Pussies Unite!

The Vagina Monologues performance was last week, and it was AWESOME. Even more awesome was the fact that I remembered all my lines, didn't trip/pass out/vomit on stage. Go me!

All-in-all, through ticket sales and merch sales (and by merchandise, I mean chocolate vagina lollipops), IC Players and IC Feminists raised over $2,400 dollars. 90 percent of the proceeds are going to the local womens advocacy center, while the other ten percent are going to the V-Day Movement to help women in the DRC.

I had so much fun doing the show. It was amazing to be able to act in a play for the first time since high school, and have actual lines. And to play an adult. Not a sick child or Scrooge's corpse (they built the bed too small for anyone else. So my big role in "A Christmas Carol" was to lie under a black sheet for 20 minutes and breathe as little as possible).

But I digress. The show was amazing, and IC Human Rights was there to table for women's rights in Congo. We had fliers with facts, lists of things people can do to help end the violence, and a letter to Hillary Clinton people could sign. We got over 80 signatures! Not too shabby.

The members of IC Human Rights are so amazing. We got asked to table at the show pretty suddenly, and even though the civil war in Congo wasn't originally on the semester's agenda, the members really studied up and took to the challenge with open arms.

We're now planning a teach-in, a bake sale (Cookies for Congo!), and a benefit concert to help the V-Day Movement build a City of Joy in eastern Congo. The City of Joy will help female victims of sexual assault heal both mentally and physically, and train them to become independent leaders. It's a pretty amazing project and I hope it's successful.

An ex-marine came up to one of the ICHR e-board members during tabling. He said he had been to Congo, and it was a mess. But that our letter to Hillary Clinton won't do shit to help the situation. He might be right. There are so many reasons why the United Nations and the United States have failed to act. Cultural, economic, etc. But we have to put at least a little hope in the American Dream, that our elected leaders would stand up for the things we, the citizens, believe in and respectfully represent us abroad. Sure, Hillary Clinton might read our letter and wipe her ass with it. I don't know. But at least IC Human Rights and the signers of the letter tried through legitimate channels to make a change in the world.

And letter writing campaigns have been proven to work. Go ask Amnesty International.

We know the likelihood of our letter ending the civil war in Congo. That's why ICHR is doing other things as well, like raise money for the City of Joy. We're not putting all our fragile human rights eggs in one basket.

Femicide

The civil war that has been happening for the past twelve years in the Democratic Republic of Congo has taken over six million lives. Thirty times more than the earthquake in Haiti. But it constantly escapes the media's attention.

Why? Is it a matter of race? Another sad story about Africa? What is it about the civil war in Congo that makes no one want to report about it?

I am an avid believer in the idea that the more people know about a situation, the more people will try and do something to alleviate it. Sure, there's always the opportunity for compassion fatigue to set in, for the desire to see some happy headlines on the front page of the paper. But isn't risking compassion fatigue worth it?

What's going on in Congo is, according to Nicholas Kristof, the most lethal conflict since World War II. And the main target of aggression this time is women. What's going on in Congo is femicide. The United States government cannot act like it did during World War II, ignoring pleas for help until it was almost too late. The United States has to overlook its need for the minerals in Congo's land to save the women living on the land.



This weekend, at the productions of The Vagina Monologues, IC Human Rights will have a fact table set up outside the entrance. It's been absolutely amazing seeing the members of the club get together to make this table happen. We've made posters, fliers, fact sheets, and have written letters to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to ask the United States keep up the promise of "never again."

If you're in the Ithaca area, please come to the productions of the show and sign our petitions. A few signatures can really go a long way.

Also, here's a January 15, 2009 article from The Nation about other things you can do about the war in Congo. Eve Ensler, the playwright of The Vagina Monologues and the creator of the V-Day movement, helped compile the list.

Theater, pubic hair and human rights

So I've been back at school for three weeks. And to say things have been hectic is...kind of an understatement. It's my final semester! I'm supposed to just be applying for jobs and lolling about. Preferably lolling about drunk.

Instead, I'm just beginning to crawl out of an awfully draining cold, and lots of fun other things. After four years, I still get surprised when college isn't what the movies make it out to be.

But on the bright side. My first theatrical performance since high school is this coming weekend!

I will be enacting a monologue from Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues." Basically, in the 90s Ensler interviewed hundreds of women about their vaginas. What they look like, how they smell, what they would wear, what they would say, y más. Lots of thoughtful, insightful stories. A lot of people consider the show to be kind of a "She woman, man hater," experience, but personally I love it. It's fun, it's enlightening, and all of the money earned through ticket sales goes towards good causes.


