Flashback: 9/11/01

I was 5 when the twin towers fell, I had just started first grade. My grandparents were living with us at the time because they had just sold their house and were about to move to Florida full time.

I remember my teacher talk to the class, we sat on the carpet and she sat on the big orange chair that faced it. We were sitting in the way we would while she read us a story, but she wasn't about to read us a story. She was about to tell us of something we could not fathom. She started talking "Don't talk to other kids about what I am about to tell you I do not know if their teachers have talk to them yet..." At this point I knew something was wrong, this wasn't a tone my teacher had ever used before, something really bad had happened. She continued to tell us about the event of that morning but I did not grasp what had just happened yet.

After school I was with my Poppy and Grandma Sara in the kitchen having an after school snack. My Grandma turned on the news...and there it was the plane going strait in to one of the twin towers.

 How could it happen? Why didn't someone stop it? Was it a mistake? After all no one could have killed so many people on purpose? ...RIGHT? 

But it was no mistake. At five I could barely understand that, in my innocence I wanted to believe it wasn't so. This plan crash shattered my perfect world, in perfect wolds people don't just crash planes in to buildings. These are things that just don't happen in perfect worlds, therefore the world I live in must not be perfect. For most people this is something that is a concept that is developed over time, helped along by small evils not a concept that comes to light all at once. For me and many children around my age at the time we did learn that concept all at once, we do not live in a perfect world.

Even today I struggle with that fact that someone wanted to crash a plane in to a building. A person knowingly killed hundreds of people. People who have friends and family, spouse and children. Our country is still at war. We are still healing from the attacks of 9/11. It will take time and we probably never will be completely healed, always bearing a scare.

This post is for all the victims of 9/11, their children and families, its for all the first respondes that help save lives that day.

Flashback: Assassin Game

Congratulations to NoriAnna on getting engage. Nori was A USYer in Hagesher and was an adviser for BEKI-BJ. She continues to staff Hanefesh regional events and is an amazing person.

Nori in Harry Potter World at IC '10

The story I am going to tell today has Nori in it.

One of the things I want to do now that I am on REB is try to go to other chapters' events. The first chapter event from a different chapter than mine was BEKI-BJ's Shabbaton. 

On Saturday afternoon I was with a few people when my friend Aaron suggested we play a game of assassin. We soon started to get other people involved. Someone who was not playing set the game up for us. During sudat shlishit we were assigned targets. 

Right before people started to get names I went back to my bunk to get a sweater. On my way back someone named Jake asked me is I was Joan. I said yes. He said that he had something really important to tell me. 

He quickly whispered in my ear "Bang bang, you're dead."

I looked up at him and replied "you know the game hasn't actually started yet, right?"

I soon received my target. After Havdalah the game began. I was practically untouchable because I knew who had me, but I couldn't figure out how to get my target out. After breakfast Sunday morning the opportunity presented itself, we were walking back to the bunk more than 10 feet from anyone else.

I whispered in to my target's ear "Bang bang, you're dead." I than found out my new target was Aaron, not hard, I already had a plan. 

Then Jake left early, which I figured that meant I would automatically be the winner as long as I killed everyone else off. So when Nori asked me to stay with her because Aaron had her as a target and I didn't have a problem staying with her because I knew she didn't have me. I told her about how I was Jake's target and he had left early.

Nori turned to me and said "Jake was my target so if he left you are my target now. Bang bang, you're dead." Though I was dead I did not want to see Aaron win as he had said he was going to win. 

Nori and I started thinking. While we went through a list of different plans. In the end another staffer asked to talk to Aaron about what he thought of the event. After they were done Nori came from behind Aaron and "killed" him, and one the game.

Nori than came up to me and said "Thank you for helping me relive my childhood"

Flashback: Bonnie vs. Julia

Sorry another vinette, I promise more real post soon.

“Time to open your presents” my mom shouts up the stairs. I run down the stairs as fast as I can. Wait I am missing something, I stop suddenly. I forgot Bonnie upstairs on my bed. Bonnie is my stuff dog from FOA Schwartz, I got her when I was a baby and she goes everywhere with me.  I quickly run back upstairs to get Bonnie, as I pick her up I run back down to the big pile of presents. I really only wanted to open the big boxes in the back that had arrived a few days earlier. I was being told to politely open the rest of the presents first. Bonnie and I started to open the presents one by one, any five year old should be excited about new toys but I am too focused on the boxes in the back. Finally I finished opening all the other presents and strait for one of the boxes I go.

