Journal Entries
Senioritis, they call it. 5 June 2000.
Posted Jun 5, 2000
When they come back, they look different. They seem... lighter, freer. They no longer shuffle – they stride. They are not [high school] students any more – they are, first and foremost, themselves.
I often argue with my parents about priorities. Yesterday, my mom said to me, “You can’t go to any more protests until you do the rest of your Doc papers.” This frustrates me. Which should be more important to me, the welfare of oppressed, impoverished Latin Americans, or some stupid essays? The way the world sees it, apparently, I am not a normal person, with, say, a responsibility to help others. I am first a student, and my foremost responsibility is to my work.
Something is wrong with that. I’m a human being. Why am I going to school if not for myself? If it is not for my sake, what am I doing there? And if it is, how does the message "community service is less important than mindless essays" benefit me as a human being? There’s a problem with this message and its implications. A big problem.
But I don’t think Akiba really agrees with this message. The senior service project shows that. In Akiba and in high schools across America, public and private, students throughout high school are being given a number of hours of service required to graduate. And the program, as one would expect, is a huge success. Everyone benefits from community service – the school, the community and perhaps not as obviously, the students. Part of that is their experience. But a large part of that is the message – that they don’t always have to be enslaved by their schoolwork. They can go out, into the real world. Do real things. Make a difference. And they don’t need to worry that this will interfere with the all-important “school work”. This is what makes the difference. So when they come back, they don’t shuffle. They stride...
But what of me? I’m no senior. I have two years, two long years, of waiting for the blessed status of full humanity. In the meantime, I watch them with envy. See that freedom? That new-found self-assuredness? It doesn’t help me at all; in fact, it hurts. As I sit in my Elementary Functions class, staring out the sole window of the underventilated Inferno that is Room 13 and dreaming of being one of laughing seniors outside, I bump into the bar on the window. What am I, a human being, doing in a cage, listening to possibly the most boring person on earth drone on about sums of infinite sequences, at a temperature far higher than is pleasant or even healthy? Perhaps I should get up and walk out. Punishment for ‘cutting class’? “Detention.” They take away a few more precious moments of freedom.
But I promise myself something. “Self,” I say, “Don’t give in. Don’t let them get you down. You don’t belong to your transcript, or your SAT review course*, or that big Chem test next Wednesday. This time next month you won’t give a pile of manure about the SATs, or polyatomic ions, or the War of 1812. Don’t forget, oh self, don’t ever forget - you belong to no one but yourself... and remember to stride.”
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Latest reply: Jun 5, 2000
Torn. May 9th 2000.
Posted May 11, 2000
A fiery orange sun hanging low on the horizon. I’ve got maybe ten minutes till it’s gone so after spending the whole day inside with a particularly unhappy stomach I have come outside to watch the sunset. As I write it’s slowly going behind a tree and every time I look up it’s a bit closer to the hills. I move over into my neighbor’s yard where I can see the whole fire circle again for a while. Actually the fire is gone now – it’s just a pleasant orange color. I hear the birds chirping. A low hoo, hoo, hoo – and it’s gone to pink, as has the sky around it. On my current schedule the sun rises as I eat breakfast & falls as I avoid homework so I get to see both. Now it’s just touched the horizon & is slowly turning gray. I think of the view I get every day - a bright sun setting into a low, wooded eastern hill. It’s half gone now, as I think of trees – with all the logging of four hundred years – just a sliver – the entire Philadelphia region is still wooded. The sun is gone. I have a forest for a backyard. Yesterday, I watched the sunset in the “Olde City” neighborhood of Society Hill, on Spruce Street. (That’s right Spruce – to go with its parallel east-west thoroughfares Vine, Cherry, Chestnut, Walnut, Locust, Pine, and so on.) Across the street from me was a largish Chestnut. Now it’s nothing to the trees in my backyard – but it made me really happy, that tree. I love the sun setting into my wooded hill. I sit staring at the pale pink sky, listening to the birds converse, smelling the springtime, and hearing the air move in the valley. Ahh.
Now it’s a warm nighttime. I sit on my fence, looking up at the moon in the moist air in which I feel enveloped. Comfortably so. It’s like I’m being hugged. The moon herself is four or five days old, but bright. In the cloudy sky, though, I see little else. Except the trees, dark green against dark blue, and my painfully brightly illuminated house. I shouldn’t complain – in the nearer suburbs half the sky is orange, And it’s a rare night when you can see a star. But fresh off the a weekend at my camp, where the skies are clear as anything, I’m spoiled with starlight. Looking up again, I see the Big Dipper almost directly overhead. My friend Jeff, who understands things, has just come back from a yearlong program on a kibbutz in Israel called “Workshop.” While at camp, he pointed out to me the “Workshop Star.” I think of my next year of life, also on a kibbutz. And my earliest memories of times spent in Israel, visiting relatives. Driving back to the Apartment, nights, looking up at the sky, black as they come. I look at my sky, here - a dark blue, as I mentioned earlier. In Israel, I will have my night skies.
