The Rachel Chronicles

Jello moving champion of camp!

Tonight was a great camp-wide program, that MAGSHIMIM WON!!!
You can read most of the details here.

I neglected to toot my own horn TOO much, and saved that for this blog. The final event of the night was a physical challenge, asking the roshim to transfer the contents of a pie-plate full of red jello into an empty pie plate. The full pie-plate was placed on a table. The empty pie-plate was on the floor. We were only allowed to use our mouths.

At first I thought I would actually have to pick up all the jello in my mouth, but then I quickly realized that if I moved the empty plate closer to the table, I could dump the full plate into the empty one - still only using my mouth.

Like this:

Yes, I AM covered with garbage bags and a shower cap.
No, I am not sure my edah was properly impressed by my skills...which won them the entire competition! (ok, tied with Amitzim)

Irony...

... is that it is due to stop raining by the time my rain boots arrive (I ordered them online last night).

... that Tamiflu, the medicine I'm taking to help me not get sick from the flu, has side-effects that wipe me out for multiple hours every day.

that is all.
have a good day.

Where'd the snack go??

For the record, I do regularly forget to pick up the night-time snack for my edah (unit). Dinner ends around 8pm and snack would be approximately an hour later - and since my stomach isn't growling by then, sometimes I just forget. So sometimes when there is no snack, it is truly my fault....

That said, sometimes its not!

Here is a picture I took the other day. Next time a camper asks me where the snack is, this is what I am showing them:

That is an entire apple in the hands of the squirrel! (and yes, he is totally watching me take this picture....)

To Purell oneself

With Camp Ramah Darom's swine flu epidemic looming in our minds, we have put a strong emphasis on hand-washing this summer. And while cleanliness has always been a virtue that we've promoted, this summer we are being a bit more....particular about it.

We even invented a new Hebrew word. להתפרל l'hitpurel, to use Purell on one's hands. Common useage might be, "כולם צריכים להתפרל לפני הארוכה" (everyone needs to Purell oneself before the meal).

As a side note, for you Hebrew grammarians out there, there WAS a discussion about which בנין to use – and it was determined that one Purells oneself, therefore it was reflexive, a התפעל verb.

Don't you think the Academy for the Hebrew Language would be proud? 

Speaking of proud people....I think my Ulpan teacher Ada would be proud of this sentence construct:  התפרלתי הרבה. למרות זות, אני חולה

Support a New Indoor Playground in S'derot

Dear Friends and Family (and faithful blog readers),

I was recently asked to staff Camp Ramah's Alternative Winter Break trip, in coordination with the Jewish National Fund (JNF) this December.

JNF is paying for the trip, but all participants have been asked to help fundraise for their Sderot Campaign. To learn more about the Sderot Campaign, please visit www.jnf.org/sderot.

Here’s how you can help build Israel's largest indoor playground, in a region of the country that desperately needs safe places for children to play:

Each tax-deductible contribution that you generously give on my behalf will be used to help the people of Sderot, and to build Israel’s largest indoor playground. My goal is to raise $950, so that I can match the donations that all the participants are making.

It is faster and easier than ever to support this great cause - you can make your donation online by simply clicking on the link at the bottom of this message. More information on Jewish National Fund and its programs can be found at their website.

Please contact me if you have any questions. Thank you for supporting Jewish National Fund, my trip to Israel, and more importantly, the children of Sderot. I will keep you posted on my progress.

Thank you,

Rachel

To visit my personal page and donate online, click here. 

An Experiential Education Weekend - Part 2

I posted on Tuesday, about last week's Experiential Education Weekend. I described some particularly special moments of Gann's retreat. In particular, I shared with you the song Ilu Finu. If you haven't downloaded it yet, go back and do it! I'm still singing it - and if I'm singing it, you should be singing it! (or at least you should have some familiarity with what I keep singing!) :)

Although we left Gann on Saturday night, Sunday was not a day off for me. A few weeks ago, I got a call from the assistant director of Camp Ramah in Palmer, asking if I wanted to help design a workshop at camp, on the holiday of Sukkot. They already had 5 different sukkot built, and I was tasked with the job of helping to create a program to do with those sukkot. Immediately I jumped on board because this is the kind of programming that I love!

The program that we ultimately came up with was a detective hunt, so to speak. Each group of students (2nd-4th graders) had to determine which of the five sukkot were kosher (ie. valid) for the holiday, and explain why they answered the way they did. It was a ton of fun.

Here are pictures of the five sukkot. Do you know which ones are kosher, and which aren't?

 

And my personal favorite:

 

We're running this program a few more times - adapting it each time to fit the age of the participants. It is such a great program, I'm excited that we've got a few more opportunities to perfect it - and of course, to share it with more students!

An Experiential Education Weekend - Part 1

My entire weekend was over-flowing with experiential education. It was a bit of EE overload! But since I love experiential education, I loved this weekend! It was lots of fun, and I want to share a few moments of it with you.

Since I have so much to share, I'll do this in two-parts.

