There are cool people everywhere

Today marks the one year anniversary of my White Coat Ceremony at medical school, a monumental day in my journey toward becoming a doctor and an immensely stressful day in my life. It was move-in day, I was exhausted, I was in a fight with the person I was dating at the time, and the only people around who weren't total strangers were my parents and they have a knack for pushing my buttons in tense moments, as all parents do.

I was terrified that I was the only lazy kid who hadn't taken genetics in college, and I felt like the only person in the world on student loans. My best friends who loved me unconditionally and whom I loved unconditionally were spread far and wide across the country, and I couldn't remember how to make all new friends in an all new place.

Here is an excerpt from an email I received at that time from a mentor of mine, who has always given the best advice: 
"In time people will start to let their real selves show. I guarantee there is someone in your class who is thinking the same thing, "where are the cool people?" I know you'll find them. Finding cool people is like finding a drug dealer. If you are in a new town and you take drugs, you can find a drug dealer within a few weeks. You just have to look for the subtle cues (I don’t do any drugs, so I don’t know what those cues are). In your case, it might be a funny sarcastic comment, a raised eyebrow from the quiet girl/guy when someone else is being a jerk, or the person who hasn't misplaced the "why", in why he/she wants to be a doctor."

Fast forward one year, to today. To this glorious, happy day. It started with me and my roommate (for a second year!) in our beautiful apartment chatting about last night. Then a yoga class with my best friend Victoria, then speaking on the phone with Elaine, who is starting medical school this year. Hearing her concerns reminded me of where I was a year ago, and how far I have come. My fears about failure have gone away, mostly, and I know that I am doing absolutely the right thing with my life. My anxiety about student loans is manageable because it is shared by so many of my peers. And sweetest of all, I have found the cool people. I have found the people who have not misplaced the why, the funny people, the endlessly interesting people. These are the people I miss when they are gone, and they miss me. The people it took too long to find, but thank goodness I did, because they were worth waiting for. 

Knowing that I have found my people has let everything else fall into place. I wear "Jordana outfits" and fly the feminist flag high and proud. I have found my voice this year and learned to speak up against racial inequality. I met professors and doctors that hold these same convictions, and I took note of which students showed up at the White Coats For Black Lives events. I began to understand intersectionality in an entirely new way and at the same time, I learned who I wanted by my side during this period of discovery. 

The biggest discovery this year has been that I would rather be fulfilled than have fun, but that working toward fulfillment is what brings me the greatest joy. My heart and mind are open to the struggles of other people and other groups, and that openness has allowed me to feel deep love. In the midst of fighting the racist/sexist/homophobic/classist/ableist/+ist system, the restoring factor has been my best friendships. No matter how discouraged I am after volunteering at the elementary school downtown, or how exhausted I am after the foot clinic, or disgusted after reading an oppressive article, or embarrassed after being part of a hateful discussion, I am rejuvenated by my people. Always. They are there for me, and I am there for them, and together we are going to make the world a little better or die trying.

In honor of Shabbat, here is my meditation for tonight, from Siddur Sim Shalom:

And the fountain is enriched
The more I draw from it.

How to s̶a̶v̶e̶ live a life

Almost through with a year of medical school and I wouldn't trust me with your diagnostic mysteries at this point. But here are some things I have learned along the way:

Study to LOTR soundtrack and cosmic post-rock on Pandora. Dance in your room to The Weeknd. Listen to pop on your shower radio and sing country in your car at the top of your lungs. Third Eye Blind still works for every possible mood. And their new single kills it.

Get over your Vampire Diaries addiction by substituting with Once, Portlandia, House reruns, Call the Midwife, OITNB II and HOC III. Watch Walking Dead for the adrenalin rush when your own life is a little too calm. Enjoy Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt despite the problematic cultural appropriation, but remind yourself that it's comedy and that's what happens sometimes. Watch too much Arrested Development and ultimately download a computer application that allows you to speed up Netflix and watch episodes in 14 minutes.

Try to read before you go to bed. Surprise no one by loving The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, The Red Tent by Anita Diamant, a collection of feminist fairy tales from around the world, Drown by Junot Diaz, and All Eyes are Upon Us: Race and Politics from Boston to Brooklyn.

Don't stop there. Continue your predictable patterns by going to see The Skeleton Twins, Into the Woods, and Selma. Go to the Manlius Art Cinema and sit in a moldy chair while crying your eyes out to Boyhood. Fight off the feminist crisis that is brought on by Interstellar and try to have some fun. Go to see Pitch Perfect 2 with your sorority sister from college and totally get the jokes going over the tweens' heads.

Take walks around SU and remember your days as a collegian with fondness and nostalgia. Stroll along Marshall Street and get fro yo and Starbucks and try to avoid strangers who want something from you. Drink at Faegan's after a big test with the rest of your class and eat Varsity salads when you realize you haven't consumed a vegetable in a week. Get Thai take out when life gets you down and when it's really bad just go sit at the bar at the Thai place and eat curry and it will make everything a little brighter. At first you may be discouraged by the selection of restaurants in this somewhat worn down city, but you'll find gems like Lofo and Modern Malt, Lemongrass, Small Plates, Pastabilities, Empire, Recess, Alto Cinco, Tang Flavor, and Dinosaur BBQ. Order root beer when they have it on tap and make everyone try fried green tomatoes.

Take a Medical Humanities class taught by a bad ass emergency room doctor who also loves plays and finds a way to make everything relate back to medicine. Go to see The Piano Lesson and leave at intermission due to looming homework. Sit through Vanya, Sasha, Masha, and Spike in total confusion. Go to see Hairspray on your birthday and realize you should see a happy musical every year on your birthday. Sit with your classmates at The Vibrator Play and judge by their reactions that nothing much has changed. Read the first half of The Yellow Birds and go see the author, Kevin Powers, speak at SU. Die and go to heaven when Eve Ensler comes to speak about how her battle with cancer connects to the universal struggle for sexual liberation of women.

Go to concerts. Funk brings people together. If you know the band, show up early and cheer loudly. The Westcott Theater and Funk n Waffles will not steer you wrong.

Join the debate team. Get put on the side opposite your natural opinions. Then prove yourself wrong.

If you get the chance to sit it out or dance...
Dance at the Diwali festival and discover your true calling is Bhangra. Get five girls together and make up a dance to Bye Bye Bye, call yourselves The Back Door Boys, find some fake mustaches, and wow the crowd at the school's benefit Drag Show.

Step up your hygiene game. This isn't college. The infinite joys of daily showers will be revealed to you in time. Make your bed every day and wonder why you didn't start doing that earlier. Wash your sheets more often than you think you need to, because you need to. Decorate your room intentionally with a color scheme and forethought. Put letters from friends up on your bulletin board. Occasionally write back because it feels so wonderful to receive real mail. Emails can be fun too if you get a pen pal and discuss topical articles from the unexplored depths of the internets.

Sign up for a rabies vaccine study and make a little cash while you're advancing science. Pay no mind to the hematoma lining your cubital fossa. It will fade, and the nurse that misses your veins every time is also the one who brings you apple juice and nutter butters.

Get involved in the community. Join Reading Buddies and go to Dr. King Elementary once a week to read with a third grader. Try to explain why the Pinkalicious series books are creating damaging and inflexible gender scripts for young girls. Notice that the library at an almost all-underrepresented-minority school named after Martin Luther King is filled with stories about white kids.

Volunteer at the foot clinic at the men's homeless shelter downtown. At first you will be scared to use the dermablade but soon it will become second nature. Learn that taking a medical history is as much about giving a listening ear as it is extracting data for a record. Things that used to seem gross don't seem so gross when you think you might be helping someone.

Join the White Coats 4 Black Lives movement and participate in the silent protest at school. Learn why #blacklivesmatter matters. Learn from others at the student-led forum on the social determinants of health.

