I'm sitting here trying to figure out how to sum up an amazing weekend in less than a 5 hour convo..
Warning:: this is probably going to be one of the longest entries I've ever posted.
I tried and tried and tried to write a short summary. but I couldn't. I want to remember all of it. I'm sorry. if you don't care about nel, don't read this, and i apologize for taking up room on your friend's page. ::end/warning
Spring Kallah was...
Amazing. Annoying. Crazy. Good. Exhausting. Incredibly happy. Awkward. Great.
The event itself was a little meh. The coordinators did a great job, but a couple things just didn't click, and I was really upset about the lack of song session, neb note, dance leaders, etc. Basically, it was missing the things that have kept me coming back to nel. Ah welll. Seeing everyone and hanging out was amazing.
From the beginning:
Thursday Night: Slept at Lins's with Hannah Tuchin. ate brownies. Lindsay makes the most amazing brownies I've ever had.
Friday morning: Woke up way too early. Lots of bus time spent sleeping on the backseat with hannah mormer, lindsay, em good, and sometimes wendy. took post-makeout pictures. Met the cleveland bus, AMAZING to see everyone. Sam Schiller thinks I'm going to jail next year instead of Israel.
WE ARRIVE ON TIME!! (though of course we were the last bus). Lots of hugs, obviously... its NFTY. Most awesome house: Me, Carli Kadish, Staci Schweitzer, and Jess B. Most awkward house parents, but at least they gave us really good vegetarian food :). This was the first time ALL YEAR that I'd actually gotten to have shabat dinner at my host family's house, instead of on the bus or at the synagogue because we're always late. A shower after a long gross bus ride? priceless.
Friday night services: sat with zev and hannah tuchin, with a really really loud offkey congregant singing behind us the whole time. The strangest prayerbook I've ever seen with the most cheasy readings. Ah well. Seeing dan stein, devra, and jeremy haber made my night :) dance session was short and a little confusing, but also fun. During the code of conduct, boo specifically banned trips to I-Hop.. hehe.. way to wreck the fun. Peace to being part of the amazing debates I-Hop trip. The friday night program included being seperated into TYG's, but i was the only one from my TYG, so i joined TAKAY and held my YORS sign up with pride. fairly boring program, and popcorn ended up being everywhere. yuck. Back at the host home, played set, and fell asleep. carli woke up and said "That was such a cute story!" and we were all really confused till we realized she was talking about her dream.
Saturday... was woken up harshly at like 6:45 AM, but i was woken up by carli kadish humping me for the second event in a row, so it was all good. We walked there because we were so close! I got yelled at at the end because i broke into a sprint and Boo didn't think i should be running in flip flops. services included Emily informing byron once again that I was her property during services. Then during the torah reading byron and isaac joined our table anyway... :) lots of drawings representational of leprosy, and scaring grade 9's with our "reading with gusto" of the service. After services all of nel chilled on these giant steps. I was really happy because I was in a school for one of the few times in my life. I realized too that schools actually really scare me. We finally ate lunch, and we took our lunch outside and ate with a few of the advisors, including MAYA who i love dearly. We discovered that all you need to survive in the wilderness is a lot of licorice.
After lunch programming, me and zev got kicked out of the cooking group because we were signed up in two places, oops. thanks byron and zev. We ran to the bus. I got yelled at by boo for running one more time. Zev got kicked off the bus. No one questioned me. Then I felt bad about it so I got off and found zev, and we went to belly dancing. Zev left. and I stayed and learned how to figure 8 with my hips, and scoop grapefruit with my hands. I MET TOVA and we bonded like madd over the utter impossibility of belly dancing. But it was crazy fun. During the last 5 minutes of it we made up our routine that we had to "perform" at the presentation that night.
Free time: Byron burnt himself during cooking, hahahahaha. He should be kept away from fire. Spent a really happy hour of chilling on the grass in the sunshine. Aah. wow. I don't think life gets much better than that. Then they dragged us off to our host families again. I really really wanted to be at the patton house with kalie and jake clark's house. Buuut oh well. Instead, the 4 of us played in the park on the way walking back to our host home, and it was crazy fun. I gave carli an imaginary tour of my farm. We went to our host homes and ate outside and i froze and i huddled under jess's blanket. I loved the four of us so much. Then we finally returned for the evening program, which was good. (see? look emily goodman, I made it 2 HOURS being more than 5 feet apart! soo.. it was forced, but still.)
