family weekend in binghamton

here are some fabulous photos from my family weekend in binghamton.

more fire!

what's that i'm wearing? oh the same smelly clothing i keep around for all my fire building needs. smoke smell anyone? "you smell like bishul!"

breakneck ridge

here i am on my last tiyul of the summer. gorgeous river views!

another fabulous trip

here are some photos from my latest adventure on the AT. click here to see all of them. this was such an amazingly positive group of kids. and the davening: me'uleh!

here's my group at hang glider's view:

this is me on the pine knob overlook:

here is me bonding with a millipede:

al hagova staff dinner

this was hands-down my favorite night in camp. we cooked and ate all this amazing organic food. what a feast!

here i am in the shack with dt and bc cooking up a storm. fire fire!

tl and more fire, this time in an igul. it's pita time!

mb, dt, ta, and dl at the igul. smokin'!

late night yum

one night i brought some ice cream scoops to help an edah out. in return, a huge bowl of ice cream.
here i am with mb doing one of our favorie things: eating ice cream. is there anything else to do at night in the summer?

shabbat singing and female energy

overall i had a pretty selfish shabbat. (selfish looks so much like the word shellfish!)
sang a lot with people i like to sing with instead of 600 kids banging on tables. at one point the group boiled down to five women - two americans and three israelis. it was really intense; we just kept singing and singing; almost as if we were afraid something might happen to us if we were to stop. i don't think i've ever sang that much with just women. it was great! especially since between the five of us we knew so many of the same songs.
then on sunday the jts students had lunch with neshama carlebach, who taught us one of her favorite niggunim that her father wrote, "niggun neshama" (her name for it).
after shabbat she performed a concert for the whole camp. it was exciting to hear the songs all jazzed up and i think she is a great role model for the kids in camp, epecially the young teens.
okay, sleep time. more later!

sweaty day off in nyc

days off are so key. sad that they have to end. luckily i am going back to camp with much excitement and little stress. tonight is the zimriyah - the whole camp comes together for tons of singing hebrew songs (each unit and group of staff has a song). sadly i am not super psyched about the one i'm performing, but i am excited to be part of the camp spirit of the evening.

tomorrow morning i leave on a two day bike trip. don't get too excited - i'm driving the truck with all the luggage, water, food, and of course, first aid equipment. basically i'm driving about 3 miles over 6 or 7 hours, plus a lunch break. i think the plan is to drive for five, rest for five, etc. driving behing 15 bikers has the potential to be quite dangerous. luckily there will be plenty of exotic weeds growing along the side of the road for me to pick and make into things. (thanks ms and ye)

had another gourmet meal last night with ab and a long overdue lunch with my uncle today. my plan is to remain inside until i head back to camp on the train later on. less movement=less sweat=less heat rash.

oh i almost forgot! i think i had the highlight of my summer, in camp that is. out of camp my highlight was definitely the three day camping trip, the highlight of that being shachrit and informal conversation. anyway, mon. night sb and i were sitting by the al hagova shack nigguning up a storm. ta joined in. then we added a drum. then two gesher (16 year old) campers joined in as well. it was so spontaneous and fabulous and right in the middle of everything. okay so it was in the middle of anything, but it was by the shack, it was unscheduled, and there were people who passed by. beyond having chances to be in the woods (which is, in my opninon, quite few), i crave more chances to sing. and though i love singing in a small group, i think the public jamming that went on mon. night, which reminds me of late nights at havurah, is something i want to make happen more often. not only is it something i enjoy, but i like the idea that it's participatory. and especially since we can't use instruments on shabbat, a weeknight jam may be just what this camp needs to bring peopole together in a new way. i guess we'll see if we can find other opportunities to, um, be spontaneous. sb says he's down.

okay i'm waiting for bz to join me in a movie on my couch. then it's to the train for me.

in closing, some photos from the past week. the first is a sunset, the second is me with some of the al hagova staff on the low ropes course. i am wearing long pants and sleeves to avoide the poison ivy that was surrounding us. luckily, i survived!

