Last night, a girl in my grade committed suicide. This is the second teen suicide in our city this year. The last one was two weeks ago, at the other high school.

Last time, it didn't affect me. She was just a girl. From the other side of the city. One I'd neither seen nor heard of beforehand. It was almost as if she'd been from the next town, the next state, somewhere entirely different.

This morning, I came into PE class to see three people crying. I thought it was just one of those days, and I was right - except these days come rarely and even so, they come too often. Our teacher read the announcement to us. We observed a moment of silence. But I didn't seem affected.

All day, various people were sad. The fall musical, which was supposed to be tonight, tomorrow, and Saturday night, was postponed because it includes suicide. All day, I saw people crying and hugging and I offered consolation. But it felt oddly distant. I didn't feel sad - well, I did. But I felt more of a chilly surprise.

I had known her in the way you know people you've been with for a few years, but moreover those whose friend groups have linked with yours at times. I had passed her in the hallways, I had seen her pictures on Facebook, I had talked to her sister a few times. I might have known her. But no longer.

It's only now, a while later, that it's sinking in. She's dead. She's gone. She took her own life. I will never see her again - not in the hallways, not at the lunch table, not with my friends. She cannot see how much love pours out towards her now, how much people miss her and grieve for her, how much people are aching for her.

I don't know why. It seems that no one does. But I don't think, even if I did know, that I'd understand completely.

And I remember now what it was that prevented me from doing the same thing, a few years ago. It was the thought of hurting others so deeply. It hurt me to see their pain, and I suppose that my empathy saved me. I only wish that this girl had had something like that - something that pulled her back.

I was not her close friend. I was not her family. I didn't know her well and perhaps I don't have so much of a right to be so sad. But here's the thing. I was talking to a friend of mine and asked if she was okay, and she said: "I'll be fine. It's just she's the first person I knew who died."

I was not her close friend. I was not her family. But I knew her, and I am sad. For a life that could have been lived.

BUA

I just went to visit BUA. And right now I am so confused.

Not only did about half the students there tell me I should have applied, two of the teachers did, and the rest seemed to like me fairly well.

And you know what else? I really want to apply. But I also don't. But I do, but I don't.

I don't because I love my friends and community and speech team. I do want to go because, well, because it's BUA.

But the thing is, they usually admit only people coming for freshman and sophomore year. And I missed that chance. And I'm worried now that I missed my chance at everything else, because I don't have time to do all the things I want to do. I live for knowing, for being among the educated, for having a reason to be superior. Why did I not realize back in the fall that this was my best chance?

Don't get me wrong - if nothing else, I'm glad I went and saw the place. It's going to give me motivation in my independent studies.

But I am so, so confused. And I'm worried that I've missed my chance at everything I've wanted, and that I'll never get one like this again.

Reacting

So since I am obsessed with my girlfriend, naturally I would talk about her a lot. Since she goes to a different school, nobody knows her - that is, nobody who didn't go to middle school with us.

Yesterday she came to school with me because she could, and the reactions were quite amusing.

Physics class

Person: Betty?
My girlfriend: Yup!
(he looks extremely confused)
Him: But...don't you go to, like...BU or something?
My girlfriend: Yup!
(his expression grows more confused)

French

Me: Hey everyone, this is Betty, she's visiting -
Another person: BETTY! HEEEEY!

On the Way to Advisory

Betty: Hey, Jeff!
Jeff: Hey, Betty - wait, what are you doing here?

On the Way Out of Advisory

Betty (to someone from middle school): Hey!
Him: Hey - oh, Jesus Christ.

On the Way to Lunch

Me: Hey, Kate, this is Betty!
Kate: Wait - you're Betty? You're real? She's real! Oh my god! She's real! She's pretty! Oh my god! I ship it! I ship it!
(She tackle-hugs Betty)

Generic Reaction Which Wasn't Really Amusing, Just Expected

Someone: Betty! Hi! We missed you!

Chorus

Super-Chill Girl from Frosh play: Is that her?
Me: Yep.
Her: Cool. That's nice.

Math

Mathy person: Hey, you're in this class?
Betty: I don't even go here! I haven't been here all year!

Bus Ride

Today was overcast, in that depressing way that winter days sometimes are.

I got on the bus at 4 o'clock or so, because it's always late. Really it should pick us up at 3:30. It sucks.

Anyway, I got on the bus, and there were three of us - my friends and I - so I sat alone while they sat in a seat farther in front. Two guys were sitting across from me, one in front, and one diagonal-front.

