Simchat Torah

Yeah, yeah, I hate that "ch" instead of a nice throaty sound, but that's the way to spell it without it looking weird.

Anyway.

This evening through tomorrow is Simchat Torah. That means that we've finished reading the Torah and are starting over again from Bereshit, which is Genesis in English. What's special about it for me is that it's sometimes the only time in the whole year when I actually go to temple (yeah, sometimes I'm ashamed of that fact). But at least it's one time, and at least it never changes. There's always a few hakafot (rounds) inside and then we bring it out to the street, which is always closed off for the purpose.

My dad, my brother, and I arrived for the beginning of the outdoor hakafot. I found my preschool friends and hugged them. I haven't seen some of them since last Simchat Torah, which was a year ago. It's funny that after all that happened, all the insanity of the past year - it's still the same, the same people still know me, it's still been a year since I saw them, the bronze leaf-shaped plaque with my name that my grandmother paid for is still on the big tree of bronze leaves, I still get hyper, the same insanity ensues. My preschool friends and I set out on a mission to change the direction in which the circles travelled. More often than not, it simply resulted in the circle breaking and half the people continuing the way they had been before, but we succeeded a few times. I saw the director of Frosh play there, which was a bit disconcerting but really awesome. By the fifth hakafa or so, there was candy downstairs. Perhaps a bit stupidly, I ingested a cup of apple cider and about five candy bars. It showed really, really quickly.

My preschool friend: Okay, I'm done with this apple.
(he tossed the core in the trash)
Me: KILL that apple core!
Him: What. What happened to you.
Me: Everything.
Him: Yeah, it does seem like that...

Then we passed by a lot of people, many of whom I didn't know. My friend would basically high-five them or something and then:

Me: HI!
Random person: Hi.
My friend: She's really hyper on candy. Really, really hyper.
Me: Yep!

Then we continued revolutionizing the directions of the circles and got a hold of a Torah scroll, forming our own small circle. By now the sugar was totally in my head and I was laughing and laughing and laughing. And people were singing and screaming and running and dancing and everyone was sort of high on the emotion everywhere. It makes you feel like the world will always be okay, the same few people still know and remember you, the same stars will shine above you, the same prayers will be said in the same language and you'll still be the only one in your vicinity with the proper accent. It doesn't matter where you go. Home will still be home.

As it neared 9 pm it was evident that we had to go, since there's school tomorrow and it will be my birthday. In some ways, this seemed like one of the best birthday presents I could get, the day of the year that inspires me the most, because it's always somehow the same, no matter where I've been. More than Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, Simchat Torah makes me feel like I can start a new year cleanly, because I've gone back to one of my first homes.

I searched for my friend to say goodbye, but he was at the heart of the concentric circles with a Torah in his arms. Finally, we turned to go back down the rest of the one-way street and onto the familiar brick sidewalks to the car. The bright lights and party and the endless amount of people seemed faraway again, just a crowd in front of a building. The sugar rush began to die down.

And as we walked the familiarly foreign streets, it occurred to me that maybe I didn't have to say goodbye. All my life I've been saying goodbyes. But they never are. And hopefully, they never will be.

"Reunion"

There was this thing. At the art center.

They called it a reunion but it wasn't really, it was just an invitation to come and make art with other people. And eat pizza. And ice cream. And it was brilliant.

I was the first one there and then this other girl came and we were talking and laughing with the teachers. We made a plan for what we were going to do on the giant canvas that was provided. Then we started to paint and some other kids arrived. I went downstairs to see my friends from ceramics since I wasn't attending this week. We ate pizza and ice cream and went on painting.

I did not feel at all emotionally attached to the painting that I was doing with the second girl who arrived. The other people were also doing a giant one. It was amazing not to give a damn at all and just go wild with color. Ours ended up as a real explosion of hues, and quite abstract too. The canvas was absolutely enormous. I've never done something so large-scale.

So. Much. Fun.

I talked with the girl about middle school and high school and social things and it was kind of fun because we had the same opinions on a lot of things even though she's a "popular kid" and I'm a "book/YouTube nerd." It's amazing how fundamentally similar humans are.

When I signed my name at the end of the evening, I looked at our work and kind of liked it. It definitely wasn't my favorite thing I ever made but it wasn't bad. Creating it was almost like letting go, just letting everything out, with vast brush strokes across the enormous space.

It feels good not to be attached, almost like floating, like being on a ship in the open sea. You choose what ports to enter, which ones you want to explore, and where you want to stay. "I can see...perfectly in this cracked darkness." ~ Paper Towns by John Green

Video Editing!

I am extremely excited because I finally have managed to start putting together a short video. I've loved YouTube for a while, even though I only started seriously watching it less than a year ago, and I've wanted to make my own videos.

So I'm immersed in iMovie right now, trimming clips and lining things up. I'll do voice-overs soon, because otherwise the video won't make sense. And I am thoroughly excited.

My Windows

I love the window style here. It's a decorative grate, shutters, and a glass pane that opens and closes like a door.

In my room, there are two windows. One is slim and one is normal-size. The slim one is okay. But the normal-sized one has a loose frame.

Which means that when the wind blows, it shakes. And when it shakes, it makes noise. Now, with all the stormy and windy conditions here, the window is always shaking.

Last night I was trying to sleep. I would almost drift off and then -

BANG. The window shakes.

So today was spent in an annoying sleep-deprived state. I do not function all that well lacking sleep. And today was cold. Sigh.

Hamlet

 My theater class went to see Hamlet today.

It was at the Cameri Theater, which is one of the most famous theaters in the city. The theater in which the show was performed was really quite an interesting concept: it was not just a crowd and a stage; it was a crowd within a stage. The seats could spin all the way around, to enable you to see what was going on at all times. There was an aisle straight through the middle of the seating area and stages all around the room. They supported this idea with the notion that the audience is comprised of "the silent participants" and that this brings the crowd further into the production. Sometimes the actors would interact with us and even walk between the seats. One girl (incidentally another Shira) was sat on by Hamlet. There were huge fans of his in the crowd, who were all extremely jealous of her.

The production was a more modern rendition of the play; electronics and modern dress were part of the show. In one scene, Hamlet is wearing headphones, supposedly listening to something - but the headphones aren't plugged in to anything (this is just after he begins to go crazy), so he's just dancing to nothing.

I enjoyed it immensely; the acting was phenomenal, the monologues well-done. And there was comic relief. Always important.

You know what? Shakespeare really was quite brilliant.

Evening at the Theater

Last night, our theater teacher took us to, well, the theater.

At 7:30 all of us met up at school and boarded buses that took us to the Gesher Theater. We were about eighty or ninety kids in all in grades 7-12. The show was Harvey, about a man (Elwood P. Dowd) who has an imaginary friend named Harvey, who is (in the English version) a six-foot, three-and-one-half inch tall pooka which takes the form of a white rabbit. His sister, who is embarrassed of his insistence that Harvey exists, tries to commit him into a sanatorium. However, they end up committing her instead on the pretense that she is the one that is not quite sane. When the sane and insane are sorted out, a search for Elwood begins. The production plays with our views of sanity and its benefits.

After the show, we were all saying, "Ah, now where is Harvey? I want to drink a martini and carrot juice with him" (that's what Elwood would order for Harvey) and "Sane people ruin the world." Which is true, on some grounds.

The evening ended up being quite rainy, but still enjoyable. It was one of the better experiences I've had here. And we're going to see Hamlet on Tuesday! Whoopee!

Cheers, guys, and happy Friday!