real update, no photos

i'm sitting in the camp office on duty to drive people around on visiting day. it was raining before but now it's nice and cool - breezy and not too sunny.
i'm exhausted after staying up until 3am last night. (that's actually 4am real world time; we have 'camp time' here which is an hour earlier). what was i doing up so late?
well, a few things.
first, i wasn't tired. i really wasn't tired. usually on shabbat i nap between lunch and dinner; somewhere between 3pm and 6pm. the past few shabbats i have had programming to do at 5pm. this shabbat i learned parshat hashavua for 2 hours with sb and ls. we got up to the fourth aliyah which i think it a record. since i took dr. marcus's class last fall on numbers/bemidbar, i am super pscyhed to be in the midst of it. i have this academic knowledge about it, but i haven't looked deep into the text to see how it mirrors my life since last summer. [ah last summer. memories of eh and bz and others on the rooftop...]
anyway, since last night was "cafe aby" (a crazy staff evening program where everyone stuffs their face with quesedillas, root beer floats, mozzerella sticks and other junk...like greek salad with grape leaves!), i decided to take a nap from 5-7pm, thus skipping dinner. and what an amazing nap it was!
since my room (yes, i have a single room. this is what happens when you are 26 and work at a camp) has 3 huge windows that face the area where the little kids play and bring in a LOT OF SUN (yes i know you are all super jealous now), i need a very special set up when i take an afternoon nap.
after i turn on my ceiling fan (how cool is that?), i put in my ear plugs. then i curl up in bed and put a pillow over one of my ears. then the end of the pillow case falls over my eyes and i drift into blissful sleep. fabulous, no?
okay, back to sarah staying up late.
after helping some campers tidy up their bunk and filling up at cafe aby, i started to head out to check email. this was around 11pm. i ended up taking a detour to visit sb on shmirah outside b9. sb was avoiding working on an article for the camp newspaper. after complimenting me on my writing/blogging skills (smart people always compliment a person before asking them for a favor), i sat down for what turned out to be a 3.5 hour project.
okay well that's my anti-climatic ending to why so tired today. more rambing updates soon!

"i finally accomplished something in my life besides video games"

this is one of the many "peak experiences" that my campers reflected on after a 3 day back packing trip on the appalacian trail. success! below are some photos from the trip.

Here we are before the trip - so clean!


Here I am with Tamar doing our tvi impression: (That's the little deer symbol on Israeli postage stamps.)


Here I am at a beautiful overlook with Ayala and Ilana:

blogging is back!

so i'm at camp. crazy place - tons going on all the time. lots of shachrit services. hundreds of kids. and it's quite rare to be over 22 around here. but it doesn't bother me; i get to do the most fun stuff so can't complain. over shabbat i did a teva-themed program for cochavim, the kids entering 4th grade this fall. such sweetness!

this week i went on two caving trips and a 'scrambling' trip to a huge mountain with a waterfall. scrambling is like a cross between rock climbing and hiking. we actually hiked from new york into connecticut, into massachusetts, and back into new york. i told my campers they had to stop being yankees fans when they left new york. they didn't really listen to me.

here's a photo of me 20 feet in the air on top of the rock wall:

here i am on the appalacian trail with a through hiker named "chair man:"

last but certainly not least...since june 19 i became an aunt! a week after that i had the pleasure of going to lexington for about 24 hours to meet rafael velvel and be there for his bris.
here are a few photos (see above link to his blog above for even more):

"i think your favorite tactile senses are soft and fuzzy and crispy and
crunchy" -ds, 05/29/05

new day, old bike, new to me

day 1 of learning how to ride a bike. yes, you heard it here: sarah is
finally going to learn how to ride a bike at age 26. probably a good
idea since my supervisor hopes that i will be able to lead mountain
biking trips this summer. hehe. first JF replaced the gear cables and
the balloons inside the wheels. then my heroic roommate LW took me to
riverside park just before sundown for some lessons. i know soon i will
be able to do it. but right now - it's just really tough! i am a big
wimp and, i'll just say it, it hurts my crotch! i look forward to the
day that i can finally do it. i shall be patient, however. i think i
can do it.