Go home for the holidays. Nothing says Rosh Hashanah like finding people your own age at Temple Beth El and whispering through mussaf. Learn to like lox enough to not be shunned at community events. Admit you have a problem when you experience symptoms of withdrawal from your cool mint cliff bars during Passover.

Be continuously awed by the amount of information you have learned and will learn (and forget, and learn, and forget, and learn again). Take microbiology, cell biology, immunology, neurology, physiology, histology, anatomy, pathology, and maybe some more classes you can't remember. Learn how to take a history and do a physical exam and that it is not as easy as it looks. Succeed in gross anatomy with your secret weapon: an anatomy coloring book. Spend so much time doing this that you have a favorite muscle (gastrocnemius--because it looks like a whale's tail), a favorite tendon (extensor digitorum superficialis), nerve plexus (brachial), and artery (iliac and its branches). Make the histological slide of the female ureter your iPad wallpaper because it looks like pretty pink antlers.

Take care of your own body while learning the ins and outs of how it works. Go to boot camp with your best friends. Live for the butt cycle at the end of Tabata. Do 600 work outs in the RA office and try your hand at acro yoga with your work out buddies. Drink lots of water and by water I mean seltzer. Thank God and the Occupation for Soda Stream. Experiment with dry humor.

Experience the great outdoors and the fermented fruit of the earth. Ride a horse and feed the fish at Mary's. Taste hard cider at Beak and Skiff orchards. Visit Green Lakes with mom. Take in the views from the Seneca Lake wineries on the class wine tour. Personally uncover the hidden diamond that is Cazenovia and Owera Vineyards.

Purchase a killer black jumpsuit and wear it dancing.

Roll 30 med students deep whenever you go to a* bar or a** club.
*the
**the

Become a fiend for trivia. It's okay if you're on the B team most weeks because it's about the journey not the destination. Coleman's gets rowdy and you might get riled up. Remember to use your big girl voice when telling your team the answer, otherwise they won't believe you. Saltine Warrior is lower stress and they also have fried spicy raviolis. Win-win. Well, win-win-lose. Your team isn't that good.

Salsa. Bachata. Merengue. Cha-cha. These may not all be verbs but they are when you're at Johnston's Ballybay with DJ Machina and the Upstate crew.

Bear witness to the miracle of life. Shadow on the delivery floor on your 24th birthday and welcome a baby girl into existence. Take an elective that pairs you and a classmate with a couple expecting a baby. Get paired with the best classmate and the best moms and the best twins the world has ever seen. Follow them through months of pre-natal visits and the birth and check ups that follow. Feel a wave of instincts rush over you when you hold and bounce the baby girl while her brother sleeps peacefully.

Make new friends but keep the old. Visit Cornell for O-week and Homecoming and the Big Red Bar Mitzvah. Celebrate Elysha's graduation and come back for big-little reveal. Surrender to the inner fangirl at the Maccabeats concert. Never miss an Amy Siskind appearance in Ithaca and make a brief camio over Slope Day Weekend. Squeeze in one last Table Minyan, Shabbat Dinner and sunset on the slope complete with lukewarm champagne.

Rediscover Dashboard Confessional in anticipation of their upcoming tour with Third Eye Blind. Prepare your body and mind and soul for June 20th.

Make the most of winter. Go skiing. Get back to your roots and whip out some moves at the old ice rink. Visit Lake Placid and watch synchro at the 1980 rink. Skate on Mirror Lake and shop on main street.

Struggle with the hints of a quarter life crisis. Ask your advisor about a nose ring and she'll tell you that your patients might get distracted by it. Settle for a cartilage piercing instead. Swear to yourself you'll clean it twice a day for four months. Live up to that promise for a full week.

Go see Nico and Vinz with Chelsea at the free Pepsi concert in Rochester. They only have one song and you're not sure what Pepsi is doing about the Superbowl a week early in Rochester, but it's cool anyway.

Find yourself at a dinner party turned bluegrass jam in your hometown with kids you've known since second grade and their parents. On your way out, pass three Priuses. Get into your Prius and drive home to your cats and the other Prius waiting in the garage.

Visit New York and remember why you don't live there. See dear friends and "watch" a Cornell hockey game. You will not see a single goal in real time because you will be engrossed in anything besides watching the hockey game.

Get a massage. Celebrate Holi and spend the next three days washing it out of your hair and ears. Drink wine with your friends while trying to get through 50 Shades of Gray. Celebrate Galentine's Day with a brunch. Play an icebreaker using weird medical information about yourselves. Make time for your friends when they visit, because this is Syracuse, and if you don't show them a good time, no one and nothing will. Attend house parties and themed parties. Go bowling with your class and manage not to bring shame to your family. Rewatch The Heathers and try to incorporate some of those golden lines into your daily use.

Spend a little too much time summing up your year in a bizarrely constructed second-person command blog post. But you'll be glad you did.

What would you do if you weren't afraid?

I should be studying for my upcoming test, but I did something today that I want to remember for a long time. I did something that scared me.

I wasn't going to write the poem, but I wrote it. I wasn't going to submit the poem. I submitted it. I didn't expect it to get noticed, but it got Honorable Mention. I was definitely not going to have my name associated with it, and wanted it published under "Anonymous." Then I was asked to read my poem at the awards ceremony with the other poetry and prose winners, and that was definitely not ever going to happen.

But today at 4pm, without telling anyone, I slipped off to the awards ceremony. I listened to the other amazing pieces. I got my picture taken with the certificate and with the other winners.

Then I read my poem. My highly personal poem. It is about a journey that I am on that I am not completely comfortable with, and sharing that with a room full of doctors, faculty, and second year medical students was honestly terrifying.

I love public speaking, I love the sound of my voice in a microphone, I get a little high when I look out into a crowd and I know people are listening to me. But today, my voice shook and my palms got sweaty. It was the genuine emotion I had been trying to convey for an entire semester in an acting class I took at Cornell.

There are not too many things in this world that scare me. There are certainly things that challenge me, and things I just think are dumb (skydiving, snake charming...), but rarely have I felt this visceral fear. I did not know how people would react to my poem. I did not know if they would understand me or where I was coming from or what I was even talking about. I was so scared of being judged.

It didn't occur to me until just now (and aha! that's why we write, isn't it?) that as I was listening to the other students and faculty members reading their poems and their prose--I did not judge them at all. I was only impressed, moved, humbled, made to think. They presented us with real human emotions, different points of view, snapshots into the lives of ordinary people who have extraordinary humanity.

And when I finished reading my own poem, the sheet shaking in my hands, I looked up to the whole room clapping. And when the event was over and we mingled over cake, all the fellow writers came up to me, and so did some audience members, to say how they thought my poem was very powerful or moving or brave.

I didn't feel brave, but now I do. I am so proud of myself for doing something that scares me, and I hope I do it again soon. And to anyone reading this, the question I pose to you: "What would you do if you weren't afraid?"

Fighting social injustice from within and without

This time last year, I was devouring every article I could on misogyny and sexism. My passion for gender equality grew with each passing day. I became a madwoman, obsessed with calling out the overt and covert anti-woman messages in our society. I decided to do something about it, and organized an event on campus, started a hashtag to document the low representation of women in leadership/STEM/politics/business/everything, and took every conversation as a teachable moment to educate my poor friends about the horrendous injustices against women that occur in the world around us on a daily basis. As a woman, a member of the oppressed group, I was in a unique position to speak my truth and express the societal plague from my personal point of view. At some level, I was protected because I brought my own experiences to the table.