Now, people keep asking me: "Briana, what vagina are you supposed to be?" Like the different characters in the show are the Spice Girls. There's the angry vagina, the sad vagina, introspective vagina...well I'm hairy vagina.

Sexy, I know.

I get to read a monologue about how a woman's husband said that he screwed around, because she wouldn't shave down there.

So it's not that deep of a story. Pubic hair. Woo hoo. At least it's fun.

But some of the monologues in the show are absolutely earth shattering. One in particular, this year's Spotlight Monologue, is about teenage sex slaves in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. During the past few years, rebel Hutus have been traveling across the border between Rwanda and Congo. Everywhere they go they leave a trail of fire, destruction, death and pain. Almost 6 million people have been killed, and over 200,000 women are known to have been raped. Some as young as 14 months old.

A portion of this year's proceeds from "The Vagina Monologues" is going to help the survivors of Congo's femicide.

Here's Nicholas Kristof's amazing January 30 column about rape in Congo. Like many of the human rights stories that Kristof consistenly covers, I am often left feeling like he is the only reporter on the scene. Which absolutely should not be.

Happy Jew Year!

Sorry for the delay. Life just seems to take over sometimes.

The past two weeks saw the coming and going of two major holidays, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. This was the first time since high school I've been home for the new year, and it was AMAZING. Even though I was only home for one day, it was fantastic just to relax and spend time with my family. And eat the five pounds of mashed potatoes my mom made.

As I learn more Spanish, I think more about the context and meanings of the vocabulary I study. For instance, the word "esperar" has two meanings: to hope, and to wait.

And during the high holy days this year, the relationship between those two words kept coming back to me, and how amazing it is that in Spanish they are one. As the new year comes we are waiting and hoping for a better year than the last. We are waiting and hoping for this year to be the one we are in Jerusalem. We are waiting and hoping for the Messiah to arrive and usher in a new era. Esperar.

To combine the two words, to wait and to hope, somehow makes the word "wait" all the more fragile. When you're hoping for something, that doesn't necessarily mean that it is going to come. But when you're waiting, you're pretty positive that it's on its way. So in a way, esperar also makes "hope" stronger, in that it's paired with something so concrete.

Does this make any sense? I'm running on about five hours of sleep here.

So ANYWAY...my first weekly project for digital journalism is on the Ithacan's Web site!

I know, I left the Ithacan my freshman year with guns (and middle fingers) blazing, but since I need to submit stuff to the paper for class, I figured I'd just go with it. Hey, at least I'm getting some clips on the Web.

And my partner and I get to choose our own weeklies. Our first one was about the Iron Chef competition at AppleFest. Even though it took about eight torturous hours to cut together, attending the event itself was a lot of fun. You can check out our soundslide of the event here.

Apples to Apples

If heaven exists, it would be an apple orchard.

Across the street from a peanut butter factory.

And I, armed with a knife and a spoon, would have unlimited access to both.

Yesterday I went with Hillel to Littletree Orchards in Newfield, NY for some pre-Rosh Hashanah apple picking. And being that apples are one of my favorite foods, I was like a kid with a golden ticket in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: very hungry and a little crazy.

Then again, I'm always hungry and crazy so I guess this wasn't out of the norm for me.


The plan was for everyone to work together to pick three bushels of apples: one for use to share, one to share with students on Rosh Hashanah, and one to donate to Loaves and Fishes, which is a local soup kitchen.

Unfortunately, not too many of the apples seemed ready for picking yet. It was safe to taste the apples right off the trees, and I didn't encounter any that were particularly delicious. We managed to get three bushels, but it was tough work and I can't say how many of those apples are actually going to taste good.


Although the pears were very tasty.

Oh well, Applefest is in two weeks.

A weekend-long festival dedicated to my favorite food. I am the luckiest kid on earth.

Roll Into My Heart, Baby

So at the beginning of the school year (only three weeks ago?!), my friends and I sat down and made a bucket list. Even though it was only August, we could feel graduation breathing down our necks and decided to make a list of everything on and off-campus that we had yet to experience. Even though we've been in Ithaca for almost four years now, there was really SO much in the area that we never did.

I blame homework and alcohol.

But ANYWAY, tonight my friends Katie, Brian and I were able to scratch one of the most important things on our bucket list: go to a roller derby match.

