World Traveling!!!

Places I've been in the last four weeks: New York, NY, Somerset, NJ, Berlin, Prague, Krakow, Lublin, Warsaw, Jerusalem, and Modi'in

City with the coolest vibe: Berlin
City I wish I didn't like: Berlin
Best photo op: highway turned parking lot in Germany and look out over Prague
Prettiest: Prague
Creepiest: Terezinstadt (Czech Republic) and Lublin (Poland)
Sickest: Majdanek-literally IN Lublin, the crematorium smells like fire
Home: Jerusalem
Best museum tour guide: Krakow
Worst tour guide: Auschwitz (she had a thick Polish accent, spoke quickly, and was so desensitized to the whole thing I didn't even realize at first when she said in a monotone: "Here the SS doctors conducted illegal medical experiments")
Best Holocaust memorial: Berlin-concrete boxes and Majdanek
Best memorial in general: John Lennon wall in Prague
Flashback locations: padlock bridge in Prague and Beit Nativ in Jerusalem
Unexpected favorite: Polish shtetl of Tincochen and surrounding countryside
Most communist: Warsaw
Worst customer service: Praha (simply RUDE!)
Least interesting: Somerset, NJ (but staff week was SUPER FUN because of all my friends!!!!)
Best food: Modi'in (I'm staying with a phenomenal family who also happens to be vegetarians, and I went to Yossi's house for lunch today--all wins)
Worst food: Poland in general
Greatest night of my life: in Warsaw on Roxy's birthday (we sang karaoke to If I Were a Rich Man and the crowd joined in for yubby dibby dibby)
Rainiest: Krakow
Sunniest: Israel
Homiest: Jerusalem

Books I've read recently: The Help, E.L. Doctorow, Middlesex, 2.5 Minute Ride, and Adjusting Sights (by Haim Sabato)
ALL RECOMMENDED!!!

Defiant moments of being Jewish in places where there was a Holocaust: sitting on benches in the Tier Garden in Berlin, a place where Jews were not allowed to sit under the Nuremberg Laws. We ate bagged lunches and sang the Grace After Meals; breaking out a Cliff Bar outside Majdanek; walking on the tracks as we exited Birkenau; praying in synagogues that were abandoned or ruined during the war

Frequent photo symbolism employed in Eastern Europe: trees, flowers, barbed wire, butterflies, fences, crows, guard towers, Israeli flags, Jewish stars, candles

Random encounters: befriending my neighbor on the plane to Berlin and learning her life story over the course of several hours, angry Israeli woman in Berlin who didn't want us to do a tour where she was also touring because it would distract her, bathroom attendant in Germany who spoke Hebrew to us, Israeli Dance troupe in Prague, woman in a picture in a synagogue in Tincochen who looks identical to my mother

Movies I'm supposed to see: Counterfeit, The Last Train, Conspiracy

Books I want to read: The Magician of Lublin by Isaac Singer, other works by Isaac Singer, Mila 18 (we were there!)

Average hours of sleep I get per night: 5 hours

Average number of liters of water I drink per day: 2

Average number of liters of sweat I sweat per day: 1

Average number of pictures I take per day: 100

Rediscovered hidden talents: wiggling ears, not picking the skin of my face, telling military time, drawing and sketching

Proud purchases: pretty scarf from Praha and crocheted gold wire earrings from Tel Aviv (Nachalat Binyamin)

New favorite song (not actually favorite but definitely a winner): Jack Sparrow by Lonely Island

Favorite part about this trip: MY KIDS AND MY COS!!!!!!!!!!!

shalom from berlin!!!

more on this later...but what an amazing city!!!!

The Ads...

Just a quick explanation about the weird Jewish Funeral ads that keep popping up on the side of my blog:

Google AdSense picks up keywords from my blog and places "relevant" advertisements on the site. The effectiveness of these ads will be measured on a per-click basis and will supposedly earn revenue.

The main point I wanted to communicate about this new addition to shalomfromhome is that they are not dangerous to your computer and they are not a permanent fixture.

Should you ever have some free time, though, feel free to click!!

About time

It has taken me a long time to return to this post, and it's about time. Because I like to make my titles clever, I will also argue that this post is actually about time, and what I do with my time. So, pun intended.