Now, I am applying that same fury and passion to a different issue: racism. I am trying to educate myself with articles and books (thanks to my mother for sending "All Eyes are Upon Us: Race and Politics from Boston to Brooklyn"), participate in demonstrations (http://www.localsyr.com/story/d/story/upstate-medical-students-demonstrate-against-polic/16388/Ix10odt1EEWjQ7UZjBIs-w), and speak out whenever possible to draw attention to the pervasiveness of this issue.

While I am applying all that I learned during my self-proclaimed Feminist Awakening, in terms of learning the language of the movement, reading the essentials, and most of all, bravery in the face of those who do not see what I see, there is something different this time. I am on the outside looking in. As a white ally, my focus is now on acknowledging my own privileges, listening to the experiences of others, and encouraging other white would-be/could-be-allies to do the same.

Essentially, the most difficult and most important part of my activism now is shutting up.

Of course, this is not my natural state. I am more of a fist in the air, lead the charge sort of gal. But the more I read and hear about racism, the more I realize the experiences of people of color are totally incomprehensible to me, specifically because racism is so deep and so pervasive that I cannot even imagine the constancy of oppression. Each person's story confirms to me that I will never be able to relate to the pain and fear that comes with being part of a racial minority.

My hope is that as more white people shut up and listen, more people of color will be able to share their experiences. An example of this is the #alivewhileblack hashtag on twitter, which is really worth a read (https://twitter.com/hashtag/alivewhileblack). I don't know what it is going to take to make people believe that racism is alive and well in our country, but before we can come to that conclusion as a group, I do not think there is much hope of combatting it.

Learning on the Job

I'm taking it as a good sign that during the three hours I spent at the foot clinic in the homeless shelter today, I only looked at the clock once, and that was to make sure I would have time to see another patient.

I was late and frazzled when I arrived. I had just shoved easy mac down my throat after spending 9 hours at school and I had forgotten my keys in my room and had to have an RA unlock my apartment. I was having trust issues with my GPS and really heightened parking anxiety until I pulled into the lot of the men's homeless shelter here in Syracuse, a five minute drive from my building.

A man greeted me in the parking lot. He was very friendly. I assumed he was staying at the shelter, but he told me he was security and would make sure I got in OK. Later, he was talking to someone about recently getting out of jail. He was sweet to me and not inappropriate in any way during the clinic. I figured it was better to have him on my side than not.

On the way to the room where we held the clinic, I passed by two large dormitory rooms. There must have been thirty beds in each, bunked. I passed the "lounge," where the lights had been turned off and some men were sitting around watching tv, presumably. Everyone was in good spirits and greeted us. The medical students come once a month on Thursday evenings and are very well received.

I got introduced to the other students, the podiatrist, and the MD running the clinic. We were all wearing Upstate t shirts and jeans, except for the doctor who wore a white coat. The clinic was a small room with tables and chairs set up, which also doubled as the computer lab. There were inspirational Christian quotes on posters on the walls. At any given time, we had five patients in the clinic room. We all sat on folding chairs.

Patient confidentiality is a little hazy to me at this point, so I'm going to err on the side of caution and not tell you about them. But I will tell you--they lived at the shelter. Some worked, some didn't. Some had hypertension and family history of heart attack, some didn't. They were all self-conscious about their feet. Their feet had fungus in them and on them, and thick, painful callouses. I can't imagine what it is like to walk all day in the same old ill-fitting boots and same old socks.

We took their medical histories and asked them what brought them in. Some wanted toenails clipped, some wanted their fungus treated, some had pain and didn't know why. I worked with a second year med student to take the histories and do the physical exam on the foot. We would put a drape down on our laps and have the men put their feet in our laps on the drape. I was instantly comfortable with this. I loved inspecting the feet, checking for strength and sensation, reflexes, pulse. I was fascinated by the fungus but tried not to get too excited about it. The smell was definitely there but did not affect me in the slightest.

For one man with pain, this was the first time in a very long time he had put his feet up. He said the elevating felt very good. While my second year partner went to go get a razor for the callouses, I had a while to wait with this patient. He was embarrassed about the smell and appearance of his feet and wanted to take them off my lap. I could tell he felt relief from the elevation and human contact though, so I told him I would keep palpating and testing for sensation while we waited. By the time my partner came back with the razor, I had a connection with this patient and he was happy to let me hack away at his thick callouses (which I found quite therapeutic...for myself).

I'm not sure if anyone else feels this at the doctor's office, but I love having my neck checked, my back palpated, being asked to breathe in deeply, the quiet and assuring tone of voice my doctor uses as she narrates the exam...I fell into this pattern with my patients tonight. There was an MD there to treat the fungus and advise in the management of diabetes, but I was able to give these patients attention, a listening ear, and a soothing touch.

Two summers ago, I participated in an experience that made me highly critical and even skeptical of service. I carry those critical thoughts with me whenever I engage in an experience like this, or my weekly "Reading Buddies" program that I have started doing at the elementary school nearby (I read for an hour on Wednesdays with a third grade girl). I try to have a realistic view of what I am able to give to people, what they need from me, and how those two things intersect.

I believe that tonight was a great example of a time when I had something to give, there was a need for it in my community, and there was an outlet for me to safely and effectively deliver that service. Working with a team that included a podiatrist and an MD, as well as in the context of a highly structured and long-standing program, made me feel confident that I was part of a service program that improved the lives of the people it serviced, and not just those who served.

A. E. Housman (1859–1936).  A Shropshire Lad.  1896.

FROM far, from eve and morning   And yon twelve-winded sky, The stuff of life to knit me   Blew hither: here am I.   Now—for a breath I tarry            Nor yet disperse apart— Take my hand quick and tell me,   What have you in your heart.   Speak now, and I will answer;   How shall I help you, say;          Ere to the wind’s twelve quarters   I take my endless way.

Live and Learn

My high school music teacher said a lot of profound things, and that's why I continued taking his classes and playing in ensembles and embarrassing myself on the music theory AP exam. But he said something that really resonates with me today, sitting here studying in the first month of my first year of medical school.

He said that adults who had never learned to read music or play an instrument before were less likely to learn it not because they didn't have the skills, but because it had been so long since they had been so so so bad at something. They didn't want to start by playing Hot Cross Buns. They didn't want to take moving on to Jingle Bells as a sign of their accomplishments. They didn't want to learn how to read a new language of lines and dots. They didn't want to be a fourth grader squawking on a trumpet at age 45.

I'm now at the bottom once again. I'm squawking loudly on my trumpet. My eyes are crossing as I consider that all of this knowledge will one day truly be mine.

The particular subject I'm studying now (well, I took a break from it to write these thoughts down), embryogensis, reminds me that this learning is possible. I distinctly remember learning about the three germ layers in auto tutorial biology in my first semester at Cornell four years ago. I was truly awed by the human body's ability to differentiate and orient its cells in such a way that most people come out with two arms at their sides and two legs beneath them and eyes on the front of their face. When I learned about the concentration gradients of signal molecules that set up front/back left/right and up/down axes of the body, I was filled with wonder. Could humans, with all our technology and advancements and self confidence, could humans have created such a system? Could we have designed a body that would develop perfectly and beautifully on its own?

Every day I marvel that the human body produces structures and systems that are far superior to any material replacement that we can create. Our plastics and our teflons and our magical mixtures of metals are no match for bone or tendon or tissue. I do hope that we get there someday. I hope that we are able to give people replacement body parts that outshine what nature is able to provide and improve the quality of life or extend the length of life for anyone and everyone who needs it.

Today, though, I stand humbled at my body's ability to continuously rejuvenate itself, develop, grow, strengthen, recover, and learn. I would like to say a special thank you (and apologize) to my brain for all that it has been up to the past several years and in the future. On one hand, I can't believe I've chosen of my own free will to go back to square one, feeling like I know absolutely nothing and perpetually overwhelmed by the idea that one day I will know all of this (the contents of the binder in front of me, or the contents of what I will learn in medical school and residency and beyond).

