Starting Out On A Journey

I am officially done with school.

Ever.

(Or maybe not ever, but for now.)

Last night was my last night as the Apple's roommate. In fact, it was my last night as part of TBA (what I nicknamed our apartment on my blog way back in the beginning of the year. I believe it stands for "The Best Apartment" - not very original, I know). But not even, because M.R. had already left.

Last night, the Apple and I talked a bit until we were nearly asleep (that didn't take very long, seeing as we were both exhausted from packing and transporting luggage). When I shut the lamp, I thought to myself, "These last few seconds before I fall asleep are my last few seconds as a member of this apartment. When I wake up in the morning, my time at Stern will really be over." While I was still the Apple's roommate, it was like school was still in session, even though there were no more classes. I was still a part of my Stern experience. Now I'm home for Shabbos and any return to the Stern premises will be as a graduate.

Truthfully, I do have one more night in my apartment at Stern. D2 and I are packing our stuff on motzei Shabbos and leaving Sunday morning. But it will be just us. We will be the last ones to say goodbye to The Apartment.

...And then we, and everyone else, will go on together to the next stage of our lives.

What's both nice and strange at the same time is that we're not saying goodbye to each other. We're going to be seeing each other next year. This is not like the end of the year in Israel when people go off to their respective colleges in various different states or countries or even continents. Those people you really need to say goodbye to. But not my friends now. We're still going to be together in some ways, but...differently. I don't know what it will be like but it doesn't feel lonely.

D2, Chana, SJ, M.R., and the Apple,

This year, there were struggles, triumphs, difficult moments, awesome moments...but you guys have been amazing apartment mates.

At the start of this year, I wrote a post on beginnings. Well, now we're all facing a new kind of beginning. It's the beginning of a path in a completely different walk of life. But I think we're not alone on that path. It's one we don't know well at all, yet we are not walking it in solitude, even as we are also all doing different things next year.

There's a song from the end of the movie Anastasia that I love. It's meant to be a love song really, but I think it can really apply to any sort of close relationship - especially a deep-rooted friendship that will help each of us face whatever journey we have up ahead.



As I step wistfully out of one stage and nervously, but not unhappily, into the next, I take with me everything my time at Stern College for Women has provided me with. In a way, I am the same person I always was, except I'm being that person in a different way. It's slightly confusing. But refreshing, in a way. It's exciting to feel like I can possibly do something important with my life outside of the comfortable school cocoon.

So thank you, Stern College.

This post feels somewhat awkward, but I guess some things are hard to say, let alone say with elegance.

This blog will no longer be the records of a girl in college. Now it will be something else. Perhaps it will be more important to me than ever to write about what happens to me. My life suddenly feels like it's one big surprise.

I suppose we shall see what happens come tomorrow.

Graduation

In a few minutes, SJ, the Apple, and I are going to be leaving for our graduation.

For the past few days, I've been thinking about what I would write on the day of graduation, and nothing too inspiring came to mind. I thought about writing a parody to the Les Miserables song, "One Day More" (as some of my friends and I used to do when there was one day left of something), but it seemed a bit silly. Then again, perhaps it's worth being silly about graduation?

Nah.

Then I thought about linking to some posts I wrote recently about growth and maturity. But that seemed overreaching, a bit. I don't want to write something too heavy or overly deep (or too cliche). I'm not valedictorian or anything. :P

So I figure I'll just write, simply, that today is graduation, and that after today I will be a ceremonial graduate of Yeshiva University - but not a real one quite yet because my finals don't start until Sunday (isn't that mean?).

Mazal tov, Class of 2009!

Why I Will Not Make A Good Gofer

This morning, I was about to leave for the caf when D2 said to me, "Oh, Erachet, are you going to get breakfast?"

"Yep."

"Do you think you can get me a cup of coffee?"

I hesitated. Coffee was not the sort of thing I was much experienced in. In fact, I had never made a cup of coffee before in my life.

"Sure...but I don't really know how..."

"Oh, it's easy! Okay? I'm going to explain it to you."

"Okay."

"Okay," said D2, and began slowly. "You take a cup. Then you fill it up about this much with coffee. Then you place it under the milk thing and fill it up some more with milk. Then you put two sugars in."

"Okay," I said. "I can probably do that."

So I went to the caf and, before I knew it, there I was standing in front of the coffee counter. I had never paid much attention to it before. I stared at it for a moment, D2's instructions suddenly becoming incredibly complicated.

I couldn't find a place where you get coffee from. There was a big urn that said "Caution: Hot Water" on it. Then there was a machine with three different kinds of milk. Three! Next to that was another machine with spouts for either cappuccino, french vanilla, or hot chocolate.

Okay. First thing first. Take a cup. I can do that, right?

I started to reach for a cup and then hesitated. There were two different kinds. Did D2 want a large cup? Or a small one? I tried to remember if she had specified but, my mind blanking on me, I had to use my own judgment. I figured I'd get her a large.

Large cup in hand, I then tried to decide which of the three flavors on the machine could one possibly mean when asking for "coffee." Clearly, the answer was not hot chocolate. Was it cappuccino? French vanilla? I had absolutely no idea and, after two whole minutes of deliberation, I stuck the cup under the spout labeled "cappuccino" and tried my luck.

After the cup was about 3/4 full, I decided it was full enough and went over to the milk. Here was another complication. Did D2 want whole milk? Skim milk? 1%? At home we get 1% milk so I figured that was safe.