I was looking out the window when I heard Diagonal-Front say -

"You only have one friend, you need to get a life, and you're a faggot."

Across #1 said, "Who, me?"

"Yeah, you."

"No, I - I have more than one friend. You know J?" (I'm not putting his full name in.)

"Yeah, yeah. I know him. He's - he's in my history class. And he hates you and he thinks you only have one friend, you need to get a life, and you're a faggot."

"No...no, he doesn't."

"Yeah, he does."

"Who do you have for history?"

"Uhh...Ms. L."

"Oh, she's the worst," said Front.

"He hesitated," said Across #2. "He had to think about it."

"He's in my history class. Isn't he in my history class?" Diagonal-Front asked Front.

"Yeah," said Front.

"He thinks you're a homophobic gay. You're afraid of gays and you are a gay." (Seriously. GRAMMAR. Okay, sorry.)

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," said Across #1, but he didn't sound certain.

"You should convert to Judaism. They'd let you be gay."

It went on like that for a while. And I didn't say anything. I should have said, "Fuck off." Or "You're an idiot if you think 'gay' is an insult." Or "You don't have to be such a dick." Or something. There was so much I could have said.

But I didn't, and Diagonal-Front got off the bus, and it passed. But I could see, in my furtive glances across the aisle, that Across #1 was still hurting. And I should have said something.

School: the Upside

I know John Green talked about this in one Vlogbrothers video but here I go at saying it again.

School. A lot of kids hate it.

First, let's define school. School is a (currently mandatory) institution or program of several years in which people (most often children) are taught things that the world has deemed integral, and sometimes more.

That sounds wonderful to me. Why do people dislike it?

Seriously, I mean, apart from the work, school is awesome. History and science and math and languages and writing and art and music - aren't those things amazing? We have the privilege of being able to find out about the work of almost all of human history, all that we ever strived to figure out and put together - we get to take all that in and process it and think. And we don't have to pay for it.

Some people look at school as a preparation for life. But what about now, about all the things you know and understand and think about? What about all the wonderful things you write and read and find out? We get to spend most of our days discovering new things. Why do we so despise the idea?

The best part is that loving learning and finding out new things makes it easier. It's always easier to do things that you love or at least don't hate. I find that appreciating the things that people teach me makes them much more meaningful. And the whole point of school is to teach us the things that mean something.

I like school, if you hadn't noticed. I like knowing things and understanding how the world works. That's what school is all about.

Ugh

It has not been a good few days.

Or it has.

But I'm just not feeling good. I'm not sick or anything. I just feel blechy.

I feel like I annoy people when I message them. Also Halloween is this week and NaNoWriMo is starting and term is ending soon and I've got projects due and our freshman play is showing mid-November and I need to work on my speech for speech team.

Also I've been thinking about my girlfriend's school a lot. They have an open house today. I think I would like going there. But I think I don't want to transfer for another person. And I do like my school, I really do. I just don't know. And I don't want to leave my friends. But I would love going there. But I don't want to. I want to love where I am and let it stay that way.

I'm worried I'm getting bad again.

Friday

I haven't updated in a while...hmm...

Friday was One School One Book. Guess what it was, and what made my summer infinitely more awesome?

The Fault in Our Stars. Which I finished in January. And loved.

So I got to talk about it the whole morning. And then I got to go to a panel called "Humor and Irony: Can Irony Save Us?" which I enjoyed quite a lot even though some were disappointed. There were two professors on comedy and one stand-up comedian on the panel. They talked about the ways irony can help us, but they also talked about how it sometimes hides us and hides our opinions, which can be dangerous.

Then there was a wrap-up video, which included part of this Vlogbrothers video. I was so, so excited after that. People were looking at me funny. Did I care? Not at all.

Then of course there was math and wellness, which felt rather boring after the morning, but you know, what can you do.

Then there was play practice. My practice was from 4:15-5:15, so I had two hours to sit around in the hallway. In the first hour, a pretty-much-friend of mine and I lay on the floor and looked at the ceiling and discussed random stuff while the rest of the group talked about weight and body image. She was picking at the linoleum tiling when -

Her: Oh, I picked up the floor.
Me: What? You mean it feels like you picked up the floor?
Her: Look. (She held up a green linoleum tile)
Me: Oh. Well then.

She was going to put it back when I stopped her, tore a piece of paper out of my notebook, and got out a pen. My side of the paper said something like

DFTBA!

