30 Before 40.

So it's settled. I will be attending Columbia for their nonfiction MFA in the fall. *deep breaths*. I just mailed my deposit, and unlike when I lived in nyc before and mailed my PCOM deposit, I am not going to run back to the post office and ask them to fish the letter out of the mail bin so I could have it back. My choice was pretty much made for me, since UNC rejected me, thankyouverymuch, which I still don't understand. And wouldn't you know, I come home to an email about an oncology freelance writing job here in NC. sigh. I just have to have faith that it will work out. Somehow, in the end, it will work out.

I'm a big listmaker. Since turning 30 in December, I've been feeling a little bit like time is slipping by, unnoticed until another year has passed. I'm not upset about turning 30 - I think this will be the best decade yet - but there are things I want to do before I am 40. So here's my list, of 30 things I want to do before I turn 40.

1. Get a book deal and get published.

2. Go back to Israel.

3. Visit Italy.

4. Finish a half-Ironman by the time I am 35, and a full Ironman before I am 40.

5. Run a marathon.

6. Get married.

7. Become a mother.

8. Visit Prague and Croatia.

9. Pay off a good portion of my student loans (although, with Columbia.....not sure how likely that will be).

10. Run the NYC marathon.

11. Start a psychosocial oncology writing therapy program at a major cancer center (besides Sloan-Kettering, who already has one and that I'll be volunteering with come fall).

12. Get my ACSM personal trainer certification, finally.

13. Read Ulysses by James Joyce.

14. Read a good portion of the "classics".

15. Learn Italian.

16. Start practicing yoga routinely. For real.

17. Visit California and my friends Jessi and Carrie.

18. Be the best aunt ever to my nephew Trey. :)

19. Maybe race the Kona Ironman (if I get in by lottery).

20. Meet Molly Barker, the founder of Girls on the Run. We've emailed and we're Facebook friends, but I have yet to meet her.

21. Get something published in The New Yorker.

22. Own a Balenciaga motorcycle bag.

23. Try skiing.

24. Come back to Chapel Hill to live.

25. Visit Niketown - THE Niketown, in Oregon.

26. Resting when I need rest and listen to my body, to avoid future injuries.

27. See Tori Amos in concert.

28. If the Stones go on tour one more time, see them in concert.

29. See Madonna in concert.

30. Be healthy enough to do even more than I thought possible in my 40s.

oh, Manhattan...here we are again.

I was looking through some old writing of mine, and found an entry from October 2007, right after I found out I would be interning at MSKCC that coming summer. It took my breath away, because reading it, I could feel how excited I was to return to Manhattan. And if I really thought about it and admitted it, as much as I love Chapel Hill, I do miss Manhattan. If I were offered the right job, I would move back. Here's what I wrote:

....I just got an internship in nyc for the summer, which I am SO psyched about, but now I am wondering where I will live...maybe I just need to chill about that for now, and simply enjoy the fact that I got my dream internship at my dream job place, and I will be in the city I love for 8 weeks, doing what I love. I can go to Crumbs and Magnolia and Bloomingdales and Scoop and Searle, and Barnes & Noble in Lincoln Center and walk down Central Park West and people-watch at Columbus Circle and walk around the village and eat falafel and subway hop and go to Dylan's Candy Bar and The Ginger Man. I can complain about how crowded the 6 is and how sweaty NY summers are. I can walk around Soho on a Sunday and play in the Apple store and try perfumes at Sephora and browse for things for my nephew at the Scholastic store. I can peruse the magazines at the awesome newsstand near my old place in Morningside Heights and go to Duane Reade at 2am if I want to. I can order groceries from Fresh Direct and get bubble tea on the Upper West Side. I can walk around amongst the noises of the city and traffic and people and life and feel like I am in the heart of the world, the blood flowing through my veins so loud I can hear it, like there's no other place that matters. I can't wait.

Reading that, can't you just feel how much I love that city? How much that place also feels like home? I never had to "get used" to New York. When I first moved there to go to Columbia, it felt like home. I was never nervous about wandering the city or subways, and it felt filled with endless possibilities. I still feel that way about it. I thrive on the anonymity there. Funny, because here in Chapel Hill, especially in my neighborhood, it's impossible to be anonymous. I guess there are some places that will always feel like home to us. For me, it's Manhattan, Chapel Hill and Israel. When I left Israel, I was - and still am - homesick, on a visceral and spiritual level.

