People and blogs and hugs

I had this whole post that I wrote about the wish tree I saw a few days ago in Jaffa, but then I accidentally deleted it, so I will rewrite it later.

But anyways, I have a few blogs to share that I think deserve some love.

Of Hyperions and Pumpkin Pi
This blog is one I discovered a while ago. The thing that first drew me to it was the title - I mean, come on. Of Hyperions and Pumpkin Pi. Isn't that just wonderful? The writer's username is Theodora Orli, and in any case she writes beautifully. She reminds me a lot of myself sometimes, and she deserves more followers! Also hugs. Everyone deserves hugs.

The Ordinary Life of Katie
I found this one relatively recently. Katie's writing varies from descriptions of daily life to musings about the future and life in general. It's really fun to read! Also, I can marvel at the fact that she's a fencer. Wow...

Anyway, I hope that if you read this post, you'll go check these out! Hugs all around!

Today

So I got out of school at 11, got home at 11:20, and then my friend and I headed off to the Prudential Center in search of a suit for her.

We got off at Copley, and I had misremembered the map so we headed off in the wrong direction and then turned around and went back.

Then we went through Copley Place and took the walkways to the Prudential. We went through a few stores, not really finding much in the price range we wanted. Then we ate Indian food and got chocolate and went to Loft and somehow ended up trying on a lot of clothes. One was one of those dresses that only looks good with a belt, which we didn't have, so it looked like a sack.

Her: I am a potato. Don't look at me, I'm a potato. In a sack. With cats on it.

Then we rushed through Barnes and Noble (this was the B&N of In Your Pants Nerdfighter Meetup infamy) and then rushed through Lord and Taylor, and then we passed through Teavana and got some delicious tea. We ended up boarding the T at 4:15 or so.

And then I noticed that someone from the Nerdfighter meetup was there.

Me: DFTBA?
Her: Yep.

And so we rode some more, and at Fenway my friend noticed that my girlfriend was just getting on the T. So we talked and laughed and stuff and then she got off at her stop. Oh, beautiful coincidences.

So, as days go, today was pretty awesome.

Awesomeness of Life

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I think my life is awesome.

I'm really happy with where I am today, right now. Before Thanksgiving, at high school, maybe not exactly at the perfectly ideal balance between what I like to do, what I need to do, and what is good for me, but pretty close. I have textbooks I can read so I can learn more about our vast universe. I have a speech cutting to do so that I can share the beauty of speaking with the world. I have friends. I have a girlfriend. I love the people I know. I have a vacation coming up. I can do what I like.

And who knows, maybe tomorrow I won't like where I am. But today, I really like it. And really, I'm happy with where I am now, it's just the future that sometimes distorts my view.

I've decided that I will stay in the school I am now, because I like the people and I like the freedom and I like being able to find out random things from other people's textbooks and I like theater and I like speech and I like having not too much ballet and I like being able to read books that aren't assigned to me and I like being able to choose to read old classical literature and I like writing essays of my choice and I like getting the best grades in the class (sorry, that is a bit conceited, but I am arrogant, so oh well). The uncertainty of schools was making me really unhappy, so I have decided, and I am taking the path which will cause me less stress and cause my friends less pain, even if I will not study Latin in school or read endless amounts of ancient Greek literature. I am happy. And I am here.

IBIL

International Baroque Institute at Longy.

Explanations

1. My mom is a flutist.
2. My mom is a baroque flutist.
3. Baroque is "a period of artistic style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, architecture, literature, dance, and music." (Or so Wikipedia says. To my personal knowledge, Wiki is right.)
4. Longy is a school/conservatory of music in Cambridge, MA near Harvard. I have been around the school for as long as I can remember.
5. My mom teaches at Longy.
6. My mom is teaching at IBIL.
7. My brother and I went along with her to IBIL today.


We arrived near nine for the first class of the day - my mom was teaching flute, I attended the cello master class, and my brother went to the violin class. I didn't have my cello, since my teacher hasn't yet had the chance to return it to me after she kept it when we were in Israel, but that was okay, since it was a master class. I learned a lot about shifting, fingerings, and bowing - sometimes watching is the best way to learn. One of the cellists had a shirt that said "cello player fueled by chocolate." One of the cooler shirts I've seen. Also, one of the cellists memorized dates connected to composers and loved Harry Potter. How much better can you get?


Then they had coffee break until eleven, and my mom took me to the Conservatory's other building, where a Medieval/Baroque dance class was held. I managed to follow along well enough - the footwork isn't particularly difficult, even though some of it is exactly the opposite of ballet technique. Often it's more about the use of space and travelling around with your partner than the actual footwork, which is nice.


After that, we left the Conservatory for Border Café for lunch. I love that place - good food, and according to my mom it's fairly inexpensive. Also filling. Very filling. It's Mexican and southern-US-style food. In Harvard Square, if ever you come by there.