Here's part 1:

Last Thursday, the Gann freshmen and seniors headed up to Camp Young Judea (CYJ), for the first day of a weekend retreat. The sophomores and juniors joined them on Friday. I headed up early, both to help the rest of the EE team set up, and also because it became clear days earlier that we would need to rebuild the eruv, so I picked up 150 2''x4''s from a local Home Depot.

It was quite the undertaking to build the eruv (and aside from buying the supplies, I had little to do with it). The 9th graders helped out by systematically screwing eye-hooks into the top of each plank, so there was something to weave the wire through. It was quite a help, and I'm sure it lessened the burden on the people building the eruv. It was a beautiful educational moment, to see an entire grade help build something that is deemed necessary by only a small fraction of the people at the Shabbaton.

That night, I went into all the girls bunks to say good-night. I figured that since we were at camp, we could have a bed-time ritual. After going into all but one bunk, having had mostly successful moments of saying the Shema together (a beautiful tradition that happens at Camp Ramah), I walked back into a bunk that hadn't been ready for me the first time I went in. They still weren't quite ready for me, but since I was sort of done waiting, I suggested that we pause what we were doing, and say the Shema anyway. I wasn't expecting full participation, because, well, these were 16 year old girls in the middle of brushing their teeth, rifling through their backpacks, and chatting. But for one brief moment, everything stopped. They stopped brushing their teeth, talking, looking through their bags, etc. They stopped, stood up, and said the Shema with me. It was really a beautiful moment. Of course as soon as we were done, they went back to what they had been doing -but it was really special that they all joined in together.

My last moment, from the Gann retreat, that I want to share happened on Saturday. In the morning, a teacher taught a beautiful song to one of the prayer groups. It went over so well, that in the afternoon, he taught it to the entire school. The words are "Ilu Finu Ma'leh Shira K'yam". It is a three part melody, and truly, I can't stop singing it. The words translate to 'Even if our mouths were filled with song like the sea', and the rest of the prayer goes on to say, 'still, we would not be able to thank you, God'.

When we had 350 people singing, whole-heartedly, this song, I couldn't help but wonder what could be higher praise of God. It was like our mouths were oceans of song, praising and thanking God. It has been a long long time since I've had a moment as powerfully spiritual as that one.

You can listen to and Download 11 Ilu Finu (Were Our Mouths Oceans of Song) by clicking on the link . I plan to teach it at Rosh Hashanah services, and I hope that my congregation can attain even a little bit of the spirituality that was so evident and possible at Gann's retreat.

Shabbat Shalom! (yesterday)

When I checked my phone after Shabbat ended tonight, I found FOUR, count 'em, FOUR text messages from camp people, wishing me a Shabbat Shalom!

How sweet was that?

Last week flew by, what with immediately starting a new job and all. I feel like I didn't even have a chance to catch my breath, coming off of camp and heading straight into Gann. And given that I've been living out of a suitcase, not posting updates on this blog, and barely sleeping, its obvious that I didn't have time to do much else but go to work each day.

I'm hoping that as things settle down at Gann (the start of the school year is always hectic), and as things settle down at home (I'm moving into my new apartment on Sept. 1), I'll be in touch more often, and I'll be more able to keep in touch with people. I've got a few things that I want to write about, so hopefully I'll post again soon!

Last Shabbat at Palmer (at least for this summer)

I'm sitting in my room, obviously working on my edah report that is due tomorrow (if I want to get paid, that is), and I thought I'd show you some pictures of the last Shabbat, as well as Staff Appreciation on Thursday night.

This is my staff (from Thursday night):

(Yes, we're a little strange - but its ok, we like each other!)

Now onto Shabbat...
We had a lovely day, even though there was a thunderstorm during services last night. Instead of praying outside in the grove, we fit everyone inside, in the Beit Am Bet. It was squishy, but really lovely. I liked many of the tunes that they picked, which was a first for me at camp (at least since I led a few weeks ago!). My kids SOBBED through the entire service. It was rather hilarious - and many of us wondered if they were crying because it was the last Shabbat or because of the thunderstorm outside. I decided it was due to camp ending, because as soon as I threatened to make them go sit with their parents (those that are staff kids) the crying stopped!

Many of my female staff decided to all buy and wear the same dress for this Shabbat. We shop at high class stores like Walmart. Here is the result:

It had just started to rain when we gathered for pictures and pre-Shabbat nice-ities, so my picture taking was limited. But here are a few of the shots I managed to take:
(this is me and Allie - we got the same color dress, which warrented a picture being taken!)
Here are two sets of co-counselors, bunk 19/20 and bunk 15/16 - as well as 4 of the 5 different dress colors that Walmart has to offer! (they also sell the dress in black).

Ok, I think its time for me to go back to doing some real work....
See you on the flip side! (ie. when I'm home from camp)

That Water Was COLD!

But ok, despite the FRIGID temperatures, it was fun! (probably more so for the people dunking me, than for me, but...)

In less cold pursuits, here's me (on the left) going down a gigantic slide with Shira:

All in all, banquet was a lot of fun. Its hard to believe that its already the end of the summer. I've got plenty of exciting things to look forward to this fall, but it'll still be hard to say good-bye to camp.