2010

So while everyone else is drinking themselves into a proper state of inebriation, I am curled up in bed with my dog in a mild food coma from my dinner I just devoured and watching MSNBC's "Lock Up"  (I literally watched this show for seven hours straight on Christmas Day). I am mentally and physically willing myself not to drift off into a unicorn inspired dream filled with dancing puppies and mountains made out of funfetti cake. Why you may ask? Not because I feel the need to mark yet another year pass and watch some ridiculous shiny ball drop from the sky to mark said transition into yet another year. After twenty two years of life on this earth, and I still cannot understand why the new year is such a big deal. It comes, it passes- so what? Anyways, I need to stay awake so that I can pick up my lovely friend Jenn at the airport. When does she land? Midnight. Poor girl thought she was landing at 12 noon today. Yet another reason why I think we need to switch to the 24 hour clock. 

New York City Bound

It is alarming how quickly this winter break is passing by. I have already been home for 9 days and it has all been blurred into one stream of eating, sleeping, eating and napping. It depresses me a little to know that in two weeks I will be headed back to D.C. to finish out my last semester of my senior year. The depressing aspect is that I will no longer be able to just eat, sleep, eat and nap- not the fact that I will be finally escaping the grasps of George Washington University. 

Truthfully, I had been a little nervous about this winter break. It was the first break in which I had been home and not abroad in Israel. I would be celebrating my birthday without copious amounts of alcohol or friends to guide me home. Instead I found myself celebrating my birthday by gorging on birthday cake and watching seven straight hours of "Dexter". Surprisingly, it was really enjoyable- even though every time I see the Yoshi Blade commercial on TV I get the giggles and picture Dexter obliterating some child rapist with it. 

Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics

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So I recently entered the Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics. I found out relatively late about the contest and decided to enter it rather spontaneously. First to preface, Elie Wiesel is one of my heroes in life. I read Night when I was relatively young and the book both traumatized and inspired me. In hindsight, I should not have read the book at the time that I did; after reading Night, I continued on a wave of reading Holocaust literature and the cruelties I read about and the books I devoured led me to be quite sensitive to anything Holocaust related. However, Wiesel's books are like poetry to me and his weaving together of words are hauntingly beautiful. I remember spending an hour just looking at one paragraph, finding new layers of meaning behind each sentence as I would replay the sentence in my head. Commas and periods took on lives of their own as they jutted out from their framework to come alive as bold statements in themselves. 

I remember attending a lecture by Wiesel when I was in high school. I went with my mother and I was surprised by how humorous he was. He was a tragic comedian. I shook his hand after and had so many things I wanted to say to him. Instead, all I could muster was a "Thank you". I do not know if there has ever been an author, public figure or celebrity that has ever had as much of an impact on me and my life than Elie Wiesel.

The essay called for participants to write 3,000-4,000 words (about 12 pages, double spaced) on an ethical dilemma that they have faced, or anything relating to that. Surprisingly, the essay contest itself was pretty liberal in that you could really write whatever you wanted- I looked at past examples and saw a wide range of topics. I chose to write about the refugee situation in Israel, a topic which is really important to me. This essay was the first time I had really translated my experiences from this summer into essay form and it was really cathartic for me. The essay is incredibly long, especially in the blog world so if you do want to read it, you can check it out after the jump. I'm actually really nervous about people reading it, as no one has read it in its entirety and I just feel kind of vulnerable with it. But since I know that A. My mother is the only one who probably reads this and B. My mother has not read my blog since a year ago, I am pretty safe publishing my words here. So, yes if you happened to stumble upon my blog, have a few hours to spend and want to read this, then please let me know what you think.

Published with MASA Israel Blog

So it is a little belated, but I was published on the MASA Israel Blog. I was asked to write a blog as a MASA alum and I wrote about my experiences on the kibbutz. That blog entry ended up being published in the Boston Jewish Advocate, much to my mother's excitement. I thought I would post it here as well. Enjoy!

I grew up always being the lone Jewish girl. I would be the one who always missed school in September for the High Holidays, who would always be asked to explain “my peoples’  special holiday” to the class, and of course, the one who was always asked “so really, why did you guys kill Jesus?”  I suppose it didn’t help that I spent my high school years attending an all girls Catholic school south of Boston where my lack of Irish step dancing and red hair made me stand out like a sore thumb. It was always this wanting for a Jewish community that motivated me to someday find one; I just didn’t know where to search. Additionally, freshman year had been a rough year for me and I felt myself slowly sinking. I didn’t know where I fit in at my university where everyone was super motivated and being a type-A personality wasn’t a nuisance, but a necessity. All I knew was that I needed to get away and slow life down before I would suddenly find myself cherishing my last few days of freedom before my senior year of university. That is when I decided to go back to my roots and head for the Holy Land. Thus, in the first semester of my sophomore year at university, I did something so shocking and unbelievable to all my fellow students at my university- I decided to take a leave of absence and live on a kibbutz in Israel.