I did it before though, that's what college was for. It taught me that I could learn anything. I learned that I could learn to do a 4x4 Rubik's Cube, that I could learn how the eye transmitted sensory information to the brain, that I could start from zero and learn how the egg formed and how the sperm formed and how that made a human, that I could learn how to be a feminist or anything else I wanted to be. And now I want to be a doctor. So here I go. Pay no attention to the six year old squeaking on a violin behind the curtain.

Welcome to Medical School

"This is your education. Who do you think you're fooling?"

--Dr. Paul Shanley on "just getting by" and learning material just enough to know it for tests.

He explained a scenario in which a student would get by in the first two years medical school then experience a sensation of vague apprehension in the clerkship (3rd and 4th) years of medical school. The student would continue to avoid participation and shrink to the back of the group. By the time that person is a doctor, he or she feels totally unprepared to be a physician and is sent out into the world unable to fake  what he or she should have been learning the whole time.

So, this is what I'm going to avoid doing.

Today is my fourth day of medical school. Lectures begin at 8am every day except for Thursdays, and my whole class of 154 people attend every lecture together. The class is 36% women, which is unusual for medical schools these days, but we have conjectured it was more due to the women opting to go elsewhere rather than admission statistics.

The lectures are dense but not hard to follow. Before class began, I was terrified of not being able to understand a word of lecture or just getting so lost that it was useless. Fortunately it has all been quite interesting and the school gives us very detailed hand outs of every lecture that we keep in binders, so I've been taking notes on those as well as on notebook paper.

We have an hour for lunch every day. The cafeteria in the school is all right and very cheap. Today I tried the cafeteria in the hospital with some friends and I was very excited by all the options, and my black bean burger was great. Yesterday during lunch I sat in on a Neurosurgery Club meeting, in which food was served, a third year spoke because he had just completed his Neurosurgery clerkship, a Neurosurgeon/Professor spoke and showed videos of his procedures, and there was a panel of residents. I found the procedures in the video very interesting and satisfying, but a seven year residency (including two years of research) isn't too appealing to me. Everyone has said it is really important to keep your mind open to different specialities though!

As for people I've met, I'm very very happy. My class is small enough so I feel like I am getting to know a good number of people at a reasonable pace, but large enough to feel like I still have many wonderful people to meet. 90% of the class is from New York State, and a great number of my classmates took two years or more between undergrad and coming to medical school. My classmates have done interesting things and come to medical school with many interesting perspectives. I feel young and inexperienced in comparison.

My apartment mate and I have been getting along swimmingly, and we have a very pretty apartment in Geneva Tower, the student housing high-rise. She and I have been making friends together and apart, so we are building a web of lovely people  with whom we study, eat, work out, and go out. Dancing last weekend was very fun and I am hopeful about the downtown Cuse bar scene. I think I will only go out once a week, because I lose my voice from the loud music and my sleep schedule gets all wacky, but I will look forward to it when I do!

The work outs have been some of the most fun I've had in the past week at Upstate. I've been to two "boot camp" classes and today I attend a Tabata (High Intensity Interval Training) class, which are all taught by second and third year medical students. It's a great way to meet people, exercise, break up my studying with something productive, and have some fun. Even though I do not have the stamina (yet!) for all the exercises, I have a big smile on my face as I attempt them. Today, the medical student leading our class told us to rest on our "sit bones" for an ab exercise, and everyone laughed. Then she replaced it with the technical term, like for real the technical term, which I don't know, and everyone laughed again. It's very humbling to be associated with such smart and accomplished people.

I love putting on my badge every morning that has my ID and says "MEDICAL STUDENT." You have to look really closely on the ID to see that I'm a first year, so I know that no one can tell what year I'm in as I walk through the hospital to get to class. I feel a bit proud and at the same time a bit like I am just pretending. I hope that the latter will go away soon.

That's all I have to report for now. I miss the scenery at Cornell and I miss my cats and my family and my friends from home and college and Israel. But, I can tell this is going to be amazing, and these friends are going to get right up there with my dearest, oldest friends. I'm impatient to get in the swing of things and have best best best friends and know everyone and feel like I belong, but in the meantime, I will soak it all in with a smile and try my hardest and enjoy being a freshman again.

David S. Kogan, Class of 1950

In addition to hostessing and nannying this summer, I've been doing some part-time research for Cornell as part of the Sesquicentennial celebration. The task at hand is to collect first-person accounts of different areas of campus life in various categories. One of my sources is a wonderful book by Carol Kammen called "First Person Cornell," and it includes short excerpts from students' diaries and blogs over the years.

Today I was reading one that really piqued my interest, that of David S. Kogan, class of 1950. I read at the beginning of the chapter that he was a reconstructionist Jew in a bio that Kammen wrote for him. I only read the first sentence of the bio paragraph, eager to hear what he had to say about life on the hill.

"October 19, 1946. There's a lot of neck going around in these parts. And even more serious activities. Ah, the Spirit of Co-Education...Crossing the Bridge of Sacred and Profane. First Hillel Service was not particularly impressive, being about seventy-five percent Reform and twenty-five percent Conservative (that is merely hats, no organ, a bit of chanting). Nevertheless it is a necessary compromise.

October 25, 1946. I've been studying the Jews here on the campus. Of the approximately fifteen hundred, about one hundred are truly tied to Jewish values and traditions in the modern sense of the term. Then there are about sixty who are Orthodox and do not have anything to do with conservative Hillel House. Another one or two hundred enjoy going to services and are sympathetic to Jewish tradition. A factor almost unknown among Yonkers youth are the three hundred-odd radicals who work for the PAC and the Negroes and Russia, but have nothing to do with anything Jewish, even refusing to come to Hillel House for social activities. Nevertheless they hang together at the "Universal" meetings where Jews predominate. The remaining nine hundred are in between; some come to occasional services; most going to Hillel House, but not at all really concerned with Jews and Judaism.

November 24, 1947. What are my wants: to study the Jewish heritage--to be well-groomed and in the best physical health--to catalogue my faults and correct them--to satisfy sexual desire consistent with an honorable character and wholesome personality--contemplate, evaluate, and improve my living--to successfully pursue Cornell studies--to read wisely and record the reading--to plan and complete the action which make me a better being...to honor my father and mother...and perhaps more...

May 15, 1948. I am thrilled about the formation of the Jewish State. Last night the beautiful Cornell Chimes played the songs of the modern Jewish Palestine for a full half hour...This weekend I was elected President of the Hillel Foundation for the coming school year."



At this point, I stopped reading and turned back to the beginning of the chapter to finish reading Mr. Kogan's biography, with a dim hope forming in my mind of finding him and writing him an email or beginning some sort of correspondence.

I found this:

"His diary spans his four years at Cornell, though the entries taper off in his final year, when he was diagnosed with a lymphoma and began a series of treatments in both Yonkers, his hometown, and Ithaca. Kogan graduated in June 1950 and died in March 1951."


I felt very sad after reading that, and finished the chapter. Then there was a moment when I paused, sensed some significance in my reading excerpts from his diary, and decided to write this blog post. Funny how souls and personalities can connect and transcend time and existence in the physical realm. In that way, I think there is something metaphysical about writing one's personal reflections in a diary or journal or blog. Perhaps that's one of the reasons I've always kept one, at least since I was 12. Also because I've always assumed that I will be at least slightly famous one day and people will care to read my memoirs.

I would have loved to be present that day on May 15, 1948 as the chimes rang out with "HaTikvah" and "Yerushalayim Shel Zahav" and perhaps some folk songs we used to dance to in Israeli Dance. I would have sung along on Ho Plaza and clipped the newspaper the next day and kept it my whole life.