But what of my sunsets?
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Latest reply: May 11, 2000
Nature first green is gold...
Posted Apr 30, 2000
goes a Robert Frost poem. But I beg to differ, for, being a night person, I rarely admire the dawn. No, it is the gold of the dusk that holds my affections. And when I can, I sit on ledge in my front yard, and watch the sun set over the wooded horizon.
As I did this evening. But tonight I was, perhaps, more aware. For this weekend marks two things - the belated beginning of spring (in the air, not on the calendar), and the end of spring break. Around me, flowers bloomed in abundance, along with with my nemeses the dandelions. Down on the cul-de-sac, bushes covered in small purple blossoms. I could go on, but I'll spare you. So I sit there, book in my lap, staring at the sun as it hangs low in the sky. Utter perfection, and a warm breeze.
But the book in my lap is no pleasure reading - it's one of three thibk bios of Galileo I need to wade through for a history paper. I glance down, and realize that tomorrow morning I will not wake at the leisurely noon, but at 6:09 AM to a sharp ring. Eventually getting up, I will wade my way through a long school day, freedom gone for another month. I wouldn't mind being young at all, except that I have to sit through school, which teaches me little, and wait for better days to come.
So as the sun sets, and my mind wanders to tomorrow, I sadden. But not for long - as I look up at the sun, half submerged below the horizon, and sinking rapidly, it's extremely difficult to sadden. Tomorrow morning maybe - but for now, in the glow of the sun's last rays, with spring all around me, I grin. I'm better than they are. I'm not gonna let them get to me. I will survive... and I will go on to something better. Damn right!
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Latest reply: Apr 30, 2000
Baseball.
Posted Apr 26, 2000
Just got back from the Phillies game... they lost, 10-2, to the Arizona Diamondbacks and a little nobody pitcher named Randy Johnson. 
He gave up two earned runs in six and two thirds, which'll bring his ERA WAAAY up from the *mediocre* 0.66 he had before - but he'll get the win, going to 4-0.
And now, for those nonbaseball fans - the part in English.
By the ninth inning (the lastsection of the game) the Phillies were down 10-2. The paid attendance - number of people who bought tickets - was 11,000 and some. (In a ballpark that hold 62,000, the Phillies usually get at least 18,000 paid. We could tell from when we pulle dinto the parking lot it was not gonna be a well-attended game.) So by the time the ninth came around, an eight run deficit, there were maybe 500 people in the ball park.
If I can repeat - The ball park, Veteran's Stadium, seats over 62,000.)
All the people gathered in close... non one left in the outfield - we were on the lower deck of seats, all in the infield, all comfortably close to the action. It was a cold night - one reason for the lack of fans - so I knew the ones who remained were either diehard fans like myself, or drunk. Both are fun to have at a game.
As the Braves went through their at bats, I discovered there were so few people, and we were so close, that when I shouted the ballplayers could hear me. This was a shocking realization - my traditional baseball chatter - "What do you say now, kid? Come on, big number eight, rip one now, keep your chin in there kid, loo sharp elbows out, take a cut now..." would be heard by men twice my age.
It was great! It was a taste, albeit tiny, of the way baseball used to be - small stadiums, small crowds, players not able to shut out the world and wallow in theiir money. A 35 year old pitcher, Kevin Brown, last year got a 15 million dollar a year contract for seven years. (Yes, fifteen.) No pitcher is any good past the age of forty; Kevin Brown will probably be back in Little League when that contract expires. But it need not worry him - he's got a hell of a lot of money for his pains.
So I go home, go online, talk to my friend from Detroit. Tigers Stadium was "retired" (read: sold out) last year, after ninety years of seeing some of the greatest games ever played, and now the Tigers play in Comerica Park. (How fitting.) His chief complaint, which I think symbolizes my feeling perfectly, albeit in a way with which I can't really sympathise, is this - At Tiger Stadium, there were "trough" urinals. Not anymore, in our little homphobic, privatized world. (NO, I won't start on John Rocker.) He apparently, upon first restroom stop in the new ballpark, remarked quite loudly "Indiviudal urinals? That's just wrong..." The thing is, it's true. Gone are the days of your friends down at the park, the bleacher comraderie, and the individuality that made baseball what it is. Not gone, perhaps, but threatened.
Tiger isn't the only one. Fenway, an old and hallowed stadium, will be replaced in 2003 by "New Fenway." There are plans for a newbie to take over for Yankee Stadium. Is Wrigley, perhaps the last untouched and pure vestige of the baseball that was, safe?
I hope so. It's not just about baseball, either - this story plays out all over the world, with different actors, but the same threat - money overpowering community, and people. So let's all cross our fingers, and buy a ticket to Wrigley Field, no matter whether or not you'll ever be in Chicago.