chan chandler is going to give me a bad name

uh oh. who knew there was a guy named <<a
href="/http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/07/church.politics.ap/index.html">chan
chandler<</a> A pastor in North Carolina said of him the following:
<<blockquote> <fontfamily><param>Arial</param>Members of the
congregation said Chandler told them during last year's presidential
campaign that anyone who planned to vote for Democratic nominee John
Kerry needed to leave the church.</fontfamily><</blockquote>

recycle your electronics!!

am super psyched about this. we need more awareness and action on this issue; it is so ridiculous how some people obsess over recycling cans or paper, but don't think twice about trashing batteries or televisions.

just got this post on the koe email list:

Electronics Recycling Drive, St. John the Divine @ 112/113 & Amsterdam, Thurs. May 12, 3-8PM. Taking PCs, TVs, VCRs, fax machines, cell phones, pagers. NOT taking stereo equip., radios, cameras & small appliances. For more information, please call 212-865-9595.

photo post test

so i saw this new feature that lets me post to my blog via email. i'm testing it with text and a photo. it's my latest friendster photo. i think it's from this past fall sometime. great hair day right? crap i don't know how to make it smaller...

clean sleep

i actually feel like i'm staying at someone else's apt. not the gross apts with mismatched couches that i have had the pleasure of crashing on, more like somone who has a clean apt. just anyone.

5 megillot final in 9.5 hours or so. my final final!
excited for a big day - lunch with my bro, my favorite (ef), plus je and lw who are always fab to be with. did i just use the word fab?
then 5pm interview for camp ramah job as stated in earlier post. then dinner with cousin ag and maybe even bz, followed by concert in east village with cr!!

nyc is cool. always things to do. why was i ever thinking of leaving? it's all here really.

shiny floors

it's a miracle. my room is clean. my clothes are clean. my alarm clock is plugged in and set! no more cellphone for my alarm. my modem and router are neatly on top of my deak. this time really i'm going to make it happen. and craziest of all, my laptop is plugged in and set up at MY DESK - not just by the couch in the living room. seriously i am a real person again. how come i had to wait till the end of the semester to become a real person, huh?

hopefully the fact that i scrubbed the floor on my hands and knees will keep me from waking up with a sore throat from all the dustiness.

AND I HAVE A WORKING PRINTER. it's only been about 10 months or so since i bothered to replace the cartridge. i am invincible! now i can do anything. i really think so.

now i just have to go through the 9 boxes and 3 shelves of random shit, throw stuff out, file stuff, put in binders...make some real decisions! oh yeah and probably give away some clothing. so hard! must stay strong. i can do it!!

must help bz think of clever blog title. minutes from crawling into super clean bed...

sarah washes and folds!

after being inspired at wc's apt last week, i have decided to do my own laundry. after months of not feeling that i had an extra 2 hours in the day, i think it is time. also it will be too expensive for me to wash my comforter at the cleaners', so i may as well take some other laundry along with it.

really what i need to do is get rid of some clothing. on the one hand, if there are things i haven't worn in over a year, i should get rid of them. on the other, many belong in a 'new york sarah' category - perhaps i will need them again one day should i end up in an office.

must sort. must mimimize. strive to be more like wc and ab. without curling hair...

pesadik restaurant!

...she'hechiyanu, v'kiyamanu... my first time eating out at a k for p restaurant! so cool! meet ab for dinner after 'work' at the Teva office. now that i think is real freedom.

am excited to get up early to make some quinoa for pot luck lunch at 'the office'
will i go to brooklyn for a play? will i go to queens for matzoh lasagne? or will i go to the limmud meeting? i feel like chilling. taking it easy. deciding at the last minute. sarah is on the path to chillitude. thanks for the tip, ab.

my bed is calling me...