Thank you to Carol Kammen for compiling these diary entries and to David S. Kogan for remembering this special day for me.

"...but first it will piss you off"

reblogged from The New Agenda (my own words)  http://www.thenewagenda.net/2014/04/23/but-first-it-will-piss-you-off/ 

In an instant, I opened my eyes to the gender inequality in portraits that adorned the walls of my alma mater, Cornell University. I was studying in the nutrition building this past Fall when I glanced up and noticed the faces of three white men in suits watching over me from where their portraits hung. This is despite the fact that Cornell granted the first Ph.D. in nutrition to an African-American woman (Flemmie Kittrell in 1936) and that the female undergraduates of the Nutritional Sciences department outnumber the males 495:190 (from the department administration as of April 2014).

Upon noticing this imbalance in one building, I started noticing the same imbalance in other buildings. Portraits of men hung everywhere, and the rare female portrait was most often a famous man’s mother or wife. Again, this is despite the fact that Cornell University has been admitting women since 1870 and boasts some of the most notable alumnae in a variety of fields. These portraits and the names of the buildings that housed them were sending us clear messages about who is important and valued, and it went something along the lines of wealthy, male, and white. If I asked the average Cornellian today to list some famous alumni, they could easily rattle off the names of the libraries, auditoriums, administrative and academic buildings. They would be naming men. But they would be forgetting Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Frances Perkins, Janet Reno, Pearl Buck, Barbara McClintock, and hundreds of other impressive women of Cornell.

I couldn’t think of a good reason for this besides that portraits reflected who had the money and the power, and I couldn’t think of a good reason for who had the money and the power besides that it was the way it’s always been in our patriarchal society. This seemed less than satisfactory to me.

It’s like Gloria Steinem said, “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”

The next logical thing to do was to get other people pissed off with me. I started posting on facebook, twitter, and instagram about the problem, and would upload pictures of the offending portraits with the hashtag “#showmethewomen.” It was a call for Cornell and its students to wake up and take notice of the gender inequality that surrounded them.

The hashtag caught on and my friends started uploading photographs and tweeting about gender inequality in portraits, building names, gender ratios in certain departments, business club leadership, and so on. More and more people were beginning to see that the women of Cornell were being short-changed. It was time to act.

My friends and I secured $800 in funding from the university for a special project and got to work naming notable Cornell women, listing their accomplishments, and finding their photographs. We went as far back as Class of 1873 and even included a Class of 2014 member, Olympic Gold Medalist Brianne Jenner (Canadian Women’s Ice Hockey). We asked students to nominate female professors and administrators who had made an impact on the Cornell community and included them as well. This culminated in an art exhibit of 250 black and white photographs of Cornell women that was displayed in the student union for the month of March.

The exhibit attracted students, community members, professors, faculty, and even the women featured! About 25 of the women whose photographs hung on the walls of the exhibit were able to come and view their “portraits.”

The exhibit received enormous praise and great press. Hundreds of people filtered through the gallery over the course of the month and I received countless emails of encouragement and gratitude for the project.

There were people who didn’t get it though, as I knew there would be. Some of my male friends who helped me put the exhibit together couldn’t help but comment on the attractiveness of each woman’s portrait we hung. Others still claimed that it was “only a matter of time” before women’s portraits hung in equal numbers beside men’s at Cornell, and that the exhibit was unnecessary or even wrong.

Although the exhibit has been taken down, #showmethewomen is just getting started, and so am I. The experience taught me to be confident, to take action, and to gather my friends and champions around me. I started seeing the world in a whole new way, and I helped other people start to see it too. I learned that social media can only take a cause so far, and sometimes you need to make things happen in the physical world. Today, I am constantly disappointed (and often pissed off!) by all the places that still need to #showmethewomen, but I feel prepared and excited to start doing something about that.

Fearless Women of Passover

Moses gets most of the press when it comes to Passover, the epic story of

freedom from slavery we are commanded to repeat every year around this time.

Moses is the Prince of Egypt, the Prophet, the face of the Israelites. He gets

credit for splitting the Red Sea and for leading the Israelites out of bondage.

But who gets credit for Moses?

There is a saying that “behind every great man, there is a great woman.” In this

case, there’s a whole softball team of great women behind Moses. And these

women had no reassuring chats with God in a burning bush, no magic rods, no

plagues to back them up. These women were just fearless.

First, there were the women who gave Moses life. These were the midwives who

did not follow Pharaoh’s command to put all newborn Israelite boys to death. As

Rashi understands it, Pharaoh gave this command to Joheved (Moses’ mother)

and Miriam (his sister) directly, and they directly disobeyed, allowing the baby

boys to live. This included Moses.

Then, there were the women who saved Moses’ life. This was Pharaoh’s own

daughter, who found the floating baby Moses and recognized him as “one of

the children of the Hebrews” and had compassion on him (Exodus 2: 5). She

raised him as her own, knowing from day one that Moses was alive because

her father’s orders were disobeyed. Then came Moses’ wife, Zipporah. In one of

the Torah’s most mysterious dramas, an angel of death swallows half of Moses’

body while they are camped in the desert, and Zipporah recognizes this as a sign

to circumcise her son. “So Zipporah took a sharp stone and severed her son's

foreskin and cast it to his feet” in order to save Moses’ life (Exodus 4:25). This

tale of “the bridegroom of blood” is an often overlooked example of Zipporah’s

bravery and quick-thinking.

Finally, after Moses has led the people of Israel on a dangerous, miraculous, and

utterly exhausting chase through the desert and the sea, Miriam sees the people

are in need of a pick-me-up. “Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a

timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with

dances” (Exodus 15:20). Miriam’s energy was contagious, and all the women

joined in without being asked. Miriam’s selfless style of leading by example and

inspiring people to action through her own enthusiasm is a model for all of us.

So this year, when you tell your children of our exodus from Egypt, don’t forget to

give credit to the fearless women in the Passover story who made it possible.

And may you love life like the midwives, be brave like Joheved, have the

compassion of Pharaoh’s daughter, be quick-witted as Zipporah, and exuberant

like Miriam.

Finding Your Inner Esther--Some words on Purim

Esther does not assume her post as Queen of the Persian Empire with a passion or

expectation for activism. She does her own thing in the harem, listens to the advice of her

“uncle” Mordecai, pleases King Ahasuerus, asks for little, and follows directions. Unlike

her predecessor Vashti, Esther seems content with a degree of passivity in her role.

Even when it is her time to step up and save the Jewish people living in the 127 provinces

of the empire, ranging from India to Ethiopia, Esther devises a plan to first please the

king with banquets before requesting anything of him. When Esther finally speaks

up on behalf of her people, the king is eager to reverse the decree and punish the man

responsible.

Perhaps the impetus for Esther’s bravery comes from Mordecai’s advice to her, “For if

you will remain silent at this time, relief and salvation will come to the Jews from another

source, but you and the house of your father will be lost. And who knows if it is not for

just such a time that you reached this royal position” (Esther 4:14). Queen Esther breaks

her silence to save herself as well as her fellow Jews.

Mordecai scares Esther into taking action, but he also reminds her that she is in the right

place at the right time to make a difference for herself and for her community.

The story of Purim tells a grand tale of the Jews’ survival, but it is also a step-by-step

guide to advocacy.

Step 1: Keep your friends close. Mordecai and Esther are the winning team in Shushan,

but neither could do it without the help of the other. Foster your friendships and gather a

circle of champions around you who will support you, advise you, inspire you, and give

you a kick in the right direction when the time comes.

Step 2: Choose your battles. Find your inner Esther and be agreeable. Avoid extraneous

demands. Use humor to diffuse tension instead of exacerbating it. Give people the

benefit of the doubt if they misspeak or are unaware of their privilege. Allow thoughtless

offensive remarks to be an opportunity for education. Make people want to help you

when it’s really time for a fight.

