The Ballad Of Magellan

I used to like this song as a kid.

Freilichen Purim And Happy Birthday (Again)!

A few weeks ago, I wished a happy birthday to my little brother Mavis. The thing is...it's his birthday again!

Mavis, as I mentioned in the earlier post, was born on Purim. I already wrote about what it was like the day he was born. But I didn't go into much detail about his bar mitzvah, which we celebrated on his actual birthday - Purim.

He read megillah that morning in shul (and was amazing. I'm not just saying that because I'm his sister. People came up to us afterward and asked why my brother wasn't in the Yeshiva Boys Choir) and afterward he was having a party (costumes optional) about two minutes away. Various boys (Straight Man's friends mostly) were driving Mavis's friends from shul to the party. In fact, everyone was so concerned about getting all the guests there...we all sort of forgot that Mavis needed a ride, as well. I guess everyone assumed he'd be getting there somehow - that it wasn't up to them to figure out how. After all, he was the bar mitzvah boy, right?

Mavis ended up having to go over to another one of the guests who hadn't left shul yet and asking if he could please have a ride to his bar mitzvah.

The party itself was majorly fun, especially since my family was all dressed up in period costumess (colonial and stuff).

The chagiga tonight was also really fun. Highlights were:

• A girl wearing a sign that said, "Bernie Madoff stole my costume."
• A girl dressed up as a michlala girl - humongous poof and all.
• Zimri and Kozbi (that one was a little bit gross).

I sort of love it when people dress up as random things from Tanach. I think it's hilarious and so clever.

On the bus ride back, I discovered that I do have the abilitiy to sit next to a random person and talk. So I am not hopeless in social situations, after all! How relieving. (Joke.)

Also - I'm going to Israel tomorrow (what?!). For a wedding. I know, it's random and kinda weird and I'm missing two days of school and coming back to two midterms and a senior thesis, but what can you do? When a best friend from childhood gets married, everything else seems to get put on hold. Sort of. Not as much when it's in a different country across the ocean and you sort of aren't really sure that it's actually happening and won't be sure until after it's over when you say to yourself, "...Whoa. Was I just in Israel?" And even then, you're still not sure. Best to take pictures so you can prove it to yourself.

This post is random enough, I might as well end it with a Purim Torah joke. I used to know lots of these because the Rabbi of my fourth grade class gave us a whole sheet of them, but I only remember a few and only one of those that I remember is actually funny (in my opinion. Not laugh out loud funny. Just cute. They're all rather groan-worthy, really).

How do you know that Vashti was fat?*

In sixth grade, I remember we made fun of the Purim tape by going around saying in squeaky, whiny voices, "Vashtiiii...bring me a cup of caw-fee...!!!"

Anyway, I must go to sleep now, but happy birthday (again) to Mavis and a Purim Sameach to all my readers!!! That includes the lurkers, too! :)

*'Cause Vashti astah mishteh nashim! (Vashti was made of two women! [the real translation is Vashti made a feast for women])

These Days And More

Sitting cross-legged on the floor of a narrow, square room reading Henry James out loud,
Occasionally shifting to my knees when I get too uncomfortable,
And then switching back to Indian style when I start to lose feeling in my feet.

Again sitting on the floor, this time of the Borders behind Penn Station,
Safe and snug in the set-back corner of the children's section.
Two of us there, each with a hot mint chocolate drink in one hand,
And an iced one in the other: a welcome mistake.

Sitting once more on a park bench,
Firecracker ices in hand--
The red dripping down the white until we get to the Patriotic bottom
Which gives us Smurf lips
And we stick out our blue tongues at each other like a secret handshake,
A family crescent, a clubhouse password.

Lost in the snow, the wheels of the car sliding slowly over transparent ice,
Then we sneak around the hoity-toity lodge
Pretending, for a few moments, we belong there, too.
Then chased by an overeager, over-hungry squirrel,
The iced wind biting at our faces and pinching our cheeks red.

Ice skating, ice skating, ice skating.
Alone, and then with you, and then alone, and then with you,
Around and around and around.
The rink a ring of people--
Pass by the same ones, yet each time you're different, they're different.
Change without change.
Watch out for the jocks who try to cut you off. They'll trip themselves one day, doing that.
They'll never trip me, though.
Here is one place I never fall.

Warm in there, on the couch, on the rocking chair, tired but don't want to sleep.
Awake, awake, stay awake.
Blink my eyes open - when did they close?
Open, yes, they're open.
And I'm wide awake now - but how?
Was I talking?
Whose line is it anyway?