On Thursday of Pesach, I don't remember exactly what I did during the day, but I know that we had an Executive Board Meeting for Hillel and then...NOODLE WITH THE CHINESE STUDENTS ASSOCIATION! About 30 students, half Chinese-American, half Jewish, gathered in the Kosher dining hall after dinner to watch Noodle, an Israeli film about a Chinese boy in Israel. I have mentioned it before (see September 2009). It was AMAZING. We laughed at the same things, we went "awwww" at the same things, and we nearly cried at the same things. When the little boy was speaking Mandarin, the people sitting next to me translated, because there were no subtitles. Glorious.

After Noodle, a few of us ran out to participate in the Sigma Alpha Mu Road Rally, a "scavenger hunt" of sorts. I decided that I didn't want to get in trouble, take off my clothes, drink alcohol, or get dirty, so I didn't participate in many events, but I was a vital member of my team. I contributed highly to morale, designated driving, and photographic documentation. My team WON! Shout out to Jocelyn, for taking one for the team..you were the woman that night that I could never be <3

On Friday, the multi cultural hubub continued with the Freedom Seder. Seven members of Black Students United joined ten Jews at a table upstairs for Shabbat dinner. We read through the hagadah from UMASS Amherst, schmoozed, sang, ate, and got to know each other. Adam's parents were there too so that was extra special. What great people. We taught them about the Shabbat rituals and about Passover, and they sang the Black National Anthem for us and we talked about race on campus. So Complex[shun]s of us!!! I nearly cried when we were all singing "Redemption Song" by Bob Marley together.

That weekend, I'm sure a lot of really exciting things happened. One notable event was "The Party You Can't Pass-Over" at the Sammy Annex. The gang was all there, complete with potato vodka and Manischewitz. Great board pics were taken, fun was had by all. Adina brought the disposable--so vintage.

The next week was my academic hell week. I had two six page papers, a plant lab practical, a calc prelim, a unit test in bio, and regular homework on top of all that. It was somewhat of a surprise whether I would finish it all or not! I did, though, and everything went off all right. I've gotten my grades back from all those assignments, and nothing blew up or anything. Still going to medical school!

That week was also the end of Pesach, which means the pizza party and Rent-A-Greek auction! The auction was great and we raised over $800 for Autism Speaks. Woo Hillel!!! I really do aspire to be auctioned one day! So now I have another goal in life (other goals: start an inside joke that goes on the back of a group t shirt, be one of the 161 Faces of Cornell, have the New York Times discover my blog and ask me to be a guest writer...)

On Friday of that week, I got together with Emlyn and Katie to celebrate our Oneness. We had such a phenom time talking and eating chocolate covered pomegranate seeds (Rachel the First I miss you). I am going to miss Emlyn so much!

That same day, the Center for Jewish Living hosted Charity Shabbat, where each person donates to the selected cause. This year's cause was Japan, and the event was really beautiful. Four a capella groups came to sing, and Japanese students spoke about their losses. One girl, who was a great speaker, actually began to cry. The room of 200 people was completely silent.

Sometimes after a big disaster like Japan, there is so much media coverage and talk about it when it first happens that when the talk dies down, people stop considering it or even think that the conditions have improved. But they have not improved for many people, and it is just sad that our nation cannot keep focused on an issue long enough to see it through. We get bored of reading the same thing in the papers every day and move on to something else, like Donald Trump. So what I'm trying to say is that this girl, who started crying, really brought us all back. We realized that we've neglected Japan for the last month or so. And she was so appreciative of the whole community, and there were a lot of non-Jews at Shabbat dinner. Everyone was united through a good cause. It was the most Shabbat-like Shabbat I've had here.

Sunday was a really big day. In the morning, I interviewed a couple for the position of Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus, along with the rest of the committee. The interview, as the others were as well, was an interesting exercise in what matters in a person, in a couple, in a rabbi. We have our couple for next year and I could not be more excited! They are wonderful, beautiful people inside and out.

After the interview, I went to brunch with Lisa Kron and her partner, Madeline George. Adina, Jesse, and about five other students/grad students were there. We talked for hours about being Jewish, about theater, about identity, about life, about family. I was star struck.