Step 3: Make the Ask. It can be difficult to address people of authority with a request.

Whether you are speaking on behalf of yourself, your community, or both, feel entitled

to ask for something directly (especially if you’ve done a good job with steps 1 and 2!

). While Esther addresses the king humbly, she doesn’t beat around the bush when she

asks for her life and the lives of her people to be spared. The clarity of her request makes

it even easier for the king to grant it. A strong “ask” can mean the difference between

getting what you want and getting what someone else feels like giving you.

And who knows? Perhaps you have reached your position for just such a time as this.

My Speech for the Athena Award Ceremony, January 16th 2014

I just graduated from Cornell University about three weeks ago, and it seems like everyone has some advice for me and my future. A friend of mine gave me a book called “What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20” by Tina Seelig. The author tells this story about a mechanical engineering professor who had several female friends from her university who were also engineers in different disciplines. 

They often came over to her house for dinner. Her young son was usually around, watching and listening to their conversations. As he got older and proved to be good at math and science someone said to him, “Gee, you should study engineering.” He twisted his face and said, “Absolutely not, engineering is for girls.” 

***

It has now been four and a half years since I was honored as a Young Woman of Distinction by the Women’s Council. In those four and a half years, I left the security of my home and my high school, where women ruled, and I learned why this story is funny. 

Immediately after I won the Young Woman of Distinction Award in 2009, I worked for six weeks at the Susan B. Anthony House in an internship funded by The Women’s Council. I was inspired by the work of Susan B. Anthony and her tireless devotion to her causes, but I also began opening my eyes to just how far we have to go to reach gender equality.

After a gap year in Israel, I packed up again and moved to Ithaca. At Cornell, I was pre-med and became a leader in the Jewish community, in my sorority, and my residence hall. It was my joy to serve these communities that I loved so deeply, and I was well on my way to becoming a doctor. 

But, I started to notice that people always used the words “strong” and “female” when they referred to my leadership. I noticed the surprised looks I got when I told people I wanted to be a surgeon. I noticed that the walls of the Cornell libraries were lined with portraits on portraits of important men. 

I noticed that a lot of people don’t think engineering is for girls. 

That’s where YWOD comes in. Winning the prize during my senior year of high school, speaking at the award’s ceremony last year, and standing before you today: all of these experiences are like one big THANK YOU NOTE from the world. The recognition is validation for what I have done and motivation to keep working hard, even when the jobs I’m doing feel thankless. 

So this is my Thank You Note to you: Thank you for being role models, for what you do for the community, for showing the world what women can be and what we are. Engineering IS for girls, as is business, entrepreneurship, medicine, law, administration, politics, media, and more. And this room proves it. 

Show Me the Women

This is what's been keeping me up at night lately, and what I plan to do about it.

I was sitting in the Savage Hall lobby before my class on Mineral Nutrition and Chronic Disease when I noticed three portraits of white men looking down at me. I began to notice that portraits of white men adorn the walls of every building at Cornell University.

That same day, I read an article in the New York Times about women in science, which revealed that even women do not hire other women for science positions as often as they hire equally qualified men. I started to think that part of this is purely what we think a scientist looks like, and that part of this problem is the messaging we are getting through the portraits on the walls at our universities.

When I started talking to friends about the portraits, many people wanted to know why it bothered me that the department founders, big donors, and administrators of the past were mostly men--they saw it as merely a function of history and that surely, these people deserve it.

While I do not want to discredit the people who have had a profound impact on our university, I do believe that they send a message about what merits a portrait at Cornell. That message connects being important with being rich and male and white.

I wish to widen the net of what we consider "important" at Cornell.

My plan is an art exhibition in the spring coinciding with PCCW (President's Council of Cornell Women) Weekend. The exhibit will be located in the Memorial Room of Willard Straight Hall and will feature portraits of prominent Cornell women from over the years. Alumnae who have made significant contributions to their fields, as well as prominent female faculty and administrators, will be featured. The portraits will be edited to look as much like an oil painting as possible, and framed.

Throughout the exhibit, framed mirrors will be installed with titles underneath them, to encourage exhibit-viewers to see themselves as part of the exhibit. A central piece of the exhibit will be a large, blank, framed canvas with the title card: "Cornell's First Female President."

My hope is that this exhibit raises questions about whom we honor in society, what we value in people, and the progress (or not...) of work place equality. I want every student to identify with the people featured, based on gender, race, ethnicity, or area of expertise.

The exhibit will be coupled with programs and discussions with different groups around campus. I am excited to partnering with my friend Lizzie on curated film screenings that feature women as writers, directors, and actors.

Cornell needs a change, and it’s not going to “happen on its own.” While women have begun to outnumber men as college grads, the hopeful trends stop there. Women are paid less for the same jobs as men once they leave college, and often self-select into “female professions” which pay less to begin with. Even here at Cornell, the gender gap starts to widen with the leadership of business clubs being mostly male. If we continue to study underneath the watchful eyes of rich white men in big, important portraits, we will continue thinking that being important means being rich, white, and male.

Cornell cannot change history, but we can change the messages we promote to our students. We can balance out the movies shown at Cornell Cinema to include movies directed by women. We can balance out the featured keynote speakers invited to campus by Hillel and other large organizations. We can balance out the portraits on the walls by featuring women in an art exhibit. We can balance out administrative leadership by hiring more women and encouraging them to apply for top positions. We can balance out STEM degrees by providing mentoring programs for women in these majors. We can balance out gender inequality, bit by bit, step by step, in our little corner of the world.
We deserve this. And it is time.

Show Me the Women does not solve the problem of gender inequality at Cornell University. But it begins the conversation, and provides a platform for discussion about the issue. It will bring women and allies together across differences to start working on the tough problems we face today. These problems require creative solutions, and this is just a start.

#showmethewomen

A few words of (last week's) Torah

Written for the Cornell Hillel Weekend Update last week.

From what I gather from the internet, this week’s Torah portion is Vayigash. This is a packed portion, telling the story of Benjamin’s release and Joseph’s reunion with his family. Benjamin is freed when his brother Judah offers to be taken as a slave in his brother’s place. At this point, the truth comes out as Joseph reveals his identity and learns that his father is still alive. The brothers are remorseful about selling Joseph into slavery. Ultimately, seventy of Joseph’s relations make their way down to Egypt, including his father, Jacob.

While Joseph’s family starts off pretty dysfunctional, they get it right by the end. The family comes together after some self-sacrifice and amends are made. The big happy family thrives in Egypt, where Joseph provides for them during the famine.

While I am sure many of you reading this can relate to the lessons we learn here about our immediate families, I would like to challenge you to think of Joseph’s family as a metaphor for a larger community. That may be the world community, the Jewish community, the Cornell community, the Jewish community at Cornell, or your home community. Whatever community you most strongly identify with, picture that in your mind. Right now. After you finish reading this sentence, close your eyes, picture your community, and then open them soon to keep reading the rest.

Now, my question for you is, how will you give of yourself to better your community? What would you sacrifice part of yourself for, as Judah did when he offered himself as a slave in place of his brother to protect his father from heartbreak? How will you plan for and protect members of your community, as Joseph did when he fed his extended family throughout the famine?

As my time as Hillel President draws to a close, I can’t help but reflect on what the past three years on Hillel board have meant to me and how I have served my communities.

I think that my “Aha” moment about service came this past summer when I was volunteering in Israel. I was on a service-learning trip through Repair the World/Onward Israel (you should apply this spring!) and living in Be’er Sheva, the desert city. There, my small cohort volunteered during the day and learned about service in the evenings. I learned about upstream/downstream interventions, about empowerment, about sustainability, about the importance of being a part of the community which you are helping.

