To the people who've affected me:

Thank you all for being there for me when I needed you, whether you know it or not, whether you read this blog or not.

Lisa and Roni: Thank you both for teaching and supporting.

Machon: Thanks for being my best friends, even if we hadn't been close before. I know I can go to any one of you for anything and you'd take me in, no questions asked, even if we've only had one or two real conversations.

Bunk 13: I want to apologize for being disconnected half the time. Being a counselor was exhausting, and I'm afraid my attention to you girls suffered because of it. You deserved much more of me, because you made me smile as often as you made me want to pull out my hair. Thank you for putting your trust in me, for listening to my poems, for dealing with my inconsistencies.

Rachel W: Thank you for pulling me aside that day early in the session to tell me I was doing a good job. That meant so, so much to me. Probably more than you know.

Mike: Thank you for being my friend. I don't think you know this, but becoming friends with you was a turning point in my life. You were the first friend I made by myself. Every other friendship I've had has started off either through another person, or when I was very young. Having your friendship meant, to me, that I was someone with a personality worth hanging out with beyond inside jokes. Thank you.

Shelly: Thank you for being my best friend; for leaning on me when you needed someone to lean on, and for being there when I needed you. Thank you for counseling me through god-knows-what issues I've had. Thank you for laughing with me. Thank you for writing. Thank you for being amazing.

Dave: Thank you for the very, very good ego boost when I most needed it. You have no idea how little self-confidence I've had. Thank you for our ridiculously open conversations. Thank you for giving me the hugs I need to make it through the terrifying place and time high school can be.

Nuno: Thank you for relying on me, and for knowing you can come to me with anything. I'm so sorry I can't be there, helping you, but you know that any time you're in the US you can come to me for anything. Thank you for being one of the closest friends I've ever had. You probably know more about me than anyone, save Shelly.

Jordan: Thank you for keeping me company, for sharing my interests in this insane group of people we call thespians. Thank you for so many other, innumerable things. Hopefully I'll be able to name them in full someday; for now I'll have to leave it at 'thank you.'

Chris: Thank you for being courageous.

Thespians & S.crew: Thank you for providing the niche in which I'm able to exist. Thank you for late nights and hard work that save me from going other places and provide me with some semblance of a social life. Thank you for allowing me to indulge in my craziness, and for tolerating it.

And with that, I believe I've come full-circle. I know I didn't name a lot of people specifically, but you mean so much to me nonetheless.

To all of you that I skipped, or included within categories: I love you all. You have provided so much support for me, and for that I am eternally grateful.

So thank you, merci, gracias, danke, grazie, arigatou, obrigado, chypta, and toda raba. I love you all.

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.