, we set up a chicken coop, we reorganized a greenhouse, we moved dirt around, we planted tomato seedlings and their companion crops (chives and parsley), and generally just helped wherever we could be of use
• discussing food justice-we talked about food deserts (like West Oakland) where there is no grocery store within walking distance and most people do not have cars so getting produce is near impossible
• the natural beauty everywhere
• helping out in the garden at the San Diego Jewish Academy and meeting with students and staff there
• hanging out with our farming crew-what a mixed bunch! I got to know some really amazing people this week and I got to bond even closer with others
• going to a huge beautiful house in San Diego, right on the beach, and walking along the beach
• walking 5 minutes to a working toilet, sharing a shower with 16 other humans, having our toilets explode multiple times
• meeting the other workers on the farm and learning from them
• learning about Community Supported Agriculture, biodynamics, holistic healing, and organic farming (when we were weeding, we didn't pull out clover plants because they are nitrogen fixers for the chard plants)
• applying my biology knowledge!
• taking really, really beautiful pictures

Now I am back at school and trying to get into the swing of things once again. Of course, with all of my glorious March activities, I also am taking 19 credits. School is challenging but manageable and I like most of my classes (Civil Rights has been a disappointment, Calc is a fine subject but just annoying to have to take it in college).

There's a lot going on with Hillel and Jewish life right now as we prepare for Passover and the end of the year. I've been very busy with that, and I'm now part of the Multi-Faith Ambassadors group on campus so that has been exciting but also time consuming. I think it is very worthwhile though so I will continue to make time for it.

This weekend I am getting initiated as a "Sammy Sweetheart," babysitting, Shabbating, attending a 4 hour lab on the Microbial Ecology of My Mouth, going to an a cappella concert, attending several parties, brunching with Jews, and of course, ethnically dancing.