Then, after stopping by the newly reopened Bob Slate Stationer, we went home.

At IBIL, I found the same kind of intensity that you find at a summer dance program. It surprised me a little, since I always had a part of me that took music for granted - I've heard early music since before I was born. But I suppose that's the way it should be. I'd love to do this kind of thing for writing, as well.


This is exceedingly like a written version of a "Thoughts From Places" Vlogbrothers video.


Anyways.


DFTBA!

Throwin'

I always feel the need to clarify this. In ceramics, the term "throwing pots" does not mean we're all chucking vases at the walls; it means we're making clay pots on the pottery wheel. Just making sure everyone knows.

This week I'm attending Afternoon Ceramics at the art center nearby. I skipped it on Monday in favor of a day at the beach with my friend but yesterday I arrived for class in clothes made for turning brown with clay stains.

I have attended something at the art center for at least one summer or vacation per year since fourth grade, except for last summer, when I did a five-week intensive dance program instead. But in any case, the teachers know me.

So I arrived about ten minutes early to find one of my former teachers digging in the recycled clay bin and slopping it onto boards to make it dry into clay that's fit for working with instead of just muddy slip. I offered to help because I love getting dirty in this way, and I needed to get my clean clothes flecked with clay already. "You grew a lot," she says.

While doing that I realized that someone who had been with me in the pottery classes I'd attended two years ago was in my class again. We reacquainted ourselves with each other and remembered our jokes. Since we've both been to Israel it was mostly about the messed-up-ness of security and terrorists in airports and trying to drag pottery wheels into the airport. It's probably the best time I've had in an organized class in a while.

I'd really forgotten how much fun it is to go somewhere with the intention of making art, to come with a group of people and get your hands so very dirty. I don't know if anybody else does this, but my friend and I start talking to the clay in the middle of conversations. Like, one minute we're talking about depression and then he says to the mug he's making, "Don't flop over, I'll kill you if you do," and we're talking about television. That doesn't happen without the occasional lunatic talking to random objects.

Today I'll go back and throw a few more pots. Ah, pottery. The most fun I've had in a while.

Neve Tzedek

Yesterday after school, my mom, my brother, and I took a bus to Neve Tzedek.

Neve Tzedek is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Tel Aviv. It's got a kind of small-town feel to it in a way, but the taller buildings are always looming in the background.

We went for lunch at a place called Suzanna, but it was a bit rushed because we had to get to a show (which admittedly was in the building across the street, but still). It was a dance performance called Oyster, which is still going after ten years and is celebrating its anniversary at the Suzanne Dellal Center, which is one of the celebrated dance theaters in the country.

Oyster is unconventional, to say the least. All the dancers wear wigs (I'm still wondering how they didn't fall off) and have their faces painted white. The show is presented kind of like a carnival sideshow event, with one short piece after another. One piece includes dancers with rods connecting their hands and feet, and another has an extra-tall man pushed around by a ballerina with a stool attached to her behind. There's one where a dancer is hanging from a pulley, and one with "armless" men. I thought it was amazing, the way that they folded themselves and fell and stretched. And I suppose the weirdness of it was what made it amazing. It makes you want to do something not-so-normal because you can.

After that we went for gelato and went home. I studied some French. It was brilliant.

Fresh Bread

I went to a bakery today and bought a baguette.

It tastes SO MUCH BETTER than supermarket bread. Now, I suppose that would go without saying, but I sort of forgot how good a fresh bakery baguette is. Last time I ate one of these was a few months ago at least. Perhaps not since Boston.

So, here are a few steps to the location of one subspecies of Afternoonus Awesomus:

1. Go to a bakery.

2. Buy a fresh baguette.

3. Eat it while wasting time on YouTube and Facebook or watching Doctor Who.

Cheers!

Leaf Crunching

On the way to my house from practically everywhere, I pass this tree.

Now, this tree is no ordinary tree. Each leaf is twenty centimeters (about eight inches) long at least. And when they're just dry and crumpled enough, they make the most wonderful crunching sound.

I love crunching leaves here because they don't come in mounds like they do in Massachusetts. Plus I love the sound. It's so satisfying.

Today I was walking home from the bus-thing (it's a monit kav hamesh, but never mind) from Dizengoff Center, and I realized that the tree had shed an extra-lot of leaves and they were awesomely dry and crumpled. So I crunched them.

It was awesome. Perhaps the highlight of my day.

(I should remind you that I am over five years old. But who cares?)

Wednesday

Normally I hate Wednesdays. They're the longest school days of the week - 8:45-2:45 - and it's annoying, even though in America I was at school for longer each day. The main reason of my dislike of Wednesdays is that I have three double classes - three classes of ninety minutes each, plus a forty-five minute class. It's tedious.