Those glass elevators go up, up, up
I like to look down and see everything get smaller and smaller.
Dizzying -but a thrill because I can make myself look and still want to continue going up.
Let's ride again!
Up and back down, then back up--
Let's stay up, can't we?

Words on the screen tell us to sing.
Sing?
There are people. People!
They might hear us!
Do we even know the songs?
We laugh and sing and sing and laugh.
I am not me, you are not you, we are not we--
We just are.
Having the time of our lives.

These days and more. These days and more.
These days--
And more.

P.S. The Squeaker - the inspiring tale of a boy and his sneaker.

Rising to Potential

In light of Chana's most recent post, I would like to comment on the difference between being thought smart and actually being smart. I don't know how many people have actually thought about this or considered being a part of the thought-smart category, but it's something I know all too well.

When I was in elementary school, I was smart. I was. I can't remember not knowing how to read, but I do remember when the rest of the class was learning. I remember that I already knew how. I didn't need the letter books. I didn't need the readers. I was already reading books at home on my own. In school, I thirsted for chapter books, especially when most of the book in our classroom library were simple picture books. During this time in my life, I always did well in school and I was seen by the other kids as part of the 'smart kids' category. But there was something wrong, something that wounded my pride, that made me feel inadequate, unnoticed, unappreciated, or just plain not good enough. There was an enrichment program originally called Project Extra and then renamed Rise. My good friends were in it. I wasn't. I wanted to be so badly, but never did any of my teachers place me in it. It was like a special club that only the smart kids could be in, but yet I was excluded. I, who was smart, who couldn't make it on my own in the classroom when the rest of my friends were at Rise. It made me secretly resentful of my friends. I hated feeling that way. I hated not being part of it. I hated being smart, but not smart enough. If I was going to be burdened with being a reader, being studious, being quick at learning, then why could I not be rewarded along with my friends? And if I wasn't going to be rewarded, then couldn't I at least be good at whatever the other kids in my class enjoyed to do? So that I could have friends when my other friends weren't in the classroom? So that I could have things to share with other students in the class?

In elementary school, we also had an annual poetry contest. This was something I wanted very badly to win. I entered a poem every year and never did I get to read mine out loud in front of the whole school during the poetry festival. And I was the writer! I was the one constantly writing stories, writing poems, playing make-believe. But I never won. Not once. There was only one moment in elementary school when I felt pride for my writing and that was when we had an actual poet come to our class. It was in fifth grade and the poet told us each to write a paragraph about something, anything we wanted. I wrote about waking up on a Sunday morning and the rush of racing down the stairs to beat my siblings to the television so I could choose what program we would watch. I remember the poet singled my paragraph out. She said it was very good and that a phrase I had written, "I fumbled for my glasses," was just the sort of phrase writers liked to use. She said it showed a sophistication in my writing. I glowed with pride.

But that was my shining moment. My only shining moment.

In sixth grade, I got the biggest shock from a teacher that I had ever gotten before. I got my first C. Now, you have to understand, not only did I not get C's in elementary school, I didn't even get B's. I mean, I was a good student. This was also the year that I'd had hepatitis, so you would think the teacher would be a bit more understanding. We had a country report which included an actual report and an oral presentation. We drew from a hat and, lucky me, I was chosen to present first. I was eleven. I had never seen an oral presentation before. I had no idea what I was supposed to do. The teacher gave a few suggestions, but I had to make most of it up on my own. I worked incredibly hard with my parents building the Eiffel Tower out of a large 3-D puzzle (I had France as my country). I learned how to play La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, on my flute (I played the flute at the time). I made posters, I gave out what I thought were little French yogurts but really ended up being cheese (no one knew until later. It was pretty funny when my mom and I figured it out). And after all that work, the teacher gave me a C on my oral. Why? Yes, many of the other presentations were more impressive than mine, but how could I have known that? I was first. And I was terrified I would do it all wrong. I didn't have the confidence to go first. I remember being horrified. An actual C.

In seventh and eight grade, I was placed in the highest level class of my grade. It was then that I started to do badly in science and not amazingly in history. What was happening to me? I was supposed to be smart! Everyone still thought I was smart. I never shared my unsatisfactory grades with anyone. Let them still think I was smart, that I was capable, that I was up to their level.