These ideas are eloquently summed up by Lilla Watson, an Australian aboriginal leader: “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting our time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”  This has become the guiding principle of my life.

Many of you reading this know me as “Jordana Gilman, Student President of Cornell Hillel.” But I am writing this dvar torah about service to share with you an important part of me that you may not know about, my experience working with victims of domestic violence and their children.

Seeing the reality on domestic abuse on a daily basis completely changed the way I see the world. I began to see these victims of domestic abuse as victims of societies that prioritize honor over everything--including life itself. I saw how common domestic abuse is across cultures and countries.

I befriended many of the women and I adored the children. Because of the nature of the shelter, though, the families came and left unexpectedly. I never knew if my favorite women would be there the next day. I began to understand what it must be like for the ~40 children who spend months of their lives in that shelter.

Working with three 15 year old girls from Ethiopian families had the biggest impact on me, however. We talked about race, racism, Ethiopia, Israel, President Obama, relationships, and regular teenage girl things like The Vampire Diaries. These young women taught me so much about strength and overcoming adversity. Their mothers were victims of domestic abuse, and that is why they were living in the shelter. However, they were determined to not experience the same cycle of abuse. They worked diligently on their English and other skills so they would be able to be financially independent as adults. It was an honor for me to know them and for me to help them for a summer.

The girls have since moved out of the shelter and I keep in touch with them by facebook. My summer of service is over, but it has opened my eyes to service as a way of life. It is a lifestyle that requires sensitivity, humility (not my strong suit, for those of you who know me, but certainly a goal), compassion, and sacrifice to your community.

Now that I am back on the hill, I have turned my attention to what I can give to Cornell, and what I have given over the past three and a half years. I challenge you to reflect as well.

What will be your service to Cornell? What can you offer of yourself that will leave this place a little bit better than you found it?

And for the Jews in the room, how have you contributed to the Jewish community at Cornell? Have you graced us with your presence at events, have you joined a Jewish Student Group, have you served in a leadership position? Are you a regular at Shabbat, did you light the Hannukah candles in your dorm? Have you led a Super Seder, or hosted a holiday meal at your house through Shabbat Across Cornell? Do you serve as a Hillel Big and mentor Jewish freshmen?

Find a service that speaks to you, and live it.

It has been my honor to serve Cornell Hillel for three years, and I thank you all for supporting me and being a part of that incredible journey.

Disabled for a Day

All right, you got me. The title of this post is a misnomer. I went for the alliteration, but the truth is, I was only "disabled" for about 45 minutes.

When my friend Saadiya asked if anyone was available to ride around the Cornell Store in a wheelchair yesterday afternoon, I responded that I was free and would be glad to do it. I thought it would be fun. I met up with Saadiya, Ross (who would be hobbling around on crutches) and some campus leaders/administrators in the area of accessibility.

Right away, I needed assistance. The handicap accessible entry to the Cornell store is a buzz-in entrance, you have to ring a bell, it's the employee entrance. You can't go in all by yourself. Then, when I sat in the chair, I needed people to hold my things for me. I felt so small as my peers towered over me.

Now, I'm not a very tall person. But I've been told I can have an imposing presence when I want to have one, and I've often taken advantage of my "big personality" to do just that. In a wheelchair, that was taken away from me. In order to interact with anyone, I had to crane my neck to look up at them. People started moving around me with great care. I needed space to maneuver because I was clumsy with the wheels. People were extra polite and patient with me, but not out of respect--out of pity.

My first task was to try to "mail" something at the PostMarket. Fail #1. The stantions (is that what they're called...those things that delineate waiting lines?) were so packed together that there was no way I could get through. A number of people in line shuffled about nervously, trying to move them so I could navigate.

I kept saying, "I'm fine, I'm fine, I got it." I wanted them to know I wasn't actually disabled. And instantly, I felt ashamed. I was embarrassed that people thought I was in a wheelchair because I needed it, and then I was horribly, horribly ashamed that I would be embarrassed of something like that.

My next task was to order something at the cafe. The aisles were wide enough, but I felt very awkward, and again, people were uncomfortable. Then I saw Adina, and she waved, and asked me how it was going. I treated it like a game, and said it was "fun." Wrong. It wasn't fun. It was eye-opening, and in a painful way.

The next failure came when I tried to check out the Cornell ties. Very handsome ties I might add. However, on my way there, I barreled through a few racks of sweatshirts and banged up a few fake mahogany display cases. I tried to turn around and get out the way I came, but there was no space. Someone needed to push me out. Then I got stuck on a little bump in the floor, one of those rubber strips that separates a carpeted area from hardwood flooring. I was sweating by the end of it.

We returned to the employee entrance of the store, from where I took the service elevator down to the first floor. Fortunately I had people with me to push the buttons, because I would have had to strain to reach them.

I wheeled on out of the Cornell Store with a fresh appreciation for what it means to be confined to a wheelchair, both physically and emotionally. I felt that the interactions I had while in the wheelchair were dominated by the fact that I was in a wheelchair and that people were trying really hard to pretend I wasn't, and failing noticeably. I felt that taking a service elevator and using a back entrance made me feel separate and emphasized the words above the elevator: "Assistance Needed."

So I will now do my best to change how I react to people in wheelchairs, and I will try to enact change wherever I am able to make places truly accessible (not just "compliant"). I learned a lot in those 45 minutes, and I hope this blog post has opened your eyes as well. This is an important message, and it is something we can really do something about.

Let's start.

Don't we always wish we had more time

I'm in this class called Acting in Public: Performance in Everyday Life. Once a week, we make a one minute speech. This week was eulogies. I spent all weekend looking for the perfect one--I didn't want to do one that I thought everyone would do (two people in my class ended up reading Karl Marx's) and I didn't want to do one that seemed too real, like for a parent or a grandparent. So I had to look through a lot of eulogies. This was a melancholy process, as I am sure you can imagine. There are some touching ones here: http://connectingdirectors.com/articles/40420-8-of-the-most-amazing-eulogies-of-all-time, especially "For My Mother." So I was a puddle by the time I had selected the perfect eulogy, Cher's eulogy for Sonny Bono. She wrote beautifully and from the heart, but here is the thing that really got to me:

"So the last thing I want to say is, when I was young, there was this section in the Reader's Digest. And it was called "The Most Unforgettable Character I've Ever Met." And for me that person is Sonny Bono. And no matter how long I live or who I meet in my life, that person will always be "Son" for me."

I felt like that summed things up. So I was in this eulogy sort of mood and I started becoming aware of limited time. Not just in the sense of mortality, but in the way things come to an end, or people drift out of our lives, or the world changes irreversibly and we cannot get back to the sweetness of our past.

I'm graduating at the end of the semester, so I am very sensitive to the fact that I will be leaving Cornell in a few short weeks. I've been instagramming pictures of Cornell like crazy to fight the impermanence of it all. (I'm making a photobook from all my photos with artifactuprising.com, it's a great site). I walk around campus awed by the beauty of the buildings, the trees, the views, the skies...it really is gorgeous here but it seemed to become more so when I realized I only had a few weeks left.

I think when it comes down to it, we all wish we had more time. I'm not saying I don't want to graduate! I am soooo done with problem sets and prelims and classes and even my meetings and much of the day to day here. I have given it my all and I am proud of what I've done. But I do wish I had more time, I do wish that I could stretch out those incredible moments that make me feel or think or act differently, that fill me with joy and wonder...

Can I just go back and infuse the Big Red Bar Mitzvah with a few more hours, so that we could keep dancing a little longer? Could I make the Last Lecture I went to today last until late into the evening? Could I add a few minutes onto the football game on Saturday, which I spent soaking up the warmth with Jesse and Adina? Could I squeeze a few more prayers into the Friday night service last week? A couple of classes extra with Professor David Feldshuh? Another cup of frozen yogurt with my lineage? A few more soy hot chocolates in Libe cafe?