That afternoon I spent driving around Ithaca with Jesse (THANKS JESSE!) and then with Adina to track down the ever elusive mini-DVI-VGA adapter. The search was futile. Three hours, 33 dollars, and one return later, I was adapter-less. Still, the show went off without a glitch. Mama came for dinner (THANKS MAMA!) and then for the show, which was the best treat ever. Then Lisa Kron performed a concert version of her play "2.5 Minute Ride," about visiting Auschwitz with her father.

The show was funny, provocative, sad, tragic. At the end, we skyped with her father, a survivor of kindertransport and an American GI. His parents died in Auschwitz. He said, "it was a blessing to have been born Jewish so I could never be a Nazi." Every word that was said during the presentation made me think about the Holocaust a little differently. And I was so happy to share that experience with my mother, because I knew that she related similarly.

The members of the Cornell community who attended the event really found it meaningful as well. The notes/texts/emails of graditude I received from people in the audience made the whole thing so worth it.

After the Lisa Kron event, I changed quickly and set off in Rachel's car (THANKS RACHEL!) for my formal at the Boatyard! Ace was an excellent date (even though he tried to wear Sketchers Shape Ups at first), and we danced the night away (well, about 45 minutes) and took many pictures! I was kind of channeling the Mean-Girls-ending-where-she-shows-up-to-prom-in-a-mathletes-jacket energy. Success.

Then I changed back out of my fancy clothes (THANKS ADINA!) and went to set up hundreds of flags on the Arts Quad (see picture!) with Adina, Ben, Ben, and Adam. We were out there on a Sunday night from midnight until two in the morning, just so that we could have a display for one day that commemorated those who died in the Holocaust (the different flag colors represent different groups of people who were persecuted).

In the morning, I helped set up a name-reading station on Ho Plaza and I read names of people who died. Other people continued that task until six that evening. Also on Monday, I went to a talk by Dan Senor, author of "Start Up Nation," about Israel's economic success. It made me miss Israel a lot.

On Tuesday, I tried to be academic.

On Wednesday, it was YOM HA'ATZMAUT AT CORNELL! I took pictures of people riding a real camel (her name was Virginia, she was lovely) for an hour and a half. There was a bedouin tent and a bouncy house ("hike Israel!") and pita and falafel and hookah and the like. ACHLA!

Then I went to math for twenty minutes and then Daniel et al picked me up for THIRD EYE BLIND.

We listened to 3eb the whole way to Rochester. Then we took a pee break and jumped in my car to go the rest of the way. When we arrived in Buffalo, we ate at Anchorbar, which is apparently the home of the chicken wing. I ate a caesar salad.

Then, the concert. It was at the Town Ballroom, which, despite the ghetto we had to travel through to get to it, was really a gorgeous, perfect venue. We got there with the perfect amount of time to spare. We missed the lame openers and yet we had enough time to scooch to the front.

Opening chords. Motorcycle Drive By. The crowd goes wild!

Dan and I sang the night away. We were in a group of pretty rowdy fans, but fans all the same. Everyone knew the words, and everyone could identify the song by the first two measures. There was crowd surfing and drunk fighting and people getting belligerent, but Stephen made a speech in the beginning that got us all united and excited. There was such good energy.

The concert ended with a great encore-Don't Believe a Word, Semi-Charmed Life, and God of Wine. I had chills. It was a religious experience.

The next day was a big day also! A bio unit test, a calc problem set, an e-board meeting, Jesse's adaptation (pretty sure I know what happened...either way it was excellent), and TIE DYING WITH THE ONE! Katie and Emlyn happen to be excellent people but out of the three of us, no one had the patience to do the tie dye properly. But we will still proudly wear our blotchy sweatshirts!!!

The next day was the best day of all days: SLOPE DAY. This is the day that Cornellians dream about from the first night of Orientation. Slope Day is when all dreams come true. I woke up early to look my frattiest and head over to Amy's apartment with Adina to get things started (quick detour to drop off my calc problem set on the Engineering Quad-I felt smart). Then we headed over to 120 for a MAJOR PARTY. Everyone I know was just chilling in the sunshine loving up life for hours. The pictures are GREAT.

Then we all moved over to the slope (after some irritating encounters with security-Adina couldn't bring in her camera because it's "professional" and I couldn't bring in my bag because it was "too big") and frolicked there. There was a concert and a festival and kosher hot dogs. Everyone was there!!!