A very brief explanation of roller derby: two teams of women skate in a tight group around a circle, and try to keep certain players, called jammers, from breaking through the circle. Whenever the lead jammer passes through the pack, they get points for every person they pass.

Knocking people down and/or throwing them out of the ring is ok.

The teams: the Ithaca Sufferjets versus Buffalo's Devil Dollies.

The final score: 131-130, Sufferjets. The final point was earned in like, seriously, the last 20 or so seconds.

The experience: I want to find my old skates and run over bitches. It was amazing. I don't typically get pumped up for sporting events...ever...but this roller derby match had me out of my seat and screaming. I would have been cursing too, but Summer Bludgeon's mom and baby girl were sitting right behind me. I'm a respectful spectator when I want to be.

Then again, Summer Bludgeon was seriously skating the shit out of the Devil Dollies and got thrown into the penalty box at least four times. While her family kept cheering. Maybe they wouldn't have minded if I started screaming for their daughter/mother to kick people in the face with her roller skates.

After witnessing a match, I really think that roller derby is a good role model for little girls. Goodness knows, there were certainly a TON of them at the rink to watch. The roller girls show that you don't need to be a certain size or shape to play sports, and that because you're a girl you don't have to be dainty. It also really showed teamwork, with skaters in the pack working together to get their jammer through the group and in the lead.

Anyone with the balls (figuratively speaking) to run people over in roller skates can play. This is a sport where girls can get dirty, act and dress a little crazy and have a ton of fun.

Get me some skates and fishnet stockings and sign me up.

Here's some photos from the match, brought to you by Katie Venetsky. The quality isn't super great, but that could have something to do with the fact that everyone was skating in circles.


skating in a giant circle and out for blood.

Ithaca has the lead jammer!

The Ithaca Sufferjets just before the national anthem.

Gorge Hike

Every year since I started at Ithaca, I've been going on Hillel's hike down Buttermilk Falls on Labor Day. I love this event, it's always a chance to meet new people and go swimming without lifeguard supervision :)

It's a shame it's my last hike with Hillel. This year we had over 40 people attend, the most that I've ever seen. It was amazing to see so many Jews from campus concentrated in one place! And not on Yom Kippur, when suddenly everyone gets a case of the guilts for not attending services!

Anyway, on a less depressing note here's some photos!


Standing in a circle for the customary pre-hike getting to know you questionnaire. This year's special question: If you had a pet platypus, what would you name it? I said Napoleon, although there was a proliferation of Shlomos, Chaims, and Moses this year.



Katie in nature.







Josh took one for the team and went into the COLD water first.






Me and Katie. We want to make a photo collage of all the pictures we have together from our gorge hikes.


I love my macro lens!


This coming weekend should be a good one. Having Shabbat dinner at Boss House with Katie, Brian, Britt, and a bunch of other people, then Farmer's Market and a Sufferjets roller derby game on Sept. 12. Digital journalism workshop assignments start on Monday, so I'm enjoying life as much as I can until then.

It's like you want me to fail my other classes

Sorry for the posting gaps...I found other ways to shirk my responsibilities for a little while.

Like moving back to school!

I didn't realize just how much I missed Ithaca until I got back. Yeah, I've mentioned a lot that I missed it. But just pulling onto campus with my parents...it was crazy. I missed the trees, the wonky weather, the people, the DECENT CLASSES. IES' classes were a nightmare; it's great to finally be learning again!

There hasn't been too much homework yet, so I've been trying to enjoy myself as much as I can before I have to glue my ass to my desk chair. Going for long walks and bike rides, visiting the farmer's market, smoking hookah with friends and wondering how I managed to go almost eight months without seeing them every day.

Of course, these luxuries aren't going to last too much longer. I'm taking a digital journalism workshop, where I'm going to have two multimedia projects due every week for the rest of the semester. The teachers have essentially said that if we don't get so frustrated that we imagine ourselves bludgeoning people with our laptops and tripods...we're not working hard enough.

I feel like the counseling center and I are going to be great friends.

But they also encouraged us to use other forms of media to build up our skills and our resumes. Hence, I have an excuse to continue posting. Now I can put of my homework and be productive at the same time! Imagine that.

Today is "Labor Day" (I learned about the real Labor Day in Argentina, this one is bullcrap), so no classes. This afternoon I'm going out with Hillel to Buttermilk Falls to hike and swim. This is going to be the fourth time I've done this with Hillel, and probably the last.

Being a senior feels like I'm counting down to my death. It's my last time for a lot of things, and then suddenly I'm going to be thrown into some great big unknown.