Anyway. I guess what also triggered this was I found some old papers from Teachers College (Columbia) about Nursing Education/Exercise Physiology/Health Education programs there. I don't know why I kept them....but I did. hmmm.....

onco-semitism?

I don't know how many of you have heard the latest thing buzzing about Komen? You can read about it here. They are helping to sponsor a bunch of breast cancer conferences/events in Egypt, for scientists in the Middle East, and the Egyptian Minister of Health has rescinded all the invites issued to Israeli doctors. The ADL put out a press release urging Komen to condemn the action, and so far, Komen has been silent. This is disgraceful. Where are all the Jewish groups speaking up? Where are all the feminist groups speaking up?

Komen, I am disappointed in you, more than I have been in the past...this is a new low.

200th post!

This is my 200th post! Yay! It feels like a lot more than that, though.

This is a picture of a shofar, siddur, and tallis.

So, next weekend is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and one of the High Holidays. It is one of the holiest days of the year. It is a day of judgement, when G-d looks in the Book of Life and makes decisions on people. It is a day of reflection, and 10 days later is Yom Kippur, when we repent for any wrongdoings so we can be sealed in the Book of Life. It is customary to wish each other "Shanah Tovah", to have a good year, or to tell people you wish them a sweet new year. We eat apples dipped in honey, and challah dipped in honey (which I am eating right now; it's my favorite part of the holiday!). It's also traditional to say "Next year in Jerusalem!" Gosh, I would love that - to be in Israel for the High Holidays. I miss it so much. I will return one day, this I know.

Rosh Hashanah was not always a sweet holiday. 14 years ago - half my lifetime ago - on Rosh Hashanah, events were set in motion that eventually resulted in my parents' divorce. At the time, I thought my life was over. And though it took me a while, my life gradually got larger and though it stings deep down, I am able to enjoy the holiday. This year, we have so much to be thankful for. I am so thankful that my grandmother beat breast cancer and is healthy and back to her socializing self, I am thankful that my nephew is talking and is healthy and happy, I am thankful that my family is able to help me, and I am thankful for my health. Overall, life is sweet, and I have high hopes for the coming year.

ummmm

So much for not blogging about politics. I just went on Gawker, and apparently there's a video that was filmed in Israel and it asked American Jews and Israelis their thoughts on Obama and the whole situation. Some nasty things were said, some racist things were said....but also, I have to say, this is not a clear and accurate presentation of Jews. But some of the subsequent comments written by commenters show anti-semitism is alive and kicking here in the States.

a controversial and possibly alienating blog post.

You know, I try - I try - to stay out of politics now....I learned my lesson last year. But you know what, I can't do this anymore. Obama compared the "plight" of the Palestinians to that of the Holocaust. News flash: There are about six million differences why that's not true. He visits Buchenwald tomorrow, and hopefully things can be clarified for him. Though I'm not a fan of President Bush, I did like his Middle East policies. He said that the US would only engage Palestinian leaders not compromised by terror. Obama doesn't seem to agree with this. He seems to equate the moral standards of the Palestinians to those of Israelis. I'm sorry, but when was the last time you heard of an Israeli terrorist suicide bomber in the Palestinian territories? We (yes, I'm using we, I'm aware) don't strap dozens of nails to us and walk into a pizza place and blow ourselves up. We don't walk into a University cafeteria and set off a bomb that's on our vest. Rather than encouraging less settlements by Israelis, he should be encouraging the Arab world to denounce Hamas and terrorism. Maybe he should actually cross Egypt's borders and visit Israel and witness the clean-up of a suicide bomber attack. He'll see members of the Orthodox group ZAKA meticulously collecting body parts to ensure a proper Jewish burial for those killed. They also collect the body parts of non-Jews, so that their families can have a complete burial.  

