My bread has not yet leavened, but it is already on my back. I have begun my wandering, vaguely aware of my search for the mountain, for revelation. But the shock of freedom has twisted my mind in upon itself, and I have been so immersed in trying to keep my head on straight as I am hurried out of here by the urgency of the moment, that I have not yet been able to look up to the horizon, to see what mountains may come. I know I do not want to leave, and that every part of me begs for more, with the intensity that your body begs with every inch for sleep when you are being wrenched from its deepest embraces.
I debated a bit on whether to post now. I am quite exhausted and a bit sick, desperately in need of sleep...but I also want to be here in this moment, to hold it close to me and keep it somehow. I want to keep this feeling of having just handed some little tome to the neuroscience department, of having lived eight hours of standardized testing, of knowing what powerful things have come and are to come, and colliding even here at this moment.
I have been missing from my little digital planet for so long that I feel the need to report, to catch up, the way old friends do when they haven't seen each other in a while, and need some context before they can really plunge in.

shakespeare: my parents are shakespearophiles. they've had a subscription to the shakespeare theater in dc for eons, possibly longer than I've been alive. As soon as I was old enough to sit in one place for an extended period (this took quite a while, I was a rambunctious yungun, and my tuchus had springs) my parents started taking me with them to shows. So Shakespeare is in me. And there are few things I love more, when it comes to shakespeare, than reading aloud. Along come Shakespeare on the Green Auditions every year, and every year I of course try out. My acting skills are nill. But I jump at run after, and slide tackle any opportunity to read shakespeare with friends and strangers for a few hours in an evening. This year, my last opportunity to audition, I decided that I especially wanted to have a lot of fun with auditions this time, to be especially over the top. I jumped and rolled and spun around, I slapped myself and, at one point, imitated a King Penguin's signature call for the directors I was auditioning for.
Oddly enough, they liked this, and for the first time, I actually got called back--much to my immense shock. Although I didn't get cast ultimately, I had an enormously fun time moving and playing with all the actors at callbacks. With so many people auditioning for a total of some 10ish spots, I was honored to get a chance to come back and do more Shakespeare. This is probably by far the best outcome, because I dont have time to be in a play right now, and because the part I got called back for (Baptista in a modern adaptation called The Shrew) would involve me being quite evil, which I probably would not be able to handle too well.

Spring break was rather intense. I spend long days writing my thesis, taking practice MCATS, organizing Jews In the Woods, writing fellowing, and feeling entirely overwhelmed. I had a meltdown early in the week, and was uncertain that I could go any further. But here I am. Thesis in, MCATs taken...and no matter what the outcome, I have learned and grown. I rewarded myself for finishing the first draft of my thesis with an excursion to Assateague with Ben, Benj, Rebecca, and Michaella. We slept 5 people in a two person tent, braved freezing cold and thick fog and frequent rain, to camp just off the beach, to pray to the echoes of atlantic waves, to eat uncooked chilli and to be very quiet with the sea. The following shabbat with Benj built off of this magical intensity--he always has songs of praise on his lips.

Its getting late, so perhaps I will defer my babble on fruity Jews in the Woods, my thesis (??), morgan, and tikkun olam until tomorrow, when I am better slept.