However, today seemed to be more okay than usual. I mean, obviously Grammar class was boring as ever, but we always have recess between the two classes and the teacher generally arrives at least ten minutes late for the second class. Israeli Heritage is an alright class anyway, and it was forty-five minutes. Besides which, it was quite an interesting conversation-class to listen to (sometimes I like listening to debates more than participating in them).

Then came English.

Now, obviously I'll be the first of my class to say that English is awesome, for obvious reasons. It's nice to have an opportunity to speak English to a teacher because you have to. Although I suppose the thing I like best is that I can make a total mess of the languages and every person in the room will understand. Unless I use really big words, like sesquipedalian. Which is an awesome word which means "a person fond of long words."

But today's first English class was one of the awesomest ones ever. Why? Because there was no class. Later (in the second class) we found out that our teacher had been with a student in the library and had forgotten entirely that she was supposed to teach our first class (a variation of this has happened before). I had hilarious conversations with my friends who are boys (NOT boyfriends, just to be clear, and I am not a polyandrist). Over the course of these conversations I realized that (1) I have had more ease in making friends with boys here than girls and (2) my friends who are boys have exceedingly perverted views of the world. I also swore a few times, at which they kind of stared at me for a few moments before going back to their own (and rather more heavily-loaded with profanity) points to make.

In the second class, the teacher came in, which was a sad end to our hilarity, because we had to complete a quiz. It was okay in the end, though.

After that we had math, which is usually the boringest of borings. (And yes, I know "boringest" is not a word!) But today another of my friends who are boys sat next to me. He's a math genius, so half of the lesson was us sniggering in the back of the class, laughing at the "leaning tower of Pisa"s we'd made by sticking our pens in holes in the desk (apparently, someone in a class before us was really, really bored and in possession of something sharp), and the other half was him answering questions intelligently and going through the class/homework faster than anyone else.

It was a good day. At least until I re-injured my back in ballet class (I injured it on Sunday and I thought it had healed). What will I tell the PE teacher tomorrow? I had to sit out last class too...sigh...

Open Class

Today in Theater we had an open class day. That means that all the other eighth graders came to watch us, two classes at a time.

In first period we had our first open class, which was an iffy performance. We were all a bit embarrassed and we hadn't really gotten into it yet. But after that show we had almost two hours to do nothing - they didn't even make us go back to class. We got into heated conversations, so loud that we were yelling, and went sort of crazy. Everyone was particularly surprised at me, because it was the first time I really showed off my loudness when I'm hyper. I'm actually still a bit hoarse from that. We got so utterly hyper that we went into various displays of randomness, and being that it was theater and we're all psychos, it got to be handstands and cartwheels and splits and imitations of drunkards. Someone summarized The Butterfly Effect, which is a movie, except he didn't make it short - it took 45 minutes for us to get through the random plot points and for him to impress upon us the creepiness, violence, and just wrongness of much of the movie. One girl did my makeup, as she'd done for most of the girls in the class before the first show. The whole day, from 8 to 1, I was barefoot - no shoes, no socks.

At 11:30 we had our second "show," which was considerably better than the first one, and much more fun. By then I wasn't embarrassed in the least, not anymore. They're just people, same as us. After our last show, which was by far the best, we all congratulated each other. I skipped around the now-empty studio and drank out of the giant water bottle that was being passed around. We had spent the whole day performing and hanging around with the psycho class. We're all mad, but all the best people are.

Purim: sort of Day 1

So this week we have Purim, a Jewish holiday. The story, set in Persia, is that a guy named Haman wanted to kill all the Jews because one guy Mordechai didn't bow to him (supposedly, Jews only bow to God). At the same time, the king, Ahash Verosh, kicked his former wife out of the palace and was looking for a new one, so Mordechai's pretty daughter Esther went to the gathering and lo and behold, the king chooses her as his new wife. Of course, he doesn't know that she's Jewish. And it's all about how she saved the Jews against all odds and Haman got hanged and everybody lived happily ever after.

So on Purim, we dress up in costumes and party and eat triangular cookies with various fillings (Hamentaschen). And we exchange gifts, sort of. It's not like they're Christmas gifts. It's mainly at school, you organize who gives gifts to who. They're generally large bundles of candy and Hamentaschen, which is awesome.

At first I was thinking of just wearing jeans and a t-shirt and taking along an American flag and saying I was dressed up as an American, but then I decided I'd be a doll. It's an easy costume, really, and I've got a puffy dress to wear. I have long hair to put into braids and blush to make my cheeks very, very red and a blank expression. It's great, really.

The best thing about Purim is that no one's too old for it. It's a proper holiday, so everyone celebrates it to some degree. It's not like Halloween, which is based on kids. All through high school you dress up. How cool is that? And you get lots of candy and sweets. And we get a four-day weekend. It's absolutely brilliant.