Adios, Mercedes Sosa

Just noticed in the New York Times that Mercedes Sosa, one of the most famous folk singers of Argentina, passed away this morning.

Sosa's face was everywhere when I was living in Buenos Aires. She released a new album not too long ago, and it was recently nominated for a few Latin Grammy Awards. Even though she was 74 she would record songs with some of the most popular musicians of 2009, including Shakira, Fito Paez and Calle 13. The only artist I can really think to compare her to, that a lot of people would recognize, is Joan Baez.

We read her lyrics and dissected them in my classes to better learn about the Dirty War and human rights in Latin America. They've always moved me. Sosa was a true icon for a generation, and one of the greatest examples of the ability to merge human rights and art.

Here's a live performance of Sosa singing the politically-charged song "La Canción es Urgente," or "The Song is Urgent."

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.

New Travels

Summer's not over quite yet, but my vacation almost is. Last week I quit my job and have been using the extra time to pack up the bags I feel like I've just unpacked from Buenos Aires.

Saturday is Ithaca, until mid-October.

Home is kind of becoming something of a posting station between my travels.

Over the weekend I decided to check some cookbooks out of the local library, to you know, practice not killing people. I grabbed a copy of Moosewood Restaurant Celebrates, a collection of recipes from the Moosewood Collective dedicated to all kinds of holidays and celebrations.

The book has a lot of references to Ithaca, from local celebrations to tofu kan to the Tibetan population and its influences. And it hit me, it finally hit me, that I haven't been in Ithaca since December.

This is going to be a school year dedicated to really getting to experience the Ithaca outside my campus. More hippie organizations, gorges, festivals, art shows, contra dances, EVERYTHING I can possibly get my hands on.

Oh, and getting a job.

Other super-important question: what should I do with this blog? One thing hasn't changed since Argentina: I'm still an attention whore. If I kept blogging about random happenings, would you guys still read it?

People who say "they are blogging for themselves" are stupid attention whores that like to make pretend that they are ignorant of the fact that they are attention whores. I am not one of those whores.

Example: I had a really bad experience a few semesters ago where my professor told the class we had to blog about every single assigned reading, which I did. Apparently about three months into the class, I was the only one that still did and no one told me. Even the professor gave up reading the damn things.

I had a bit of a blog meltdown after that one. Not pretty, kind of scary.

Go me.

So what do you guys, if anyone still reads this since I haven't updated in almost a month, think I should do with this thing?