As I was adding the milk, another girl looked at me with keen interest. "Is that good, what you do? Cappuccino and milk?"

I felt a little startled. Was there something wrong?

"I-I have no idea," I stammered, trying to sound like I knew what I was doing. "This is for someone else."

But something about her question made me think I had made a mistake. When she then took a small cup, put it under the "Caution: Hot Water" urn, and brown liquid came out, I knew I had completely messed up.

I decided to skip the two packets of sugar and instead covered the cup and brought it back to my apartment.

After having gotten wrong the size of the cup, the milk, and the coffee, D2 later told me she'd give me coffee-making lessons.

My Wonderful Apartmentmate(s)

I have a wonderful apartment mate. Her name is D2. This is the story about why she is so wonderful.

(SJ addendum: [deleted] [deleted] [deleted])
(Erachet addendum: Stop interrupting my post, SJ! You're ruining it!)

M.R., SJ, Chana, D2, and I were out in the kitchen talking. D2 was at the kitchen table on her computer. The conversation went like this:

Erachet: So...what's happening tomorrow?
SJ: Um, it's reading week.
Erachet: I know that. I mean, what are people doing?
D2: You want to see what I'm doing tomorrow, Erachet? [She puts her arm around my waist and gently drags me over to her computer] Here, come, I'll show you what I'm doing.
[On the screen, there is a youtube video of a cat being dissected. D2 presses play]
M.R.: Don't look, Erachet! Hide your eyes!
Erachet: Wha--NO WAY, D2 EW EW EW! I am going to the other side of the table!
SJ: Now our apartment's going to smell like formaldehyde again.

Later on in the evening, I was in the middle of working on this very post when D2 suddenly piped up with:

D2: Erachet? When do you think they last lynched people?
Erachet: Er...I don't know?
D2: No, really. If you had to guess.
Erachet: Ummmm, I...really couldn't guess.
D2: Come on, guess.
Erachet: Uh...after the Nuremberg Trials?
[SJ walks into the room]
D2: SJ, when was the last time they hanged people as punishment?
SJ: Well, Sadam Hussein was hanged.
Erachet: Oh, that's right!
D2: Okay, the last time in America.
SJ: Um, don't they just use lethal injection?
D2: But I think I remember people being hanged! I'm going to look it up.
Erachet: Why... are you interested in this?
SJ: D2's planning out her future life of crime!
Erachet: Yeah, but hanging?
D2: Come on, don't you ever get interested in things?!

A little while later:

D2: [Reading off her computer] "Only the states of Washington and New Hampshire still retain hanging as an option." Isn't that crazy?!

Other D2 quotes of the night:

1. So I was telling my friend how in genetics lab we made menorahs out of bacteria, which we did. And my friend said, you know, I really don't like being around giddy people. And I said, I'm not giddy!

[Erachet: Menorahs out of bacteria?! Sounds pretty giddy to me!]

2. Time to metaphorically roast the proverbial duck.

[You're not supposed to get it. There's nothing to get. D2 doesn't get it either. The only way to get it is to understand that it is not supposed to be gotten. Got it? So now you get it. :P]

As you can see, we've got quite a gem of an apartment mate here in Stern. But, in all seriousness, we love her. And if we were actually playing Gamad v'Anak (secret Chanuka buddy) in our apartment and if D2 was my person, this post would certainly serve as a gift to her!* But in any case, now D2 has a post in dedication to her that is completely lishma, and hey, she deserves it!

To SJ, Chana, M.R., and the Apple -I love you guys, too! Chag sameach to my apartment and chag sameach to the entire JBlogosphere.

Now everyone go eat a jelly doughnut!

*But we are not playing Gamad v'Anak, so of course D2 is not my person, nor is she anyone's person.

Top Ten Highlights Of The Week

1. Baking cookies with D2 (or, rather, eating D2's freshly baked cookies) and bringing them to the security guards downstairs

2. Beating SJ in Boggle :)

3. Writing bad poetry with SJ and the Apple

4. Our wild west poetry teacher looking for a board marker, not finding one, and muttering, "Heck!"

5. Our poetry teacher going around the room asking us our names and why we are taking the class. When my turn came around I said, "I'm Erachet, I'm an English Lit. major, and...I've done a lot of creative writing on my own."
"Really?" he asked, interested. "What sort of writing?"
"Well, mostly short stories but also some poetry. And, er, a lot of just...random blurbs."
"Well, that's poetry, too, you know!" my teacher exclaimed.
"Er, uh, well, they're more like beginnings or middles to random short stories," I explained hesitantly.
"Oh," he said, now looking at me as though I was a bit slow. "Those are called drafts."
Then a bunch of people laughed.
"Oh," I said. "Yeah. I write drafts."

6. Beginning a whole new year of adventurizing with SJ!

7. Beginning a new school year as the Apple's roommate :)

8. Getting five pages from my lit. and philosophy teacher about how to write a one page response (BRING IT!)

9. My 18th Century Satire class taught by my Gothic Novel teacher from last semester - and the funky book we're gonna read later called Tristram Shandy. It sounds sooooo....bizarrely cool.

10. School Books Buying: Survival Of The Fittest. It's a dog eats dog world out there in Barnes and Noble...

Two Interesting Tidbits

1. I am currently dorming in the best apartment EVER.

2. Apparently, if you conduct a google blog search, this blog comes up as number 11 for "shadchan." And I don't even write about dating! (It's the Stick to the Shidduch Quo post - but still!!!)

That will be all.