Shira Abramovich, Class of 2016
September 21, 2012

And her side said

Hi!
F*ck

I don't remember what else she wrote, but in her words, "I enjoy writing curse words on random stuff." Then we stuck the paper in and squished the linoleum back into place.

So that's that. I went to my friend's house for dinner later and borrowed two books from her dad's enormous comic book collection.

And it was a lovely Friday.

Nostalgia and some realizations

I'm in one of those moods when you really want to cry but you can't so you can't get it out and you're stuck in this sort of pool of sadness, some of it pointless. Often it's nostalgia. It is now.

See, today I thought about Israel. I miss it a lot. Sometimes it just doesn't feel like that was life at all, just a story that I can tell, one that most people are really interested in.

I miss it, I miss my family, I miss my friends, I miss our tiny apartment and my strip of blue wall and the  public transportation and school. Six months can be so long but so short.

And my girlfriend is at another school now and suddenly I can see how it might have been for my friends back here. Oh, it must have been hard. I miss her so much at school and every so often she'll come up in conversation and we'll ask why she isn't here, and we'll remember that she went to a different high school and none of us can really talk to her because she's so busy.

I just hope that we won't stop at least attempting to see each other. I want to have fun at school and I want her to have fun at her school but I wish we could talk.

I wish a lot of things.

The Personal Essay

I slept over at my friend's house two nights ago. My girlfriend, who goes to another school, was there too and she said that her assignment for the weekend was to write a personal essay.

"That sounds fun!" I said. "I want to write a personal essay!"

Basically, she wants me to transfer to her school. Her main argument is that there may be a lot of work, but it will be work I'll want to do. So far (as much as I hate to say it) her argument does have some substance.

Well, anyway. It took me three hours (factoring in the large amount of A Very Potter Musical that I was watching while doing the work) to do a short paragraph for my history class, and it took me fifteen minutes to write the personal essay. (Ouch, right?) Anyway, here it is. (I do realize that this is short too.)

---

I must have been six, and it had snowed.

“It’s a snow day,” Aba said, “and the driveway needs shoveling.” We didn’t even have our snow blower or our digital camera yet – it was that long ago. So I, along with then three-year-old Itai, was recruited to help clear the driveway. Or perhaps we volunteered. We were young enough that we liked doing chores.

We bundled up in all our gear in the order that kindergarten teachers always say you should – snow pants, boots, coat, hat, gloves. Itai and I each got a small shovel and set out to help our parents. It’s possible that we were really being a nuisance rather than helping, but it was probably better than leaving us inside to our own devices.

It took a long time – of course it did, otherwise they wouldn’t have called a snow day. It was eerily silent, the kind of silence that you only have when it snows. The endless whiteness swallows up the sound.

I was shoveling by the big living room window when I stopped and looked around. My nose was cold and red and hurting a little and everyone was working around me.

“Am I doing well?” Itai asked in his high-pitched voice.

“You’re doing perfectly,” Mama said.

For a minute I almost felt like I wasn’t there, like I was looking through my eyes from somewhere far away. It was like this bundle of questions suddenly was delivered to my mind. Why are we here? How are we here?

It’s the first time I actually remember the questions. How did it happen? How did I come to be right here, right now? How am I alive?

After maybe a minute it occurred to me that I should probably keep on shoveling. I pushed the questions aside, stuck the shovel in the snow, and threw it to the side.

So far, it’s been eight years since then. I haven’t stopped asking.

Beginnings

So high school started this week.

Or, should I say -

OH MY GOD, HIGH SCHOOL STARTED THIS WEEK.

Well, aside from its inevitable enormity and whatever, it looks like it will be pretty good, actually.

Crazy? Almost definitely. Fun? Looks like it. Adventure? Hopefully.

Great Friends

Me: Oh, hi! (...I haven't seen you in eight months...)
Her: Fuck you.
Me: Thanks. (I missed you too!)

Which pretty much sums up our sort-of friendship. It's all in jest, all in jest.

Ice Cream Whatagain

Well.

Yesterday I went to something at the high school I'll be at starting Tuesday. They called it an ice cream social.

Just ponder that for a minute. What?

STOP TACKING FANCY NAMES ONTO THINGS.

Okay, sorry. I'll continue now.

The only reason I went was that we were getting our schedules.

So.