I rip the wrapping paper off the box with Bonnie by my side…a cardboard box? That is NOT what is supposed to be in there. My dad takes the box from me though and opens it with scissors and hands it back to me. Out slides a wicker suitcase, I unsnap it filled with suspense, and inside I find little of different doll accessories. Not what I was looking for but I am still excite, plus there is still one more box to go. Again I rip off the wrapping paper and find another cardboard box. Now my dad is already on standby with the scissors ready and opens the second box. This time I throw Bonnie grab the box and reach inside to find a doll. Not just any doll but a Bitty Baby American Girl Doll. I had been asking for an American Girl Doll for weeks, while this might not have been an American Girl Doll I knew it was as close as I was getting. I excitedly named her Julia. For the next few days Julia came with me everywhere I went instead of Bonnie.

Bitty Baby similar to Julia except for outfit

 A few days later my mom started telling me it was time to go visit my great grandma in her nursing home and to get ready and to remember Bonnie, my mom had forgotten about Julia. While my mom may have forgotten Julie, I had forgotten about Bonnie, but my mom just reminded me. In a panic I remember I don’t know where Bonnie is. Running, I go to my brother asking if he knew what happened to Bonnie. He is looking at me like I am crazy and points to the two stuff dogs that are bigger than me. As I turn there she is, Bonnie is in their arms. I hug her and whisper “I will never forget about you again.”

Flashback: First Memory

I have a lot of homework so I don't have a lot of time to post as a result. This week in English I was assigned to write three vinettes(short stories), to night I am going to post my first one. It doesn't really have to do with USY sorry, I promise a more USY centered one tomorrow. Also it had to be written in 1st person so it is a bit different then previous stories. A little background information, this is my first memory from when I was three and had my tonsils removed.

Everything is so white, it’s a little frightening. A nurse leads me and my dad to a room filled with toys it looks like, my dad goes in to get a wagon. It is plastic, not like the one we have at home, but it is red tike mine, but it has blue doors on each side. Unsure I get in the wagon and my dad starts pulling me around. Down in the elevator we go, as we leave the elevator I am dwarfed by what I am seeing. I have read many books about the orphaned elephant. Here right in front of me in a hospital stands Babar, six feet tall. We only get to stay for a minute as I look up at him. Soon my dad takes me back to my room.

Babar the Elephant in Legos at Yale New Haven Hospital

As we get back to my room another nurse enters, in her hands are tow funny looking things and a doll. The nurse sits next to me and explains that the funny looking things are masks, the big one is for me and the small one is for the doll, which she hands to me. I quickly decide to hold the doll closely along with Rebecca, a small green dog that was given to me when I first came here. The nurse starts to explain to me that the mask is going to go over my face. She starts to demonstrate on the doll. So that doesn’t look so bad. I take the smaller mask and first put that over the doll. The nurse encourages me to try it on myself so I do, even though I am still doubtful about this whole “mask” thing because it’s not pretty or funny looking the way masks are supposed to be. After I put the mask on the nurse wants me to practice breathing, I know how to breathe why do I need to practice? In, out, in, out, happy now? I guess she is, at least she looks satisfied. Now she is asking what flavor I want. What flavor what I plea, but no one seems to like answering my questions here. I guess I will find out soon enough. Orange I finally choose.

Next a nurse leads me down a hallway, I start skipping. At the end we get to this strange looking room, different from any I have ever seen before. They tell me to lie down on what looks like a table. I usually get in trouble for lying on tables but ok I think. The nurse now hands me a mask, it’s like the ones from before except instead of having a hole in it there is a tube connected to the mask. I put it on like the other nurse had shown me to. Wait, why does the air taste like an orange lollipop? Soon someone told me to count backwards from ten. Ten…Nine……Six…….

Flashback: First Regional Event (and the Making of a Mem/Kad)

So this is another flashback because we haven't done much yet on the regional board so I don't have any good stories about it yet. I also thought it was appropriate for today because Sunday in Yom Six Flags, which will be my first event while on board so I thought it is a good time to reflect back on to my first event and the road I took to get from there to here.