Marc Thiessen, who is a former Bush speechwriter, even said this is a huge shift in US policy regarding Israel. And you know, Saturday marks 3 years since my first trip to Israel, and I'd return in a heartbeat. Yes, there is genocide all over the world, but nothing merits comparison to the Holocaust. People were shoved into gas chambers and killed, and their loved ones put their bodies in the incinerators. Those in concentration camps, when they were "lucky", used soap - but that soap was made from those who were killed. And the world watched. Since March 1933, the death camps were operating (Dachau opened then). The camp Theresienstadt, or Terezin, killed 15,000 children. And as late as 1944, the Red Cross visited the camp to see if it really was a "death camp", and the Nazis were able to fool them. And the world just watched, and read about it in the back pages of the papers. 

Where is all of this coming from?

As a Jewish woman who has had considerable religious education, I cannot adequately describe the feeling of walking through Yad V'Shem, or the DC Holocaust Museum, and having the thought, "This could have been me."  I cannot put words to looking at heaps and heaps of human hair, and glasses, and shoes, and wondering how many belonged to relatives of mine. The fact that half my family is Roman Catholic wouldn't have saved me back then. In fact, they'd probably be taken to the camps with me. I can't tell you the revulsion I felt at learning about Joseph Mengele, and imagining what my best friends' Bubbe went through at his hands when she was at Auschwitz. I grew up with the names Dachau, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka, among dozens of others. My kindergarten teacher showed us the numbers on her arm one day during naptime. On Yom Hashoa, we all wore golden yellow stars with "Jude" written on it, in rememberence. You don't forget these experiences, these lessons, even years and years later.  

I just had to get this off my chest. 

just the balls, please.

Jerusalem

It's raining here, those glorious, thick, large rain drops that pelt against the windows and completely drench everything. Almost like a complete cleansing. I love this kind of rain. I'm still analyzing in my head the whole Manhattan vs Chapel Hill thing, and I keep thinking I really want to see my nephew soon. Ever have that feeling of wanting to just leave everything behind? Sometimes I have that urge. I'd go to Israel. I can't believe it will be 3 years on June 6 since I went on my trip. That was truly one of the best experiences of my life and has shaped who I am as an American Jewish woman. I felt instantly at home there, maybe because I speak and read Hebrew, I don't know. For some reason, I had no fear about suicide bombers - I just didn't. I loved the waterfalls of Ein Gedi, the view from the Golan Heights, the view of the Kinneret from the corridor of our hostel, the hot springs on the border of Jordan, and our Shabbat service at our Jerusalem hostel. And, of course, the Wall - the Kotel. I've blogged about this before, about my experience of going up to the wall to pray and bursting into tears. The emotions that run through you in such a holy place cannot be described. The mechitzah separated the women from the men, and to my surprise, I didn't mind. It was actually nice and peaceful on the women's side. I went to Israel with over 10 years of daily, full-time Jewish education behind me. I had gone to a private school where the morning was alloted for secular subjects, and the afternoon was Hebrew/Bible/Jewish history/Holocaust. I was no stranger to the landmarks of Israel and the stories behind them. But when I came back from Israel.....my faith was renewed. I can't describe it any other way. For weeks after coming back to the States, I was so incredibly homesick for Israel. That's really the only word for it. I still miss speaking Hebrew. I miss authentic falafel, and the feeling of being among...my people, if that makes any sense. I loved how on Fridays, everyone said "Shabbat Shalom" - to everyone. After years and years of being wished "Merry Christmas" during the holiday season (EVEN when I'm wearing my Star of David), it was nice to be wished a good shabbos. I think when things get tough here, I often return in my head to my 10 days in Israel. That trip taught me so much about myself, what I could do, what I really believed in....And of course, I got to eat amazing falafel. I would order it in Hebrew, and since I don't like any of the salad or sauce or anything in my pita, I would say, "Falafel, b'vakasha - aval, rak ha cadoorim." Which means, "Falafel, please - but just the balls." I swear to G-d. This is what one of the Israeli soldiers told me to say. And it worked. But I laughed to myself every time I said it. 

I'm reading Eat, Pray, Love right now, which could account for my Israeli nostalgia. I've been reading lots of books on faith this semester - Blue Like Jazz, Through Painted Deserts....I'm looking for a good Judaica book. Fiction, non-fiction, doesn't matter. In NC, it's kind of hard to find decent ones (shocker).