In high school, for the first time I wasn't in the honors class. I was in a class right in the middle. While for many, this would be just fine, for me it was a wound to my pride. Again, almost all my friends were in the honors class. In fact, I was barely friends with anyone in my own class. I was miserable in that class. I didn't show it; I'm quite good at hiding my feelings - at least, I like to think I am. But I was in a class with all the jappy girls who didn't want to work. They just wanted to go on tangents with the teacher about her outfit. I admit, those were ideal times for me to get some solid bit of writing done ( I wrote many a story during class in high school) but I wanted to learn. I didn't care where the teacher got her skirt from, or her shoes. And, what was worse, my real friends and I began to have less and less to talk about during school. We were having different high school experiences on a day to day basis. We couldn't study together. We couldn't talk about teachers together. It was awful.

And still, somehow, I was regarded as smart. I don't know if it's because I never goofed off in school or if it's because I sound smart when I spoke (which I highly doubt. I usually become too nervous to actually say anything very coherent. I find it much easier to express myself when I'm writing). But there it was, I was still thought of as smart. There was one time, I was in twelfth grade, when a teacher from the honors class subbed for one of my classes and she and I ended up having an intellectual debate for a good part of the forty minutes we were together. Sometime after class, she came over to me and told me she had no idea I was like that (like what? That I liked to debate? That I liked being intellectually stimulated? I still don't know exactly what she meant) and that she feels like she missed out by not teaching me. That was probably the first time in the entirety of high school that I felt proud of my performance in the classroom. And that was when I was almost up to graduation.

So even now I wonder, did I actually rise to my potential in elementary and high school? Did I really do my best? And if not, could I have been in Rise? Could I have been in the honors class? Could I have, as a result, ended up with more friends and had a better experience? Sometimes I get so angry at myself when I realize that the answer to these questions is, most probably, yes. And I don't know why I ruined it for myself. Laziness? Getting too used to being regarded as smart that I forgot to try my hardest? I don't know. I just know I'm unsatisfied with the way I've performed as a student all this time. I'm smart. I know I'm smart. It's just not as easy for me to rise to my own potential for some reason.

Serendipity

Someone once told me when I was younger that the word 'serendipity' means finding something you used to like by accident. Well, cleaning my room this afternoon, I found plenty of things I used to like by accident. One of these is a memory game which used to be popular in camp and in youth groups like NCSY. Basically, one person starts off by saying, "one hen." The person who is sort of like a contestant then has to repeat, "one hen." Then the one leading the game says, "one hen, two ducks" and the contestant has to repeat. It goes all the way until ten. This is the list (some things might be spelled wrong, this list is from a number of years ago, not that my spelling is amazing now, but anyway):

One hen
Two ducks
Three squawking geese
Four limerick oysters
Five corpulent porpoises
Six pairs of Don Elverso's tweezers (I have no clue who Don Elverso is)
Seven thousand Macedonian soldiers dressed in full battle array
Eight brass monkeys from the ancient, sacred crypts of Egypt
Nine apathetic, sympathetic, diabetic old men on roller skates with a marked propensity towards procrastination and sloth
Ten lyrical, spherical, diabolical denizens of the sea who haul and stall around the corner of the quo, the quay, and the quiver all at the same time.

Whew.

Anyway, one of the other items I found buried away in my desk drawers are six little figurines, bigger than Polly Pocket - about the size of Lego people, I guess, maybe a touch bigger. They came from a toy I had when I was younger, maybe six or seven years old, called Jenny's Tree House. It was a tree house and came with five of the little figurines, an orange-haired girl with painted on pink clothes, a brown-haired girl with painted on blue clothes, an orange-haired boy with painted on red clothes, a brown-haired boy with painted on blue clothes, and a blonde-haired girl in pigtails with painted on yellow clothes. At some point, I thought I lost some of them and my mom got me another set, but then I really did lose some, so I'm left now with the girl in pink clothes, two girls in yellow, two boys in red, and a boy in blue. I used to have, besides the boys, two yellow girls, two blue girls, and the pink girl, and I remember I named them after the quints in the Baker's Dozen books (whose names I can't really remember now - Rivka, Zahava, Tikva...that's all I remember). I used to play with them all the time, especially while doing homework. I remember I used to arrange them on my desk like students in a classroom and I would pretend to have them answer the homework questions, or do the readings out loud, taking turns of course (I would do a different kind of voice for each, and sometimes they'd be British, too) like we did in school.

That was aaaages ago. I mean, I was literally six and seven when I used to do that, maybe even until I was eight. So I was very pleasantly surprised to find them still tucked away in a corner of my desk drawer. They're the sort of toy I just can't bring myself to throw away - I have too many nice memories of playing with them.

I have to say, I love cleaning my room (well, sometimes). It's like going on a treasure hunt. You just never know what you're going to dig up!