That night, Adina and I hit up "Hungover Shabbat." Table Minyan was beautiful of course (I led!) and dinner was really nice too. Then we headed over to see Brightonians in C-town and Adina met Gabe, which really should have happened earlier. And we were introduced to Chris's Office, a major highlight.

The next morning I babysat and slept slept slept. Finally I dragged myself out of bed to do Hebrew homework with Adina and we grabbed dinner on West. I went grocery shopping at Wegmans (how I wish it was a portkey, and I could just walk into Ithaca Wegmans and walk out into Rochester) for Hillel with Becky and Rachel. We sat on lawn furniture for about half an hour.

Then Rachel and I ran into Ankur at Nasties and decided to make an appearance at Sammy. The appearance consisted mainly of reading/singing Kipling aloud in Daniel's room. There was a party but we were not interested. Oops.

The next morning, we had the Jewish Student Leadership Brunch! We set tables, we took beautiful pictures in the garden, we gave awards! It's not quite the same as high school or USY, but I am truly sad to see the seniors go. They have really given me something to look up to and admire. I will miss them!!!

Then I just studied for six days. and Adina left.

On Friday afternoon, I went to get pedicures with a few of my Kappa Delta Sisters. Jess, Emily, Rebecca and I hit up the mall for some spa treatment. My toes look GREAT, but I really almost keeled over and died on the spot when the man asked for $27. Just thinking about it now is making me a little nauseous, in fact. Oh dear.

I made it back in time for Table Minyan and CIPAC Shabbat dinner. Everything was great. Sam and I quoted Animal Crackers. All was right with the world.

Yesterday I babysat and we walked up a waterfall!!!! Then I packed and watched Glee and enjoyed life. I went to Mincha, Seudah Shlishit, singing, and Maariv with Koach. I led Maariv! It was really great. I love singing with Matt, but it made me miss Nativ unbearably. After Shabbat, the Hillel board went to Friendly's and we got ice cream (hunka chunka peanut butta fudge whaddup) and played together! I am especially in love with my board and I enjoy getting driven around by Susu, it makes me feel really cool, I can't lie. They are the best!! I'm so excited for next semester.

That finally brings me to today. I had play date with Adam and we talked about Hillel and I tried to convince him to date me but he's not willing to make an exception for me. I'm going to continue working on that. My strategy today involved singing to him one of my favorite Third Eye Blind songs, One in Ten. Still no progress.

Then Katie and Maggie and I went to Banfi's for brunch with the house mom and chef for Kappa Delta! What a glamorous morning! Maggie and I spoke about L a little bit. It's nice to have someone babysitting her that I know so we can talk about it together. It's a great learning experience, and Maggie has such a big heart, I love to hear her perspective. Katie won a TA award for the Hotel School so that's why she took us all out to brunch!! It was delicious! And great to be eating at the Hotel not as an employee but as a guest : )

Then I tracked down books about Myrlie Evers-Williams, Coretta Scott King, and Betty Shabazz, the widows of the Civil Rights Movement. I cried in the library.

And now here I am, my last night in Donlon, listening to "For Good" from Wicked and being sad about freshman year being over.

I surely can't compare my year on Nativ to my year at Cornell. But I will say that when I left Israel, I really thought I'd never be so happy again. I have definitely been that happy this year, and I have had incredible experiences. Even though I haven't hiked all over a country or trekked over Italy with my four best friends, I have been incredibly challenged and stimulated here, and I have met absolutely INCREDIBLE people. I have no doubt that each one of the people I have become close with this year will go on to do amazing things in this world, and that we will push each other to be our best as the years go on.

Donlon has treated me very well. Once I got over my holier-than-thou-gap-year thing I had going on, I met the most perfect people at Cornell. The friends I made here will be ones I keep forever. Jasies, Jeffies, Kim, Alyssa, Mandies, Rachies, Adina, and of course, my roommate Hannah. I don't know what I would have done without their humor, support, beds to cuddle in, arms to be embraced in, frequent towel encounters on the way to the showers, and just stopping by at night to chat about the day. I loved procrastinating with you, having pillow talk, showering in the stall next to you, brushing my teeth at the same sink, stealing your candy from Big/Little week and tampons while you weren't home, and loving you up.

Peace out, freshman year, it's been real.

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.