So as I said in my last post I went to the kickoff event my freshman year. I had recently started a new school and didn't have any of my old friends, and knowing no one I became a little shy. Anyone who knows me now will tell you that I got over that rather quickly. USY helped me get over my shyness. This is the story of how.

Cara dragged me to kickoff, it was in October of '09 and I had never been to a regional event before, and once again I was put into a situation where she was the only other person I knew. Unlike before that changed with in a few minutes. Since Cara drove me I was got there early (the board has to go to all events early), when we first got to the place, "Daddy's Extreme Sports", the place seemed a little sketchy, especially since we were the first ones there. Soon the rest of the board came and I met them one by one. And with them came one other freshman. The first thing anyone notices about this girl is usually her hair, but something else stood out to me that day, how outgoing she was.

"Hey, I'm Penina, Max's(the region president at the time) sister, what's your name?" Penina said as she reach out her hand to me (both literally and metaphorically).


I replied "Hi, I am Joan, I am from Cara's Chapter. Are you on board too?"

"No, I wish, but freshman can't be on board." She said with a smile on her face.

"Oh cool" was all I said next.

Penina and I at spring convention in our Togas. (I'm on the left and Penina is on the right)

We started to talk and I knew I was going to make alot of friend, the event hadn't even started and I already made one. Soon Dina, a friend of mine from my chapter, arrived and introduced me to some people that she had gone to camp with. But I was still a little bit shy. Dina and I stayed together for most of the time.

The next event I went to was Saturday Night Live, I still only knew a few people but by the end of the night I was exchanging cell numbers with a bunch of different kids. USY was the place where I didn't heel shy any more. I still didn't look at my self as that out going yet.

 Last week I read a post of a Facebook group called "You know you are in USY when..." and the person was saying that the think of people in terms of what board position they would be best at, one person comment that they think of mem/kads as really friendly and out going. I have always thought I was friendly enough but was never sure about that out going part. All the sudden I was scared that I had chosen the wrong position and was think twice about it. Then this week end I went on a shabbaton at a different chapter and did not know a lot of people. I didn't feel shy anymore and just started introducing myself to everyone.

About twenty minutes into the bus ride to the camp the shabbaton was at a girl turned to me and said "You are a very open person."

"I guess your right" I said with a smile and sigh of relief. Maybe I would not have been right for this board position two years ago, but now I am.

Flashback: Honorary Big Sister

I have a big brother and two little sisters, but I've always wanted a big sister. Cara is my big sister. I've know Cara since I was five. We became close the year I was in 8th grade, Cara was a junior at Wilton. Although I had not gone to Hebrew school(I went to a Jewish Day School) I became an aide to Cara who was the kindergarten teacher.

When I was a Freshman in high school I knew practically no one, and the few people I did know ignored me, after all I was the weird new girl. By the time i got to 4th period German I was hopeless that anything good could come of the day, but then as I was going into the classroom I looked up and saw Cara. I was overcome with a sigh of relief, finally a familiar face that would talk to me. Soon Cara had looked over my schedule telling me about each teacher with words of advice. There was then a slight bit of hope that I might just survive the day.
During my freshman year I always knew that once I got to German my day would be a little bit better. It was an entertaining class. Cara and I would speak in Hebrew and sometimes we would insert people in the class' names, we wouldn't actually talk about them but their reactions were priceless. One day a kid started yelling "They are speaking in tongues! THEY ARE SPEAKING IN TONGUES!!!!"
Our German Teacher then went on a speech about it was good we were speaking in a language other than English and how that was the whole point of the class.

Now here is where USY comes in. Cara happened to be regional Israel Affairs(IA) Vice President that year. She was also on my bus. About a few weeks into the school year before the regional kick-off event Cara turned to me one day when we were going home on the bus and said "We need to get you more involved in USY so you can find a HUSBAND." I had thought she was going to say boyfriend, I knew she was convinced to set me up, but a husband? Wasn't that a little premature? Nope I guess not for Cara, who did not want me to go out with anyone from Wilton.

Anyway I did go to kickoff and by spring I was hooked on USY and year after that spring I became the regional Mem/Kad VP. So I guess I should thank Cara. Although I have not found my husband yet, but that's OK because I am in no rush. And when I get a boyfriend don't worry Cara you will get to approve him.