Volunteering and 'Dancing with the Faculty'

An interesting fundraiser, if I do say so myself.

Each school was represented by a pair of teachers (or administrators, or guidance counselors, etc). Our district has two high schools, two middle schools, and seven elementary schools. HSE had the only actual couple (the Magnianis; a health teacher and a guidance counselor), and one of the elementaries had a couple comprised of two girls, which was interesting to say the least. Especially when you're standing next to a fellow techie who's muttering 'dyke' every three seconds throughout their second song, when one of them was wearing a men's-style suit. Well, he gave me someone to hit.

My job was ridiculously easy. I basically just sat next to a projector screen for about twenty minutes, then put the cover back on at the end. During intermission, I did the same thing, only I didn't have to stay sitting next to it. For the rest of the time, I sat with Russ in the lighting booth.

The auditorium was literally packed. That's never, ever happened, especially not for a fundraiser. The only other time I've ever seen a packed house is for a graduation ceremony. Oh, quick run down of our auditorium: orchestra section, plus huge balcony section, equals about 1600 seats. That's a whole lot of people. They told Jim (techie guru employed by the district to run lights and sound on a regular basis) that they weren't going to sell the balcony, so the sound setup was shit. It was glaringly loud in the front by the pit, and muffled to the point of people complaining in the balcony (so Jim and Alex, the student running the board, were given hell, I'm sure).

The next day, I got to go help with stage crew. Jim had a bunch of us come in and help fix up the lights for the music concerts in two weeks. We moved some instruments to the lecture hall, and got to do stuff on the catwalk. If you ever have a fear of heights, come hang out on the catwalk above our auditorium sometime.
Best killers of any fears (or awakeners, depending on your disposition):

• Moving around quickly on the left side of the further half
• Trying to get from the top of the ladder from the further half to the grating connected to the projector room without someone to grab your hand as you leap

I'll be sure to take some pictures some time; they layout is hard to explain.

But most importantly we started cleaning up 601! (Our shop) The giant, badly made cubes that have been used maybe twice and are just taking up space (they're three feet cubed) were dismantled so they're three feet square and six inches in the other direction. That, in and of itself, is a whole lot of progress if you ask me.

Anyway. Backtracking a bit, for my real rant of the day:

I had a lot of trouble convincing my dad to let me go on Friday night. He wanted me to go to services at Temple. I go every single week I'm with him, unless I've got a play or something religious. And the plays he gives me hell for, most of the time. I had to beg, three times, for him to allow me to go and volunteer this weekend.

I'm turning 18 in two months! Most teenagers my age or even younger just tell their parents "good bye, I'm leaving" on a Friday night, and their parents are lucky if they're not going to a party to drink and get high! I had to beg my father for permission to go volunteer.

Does anyone else see what's wrong with that?

The day in which we attempt to give thanks for what we have

Happy Turkey day, Americans!

This year, instead of going to Gladys's high school English teacher's house in Staten Island with the teacher's family, we spent the day (my brothers, my mom, and Beth) having a 'game day', in which we have played a multitude of board games, watched Gabe kill lots of people in Assassin's Creed, and ate a Boston Market dinner. We're still here for a good chunk of time, before going back to dad's for eighteen hours or so, then coming back here for the week. (Don't get me started on the amount of car trips this is requiring.)

It's been fun, though Gabe's occasionally a poor sport. Lots of sales tomorrow which I will not be attending, since I'll be at my dad's, and not with my mom and Beth for Black Friday.

I need Hannukah gift tips/requests for basically everybody, by the way. So feel free to contribute.

Conclave re-cap

My mom and I drove up in her car, because she doesn't go on the bus and I don't like to. We arrived at least half an hour before any of the buses, because even though we left at almost-one and hit a bunch of really irritating traffic, we know all the short cuts (our record drive is about two hours).

Arrived at about 3:40, and I ecstatically jumped out of the car, grabbed a bag, and headed in towards Manor House. With Manor House came...Elana! Elana's a very good friend and sometimes Teva (nature program) director. Hugs all around, and then the much-missed smell of Manor House, which I certainly hope is not lost with all of this planned renovation.

I ran around a bit in an empty Manor House (unheard of!). I kept expecting to run into a whole cadre of Machon (CITs) sitting in the Great Room (which we called the Living Room this weekend), but of course I didn't, which was very sad.

When the first buses arrived, I jubilantly volunteered to be the one to lead the eight and ninth graders up to bunks eight, nine, and ten, where they were staying. It was cold. Very, very cold. And I did it at least four times, because I'm a dork and a loser. But a loser who loves Eisner!

Bunk eight, where the boys were staying, was very difficult. I kept looking at the wall, expecting to see a massively huge Israeli flag and a creepy stalker, but thankfully it has been several months since he returned to Israel, and with luck will not return.

Weekend, as a whole, was very very enjoyable after this point.

Sarah and her brother were on kitchen staff for the weekend, and it was fun to hang out with her a bit.

Saw this very cool documentary called Mechina: a preparation, and I shall be joining the facebook group for it as soon as I get home. The film was about six kids around our age getting ready for the army in Israel, and it really brought the human side of Israel to a lot of the kids in Hebrew school.

We (meaning just the seniors) led Havdallah (the Saturday night service that separates Shabbat from the rest of the week). My reading, which was supposed to be about how great Hebrew High is and how much it has affected us, basically consisted of: "I have this song stuck in my head, and because I am uber-Jew it is in Hebrew. The first line is 'Ani v'atah n'shaneh et ha'olam', which means 'You and I will change the world'. What we do here does that. We also have fun." Good times.

After that, we participated in and then led a program (when I say we I mean the eleventh and twelfth graders). The first was a heated debate, and I'll go into it another time. Suffice it to say that one particular senior is kind of a bitch and I really don't like her in any context, as she radiates an aura of hatred wherever she goes and whatever she says. The second was about development of hope and Israeli music. Don't ask, I don't know. We played HaTikva ('The Hope'; Israel's national anthem), then a song by Rick Recht called 'The Hope' (Video here, and tell me if you can figure out the venue without looking), followed by Tikva by Subliminal and the Shadow, an Israeli rap duet. Good videos, I'd recommend the songs.

And I never thought I'd miss Louie, but our song leader was awful. He was conservative, so we didn't know any of the same melodies, and he didn't precisely make an effort to sing things our way, even the songs we all knew.

While in the Beit Am (theater-type building), I found a Grease playbill from this summer. 'Twas hilarious.

Another discovery: In the library, in one of the locked cases, is a binder that looked very familiar, and, peering closer, I discovered that it is, indeed, a Machon binder; it's Robbie's, in fact. I couldn't get the case opened, though, so I couldn't look closer.

I've got lots of pictures, but those will have to come later, as I don't have a connecting cable for my camera on me at the moment. Speaking of, my mom and I went up to Lookout Point.

Oh, and Danny was there at the end of the weekend, which was nice.

And now I've written more than I have for any other post to date, so I'll stop.

Slow

I'm apparently slowing down my posting (which Jordan will probably be grateful for). And it's going to get even slower over the weekend, as I'll be at EISNER CAMP for a Hebrew school retreat. No internet access. So if I don't get back to anyone right away, that's why.

Peace!

Cheating

Last week, I spent the entirety of a badminton game in gym class arguing about cheating. My doubles partner and I are both reasonably intellegent people, if I do say so myself, and our opponents were, shall we say, not. They were attempting to convince us that we were really mean because we wouldn't give them answers on tests. The girl we were facing kept on tossing around the phrase "share the wealth!"

What?