I went to the "student center" (aka cafeteria for normal folk like you and me) and stood in line for like ten minutes to get the schedule. I got it, and it looked like this:

A block: Directed Study
B block: Directed Study
C block: Directed Study
ETC.

I looked at it for about a minute and finally thought, "That can't be right..."

And then I had to go to the office and get it sorted out and I missed the looking around the school and getting a tour and whatever. Take a moment to pity me.

...

Thank you.

So after that I went back to the cafeteria for a Schedule Comparison Fest and various processed sweet frozen stuff. Processed sweet frozen stuff happens to be delicious, which made it a little less irritating that almost none of my friends are in my classes.

After looking at my schedule just now I've decided that the schedule times make absolutely no sense. I may be vastly confused for the first month or so, hmm...

AAAAGH

Just a moment ago I was doing a bit of research for the story I'm writing and I got sidetracked. I was on a website on which someone was looking for reviews of a public school. You know what I found? And I quote directly:

"Like many in those communities that are concerned about the best school, start looking at the many excellent private schools in the area. Its never to early and you don't want your kids left behind."

I hate you, whoever you are. Or - I suppose, I hate your opinions on this. Firstly: "it's," not "its" at the beginning of the second sentence. And, oh yes, I'm going to public school. Behind, am I?

Do you want your children to be mentally stable or pressured to the point of breaking? Now, maybe I'm exaggerating, but that really bothers me, that people want to push children and teens to their limits. Of course, if the area in which you live does not have good public schools, by all means send them to a private school. If they want to go to a private school, brilliant. But if you're only interested in grades - NO.

And "it's never too early"?! What about preschool? Is that too early?

You wonder why America has low scores on standardized tests. Firstly: do we care about standardized tests? Not particularly. Secondly: ever thought of toning down the pressure? That does wonders for learning. And I speak from experience: in some cases, I got much better scores in Israel just because there was no pressure.

Okay. I'm done now. This just really gets to me.

Closing Time

Today was the last day of school.

It wasn't that much really, we came to school and our teacher spoke and stuff, embarrassing me and the other girl who's leaving in my class by saying how lovely we were. I got a cork board thing with a bunch of notes from my friends, which I thought was really sweet.

Then she handed out report cards - unfortunately for me, in reverse alphabetical order - and while I waited for mine, I went about saying a few goodbyes. One of my friends who are boys permitted me to hug him in that time, which he hasn't let me do when I tried. I took photos of unsuspecting people and ran up and down the stairs.

I got my report card and was quite happy with it, except for my grade in history, which had a mistake in it and lowered my average by a lot, so I went around for about two hours to find my teacher.

Then I finally found her and just about sorted things out.

After my friends had gotten their grades too, we went downstairs to the kiosk and bought a coke and mentos, then went out to the parking lot. I got my camera out and we exploded the coke (except not really, because it was too small) then jumped on the remains. A second friend who is a boy permitted me to hug him before he left.

Then I went home, put my big cork board down, and went to meet my friend at the bus stop, where we caught a bus to Dizengoff Center. I took her to a great bakery and we bought a baguette, took it back to the Center, ate it, and proceeded to buy shakes at re:bar (mine was mango, pineapple, passion fruit sorbet, and yogurt). We went to "Everything for a Dollar," which does not have everything for a dollar, and I bought a minimini notebook. Then we met up with the rest of our buddies, who were buying movie tickets, and I hugged all of them, including a third friend who is a boy. I had to go home because of my ballet open house.

I don't know what to say about it. It's been a kind of amazing day, and I'm feeling happysad, but kind of more sad. I don't know. This song kind of defines it (not in the sense that I'm in love or anything). I've had it on repeat for the last ten minutes.

I need some quotes. Goodbye.

(Doctor Who title reference again!)

Health Day

It's health day at school. Guess what? I'm sick.

Hooray!

(Not.)

Talking to Myself

Okay. So it's vacation and I'm being a recluse in my room again.

I'm supposed to be doing my history project on the US Constitution, but it is one of the most annoying things I've ever laid eyes on. And there's also that geography paper and the English homework and the French material I should be learning - yeah. I've got a lot to do. And a lot of time to be spent on Wikipedia - that's where I'm getting my Constitution info. I don't freaking care if it's "unreliable." I just need to get the damn thing done. Although, I will end up having some more work translating from English to Hebrew. I'm not particularly good at that. Oh, the joys of being bilingual.

Me: Go do your history project.

Me: But I don't wanna!

Me: Just get it done.