Evening program kind of sucked, except for the belly dancing part so i'll talk about that. We realized none of us actually remembered the steps, and the belly dancing teacher wasn't there, so sheryl made up the ending of our routine, and me and Tova decided to end it with 5 6 7 8 SIT as our graceful choreographed ending if things started to go wrong. It was kind of funny because I wasn't really actually that nervous about dancing in front of nel. I'm not a good dancer. i've actually never danced on stage before. Or taken a dancing lesson for that matter. but it was still really fun, and we faked our routine fairly well. at the end, me and tova did our 5 6 7 8 SIT and it looked like we fell and then we went off stage and laughed for 10 minutes straight on the floor. And ariel feldman jumped on us. hopefully if nothing else it was entertaining.. undoubtably more so than the storytelling groups etc. Staci said she kicked some freshman out of the front row just so she could watch it. Carli and jess b. said they paid attention only to it. etc etc. but it was fun. i love dancing even if i suck at it.
Then we had havdallah, which was really cool aside from the slutty grade 9's who wouldn't shut up. And then goodbyes. A lot of tears. And realizing that the entire event had gone by WAY too fast. but goodnight goodbyes were good.. enough said :)Sat there and talked to boo while our house daddy tried to make us leave. then we went home and fell asleep prompty despite all our aspirations of staying up all night. we're getting old. Rolled Staci off the middle of the bed where she'd fallen asleep. Staci was adorably confused.
Woke up, packed, didn't get dressed, left in like 15 minutes. I hate friendship circle. I hate saying goodbye. I didn't cry, i never cry. and I'll see almost everyone i want to see in a month. But it was still hard, I didn't want to get on that bus. Got pushed onto the Pittsburgh bus. Slept a bit. Tried to watch Dogma but daniel ruben's DVD drive broke in my honor. Sat with hannah tuchin and that made me really happy for various reasons. Ate lunch in Erie with the cleveland bus. Got a crown. played in the playplace with sam schiller and a bunch of little kids, who were a little confused as to why we were playing. and as to why we were still wearing PJs. Said goodbye to cleveland, went back to Pittsburgh. Realized that Pittsburgh is actually a really interesting beautiful city, and that sorry, i hate suburbia. Went to lindsays while waiting for my mom. Introduced Gaylester to the entire region of nel through the poster. realized I was on the poster 5 times. And that my picture of Lily was the one on it.
Went home. All I can say about that.
I miss people. Especially certain people. I wish it were boards right now. But i'm tired of lousy programs, lots of disrespectful grade 9's, awkward house parents, and all the other nfty hassles. I hate always running late and not getting to do the things I really want to do, etc. To quote lindsay quoting Sarah Ruben, "it wasn't a good event but it was a great weekend".
I couldn't agree more.
If you made it this far, you are my hero for life. Leave a comment.
I tried and tried and tried to write a short summary. but I couldn't. I want to remember all of it. I'm sorry. if you don't care about nel, don't read this, and i apologize for taking up room on your friend's page. ::end/warning
Spring Kallah was...
Amazing. Annoying. Crazy. Good. Exhausting. Incredibly happy. Awkward. Great.
The event itself was a little meh. The coordinators did a great job, but a couple things just didn't click, and I was really upset about the lack of song session, neb note, dance leaders, etc. Basically, it was missing the things that have kept me coming back to nel. Ah welll. Seeing everyone and hanging out was amazing.
From the beginning:
Thursday Night: Slept at Lins's with Hannah Tuchin. ate brownies. Lindsay makes the most amazing brownies I've ever had.
Friday morning: Woke up way too early. Lots of bus time spent sleeping on the backseat with hannah mormer, lindsay, em good, and sometimes wendy. took post-makeout pictures. Met the cleveland bus, AMAZING to see everyone. Sam Schiller thinks I'm going to jail next year instead of Israel.
WE ARRIVE ON TIME!! (though of course we were the last bus). Lots of hugs, obviously... its NFTY. Most awesome house: Me, Carli Kadish, Staci Schweitzer, and Jess B. Most awkward house parents, but at least they gave us really good vegetarian food :). This was the first time ALL YEAR that I'd actually gotten to have shabat dinner at my host family's house, instead of on the bus or at the synagogue because we're always late. A shower after a long gross bus ride? priceless.
Friday night services: sat with zev and hannah tuchin, with a really really loud offkey congregant singing behind us the whole time. The strangest prayerbook I've ever seen with the most cheasy readings. Ah well. Seeing dan stein, devra, and jeremy haber made my night :) dance session was short and a little confusing, but also fun. During the code of conduct, boo specifically banned trips to I-Hop.. hehe.. way to wreck the fun. Peace to being part of the amazing debates I-Hop trip. The friday night program included being seperated into TYG's, but i was the only one from my TYG, so i joined TAKAY and held my YORS sign up with pride. fairly boring program, and popcorn ended up being everywhere. yuck. Back at the host home, played set, and fell asleep. carli woke up and said "That was such a cute story!" and we were all really confused till we realized she was talking about her dream.