I am sure that I will have a more comprehensive list of the moments I'll miss by the end of the year. But for now I am going to enjoy them, and do my darndest to live in the present. It is taxing to do so! And I know why we start to feel like this at the end of things, or when people die; it's because it would be too draining to appreciate whole heartedly every single minute of your life! So I will take advantage of this surge in sentimentality and do it now, for a month or so, and then I will begin a new adventure, and it will be fresh and exciting. I won't know how perfect and good it is until I start thinking about my next chapter, which will surely bring new challenges and surprises.

In closing, I will leave here the words of one of my favorite Third Eye Blind songs, "My Hit and Run."

Feel the speed through the intersection
Sheets of rain I seek out cars
Hands in gloves grip handlebars

Ride alone to the pub in the dark
I get a little wet but I don't have to park
And the lights start flashing green and red as I ride
A car turns left and I slide
I can't turn back
I make contact
Blinkers smash into mosaic
Then I start flying

Always think we get more time
Now I'm flying through the air
Maybe living maybe dying
In this motor crash it's you who comes to mind 
Don't we always wish had more time 

I'm thrust slow mo through time and space
Details smash and
I protect my face
And then I see yours
And go to a time when we just knew

Come down hard and roll to my feet
And rain washes blood now off concrete
People turn away and I just had to laugh
Cause I'm still flying
Living and dying

And I'd like to thank mister death for what he's done
Cause I got to walk away from my hit and run
Mysteries are not so empty
Cause I saw you
At my hit and run

Know Your Boundaries: Thoughts on J Street 2013

We were playing a get-to-know-you game in the J Street U breakout session, and we were standing up from our chairs whenever a statement applied to us. There were statements like, "This is my first J Street conference" or "I helped to found a chapter at my university." I stood up when appropriate. Then the facilitator said "I am deeply concerned by the Occupation." I sat dumbly and watched as the entire Mid-Atlantic region, a delegation of 130 students, rose to their feet.

It's not that I'm not concerned with the Occupation. I am. But this is all very new and shocking to me. This is the first organized event I've ever been to where I've even heard the word "occupation" being used. This is the first time in my life I ever heard someone suggest altering the Israeli flag to depict more inclusive symbols and changing the words of the Israeli national anthem from "Jewish soul" to "Israeli soul." And this is the first time I've ever put quotes around the word "democracy" when I use the phrase "Jewish 'Democracy,'" because suddenly I'm not sure if what I thought was the only democracy in the Middle East even is one.

I support the 2 State Solution. But I also NEED Israel to exist as a Jewish state, one in which Judaism is institutionalized. I need Judaism to have a physical space in this world. I don't think it's enough to have a lot of Jews living in a country so the country has a Jewish character in its culture and values. I don't want Israel to celebrate the Jewish holidays the way America celebrates Christmas. In America, I appreciate that many people say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." Because that's what I signed up for by living in America.

In Israel, I want the bus banners to still switch between the name of their destination and "Chag Channukah Sameach," And I would like the Jewish Sabbath to be recognized in some formal way. And I would like Jews to have a special immigration policy that allows them to become citizens easily and quickly.

BUT. I want Israel to provide work permits to asylum seekers living in South Tel Aviv. I want Bedouins living in unrecognized villages to not fear the destruction of their homes at any moment. I want Palestinians in refugee camps to expect clean running water. I want Druze villages to receive the same funding for their schools as their Jewish neighbors. 

I also feel strongly that Jews need to address the problem of pluralism in a way that enriches Judaism without forcing everyone to adhere to the strictest possible observance. To me, this means creating a system in which everyone has the freedom to practice in the way that they please while respecting other approaches. This will require some major creativity and breaking away from the status quo. 

--A day later--

Another challenging day at the J Street Conference. We had a session to plan our advocacy work tomorrow and I met some nice people and I met some people who didn't make it too hard to dislike them. Then I got in line for a long time to listen to Biden speak, who was very late because Bibi is visiting and the government is shutting down. 

Biden made a lovely speech. He was charming and funny and made it unequivocally clear that the US supports Israel and that a two state solution is an absolute requirement. 

I am glad that I heard Biden speak today, because he left me with hope for the situation, and he diverted some of my attention away from the horrifying fact that I am much more right wing than I had originally thought. He closed with a quote from this poem:

“Human beings suffer,

They torture one another,

They get hurt and get hard.

No poem or play or song

Can fully right a wrong

Inflicted and endured.

History says, don't hope

On this side of the grave.

But then, once in a lifetime

The longed-for tidal wave

Of justice can rise up,

And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change

On the far side of revenge.

Believe that further shore

Is reachable from here.

Believe in miracles

And cures and healing wells.

Call miracle self-healing:

The utter, self-revealing

Double-take of feeling.

If there's fire on the mountain

Or lightning and storm

And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing

The outcry and the birth-cry

Of new life at its term.” 

― Seamus Heaney

Reflections at Reagan National

I was waiting in the airport, applying to medical school, and AMCAS asked me a very good question:

"What is the significance of your experience?"

The experience he was referring to, of course, was my volunteer work this summer at the women's shelter in Israel.

I tried clumsily to sum it up for the application:


Seeing the reality on domestic abuse on a daily basis completely changed the way I see the world. I began to see these "victims" of domestic abuse as victims of societies that prioritize honor over everything--including life itself. I saw how common domestic abuse is and how powerless I was to change that while working at the women's shelter.
I befriended many of the women and I adored the children. Because of the nature of the shelter, though, the families came and left unexpectedly. I never knew if my favorite women would be there the next day. I began to understand what it must be like for the ~40 children who spend months of their lives in that shelter.
Working with the three 15 year old girls had the biggest impact on me, however. We talked about race, racism, Ethiopia, Israel, President Obama, relationships, and regular teenage girl things like The Vampire Diaries. These young women taught me so much about strength and overcoming adversity. Their mothers were victims of domestic abuse, and that is why they were living in the shelter. However, they were determined to not experience the same cycle of abuse. They worked diligently on their English and other skills so they would be able to be financially independent as adults. It was an honor for me to know them and for me to help them for a summer.

But that isn't it.. is it? I couldn't tell AMCAS the true significance of this experience. I couldn't send this message to faceless people on the other end of the internet, flipping through thousands of medical school applications. I couldn't tell them how angry I feel when I think about the suffering I witnessed. I couldn't tell them that there was a Bedouin women who came to the shelter the last week I was there and she wouldn't look at anyone or speak to anyone, and then one day I asked her in broken Arabic "What's up?" and she cracked a smile. I couldn't tell them that the Ethiopian girls I worked with were the most beautiful people I've ever met, that they handled being 15 in a women's shelter in the middle of nowhere Israel better than I handled being 15 in picture-perfect suburban America in a loving, safe home.

I couldn't tell AMCAS that the reason I want to be a doctor is because I want to be alone in a room with a woman and recognize signs of abuse and be able to shut the door and speak with some authority and do something about it. I want to be able to perform reconstructive surgery on someone who has been forced to undergo FGM. I want to be able to give back some health autonomy to women who have never been allowed to make a choice for themselves. I want to give women CHOICES. I want to sit across from my patient and listen to her and have some expertise to be able to deal with what she is going through.

Because I felt fucking powerless at that shelter this summer.

I wasn't a social worker. I wasn't a director. I wasn't a volunteer coordinator. I wasn't anything!! I was a friend--and that meant something. But it wasn't enough and I need to be enough. That's why I need to be a doctor. It is selfish!! I can't help it. I need to be enough for someone.

I couldn't tell AMCAS that.