Me: *dramatic sigh*

Me: It's due tomorrow.

Me: *withering look*

Me: GET OFF OF YOUTUBE!

Me: But the video is only two minutes more!

Me: But you have a history project due tomorrow!

Me: But I don't wanna!

Me: Get off YouTube. Now.

Me: Music helps me concentrate.

Me: No, it doesn't, you idiot. Music distracts you.

Me: I can multitask.

Me: No, you can't.

Me: Why am I talking to myself?

Me: I'm tired of typing "me."

Moi: Is this better?

Me: Just go do your history project.

Purim: PARTY!

At school today there was a Purim celebration. The whole school and the teachers were dressed up. I was running a little late, but it didn't end up mattering because everyone was.

The first thing that happened was that we exchanged Mishloach Manot, which is a small bundle of fun stuff that you exchange on Purim. Generally the "fun stuff" is candy and Hamentaschen. I have the feeling I explained this before. Oh well.

So I received a considerably large package, after which everyone began pigging out on what they got. That lasted for maybe ten minutes. After that, everyone went to join the festivities.

The whole school had been decorated with colorful posters and fairly random decorations (there was some sort of curtain which was decorated with fake money...and a giant spider). The basketball court had been turned into a dancing space. There was a DJ and music blaring. Groups of students had set up little food stands - I saw smoothies, candy, and hot dogs. I found some of my friends from another class and we went around finding out what people had dressed up as. There were a lot of pirates, since all of the twelfth graders had dressed up as that, and a considerable amount of boys cross-dressing, but none vice versa. I actually went into the girls' bathroom at one point and this guy in a dress came in and started making poses in the mirror the way I guess boys think girls do. There were two girls dressed as light and dark, which really freaked me out because my friend and I did that this past Halloween, and tons of people as Stabilo brand highlighters (which here are called markers, just in an Israeli accent). I found vampires, James Bond, smurfs, people in togas (not sure if they were Greek or Roman), bees, angels, a hypnotist, ladybugs, a cat, and probably so many more.

Most of the day was a photo opportunity. I took pictures of and with my friends and after I was tired of that it was basically just waiting. We couldn't go home until the gates were opened, but there wasn't much to do after the first two hours. Someone brought some sort of popping firework-ish noisemakers, which they banged on with a cane from a costume. It was extremely loud and the whole area smelled like gunpowder after that.

The thing I love most about Purim is its randomness. Purim isn't anything, not scary like Halloween or Christmas-y like Christmas. Purim is, well, Purim. (I mean, where else do you find a curtain with fake money and a giant spider?) You can dress up as anything, it doesn't have to be scary or any specific kind. You get candy, you dress up, you party. What more could you ask for?

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.

One-Day Weekends

They're too short. It's not fair! You work and study six days and then it's finally the weekend...and, poof, it's gone. It's Saturday night and it feels like we barely had a break. Which we did - I mean, one day, you know. Of course, the schedule here is much less stressful so maybe we don't precisely need two-day weekends, but it sure would be nice.

On an up note, Purim vacation is less than two weeks away! Three days plus a Saturday of doing absolutely nothing! Hooray! And at the end of March Passover vacation starts. Those will be some awesome two weeks.

Remembrance

Yesterday there was a basketball game at school. This particular one is held every year in memory of an alumnus who was killed in the army twenty years ago.

Before the game, there were endless speeches of how he was so nice, so brave, how he loved music and sports, how young he was when he died. I know that many people in the gym were not listening. And it made me think: what is remembrance? From the description, you could have thought that this boy was an angel, which, with no disrespect to him, probably wasn't true. People tend to glorify the dead, and they aren't around to set the record straight. At funerals and memorial services, people only mention how lovely they were. No one talks about the bad or annoying things they did. It's "disrespectful." But is it? I mean, would you like someone to talk about you like you were some sort if god, when in fact you weren't? Maybe you say yes, but do you want to be remembered as the "lovely angel who did no wrongs?" I don't.

The thing is, this is so ingrained into our culture that no one finds it strange that we may not remember people in their entirety. Of course, you shouldn't be cursing and insulting them, but who wants to be made into a god? Who wants to be made the subject of endless speeches of good? With our human nature, we don't like hearing good things. We only find the unusual, strange, and bad interesting.

This is why dead heroes are the subject of much debate. The dead can't ruin their perfect image. The dead can be made into gods. But should they? Because in the end, no one is ever any more than human.