(Not, of course, that I like the Cubs - but some things are worth supporting them for )
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Latest reply: Apr 26, 2000
IMF/World Bank Protests in Washington DC - April 16th, 2000
Posted Apr 20, 2000
Finally I am writing this. So there.
This past Sunday, I took a bus down to Washington DC to a massive protest against the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank.
Upon arrival, I meet up with my friend Debbie. Both of us are minors, with no idea how to get around DC, or what exactly we were doing. She hasd a sign sprayed on carboard - Break the Bank. We walk over to the legal rally, at the Ellipse. Some bad folk singer is strumming. Five minutes before, via cell phone (they were everywhere!) my mother had warned me "KYW (local radio) says they're arresting lots of people. Stick to the permitted demonstration." We walk around the corner, towards the more interesting areas. Whoopsee.
So what exactly is it going on outside? At every intersection, there are groups of protesters milling about, blocking traffic. Debbie knows one of them at the first intersection we come to. We chat, move on. Next one has a large drum circle in the center, some incredibly artistic chalk grafitti on the street. And one man, with his sax, is right up against the police wall - oh, I forgot to mention. Along with every blockade is a group of police, in "full riot gear" - black outfits, clubs, plastic face shield, gas mask, pepper spray, etc. They just stand there and stare. So the man goes right up to the line of them, and plays some incredible blues.
Wow.
We walk on. Little things - a bumper sticker that says "Muggles, go home." A sticker someone put on a fire hydrant - "I'm ashamed of the US government." More drums. A group of youths kicking around a soccer ball. We enter the campus of George Washington University, approaching yet another intersection. Halfway down the block, sirens start going off. Hmm. People start converging on this group - a whole bunch of anarchist, all in black, come running. As they run they pull goggles over their eyes and bandannas or gas masks over their mouths. Hmm. We hang back. A chant goes up, gets louder: "Whose streets? Our streets?" But nothing seems to be happening. We approach, get closer and closer. Finally Debbie and I are standing in the back row of the protesters, staring into the eyes of the police directly opposite us.
And then, they jump out. It seems instantaneous. The both of us run like hell - instinct kicks in, and we just run. Half a block later I slow a bit, turn around. No tear gas visible. It turns out they just made a few arrests. We walk on.
More blockades. More grafitti - there are anarachist 'A' symbols spray painted everywhere. Several of the intersections are blocked off not just by people but by large, colorful strings. The pieces of yarn hanging off lampposts makes quite a point, in my mind.
Eventually, we stumble across people we know. "Shira! Rachel!" we cry. They greet us enthusiastically, but then Shira says "You really can't stay here." All of a sudden, I notice her goggles and bandanna. And the police, looking restless. We hurry on - I still don't know what happened to them.
I think to myself, comment to Debbie. "Where I am right now is so far outside my little zone of normalcy. My little suburban existence. And now tear gas and anarchists and civil disobediance and riot police. Everything goes into a whole new focus." We walk on.
Eventually, we find ourselves in a parade, following two large puppets, and make our way back to the Ellipse. Ralph Nader speaks - he's my hero. Michael Moore. The Indigo Girls sing. Another parade. A group goes by - Billionaires for Bush, in costume. ("Because economic inequality isn't growing fast enough.") We applaud them as they go by, and one shouts "It isn't easy being rich in this country!"
We meet up with Debbie's older brother Josh, who has just gotten out of jail. After protesting, ironically enough, the prison system. We hear some funny stories, some not so funny ones about his jail time. A friend of mine, Sage, was at this protest with her whole family. They all got arrested. Sage, for being 14, got the priviledge of spending the night in a totally separate jail from the rest of her family. Hoo boy.
I go to get on my bus home, at 17th and Constitution. But unfortunately that corner is currently occupied by the police, some protesters, and a cloud of tear gas. Turn around, head the other direction. As they shout out the phrase of the day, "Our streets!" I am tempted with all my heart to turn around, run into the crowd, join the masses. But I keep walking, get on the bus.
My last image before I go up the steps - a girl wearing only a pair of shorts. Her breasts are covered with two stickers that say - Down With Starbucks. Like the bare-breasted mermaid girl in their logo. I think of the feminists I had seen that day - image of the woman as a sex object. The environmentalists - Starbucks cuts down rainforest to grow their coffee. The workers rights people - who wish they'd pay their El Salvadoran plantation workers a living wage. I think of what Starbucks represents.
Then I get onto my air-conditioned bus, and pull out my cell phone to call home. No dialing, even - it's preprogrammed. The focus has shifted back, back into suburban upper class "reality". But this time, somehow, it seems to be just a little bit fuzzy. I want to hold on to that, for a long, long time.
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Latest reply: Apr 20, 2000
Ioreth (on hiatus)
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