Saturday... was woken up harshly at like 6:45 AM, but i was woken up by carli kadish humping me for the second event in a row, so it was all good. We walked there because we were so close! I got yelled at at the end because i broke into a sprint and Boo didn't think i should be running in flip flops. services included Emily informing byron once again that I was her property during services. Then during the torah reading byron and isaac joined our table anyway... :) lots of drawings representational of leprosy, and scaring grade 9's with our "reading with gusto" of the service. After services all of nel chilled on these giant steps. I was really happy because I was in a school for one of the few times in my life. I realized too that schools actually really scare me. We finally ate lunch, and we took our lunch outside and ate with a few of the advisors, including MAYA who i love dearly. We discovered that all you need to survive in the wilderness is a lot of licorice.
After lunch programming, me and zev got kicked out of the cooking group because we were signed up in two places, oops. thanks byron and zev. We ran to the bus. I got yelled at by boo for running one more time. Zev got kicked off the bus. No one questioned me. Then I felt bad about it so I got off and found zev, and we went to belly dancing. Zev left. and I stayed and learned how to figure 8 with my hips, and scoop grapefruit with my hands. I MET TOVA and we bonded like madd over the utter impossibility of belly dancing. But it was crazy fun. During the last 5 minutes of it we made up our routine that we had to "perform" at the presentation that night.
Free time: Byron burnt himself during cooking, hahahahaha. He should be kept away from fire. Spent a really happy hour of chilling on the grass in the sunshine. Aah. wow. I don't think life gets much better than that. Then they dragged us off to our host families again. I really really wanted to be at the patton house with kalie and jake clark's house. Buuut oh well. Instead, the 4 of us played in the park on the way walking back to our host home, and it was crazy fun. I gave carli an imaginary tour of my farm. We went to our host homes and ate outside and i froze and i huddled under jess's blanket. I loved the four of us so much. Then we finally returned for the evening program, which was good. (see? look emily goodman, I made it 2 HOURS being more than 5 feet apart! soo.. it was forced, but still.)
Evening program kind of sucked, except for the belly dancing part so i'll talk about that. We realized none of us actually remembered the steps, and the belly dancing teacher wasn't there, so sheryl made up the ending of our routine, and me and Tova decided to end it with 5 6 7 8 SIT as our graceful choreographed ending if things started to go wrong. It was kind of funny because I wasn't really actually that nervous about dancing in front of nel. I'm not a good dancer. i've actually never danced on stage before. Or taken a dancing lesson for that matter. but it was still really fun, and we faked our routine fairly well. at the end, me and tova did our 5 6 7 8 SIT and it looked like we fell and then we went off stage and laughed for 10 minutes straight on the floor. And ariel feldman jumped on us. hopefully if nothing else it was entertaining.. undoubtably more so than the storytelling groups etc. Staci said she kicked some freshman out of the front row just so she could watch it. Carli and jess b. said they paid attention only to it. etc etc. but it was fun. i love dancing even if i suck at it.
Then we had havdallah, which was really cool aside from the slutty grade 9's who wouldn't shut up. And then goodbyes. A lot of tears. And realizing that the entire event had gone by WAY too fast. but goodnight goodbyes were good.. enough said :)Sat there and talked to boo while our house daddy tried to make us leave. then we went home and fell asleep prompty despite all our aspirations of staying up all night. we're getting old. Rolled Staci off the middle of the bed where she'd fallen asleep. Staci was adorably confused.
Woke up, packed, didn't get dressed, left in like 15 minutes. I hate friendship circle. I hate saying goodbye. I didn't cry, i never cry. and I'll see almost everyone i want to see in a month. But it was still hard, I didn't want to get on that bus. Got pushed onto the Pittsburgh bus. Slept a bit. Tried to watch Dogma but daniel ruben's DVD drive broke in my honor. Sat with hannah tuchin and that made me really happy for various reasons. Ate lunch in Erie with the cleveland bus. Got a crown. played in the playplace with sam schiller and a bunch of little kids, who were a little confused as to why we were playing. and as to why we were still wearing PJs. Said goodbye to cleveland, went back to Pittsburgh. Realized that Pittsburgh is actually a really interesting beautiful city, and that sorry, i hate suburbia. Went to lindsays while waiting for my mom. Introduced Gaylester to the entire region of nel through the poster. realized I was on the poster 5 times. And that my picture of Lily was the one on it.
Went home. All I can say about that.
I miss people. Especially certain people. I wish it were boards right now. But i'm tired of lousy programs, lots of disrespectful grade 9's, awkward house parents, and all the other nfty hassles. I hate always running late and not getting to do the things I really want to do, etc. To quote lindsay quoting Sarah Ruben, "it wasn't a good event but it was a great weekend".
I couldn't agree more.
If you made it this far, you are my hero for life. Leave a comment.