There is not one person in my family that I can safely say lives in moderation. We always seem to somehow end up in extremes, be it in opinions, religion, politics, substances, or emotions. (I like to say that even the men are drama queens.) One of my missions for this year is to learn to walk the golden mean, to be able to accept certain things and reject others, to have opportunities that I don't necessarily take. I believe it is possible; others have managed, and I refuse to allow genetics to dictate my life course to me. I guess it's all a matter of self-discipline at some point, but I'm sure there's another way ...

apathy

One of the days in the past blurry, sickness-infested week or two my Hebrew teacher was talking about how war brings about some measure of apathy with regards to the horrors. In passing, she made reference to a debate that goes on about whether this is a weakness or strength. Being a relatively apathetic person myself - though with strong opinions always, of course - I value any kind of emotion and see it here especially as a form of loss in the humanity of the situation to allow yourself to become accustomed. However, having lived in Israel during the Intefada at the turn of the century, I have to say that in spite of it all, there really is no other way to deal with something of such magnitude. At some point what it came down to was waking up every morning to more news of bombings. The question, rather than "Was there anyone hurt?" became instead "Was anyone I know hit?" Within a year of coming back to America I watched my sister speaking to a former classmate over the phone, trying to identify in her memory one of the recent victims in her school. She burst into tears when she finally figured it out. Dreamed about the girl afterwards, too. Apathy's a tricky thing; you never know what'll burst through the wall, and when it does it's ten times as bad as what you remembered.

I was inspired, so I wrote. In an amazing feat unparalleled in the past few months, I even finished the piece. So I sent to my sister, who had been satisfactorily critical of a former piece I had shown her.

She had the same criticism as last time.

I am depressed and suspect that I am not nearly as good a writer as I thought I was.

Unfortunately, I have had several times where I met a person a precious few times before they quit this world and moved on to the next. I try and try to understand why it was that I needed to meet them, those few insignificant meetings, and then the sudden announcement out of the blue. This week was one such situation, when I called my father to ask him a question and he told me that his good friend's son had been found dead after ODing. I just don't get it.

Admittedly, the year is well under way and all modes of settling in should be over and done. But being me, I am still trying to find the exact niche that I fit into in all this. It usually takes awhile, especially because of how dependent I am on first impressions. No matter how many times it turns out that the person I thought was cool, smart, fun to be around etc. etc. was really a bore and insincere to boot, I keep relying on the dream I had of their personality when I first laid eyes on them. I guess since summer camp is so short there's a kind of mentality where the short time frame helps you to overlook the annoying idiosyncrasies and bond immediately with the nearest you have to a best friend. I usually give myself two weeks in any six week program to find the confidantes I need to make a summer memorable. School, of course, is a whole other playing field where you don't have to worry about lost opportunities so much as lost experiences. Friends are more recyclable, because there are so many people and there's so much time.
Anyhow, tonight was one such excursion. I found myself unwilling to partake in vying for anyone's attention, to draw them to speak to me; I had had enough wishing to be that someone just barely attainable to me, if I keep trying hard enough and manage to keep the good humor coming. So I walked alone a bit during the trek between Brookdale and the general Times Square area (ya gotta love Jamba Juice being open til 1). Anyhow, it was good to know that at the end of the night I still felt like I had a good time with the group I was with, even if I wasn't entirely in my comfort zone.

I saw "Across the Universe" late last night with my friend. The long and the short of it is that this is the reason people make movies.
And Eddie Izzard was in it, which just elevates its awesomeness by about 50%. So it's currently at an appreciation viewing of 150%.

I went to the Noah Feldman thing on Thursday night. Rather, it was supposed to be a Noah Feldman thing, but unfortunately it was not: respresented as a "Debate on Jewish Values", it really was basically a very general discussion on the differing opinions of the three panelists on what that consists of, with no particular highlight on Feldman. In spite of the fact that the woman sitting next to me was there exclusively to hear Steinhardt, the philanthropist, I am absolutely positive that everyone in that auditorium was really there to see what would happen with Feldman. He was the notorious persona non grata this summer, the guy so many people loved to hate - even people who didn't condemn him, like my brother, talked about him with intense fervor and used the article as a springboard for further discussion. But no. The so-called debate included bare references to his article, Boteach putting him on a pedestal, and a whole lot of people wanting more, especially since he was a rather good speaker. So I'm bitter, get over it.
Funny thing was, he reminded me very much of my other brother. Or maybe it was just the way it was so unexpected to hear flawless Tanach and Gemara quotes issuing from someone who looks as he does.

Durgh. The Sy Syms elevator is operated during peak times, but the operator decided to go down twice in a row when I wanted to go up. So I took the stairs five flights up. But the 12th floor stairwell door is apparently out of service. So I had to go up to the 13th floor. Where the woman from the NYU Medical Center looked at me like I was insane for asking how to get downstairs when the elevator took forever coming. Ta da.

Second In Shabbos. I feel like there's some kind of science to it that's only fully developed by senior year. Step One, have a clique. It's foolproof. Step Two, descend upon Koch Auditorium in a drove. Step three, grab a table and sit, all together, then talk and laugh and look extraordinarily comfortable. If at any point in this simple process you slip up on the most minute detail, you will feel like a fool and be prepared to go into Embarrassed Lost Child mode. (At least if you're a girl, that is - there's a reason I'm not a guy.) I'm sure this is all just me being bitter and melodramatic about the whole situation, but honestly, I hate feeling like I'm in high school again.
Then there's the issue of the fact that I never in a million years thought I would ever be in the Most Religious category. For Pete's sake, where I come from I'm practically whorish! There were two classes - the frum and the scandalous. Now I'm all aflutter wondering where the rest of the people here fit in. Scratch that, where they ALL fit in, because none of them fit. Damn it. I never thought going mainstream would have an opposite effect on me.

Hey. I'm one of those girls that's been through the Orthodox Jewish system - wore a uniform to an all-girls high school, spent a year in a bubble seminary in Israel, etc. Now I'm not exactly one of those people satisfied with the mainstream, despite my history. But the realization that I giggle far too much around guys coupled with the fact that the extent of my non-Jewish experiences is a 30-hour driver's ed course in tenth grade gave me the vigor to grasp that there really was not much choice in the matter. The reality was that I was not capable of attending a secular colleg. Rather, I would go to Stern, the very place I had been pushed to attend by the legions I had defied for so many years.
So coming here, I pretty much expected high school all over again - after all, this is the ultimate, the place that is meant to save my soul in opposition to the horrible secular schools that will leave me irreligious! Once again I had given in, I had done as they told me to, and I thoroughly expected a 'frummy' place with the 80% of the students who didn't fit the mold sneaking around to do as they pleased. Predictably, I was pleasantly surprised. For better or for worse, the rules that exist are slack, the Hebrew studies take a backseat, and if so desired, you can be entirely unrelated to any school influences whatsoever. It's the first institution I've attended that has absolutely no independent interest in my private life.
Not that I'm complaining, but the situation has led me to wonder why it is that my previous schools had all urged so many of us to attend an academy that is so blatantly different? Of course there are niches in Stern to be found of more religious tendencies, but if my previous institutions didn't trust me while I was a part of their school, why would they tell me to go somewhere I have free reign?
I suppose there's nowhere else. Well. All the better for me.